A Curse of Roses Read online

  While Vasco left to get the horses, Brites pulled her aside. “Now tell me what you need to do to find the Moura,” she whispered. Her eyes, as dark as the night, assessed her with uncanny fierceness; she wouldn’t let them leave until Yzabel recited the rules without flaw.

  She raised a finger, recalling the stories of Enchanted Mouras of her childhood, and said, “Dress only in white, for white is the light that keeps away the darkness of the Moura’s curse.” Another finger unspooled. “Follow her voice when she begins speaking in my head. The birds will sing their warnings, and the earth will shake in fear. These are attempts to deter me. I’m not to listen.” A third finger stood. “And no matter what happens, I must never. Look. Back.”

  “If you look back before you reach her, it’ll be as though she’d never been there.” Brites fussed with Yzabel’s hat. “Once you’re within her range, you have one chance. Do not waste it.”

  “I won’t.”

  Vasco left the stables with two horses in tow. Lucas, who had been grouchy the entire night as if he’d sensed her imminent departure, bumped his head against her skirts and whined. It seemed like only yesterday he’d been a puppy, rejected by his mother and left to perish in the cold, until Yzabel saved him. She knelt on the cobblestones to put her arms around Lucas’s neck. He stunk of dog and his fur was damp from the morning mists—she held him tight, nonetheless. “I’ll come back soon.” A peck on his nose. “Be good to Brites.”

  Yzabel rose to her feet and stepped into Brites’s open arms. “Good luck, little princess,” she whispered and kissed her cheek. “And remember—”

  “Don’t look back.”

  Chapter Four

  The Deepest Wish

  Under October’s heavy rains, Yzabel spent her time atop the horse shivering as she went over the set of rules to finding the Moura. Impossible not to imagine Brites’s voice as she recounted them in her head, and a grimace twisted her lips. She wished her lady’s maid had been able to come, but someone needed to stay back and tell everyone the princess had run out of herbs for her medicines and would spend the day resupplying her stock. If Denis became testy, Brites was one of the few people who could keep him from chasing after Yzabel.

  As the sun rose, so did the people, shambling down the hill to work in the fields of their lords while their women and children took care of the house and animals. Skinny girls and boys fed chickens, and she spotted some pigs here and there—likely being raised by the entire neighborhood for slaughter come Februarius. Older girls collected herbs from their gardens, and many houses had red cloths hanging by the windows to announce the presence of the red plague.

  She made a mental note on the number of houses marked in red so she could make some medicine and arrange for it be delivered. Although she couldn’t adequately fight the plague of famine ravaging the country, she could help with the plague of disease.

  The roads proved tricky, the mud slippery under the horses’ hooves. They kept a slow pace, bundled in extra layers to keep the chill and raindrops away; nevertheless, she succumbed to sneezing, throat raw and skin burning. She’d blown her clogged nose so many times the handkerchief was sandpaper on her nostrils, and although Vasco insisted she give up and return lest her health grow worse, she insisted they push on.

  She looked down at her fingers, the glow of magic becoming sharper the farther they trotted along the gurgling riverbank. The Moura was still here—of that, she had no doubt. But there was still a chance she wouldn’t be able to find her. If that happened, she wouldn’t live to toast São Martinho with watered wine and take in the scents of chestnuts roasting, wouldn’t live to hear the Christmas chants carrying into the deep night. She wouldn’t live to see the country recover from long years of war, wouldn’t be alive to fight for the betterment of the commoners’ lives. Those duties had been ingrained in her, had become her ultimate goals. They were all she had left, and she refused to let go of that final lifeline.

  The clouds parted in the mid-morning, and sunshine dulled the sharp edges of the breezes. Anticipation built like fire in a crackling log, and she was certain she’d burst open from the growing enthusiasm. It filled her lungs, spread through her blood, coated her sight with sparks that seemed to glint everywhere.

  They kept a steady pace along the Ardila River, looking for the marker near the shore: a rectangle of old marble. Impossible to miss, it was as tall as a man and twice as large. When they spotted it, Vasco brought the horses to a halt, casting his sight east as he smoothed his mustache. “According to Brites, the Moura is supposed to be around here.”

