The Girl of Fire and Thorns fat-1 Page 14

  I wring it out gingerly. Then, holding it at the shoulder seams, I give it a light flip to pull the fabric taut, the way Ximena would. And I freeze, looking at the thing in my hands. It feels foreign, from another life. So delicate and lovely. So . . . huge.

  I gasp. Shaking, I pull the soaking garment against my torso, hold it at shoulder level, let the hem swim in the water. It’s more than huge. It’s a tent of a gown, with armholes that scoop halfway down my rib cage, with extra gathers to allow a bust of mountainous proportion.

  I let it drop into the water.

  I’ve been wrapped in shapeless robes and camel-hair chaps for nearly a month. Breathing hard, I peer—hesitatingly—at my navel. I’m shocked to see the winking blue of my Godstone peering back. I raise an arm and admire the curving shape of it, the way my upper arm tapers so naturally into my forearm, like they were meant to live together. I run my hands across my breasts, down my sides, over my buttocks, around to my thighs. Then tears spring to my eyes as I do it again.

  I am not even close to thin. Certainly not beautiful like Alodia or Cosmé. But I don’t have to part my breasts or press into my stomach to see my Godstone. I still crave honey pastries, but my head doesn’t pound to think of them. I can walk all day without getting a rash.

  I can walk all day.

  I lie back in the water and float, smiling up at sparkling stalactites, at shafts of aquamarine light that pour through clefts in the rock. When Cosmé returns to fetch me, I tell her I need more time.

  I’m not done being naked.

  That night, everyone gathers beneath a monolithic overhang. It’s as if the cupped hand of God swept along the base of the rock, leaving a vast half-cavern with a canopy that is part rock, part star-pricked sky. A cooking pit glows red in the center, surrounded by too few people. No more than forty, and at least two-thirds of them are younger than me.

  Father Alentín presides over a feast of lamb braised with turnips, fresh parsley, and marjoram. He pats the sandy ground in invitation, and I settle next to him, cross-legged. The others give us wide distance, glancing over their bowls. I eye them warily.

  As I eat, I hold each bite in my mouth, savoring the moist richness, the zing of just-warmed turnip. He tells me flocks of sheep are hidden in a nearby valley, along with fields of potatoes and turnips and carrots. He encourages me to eat as much as I want, assuring me that although people lose their lives daily in this time of war, food, at least, is plentiful.

  “Father,” I mumble around a mouthful of meat. “Alejandro, the king. He does not know you are at war.”

  Speaking my husband’s name makes my throat twinge with sadness. I hope he is well. I hope he searches for me.

  Alentín is shaking his head. “Of course he doesn’t, dear girl. No one has told him.”

  I chew and swallow. “I don’t understand.”

  “We don’t dare tell him we already fight, that we’ve already lost more battles than we can count. His Majesty, may he live forever and prosper greatly, bears no great love for the hill country. He’d just as soon give us up for lost than send help. He’d rather give us up. He’s already so short on troops from the last war, you see, and we’ve been such trouble. So difficult to govern from across the desert, with little of value to offer the crown. Our sheep and cattle are the finest in the kingdom, but are poor stock indeed after a forced march across wasteland. He is better served to take inferior tithes from the coastal holdings.” I nod, remembering my studies with Master Geraldo. Joya d’Arena’s greatest weakness, he always said, was its sheer size.

  A girl no more than eight years old approaches shyly with a tray of date balls. I decline, already full, but Alentín grabs one and pops it into his mouth. He chews as he talks. “The one thing we have is gold. The hills vomit a bit of the stuff every year during the flash floods, but His Majesty, may multitudinous sons spring from his loins, does not have an exceeding passion for it. Still, it’s something to keep his interest. We got word a few years ago, from someone highly placed in his court, that if full fighting broke out in the hills, he might declare us a casualty and simply surrender the land.”

  Oh, he definitely would. My heart thuds, as I recall how glad Alejandro was when I advised evacuation of the villages. I was foolish enough to think his gladness was for me, for my wise counsel. Now I see that he was looking for an excuse to turn his back on these people. “You do not dare tell him how nearly lost the hill folk already are.”

