Her feet faltered, frozen in the prospect of exchanging pleasantries while pretending not to notice Aldonza’s frazzled state. Since discovering the affair between her lady-in-waiting and her betrothed, awkwardness had pervaded her demeanor whenever she looked or talked Aldonza’s way, leading to some very unprincessly avoidance on Yzabel’s part. But she’d already seen her, a similar plight unraveling in her expression.
In the corner of Yzabel’s eye, Fatyan raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
“M-my princess!” the lady-in-waiting piped, smoothing the wrinkled skirts of her green overgown, the bright yellow sash snug around her wide hips. “We’ve missed you for so many afternoons, and you appeared so ill at court the other day, I…I came to check on you.”
A bold-faced lie told through swollen lips, but Yzabel couldn’t summon the courage to call it out. To tell Aldonza she knew, to ask her if she was happy being Denis’s lover. Was she as glad for the other mistresses as Yzabel was for her, or did it eat at her as it had eaten at Yzabel’s mamá? Would she hate her for asking?
“How kind of you to worry,” she said, a practiced statement through a plastered smile. “I’m feeling a bit better, but it’ll be some time before I can join my ladies-in-waiting in the sewing room.”
Aldonza twined her hands behind her back, the curve of her pouty lips as strained as Yzabel’s. “We’ve heard that Terra da Moura’s finances are in quite the disarray, yes. I imagine you’ve been helping the king with them? He’s always so complimentary of your intellect.” Her eyes slid to Fatyan’s blank face. “And this must be the sister I’ve been hearing about. Fatiana?”
“Fatyan,” the Moura corrected, unflinching. “Who might you be?”
“Aldonza Rodrigues da Telha.” A swift curtsy. “And I’ll be going. Please do join us sometime, Princess. Have a good evening.”
Yzabel nodded. “You as well.”
The lady-in-waiting disappeared down the stairs, an absent hand rubbing her belly—were Yzabel’s eyes deceiving her, or had it grown bigger and rounder since she’d last seen Aldonza?
“Does she know you know? About her affair with your betrothed?” Fatyan asked.
“I don’t think so. Same with Denis. And I know I should at least ask Aldonza if she’s happy, but…” Shaking her head, Yzabel meandered into the solar. “One day. After I’ve mastered the blessing.”
Curiosity tilted Fatyan’s head. “That woman is a risk to your position, and you’re concerned about her happiness?”
“She’s no risk to my position,” Yzabel scoffed. “And why wouldn’t I be concerned? It’s one thing to be engaged to an adulterer; another to be engaged to a rapist.”
Fatyan’s lips parted. Closed. A crease dug between her eyebrows, but whatever she was going to say evaporated when Yzabel opened the door to her rooms, hitting the two of them with the ungodliest of scents.
“Did something die in here while we were gone?” Fatyan asked, ripping the wimple and veil from her head and holding them in front of her nose.
Brites stepped away from the window with a grimace toward the offending meat at the desk. “Bedum. Vasco said you needed something to turn, and that was about to be used for compost. The only thing that drunkard of a butcher butchered today was good lamb. Not even the dogs will touch it.”
No wonder—the stench alone was enough to make her gag. The blessing had never taken to decomposing items, but although its taste had been spoiled, the meat itself was fresh, if unpalatable to a person’s tongue. She rushed over to the desk, magic already swelling on her fingertips. The bits and pieces of cooked lamb were still warm and soft to the touch, and the blessing took them eagerly, leaping from her skin in a surge of liberation.
Putrid stink gave way to a flowery fragrance as hyacinth vines sprouted in the place of a shank, ribs, head. In fire’s glow, golden light exploded into a rainbow of green leaves, purple stalks and bean pods, bulbs of white, blue, pink, and violet.
Hyacinth vines, like the ones her teachers used to grow in her home in Aragon, like the ones that had bloomed everywhere in her mother’s Sicilian home.
Fatyan scrutinized the light beating under Yzabel’s chest, and without an uttered word, she picked up the bowl by the window and unceremoniously shoved aside the greenery to make room for the bread.
