THE SHADOW CATS

RAE CARSON

Dedication

FOR HOLLY MCDOWELL,

FELLOW ADVENTURER AND AUTHOR, SISTER OF THE HEART

Prologue

I crouch hidden among the boulders, my body broken and bloodied. Below me, someone is about to murder my best friend, the one person who understands me.

If I act, I will likely lose my own life. If I don’t, I’ll lose so much more.

A chorus of aches and injuries scream at me to stop, but I creep forward. My fingers close on a rock, the only weapon at hand.

1

I despise open carriages, even in the finest weather or upon the smoothest road, and this journey offers neither. The air in the mountains is brisk with cold, as though spring is reluctant to visit here. The mule path we follow shows little evidence of human care; it’s ragged with rocks and roots and steep switchbacks. My rear aches from the constant jolting. It’s a wonder we haven’t lost a carriage wheel yet.

But during the last few days, we’ve passed through remote villages that no representative of the royal family has visited in more than a decade. And I find myself grateful for the one advantage an open carriage provides: it allows me to observe.

What I see fills me with dread.

People line the road as we pass. They are crusted with dirt and weathered by sun and wind, wearing clothes so ragged I would not dress my scullery maids in them. They clutch their children to their chests and watch our procession with curiosity, maybe a touch of misgiving. But as my carriage approaches, the heralds call out, “Her Royal Highness Juana-Alodia de Riqueza, Crown Princess of Orovalle!” And the curiosity I read in their faces turns to outright hostility.

Some kneel and bow their heads in proper supplication. But others stand stubbornly until my guards rest their hands meaningfully on their scabbards and bark the order to show respect.

I hold my head high and school my features into bland pleasantness. It’s the expression Lord Zito, my personal steward, says often causes him trouble, because he knows it means I’m hiding something.

And right now, what I don’t want the world to see is how angry I am with my father, the king. The situation is even worse than I feared. Papá has neglected this district dreadfully since the end of the last war with Invierne. Now the wealthiest here ignore the capital, preferring to trade with Joya d’Arena, the kingdom across the border, while the poorest flee into the jungle-choked Hinders to join the Perditos, bandits who steal whatever they can from whoever they find. It’s the perfect recipe for rebellion.

When I am queen, I will put a stop to it all. I will regain the loyalty and trust of our people. I will make this region strong again. And to do it, I will need the help of Paxón, the conde who rules this region.

Which is why, when we received an invitation to the wedding of Conde Paxón and a certain Lady Calla, I insisted to Papá that I be allowed to attend. Furthermore, I insisted on bringing wedding gifts fit for a royal ally—with well-armed soldiers to deliver them.

According to my informants, his bride-to-be is a lovely young woman with a wealthy father. But it would not matter to me if she were a crofter’s daughter. It’s past time for the conde to marry. He was a tremendous soldier in the last war. Afterward, he pursued hunting and drinking with the same ruthless tenacity—until he met his match in a giant boar who gored him. If it were up to me, I would knight the boar for putting an end to Paxón’s wild ways and making him look to his legacy. A conde with a family is a man with something to lose, and a man with something to lose is always more eager to stand behind the shield of a strong king. Or queen.

I intend to know his measure and show him mine before he becomes my vassal.

A ruckus from behind causes me to whirl in my seat, and my temper flares. My fifteen-year-old sister, Elisa, follows me in her own carriage, accompanied by her nurse, Lady Ximena. She always carries a bag full of pastries when she travels, and now she throws bits of bread to the scrawny children lining our rocky road.

Mothers urge them toward the carriage, knowing the guards will be reluctant to draw blades against them. Emboldened, the children slip through their formation and bang on the sides of the carriage, thrusting up dirty hands for more. A baguette drops onto the dusty earth. Three small boys scramble for it, pulling it to shreds.

My sister is delighted. She grins enormously and breaks her bread into pieces as fast as she can. I signal to Zito, but he already moves toward her carriage, barking orders. That’s the exact moment Elisa realizes her predicament, that her naive generosity has created a mob. The smile dies on her face as she recoils against her nurse.

My hand flies to my bodice where my dagger lies hidden. The guards shout at everyone to disperse, but one boy tries to climb inside the carriage. Lady Ximena shoves him back into the waiting arms of a guard. A woman shrieks—the boy’s mother?—as, finally, the guards draw their swords.

And just like that, the children slink away. Most melt into the leafless trees, until only a few remain to observe our procession from a cautious distance.

The horses pulling Elisa’s carriage swish their tails and toss their heads nervously, which makes it difficult for me to discern if she’s all right. I crane my neck, rising up from my seat.

Our eyes meet. She gazes at me sullenly, as if daring me to scold. Slowly, deliberately, I turn away from her and settle back onto my bench.

She’s wrong—I don’t want to scold her. Now that I know she’s unharmed, I want to smack her. Of all the stupid things to do.

Papá insisted she come along, that a wedding celebration would get her away from the musty books and rotting manuscripts she loves so much, give her a chance to see more of the kingdom. “She is your heir, after all,” he said. “Until you produce one of your own. She could use the experience of a diplomatic journey.”

But Elisa has shown as much interest in ruling as the team of horses pulling her carriage, and Papá is at a loss about what to do with her. No matter that she is God’s chosen, the first in a hundred years to bear his sacred stone. God nested it in her belly, like a berry shoved into a soft muffin, as a sign that she will one day perform an act of heroic service.

It’s laughable. And a little bit sad. People like the ones we’ve seen on this journey, who have been harried by poor harvests and enemy skirmishes, could use a hero. The servants mutter that maybe God picked the wrong sister.

These thoughts swim in my head as our procession continues, eating away at my heart and mind like deadly poison. I must get them under control. This state visit is the important thing, and I have to be at my best.

I search my entourage for Lord Zito, the man who taught me much of what I know about the conde and this region, for he has not returned to my side after leaving it to aid my sister. His horse is easily recognizable by the spear jutting from a guidon cup attached to his saddle, and I spy it off to the side in a plowed field. I watch, puzzled, as Zito dismounts and crouches in a furrow. He grabs a handful of soft dirt, crumbles it between his fingers, sniffs it, tastes it.

“Stop,” I tell my driver. The command echoes up and down the line. The stamp of boots ceases, and the wheels of the carriage creak to stillness.

“Lord Zito,” I call out. “Does mountain dirt taste better than dirt in the capital?”

But Zito does not smile. “What do you see here, Your Highness? Look around you.”

His voice is high-pitched and girlish. During the last war with Invierne, he was barely more than a boy when his service brought him an injury that left him a eunuch. But it also brought him the king’s favor, which resulted in his appointment as my steward. I haven’t had a nurse since Elisa was born. Papá knew by the time I could walk that I would be like a son to him, and only a personal steward would do.

I look around, trying to see what Zito sees. Though he is prone to these impromptu teaching moments, he has never been so graceless as to instruct me within hearing of my entire entourage. Whatever he has noticed must be very important indeed.

The fields are plowed but barren, with only a few sickly sprouts poking from the soil. The pastures are still brown from winter. On the terraced slopes that rise beyond, orchards that should be covered in blossoms show only stunted blooms. The trees covering the hills are a web of bony branches, yet to bud.

“Spring is a tardy guest to its mountain home,” I say.

“Spring does not arrive this late,” he says, and his words would not alarm me were it not for the deadly seriousness in his voice.

“A drought?” I say.

He straightens and brushes the dirt from his hands, then holds his palms out so I can see the muddy streaks. It is far from drought-dusty.

“The last time I saw fields like this, it was damage of my own doing,” he says. “I salted a village the Inviernos settled on our side of the mountains. But there is no taste of salt here.”

“So what is causing it?”

He shrugs, but I know it is not the casual gesture it appears. “We should discuss it later,” he says. Privately, he means.

My gaze sweeps the mountainsides again, and now the rocky outcrops and dense stands of naked trees seem ominous.

Zito remounts and gestures the column forward, commanding them toward Khelia Castle with all haste. I sit back on the bench, lost in thought. No wonder the people seem so desperate and distrustful. How long have their fields been bare? Perhaps they’ve been feeling the sting of the king’s neglect even more than I realized. And maybe open carriages, which provide access even to small children, were a bad idea after all.

2

WE have only a single league left to travel, but it takes hours over these poor roads. I’m so eager to reach Khelia and ask the conde about the blight on his land that I would abandon the carriages and supply wagons to ride ahead if I could. Alas, my sister fears horses and would rather cut off an arm than ride any distance.

We have not gone far when a great crack sounds. I twist in my seat and watch horrified as Elisa’s carriage tips dangerously and one of its wheels tumbles down the mountainside. Guards grab the carriage and strain to keep it from toppling after. A trunk slips its ties and slides off the luggage shelf to bounce down the rocky slope, spilling garments as it goes. I breathe relief when Elisa and Ximena scramble out of the carriage to safety.

The guards work quickly to divest the carriage of its remaining cargo and divvy it up among the packhorses. Still, it’s too long before we’re ready to proceed, and I want to scream with frustration over the delay.

I scoot over on my bench to make room, and Elisa and Ximena climb into my own carriage, which Zito surrounds with a thicket of guards. Most are devout followers of the path of God, and I saw how quick they were to defend her from a potential mob, how quick to grab her carriage and get her to safety. If danger comes to us both, I wonder, would they be more ready to protect their chosen one than their crown princess?

Elisa settles across from me and leans back against the thin cushions. Strands of hair have escaped her braid; they curl around her face, which is damp from sweat. Her plump cheeks are blotched red as apples. Ximena tirelessly fans Elisa with a browned palm leaf. After a while, the dry rustling is like an itch on my brain. I despair of ever being free of the sound.

“Will we be there soon, do you think?” Elisa says wearily.

“I asked Papá to loan us his winged carriage, but it was at the coach wright’s for repairs,” I answer.

“There’s no need to be mean,” Elisa says. “I’m not complaining.” She closes her eyes, turning her sweating face to take the best advantage of Ximena’s fanning. “This blight on the countryside worries me,” she adds. “If we get there early enough, I can spend some time praying for the conde and his bride before we are whisked away for formal appearances. I’ve tried to in the carriage, but it’s just too hot. My Godstone . . .” She opens her eyes and regards me steadily. “You know how it warms when I pray.”

She seems to have an endless supply of subtle and creative ways to remind me that even though I will be queen someday, she is God’s chosen one. The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them: “Oh, I know better than to expect you to do anything once we arrive. Just hurry off to pray or rest. Let me handle the business of representing Papá.”

Elisa flinches. Nurse Ximena gives me a sharp look.

I turn my head, guilt pricking my chest. Fury is like a monster inside me, the one thing in my life I’ve been unable to master. I send up a quick prayer of apology. I know you don’t listen to me the way you listen to my sister. But I’m sorry just the same. And then, because I am me and not my sister, I add: Of course if you would help me see the strength in her, or nudge her to be a little more useful, then I wouldn’t have to be sorry.

Very likely this is why my prayers are seldom answered.

When the castle finally comes into view—much later in the day than I had hoped—I stare in astonishment. Lord Zito’s descriptions have not prepared me for the sight.

