Valiant Ladies, page 19
Magdalena slips an extra-large hunk of cheese into my saddlebag, along with a loaf of crusty bread and apples for the horses. The stables are quieter than normal. We have had no guests for days. The only people coming and going are Ana and myself.
“How is my father?” I ask.
She shakes her head, concern pinching her features. “He’s hardly left his room. It’s all I can do to convince him to eat.”
My heart squeezes in my chest. I should be home, taking care of him. Being a dutiful daughter. But the lives of these missing girls are more important than my grief or his. “If he asks for me…”
“I’ll come up with something,” Magdalena says. “I’ll tell him you’re sequestered in prayer for your brother’s soul.”
I don’t say anything to that. I don’t want to approve, but I cannot reasonably disapprove of her lie either. It’s a good one. Believable. But the thought of using Alejandro’s death like that makes me feel flush with shame.
“Ready?” Ana asks as she strides back into the stable, her own saddlebags slung over her shoulder. “We’re burning daylight.”
I nod. We mount our steeds, and together, we ride.
Leaving Potosí is like stepping into another world. The chaos of the city falls away to reveal a sweeping landscape, expanding as far as the eye can see. Mountains thrust up into the sky, puncturing slate gray clouds far in the distance.
The heat of the sun beats down on the dusty roads as if personally offended by their existence. Sweat trickles down the back of my neck, trailing a long unpleasant line down the ridge of my spine. Clouds gather in the distance but they’re far enough away that I don’t think we have to worry about them. Not yet at least. Though the weather here is often unpredictable. The sky can sometimes spit out a storm faster than you can find shelter. I mumble a quick prayer that this particular storm keeps its distance. I am miserable enough as it is without being caught in that nonsense.
Rather a long ride was putting it mildly.
“My ass hurts,” Ana whines. Her earlier anger has gone out of her. It was too strong to maintain for the hours we’ve been on the road. And honestly, I think what she needed was a purpose. A goal. She can be like a musket, my Ana. Full of gunpowder lying dormant, waiting for the right spark, waiting to be aimed at the rich target.
“You should ride more,” I say. “You’re sore because you don’t work those muscles enough.”
Ana affects an irritatingly high-pitched voice to parrot my words back at me. “You’re sore because you don’t work those muscles enough.”
“And yet, I’m still right.” I frown as the horizon behind Ana darkens. “That doesn’t look good.”
Ana follows my gaze and likewise frowns.
The clouds that I was fairly confident were far enough away are now alarmingly not far enough away at all. They’re far too close for comfort.
“Oh.” Ana’s hands tighten on her reins. Tornado whinnies, high and afraid, as if he can sense the change in the air. “I don’t like that at all.”
Rocinante tosses his mane, pawing at the ground.
I lean down, stroking his neck.
“Hush, my sweet.” I glance up at Ana. “He doesn’t like it either.”
My poor horse whinnies and neighs, shuffling in place as the sky darkens.
Ana tosses me a smirk over her shoulder. “For a horse named Rocinante, he’s awfully skittish.”
Normally, I’d rise to her bait. No one speaks ill of my baby. But right now, we have bigger problems.
“What can I say? He’s governed by his passions.” And right now, he is passionately afraid of thunder and, in the way only animals can, he can sense it brewing in the air. I pat his neck again. He leans into the touch, comforted.
“Steady on, Rocinante,” I say. “We’ll find shelter.” A quick glance at our surroundings is less promising. “Somewhere…”
A sudden crack of thunder rends the sky, booming so loudly it makes my bones shake.
Rocinante rears back, nearly dislodging me from the saddle. My hand tangles in his mane, holding on for dear life. As soon as his front hooves pound against the ground, he’s off, streaking forward as fast as his powerful legs can carry him.
As it turns out, that is extremely fast.
I flatten myself against his body, my hair whipping around my face, the wind stinging my eyes. Distantly, I hear something that might be the sound of Ana shouting but we’re already too far for the sound to carry.
