The air hitched on her sore throat, and Yzabel wished she knew exactly what Denis was thinking, wished she could come up with quick lies that rang true. But she didn’t need to lie, only to omit.
“Let go of her. She’s done nothing wrong,” Yzabel said. “But you’re right in that she’s not a novice. We made up that story, so she’d be unbothered by your men. Not that it worked.” A spark of outrage flared in her chest, and she allowed it to spread, to seep into her words. “You really should discipline them. Inflicting their leery gazes and rowdy words on a nun.”
Denis’s fingers twitched, his glare never leaving Faty. “Then who are you? Is Dom Domingos’s story true?”
Impassive, Fatyan lifted her defiant chin. “That depends. What is he saying?”
“Do not play coy with me.” He seized the Moura’s jaw so violently Yzabel couldn’t stand by any longer. She bolted from her nest of pillows and blankets, but Denis’s grip was too tight, she too weak. Lucas, too, sensed her anguish, but when he looked at the source of it, he tilted his head and looked between them with a confused whine. Thank God for small mercies, thank God for giving her a dog smart enough to know he should never bare his teeth at the king.
Yzabel tried again to pry his hand from Fatyan’s face, but it was like trying to change the pose of a statue carved in marble. “Denis, stop this.”
He paid her no heed, shoving her aside and talking over her. “Is what Matias told me the truth? Are you or are you not the Moura named Salúquia?”
Yzabel blinked away the surprise. Matias had told Denis that Fatyan was an Enchanted Moura, so it was only logical he was the one who’d told him about Brites and the Caraju.
Fatyan’s mouth parted, then thinned into an angry line. “I’m not Salúquia. I have never been Salúquia.”
Was that pain, jittery in her determined statements? Why did Denis think the Enchanted Moura was named Salúquia? Had they changed Faty’s name in one of the stories? Was that why she’d been surprised when Yzabel asked her name? And why have never been Salúquia?
Questions for later, questions that didn’t matter when Denis was manhandling Yzabel’s friend right before her eyes. “I can’t believe you’d fall for such a ridiculous tale,” she said instead. “Or why Matias would conjure such a thing. Especially the part about his own mother being a witch.”
“I do,” a fourth voice chimed in from the threshold between the quarters of princess and maid. Brites, haggard and haunted, the wrinkles on her face deeper than they’d been the day before—as if she’d aged ten years overnight. Gentleness blinked in her dark eyes. “I might be his mother, but that boy’s hated me for years. Looks like he finally got over his fear of being a Carajua’s son.”
Denis’s hand went slack, and he pivoted to Brites. “Then you admit to practicing paganism when you serve the future Queen of Portugal? Have you any idea what it’d do to her if this gets out? What do you think the Pope will do if word reaches him that my wife has been associating with a Carajua?”
“Then make sure it doesn’t,” Brites said. “And don’t blame the princess for this. She didn’t know.”
Yzabel made to protest, but a slight shake from Brites’s head closed her open mouth. She was spinning falsehoods to protect her, willing to take on the punishment for Yzabel’s faults.
“And what were you doing in town at night? Matias says he saw you return covered in soot and ash.” Heavy feet stomped on the floor to loom over the maid. “Coming from the direction of Senhor Davide’s house shortly after it burned down.”
“That’s because I sent her,” Yzabel interceded, lurching to stand between them, the lie already spilling from her lips. “She was to distribute the medicines we made, and Vasco went with her for security.”
Denis regarded her with cold assessment. “Why didn’t you tell me you sent them into town? You know I have no problem with you giving the people your herbal remedies.”
Something else, she had to give him something else that would be plausible for her to hide. “Because I also told them to give food.”
He sent a withering glare her way, fury barely contained in the grind of his jaw, before shifting it toward Brites. “And the fire?”
“We came just as someone set it. Vasco went after them, while I used the Caraju to summon rain. I managed to delay the fire just enough so Senhor Davide and his family could escape before the house crumbled.” Brites’s breath shuddered, the too-fresh loss shadowing her eyes. “But if Vasco hasn’t returned, then…then I fear whoever tried to kill Senhor Davide ended up killing Vasco.”
