Her fingers locked on Faty’s silken hair, and Yzabel didn’t know what was happening inside her—only that it felt better than a great deal of things, pure bliss that kept building with the rhythm of Faty’s tongue and fingers. There was another one, now, and she hadn’t even noticed—she was calling for mercy, calling for God.
The tide of rapture washed over her, shattering her into hundreds of pieces, and she hadn’t even come down from the first wave when another came to drown her.
Faty held her close after, kissing her sweaty brow, her lips—she still tasted of cinnamon, but there was something sweeter on her tongue as well. Yzabel’s own taste, she acknowledged with wanton embarrassment.
“I love you,” Faty whispered.
“I love you, too,” Yzabel whispered back.
And, after Yzabel was done shivering from pleasure, she showed Fatyan how much.
Chapter twenty-Nine
The Miracle of Roses
The sun dawned to gray mist and cloudy skies, and Yzabel woke to the warmth of Faty’s arms around her, one hand brushing her hair. Though she longed to stay in bed all morning, there was a plan to set in motion.
“Last chance to run.” Faty’s voice came from above, still soft from sleep.
“That would never work.” Yzabel nuzzled her neck. “We’d be hunted for the rest of our lives. Matias would still be out there. And Aragon and Portugal would definitely go to war.”
“And your deepest wish has always been peace.” Fatyan laid a kiss on Yzabel’s forehead, then used a finger to tilt her face toward her and lay another on her lips.
Yzabel returned it, checking the contours of Faty’s face with her hand. “Thank you for staying.”
The smile she received was brighter than the sunrise, more beautiful than the sunset. “Thank you for letting me.” She released Yzabel and slipped out of bed. “Let’s go. We have work to do.”
Yzabel dressed in the clothes of a commoner and placed a spare royal outfit on a leather bag. “I’m ready.” Smoothing her skirts, she turned to Fatyan, who had already changed into one of Yzabel’s gowns, enraptured as she watched her features morph from one person to another. Fatyan’s prominent nose rose and widened, eyes became rounder, her hair curled and browned until she was no longer staring at Faty, but at herself. She would use Yzabel’s form to draw Yusef away, and then forgive him.
Or behead him.
Lucas paced around, whining in confusion as he sniffed their hands. Yzabel giggled when he licked hers, then knelt to pet him behind both ears. “Nothing can fool you, huh?” She hugged him and said, “But you’ll have to stay here with Faty, all right?”
The dog’s wet tongue slid across her cheek. With a final kiss on his snout, she said, “You are the best puppy I could have asked for.”
Adjusting the scarf on her head, Yzabel joined Faty by the window she’d used at night. “Are you sure you can handle Yusef by yourself?”
“You handle the Portuguese. I’ll take care of him.” Fatyan used one arm to draw Yzabel close, and in her ear, she whispered, “Be careful.”
Yzabel smiled as she traced Faty’s fine cheek. “You too,” she said, leaning in for another kiss. Then, cloak over her shoulders, she climbed out onto the lawn and took the cobbled streets to town. This early in the morning, the roads were filled with movement from peasants going to work and servants running errands for their masters. And without her bejeweled crespinettes or fine dresses or an escort, Yzabel mingled seamlessly with them, just another girl going to church for morning mass.
Head low so as not to invite stray eyes to linger, she pressed on, sticking close to groups when she could. Her biggest danger at present was in being recognized and brought back to the castle. Which, with Fatyan currently in Yzabel’s form, would lead to immediate catastrophe.
When she reached the São Francisco Church, it was already full of talk about São Martinho and the princess’s planned festivities for the entire town. The nuns were there, too, grouped by the sacristy’s door, beckoning with smiles for her to approach them.
“We’re to proceed with what you told us yesterday, then?” Zaida asked, fingers entwined over her stomach.
“You don’t have to come with me,” Yzabel assured. “All I need are the flowers. You don’t need to risk the possibility of bringing more wrath to the convent.”