  “We do not dare. By all accounts, he is a good man but a weak king. He always chooses the surest, easiest path, if he chooses any path at all.”

  Though his words ring with disappointing truth, I doubt he would say such things if he knew I was the king’s wife. “So he must be made to believe there is still hope, lest he refuse any aid.”

  “Yes.”

  But the king will never send aid. I cannot look at the priest’s face for wondering what part I have played. I close my eyes for a moment and imagine meeting with the Five all over again. If I knew then what I know now, would my counsel have been different? If I had seen these ragged orphans in the flesh, seen how they suffered, would I have found a way to justify a distant war front? It’s so hard to know.

  “Father Alentín, what exactly do you think I can do for you?”

  He wipes his mouth with the hem of his robe and belches happily. “We hope you can save us, of course. For nearly twenty years, we searched for the bearer. These last few, while the fighting has been most intense, we sent people to every part of Joya d’Arena looking for you.”

  Anger rumbles in my chest like an avalanche. Even here, so far from home, the expectation for my service is a yoke around my neck. I say through gritted teeth, “How can I save you? I’m just a girl. I eat too much. I hate the idea of ruling things. There is nothing I can . . . Well, I’m good at embroidery. Shall I embroider you a lovely victory tapestry?” I want to hit something. I eye Cosmé, talking to Belén in the distance.

  “My dear girl, you have something none of us have.”

  I sigh. “The Godstone.”

  “Sorcery.”

  “What?” Sorcery is such an archaic term, used only in classical study. “No, I don’t. The Scriptura Sancta forbids sorcery.”

  He smiles. “Ah, little princess, humans were never meant for this place, you know. But the First World died and God brought us here with his righteous right hand anyway.” He leans forward, black eyes intent. “Homer’s Afflatus tells us that magic crawls beneath the skin of this world, desperate to squirm free. To combat it, God selects a champion every century, someone who can fight magic with magic.”

  He settles back and crosses his legs while I reflect on my midnight meeting with Father Nicandro in the monastery library. . . . He was led, like a pig to the slaughter, into the realm of sorcery.

  “Invierne!” I gasp. “That’s the realm of sorcery!”

  He nods. “My niece tells me you are from Orovalle, a Vía-Reforma kept in ignorance of bearer lore.”

  I bow my head, unsure whether or not to feel ashamed.

  “Foolish cultists,” he spits. “His Majesty, may sun finches warble sweet melodies in his ear, was wise to steal you away.”

  Steal me away. As Alentín scrambles to his feet, it occurs to me that maybe Alejandro agreed to our sham of a marriage only in part because Papá promised troops. Maybe he needed a savior too.

  Alentín asks, “Would you like to borrow my copy of the Afflatus?”

  “Oh, yes,” I breathe. “Very much.”

  I’m given two beeswax candles—precious commodities, Father Alentín tells me—and a squat box of an adobe hut. After hanging my nightgown on a peg, I flip my bedroll across hard-packed clay and settle onto my stomach to read the Afflatus. I shiver at the introductory paragraph, knowing I read God’s history, hoping I’ll discover something of my own destiny.

  It is I, Homer the mason, chosen of God to bear His Stone. To the families survived of God’s righteous right hand, now scattered to the edge of th
e sand: Greetings.

  Homer tells his own story first. Like me, he received the Godstone on his naming day when a shaft of light thrust into his navel. Growing up, he was feared. Sometimes ridiculed. The priests took an interest in the boy, for they sensed something about the stone, something that made them want to sing hymns or pray or maybe laugh aloud. So they took him into the monastery and taught him to read and write the Lengua Classica. Then, when he turned sixteen, they sponsored his apprenticeship to a local mason.

  He was tending the brick ovens one day when God smote him with a vision and demanded he write down every word. Homer fell against the oven door, comatose, and his arm sizzled there while God spoke to him. When he came to, he rushed to the monastery. His left arm was charred and oozing, but he refused all aid until he sat upon a scribing stool with ink, quill, and vellum before him.