“Rocinante, slow down, you buffoon.”
For some reason, the horse does not listen to me.
He runs and runs and runs, trying to outpace the storm that’s about to break out.
I’d pull on the reins but it would do no good. He will slow when he’s good and ready. Fear is not logical, whether in humans or in horses. All I can do is my level best to guide him toward what I desperately hope is a viable shelter. There’s an outcropping of rocks in the distance, the kind you find low on mountains that usually has caves large enough to spend a night in.
If we can get there …
Pounding hooves—of a different cadence than Rocinante’s—come up behind me, strong and fast. I chance a look backward and find Ana and Tornado nearly caught up with us. Tornado’s top speed is nowhere near Rocinante’s, but Ana is pushing the horse with everything she’s got.
Tornado pulls up beside Rocinante, eyes wild. There is no higher thought there. The beast’s eyes are filled with pure terror.
“Kiki!” Ana’s scream is nearly whipped away by the wind, but I hear the panic in her voice. She can ride well enough, but not like this. She didn’t grow up in a saddle as I did. For ages, she was too terrified of the horses in our stable to get too close to them. It took months before she was willing to even brush one, much less ride.
If she falls at this speed, on this unforgiving earth, if Tornado trips and breaks a leg, they could both die.
Squeezing my knees against Rocinante’s sides, I guide him as close to Tornado as we can get. Their hooves pound against the dirt and stone, louder even than the storm on our tails. Ana’s boot bumps into mine and she nearly startles right out of the saddle.
“Hold on!”
Red hair whips across her face. “I’m trying!”
I pull Rocinante level with Tornado’s head. Tornado’s eye rolls wildly in its socket as a flash of lightning cracks open the sky. He tosses his head, fearful beyond all logic.
I reach across the small gap between the two horses and I grab his mane. I make sure his head is pointed where it needs to be. I need the horses to see each other. I need Tornado to see Rocinante. To see me. To know there is nothing to fear.
“What are you doing?” Ana’s shout is nearly as fearful as Tornado’s eyes. I ignore her. If this works, all will be explained.
I can feel the moment the horses connect. The moment when Tornado realizes he isn’t alone, running like a demon out of hell. He is in his herd. He is as safe as we can make him.
“Come on, Roci,” I whisper into my own horse’s mane.
Gentle pressure on the reins and adjustment of my weight in the saddle slows Rocinante down incrementally. The fear has left him. He trusts my lead, and he will follow.
And then, Tornado begins to slow.
His stride shortens to match Rocinante’s. His heaving breath starts to steady. The wild froth of fear begins to quell.
And he finally lets Ana use her reins.
She catches my eye as we canter on, far slower than the unrestrained gallop, but much, much safer.
“Thank you.” Her words are swallowed up by a peal of thunder but I know the shapes those lips make and I hear it all the same.
The rain comes before we reach the caves. It’s sudden and hard and unrelenting. In mere seconds, I am soaked through to the bone, my coat clinging to me, my boots sliding against the leathers of the saddle.
But the horses steady on. Rain is less scary than the crack of thunder, and that holds off, as if the gods of sky and storm have decided to be blissfully generous.
The weather continues its relentless assault as we finally—finally—reach the outcropping. And, as I had wished, there is a network of caves just tall enough to allow a horse through.
I slide off the saddle and lead Rocinante into the nearest one. It won’t be a comfortable night but it might be a dry one.
Ana follows behind, Tornado’s reins in hand. Their iron shoes clomp against the stone, echoing loudly into the cave. It’s slightly larger on the inside than I expected. There are paintings on the walls, crude things, made from mud or blood. Hard to say, but what is clear is that we are not the only ones to seek shelter in this place.
“Well, this is less than ideal,” I grumble. I only half mean it. Any shelter is good shelter right now. But I wouldn’t be Eustaquia de Sonza if I didn’t grumble at least a little at our rather rustic accommodations. Rocinante grumpily paws at the ground, as if annoyed that it’s stone and not grass.
