“It’s just my dog. Remember?” Yzabel skirted Fatyan to meet Lucas, kneeling to hug him and bury her face in his stinking fur that smelled better to her than the cursed roses. “Oh, my baby, I’ve missed you, but that’s no way to act. You’ve given poor Fatyan a fright!”
Fright didn’t seem to cover it, with Fatyan’s wide eyes and shallow, wild breath as she gave Lucas a wide berth on her way to the table. Only when the furniture stood between them did she dare to speak. “That is not a dog. That’s a wolf-bear-thing.”
“Hah!” Brites said with a lopsided grin. “I noticed you looked at him like he was about to eat you. It’s why I took him last night.”
Lucas headbutted Yzabel’s fingers, then leaned against her with eyes closed as she stood to look at Brites. “Did he behave?”
“If by that you mean ‘stayed the entire night by my door, waiting for me to open it,’ then yes. He behaved. And hurry with that milk.” Brites pointed at the steaming mug. “Denis has been asking for you since he woke, and he’s expecting you in the Steward’s Office.”
Fatyan clicked her tongue when Yzabel picked up the mug and gave the honey a good stir. “Are you telling me that’s all you eat every morning?”
“Why, yes.” Unfazed, Yzabel took a large gulp, the richness of the honey sweet on her tongue, the warmth of the milk velvet on her throat. “The curse doesn’t work on liquids, and it’s enough to keep hunger at bay without breaking my fasting.”
Eyes closed, Fatyan pressed her thumbs on her temples. “Yzabel,” she grumbled. “What did we talk about last night?”
The next chug fell on her stomach like a rock. Beneath her skin, the magic roiled, spreading to her fingertips, desperate for sustenance and raging upon finding none. “I can’t…” She flailed on what to say, on how to properly express herself. “This is more than fine to start the day with.”
“It’s not. And you called it a curse again.”
“See? Petulance,” Brites interrupted with a groaning sigh. “Starving is what our princess thinks she deserves.”
A shock straightened Yzabel’s spine. She took a step back, defensive, shrill. “What else was I supposed to think when I kept choking on flowers?”
“You do have a difficult blessing. I’ll give you that.” Fatyan’s voice softened along with her mien. “But all great acts come with sacrifice, and in your case, you need to sacrifice food.”
Yzabel gnashed her teeth behind pursed lips. The mug had gone cold, as had the milk, but she forced herself to drink it anyway, not looking up as Fatyan came to stand in front of her, not listening to her steps, ever so close—
“Your selflessness won’t help anyone if you’re dead, and you will die if you take the ritual in your current state,” the Moura said, a dark portent shivering in her tone. Sharp, but not uncaring, she went on, gentle hands covering Yzabel’s on the mug. “We have a bargain, Yzabel, and I need you to eat if I’m to fulfill my part. Can you do that for me?”
She made to ask for another way; the worry on Fatyan’s face stopped her.
Your selflessness won’t help anyone if you’re dead.
“Only stale bread and bones,” she conceded. Lucas threw her a pitiful whine, big yellow eyes pleading. “I know. I’m sorry—but you have plenty of bones as it is, and we could use the narcissus. And the roses.”
That last sentence she added belatedly and with a hint of spite. A waste it might be, but while not as precious as food, rosewater and narcissus paste would help with the red plague.
Fatyan’s fingers, still on Yzabel’s, stiffened before she dropped them, and she bit her lip as she looked at the door with a one-eyed squint. Not two seconds later, a knock followed.
“Your Highness, the king’s requesting your presence,” Matias said from the other side, cracking open the door so she could better hear him. Ever concerned with Denis’s wishes, which was remarkable considering he’d been in the king’s presence for about two weeks while he’d known Yzabel for five whole years.
“He is insistent today,” Yzabel hissed, stalking to the commode as she shouted, “Tell him I’ll be there soon.”
“His Majesty told me to escort you,” was the reply.
Brites slid the door a look from the corner of her eye. “Now he learns how to take orders.” A sigh escaped the corner of her lips, and she shook her head. “Come, Fatyan. Let’s get you into the habit, and I’ll show you around.”