“Pff. Nonsense.” Sister Edúlia made a shooing motion. “You’re one of us. We’ll stand with you.”
“And so will we.” Padre Augusto emerged from the sacristy’s door, black ferraiolo cloak billowing behind him along with several acolytes and priests. “We won’t let someone who uses the Holy Spirit for good be labeled a witch.”
A melancholic shroud lowered Yzabel’s face. So much pain and trouble that could’ve been avoided had she been honest, had she not hidden what she could do out of fear of judgment. It was fitting that she’d need to let everyone judge her if she was to walk away free.
“I mean this with the utmost respect and humility.” She bowed her head. “Thank you. All of you.”
Padre Augusto let her into the sacristy, where she changed into her royal outfit, a white cotton overgown and a kirtle as red as the roses that would give today’s miracle its name.
Outside the church, Yzabel ripped the scarf from her head, let her curls bounce in the wind as she adjusted the grip on her skirts, now heavy with flowers the nuns had gathered. Before she headed out, she sent one final prayer to the Lord, asking him to trust her, to please let this work.
Please, let the people believe in me. Please, let me save Brites. Please, help Faty forgive Yusef. Please, let Denis forgive me.
Then, with the entire convent behind her, she marched.
The earth squashed under the leather of her shoes, the air cold nails on her throat and lungs. Her movements were clumsy, and she frequently needed to shift her handle on the dress. Still, she did not stop until she reached the first house. On the other side of the brick wall, an infant cried through a mother’s lullaby—the Farinhas, Zaida told her, a family of nine who’d lost the patriarch to blood rot.
Yzabel knocked on the door. A young boy opened it, rubbing his snotty nose with the back of his one hand as he said, “Mamã! There’s a lady here.” He gave her another look from head to toe. “She looks rich.”
“Ai, Santa, give me patience,” came the mother’s tired voice along with a shuffle of feet. “And hurry on feeding the chickens and getting the eggs.”
The boy retreated into the home, the widow taking his place with a crying baby in her arms. “You look familiar…” Dona Farinha frowned as she held the child’s head to her shoulder, slightly bouncing him up and down.
“I’m the Princess of Aragon, future Queen of Portugal and the Algarves.” With a smile, Yzabel produced one loaf, handed it to the slack-jawed woman.
“You…you were the one leaving the bread at night.” One of her hands dropped to her side. “You’ve been feeding us.”
“Trying to.” The currents of magic traveled the river of her blood, filled her veins with light, and her heart with fulfillment as she turned another flower and gave her a second loaf. “And I’m sorry this is all I can give for now.”
A choked intake of breath. The widow set the bread on the table behind her, took four large steps, and embraced Yzabel. Between them, the baby stopped wailing.
“Thank you,” Dona Farinha said. “Thank you.”
Door by door, Yzabel delivered her bread, the sheer gratefulness of the people fogging her sight with tears of joy. When she ran out, one of the sisters would come forward, dump the contents of a bag into her skirts—flowers that Yzabel turned behind the folds of her clothes.
The crowd behind her swelled with each stop, people come to watch their princess take bread from her skirts, her supply seemingly endless. Terror chewed the inside of Yzabel’s stomach, fearing that they woul
d realize she was using her gift every step of the way and not solely in the one time she meant for them to see.
Her worries stayed unfounded as she came to the Church of Santiago, where she climbed the wide steps to the group of homeless sharing the communal fire, gave each of them bread before dumping more into the church’s offer basket.
Yzabel went back outside, resumed her trek up the road. A cold weight sunk her stomach, slowing her steps. Voices bent around the road, along with the clicking of horse’s hooves on the cobblestones, and a group of men made to file down the street.
Leading them was Denis, in heavy furs over a gold-embroidered surcoat with the Portuguese coat of arms. His eyes speared her with their intensity, lids falling to a squint as he tried to make out her face. Behind him, Dom Domingos and the rest of the king’s men looked on, as bewildered as their liege. A flurry of worry tightened around her throat. Her efforts could still take a wrong turn, and she could not count the Chancellor out yet. He might still get what he wanted—Brites dead, and a more malleable girl on the throne.
