“I would rather be with you here than be trapped in Do?a Ursulina’s dungeon or forced to play a part as the caudillo’s wife.”
Anger spiked in Reina as she imagined the scenario. She ground her teeth. Reina loathed how Maior was necessary for Do?a Ursulina’s plot to bring back the Benevolent Lady. She wasn’t sure she could go along with that anymore. But there were too many pieces dislodged now, and she desperately needed her ore back.
Maior’s warm fingers curled around Reina’s. She gave Reina’s hand a squeeze. “Thanks for protecting me against the tinieblas.”
Why wasn’t she saying the obvious thing, that she wouldn’t need saving if Reina hadn’t dragged her along to a place known to be cursed?
Reina was too busy biting back the words, turning them over in her head and seeking the right thing to say, to pay much heed to the rotten smell meeting them as the ascending trail evened out. Maior’s grip softened and let go. In the absence of her touch, Reina curled her fist, missing it.
Obliviously, Maior went on, “I was thinking… if we keep the connection to La Cochinilla, can we buy a chicken? So I can make a proper pisca. I haven’t had a good meal in so long. We could really use one. And I’m so hungry—” Then she tripped on something protruding from the uneven terrain and let out a squeak. Reina caught her and reeled her back to her feet. As she did so, the stench on the air flared. Like wet, rancid meat slapping their nostrils.
Maior clamped a hand over her nose.
The smell was alarming enough that Reina snapped her index and thumb together, producing fire to see by. Her transplant heart clenched, protesting being squeezed of precious iridio to fuel the flame that showered the vicinity in soft yellow light.
Maior gasped and jumped away at the revelation. A body lay across the ground, skin blue and military uniform in tatters. Its limbs were rolled at awkward angles, moved into further disarray by Maior’s stumble. It was a man, his facial features gnawed off so there was little more left than exposed flesh wrapped around an empty mouth and eye sockets. A reddish-brown crevice had been carved where his heart would have been.
Nausea snaked its way up Reina’s stomach. She stepped away, forcing a gulp. Swallowing left her feeling filthy, like somehow the stench had percolated into her belly. She yanked Maior closer to her side, preemptively, in case another tiniebla prowled about.
“A body?” Maior said, gagging.
Daybreak approached in the horizon, the constellations bidding their goodbyes and Rahmagut’s Claw fading in the dawning sapphire-pink sky. As dawn light draped over the summit and reached the vastness of the Plume, legions of corpses came into view. Reina stepped back, her body rocking with repulsion.
They were at the site of the Liberator’s battle for independence. Bodies spread across the crag, broken and cleaved and drained of blood, all blue-and-purple flesh. There were no bugs, no carrion, just corpses and the promise of tinieblas.
“Reina?” Maior said in a quivering voice.
Every word of the tales had been true.
A flaring light went off in the horizon, near the center of the summit. It wasn’t the inevitable sunrise. It was an outburst of energy, red and loud like the flares of a volcano. The light dimmed, meeting a second one. They danced and fought like clashing stars against the predawn sky. Then a great guttural snarl rocked the summit.
Reina’s hand fell before Maior could take it.
“Celeste,” she murmured, ears deaf to whatever Maior said—senses ignoring everything except for the sight.
It had to be her.
A second roar shattered her stupor. Reina took off, nimble feet jumping and dodging the bodies strewn on her path. Her pulse tingled at her fingertips.
At the center of the summit were two figures.
Reina’s heart imploded as she recognized Celeste’s outline shadowed against the rising sun. A high ponytail, with bangs barely hiding stunted antlers. Slender legs and tight-fitting armor that didn’t shy away from her curves.
Celeste.
Though lithe, Celeste’s form was ferocious in battle, her iridio scythe a sharp crescent moon against the dawn sky.
The sight electrified Reina’s legs to pump faster, obliterating the distance between them. Her cheeks reddened from a wide-eyed smile. Finally, her search was over.
Facing Celeste was the last creature Reina expected to see in a place like this. A large feline spotted with black rosette patterns and glowing eyes the same color as Rahmagut’s Claw. The jaguar roared again before pouncing on Celeste. Celeste’s scythe blocked the strike, the force throwing her on her back, the jaguar’s rabidly snapping mandibles above her.
Reina boiled with adrenaline as she sprinted faster, desperately.
She needn’t, for Celeste shoved pounds of feline muscle off her with a grunt. The ghostly creature skidded to a stop, but Celeste pursued it, attacking as the best defense. She slashed the base of its neck like she was breaking butter. In its wake, the scythe left a gash where blood like smoke sizzled out.
Celeste’s iridio scythe disintegrated at the same time as the jaguar. And she waited, staring at the emptiness left behind by the apparition, expectant of something it would leave behind.
“Celeste!” Reina called out, her burning legs steadily bringing her one breath closer.
In the end, Celeste hadn’t needed her.
“Celeste.”
The dawn behind Celeste made it impossible to see the expression on her face. But she eased as she recognized Reina. She tilted her head, ribbons of hair falling over her shoulder. When she spoke, it was with the same throaty voice that always sent Reina’s chest fluttering. “You came,” she said.
“Of course.”
For her, she’d go anywhere.
Reina approached until she was close enough to take Celeste’s gloved hand, which was hot from the fight. And trembling. How Reina had missed the vibrancy of her eyes, the plum shade of her lips.
“It’s supposed to be here, the blade.” Her voice came like smoke, blackened by chagrin. She glanced at the spot where the jaguar’s corpse would have been, had it not vanished like tinieblas did.
Reina didn’t understand the disappointment. A sword, yellow like the dawn, rested on the uneven ground before her. The blade was sharp on one side, made for cleaving, with an engraved handle of the same material and a circular pommel taunting her with ideas of the sun. Her mouth hung open at the sight.
She expected Celeste to pick it up. To hold it up against the light of the rising sun, where they would inspect the metal and marvel that the legend was real.
Instead, Celeste just watched it with her eyebrows bunching up. She exhaled, exhausted and devastated. “It’s supposed to be there!”
Reina, too, frowned. “But it is,” she said, picking up the blade.
The handle was the perfect size for her grip, the metal warm like her own palm. At first glance the blade could pass for bronze or gold or an alloy of both. But it reflected the dawn light without a hint of green rust, and she doubted it exhibited the malleable nature of pure gold. Its length was like her machete, a natural extension to her reach. With the blade in her hands, her shoulders ached to give it a testing swing. But she held back, knowing it was Celeste’s prize. She had climbed the summit first. She had slain the jaguar, now so obviously a watchbeast placed there by Rahmagut himself.