Khelia rises on a huge spur of granite that overlooks the confluence of two rivers: the Hinder, which pours from the jungle-choked mountains to the south, and the Crowborn, a rocky spine twisting down from the Sierra Sangre that flows wet only three seasons out of the year. The castle walls come together in a point—like the prow of a ship cresting the green waves of the jungle canopy. Three towers rise up in a line behind it, like the ship’s mast stumps.

Elisa is as wide-eyed as I am. “According to legend,” she says, “Khelia was built thousands of years ago by a rich admiral around the wreck of his warship when a great sea dried up.”

That’s my sister. Fond of useless knowledge. “Just stories,” I reply. “Repeated by simple people to explain the castle’s unique profile.”

“Perhaps. But the foundations are ancient, much older than the walls. Some say the Inviernos built it. Even the name of the castle is thought to come from an Invierno word.”

I shrug. “The importance of Khelia is that it watches over a crossroads. To the east lies Invierne—”

“And to the south,” Elisa interrupts, “in the jungle of the Hinders, the Perditos crouch like vultures, ready to strip anyone or anything to the bone. The walls of Khelia, and the soldiers stationed here, guard Orovalle from these threats. I am not stupid, Alodia.”

Whisk, whisk, whisk. Ximena waves the fan, giving no indication that she witnesses yet another argument. She has become adept over the years at turning a deaf ear to them.

As the carriage winds up the long road to the peak, the castle wall looms over us, seemingly impregnable. It is lucky this castle stands guard on Orovalle’s behalf. I intend to make sure it continues to do so.

Papá, you have been foolish to neglect Paxón for so long.

Trumpets rend the sky with the first measures of the “Entrada Triunfal.” The carriage passes through a massive wooden gate into a tiled courtyard surrounded by high adobe walls. I brace myself for the inevitable thunder of cheering that always greets me on state visits.

But there is only silence.

The citizens of the castle fill the wide courtyard in neat little groups arranged by status and rank. Directly across from us, the conde and his bride-to-be stand with their stewards, servants, and extended families. Behind them are rows of craftsmen, draftsmen, farmers, and children—their faces scrubbed, wearing their finest clothes.

None of them seem happy to see us.

To our right stand two dozen knights wearing Paxón’s crest—a golden ship on an emerald green background. A hundred liveried soldiers stand behind them. To our left are a dozen armed guards wearing polished armor more in the style of Joya d’Arena, our neighbor beyond the Hinders. The small group of soldiers backing them is made up of battle-scarred veterans.

We are supposedly among allies. But I can’t help thinking that both the crown princess and the bearer of the Godstone are flanked and outnumbered.

“Elisa,” I say quietly, keeping my expression neutral. “I know you don’t feel well. You and Ximena should go to the chapel and pray. I’ll make excuses for you.” Pray that I have misread this situation.

“Don’t be afraid, dear sister,” Elisa says, and for a moment I imagine that she knows exactly what I am thinking. But no, she remains as blind to subtle—and not so subtle—social cues as ever. “I won’t embarrass you. Let’s go meet them.”

She hops down from the carriage and walks straight into the lion’s mouth.

3

THE moment my feet touch ground, everyone in the courtyard kneels. Zito holds out his arm to escort me, and together we move toward the conde in what I hope is a stately and dignified manner. With his other hand, Zito uses his spear like a cane, and the tap-tap echoes throughout the courtyard.

When we reach the conde and his lady, Zito waves back the herald and announces us himself. “Her Royal Highness Juana-Alodia de Riqueza, Crown Princess of Orovalle and the Jewel of the Golden Valley. Her Royal Highness Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza.”

I offer my ring, and the conde kisses it, showing neither eagerness nor reluctance. “Rise,” I say. The conde stands, and everyone with him.

I try to ignore the sounds of armor shifting, the quiet rattle of swords.

“Your Highness,” Zito says. “I present Conde Paxón, Castellan of Khelia, Guardian of Crowborn Crossing, and a First Knight of the Crown.”

The conde is a man of middle age, with pain lines on his face that belie his trim, active-looking figure. A brace imprisons his right leg, the one mauled by a boar. Even so, he noticeably leans to his left, keeping his full weight off it.

“Welcome, Your Highness,” Paxon says. “We are honored that you have come all this way to share in our celebration.”

“The honor is ours,” I reply. He smiles in response, but never have I seen a man who seemed less likely to celebrate. The lady beside him keeps her eyes lowered, but her face is red and blotched. From crying? “And this is?”

“This is Lady Calla de Isodel,” he says. He indicates the older couple standing behind her and adds, “And these are her parents, Lord Jorán and Lady Aña de Isodel.”

Even at a distance, Lord Jorán’s oiled beard reeks of myrrh; he must be very wealthy indeed. His wife is expertly coifed and lightly rouged, though she lowers her eyes and slumps her shoulders, impressively achieving a meek mildness that blurs her beauty.

“I was intrigued by the name Isodel when I saw it on the invitation,” I say. It’s not a place I’d heard of before, which was odd, as I’ve memorized my kingdom’s geography down to every last hillock. Before setting off on our journey, I found it necessary to look up references to Isodel in the monastery archive. I’m curious how the people will represent themselves to the crown. “Do tell me about it,” I say.

My question is directed at the young bride, for I wish to take her measure. But her father steps in front of her and says, “Your Highness, you have not heard of it because Isodel is like a flipped coin, falling sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other, according to chance—”

“Lady Calla?” I interrupt, and I’m not sure which irritates me more: his assumption that I would travel here in ignorance, or his refusal to let his daughter speak.

Lady Calla glances at her father, shamefaced, then back to me. It’s the first clear look I have of her face. She is lovely enough to make other young women insane with envy, but unlike that of her cowed mother, hers is not a sheltered beauty. Her face is tan from the sun, and laugh lines spread from the corners of her eyes, though no trace of a smile touches her features now.

“Isodel is a small holding in the Hinders,” she says at last. “Near the merchant road, surrounded by terraced orchards and herds of sheep. As my father said, sometimes it falls on one side of the border, sometimes on the other. Joya d’Arena currently claims our land, but King Alejandro has not sent his tax collectors our way in many years. That would not be so bad, but he has not sent his soldiers either, and Perditos threaten our trade.” She glances at her betrothed, and Conde Paxón gives her an encouraging nod. “Without a good marriage, it will not matter who claims Isodel—there will be nothing left.”

I’m delighted at her forthrightness and her concise appraisal. But her father glowers, and her mother coughs discreetly into her hand. I’m about to break the awkward silence with an inane observation about the weather when a door slams. An unkempt girl of about ten, sun darkened and wind burned, dashes across the courtyard toward us.

“Tía Calla, Tía Calla!” she cries. A young nursemaid pursues her, but when she sees me, she falls to her knees, muttering apologies.

Not so the girl, who runs to Calla’s side. Her knees are badly scuffed. Nettles cling to her hair and hems, and her slippers are caked with dried mud.

“Lupita!” Lady Calla says with a pointed look. “This is the royal princess Alodia. You must curtsy to her and say ‘Your Highness’ and wait until she bids you rise.”

I expect an ill-behaved protest, but the untidy girl shows extraordinary grace, curtsying swiftly and perfectly. “Your Highness,” she intones with grave seriousness, though mischief dances in her eyes.

“Rise, Lupita.”

She jumps up as swiftly as she knelt, and looks back and forth between Calla and Elisa. “Is she the one? Are you the one? Are you the bearer of the Godstone? Can I see it?”

There are a few nervous titterings, but Elisa addresses the child calmly. “A lady never shows such things in public.”

Lupita nods. “But have you come to save us?”

Elisa’s face freezes, and I squirm with embarrassment for her. The thought of my sister saving anyone is absurd, a fact of which she is too well aware.

I’m dying to ask what they need saving from, but Lord Zito steps forward and says, “Conde, the sun is setting. Perhaps it would be best to continue this conversation inside.”

4

ZITO, Elisa, Ximena, and I follow the conde and his mayordomo to the audience hall, which is dimly lit by grimy clerestory windows. The dry air smells faintly of incense. Dusty tables are scattered haphazardly throughout, covered with cold candles in various states of melt. It feels like a place that suffers human company rarely—a good place for secrets, perhaps.

Zito leans over and whispers, “You shamed Lady Calla’s father.”

“He shamed himself,” I whisper back. “But I don’t care about him. Unless he is the reason everyone seems so anxious? Or is it the blight on the land that has the castle on edge?”

“Maybe His Grace will tell us.”

“His Grace will tell you what?” We turn at the sound of the conde’s voice. He has edged closer to us, using his cane for support.

Zito says, “I observed that your father-in-law seems tense and unhappy, and Her Highness asked me why this might be.”

“It’s a complicated situation,” Paxón says.

The mayordomo leads us all to a mahogany table with matching chairs that creak their age as we sit.

Paxón asks the mayordomo to fetch refreshments. He stretches out his bad leg, then takes a deep breath and says, “This wedding was intended as a bold stroke, princess, a way of strengthening my countship’s border. With the Perditos to the south and the Inviernos to the east both growing audacious, I hoped to acquire a strong ally in the Hinders. I had also hoped . . .” His face turns sheepish. “That such a bold move would gain the attention and interest of your father. I want him to understand that we continue to take our duty of guarding Orovalle’s border quite seriously.”

A surge of triumph fills me, but I tamp it down. Such a gesture will require something in return from the crown, something to assure Paxón that he remains a valued vassal. One thing is certain: I will see this wedding done. It fits so neatly into my plans to shore up the region in preparation for my own reign.

The conde has fallen silent and thoughtful. “But?” I prompt.

“But . . . ever since Lady Calla and her family have arrived here, so that we might get to know one another before we wed, we have been cursed. We have lost God’s favor.”

I try not to gape at him. “Strong words. The Scriptura Sancta says, ‘It is not for man to know the intent of God.’” I glance over at Elisa to see if she notices my thinly veiled message, but if she does, she hides it well.

“And yet the signs are there,” the conde says. “We’ve plowed our fields and planted our seeds, but nothing sprouts. The trees refuse to blossom.”

Elisa leans forward. “Many things affect the arrival of God’s bounty,” she says. “Rain, cold, and so on.”

Paxón shakes his head. “We have been touched by neither late frost nor early drought. Indeed, the weather this year has been just short of perfect. But nothing grows. Almost everything that sustains this castle comes from within a league of its walls, but everything within a league is dead, save for the wild, uncultivated jungle that abuts our southern wall.”

“It does seem unnatural,” I concede.

Paxón winces at the word, but he does not deny it. “Lord Jorán has expressed doubts about going through with the wedding. He fears God’s wrath. Thus far Isodel remains untouched, but if it is some kind of blight, it is bound to spread. Besides that, all these extra guests have depleted our stores, which we expected to replenish with early crops. Fights have broken out between Lord Jorán’s soldiers and my own. And then . . .” He pauses, runs a hand through his hair.

I exchange a worried look with Zito. “And then?” I say.

“There is Espiritu,” he says.

“Espiritu?” Elisa asks. “What is that?”

“He appeared about a month ago,” Paxón says. “They call him Espiritu for the way he slips into sheep pens and chicken coops and melts away with his prey. He makes no sound, leaves no mark save for an occasional drop of blood or a scattering of feathers. But they hear him in the night, screaming at the moon in rage and heartbreak. Our soldiers have searched the hills for him, but they find only empty cottages, marked with signs of blood and violence.”