“You think Vasco’s…dead?” Denis’s mouth and arms fell, aghast in a limp moment of surprise.
But Yzabel couldn’t take her gaze away from Brites, couldn’t stop herself from reading the many ramifications her statements implied. Like a tapestry unfolding stitch by stitch, the story unraveled in her imagination. Vasco had already been dead, and there had been no fire in town after she and Faty had left Brites with the tree. After burning Vasco, Brites had done the same to Senhor Davide’s home while constructing the narrative of an attack.
All to draw the attention away from Yzabel.
“I know he’s dead,” Brites said. “There’s no other reason why he wouldn’t be here.”
Yzabel cast her gaze down, not bothering to mask the horror she felt slipping across her features. Agony wrenched a hiccup from her throat and sent tears to her eyes. So much destruction in such a short time, and although the decisions hadn’t been made by Yzabel herself, they might as well have. It was in her name that Vasco had tried to stop the ritual, in her name that Brites left a brave man and a family homeless.
Dazed and blinking, Denis asked, “Why did you not report this immediately?”
“Because I’ve been looking for Vasco since!” Brites cried. “When I couldn’t find him, I came back, thinking—hoping—he’d be here to greet me.”
The king massaged his temples, then pressed his thumbs against closed eyes. With a sigh and a slight shake of his head, he straightened his shoulders and said, “The fact is, you remain a Carajua. You used your incantations last night, in plain sight. What if someone saw you?”
Cold grasped Yzabel’s chest, and she forgot the terrible possibilities around Brites’s acts, forgot there were secrets she had kept, forgot everything but the need to keep someone so dear safe. “Denis, don’t—”
“Brites Sande, for the practice of Caraju, your services are now terminated. You will stay in the dungeons while we conduct the investigation on Vasco’s disappearance, and you never, never talk to Yzabel again. And the only reason I allow you to keep your head is because of your son’s proven loyalty to the Portuguese Crown.”
“That foolish boy,” Brites muttered under her breath.
Yzabel echoed the insult in her mind; she’d always known Matias was devoted to Denis, but she hadn’t known his loyalties to her betrothed superseded the bonds of family.
“That ‘stupid boy’ is the reason you still draw breath, and if you try to contact Yzabel in any way, not even Matias’s loyalty will stay my hand.” His tone lowered to a chilling threat. “And if anyone asks why you’ve been dismissed and are stewing in a cell, you’ll say you were caught stealing.”
Brites kept her dauntless chin up, her demeanor steady. “Is that all?”
“Yes.”
Yzabel tried to get to Brites, but her betrothed kept her still with a vicious grip on her arm. “No,” she said. “Denis, you can’t.”
“It’s all right, little princess.” Brites’s reassuring smile became a harsh grimace as she shifted her gaze to the king. “Everything I did, I would do again because it was done to help the greatest treasure this country has. And if you hurt her, my king, you will wish you’d never been born.”
“Are you threatening me?” he hissed.
“Yes.” Brites turned to Yzabel, voice soft once aga
in. “Goodbye, little princess. Stay strong. Make us proud.”
Denis keeping her still, Yzabel could do nothing but watch her leave. Loss on top of loss, each one different, each one as final, each one leaving her with more questions than answers.
Yzabel’s jittery fingers grabbed onto her skirts, and she looked down, containing herself; interfering would only make it worse. Hatred welled inside her over her powerlessness in this situation, of how even though she’d dedicated her life to this marriage and this country, she could not save the people she cared about if the king wanted them gone.
To think they’d been laughing the night before, joking about offensive poetry.
Brites was at the door when Yzabel managed to wrench herself free, dashing across the carpet to envelop her in a hug. Brites’s strong arms snaked around her, brought her closer still, and in her ear, the words, “We’ll find a way out.”