Yzabel didn’t need to be asked to pick up a piece. Bread on her fingers, she waited for the familiar surge of heat to travel from her heart to her shoulder, down her arm, a slow march that halted at the edge of her fingertips. It was eager, playful, and this time, slowing when she thought it to a halt.
A rose the length of her finger bloomed in her hand; when she tried with a second piece, it was very much the same. The breath of wonder filled her nostrils, and she said, “It’s answering. Not fully, but…” A third bit of bread, and with focused will, the light stopped at the wrist, unmoving while she held the air in her lungs.
“See?” Fatyan said in Yzabel’s ear. “Accept it as part of you, and it will begin to answer like any other.”
She managed to keep her composure through a thundering heart, spinning around to look at the Moura. An urge overtook her when she met those green eyes, and she gently brushed Fatyan’s hair behind her ear to pin it with the small rose. “Thank you.”
“Why are you always thanking everyone?” Fatyan asked, genuine puzzlement in her low voice. The red of the rose brought out the earthy tones of her skin, making her somehow even more stunning.
“It costs nothing to say, and there’s no value in appreciation if it’s not freely given.”
A little frown marred Fatyan’s forehead. “Had someone else said that, I’d have taken them for an insidious manipulator. But you…” The lines deepened. “You do it for no reason other than to be nice.”
“And believe me, that’s our princess’s greatest fault,” Brites said. She pulled a small chest out from under the bed and brought it over to the vanity then collected the hyacinth vines. “I’ll get started on these while you dine with Denis. Might as well have a few more bottles of salve for when I go into town tomorrow.” After chucking the hyacinths into her quarters, Brites turned, hands on her hips. “Now let’s get you changed before Matias comes knocking like he did this morning.”
Fatyan’s lips twisted, sour at the mention of Brites’s son. Neither of them knew why Fatyan’s sahar flared when Matias’s name was floated or when he was in close range, only that it did, and it sickened the Moura every time.
“I can change by myself,” Yzabel offered.
Brites shook her head. “Not when you’ve just bathed and have a rat’s nest for hair. You know how Denis is.”
She blew a curl away from her face and crossed her arms. Her betrothed didn’t insist on a lot of things, and although he didn’t mind her disheveled appearance during the day, he required she be presentable when they dined together.
“I can attend to her,” Fatyan offered. “I’ll help you with the hyacinths once we’re done.”
“You don’t have to,” Yzabel protested, abruptly alarmed by the thought of the Moura helping her, of her hands revisiting her naked flesh with incidental brushes. “You’re not a servant—”
“I don’t mind.”
“Thank you.” Brites smiled at Fatyan. “Do you remember what to do?”
“I do.”
Yzabel groaned and rolled her eyes, waiting for Brites to leave the room before she turned to Fatyan. Her bearing softened, as did her voice. “It’s just… I don’t want you to think I see you like that.”
“You worry too much,” Fatyan said as she stepped in front of the princess. “Now, let’s get you out of those clothes again.”
At once, it seemed like all the meager heat in the room was on Yzabel’s face. The fresh memories of the springs flitted behind her blinking eyelids. “Y-yes. B-but r-really, you don’t h-have to—”
“But I want to,
dear Yza,” Fatyan said with a small smile that belied the gravity in her voice. Then, pointing to the bread, she added, “You still have to turn all of that into roses. Finish feeding your gift so today’s work won’t go to waste.”
Begrudgingly, Yzabel began to turn more bread into roses, huffing as she went through them.
“Yza…”
That again. Those first few times, Yzabel had thought Fatyan had just given up halfway through her name, but then she used it again, and again.
“Why do you keep calling me that?” she asked, curious.
“It’s faster to say than Yzabel?” A mischievous smile turned her lips upward. “And it’s also a cute way to shorten your name? No one else uses it, so that makes it something that’s just between the two of us. Do you need more?”
Yzabel’s smile was a thief sneaking up on her. Her heart, too, beat a little faster, seemingly pumping more blood to her already hot face. “You have more?”