“A jaguar, maybe?” Elisa says. “Man-eaters are rare, but not unknown. There was a pair that worked together, terrorizing the northern holdings for several years before they were hunted down and killed.”

“How do you know about the shadow cats, Your Highness?” says Paxón, and I don’t appreciate the mockery in his tone. “Have you hunted them yourself?”

“I . . . I’ve read about them. I read a lot.”

“Then let me tell you some things that you will not find in books. Our seamstress was working just the other night, sewing a flounce onto Lady Calla’s wedding terno by candlelight. Espiritu screamed, sending shivers through her heart. When she awoke in the morning, she discovered the flounce’s seam had gone crooked, the stitches slipped, as if even the terno could not bear Espiritu’s jagged grief.”

“Well, perhaps she should not sew by candlelight,” Elisa says. But my skin prickles.

Paxón continues, undeterred. “And two nights ago, when the ostler was oiling the tack for my mount, the one I’ll ride in the wedding procession, the great cat screamed again and panicked the horses. It took half the night to soothe them. In the morning, the ostler discovered that rats had fouled the last of the oats and the barrel of apples had gone to rot.”

“How can the cry of a great cat do that?” Elisa says. “It is more likely caused by the same thing that poisoned your fields.”

I wince. Elisa possesses all the subtlety of a cudgel. “My dear sister,” I say. “Let us respect their wisdom in these matters. Perhaps Espiritu is the instrument of God’s judgment.”

Ximena lays a hand on Elisa’s arm, but my sister ignores her. “But what is being done here that God would wish to cast judgment on?” she says.

“The wedding, maybe?” says the conde. “Though why—”

The door cracks open, and Lady Calla and Lupita enter, followed by the little girl’s nurse, who is anxiously wringing her hands.

“Please join us, Lady Calla,” I say, indicating an empty chair.

Calla pushes the little girl ahead of her. She has donned a clean dress, and most of the wildness has been brushed from her hair, though she still wears the mud-covered slippers. I smile to think of the many times Zito or my attendants tried to clean me up in a hurry, only to discover later that they had missed a bit of bramble or a pair of slippers.

“We are sorry for interrupting you,” Calla says. “Guadalupe-Esteva, go on now. Apologize to the princess.”

I fold my hands in front of me, bemused. Maybe I will ask her to serve as my personal page while I am here.

She walks over to Elisa and drops into a curtsy.

“I’m very sorry that I asked you personal questions, Your Highness,” Lupita says. “It was . . .” She looks up at Lady Calla and gets a nod of encouragement. “It was disrespectful and inappropriate,” she finishes.

“You are forgiven,” Elisa tells her graciously, with no reprimand and no instruction.

Just like that. My jaw clenches. It is well and good to be so indulgent, to never demand recriminations or consequences, when one does not have to consider the responsibilities of ruling.

“Are you excited about the wedding?” Elisa asks the little girl.

“I was supposed to be a flower girl, but there are no flowers.”

“We’ll find some dried flowers for you to carry,” Calla says, resting her hand on the girl’s head.

“They aren’t the same,” Lupita says.

“No, they aren’t,” Elisa says, pulling something from the little girl’s hair. “Where did this nettle come from?”

“By the creek,” Lupita says.

“And I bet there were red flowers on those stems,” Elisa says. “Scarlet hedge nettle is so tough that nothing can stop it from blooming. I saw huge clumps of it on our way here.”

“It’s just a weed,” Lupita says.

“It’s a beautiful weed,” Elisa answers. “And the perfect flower for you to carry, for it is like the people of Khelia, strong and unstoppable, capable of blooming and thriving where nothing else can grow.”

I study my sister thoughtfully. I didn’t even notice the flowers she speaks of.

“You may gather some tomorrow,” Calla says. “Now it is time for bed.”

She gestures for the nurse to lead Lupita away. The girl practically bounces out the door, listing all the places she has seen scarlet hedge nettle.

“Thank you for your kindness to my niece,” Calla says, addressing both of us. “Her mother, my sister, died several years ago. Lupita has become very special to me.”

“To both of us,” Paxón says softly. The look they exchange is one of understanding and affection. Rulers rarely get to marry those they care for. There is certainly no love match in my future, and I am a bit envious of them. It leaves me feeling even more determined to see this wedding through.

The mayordomo returns with a tray of savory pastries: small puffs filled with diced mushrooms, cheese and chive scones, and tiny quiches with red pepper. Elisa downs a handful of the mushroom puffs before I’ve made my first selection, and I glance around, a bit embarrassed, but no one else seemed to notice.

We speak of small, safe topics for a while, such as last winter’s unusually low snowline, the growing price of lumber, and whether or not Ventierra wine is the finest in the world. I’m glad for the opportunity to ignore the tension around us and be merely pleasant together. As a child, I found such exchanges tedious and awful, but lately I’ve come to appreciate the power of a seemingly senseless conversation to establish trust and heal relationships. I’m about to ask how Paxón and Calla first met when Elisa rises from her chair.

“I’d like to spend some time praying tonight,” she says. “If you’ll all excuse me . . .” Everyone stands when she does, and I’m torn between frustration at her gracelessness and relief that she will soon be gone, leaving me to finesse everything without her interference.

I’m leaning forward to give her a formal kiss on the cheek when the cat screams.

It’s high-pitched and wild, like breaking glass and deepest anguish. My whole body turns to gooseflesh, and my heart kicks at my ribs like a panicked horse trying to break from its stall. I’m not the only one so affected. We all stand frozen for the span of several heartbeats.

Paxón is the first to collect himself, and his face is pale as a ghost’s as he says, “It came from the eastern garden. Inside the—”

A woman screams.

5

THE conde rushes us through the halls. We are joined in our dash by household staff and watch soldiers. Paxón shouts at everyone to move aside and let us pass.

The walled garden is perfectly square and small, not much larger than my private suite at home. In the center looms an enormous tree whose canopy shades the entire garden. It’s the kind of place where I would have played as a little girl, especially during the hottest days of summer, when Zito forbade me to absorb too much sunshine lest it darken my skin.

Tucked against the wall is a stone sculpture of a crouching jaguar. The flickering torchlight casts random shadows, making it seem as if the tail moves, as if the cat is ready to pounce. The sight sends another chill up my spine, even before I realize that the wet blotches on the head and paws are blood.

Lupita’s nurse is on her knees bawling, begging someone, anyone to help. She grasps a tiny muddy slipper in her left hand.

Calla looses a sob, and Paxón wraps her in his arms. A servant gestures wildly, explaining that he saw the shadow cat escaping as he rushed into the courtyard. A black-pelted demon, he says, that skimmed the wall with ghostly grace. Whispers of “Espiritu!” swirl around us.

“This makes no sense,” Elisa mutters. She stares at the blood, eyes glazed. “This is not how jaguars act.” My sister has never seen so much blood, so much violence. It must be even more of a shock to her than the rest of us. Before I realize what I’m doing, I lift an arm to drape around her shoulders. But she stiffens, and I let the arm drop.

The men are organized by their captains and prepare to search in the dark. Several of our own guards look to Zito, asking permission to join up, and he grants it. Paxón shouts that there will be a reward for anyone who returns Lupita to her aunt.

Lord Zito grasps my shoulder. “Are you all right, Highnesses?” he asks, looking into each of our faces.

“Nothing here is right,” I say, shaking my head. The pool of blood at the foot of the sculpture is smeared by footprints, the wall above it streaked with crimson. “So much blood,” I murmur.

“Too much,” he says. “I doubt the girl lives.”

My heart squeezes, and I realize that I had warmed to the girl—her brightness and energy—and hardly knew it. “The men must search for her anyway,” I say. “They need a purpose, something to do so they don’t fight with one another.”

“And there’s a chance, isn’t there, Zito?” Elisa asks in a small voice. “A slight chance that she still lives?”

He nods. “But we also need to think ahead,” he says gently. “It would be indelicate to bring it up now with the conde, but we must consider that Lady Calla’s father is unlikely to allow the wedding to proceed if the girl is not found.”

Zito and I exchange a grim look. As war with Invierne looms, Papá and I must do all we can to strengthen this, our weakest border. The wedding must go on. But I have no idea how.

6

I cannot sleep, not while the soldiers are out searching. I stand on the wall and watch their torches wink and flash as they wind through the hills. And I’m still awake long after midnight, when the last of the men returns empty-handed. The wedding is scheduled to take place the sunrise after this one, but based on the crying and arguing that rings through the castle late into the night, I am certain it will be canceled.

A sense of failure weighs on me. I need to do something.

While my servants sleep, I dress quietly in riding breeches and a stiff leather vest that is fitted to my body like a second skin. My calfskin boots won’t protect my feet as well as my riding boots, but they make it easier to step soundlessly. I don’t know yet exactly where I’m going or what I’m doing, but Lord Zito has trained me to be prepared.

My feet carry me to the place where Lupita disappeared. Someone is already in the garden when I arrive, someone whose profile I recognize even in the dark, long before I see the spear he leans upon.

“Lord Zito.”

He jumps as if I’ve startled him from deep thought. Bowing his head, he says, “Your Highness.”

“What brings you here?”

“I couldn’t sleep for thinking of the girl. Everyone is too shocked, too grieved. I’m trying to see this place with clearer eyes.”

“Explain.”

He gestures toward the sculpture. “For one thing, there’s too much blood. Jaguars kill by piercing the skulls of their prey, not by draining them of blood. And look here. See this second scrape of blood on the wall? Too far away from the first. Were there two cats? He couldn’t have carried the girl over the wall twice.”

That’s what Elisa was saying. She wasn’t shocked; she was thinking. “So you agree with my sister?”

“I do. And you would do well to heed her. She reads widely and wisely, and knows an uncanny amount about those things with which she has little personal experience.”

It is more praise for my sister than I am accustomed to hearing. “Reading can only take you so far, up to the moment where you must take action with your own hands.”

He nods, which makes me feel relieved, though I’m not sure why.

“Let’s do it, then,” I say. “You and I. Let’s take action.”

“We will. The cooks are already up preparing breakfast, and our guard will be ready to resume the search as soon as the sun is above the horizon.”

“And their noise will drive off the jaguar or send it into hiding so that we have no chance of finding it. We must look now, while the countryside is undisturbed.”

“Princesita,” he says. It’s a diminutive he uses only when pleading with me, as he did when my heart was broken the first—and last—time, and I climbed out a window to the edge of the roof to mourn in private. He thought I was going to jump.

“The jaguar will be drowsy,” I say. Because it has eaten its fill. Zito winces. “If we bring the cat back, destroy this thing that has everyone so terrified, they’ll see us as heroes. Saviors. We might even save this wedding. At the very least, we’ll demonstrate that the crown still cares about Paxón’s people.”

“Alodia, please,” he says.

“Are you coming with me?” I say. I climb onto the back of the stone jaguar, careful to avoid the drying blood, and it’s only a short reach to pull myself atop the wall. But the garden is built into a slope, and the drop on the other side is longer than I anticipated. I hesitate.

“Here,” he says, a bit angrily. “If you’re going out there by yourself, you’ll need a weapon.” He pulls a knife from his belt and tosses it up to me. I snatch it from the air.

He means to discourage me, but he has failed. I slip the blade into my own belt. “Thank you. I’ll see you when I return, then.”

