“Blessed by the archbishop of Sadul Fuerte and approved by the governor. No one will be questioning their legitimacy.”
Eva inched forward to catch a glimpse of the writing. The ink was the color of soot, but she could see its magic in the way golden words superimposed the text. “What are these?”
“Marriage papers,” Javier explained.
“Marriage papers,” she repeated with butterflies in her belly.
It all seemed so perfectly planned, and fast. Only nights ago, Javier had approached her in the darkness of Galeno with his proposition. But as Eva read the scroll, she realized he had fully expected her to accept all along.
The cleric gave Eva a cold look, his gaze surfing over her messy hair. “Sí, se?orita, it’s improper for a highborn lady like yourself to travel alone or escorted by a male companion who isn’t your husband.”
Javier nodded and said, “Imagine the sort of gossip, if someone were to recognize either you or me along the way. They would question your virtue. Of all people, you understand the sort of weight that is placed on a woman’s honor and name.”
Eva stiffened. She wondered if he knew of her mother, then felt a fool for thinking he wouldn’t. How juicy the gossip would be, if Dulce Serrano’s ill-begotten daughter became a wild runaway, indulging in the company of men without a husband to protect her virtue. Eva enjoyed the thought, in a spiteful way, as she imagined the headache the rumors would cause her grandmother.
“I didn’t think it would be so soon,” she said.
Javier’s pale hand slid forward, palm side up, beckoning her hand to drape over his. “As we discussed, I will need this guarantee. You are important to the success of my legacy, Eva Kesaré.”
Her hand inched to his. His touch was cold when their palms came into contact, but energy pulsed there. It bit her skin as it flowed from his hand to hers.
“Soon, Brother will wonder why I haven’t returned from your cousin’s wedding. He’ll realize his daughter is gone and will start creating imaginary scenarios in his head—for he never had any love for me. I am risking much, and should anything go wrong, I will lose a lot, if not all. So, yes, it would be false of me not to admit that I have high expectations of what we can accomplish together.”
“You were prepared for this,” she said softly, hoping the intruding cleric would leave their table so they could have this conversation in private.
His gaze surfed up to her crown, where her valco mark was hidden beneath her curls. “Do you deny you have the ambition I’m asking of you? The hunger for more?”
Eva’s jaw clenched tight.
“Your choice spoke volumes to me. And who else would give you what you want?”
Her ears burned at his truth. There was no better companion for her chosen path.
“So, before we proceed, I ask that you fulfill your part of the bargain. We can’t continue to hesitate. Rahmagut’s Claw has begun its journey through the skies.”
Indeed it had, the majestic traveling star.
“You and I are valco,” Javier said, and she again marveled at the height of his antlers.
“It’s the best match I could have hoped for,” Eva said with her chin raised high, meaning it. His mother had become legend. His name was worth all the iridio in the world. If anything, she should be the one begging him.
To that, he smiled the slightest bit.
She glanced at the golden ink. A marriage signed in magic. Enchantments in marriage papers were entirely unheard of in Galeno. But coming from a valco of Sadul Fuerte, it made sense.
The cleric went on. “After signing, you will be the luckiest woman for marrying Don Javier, who is the future of the ?guilas.”
Eva forced herself not to indulge the thought or blush from it. After all the stories her mother, Dulce, had told her of Feleva ?guila, Eva had never imagined she would end up marrying her son.
“I’ll do it. But I’d like a moment first,” she said.
The way the red in Javier’s eyes flared made the tiny hairs along Eva’s spine stand on end.
Something in her gut, built solely on intuition and keeping generations of her ancestors alive, screamed at her that this was dangerous. It told her to run.
But he just nodded. His gaze on her was mild, his left eye hiding behind strands of that luxurious starlight hair. “Of course. We have until nightfall to get this sorted out. But don’t forget, our time is short.”
Eva walked past the town plaza, where the great stone bridge connecting Venazia and Fedria began. Morning light glistened over Río’e Marle’s tranquil brown-green surface, interrupted only by the beady eyes of hiding caimans and turtles poking their heads out. Moriche palm trees lined the river to both sides, their centers heavy with fruit and their palms dancing in the humid breeze of the Llanos. If beyond the river was the land of nozariels, who worshipped other deities with Ches and Rahmagut among them, did that make it the epicenter of Rahmagut’s legend? Ahead of her was a land of magic and a frontier Eva had acknowledged only in the maps hanging in the governor’s office, and never as a place she could visit.
A delightful shiver lifted her arm hairs at the promise of her future with Javier. He was going to teach her how to be a proper valco, with all the knowledge of geomancia he had inherited from the legendary Feleva. He wasn’t demanding the typical duties of a wife, of getting sons or rooting her in a house in Sadul Fuerte as a trophy. Instead, he sweetened her with the potential of her breed and as a conspirator in building a legacy. All the things she wanted. Eva smiled. It felt good, to be desired this way. And to know that for as long as he needed her, they stood on equal ground.
All she had to do was accept, sign her freedom away in a binding magical document. She snorted at the thought. She’d never had freedom. Leaving had been the first leap of trust to take control over her life.
Javier had talked about his conquest. But what Eva had failed to disclose was this act would be part of her conquest. She was tired of being meek, of others forcing her to satisfy their expectations of her. Now she would do whatever it took to become the person she’d been born to be.
Eva walked back to the inn with a strange lightness in her chest. She stalled near the entrance, where a small but thriving crowd gathered around the Calamity game. At the center of the crowd was the arbiter, who was nudging a bucket of escudos with one hand while beckoning bystanders with the other.
“Wagers! Place your wagers! Test Rahmagut’s influence over your life!”
Eva allowed herself to be sucked into the hubbub, curious. The game was about Ches and Rahmagut’s ancient war. The event that supposedly rent the world, shaping oceans and upsurging mountains. Pentimiento preachers rejected the story as well as the existence of Ches and Rahmagut. They rejected the idea of a world created by a conflict of gods, of a world not gifted to humans by the Virgin, as perfect and balanced as it was. It was a game Do?a Antonia forbade her progeny to play. In a pious city like Galeno, Calamity was only played in underground scenes, spurred by travelers not completely enthralled by the Pentimiento beliefs deeming Rahmagut a demon of darkness and Ches a charlatan.
“Ches and Rahmagut are here to answer your pleas for riches,” the arbiter went on. “Give yourself the test of faith. Will the gods intervene in your wager? The sure way to lose is not to try at all!” He patted the edges of his bucket, which was brimming.