Yzabel’s first instinct was to turn back and run, but she caught herself before following through. She kept walking, shoulders straight, head held high as the men neared, then came to a halt a few feet away from her and her followers.
“Yzabel?” Denis’s astonished voice called.
She made herself become steel as he dismounted. Her left hand slipped discreetly into the folds of her skirts, the magic building in her chest, spreading through her arm and into her fingers. Denis came upon her in quick strides. Yzabel funneled more of her gift, felt it spread across the flowers—almost there, almost. They turned to bread and now, she had to make them into roses.
Fingers caught her left forearm and forced it out. The magic retreated into her, glowing in her hand, ready to jump to any target it could find. And the one target currently touching her was Denis, looming over her with a scowl lined with fury, a nose wrinkled in disgust, a mouth drawn in a growl.
Breath shivering and catching, Yzabel desperately tried to hold the magic back. “Let go of me,” she said, trying to yank herself free.
The people around them were stunned into silence. Denis’s grasp on her arm tightened; the gift inside her burned, begging to be released and defend its master from the threat before her. Pain crashed into her where Denis held her, and where she held herself back.
“What do you carry in your skirts?” he asked.
The question stilled the wind, the world, time itself.
The needle of fear sowed her lips shut with the thread of silence. She knew she must speak, but her tongue swelled and stuck to the roof of her mouth, and the magic, it was too hot, too much, her grip on it slipping and slipping. The vice of Denis’s fingers bruised her skin, unrelenting even when she tried to shake herself free.
But Yzabel was no longer the meek girl promised to him. She’d learned to embrace all the things that made her wholly herself, and she believed in the righteousness of her choices. Everything she’d done and everything she was came to a culmination in this moment, and she would not falter, would not doubt, would not relent.
From her lips, one worst burst.
“Roses.”
Confusion fluttered in his eyes. “Roses? This close to winter? With that bulk?”
Doors and windows opened, heads sticking out to spy on the commotion. Guards came to surround them, and Yzabel recognized some of the prelates among them, all of them perplexed.
“Yzabel, show me!”
A quick movement and he held her right arm as well. Yzabel yelped in pain, in desolation, for without her fingers to hold the fabric, the skirts fell open, revealing a glimpse of the bread she’d yet to turn.
Above her, the clouds parted, dousing her with sunshine. The force of the gift piled up inside her shivered, coiling tightly around her heart before breaking out of her every pore, swallowing the bread in bright magic.
Dozens of roses, red as blood, fell to the ground with murmurs of petals and stems.
Silence swelled in the streets. A drop of water fell from a roof, hitting the cobblestones. Yzabel’s heartbeat thrummed in her ears, but she kept her back straight, her chin defiantly tilted.
“It was you,” Denis muttered. “The bread, it was…you.”
So much hurt in his wide-open eyes, in the downturn of his lips, the look of a friend whose deep trust had been shredded into pieces. Yzabel’s chest cried in return, dejected over breaking Denis’s heart.
“A miracle,” Padre Augusto shouted from the crowd. “The princess has performed a miracle!”
“It’s not a miracle, it’s the Devil’s sorcery!” Dom Domingos bellowed. “Our princess has been possessed by dark forces and needs to be exorcised immediately!”
Yzabel held Denis’s unwavering stare with stony determination of her own. “I was just feeding them,” she said. “There never was any witch. There was only me.”
His eyes narrowed. “Then how did the roses appear?”
“A miracle,” she said. “The Lord’s hand, seeking to spare me from your anger.”
“She believes herself to be blessed by the Lord!” interjected an outraged Dom Domingos.
Denis held up a hand, silencing the other man. “Why did you lie to me? Again?”
“Because the people were starving and you wouldn’t let me give as much as I wanted to.”
His small nostrils flared, and he pursed his lips so tightly they disappeared into his scraggy beard. “Release Dona Brites from the dungeons and lock the princess in her stead.”