I swing my legs over the wall, then my body, and hang by my fingertips. The drop between my boots and the ground is little more than the height of a man, but in the dark, it feels like a chasm.

“Alodia!” The whispered exclamation is accompanied by the soft thud of his staff and the sound of his boots on the sculpture.

It is all I need to hear. I let go.

My legs are too stiff when I hit the ground. The impact shivers up to my knees, which respond by buckling, and I plop gracelessly onto my rear.

Are you all right, Highness?”

“Come find me if I’m not back by the noon meal.”

He mutters something under his breath that I’m fairly certain is a string of swear words in several languages, and then says, “Move away from the wall. I’m coming down.”

I’m glad the dark hides my smile as I scramble out of his way. His spear drops first, clacking against the wall before it hits the ground. He follows a moment later, rolling upon impact, and comes up standing. I am impressed.

He brushes off his pants. “Your Highness, this is foolish beyond measure, even for you.”

I hand him his spear. My left ankle hurts a little when I shift my weight onto it, but I’ll never tell. “You said something does not add up, and I agree. Let’s trace the creature’s path, and see if we can find what has eluded us.”

One thing I have learned from many years of watching my father is that some people, the best ones, are motivated more by the chance to prove themselves than by a command to serve. It is the work itself that calls them onward, especially if they believe they are the only ones who can do it.

“Zito, you’re the smartest man I know. I need your help with this.”

His eyes narrow with suspicion, but even he is not immune to such persuasion. “Just a quick look,” he says.

I have won. Grinning, I turn and hike into the jungle, following the faint deer trail an animal might take if it landed on the ground at this spot.

“Let’s go this way,” he says as he catches up with me, but I see the direction he is pointing and will have none of it.

“That would take us down toward the river and the village. Jaguars are creatures that retreat upward, into the mountains, into the trees.”

His answering sigh makes me laugh. “It was worth a try.”

Hours later, I’m beginning to recognize this trek as foolhardiness. I hate giving up on anything, but we’ve seen no sign of the cat, and my ankle is swelling. I’m about to suggest we turn back when we come face-to-face with a steep slope of loose rock, marked by dark spots that might be caves or shadows or pockets of vegetation. The air is still—too still. No birds sing, even though the sun now edges the eastern horizon.

“A good hiding place for a shadow cat, wouldn’t you say?” I whisper.

“Maybe,” he answers, his voice wary.

“We should look for scat or prints, then report back to—”

The jaguar’s cry, right on top of us, freezes me to the bone. A black shadow separates from an overhead branch and leaps. Zito crashes to the ground.

7

ZITO rolls with the jaguar, striking it with his spear. “Run, Alodia!”

I spin. My ankle catches in a root, and I hear a great crack like splintering wood. I scream, falling to my knees. Through a haze of tears and a red curtain of pain, I see death leaping toward me. The jaguar has abandoned Zito to attack me.

I fumble for the knife. I pull it from my belt and yank off the sheath, which I fling at the jaguar with a cry of fury. It bats aside the piece of leather with a giant paw the way a man swats a harmless mosquito. It leaps, but I roll, and the snapping jaws barely miss my neck; the raking claws slide off my leather vest.

The cat lands behind me, and I barely have time to twist on the ground to face it before it is on me again, forcing the air from my lungs with the weight of its body.

I grab a fistful of fur and flesh at its throat and, with strength born of desperation, hold the jaws at bay just enough to avoid having my skull crushed. Its warm breath reeks of sour meat, and one fang is dark with rot. The cat snarls as it rolls its head, trying to pull loose from my grasp. Claws rake my shoulder, trailing white-hot pain.

But I do not let go, and I stab wildly at its face, over and over, until the knife slides into a yellow eye. The jaguar roars, wrenching its head, yanking the knife away. I grab for the hilt, trying to reclaim it, but the massive cat collapses on top of me.

I pound at the animal with my fists. Seconds or minutes pass until I realize the creature is limp and dead. I manage to shift a little, just enough to fill my chest with air. A sob of joy at deliverance wracks my body.

After collecting my breath, I try to shove the cat aside, but I can’t. I start to leverage my way out, but I scream the moment my ankle pushes against the ground.

My tears dissolve into laughter. I have killed the jaguar, but it may yet kill me.

A shadow passes over me. Then, a grunt. The cat is flung aside.

“Zito!”

“Alodia! Are you—?”

He crouches beside me and peers toward my wounded shoulder. It’s probably bleeding badly. I hardly care. “Zito, I thought you were . . .” I can’t even say it.

“You were its target,” he says. “It saw you limping and pegged you as easy prey.” I wince as he pushes back my sleeve to get a better look. “Poor creature—it had no idea who it was tangling with.”

“We have to cut open the cat’s stomach,” I say. “We have to find out if it . . .”

He nods, wrenches his knife from the cat’s head, and expertly slits open its belly. Organs spill out, steaming and stinking. He grabs the white-pink stomach and slices it open. The contents ooze out, like stew from a cracked bowl. I don’t know what I expect to see—the girl’s body, her face, her other muddied shoe—but none of it is there.

Zito pokes through the mess with the knife. “This hunter has not been eating well. I see a feather. Small rodent bones.”

“Then whose blood was in the garden?”

He shrugs for an answer, shifts to the other side of the creature, and stares at its hindquarters. A faint rosette pattern is barely visible in its matted black fur. “There’s an arrow deep in its haunch,” Zito says. “It was the hunted, not the hunter. Maybe it leaped into the garden to escape. The blood smears were the jaguar’s, not the girl’s.” After a pause, he adds, “You were lucky, Alodia. If the cat had not been injured and starving, you may not have been able to handle it.”

It’s getting harder to think as the fear and fury of battle dissipate, leaving only agonizing pain in their place. “That doesn’t make sense,” I manage. “If anyone in the village shot it, they would have raised the alarm.”

I don’t like the look that passes across Zito’s face.

He thrusts the knife into the cat’s flank, digging and prying. Blood oozes slowly now that the cat is dead, disappearing into the thick black fur and leaving a sticky sheen. A moment later, Zito pulls out an arrowhead. A string of muscle sways from the serrated edge. The shaft has been chewed off.

“Zito?”

“This is an Invierno arrowhead,” he whispers, and his eyes lift and scan the surrounding area. “That would explain what drove the jaguar out of the mountains. And perhaps more than that. We need to get back to Khelia Castle immediately.”

But it’s too late. Speak of evil, and you summon it. Voices filter through the jungle.

“It came from over there,” comes a clipped voice.

“The cat is long gone by now,” says another.

“The whole castle was out looking for it last night. They’ll come again. We need to find that arrow before they do.”

Zito and I must escape. But I’m in no condition to go anywhere.

8

ZITO slips his arm under mine and pulls me up. “Pray there is a cave or shelter among those rocks,” he whispers. He places the hilt of the knife in my mouth. “Bite down. Do not cry out.”

The taste of jaguar blood makes me choke, but I swallow the bile as it rises. Zito leans on his spear, dragging me along as fast as he can manage.

The trees conceal us, but my foot dangles uselessly. It snags on a root, sending us both sprawling. The knife cuts my cheek as I slam the hard earth, but I do not cry out. I will not cry out.

A startled exclamation filters through the trees as the bandits find the dead jaguar.

Zito lifts me again, sees the blood on my face, and slides the knife into his belt. We limp onward, with barely two good legs between us. My head throbs. I hear him talking to me, as if from far away.

“This is well concealed,” he says. “Hard to reach, hard to find.”

He drags me forward, and the world goes black. My next sense is that we are halfway up a sloping wall of rock and scrub. Zito no longer carries his spear. One arm is wrapped around me; the other pulls both of us upward.

I hate this. I hate the fear. I hate that I must be helped.

Darkness looms. At first I take it for a shadow, but my hazing vision clears to reveal a small cave, just large enough for me to crawl inside.

“You go first,” I say. “Pull me in.”

“Shhh,” he whispers, gently easing me sideways into the narrow opening. “Hide here. I’ll run back to the castle and bring help.”

I grab his arm. “I’ll go with you.”

“No.” He hands me the knife, hilt first.

“You’ll need it if they catch up to you!”

We hear voices in the distance.

“I must run,” he says, pulling the knife back with reluctance. “Stay quiet. Stay alive. I’ll be back.”

And just like that, he slips away. Tears well up in my eyes. I tell myself it’s from the pain. That’s the first thing I must do, then. Bind my ankle. Immobilize it and stop the swelling.

I scoot farther back into the cave, where the higher ceiling allows me to sit upright. The sun is above the horizon now. Enough light filters in that I can see my ankle.

It would be better if I could not. It is purple and swollen, and my foot turns at an odd angle. It’s not broken—it’s dislocated.

I’ve dislocated fingers several times. There is nothing to do but yank them back into place and bind them up until they heal. Surely the principle is the same with an ankle. The good news is that the pain will be much diminished once I accomplish it. It might even support my weight, should it come to that. I unlace my boots, then brace my foot against the wall. I lean over and press my fingertips into the swollen skin, looking for the right grip. Red spots dance in my vision.

I take three deep breaths and shove my ankle into place. Bone scrapes bone. The cave darkens.

When I come to, I am dizzy and my vision is blurry, so it is a full second before I realize the shadow leaning over me is a person. I prepare to strike, hard and fast, when a small hand covers my mouth.

A girl’s hand. Lupita’s hand.

“Your Highness,” she whispers, her voice trembling.

“Lupita!” I grab her and hug her tight. “How did you—?”

“I’m sorry! I just wanted to find the scarlet hedge nettle. For the flowers—”

“I remember. You’ve been here all night?”

She buries her head in my chest. I stroke her hair.

“What happened, Lupita? Tell me. But do it quietly.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” She swallows hard. “I was going to look for flowers, climbing over the wall. And then . . . and then I heard . . .”

“Espiritu.”

She nods.

“We have killed him, Lupita. He’ll never hurt anyone again.”

“He leaped onto the wall, and I was so scared. I jumped down and started to run. Then there were men in the woods. Perditos. I didn’t know where I was going. I just ran and ran until I came here.”

I marvel that this small child made the same drop that injured my ankle. “It’s all right. Do you remember Lord Zito?”

“The man with the funny voice?”

“He’s the one who brought me here. He is running back to the castle for help.”

“I hope he is a very fast runner,” she says. She gestures for me to come see, and I drag myself toward the opening.

The rising sun has revealed a small meadow between the cliffs and the jungle below. It holds a camp—the remains of a fire and some scattered supplies.

“They hid here last night, when the soldiers were searching. I wanted to sneak past them, but—”

“You were smart not to try. But no one is down there now.”

She gasps and melts back into the shadow of the cave.

Men with faces painted black emerge from the trees. Bones from their anklets rattle as they walk. They wear clothes hacked from poorly tanned hides, and their hair hangs in clumps. Perditos.

But they are not alone.

A tall, thin man with long white hair and a supple cloak accompanies the bandits. The staff he carries bears a glowing jewel in an iron cage at its tip.

An Invierno. Not just an Invierno, but an animagus, one of their powerful sorcerers.

Behind him come two more Perditos, dragging someone else, and my heart is in my throat even before my mind makes sense of the scene.