Reprieve gurgled in Yzabel’s sobs, her tears rained on Brites’s shirt. The warmth of a kiss blossomed on her forehead, in a squeeze on her shoulder, then nowhere, leaving her adrift in a sea of sorrow and grief.
She spun around, anger grumbling in her throat, in her footsteps, in the accusing finger she pointed at her betrothed. “You had no right,” she said.
“We’re not done yet,” he countered. With Brites gone, his focus went to Fatyan. “If this one isn’t a novice, then who is she?”
A sharp intake of breath snorted on her clogged nose. While she coughed, Fatyan produced another kerchief from the nightstand, offered it to Yzabel as she spoke, even and without pause.
“Her Highness found me when she was out picking herbs.” Fatyan took a moment to wet her lips, and when Denis didn’t remark on anything, she resumed her fiction. “I’d been traveling with my father—he was a metalworker commissioned to do a job in the Algarves. We were on our way down there when bandits attacked us on the road, and Father…” A long, closed-eyed sigh. “Father distracted them so I could escape. I’d been running aimlessly for a day and a night when the princess found me, and when I told her of my plight, she was kind enough to offer me a place to stay.”
Denis pinched the bridge of his nose, shoulders sagging, mouth frowning. “Why wouldn’t you tell me, Yzabel?”
“Would you have let her stay if I’d told you?”
A pregnant pause. “No.” He sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress sinking along with his weight.
“Then please, don’t be angry.” She took his hand, hoping the contact would ease his grudge even as she glimpsed Fatyan’s nose wrinkling with abject distaste. “She had no one to turn to. I couldn’t abandon her.”
“I’m not upset you took in another stray; I’m mad you kept it from me!” The anger returned, not alone—there was hurt in there as well, genuine pain over broken trust. “I’m your betrothed, Yzabel. I care about your well-being, and all this time, I’ve been nothing but patient with you. Patience you reward with lies.” He tore his hand away from hers. “The one reason I don’t have your head lopped off is because I know you’re incapable of a single bad thought—but I am done letting you do as you please.” He stood, brought his heavy hands to Yzabel’s shoulders. “You are not to leave this room until we find who killed Vasco. For your own safety.”
She swallowed the impotence knotting in her throat. “You can’t keep me here.”
“I can, and I will. The Prelates of Terra da Moura are the only people who could be responsible for Vasco’s disappearance. And I don’t trust anyone in this village until we find out who exactly did it, so, yes. You will be staying here until then, and I’ll be coming here to check on you for every meal, starting with lunch today.”
Protests bubbled on her tongue, burst on the barrier of her clenched teeth. She couldn’t confess that Vasco had died trying to stop a magical ritual, couldn’t tell him that Dom Domingos had poisoned her guard’s mind to doubt her, and her blessing, beating quietly against her ribs.
When she said nothing, Denis whipped his head around to look at Faty. “And you’re to stay with Yzabel, meet her every need, and never leave her side unless I’m present. Keep watch over her while I cannot, and should she do anything against her well-being, you are to report to me immediately. Am I clear?”
Fatyan raised her head, touched the bruising skin of her jaw. “Like water.”
The door slammed shut. Without his smothering presence, the thin veneer of strength slipped from her body, and the torrent of agony snapped the strings holding her up. Yzabel crumbled, folded into Lucas’s awaiting support.
Her pain, her despair at being locked up, her grief over Vasco and Brites; it was small compared to Faty’s, who knew no one else in this present world, and had been grieving alone inside a stone for over a century. Faty, who wanted nothing but to be free and was now trapped in these chambers along with her. She was the one who was supposed to be crumpled and weeping, Yzabel the one to comfort her. Instead, it was the other way around, Faty wrapped around her, stroking her hair, holding her close. In her arms, Yzabel tried to put her broken heart back together, tried to cover the void left by Vasco’s death and Brites’s incarceration. It was like trying to reconstruct a shattered crystal glass, and no matter what she did, a part of it always ended up missing.
“I think,” a sob croaked in her throat, “I think Brites burned down the house knowing Denis would suspect the local prelates. So he’d think they’re the ones who killed Vasco. I…” She sniffed miserably. “I can’t let them take the blame for something that’s my fault.”