  With a nod, Yzabel dismounted, the cilice’s teeth flaring pain down her leg when her feet hit the ground and with every movement she made to peel off her outer layers. She expertly untied the knot of the flowery headscarf, taking it off along with the wide-brimmed hat that held it in place, then kicked off her shoes and freed her legs from the woolen socks. Her skirt and shirt were the last, revealing the ivory dress underneath. She stashed everything into one of the saddlebags, and from another she took her mantle, draping the fine affair of white fur across her shoulders.

  The smile on her lips stretched as sunlight kissed her cheeks and her feet touched naked earth, soft and moist against her skin. The weather was blessedly warm, as if summer had reached into autumn’s kingdom for one last reprise.

  “Wish me luck,” she said.

  A tight smile, a comforting hand on her head. “Good luck, my princess. May you finally find peace from your curse.”

  Peace. That’s exactly what she was here to find.

  With Vasco leading the horses behind her, Yzabel walked on.

  The Ardila River was loud and fast, swollen with October’s rains. Frogs croaked along its stony margins, and rabbits skipped across the fields of grass. To her right, the olive trees housed chirping birds, the earth overgrown with grass and flowers.

  The feeling that surged when she touched food—the curse and its starry warmth—manifested, unbidden. It took root as a funny twist in her belly grew into a pulsing wave of heat that flared the sharpest on her left hand and tongue. Why those two places of her body teemed with magic, Yzabel could not tell.

  Ahead, the air shimmered like the surface of a wind-blown pond.

  “Magic,” she whispered in wide-eyed wonder.

  Intrigue kicked her feet into a run, deadened her to the cringing pain in her bones. The strange imagery drew her, its spell calling her as sirens did sailors in the sea.

  “Yzabel, slow down!” Vasco shouted somewhere behind her.

  Imbued with sudden vigor, she ran faster still, crossing the glistening boundary. The enchantments in place set her skin on fire, sent the blood in her veins into a burning frenzy, and thickened the air in her throat. The overwhelming need to turn back and go away overflowed her mind, persuaded her limbs—but she held firm and kept moving forward.

  And, at last, a voice she didn’t know spoke in her ear.

  “—hear me?”

  “Yes!” Yzabel shouted through shallow breaths, the tug pulling her toward the green fields of trees and grass. As though someone had placed an ember in her chest, the longer she dallied, the longer she took to find the Moura, the fiercer it ached. Her body had one purpose, a single need that propelled it forward—find the source of the voice.

  “Please—so long,” it said. No, she, for this was clearly a woman that spoke to her. “Please find me.”

  Birds took flight from their perches in the trees, rustling branches and leaves like a whirlwind. Beneath her feet, the ground seemed to yawn and shift, trying to throw her off balance. She picked up her skirts, ran faster, and the tug pulled harder, burned brighter.

  “Come to me, come-comecomecome—”

  She arrived at a small hill with the dark mouth of a dolmen at the bottom, a tomb from a civilization long past. Heart in her throat and the taste of metal on her tongue, she briefly l
eaned against the moss-covered stones, but no matter how hard or how deep the gulps of air she took, she couldn’t catch her breath.

  At her back, the wind frenzied. Birds swooped, screeching and screaming and demanding she turn to look at them. When she didn’t, her sight became a blur of beaks and feathers. Claws raked her shoulders, the nape of her neck, tangled and pulled her hair. There was little else she could do besides hold up her arms to protect her face, cringing.

  What if this was the Lord’s belated signal that she should stop?

  She paused, almost turned around—she would have, had Brites’s voice not rung in her head, reminding her that part of the larger spell surrounding the Enchanted Moura was that nature itself would do everything to detract possible curse-breakers from their goal.

  “Almost!” the Moura said, in a voice that was all anguish tinted with anticipation. “Don’t stop, please-please-please find me.”

  With a scream, she spread her arms and slapped some of the birds away before crawling past the dolmen’s threshold. Once inside, the birds didn’t follow, and although she wasn’t sure they were gone for good, she didn’t dare risk a look from the corner of her eye.