The Moura followed, but before she could disappear into the lady’s maid’s chambers, she looked over her shoulder. A wink, and a smile, and the words, “I’ll see you at lunch.”
Yzabel found herself answering with a smiling nod, though once she was alone, consternation sunk a grimace in her expression. Lunch, where Yzabel was supposed to use the curse, and as necessary as Fatyan claimed it to be, Yzabel had trouble accepting the forceful waste.
She quickly changed into her day clothes, the modest silk kirtle too large on her frail frame, hips so thin she had trouble fixing the golden sash to keep the brown surcoat in place. The whisper of fabric pulled at the cilice nipping at her thigh. Foot propped on the chair, she gently hiked up the skirts and unfastened it with care, wetted the edge of a towel on the basin and dabbed at the punctured flesh, cleaning it of blood. Then, teeth on her tongue, she wound the spiked garter back where it belonged, where it could constantly remind her of her sins and make a dent in her perpetual penance. If she was going to be wasting food, she needed it now more than ever.
As she washed her face and hands on the basin, the cold water bit into her brittle fingers, its icy needles pierced her joints as she pinned her curls back before pulling the cowl over her head. In the mirror, an apparition of eyes ringed with shadows, sallow cheeks, purpled lips, gray skin, unbearable to behold.
Before the bed, she knelt, tilting her chin to the cross above the headboard as she prayed a quick Pai Nosso and an Ave Maria, thanking them for bringing her Fatyan, and to please help her tame the curse—no, the blessing—bestowed upon her.
Matias interrupted her again, incessantly rapping on the door frame until she emerged from her room. He stood at attention, blinking eyes fixed on her. “I apologize, Your Highness, but the king—”
“Yes, yes.” She waved him away and threw her mantle over her shoulders. “Let’s go.”
Nausea roiled in her belly, and bile swayed on her tongue as she crossed corridors and hallways with Matias at her heels, and she had to brace herself on the wall for a second to keep the milk down. Hung tapestries surrounded her, embroidered images of hunting scenes, kings past, Jesus Christ, Santos and Santas whose woolen eyes followed her as she passed, their weight that of cotton compared to the iron of Matias’s gaze.
“Mother said you’ve brought someone from the convent to help her.” His voice reverberated along the passage, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. “That you let the sister stay in your rooms.”
Brow strained, Yzabel asked, “What about it?”
“It’s a security risk, Your Majesty. With the local prelates so angry, how can you be sure this woman isn’t here at their bidding?” His breath hissed with a sharp intake. “I don’t know what it is exactly, but something about her isn’t right.”
Inhaling deeply, she paused at the office door. She couldn’t tell Matias what Fatyan truly was, but neither could she dismiss him easily. As with Brites, suspicion ran thick in Matias’s blood, and he wouldn’t let go of an idea until proven wrong. “I appreciate your concern, but I assure you, Fatyan has nothing to do with the local gentry. And neither does she wish me harm.”
“But my princess—”
“Vasco interrogated her before she came and found nothing amiss.” Not quite a lie. “He would never let her come with me if he thought her dangerous.”
“I’ll…” He looked down at her with black eyes under a thick, straight brow, so much like Brites’s it was impossible for
Yzabel not to soften. “I’ll talk to Dom Vasco, then.”
“If you must,” she said, dismissing him with a nod before turning the doorknob and slipping inside. Her betrothed sat behind the desk in the steward’s office, polished mahogany shining among countless leaves of parchment. Shelves stacked with books and folders lined one of the walls, and a large chest and cabinet sat on one corner. By the fireplace, chamberlain, treasurer, and chancellor inspected files from three armchairs of red velvet, and next to them, a small table sat with a pitcher of wine and three glasses. Thankfully, no food lay about to tempt her magic, or her already-groaning stomach.
“Good morning,” she greeted from the doorway.
“Your Majesty.” The three men bowed their heads, barely acknowledging her as she strode through the cramped room toward Denis.