They have captured my steward. He hangs limp between them, and blood drips from a gash on his forehead. Oh, Zito.

No rescue is forthcoming. It will be up to me to save us all.

9

“LUPITA, you must help me,” I say. “I need you to bind up my ankle as tight as possible.”

“How?” she whispers.

I start untying the stays on either side of my stiff leather vest. “With this. Here, help me get it off.”

Her fingers are more nimble than mine, and her hands shake less. In a few moments, we have it off and the two pieces separated. The front piece is shaped oddly, the rawhide sculpted to my curves, but it has a little more flexibility than the back.

Outside, the Perditos argue loudly. I feel a desperate need to hurry, even if I don’t know my next step.

“Now the sleeves of my shirt,” I say. They are also held on with laces. I wince when Lupita’s efforts scrape at my injured shoulder and breathe relief when she’s done pulling the sleeves off my arms. I tie them together and wrap them crosswise around my ankle. I need three times their length, but it will have to do.

I grab the front half of my vest. “We need to roll this up. Leather armor is not very flexible, so you’ll have to press hard.” I show her what I mean and hand it to her. “We’ll wrap it around my lower leg, as low as we can and as tight as we can, and then we’ll tie it in place. Can you do that?”

“Yes—”

A scream of anguish echoes from below. Lupita’s gaze darts outside; then she twitches toward the deeper part of the cave. She is confused, frightened, ready to go in every direction at once.

“Right here, stay with me, Lupita. I need you to be strong for me. Are you ready?”

Telling someone else to be strong is exactly what I need. When she nods, courage fills my own chest.

I unroll the vest just enough to slip it over my ankle, stifling a groan of pain. I take a deep breath. “Ready, Lupita? Make it as tight as you can. Don’t be afraid to hurt me.”

She presses down on the vest piece, rolling as she goes. “Harder,” I tell her between gritted teeth. “Tighter.”

When it’s as tight as I can bear, I wrap the laces from my vest around it and knot them. I test the brace by pressing my foot against the cave wall. The pain is not nearly as bad as when the ankle was flopping uselessly.

The brace will do little to support it, but I hope it will shore up the exhausted muscles and tendons holding it in place. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to walk on it a little.

Lupita and I crawl back to the lip of the cave and peek outside, careful to keep our faces in the shadows. I wish we had not.

I cover the girl’s mouth, but only to keep myself from screaming. Zito is on his knees, his arms bound behind him. One man holds him by the hair. Another places an arrow, its iron tip glowing red, against his blistering, blackening cheek. A bloody hole in his face marks the spot where Zito’s right eye used to be.

The Perdito shifts the arrow tip to beneath his remaining eye.

“Who was with you, and where have they gone?” the Perdito says.

“It was the queen of Orovalle,” Zito answers, laughing. “And she is a hawk, soaring above all of you.”

The bandit presses the glowing arrowhead into Zito’s cheek, and blood runs down his chin as he screams. Tears stream down my face.

“Look away, Lupita,” I say. Her eyes are wide, and her shoulders shake. I turn her head against my chest and pull her close, then bury my face in her hair. “You should not see this.”

“She is a horse no man can catch, galloping across the desert,” Zito says. “She is—” He screams again.

“Pack everything up, we move out now,” the Perdito says.

“Cut his throat,” comes the animagus’ slippery voice, and his preternatural calm is more chilling than all the rage in the world.

“Do it yourself, Chato,” the Perdito leader answers. “Use him to work your blood magic. But someone was with him, so I suggest you make quick work of it before Paxón’s men hunt us down.”

I dare to peek from the cave’s entrance. The Perdito gestures to the others to leave.

The animagus hisses, catlike, and the sound is so wild and inhuman that I shrink against the rock wall at my back. “The leash holding back the spring must be renewed daily,” he says. “All our work is wasted if we leave now. The land will heal itself quickly.”

“And all our work is wasted if we’re dead,” the Perdito says. Then he and his men melt into the jungle, opposite the direction of Khelia Castle.

The animagus glares after them a moment, then prods Zito with the end of his staff. My steward groans and twitches, and relief fills me.

I scramble backward, dragging Lupita with me. “Are you sneaky?” I whisper. “Are you fast?”

“Yes,” she answers uncertainly.

“Espiritu is dead, and the bad men have gone away, all but that one. We cannot let him escape. I need you to run back to the castle and tell everyone.”

She shakes her head. I understand her fear, but she must do this. I reach for her arm and give what I hope is a reassuring squeeze.

“You can sneak down on the shadowed side, hiding between the rocks. And then you must race back to the castle and tell your tía Calla everything.”

“I’m scared.”

“Of course you are. So am I. And Lady Calla is scared for you too. And your grandmother and grandfather. But I cannot run back to the castle, not with my ankle. You’re the only one who can do this. You must save your aunt by warning her about the Perditos.”

I should hate myself for manipulating her this way, but I don’t. I watch carefully as the fear on her face transmutes into something else. It’s that same steely look Elisa gets when I’m about to scold her.

Not sullenness, I understand suddenly. Bravery.

Together we crawl to the lip of the cave. Zito sits in the center of the meadow, curled up on himself, panting. Around him, the animagus traces lines in the earth with the glowing end of his staff, a task that requires all his focus. I nod at Lupita and push her out of the cave. She freezes for just an instant, then turns and slips over the boulders as quietly as the moonrise.

I watch her go, ready to leap out after her if the animagus notices her, but she disappears into the jungle. I exhale relief, but it is short-lived. The animagus circles Zito as if in a trance, chanting as he drags his staff through the lines he drew, over and over again. They begin to glow with bluish light, and I feel sickness rise like a miasma from the earth. When it is done, I will have lost my chance to save my steward, however small it might be. My heart kicks in my chest.

I ease out from the cave and crouch among the boulders. My fingers close on a rock, the only weapon at hand. My ankle screams at me to stop, but I creep forward over the rocks as quickly and as quietly as I can. Gravel clatters down the slope. Surely he will hear. Surely he will look up.

I am not quick enough. The chant slows. The light in the animagus’ staff blinks out. The glowing lines fade.

I’ve reached the meadow, but I’m too far away as he puts the knife to Zito’s throat. I burst into a sprint, every stride an arrow of torment up my leg. But I will not falter. I will not fail.

The animagus whirls, eyes wide. He raises both staff and knife to defend himself.

I scream like the jaguar, raw and anguished, like a predator that will not be denied, and he freezes for the merest instance.

I leap and smash the rock across his head.

He falls, and I fall on top of him. I pound his head, feeling the bones crack underneath, until red and gray splash with each blow. I toss the bloody rock away, and grab the staff from his still-tight grip. I snap it across my knee, and throw the pieces into the underbrush.

Gasping, I hold my hands up to the light, shocked at the torrent of violence that flowed so easily from them. My knuckles bleed, and my right palm is scraped raw. I look down at the animagus’ broken form, sickened at the mess I have made. And I watch, half in terror, half in relief, as his body shrivels before my eyes, like a piece of fruit left too long in the sun.

All the sickness and decay that flowed out of his ritual moments ago rushes back like a tide, flowing over and around me, until I am swimming in it. I fall to my hands and knees and vomit long past the time my stomach is empty.

The sickness fades, like mist dissipating in the warming sun, leaving the scents of rich soil and moist bark and morning glory blooms. They are good scents. Clean scents.

“Zito,” I say, crawling toward him because I cannot stand. “Zito.”

“Alodia! What happened?” He turns his face to me, but the angle is not quite right, like he’s looking at someone behind me.

I reach for his tied wrists. “Stop moving so I can untie you.”

“Alodia,” he whispers. “Just let me die.”

“We’re going back to the castle.” His bonds are soaked in blood. My fingers fumble as I work the slimy knots.

“Without my eyes, what am I? Even less of a man than I was before.”

I want to slap sense into him, but I am done hitting things today. Tears roll from my eyes. “Idiot. None of my guards are half the man you are. I can’t make it without you.”

“Alodia—”

“Shut up.” My hands are shaking hard, but I finally untie the knots that bind his hands. “You’re my best friend, Zito, and I need you.”

“You don’t need anyone,” he says, rubbing his wrists.

“I need you,” I repeat, wiping my nose on my bare arm. But such a declaration is too raw for me, no matter how true, so I add, “I can’t walk on my own. I need you to lean on. Once we get back to the castle, you can crawl off and die.” I find his spear on the ground and thrust it toward him. “So stop whining and get on your damn feet.”

I can’t tell if he’s laughing or choking, and I don’t care. He leverages himself up, then runs his hands along the length of his spear, as if getting to know it all over again.

He holds out his arm. “I can’t see the way, Alodia,” he says. “I suppose we need each other right now.”

Half a dozen inappropriate replies jump to the tip of my tongue, but I keep my mouth firmly closed. We link arms and hobble back the way we came.

10

WE are nearly to the castle when something rustles through the underbrush ahead. I hear footsteps, and I’m about to yank Zito into a hollow of ferns when I also hear the creak of armor. The Perditos don’t wear armor.

“Lupita?” I whisper.

Figures barrel down the deer path—four of my guards, Lupita, Nurse Ximena, and to my absolute shock, my little sister. Elisa’s hair is full of dirt and leaves, her cheeks are flushed, and the hem of her gown is thick with mud, but she plows forward, her face set stubbornly. She holds a knife in her hand. A kitchen knife, I note with no small amount of amusement. What she thinks she’ll do with it, I’ve no idea. When she sees me, her features melt into relief.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, and it comes out sharper than I intend.

It stops her cold. “I . . . well . . . I heard you leave last night. But then you didn’t come back, and Zito was gone too. . . . And the cat screamed, so I fetched the guards, and then we found Lupita, and . . .” Something in my face makes her pause, and her own features harden in response. “I was worried for Zito. I know you can take care of yourself.”

Lupita weaves through the guards toward me, then wraps my legs in a great hug, squeezing tight. I pat her head absently. “But why are you here? Why not send Khelia’s guards?” How could she risk herself like this? She’s the farthest thing from a warrior I’ve ever known. Of all the stupid . . . My anger dissolves. No, my sister has never been stupid.

“You left in secret,” she whispers, fully cowed. “So, I knew you had a plan. You always have a plan. And I knew you would be so irritated with me if I spoiled it by telling everyone.”

I stare at her, dismayed, because she is exactly right. “Elisa, I’m s—”

Zito places a silencing hand on my shoulder, probably thinking I’m about to scold her as usual. “Thank you for coming, Highness,” he says. “And for bringing aid. It was quick thinking and brave.”

Elisa gasps, as if seeing him for the first time. “Oh, my God,” she says.

If she is just now noticing the blood dripping from his ruined eyes and the burn marks on his cheeks, then her only thought when undertaking this ridiculous rescue was for me. She truly thought she was rescuing me.

“We need to get Zito to the castle,” I say, and my voice is gentler with her than it has been in a long time. “I’m worried about infection.”

“Of course,” she says. And my weak, lazy, selfish sister clamps the silly kitchen knife between her teeth, hitches up her sleeves, and lodges herself under Zito’s other arm. “Big rock just ahead, Zito,” she says. “You’ll have to step high.”

A guard takes my spot beneath Zito’s other arm, and I follow behind, aided by Lupita. As we shuffle back to the castle in the least royal, most awkward procession of my life, I stare at my sister’s back. By not involving Khelia’s or Isodel’s soldiers, she has salvaged my plan.