  No looking back, not until she found the Moura.

  “I’m here!” she shouted, her voice reverberating around her.

  The damp darkness closed in, and Yzabel couldn’t see the way, but the voice called again, and the magic pushed her ahead. The inside had enough room for her to stand, and with an adjustment to her skirts and mantle, she inched forward, one hand on the steadying wall.

  Her heart beat loud and fast. Her entire body became impossibly hot and awash in light, splitting the darkness in half. Right at the center, a stone of weather-worn granite, dotted with specks of red and cut in a rectangle that was not much wider than the palm of her hand.

  She knelt, skirts pooling around her in a sea of wrinkles and white. In her head, the Moura spoke again, so close she seemed to be right in front of her.

  “Please,” she said. “I’m right here.”

  With her glowing hand, Yzabel reached, fingers brushing the surface of the stone. A tremor rocked the dolmen’s cave, showering her in pebbles. Gasping, she almost dropped her arm, almost turned back when Vasco screamed her name from the mouth of the anta—but before she could react, reality shifted. A river of air swept her up in its arms, and she fell into the stone, the mysterious current dragging her down, down, down.

  A shock rattled her bones. An excruciating pain settled on her chest, as if someone had cracked her ribs open and rummaged through her insides.

  In her heart, there was only one wish, one word.

  Peace.

  Peace from the curse and its waste.

  Peace to grow strong and be the princess she wanted to be.

  Peace in this country that had become hers, so no more lives would be lost to pointless wars.

  Her descent slowed. Yzabel’s feet met the ground with the whisper of skin on stone. She lifted her gaze to look ahead—mists stretched for as far as she could see, leaving her surroundings clouded in mystery.

  A few feet ahead, a small whirlwind spun in the fog. At its center shone a single star, a tiny kernel of light growing larger and larger with each maddening spin.

  She lifted an arm to shield her eyes from the blinding brightness, but her skin radiated with its own glow, magic meeting magic. Bigger than what happened if she was near Brites when the woman cast her charms. With Brites, it was a murmur of feeling.

  With the Moura, it was an assault.

  Every inch of her skin thrummed. Her blood hummed in her ears, each pulse vibrating in her teeth, thumping in her temples. She endured it all, the pain a small price to pay even as she fell to her knees, clutching her head.

  A final flash. The whirlwind stilled, and her magic calmed, the brightness inside fading.

  She blinked, and blinked, and blinked, until at last, she could see again.

  Her heart sped up, jumping to her throat the moment her eyes fell on a woman standing some feet away. The stranger looked down at her hands, examined a strand of inky hair, felt her golden face with her fingertips. Her full lips let out a gasp, appearing as astounded as Yzabel felt. Her eyes, a dark shade of green, found Yzabel’s. With a smile, and in a voice lovelier than a lute’s song, the Moura said, “Ave.”

  Chapter Five

  A Promise

  Yzabel echoed the Moura’s Latin greeting, breathless and unguarded. “Ave.”

  Wariness stilled the Moura’s steps, a frown wrinkling her forehead, followed with a hand to her heart. Big, doe-like eyes the shade of green olives, made more striking in a frame of thick, long eyelashes. Flat and bold brows, her nose strong and straight, her cheekbones sharp, and her lips, round and full, brought up the memory of rose petals, lush and pink.

  With slow feet, she approached in a billowing cloud of burgundy skirts, blinking as if Yzabel could disappear and reveal herself a dream. Or perhaps it was disappointment that made her so hesitant. The Enchanted Moura’s eyes would see nothing but a waifish girl, ashen pale and malnourished, wearing a fine dress of silk and a beautiful mantle of white fur. She’d see dull brown curls framing a square face dominated by a large forehead, sunken, deep-set eyes black as a void, and a long, thick nose—far from the dashing savior the Moura had probably imagined.

  “What’s your name?” Yzabel asked, shy uncertainty wavering in her voice.

  The Moura’s breath caught. “So many have come here before, and you’re the first to ask.” She moved closer, every step more mesmerizing than the one before, her voice low and resonant, like the song of crystal glasses. “I am Fatyan, once the favored daughter of Abu-Hassan, Alcaide of Al-Manijah. Enchanted to meet you.” Her Latin was slightly different from Yzabel’s, but not by much, and it was easy to derive the meaning of her words. After a pretty curtsy, she asked, “And yours?”