He looked up through red-rimmed eyes, his lip curling with unhappiness. “Sometimes I wish it wasn’t common knowledge that I know how to read,” he muttered under his breath. “It was much easier to find corruption when the prelates thought they didn’t need to hide it.”
“So, no luck?”
“None.” At a flick of his hand, the book he’d been examining slammed shut. “You were gone all day yesterday—and what’s this I hear about you taking in a nun from the convent?”
Rumors did travel faster than the wind, it seemed. “I have brought in a sister, yes.” Afraid he’d see the lie on her face, she busied herself with stacking the assorted papers into a neat pile. “I visited the Carmo Convent and talked to the Abbess about the red plague devastating the poorest quarters of Terra da Moura. She agreed to send a novitiate to help and learn from us. Brites could also see if the sister is a good fit to replace her when the time comes for her to retire.”
Denis’s hooded eyes blinked. “Huh.”
“Huh, what?”
“I always thought Brites would serve you until her dying breath,” he said with a shrug. “You are extremely attached to the woman.”
The hairs on her arms bristled, and she looked at him with a furrowed brow. “You speak like it’s a bad thing.”
“Must you always answer with seven stones in your hand? It’s not like it’s a lie.”
“Must you speak so critically of how I choose to treat my servants?” she barked back. “Brites is like family to me. I fail to see the issue.”
“Jesus, Yzabel. There is no problem. Your staff is your responsibility, and so long as this nun is as competent as the woman she’ll be replacing, I couldn’t care less.” Denis rubbed the sleep from his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose. “Now can you help us go through these?”
The sudden change caught her off guard. “Of-of course.”
“You can take that pile over there.” He gestured to a stack on the far side of the desk. “I’ll bring you more later. With lunch, so I can be certain you eat.”
Meals with Denis were never easy, and if she had to accept the cur—the blessing—he could not be in the vicinity. An excuse, she had to come up with an excuse, fast, before her breath got out of control, before she couldn’t open her panicked lips and move her dry tongue. “I told you I’d keep fast until the matters in Terra da Moura are resolved.”
A fearsome growl burbled in Denis’s throat. “Yzabel—”
“Truly, your devotion is astounding, my princess!” Dom Domingos interrupted, black choir dress whispering on the floor as he came to lay a thin hand on her shoulder, the purple cassock and amaranth trimming the only specks of color in his attire. “We should all be as pure of flesh as you are.”
“You ask me to let my future wife wither before my very eyes?” Denis scolded. “She looks half-dead already!”
“As so many of your citizens do,” the Chancellor-Mor gently argued, the weight of his fingers straining Yzabel’s neck. “The princess’s devotion is but another reason for us to solve the nation’s problems as quickly as we’re able. The Lord shall keep her safe in the meantime.”
Yzabel smiled at him, weak and trembling, but the relief that usually followed Dom Domingos’s defense of her practices didn’t visit her this time around. The praise he bestowed upon her piety blinded him to what Denis saw so clearly. What used to make her feel better brought an onslaught of queasiness, for Dom Domingos would rather see her starving and virtuous rather than well-fed and healthy. And she had no doubt that if he knew of her magic, he’d tie her to a chair and drill at her skull until he pried the demon out of her head.
Denis leaned back against his chair. “Fine. But you will have dinner with me.”
She acquiesced with a bow of her head and collected the pile of parchment and folders. “I’ll have Brites fetch some more of these for me later.”
“And do introduce me to this girl before we leave this town,” Denis called after her as she was about to depart. “I want to know who you will be spending time with.”
A jolt in her chest, a seedling of fear taking root. Part of her truly hoped that Fatyan would never have to share a room with Denis and his inevitable lecherous glares—and if the ritual succeeded tomorrow night, the curse would be reversed more quickly, and there was a good chance Fatyan would be gone before the king got any ideas. One thing was to know Denis kept mistresses everywhere they went, or that one of his favored dalliances sat across from Yzabel when she joined her ladies-in-waiting. Another would be for him to take Fatyan as well.
Yzabel didn’t know why panic drummed in her heart at the thought. Only that it did.