“Oh, yes. I like how it sounds when I say Yza, and how easily it rolls off the tongue. Yza. Yza. Yza. Yza.” A wink. “Should I go on?”
By then, Yzabel’s cheeks had grown so hot, she must be scarlet. Hoping to reduce the terrible awkwardness, she touched one piece of bread, let it unravel into a rose. Thorns dug into her skin, and she cast it aside.
She so absolutely, irrevocably hated roses.
“Yzabel?”
“Mm?”
“You’re frowning. Does my calling you Yza offend you so?”
Yzabel relaxed her expression instantly; she hadn’t realized how hard she’d been scowling until then. “I’m sorry. I’m just…frustrated. The sight of roses alone infuriates me. To see them is to see my failures on display, and my hope dies as they wither. But—” She paused to lick her lips. The blood rushed back to her face as she made herself look at Fatyan’s eyes, at those thick lashes. “I don’t mind that you call me Yza. In fact”—she smiled—“I rather like it.”
Although, it was one thing to like it, another to have Fatyan call her Yza in a room full of people. “Please don’t refer to me that way in front of anyone else, though. It doesn’t offend me, but others might take offense on my behalf, as unwanted as that is. Vasco especially.”
Fatyan inclined her head forward. “I’m aware. Would you find it strange if I said I’m glad for it?”
Well, that was the opposite of what she expected. “Glad?”
“Yes.” She brushed one of Yzabel’s curls away from her eyes, and she failed to suppress the shiver that ran up her spine. “That way it’s another secret we get to keep between us.”
Yzabel’s grin widened her lips further. She decided to follow her impulses just this once, and kissed Fatyan’s cheek as a good friend would. “Thank you.”
“There you go again,” she said with amusement. “What am I being thanked for now?”
“Keeping my secrets.” She bit into her lip as she tried to understand the odd tightness in her breast. “I have to come up with a nickname for you now. It’s only fair.”
“Baptize me, then,” Fatyan offered with a quirky sigh and roll of the eyes.
“All right.” She tapped Fatyan’s nose. “Faty.”
“Faty?”
“Y-you don’t like it?”
“I do.” She placed her hand on Yzabel’s shoulders. “Yza and Faty, the rebellious princess and the Enchanted Moura.”
“There’s a nice ring to that.”
“There is. Now…” Fatyan turned her around. “Let’s get you changed.”
She complied even though the thought of Fatyan unlacing and unbuttoning her garments flustered her beyond comprehension. She remembered the springs, the way Fatyan had touched her, the wake of heat following her fingers.
It’s because you’re unused to strangers touching you. Of mostly everyone touching you, she repeated in her head until she convinced herself that it was the truth.
One tug at the silk, and the sash dropped with a tickling whisper. Yzabel threw the surcoat and kirtle over her head while Fatyan fetched clean ones, leaving her shivering in her chemise and socks.
The scent of almonds spread in her nostrils as Fatyan guided a fresh, creamy kirtle down Yzabel’s body, then the heavy surcoat of blue linen trimmed with fur. She tried not to shiver as Fatyan tied the sash into place, each motion twisting her heart in queer ways.
It wasn’t like this when Brites helped her dress.
Why wasn’t it like this when Brites helped her dress?
She swallowed her titillated breath while Fatyan fetched the comb and oils from the chest. Yzabel told her which ones to use and where, then turned bread into roses while Fatyan tried to tame her hair.
She applied lavender-scented oil to Yzabel’s brittle curls. Gently, she combed away the knots and mats, careful not to pull too hard, grimacing when hair fell away regardless of her care. Inadequacy sprouted on Yzabel’s tongue. “Brites was being generous when she called my head a rat’s nest,” she muttered as a piece of bread changed into a rose. “I wish I had hair as thick and straight as yours.”
Fatyan’s face scrunched with something akin to disappointment.
Yzabel bit at the bitterness in her mouth, looking down at the roses in her lap. “Does it upset you that I wish I looked more like you?”
“You don’t want to be more like me,” she answered, equally softly.