  Homer bore the burn scars proudly for the rest of his life, but I wonder about a god who would allow such a thing. Surely this man held a special place in God’s heart. Yet he suffered greatly.

  And he was not the only one. According to Father Nicandro, some of the bearers died during their acts of service. Many did not complete them at all. I wonder which would be worse.

  I’m just beginning Homer’s account of the actual vision when a presence fills the doorway behind me. I turn over.

  Humberto stands there, eyes wide, bedroll under one arm. He cuts a slimmer figure than when we first met—like it did me, the desert sucked all the water out of him—and the candlelight accentuates new hollows beneath his cheekbones. I’m glad to see him.

  “Hello, Humberto.”

  “Princess.” But he doesn’t move to enter.

  “You still think I’m in danger? That someone could murder me for the stone I carry?”

  He shifts on his feet. “I can’t say. My people are not mur-derers. But they are desperate. And hardened.”

  “Then it would help me sleep soundly tonight to know you were nearby.”

  He grins and enters, then lays his bedroll before the threshold. As he unlaces his boots, I see him eye the hanging nightgown.

  It’s the loveliest thing in the village, its tiny weave and shimmering folds so obviously out of place. “It doesn’t fit anymore,” I say casually. “But it’s the only thing I have left from . . . from before. I can’t bear to part with it.” It’s not true, of course. I hope it will be my way out of this remote village.

  He stretches out onto his side and props his head up with a forearm. “Don’t worry, Princess.” He nods solemnly toward the gown. “A few weeks of regular food and water will set you right.”

  He closes his eyes and sighs, too quickly to see my perplexed look. Does he think I want to fit into the nightgown again?

  The dripping candle reminds me I have little time to read, so I return to Homer’s prophecy.

  Yea, once in every four generations He raised him up to bear His mark . . . He could not know what awaited at the gates of the enemy, and he was led, like a pig to the slaughter, into the realm of sorcery.

  Do all of God’s chosen enter the realm of sorcery? Or some? Or just one? Maybe, even, just me?

  My gut quivers each time the Godstone is mentioned in the same passage as “sorcery.” But it quickly becomes apparent that Father Alentín was correct. Homer believed future Godstones would combat the danger magic poses to humanity.

  The manuscript is not long. I read through it three times before setting it aside and blowing out my candle. Sleep is a long time coming.

  I wake to shouting and pattering feet. Humberto and I thrust from our bedrolls and dash outside. Everyone rushes in a unified direction, down the side of the butte and around it. Their faces hold excitement, and maybe concern. We follow, arms raised against morning glare. People line the ridge above, and Humberto helps me as we scramble up the rocky rise.

  When we gain the top, the foothills stretch before us. They dip and zag, ever inclining, until they disappear into the mighty shadow of the Sierra Sangre. The mountains are blue-black and white capped, the sun a giant orb peaking over their edge. Tonight, when the sun sets, they’ll glow red as blood.

  Humberto points downward, into a ragged gulch lined with mesquite and crippled juniper. Heads bob through breaks in the brush. Twelve, at least. A few horses with large packs. As they draw near, I suck in breath. The packs are bundles of humanity, bloodied and broken. Those lucky enough to be on their feet stumble forward in exhaustion, faces streaked with sweat and dirt, maybe blood.

  “That’s my cousin,” Humberto says, his voice wavery. “Reynaldo, the boy in the front. His village is large. Hundreds of people. If Invierne attacked, if these are the only ones who escaped . . .” He can say no more, and I reach up to clasp his fingers.

  He squeezes the bones in my hand together. His lower lip quivers as children pour into the gulch to help the refugees. Their little faces are so hopeful, and they chatter at the newcomers with eager abandon. It takes me a moment to realize they are asking after relatives—parents, siblings, cousins who have gone missing.

  Father Alentín comforts a young woman, supporting her up and over the ridge with his good arm. They pass close enough for me to see the bruise pillowing across her forehead, the bald spots and scabs from hair ripped out at the roots, her mangled earlobe. The priest whispers something as they pass, and she looks up at me, startled, with hopeful tears in her eyes.