Chapter Nine
Transformation
Yzabel spent the rest of the morning poring over her portion of Terra da Moura’s accounts, fingers buried in her hair as she tried to decipher the steward’s terrible penmanship—which she suspected to be purposeful. It didn’t help that he also seemed to enjoy littering the borders of every page with dreadful, lascivious poetry that would put Denis’s to shame. Propriety demanded she not pay them any attention, but curiosity pulled a heavier weight, and she kept on reading regardless of how many shocked gasps and uncomfortable blushes it took. God would forgive this transgression done in the name of thoroughness.
The scent of garlic and pennyroyal fished her from the sea of parchment, while the shadows of blurry letters swam in her eyes and a migraine stabbed at her head. Fatyan, now clad in the black habit and white veil and wimple of a novice, cleared the table, making room for Brites to set the tray down in front of Yzabel.
Two soft-boiled eggs floated in the bright green assorda, still steaming on its brown bowl, a plate with two fat fillets of fish, a bread bowl cut into small pieces, and dark golden broas by a jug of red wine. The brightness of magic swelled in her breast, dripped down her arm, jerked at her fingers to touch, touch, touch—
Pressure against her forearm, the rough scrape of crust. She jumped in her seat, twisting away, but to her squeaking dismay, the bread followed, and the light under her hands shot directly into it. Joyous magic encroached upon crust and crumb, stole her breath away as it stretched to a stem. Leaves and prickles bursting along the stalk—
Belatedly, she shrieked, “That’s enough bread for six assordas, Fatyan, what are you doing?”
The Moura held up a finger, furrowed eyes set on the changing lump of magic. At its peak, the curled blooming of a rose as big as Yzabel’s head. Nose against the blossom, Fatyan inhaled and said, “Transforming three arráteis of week-old bread into three arráteis of roses.” With a playful tilt of her hand, the edge of the flower tapped Yzabel’s nose and filled her nostrils with its scent. “Transformation. Not waste.”
“You tricked me,” Yzabel muttered, but it was futile to hold on to the sourness of the small betrayal. A lightness washed on her limbs, brought stillness to her shivering hands.
“You agreed to bread and bones. Plus”—she handed the rose to Brites, who shredded it into one of the boiling pots around the fireplace—“we’re going to need more roses. And narc
issus. So…” A pivot on her heels made a grandiose gesture as she revealed the second tray sitting on the bed in all its menacing fullness of dry bread and bones picked clean. Fatyan brought it over, placed it next to the food and held out her hand.
Her eyes flitted between the Moura and the tray, uncertainty weighing on her arm.
“Don’t lose sight of what you’ll be able to do when you master your sahar,” Fatyan urged. “Trust me, Yzabel.”
It could be the knowledge that Fatyan was bound by a promise she couldn’t break; it could be the sincerity in her pleading gaze, the tenderness in the susurrus of her voice; but Yzabel’s hand was already in Fatyan’s, taking in its warmth as it guided her fingers down. Smooth bone gave way to a yellow corona nesting in a delicate cup of white petals, bread became more roses. The panic of so many years stirred in her chest, and she tried to take her hand away, stitch it to her palpitating heart.
Fatyan held it tighter. In Yzabel’s ear, she said, “Eat.”
Tongue in a knot, she turned to her meal, gingerly reaching for the soups. The magic stayed busy with Fatyan, and she swiftly dumped some bits of bread into the assorda’s broth. Next came the fish, and as soon as her nails scraped the soft flesh, the blessing suddenly changed direction, hungry for something tastier than bread and bones.
Yzabel barely had time to drop the fillet into the bowl before the curse claimed it. To her left, the bright red and yellow of roses and narcissuses of all sizes brought bile to the back of her tongue, each one a tear in her composure that left her determination fraying and tattered. Sweat piled along her hairline, stewed in her cheeks, the heat unbearable. “How… How much does it need? How much do we have to waste before it’s happy?”
“What does fish become?” Fatyan asked back.
“L-Lavender.”
“Which we can also use,” Brites reminded, hands full with the mortar and pestle, where she ground the narcissus flowers into a paste. “Not just for the red plague.”
“It’s not an equitable exchange,” Yzabel protested.
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