“I, for one, have never been gladder to be out of the goddamn rain.” Ana puts up Tornado’s reins and slips a cube of sugar—precious stuff, even in the richest city in the New World—out of her pocket. It’s more than a little soggy. Half-melted, to be honest. But Tornado laps it out of her palm all the same. “That’s my boy. Thank you for not getting me killed.”
She turns to me, a soft, shaken smile on her face. “And thank you.”
The sight of her smile warms something inside me even though I, like the horses, am drenched through to my skin. I feel my skin flush and I hastily look away. “Now, come on, let’s get this tack off the horses and dry them before they get sores.”
Still smiling, Ana follows my lead, but there’s a knowing glint in her eyes that tells me my blush was not the least bit subtle.
CHAPTER 24
Kiki
To say I am not comfortable would be a vast understatement.
Wool is not a fabric that should ever be wet. The heft of my sodden coat weighs me down. The horses, at least, have been tended to—as well as they can considering the circumstances—and now it’s time to tend to ourselves.
A renegade lock of hair falls across my face as I huff out an exasperated breath. Rainwater trickles from my forehead, cresting the ridge of my eyebrows, tangling with sweat from our hard ride. The salt stings my eyes. I don’t know what’s worse. That or the feeling of hours of dust drying out my eyeballs.
“I am not built for life on the road, Ana.”
She sniggers into her arm, but not even the thick wool of her coat can quiet the sound of it.
“Go on. Laugh at my torment.”
“I can’t help it. You look like a drenched cat. A drenched angry cat.”
I whip my coat off and chuck it at her head. She dodges. The wet fabric slaps against the stone floor with a loud squelch.
“That was a delightful noise,” Ana says, chuckling.
“We just got waylaid by a storm, why are you so goddamn cheerful?” I don’t like being wet. In that regard, I suppose I am rather feline, but I refuse to admit it out loud. At least not with Ana chortling at my pain.
“I’m sorry, Kiki.”
“No, you’re not.”
“No, I’m not. But I do hate to see you suffer.”
“Sometimes you enjoy it.”
“Only when it’s amusing.”
“Why don’t you stop amusing yourself at my expense and help me find the candles? I know I packed them somewhere.”
Ana raises an incredulous eyebrow. “You brought candles?”
I shrug. “You never know when you might need a reading light.”
Her eyebrows raise even further. “You brought books?”
“You never know when you might get bored!”
This back-and-forth between us—God, I’ve missed it. After the orange grove and then the ball, I never thought I would feel normal with her again. And I don’t, not fully. But we are at least performing a respectable facsimile of normalcy. It is comforting, and in our circumstances, I think we both need the comfort of the familiar.
The candles and flint were buried far enough in my saddlebags that they managed to stay mostly dry. I strike them into action, filling the cave with a soft, amber glow. It isn’t much, but it’s enough to see by. And the light might help keep the horses calm.
For the moment, they are happy to be out of the rain. They are snuggled together on the far side of the cave, as far away from the entrance and the storm raging outside as they can get. In the dim light, Tornado’s black coat blends with the shadows. Rocinante is so white he almost radiates his own light. A particularly nasty clap of thunder makes Rocinante neigh loudly in objection. Tornado moves to press himself tighter against Rocinante’s side. Rocinante calms at the touch, huffing out what sounds like the equine equivalent of a sigh.
“That’s a good boy, Tornado. Keep that hothead calm.”
“That hothead saved your skin.” With my back to Ana, I don’t see her undress, but I can hear it. Wet clothing peeling off skin and dropping to the floor. “You should be thanking him.”
“Thank you, Rocinante.” From the corner of my eye, I see her cut the horse a truly sloppy curtsy.
I snort as I begin to peel off my sodden clothes. “You know, I—”
My sentence fizzles out because I choose that moment to turn around, and I’m struck dumb by the sight that greets me.