Yzabel didn’t protest or try to dissuade him. Escort around her, she marched to the castle with her chin held high, surrounded with whispering on all sides.
Her relationship with Denis might not survive another perceived betrayal on her part, but she was prepared to withstand that backlash. She might lose her future place as Queen of Portugal and the Algarves and the power that came with it—she might even lose her life, and have her death ruled sickness or suicide. She accepted that, too. Anything that happened to her from here on out was God’s will and His will alone.
So long as the populace stayed on her side, so long as they knew she’d done this for them, she would die with a full heart and no regrets.
Well, she had one. She didn’t want to leave Faty now that she’d found her.
Tears tried to surface. Yzabel disguised them with a cough.
More people came to the streets to see her escorted in shame, confusion thick in their hubbub of voices as she disappeared into the prison. She kept her expression deadpan when the smell of waste punched her in the nose, let her skirts drag along the dirty floor as she was led down the dank corridor.
The jailer opened Brites’s cell. “You’re free to go.”
“Told you this wouldn’t last. They—” Brites’s words fell away, replaced with a gasp. “Yzabel?”
She embraced Brites before anyone could stop her, and said, “I’m sorry. Zaida will explain,” before a rough hand pulled her away and shoved her forward.
Yzabel hit the stone floor with her knees, the impact rattling her to the bone.
When she looked back, the door had already been closed.
With nothing else to do, she lay in the cot and prayed.
…
As the hours passed, so did the voices beyond the inner castle walls.
“Free the Holy Princess!” they said, their cries rising to the skies, reaching her in this lonely cell. “Free her!”
Yzabel closed her eyes and basked in the people’s passion and determination, unwavering even when the rain returned, when the bells chimed two, three, four o’clock. The sun had set, and they screamed for her liberty still.
From her jailers came no sound, and that alone spoke enough. It was enough for her to assume Faty was safe, and Brites as well.
It was evening when she
heard footsteps in the corridor. Clutching at the pangs of hunger in her stomach, Yzabel went to the door, ear to the floor as she tried to spy whoever it was that stood on the other side.
She rolled back when the locks began to turn, frowning as the door opened. “The king will see you now,” said Grand Prior António. “You’ve drawn quite a mob, Your Highness.”
Yzabel followed him out. “Are you of their opinion?”
“My opinion doesn’t matter.” He scratched his thick mustache. “But it’s the first time I’ve seen so many band together for the sake of a future queen consort. That…should tell you enough.”
She threw a small smile his way. On their way across the patio between the dungeons and the keep, servants stopped to watch, whispering amongst themselves. The Captain-Mor took her past the great hall, down the stairs to the living quarters, stopping at Denis’s rooms.
“Good luck, Your Highness,” he said, holding the door open.
With a nod, Yzabel stepped inside her betrothed’s solar alight with candles. Elbows propped on the table, he regarded her with a controlled squint and tight lips. Neither moved until the lock clicked behind her.
Crossing his arms over his chest, Denis leaned back on his chair. His left eyelid twitched, as did the corner of his mouth, rage barely contained. “Is there no end to your lies, Yzabel?”
She folded her hands behind her back and swallowed her hammering heart. “I will not apologize for trying to help the citizens I’ll inherit from you.”
“I’m not talking about the bread.”
His nails dug on the leather arm of the chair. Yzabel shifted the anxiety in her jittery feet, locked her trembling fingers together, trying to figure out exactly which of her many secrets he meant.
By the window behind them, the curtains rustled. Yzabel didn’t look, didn’t dare move her gaze from Denis’s—
“He’s talking about her.” An all-too familiar voice said behind her.
The thumping of Yzabel’s heart filled her ears. A shiver ran through her shoulders and down her spine. Turning her head seemed to take forever, like she was a statue, stone grating against stone. There, half coated in candlelight, with remorse brimming in her eyes and sorrow trembling in her lips, stood Fatyan—with Yusef behind her, holding her at sword point.
A Curse of Roses Page 28