“It was doubt that spelled his end. Not you.” Fatyan tucked a stray curl behind Yzabel’s ear. “And if someone needs to be held accountable, let it be someone who’s already guilty of great wrongdoings.”
Yzabel closed her eyes, hating the relief that came with knowing she was safe from suspicion. Hating that she was glad they could use Vasco’s untimely death to condemn a guilty party of the wrong crime. Hating that it was no different than using her inability to eat to strong-arm Denis into letting her give more to charity.
“And we still haven’t checked your gift. Vasco interfered before the ritual finished, so I’m not sure…” Faty furrowed her brow and held Yzabel at an arm’s length as she studied the light beating on her chest.
“No, it worked.” The blessing lay where it belonged, next to Yzabel’s heart—and now that she understood it, it understood her as well. A flex of the right muscle, and the magic traveled to her shoulder, down her arm, to her hand, then back up again. An obstacle so insurmountable days ago now effortless to overcome.
“I should get us something to eat and practice with. The sahar might be answering now, but you still need to make food out of flowers. You still need to learn to reverse this.”
Cold kissed her back as Fatyan sat on her heels and made to stand, but Yzabel clutched at the other girl’s skirts, clinging to her presence, to her warmth.
“Yza…”
“Please don’t leave,” she pleaded, eyes cast upward. The dark of loneliness peeked in the shadows of the room, stitched her lips with the trembling thread of sorrow. Vasco and Brites had kept her moored in the storms of the world, and now that they were both gone, Faty was all Yzabel had left to keep her from asphyxiating on her own secrets.
Softness surrounded her hands, pried stiff fingers from fabric, and Yzabel thought Fatyan would drop them, tell her to cease being pathetic, to get herself together and look to the future instead of dwelling on miseries of the past.
But she did neither of those things. She sank back to Yzabel’s side and held her tighter still.
Chapter Fifteen
Burning Ash
It was lunchtime when her door opened again. Yzabel had thought Denis was exaggerating when he said he’d be there for every meal.
She should’ve known better than to doubt his word.
“Your food is here,” Denis announced, tone as serious and
as unamused as it’d been earlier. “Brought some for your beastly pet as well. You’re welcome.”
She was supposed to be grateful he was feeding her dog? Denis’s patronizing ways awakened a dark desire, something cold and ruthless and terrifying. She kissed Lucas’s snout and rolled out from under him as the guilt gave way to something else.
Denis was the reason she was trapped in a room, the reason Brites was no longer at her side. True, it was Matias who’d sold his own mother out, but it was Denis who’d dismissed Brites. Denis who wanted to keep her under lock and key. It was beneath her to seek vengeance. But she could have justice. And what bigger justice than to be healthy and feed Denis’s own nation with nothing but flowers?
The king made himself at home in her rooms, claiming one of the two seats at the table. Yzabel sat opposite him, and Fatyan came to her side, as maids often did when present for their masters’ meals. The Moura kept a hand to her stomach and an eye on the door, features sour. Although she could not see him, Yzabel had no doubt that Matias stood on the other side.
Near the food, Yzabel’s gift simmered below the surface, but the ritual had worked, and when Yzabel told it to bide its time, it listened. She ate without a glance at her betrothed or a word in his direction, made her bites slow and her chewing slower.
“How’s the assorda?” he asked.
“Salty.” Yzabel drank water from the glass. “Brites’s was much better.”
“Brites chose the consequences the moment she used her Caraju in public.”
“No. You chose them.” Before an angry retort could leave his mouth, she asked, “Is Fatyan also a prisoner here, or just me?”
He tossed Fatyan a pointed look, and without the morning’s fury veiling his perception, annoyance became attraction as he saw her for the first time. Jaw locked, Yzabel found one of Fatyan’s hands where it lay on the back of her chair, a protective instinct, bringing lines in Denis’s brow to a twitch. “Now it bothers you when I look at other women?”
A Curse of Roses Page 14