“Why not?” Their eyes met in the mirror. “You’re beautiful. I’m—”
“Better than beautiful.” Fatyan grasped Yzabel’s chin, tilted her head so she could look her in the eye. “Sure, your eyes might be sunken, and your hair may be weak and your skin sallow, but those will improve as you eat better. What truly makes you shine, though, what makes you more precious than anyone else, is your heart.” Her other hand found the left side of Yzabel’s chest, over her heart thrumming wildly beneath her fingers. “It’s the most beautiful of any I’ve seen.”
A small, bitter chuckle, and Yzabel bowed her avoidant eyes. “You barely know me.”
“True. But against all your teachings, you came to look for me. You were willing to make a bargain with me, an enchanted creature of the people you’ve called enemies for centuries; you’re painfully worried about the less fortunate; when it came to food, you were worried about me starving. Not just that, but when you came into the stone, I saw your heart, and it was good.” A wink. “Why do you think I allowed you to get me out of that stone?”
A tiny giggle. “I thought you were just desperate.”
“Oh, I was plenty desperate. I still would’ve turned you down if there had been ugliness in your heart.” She wet her lips. “It might not look like it, but I was raised in privilege. I assume you, being a princess, were as well. People like us are often entitled and have a way of forgetting the sorrows of those below our status. Having a powerful sahar running through your veins has taught you hunger, weakness, and determination. You had the courage to hunt a legend, and the flexibility to adjust your approach when I said removing the blessing was impossible.”
Yzabel’s jaw closed for a long moment. “You’re saying it was all to teach me a lesson? A lesson. Even though all my life I’ve devoted myself to the Lord and His word.”
“So many people do that, and they have flaws in their compassion nonetheless. Like the Portuguese Knights, who cut down anyone who opposed their Reconquista. Like my baba, willing to curse his daughter into an eternal existence.”
Back in the Stone, Faty had mentioned she’d stopped feeling anger at what had been done to her, and when she’d first spoken of her father, it had been with sadness. Now, fury began to seep through, sharpening her voice, and Yzabel couldn’t blame her for it. It had been a cruel thing that had been done to Faty, crueler still that it had been done by a hand that was supposed to protect her.
Then again, had Yzabel’s papá not done the same to her? He’d decided whom she�
�d marry and spend her life with. The only difference between Faty’s baba and Yzabel’s was that one had used magic, and the other had signed a paper.
The last of Yzabel’s braids finished, Fatyan reached for the gold crespinette on the vanity. Nothing but the whisper of hair and jewels between them as she twirled the braids around Yzabel’s ears, then set the bejeweled cap atop them to secure them in place.
Fatyan rounded the chair to kneel in front of Yzabel, joining their hands atop the many roses on her lap. “You’ve been forged in despair, Yza, and tempered in hardship. It’s made you considerate in ways many wouldn’t be. That is why we were given a power that could not just feed a nation but temper it, too. Because you, of all people, will use it for good.”
“You sound like Brites,” Yzabel said.
“Well, Brites is wise.”
“You barely know her, too.”
“I don’t need to see her heart to know she cares deeply about you, and that it hurts her to see you suffer. Same with Vasco.” She lifted Yzabel’s face with a finger under her chin. “Same with me.”
Yzabel’s eyes widened, and that heat crept up to her cheeks once more. “What if I don’t deserve it? What if I end up disappointing everyone?”
“So long as you keep being who you are, I don’t think you will. So.” She stood and searched the tins until she found the one with red beeswax. “How’s your sahar?”
She searched for the presence of magic inside her, the power answering with fingers of warmth tight around her chest. “I think I’ll be able to manage in front of Denis.”
“Hmm. Keep still.” Faty dipped her finger in the cosmetic, then slid it along Yzabel’s mouth, a slow trail of rouge and sparks following in its wake, parting her lips with a gasp.
She couldn’t look at Fatyan now, not with her cheeks so hot they didn’t need painting. She focused on the magic in her hand instead, at the light shining under her skin before meeting the bread between her fingers, turning it into another rose. “It’s so beautiful to watch.”
“It is.”
A Curse of Roses Page 11