Ana, stripped down to nothing but her small clothes.
She catches me staring and frowns. “What?” Her hands tighten on the wet shirt she’s still holding. It begins to come up, to cover up her exposed torso.
By the light of the candles, I can barely see her scars, but they’re there. Flickering shadows catch the ridges of uneven skin.
Her scars. It’s been so long since I last saw them that I nearly forgot they were there.
Hastily, she begins to pull on her wet shirt.
“No, Ana, you don’t have to…”
But it’s not my place to tell her what she should and should not do. It’s her body. Her history. Her past written across her skin in a network of scars, the stories of which I have not been trusted with. Not yet. Not even after all these years.
I reach for her, but it’s not the smartest thing I’ve ever done.
Ana recoils from my touch, holding her sodden shirt between us like a shield. “Don’t.”
My hands hover uselessly between us. “Ana, it’s okay…”
She shakes her head, short, brusque. “No, it’s not.”
And just like that, a wall slams down between us. That brief flash of vulnerability was too much. Our facsimile of normalcy was just that. A pale imitation of the easy way we used to exist with each other. A shell, easily cracked. The languid grace Ana usually possesses is gone, replaced by a stiff, jerky set of movements that move her farther away from me in more ways than physical. She begins to turn away, but there’s nowhere for her to go. She was right. We are trapped in here until morning. “Ana, please…”
She pauses, her face angled toward me just enough for me to appreciate the way the candlelight loves her features. The sharp line of her nose is gilded by the honeyed glow emanating from the candles. But still, she radiates ice and not fire. She sighs, her eyes drifting shut, as if sealing out the sight of something only she can see. “Just … don’t.”
Ana’s scars are a thing we do not discuss. I know they’re there. I’ve known for years. The first time I saw them was when we went swimming in the pond near the villa. I had stared, like an uncouth child, and she had kicked me so hard in the shin, I knew that to ask about their provenance would be to risk even greater bodily harm.
“You don’t have to hide from me,” I say.
She opens her eyes to meet mine. But almost immediately, she turns to the side, as if holding my gaze is too painful in that moment. “I bared myself to you before. In the orange grove. And you made your stance perfectly clear.”
I don’t know what to say to that. My own gaze drifts down to my hands. The reins have thoroughly abraded my skin, despite the callouses already formed from years of riding. Water and leather is a bad combination, no matter how good you are on a horse. “I am sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.”
“Are you really going to marry him?”
I look up to find her staring at me. Hard.
“Ana…”
“Best-case scenario, we get to the convent and find a girl he’s impregnated. Worst-case scenario, he’s involved with a kidnapping, maybe even murder.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “Would you honestly marry a man like that?”
“Find me a man who’s any different.”
“Your father.”
Touché.
I heave a deep, tired breath. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Why?” She spits to the side. “Because I wasn’t born rich?”
Well, yes, but I wisely don’t say exactly that. “Things are different now.”
“How?”
My broken laugh makes the horses start. Ana rears back as if cut. I slam my teeth together, suppressing it. It surprised even me. “Because, Ana … my brother is dead. My brother. My father’s only heir.”
When she just stares at me, I continue, “I have to think about more than just my own wants.”
Silence hangs between us after I say that. I do not elaborate any further on what it is that I want. That would only pour salt in our open wounds.
Ana shakes her head ruefully. “You’re fooling yourself if you think you can hide all that you are just to be some asshole’s wife.”
“I’m not saying I’m going to marry Sebastian.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, they feel suddenly more possible. Ana’s eyes cut to mine. Her expression is carefully guarded, as if she is afraid to let anything slip through. Like hope. With the next statement, I crush any there might have been. “But I must consider marrying someone.”
“But I don’t understand why!” Her raised voice echoes against the cave’s walls. Tornado huffs in his corner, responding to his mistress’s anguish.