Espiritu is dead. The blight on the land will fade soon enough. And no one will be able to deny that it was the crown princess and her people who made it happen.

11

THE wedding is delayed for two weeks to give Zito and me some time to recover. Within days, the land begins to bloom again, like new growth forest after a cleansing fire. People call it a miracle.

I do not correct them. I haven’t decided what to do with my knowledge that the Perditos have allied with Invierne, that magic was used to sicken our land. I say only that Zito and I rescued each other from bandits, that we killed Espiritu and scattered the Perditos. I order my guards to spread the idea that maybe the Perditos were the ones causing God’s wrath, that the land heals itself because we chased them away.

When Conde Paxón presents Zito with a new spear—sturdier than his old one and carved with swirling jungle vines—I remember the animagus’ broken staff. I’m sure Father Donatzine at the Monastery-at-Amalur would love to study such a talisman. If nothing else, the jewel on the end of it might be of value. But my ankle is too fragile to retrieve it myself, and I’m not sure who to send in my place without raising questions I’m unwilling to answer. I decide to let it go. The jungle will claim it soon enough, with creepers and detritus and thick ferns. It will never be found.

In the days leading to the wedding, Conde Paxón and Lord Jorán share hunting escapades and late-night dessert wines like they’ve been friends for decades. Soldiers from Khelia and Isodel cheerfully practice together in the yard. Lord Jorán even pulls me aside one day and expresses a sincere hope that Isodel will once again come into the fold of Orovalle, that he is prepared to swear himself as my vassal.

Papá will be proud of everything I have accomplished here.

But Zito says nothing. He refuses to talk about what happened, even to me.

The day of the wedding dawns more beautiful than anyone anticipated. Lady Calla is a lovely bride, and Conde Paxón an endearingly nervous mess. After the ceremony, Zito and I are seated on a dais apart from the others, because of our injuries and my station. He wears a red cloth over his eyes, tied at the back of his head. He leans into his new spear, his ear turned to the sounds of celebration.

“Describe everything to me,” he says.

Hope sparks inside me at the genuine interest in his voice. Maybe he’s not going to sneak away to die on me after all. I swallow hard and say flippantly, “Oh, it’s a typical wedding. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. The father of the bride has had too much to drink and dances like an old bear. The groom’s men and the bride’s maids flirt shamelessly with one another, knowing that on this day, they’ll be forgiven anything. The servants linger at the buffet table, sneaking their lord’s food while he pretends not to notice.”

“And the groom and bride?”

“He is an old, crippled soldier, past his prime, and she is young and beautiful.”

Zito’s face freezes. After an awkward silence, I hastily add, “They look deliriously happy. It is a marriage of great affection, maybe even love. Still, I give it a fortnight before they are as glum as any married couple.”

He doesn’t even crack a smile. “And Elisa? How is your sister?”

“She and Lupita are inseparable. I’ve offered to foster Lupita, you know, when she is old enough. Lady Calla had raptures when I made the suggestion. It’s funny—Lupita could have any flowers she wants now that they are blooming, but she chose the scarlet hedge nettle. It looks awful.” And wonderful. It really is a good symbol for the people here. Softly, I add, “I have been thinking about Elisa.”

Zito says nothing, but he turns his blind face to me.

In a queer twist of fate, my sister is a hero now. The speculation I fed to the guards evolved during the last two weeks. Someone must have wondered if Elisa used the power of her Godstone to chase away the Perditos and heal the land. It’s been such a popular notion that none of her protestations can convince them otherwise.

I smile to myself. Elisa will forever have the acclaim for something that Zito and I did. And for some reason, I don’t mind at all.

“Thinking what?” Zito prods at last.

“Papá has considered giving Elisa away to one of our lesser but wealthy lords to refill our coffers. But maybe she belongs with someone in a position of power. She . . .” For some reason, it’s hard to say. But this is Zito. I can say anything to him. “She has potential, Zito. She will act when forced. And when she sets her mind to something . . . Well, getting her away and on her own might be just what she needs.”

His features shift slightly, but without his eyes to measure his mood, I’m not sure what it means. I suppose I must get to know my steward all over again. If he stays with me long enough.

“I’m glad you’ve come to see some worth in her,” he says at last. “The two of you, working together, would be a pair to be reckoned with.”

He might be right, but I shrug my usual dismissal—a gesture that I realize, belatedly, is wasted on him. So it is his blindness that forces me to say, for once, what is in my heart. “I am willing to work toward that end, Zito, if you promise me that you will be here for it.”

And it is like the sun breaking through the clouds to see my friend’s lips lift into a tiny smile. “I promise.”

Once a century, one person is chosen for greatness.

Elisa’s quest begins in

THE GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS.

She does not know what awaits her at the enemy’s gate.

Her epic adventure continues in the sequel,

THE CROWN OF EMBERS.

Read on for a taste of each book!

THE GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS

RAE CARSON

1

PRAYER candles flicker in my bedroom. The Scriptura Sancta lies discarded, pages crumpled, on my bed. Bruises mark my knees from kneeling on the tiles, and the Godstone in my navel throbs. I have been praying—no, begging—that King Alejandro de Vega, my future husband, will be ugly and old and fat.

Today is the day of my wedding. It is also my sixteenth birthday.

I usually avoid mirrors, but the day is momentous enough that I risk a look. I can’t see very well; the lead glass ripples, my head aches, and I am dizzy from hunger. But even blurred, the wedding terno is beautiful, made of silk like water with tiny glass beads that shimmer when I move. Embroidered roses circle the hem and the flared cuffs of my sleeves. It’s a masterpiece, given its rushed stitching.

But I know the terno’s beauty will be much diminished when buttoned.

I sigh and motion for help. Nurse Ximena and Lady Aneaxi creep toward me, armed with button hooks and apologetic smiles.

“Take a deep breath, my sky,” Ximena instructs. “Now let it out. All of it, love.”

I push air from my lungs, push and push until my head swims. The ladies jerk and loop with their flashing hooks; the gown tightens. The bodice in the mirror puckers. It digs into my skin just above my hips. A jagged pain shoots up my side, like the stitch I get walking up the stairs.

“Almost there, Elisa,” Aneaxi assures, but I have a sickening hunch that when next I inhale, the gown’s grip on my lungs will prove deadly. I want to rip it off. I want not to get married.

“Done!” they announce together, and step back, one on each side, to admire their handiwork. “What do you think?” Aneaxi asks in a tiny, faltering voice.

The terno only allows quick, shallow breaths. “I think . . .” I stare woozily at my breasts. The neckline presses a fleshy furrow into my skin. “Four!” I giggle anxiously. “Four breasts!”

My nurse gets a funny, choking look on her face. When my breasts overcame my chest last year, Ximena had been the one to assure me men would find them irresistible.

“It’s a beautiful gown,” Aneaxi says, looking pointedly at the skirt.

I shake my head. “I am a sausage,” I gasp. “A big, bloated sausage in a white silk casing.” I want to cry. Or laugh. It’s hard to decide.

Laughing nearly wins out, but my two ladies surround me, wrinkled, graying mother hens clucking sympathy and assurance. “No, no, you are a lovely bride!” Aneaxi says. “You’ve had another growth spurt, is all. And such beautiful eyes! King Alejandro won’t notice if the terno is a bit snug.” So I cry, because I cannot bear sympathy and because Ximena won’t look me in the eye when Aneaxi speaks her kindly false words. After a moment, though, the tears are because I don’t want to wear the terno at all.

While I gulp and heave, Aneaxi kisses the top of my head and Ximena wipes at my tears. Crying requires breath. Great, heaping buckets of it. The silk strains, the puckers bite into my waist, the fabric rips. Crystal buttons tinkle against the glazed floor as air rushes into my famished lungs. My stomach responds with an angry growl.

My ladies drop to the floor and run their fingers through the hair of sheepskin rugs, along the crevices between clay tiles, seeking the liberated buttons. “I need another week,” Ximena mutters from the floor. “Just one week to fit you properly. A royal wedding requires some notice!” It frightens me too, the suddenness of it all.

The bodice is loose enough now that I can reach back and undo the remaining buttons by myself. I shrug my arms from the sleeves and start to tug the gown below my hips, but the fabric rips again, so I pull it over my head instead. I toss the gown aside, not caring when the skirt misses my bed and crumples onto the floor. I pull on a rough woolen robe. It scratches my skin, but it is huge and comfortingly shapeless.

I turn my back on the ladies’ scavenging and go downstairs to the kitchens. If my gown isn’t going to fit anyway, I might as well soothe my pounding head and rumbling stomach with a warm pastry.

My older sister, Juana-Alodia, looks up when I enter. I expect her to wish me a happy birthday at least, but she just scowls at my robe. She sits on the hearth ledge, her back against the curving oven. Her legs are elegantly crossed, and she swings a slender ankle back and forth while she nibbles on her bread.

Why is she not the one getting married today?

When he sees me, the kitchen master grins beneath a flour-dusted mustache and shoves a plate at me. The pastry on it is flaky and golden, dusted with ground pistachios and glazed with honey. My mouth waters. I tell him I’ll need two.

I settle next to Alodia, avoiding the hanging brassware near my head. She eyes my plate with distaste. She doesn’t roll her eyes at me, but I feel like she does, and I glare at her. “Elisa . . . ,” she begins, but she doesn’t know what to say, and I make a point of ignoring her by shoving the flaky crust into my mouth. My headache lessens almost immediately.

My sister hates me. I’ve known it for years. Nurse Ximena says it’s because I was chosen by God for an act of service and Juana-Alodia was not. God should have chosen her; she is athletic and sensible, elegant and strong. Better than two sons, Papá says. I study her as I chew my pastry, her shining black hair and chiseled cheeks, the arched eyebrows that frame confident eyes. I hate her right back.

When Papá dies, she will be queen of Orovalle. She wants to rule and I do not, so it is ironic that by marrying King Alejandro, I will be queen of a country twice as large, twice as rich. I don’t know why I am the one marrying. Surely Joya d’Arena’s king would have chosen the beautiful daughter, the queenly one. My mouth freezes, midchew, as I realize that he probably did.

I am the counteroffer.

Tears threaten again, and I clench my jaw until my face aches, because I’d rather be trampled by horses than cry in front of my sister. I imagine what they said to make him agree to this match. She was chosen for service. No, no, nothing has happened yet, but soon, we are certain. Yes, she is fluent in the Lengua Classica. No, not beautiful, but she is clever. The servants love her. And she embroiders a lovely horse.

He would have heard truer things by now. He will know that I am easily bored, that my dresses grow larger with every fitting, that I sweat like a beast during the desert summer. I pray we can be a match in some strange way. Maybe he had the pox when he was young. Maybe he can barely walk. I want a reason not to care when he turns away in disgust.

Alodia has finished her bread. She stands and stretches, flaunting her grace and her length. She gives me a strange look—I suspect it’s pity—and says, “Let me know if . . . if you need any help today. Getting ready.” And she hurries away before I can answer.

I take the second pastry. It doesn’t taste like anything anymore, but it’s something to do.

