“Of course!” Reina made a fist in the air. “I’ve always wanted to be a good kidnapper! A dream come true.”
The human woman threw her smile to the ceiling and laughed.
27
Heart of Iridio
Gegania’s canal opened next to a lone rain tree standing on a vast flatland. Reina didn’t have to question the tunnel’s magic, for she could immediately tell they had emerged far from the mountains. She understood this heat and found she’d missed it; stepping into it felt like reuniting with a long-lost family member. It was the same suffocating humidity she’d grown up with in Segolita, with a sun mercilessly beating down on her shoulders and drenching her body with perspiration. Not even the breezes were a reprieve, blowing hot air through the trees, their rustling of parched grasses joining the cicadas’ shrill. Heat mirages twisted and bent the moriche palm trees in the far distance, where the horizon merged with an enamel-blue sky.
Río’e Marle wasn’t far off. The burrow had the convenience of opening near a reedbed. Thus, with Reina’s memory of the iridio table’s superimposed map, she led them upstream toward La Cochinilla.
The journey’s brevity was a mercy under the sun. Silence kept them company like a third traveler, as Maior wasn’t one for useless small talk. The only times she spoke were to point out in wonder or surprise a baby caiman hidden beneath the river’s surface or a startled capybara swimming in the opposite direction of their passing.
Reina endured it thanks to her own spell of bismuto, one she’d cast before leaving the burrow in case they encountered tinieblas. With the enchantment, her swelling body felt the same as it had back when all was right in ?guila Manor. But this stability was a lie, hinging on magic masking her unraveling health. The biggest surprise, however, was turning to Maior under the influence of bismuto and seeing Do?a Laurel’s taller ghost as an afterimage on her body, planted there by Do?a Ursulina to be the reminder of all they would gain.
Reina didn’t allow herself to feel guilty or conflicted about it. She had a goal and a life to look forward to after fulfilling Rahmagut’s legend, and any pity for Maior was nothing but a distraction.
“Something I can’t piece together,” Reina said, “is how you made it to Apartaderos before me.”
Maior wiped the sweat from her forehead and glanced at the taller Reina with her rosy mouth agape. Her eyes glossed with confusion.
“I saw you in the caudillo’s office, when he tricked me into an iridio pact. Don’t you remember that?”
Their footsteps crunched on the tall grass as she waited for Maior’s memory to piece together. A bird or a monkey hooted in the distance.
“Yes, I remember.”
Reina tried reading Maior’s expression, but Maior looked away in avoidance. Reina gave Maior the space to speak, and eventually she did. “I couldn’t move myself.”
“I saw that.”
“But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t aware.”
Reina hated the admission.
“So you saw everything? You heard how he called me a traitor and accused me of being worthless to the family?”
Maior chewed her lower lip, as if it would somehow excuse her from telling Reina the truth. “I didn’t care so much about what was happening to you, if I’m being honest. And I lacked a lot of context to understand it, really.”
This perked Reina’s brows. She let her gaze surf the softness of Maior’s cheek and took notice of the constellation of moles climbing up her neck.
Maior hugged herself, despite the heat. Finally she ceased gnawing on her lip and said, “When I’m under Do?a Ursulina’s control, it’s like I’m in a nightmare. I can kind of see everything that’s happening around me, but I can’t do anything about it. It’s like a spiraling panic. Knowing that I can’t control what’s happening around me makes it worse. It compounds, you know?”
Reina nodded, even if she understood in only the vaguest terms.
“I saw you, and I could tell the caudillo was berating you, but I was more focused on what was happening to me—not being able to get out of that. Then you and Do?a Ursulina left.”
“She left you with the caudillo?” Immediately the implications made Reina feel filthy.
“It’s not like it was the first time.”
Reina had no words.
“But this time she didn’t keep me under her control when she left. I came to myself.” Maior shook her shoulders, unloading a shiver. She frowned to the heat mirages on the horizon.
Reina wanted to prod further for the tale. But to what end? Likely, she was only going to discover more horrible things for which she had been an instrument.
“He didn’t like that I was myself again,” Maior added. “That I wasn’t his wife. So he dismissed me.”
Reina could already imagine the rest without being told. Her lips battled a smile of admiration. Escaping ?guila Manor was no small feat.
“A maid escorted me back to the dungeon room, and I knew that galio spell of putting people to sleep, like I told you. But I did it wrong, I guess, with the litio.”
“This wasn’t just that maid’s mistake,” Reina said, with a swell of contentment, because it meant Do?a Ursulina herself wasn’t as infallible as Reina had always imagined. “My grandmother let you out of her control.”
“Yes, she underestimated me. All of you underestimated me,” Maior concluded with a raised chin.
“Well, up until you, none of the other women put up much of a fight.” Now she doubly understood why Do?a Ursulina had left Celeste for last—she thought she was the only one who could foil their plans.
Maior grimaced, her glimpse of Reina full of disgust.
Perhaps Reina deserved it, and the look was already directed at her, the first stone thrown, so she went on. “It was easy to collect the ones before you. What was not easy was confirming that they were truly damas.” Reina tried not to think too much about the endless trek to deposit or retrieve the babes. “The country is supposed to be at peace. Most people don’t expect to be taken away in the middle of the night by a witch, or a valco, or me. I mean, there are fireside stories warning against ghosts and such, but mostly everyone feels protected, with their Virgin.” The last she added with a derisive chuckle.
“Keep Her out of this.”
Reina rolled her eyes. “Where was your Virgin when Javier took you from your home?” Where had Ches been when Reina was being devoured by tinieblas? Or when the emptiness of Do?a Laurel’s death had filled the manor? Only Rahmagut was capable of giving answers.
“She gave me the courage to flee ?guila Manor at the right time.”
Reina could not refute it. Finding Maior had been one of her few strokes of luck.
“Just like She put you in my path when the ?guila soldiers came to Apartaderos.”
Reina glanced at her in surprise, and Maior only stared ahead, sucking on her lower lip in an attempt to hide her amusement.
“I was your stroke of luck?” Reina said.
Maior didn’t reply right away. She merely watched the vast Llanos with a look of satisfaction. “Are all nozariels as strong as you?” she asked.
Reina’s right hand rested lazily on the hilt of her machete, the ragged texture as familiar as her own body. “Strong?” she parroted with an inflection, surprised. She knew she was strong—it was where her value lay. But this was the first time hearing the acknowledgment from someone else. “I guess they could be,” she said, unsure, “if they trained like I did or learned geomancia.”