  She curtsied in return. “I am Yzabel of Aragon, future Queen of Portugal and the Algarves, daughter of Pedro the Third of Aragon and Constanza of Hohenstaufen of Sicily.”

  “The future Queen of Portugal?” Fatyan laughed, a crystalline, melodious sound that echoed across the mist.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “The irony, dear one. The irony is hilarious.” She wiped tears from the corner of her eyes. “That the one person who’s heard me in over a hundred years happens to be everything Baba despised—Portuguese, a girl, and a princess.”

  “I’m not Portuguese, though.”

  “Aragonian—same thing to him, really.” Fatyan went back to regarding her with a quizzical expression. Under the scrutiny, she shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot as a blush heated her cheeks.

  “I’m…sorry,” she said. “I was told you were cursed into eternity when the Portuguese took Terra da Moura. Taking back a city shouldn’t come at the cost of a woman’s eternal life. It’s not worth anyone’s, and I truly am sorry we’ve caused you pain.”

  Fatyan’s frown deepened, and she blinked. “My misery is not unique, dear one. Others had it far worse.”

  “It still doesn’t make it right,” Yzabel said without wavering, “and if I can help you finally end it, then I will.”

  The Moura’s eyebrows arched in surprise before she cleared her throat and regained her neutral composure. “No point in apologizing. It’s in the past and not done by your hand. I’d wager you were sold to a king, same way I’d have been sold had the Portuguese not taken Al-Manijah. Not to mention…I’m here by my father’s hand, not your people’s.”

  “You’re not angry?”

  “I was, for a while. But when you’ve been stuck so long in a place such as this, where time is so warped you lose track of it, anger and bitterness become tiring. Eventually, I stopped feeling them. I stopped feeling anything, and all I did was wait, and sleep, and wait, and sleep…” Melancholy tinged her smile. “Then yo
u came, and I was asleep no more.” A step closer. “So, dear Yzabel. Tell me why you’ve come.”

  Hearing her name in Fatyan’s lips heated her cheeks further, and her closeness breathed wonder into her lungs. No stranger had come so near her before, and she almost stepped away—but then her eyes found Fatyan’s and the tender curiosity reflected upon them, and the enchantment of it all rooted her in place.

  “I need your help,” Yzabel said.

  “I know. I need yours, too.” A slight tilt of her head. “What would you ask of me?”

  Yzabel tensed, her fingers matching the white of her dress as she clutched it. “You have to promise not to tell anyone. Even after we leave this place.”

  Understanding blinked in Fatyan’s eyes, and she tilted her head to the side as she asked, “Is it the sahar?”

  “Sahar?”

  “Magic.” She motioned toward Yzabel’s left hand that was still glowing as though someone had spread embers under the skin. “It’s what woke me up, even though you were far away.”

  The curse had been reacting to Fatyan’s. Yzabel’s lips fell open. “Can you tell me why it turns all the food I touch into flowers?”

  Intrigue drew Fatyan’s lips into a pout and her fingers to her chin. “You turn food into flowers?”

  “Yes. That’s why I came to find you.” She looked at Fatyan, and her tongue darted to wet her lips. “I need this curse gone.”

  Pensive eyes studied her, then Fatyan raised her hand. “I need to feel your sahar better.” Fatyan stilled, left her fingers to hover above Yzabel’s jaw. “May I?”

  An answering nod came without Yzabel’s command, and she stepped forward so Fatyan brushed her cheek. The Moura closed her eyes as she fully cupped the side of Yzabel’s face, and she wasn’t certain what spell had her enthralled so completely, if it was the stone’s or the Moura’s, but her heart was racing, and an odd feeling forming in her stomach, so much like hunger and yet not.

  The magic inside her surged, and heat spread from where their skin touched. Her heart tried to climb up her throat. When she swallowed it back down, the throb rose to her ears, numbing her to anything that wasn’t Fatyan.