Hours later, I stand with Papá outside the basilica, steeling myself for my bridal walk. The arching doors tower above me; the carved de Riqueza sunburst at their center winks balefully. Beyond the doors, the audience hall buzzes. I am surprised so many could attend on such short notice. Perhaps, though, it is the hurriedness of the whole affair that makes it irresistible. It speaks of secrets and desperation, of pregnant princesses or clandestine treaties. I don’t care about any of this, just that King Alejandro is ugly.

My papá and I await a signal from the herald. It has not occurred to Papá to wish me a happy birthday. I’m shocked when his eyes suddenly shimmer with tears. Maybe he’s sad to see me go. Or maybe he feels guilty.

I gasp with surprise when he pulls me to his chest and grips fiercely. It’s suffocating, but I return his rare embrace eagerly. Papá is tall and lanky like Juana-Alodia. I know he can’t feel my ribs, but I can feel his. He hasn’t eaten much since Invierne began harassing our borders.

“I remember your dedication day,” Papá whispers. I’ve heard the story a hundred times, but never from him. “You were lying in your cradle, swaddled in white silk with red bows. The high priest leaned over with a vial of holy water, ready to pour it on your forehead and name you Juana-Anica.

“But then heaven’s light washed the receiving hall, and the priest sloshed it onto the blanket instead. I knew it was heaven’s light because it was white, not yellow like torchlight, and because it was soft and warm. It made me want to laugh and pray at the same time.” He is smiling at the memory; I can hear it in his voice. I hear pride too, and my chest tightens. “It focused into a tight beam that lit your cradle, and you laughed.” He pats my head, then strokes the linen of my veil. I hear myself sigh. “Only seven days old, but you laughed and laughed.

“Juana-Alodia was the first to toddle over after it faded. Your sister peeled back the wet swaddling and we saw the Godstone lodged in your belly button, warm and alive but blue and faceted, hard as a diamond. That’s when we decided to name you Lucero-Elisa.” Heavenly light, chosen of God. His words suffocate me as surely as his embrace. All my life, I’ve been reminded that I am destined for service.

Trumpets blare, muffled by the doors. Papá releases me and pulls the linen veil over my head. I welcome it; I don’t want anyone to see my terror or the sweat collecting on my upper lip. The doors open outward, revealing the massive chamber with its curved ceiling and painted adobe. It smells of roses and incense. Hundreds of shapes rise from their benches, dressed in bright wedding colors. Through my veil they look like Mamá’s flower garden—orange clumps of bougainvillea dotted with yellow allamanda and pink hibiscus.

The herald calls, “His Majesty, Hitzedar de Riqueza, King of Orovalle! Her Highness, Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza, Princess of Orovalle!”

Papá takes my hand and holds it at shoulder level. His is as wet and fluttery as mine, but we manage a forward glide while a quartet of musicians strums the marriage blessing on their vihuelas. A man stands at the end of the aisle, black clad. His shape is blurred, but he is not short or stooped. Not fat.

We pass stone columns and oak benches. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice a lady, a splotch of blue fabric, really. I notice her because she bends and whispers something as I pass. Her companion twitters. My face flushes hot. By the time I reach my tall, steady fiancé, I am praying for pockmarks.

Papá gives my slick hand to the man in black. His hand is large, larger than Papá’s, and it grips with indifferent confidence, as if mine does not feel like a wet, dead fish in his. I want to wrench my fingers back to myself, wipe them on my dress maybe.

Behind me, a sniffle echoes through the hall; Lady Aneaxi’s, no doubt, for she has been teary with nostalgia ever since the announcement. Before me, the priest warbles about marriage in the Lengua Classica. I love the language for its lyrical vowels and the way it feels against my teeth, but I can’t pay attention.

There are things I have refused to consider in the days since the announcement. Things I have pushed deep inside with study and embroidery and pastries. And suddenly, standing here in my wedding terno, my hand in the iron grasp of this tall foreigner, I think about them, and my heart pounds.

Tomorrow I go to the desert country of Joya d’Arena to be its queen. I leave the jacaranda tree outside my bedroom window to bloom lilac without me. I leave my painted adobe walls and trickling fountains for a stone castle a millennium old. I leave a newer, vibrant nation for an enormous beast of a country—one scorched by the sun, and stale with the traditions that made my ancestors leave in the first place. I’ve not had the courage to ask Papá or Alodia why. I’m afraid to learn they are glad to be rid of me.

But the most frightening thing of all is I am about to be someone’s wife.

I speak three languages. I’ve nearly memorized the Belleza Guerra and the Scriptura Sancta. I can embroider the hem of a terno in two days. But I feel like a little girl.

Juana-Alodia has always tended to palace affairs. She is the one who tours the country on horseback, who holds court with our papá and charms the nobility. I know nothing of these grown-up, wifelike things. And tonight . . . I still cannot think about tonight.

I wish my mother were alive.

The priest announces that we are now married, in the sight of God, the King of Orovalle, and the nobleza d’oro. He sprinkles us with holy water harvested from a deep cenote and then motions for us to face each other, saying something about my veil. I turn toward my new husband. My cheeks are hot; I know they will be blotchy and shining with sweat when he lifts the shield from my face.

He releases my hand. I clench it into a fist to keep from wiping it on my terno. I see his fingers on the hem of my veil. They are brown and thick with short, clean nails. Not scholar’s hands, like Master Geraldo’s. He lifts the veil, and I blink as cooler air floods my cheeks. I peer up at the face of my husband, at black hair that sweeps back and curls at his neck, at brown eyes warmer than cinnamon, at a mouth as strong as his fingers.

Something flits across his features—nervousness? Disappointment? But then he smiles at me—not a pitying smile, not a hungry smile, but friendly—and I gasp just a little, my heart a puddle of helpless warmth.

King Alejandro de Vega is the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.

I ought to smile back, but my cheeks won’t obey. He leans forward, and his lips brush mine—a chaste and gentle kiss. With the side of his thumb, he grazes my cheek and whispers, so that only I can hear, “Nice to meet you, Lucero-Elisa.”

Platters of food cover the long table. We sit side by side on the bench, and at last I have something to do besides avoid his eyes. Our shoulders touch as I grab for the battered squid and a glass of wine. I chew quickly, already considering: Green chiles stuffed with cheese, or shredded pork in walnut sauce? Before us, on the floor below the dais, the nobleza d’oro swirls about, goblets in hand. Juana-Alodia drifts among them, slender and beautiful and smiling. They laugh easily with her. I notice surreptitious glances cast toward the man sitting beside me. Why don’t they come and introduce themselves? It is unlike the golden horde to miss the opportunity to charm a king.

I feel his eyes on me. He has just watched me stuff a crisp-fried anchovy into my mouth. I am embarrassed, but I can’t resist turning to meet his gaze.

He still wears that friendly smile. “Do you like fish?”

My mouth is full. “Ungh,” I say.

The smile widens. He has beautiful teeth. “Me too.” He reaches for an anchovy and tosses it into his mouth. His eyes crinkle at the edges while he chews, watching me. His mouth is still full, his voice muffled when he says, “We have much to discuss, you and I.”

I swallow and nod. Hearing that ought to frighten me. Instead, a sweetness sparks in my stomach because the king of Joya d’Arena thinks I am a person one discusses things with.

Our banquet passes too quickly. We do talk, a little, but I am mostly a fool because all I can do is watch his lips as they move and listen to his voice.

He asks about my studies. I blurt to him about my hundred-year-old copy of the Belleza Guerra. His eyes flash with interest when he says, “Yes, your sister told me you are well versed in the art of war.” I’m not sure what to say to this. I don’t want to talk about Juana-Alodia, and I realize how ridiculous I must appear, a sausage child bride who never sits a horse and who wields a dagger only to cut meat. Yet I am fascinated by war and have studied every skirmish in my country’s history.

A hush settles over the milling nobility. I follow their collective gaze toward the small wooden stage. The musicians have departed—I don’t remember hearing the vihuelas cease—and in their place stand my father and sister. She raises a goblet, her arm bare and golden from the sun, and says in a loud, clear voice, “Today we are witness to the new union between Joya d’Arena and Orovalle. May God bless this union with peace and understanding, with prosperity and beauty, and”—she grins hugely—“with many, many children!” And the banquet hall fills with laughter, like it’s the cleverest blessing in the world. My face burns, and I hate my sister more in this moment than ever in my life.

“Now, it’s time to bid the happy couple good-night,” she continues. I’ve attended hundreds of marriage feasts. Still, I jump when Lady Aneaxi’s hand grabs my shoulder. A bevy of servants, dressed in white with garlands of paper flowers, has come with her to escort us to our nuptial chamber.

We rise, the king and I, though I’m not sure how, since my legs buzz with threatening numbness. My armpits feel sticky, my heart pounds. Oh, God. I don’t know what to do. I blink rapidly, determined not to cry.

The servants, grinning and giggling, surround us and herd us from the banquet hall as the golden horde shouts blessings and encouragement. I steal a glance at my husband. For the first time since he lifted the veil from my face, he avoids my gaze.

THE CROWN EMBERS

RAE CARSON

1

MY entourage of guards struggles to keep pace as I fly down the corridors of my palace. Servants in starched frocks and shined shoes line the way, bowing like dominoes as I pass. From far away comes a low thrum, filtering even through walls of stone and mortar, steady as falling water, hollow as distant thunder. It’s the crowd outside, chanting my name.

I barrel around a corner and collide with a gleaming breastplate. Firm hands grasp my shoulders, saving me from tumbling backward. My crown is not so lucky. The monstrous thing clatters to the ground, yanking strands of hair painfully with it.

He releases my shoulders and rubs at red spot on his neck. “That crown of yours is a mighty weapon,” says Lord-Commander Hector of the Royal Guard.

“Sorry,” I say, blinking up at him. He and the other guards shaved their mustaches to mark our recent victory, and I’ve yet to adjust to this new, younger-looking Hector.

Ximena, my gray-haired nurse, bends to retrieve the crown and brushes it off. It’s thick with gold and inlaid with a single cabochon ruby. No dainty queen’s diadem for me. By tradition, I wear the crown of a fully empowered monarch.

“I expected you an hour ago,” he says as I take his offered arm. We travel the corridor at a bruising pace.

“General Luz-Manuel kept me. He wanted to change the parade route again.”

He stops cold, and I nearly trip. “Again?”

“He wants to avoid the bottleneck where the Avenida de la Serpiente crosses the merchant’s alley. He says a stranger in the crowd could spear me too easily.”

Ximena takes advantage of our stillness to reposition the crown on my head. I grimace as she shoves hairpins through the velvet loops to hold it in place.

Hector is shaking his head. “But the rooftops are low in that area. You’ll be safer from arrows, which is the greater danger.”

“Exactly what I said. He was . . . displeased.” I tug on his arm to keep us moving.

“He should know better.”

“I may have told him as much.”

“I’m sure he appreciated that,” he says dryly.

“I’ve no idea what advantage he thought to gain by it,” I say. “Whatever it was, I was not going to give it to him.”

Hector glances around at the people lining the corridors, then adds in a lowered voice, “Elisa, as your personal defender, I must beg you one last time to reconsider. The whole world knows you bear the Godstone.”