  “I’m Mara,” she whispers. “Thank you for coming.”

  While she and Alentín slip down the rise, I stare at her back, at the grass stains on her robe.

  Chapter 16

  COSMÉ tends the wounded and directs everyone to help with decisive efficiency. I sit curled against the wall of the huge half-cavern, unable to look away. Many of them wear charred robes over burned flesh. One of the men bundled across a horse’s back is already dead when they untie him and lower his body to the ground. The other three thrash with infection and fever. I remember Aneaxi’s leg, the smell of rotten meat, the edges of a wound that scalloped around black ooze, and I cannot bring myself to help or even get close. But I stay because it’s oddly comforting to watch my former maid. There’s a familiarity to the way she cuts their clothes away and cleans their wounds, the way she stitches flesh together and launders bandages. Her face is just as impassive, her hands as economical and capable as if she were still in my suite cleaning and folding curtains.

  I envy Cosmé her usefulness.

  In Brisadulce, I was the secret virgin-wife of the king, the visitor from a foreign land, a guest staying in the former queen’s suite. But I never understood my purpose there. Now, because of the Godstone, I’ve been forced across the desert to meet a supposedly great destiny. And yet nothing has changed. I cower in my corner, unable to act.

  Just like Alejandro, I realize with a start. I, too, could let myself be paralyzed into indecision, into weakness.

  Cosmé’s curling hair falls forward as she leans over to wipe blood from a man’s neck. Her hair has grown a little and falls just past her shoulders. She hollers for a strip of cloth. A tiny, barefoot boy with a crutch limps over with a bandage. Cosmé uses it to wrap her hair into a quick ponytail. I stare at her messy curls, the way black strands lie sweat-slicked against her ear, and I realize that, young as she is, no matter where Cosmé goes, no matter what situation she is in, she will always make a place for herself.

  My heart pounds as I stand. I step among the wounded, and I approach Cosmé, refusing to look down at them. I grit my teeth with determination, trying to make a stone of the revulsion and fear in my chest.

  “Cosmé.”

  She doesn’t look up. “I’m very busy. If you need something, ask someone else.”

  I take a deep breath. “Can I help?”

  She rings a dirty rag out onto the ground, then dips it into the bucket beside her. “There is nothing you can do. Go eat something.”

  I almost walk away. Instead, I say, “I know you hate me. But don’t let that make you stupid.”

&
nbsp; Her head whips up.

  “Let me get you some fresh water,” I continue before she can respond.

  Slowly her gaze moves to the bucket next to her. She nods. “Actually, that would help. Here.” She lifts it toward me. “Don’t dump it anywhere near our drinking water.”

  It’s heavy, and the handle digs into my fingers, but I hurry away, glad to do something besides touch infected flesh.

  I fetch water all morning. Once the others see what I’m doing, buckets appear out of nowhere. I dump the smelly, brownish, sometimes viscous stuff against the sunny side of the butte, then hurry into the caverns for a fresh refill. I can hardly keep up with demand, though I move as fast as I can. By the time the last wound has been cleaned and stitched and bandaged, my thighs and shoulders burn and I can no longer feel my fingers.

  I collapse against the wall and close my eyes, trying to relax my cramping forearms.

  “Highness.”

  I look up. Cosmé stands over me with a water skin and a plate of steamed trout on a bed of greens. My mouth waters. “You haven’t eaten anything all day,” she says.

  I reach up. “Thank you, Cosmé.”

  She turns to go, hesitates, turns back around. “I don’t hate you.”

  I’m not sure what to say, so I just nod acknowledgment.

  That night, I sit cross-legged in my hut, Alentín’s copy of Homer’s Afflatus in my lap. I delve deeper this time, studying it sentence by sentence, as if I were in Master Geraldo’s study pouring over the Scriptura Sancta.

  My candle is half burned when Humberto enters. He grins at me before laying his bedroll out in front of the door.

  “I thought you might spend the night with your cousin instead,” I say, glad to see him.