I sigh against the truth of his words. Yes, I’m now the target of religious fanatics, Invierne spies, even black market gem traders. But my birthday parade is the one day each year when everyone—from laundress to stable boy to weather-worn sailor—can glimpse their ruling monarch. It’s a national holiday, one they’ve been looking forward to for months. I won’t deny them the opportunity.

And I refuse to be governed by fear. The life stretching before me is that of a queen. It’s a life I chose. Fought for, even. I cannot—will not—squander it on dread.

“Hector, I won’t hide in the sand like a frightened jerboa.”

“Sometimes,” Ximena cuts in, with her soft but deliberate voice, “protecting Elisa means protecting her interests. Elisa must show herself publicly. These early months are important as she consolidates her power. We’ll keep her safe, you and I. And God. She has a great destiny. . . .”

I turn a deaf ear to her words. So much has happened in the last year, but I feel no closer to my appointment with destiny than I did when God first lodged his stone in my navel seventeen years ago. It still pulses with power, warms in response to my prayers, reminds me that I have not done enough, that God has plans for me yet.

And I am sick to death of hearing about it.

“I understand, my lady,” Hector is saying. “But it would be safer—”

“Hector!” I snap. “I’ve made up my mind.”

He stiffens. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

Shame tightens my throat. Why did I snap at Hector? Ximena is the one I’m frustrated with.

Moments later we reach the carriage house, which reeks of steaming manure and moldy straw on this especially hot day. My open carriage awaits, a marvel of polished mahogany and swirling bronze scrollwork. Banners of royal blue stream from the posts. The door panels display my royal crest—a ruby crown resting on a bed of sacrament roses.

Fernando, my best archer, stands on the rear platform, bow slung over his shoulder. He bows from the waist, his face grave. Four horses flick their tails and dance in their jeweled traces. I eye them warily while Hector helps me up.

Then he offers a hand to Ximena, and in spite of their recent disagreement, a look of fierce understanding passes between them. They are a formidable team, my guard and my guardian. Sometimes it’s as though they plot my safety behind my back.

Hector gives the order, my driver whips the reins, and the carriage lurches forward. My Royal Guard, in its gleaming ceremonial armor, falls in around us. They march a deep one-two-one-two as we leave the shade of the carriage house for desert sunshine.

The moment we turn onto the Colonnade, the air erupts with cheering.

Thousands line the way, packed shoulder to shoulder, waving their hands, flags, tattered linens. Children sit on shoulders, tossing birdseed and rose petals into the air. A banner stretches the length of six people and reads, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO HER MAJESTY QUEEN LUCERO-ELISA!

“Oh,” I breathe.

Ximena grasps my hand and squeezes. “You’re a war hero, remember?”

But I’m also a foreigner queen, ruling by an accident of marriage and war. Warmth and pride blossom in my chest, to see my people accepting me with their whole hearts.

Then Ximena’s face sobers, and she leans over and whispers, “Remember this moment and treasure it, my sky. No sovereign remains popular forever.”

I nod from respectful habit, but I can’t keep the frown from creeping onto my face. My people are giving me a gift, and she takes it away so soon.

The steep Colonnade is lined on either side by decadent three-story townhomes. Their sculpted sandstone cornices sparkle in the sun, and silk standards swing from flat garden rooftops. But as we descend from the height of the city, cheered all the way, the townhomes gradually become less stately, until finally we reach the city’s outer circle, where only a few humble buildings rise from the war rubble.

I ignore the destruction as long as I can, gazing instead at the city’s great wall. It rises the height of several men, protecting us from the swirling desert beyond. I crane my neck and glimpse the soldiers posted between the wall’s crenellations, bows held at the ready.

The main gate stands open for daytime commerce. Framed by the barbed portcullis is our cobbled highway. Beyond it are the sweeping dunes of my beautiful desert, wind smoothed and deceptively soft in the yellow light of midday. My gaze lingers too long on the sand as we turn onto the Avenida de la Serpiente.

When I can avoid it no longer, I finally take in the view that twists my heart. For Brisadulce’s outer circle is a scar on the face of the world, blackened and crumbled and reeking of wet char. This is where the Invierne army broke through our gate, where their sorcerous animagi burned everything in sight with the blue-hot fire of their Godstone amulets.

A ceiling beam catches my eye, toppled across a pile of adobe rubble. At one end the wood grain shows pristine, but it blackens along its length, shrinking and shriveling until it ends in a ragged stump glowing red with embers. A wisp of smoke curls into the air.

The outer ring is rife with these glowing reminders of the war we won at such a cost. Months later, we still cannot wholly quench their fire. Father Nicandro, my head priest, says that since magic caused these fires, only magic can cool them. Either magic or time.

My city may burn for a hundred years.

So I smile and wave. I do it with ferocity, like my life depends on it, as if a whole glorious future lies before us and these sorcerous embers are not worth a passing irritation.

The crowd loves me for it. They scream and cheer, and it is like magic, a good magic, how after a while they win me over to hope, and my smile becomes genuine.

The street narrows, and the crowd presses in as we push forward. Hector’s hand goes to his scabbard as he inches nearer to the carriage. I tell myself that I don’t mind their proximity, that I love their smiling faces, their unrestrained energy.

But as we approach the massive amphitheater with its stone columns, I sense a subtle shift, a dampening of spirits—as if everyone has become distracted. The guards scan the crowd with suspicion.

“Something isn’t right,” Ximena whispers.

I glance at her with alarm. From long habit, my fingertips find the Godstone, seeking a clue; it heats up around friends and becomes ice when my life is in peril. Do I imagine that it is cooler than usual?

The theater is shaped like a giant horseshoe, its massive ends running perpendicular to the avenida. As we near it, movement draws my gaze upward. High above the crowd stands a man in a white wind-whipped robe.

My Godstone freezes—unhelpfully—and ice shoots through my limbs as I note his hair: lightest yellow, almost white, streaming to his waist. Sunlight catches on something embedded in the top of his wooden staff. Oh, God.

I’m too shocked to cry out, and by the time Hector notices the white figure, it’s too late: My carriage is within range. The crowd is eerily silent, as if all the air has gotten sucked away, for everyone has heard descriptions of the animagi, Invierne’s sorcerers.

The top of the animagus’ staff begins to glow Godstone blue.

My terror is like the thick muck of a dream as I struggle to find my voice. “Fernando!” I yell. “Shoot him! Shoot to kill!”

An arrow whizzes toward the animagus in blurred relief against the crystal sky.

The animagus whips his staff toward it. A stream of blue-hot fire erupts from the tip, collides with the arrow, explodes it into a shower of splinters and sparks.

People scream. Hector gestures at the guards, barking orders. Half tighten formation around me; the rest sprint away to flank the sorcerer. But the crowd is panicked and thrashing, and my guards are trapped in a mill of bodies.

“Archers!” Hector yells. “Fire!”

Hundreds of arrows let fly in a giant whoosh.

The animagus spins in a circle, staff outstretched. The air around him bends to his will, and I catch the barest glimpse of a barrier forming—like glass, like a wavering desert mirage—before Ximena leaps across the bench and covers me with her own body.

“To the queen!” comes Hector’s voice. “We must retreat!” But the carriage doesn’t budge, for the milling crowd has hemmed us in.

“Queen Lucero-Elisa,” comes a sibilant voice, magnified by the peculiar nature of the amphitheater. “Bearer of the only living Godstone, you belong to us, to us, to us.”

He’s coming down the stairway. I know he is. He’s coming for me. He’ll blaze a path through my people and—

“You think you’ve beaten us back, but we are as numerous as the desert sands. Next time we’ll come at you like ghosts in a dream. And you will know the gate of your enemy!”

In the corner of my eye I catch the gleam of Hector’s sword as he raises it high, and my stomach thuds with the realization that he’ll cut through our own people if that’s what it takes to whisk me away.

“Ximena!” I gasp. “Get off. Hector . . . he’ll do anything. We can’t let him—”

She understands instantly. “Stay down,” she orders as she launches against the door and tumbles into the street.

Heart pounding, I peek over the edge of the carriage. The animagus stares at me hungrily as he descends the great stair, like I am a juicy mouse caught in his trap. My Godstone’s icy warning is relentless.

He could have killed me by now if he wanted to; we’ve no way to stop his fire. So why doesn’t he? Eyeing him carefully, I stand up in the carriage.

“Elisa, no!” cries Hector. Ximena has trapped his sword arm, but he flings her off and rushes toward me. He jerks to a stop midstride, and his face puckers with strain: The animagus has frozen him with magic.

But Hector is the strongest man I know. Fight it, Hector.

Shivering with bone-deep cold, I force myself to step from the carriage. I am what the sorcerer wants, so maybe I can distract him, buy enough time for my guards to flank him, give Hector a chance to break free.

Sun glints off a bit of armor creeping up on the animagus from above, so I keep my gaze steady, and my voice is steel when I say, “I burned your brothers to dust. I will do the same to you.” The lie weighs heavy on my tongue. I’ve harnessed the power of my stone only once, and I’m not sure how.

The animagus’ answering grin is feral and slick. “Surrender yourself. If you do, we will spare your people.”

A guard is within range now. The animagus has not noticed him. The solider quietly feeds an arrow into his bow, aims.

Look strong, Elisa. Do not flinch. Hold his gaze.

The arrow zings through the air. The sorcerer whirls at the sound, but it is too late; the arrowhead buries itself in his ribs.

The animagus wobbles. He turns back to me, eyes flared with pain or zeal, one shoulder hanging lower than the other. Crimson spreads like spilled ink across his robe. “Watch closely, my queen,” he says, and his voice is liquid with drowning. “This is what will happen to everyone in Joya d’Arena if you do not present yourself as a willing sacrifice.”

Hector reaches me at last, grabs my shoulders, and starts to pull me away, even as the guards rush the animagus. But his Godstone already glows like a tiny sun; they will not capture him in time. I expect fire to shoot toward us, to turn my people into craters of melt and char, and suddenly I’m grappling for purchase at the joints of Hector’s armor, at his sword belt, pushing him along, for I can’t bear to see another friend burn.

But the animagus turns the fire on himself.

He screams, “It is God’s will!” He raises his arms to the sky, and his lips move as if in prayer while the conflagration melts his skin, blackens his hair, turns him into a living torch for the whole city to see.

The scent of burning flesh fills the air as the remaining crowd scatters. The horses rear and plunge away, trampling everyone in their path, the carriage rattling behind.

“To the queen!” Hector yells above my head.

A wind gusts through the amphitheater, extinguishing the biggest flames and flinging bits of hair and robe into the sky. The animagus’ charred body topples off the stair and plunges to the ground, trailing smoke and sparks.

I turn to rest my forehead against Hector’s breastplate and close my eyes as the chaos around us gradually dissipates. The chill of my Godstone fades, and I breathe deep of warm desert air and of relief.

Hector says, “We must get you back to the palace.”

“Yes, of course,” I say, pulling away from him and standing tall. “Let’s go.” Maybe if I pretend hard enough, I will feel strong in truth.

My guards form a wedge of clanking armor and drawn swords. As we begin the long, steep trek home, a bit of white robe, edged with glowing cinders, flutters to the ground at my feet.

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This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

The Shadow Cats

Copyright © 2012 by Rae Carson

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First Edition

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Content

THE SHADOW CATS
RAE CARSON

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

THE GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS  RAE CARSON

THE CROWN EMBERS RAE CARSON