A Curse of Roses Page 5

  A crease appeared between the Moura’s brows as she opened her eyes, and her hand moved across Yzabel’s jaw, down the slope of her neck, mesmerized as they trailed her own gesture. Yzabel looked down when the Moura stopped at her shoulder and gasped at the sight before her.

  Under Fatyan’s touch, Yzabel’s skin came alight, as though she had candles underneath her flesh and Fatyan’s fingers were the flame that lit their wick.

  “This is no curse,” Fatyan said under her breath. She trailed her hand down the inside of Yzabel’s arm, and it was like watching lightning cross her skin. “How long have you had it?”

  “Since my first blood, five years ago,” Yzabel replied bitterly, but did not pull away. “And it’s been growing worse ever since, to a point I can barely eat anymore.”

  “Gifts such as ours tend to grow wild if they’re not accepted and centered.” The Moura gave her a perplexed look, brow low over blinking eyes. “You hate it. No wonder it’s angry.”

  “Angry?”

  “Your sahar is starved, driven wild by your revulsion.” Fatyan took her hand away and then backed up a step. “I cannot take or change it, dear Yzabel, no more than I could rip your heart from your chest and turn it into a lung.”

  The shock from Fatyan’s words struck her in place. She was sentenced to die, to be devoured from within like a mite-infected tree. “You…can’t help me?”

  All the suffering and despair, the isolation and the sickness… All for nothing.

  It was as if a violent storm raged around her, and she but a cracked reed whipped in every direction, soon to be violently uprooted and lost in the wind. Reduced to a footnote in history as the first woman promised to the King of Portugal, a princess who would give no heirs and leave behind no legacies.

  All because of the cursed magic she unleashed at every meal, magic that would finally kill her after all these years.

  Stars and darkness overtook her sight. The pressure mounted in her lungs, and wind stirred the mist, snaking around her legs, lifting her up, and Yzabel could not breathe, she couldn’t—

  “I never said that.” Fatyan’s soft statement anchored her. “Your sahar isn’t that different from mine. Ours is the gift of transformation, but yours flows outward instead of inward. Either way, if you learn how to properly wield it, you can control how it acts.”

  Yzabel’s throat bobbed as she looked away, biting the inside of her cheek. “I’ve been trying to do that all my life. I’ve never been able to suppress the magic.”

  “That’s where you went wrong. Those of us born with magic are meant to use it. We’re not meant to choke it, but to give it shape and set it free. You can turn food into flowers on your own, but Yzabel…” Fatyan tucked one of Yzabel’s curls behind her ear, lifted her chin with an index finger. “You can learn to do the reverse and turn flowers into food. Of that, I’m sure.”

  The gates of her imagination opened, showing her pictures of the Portuguese fields packed with wildflowers ready to be plucked by anyone who wished. She could turn all that into food people could eat, without spending a single dime. “How?”

  “The same way I did—practice, patience, and a small ritual.” Fatyan smiled, and sunlight seeped through the mist, kissing Yzabel’s cheeks with warmth. “On my life and blood, break my curse, dear Yzabel, and I will help you become a master in the arts of sahar.” Her hand returned to Yzabel’s face, startling her into motionlessness. “I will help you turn flowers into food.”

  How had she not seen this before? How had she been so blinded by terror that she’d failed to grasp the most obvious of possibilities?

  Denis had restricted Yzabel’s charity to measly alms that were nowhere near enough to make an impact. And God had known Denis would forbid her from being as charitable as she wanted; He’d known the Portuguese would need her, so was it possible He had equipped her to deal with it?

  Eating alone, avoiding public outings, staying hidden out of fear of being persecuted for the magic she carried… That was not her fate. It was a challenge, given so she could truly understand her calling and take matters into her own hands.

  The tentative relief overwhelmed her into a stutter. “H-How do I get us out of here?”

  “Ah, this is where even more irony comes in,” Fatyan said. “Our legends are always made with men in mind. Women are the object of a curse, not their breakers. Yet, in all these years, no man has been strong enough or brave enough to come. You did.”

  “What do you mean?”

  A lopsided smile of mischief. “A kiss, dear Yzabel. The curse is broken with a kiss.”

  A kiss? Kisses were supposed to be between husband and wife—and she’d barely kissed her own betrothed. The few times she’d subjected herself to the experience had left her so underwhelmed, she hadn’t had the courage to try again recently. To do it with someone else in the meantime seemed…dishonest. “Is that the only way?”

  “It is,” Fatyan said simply.

  Thinking about kissing her flustered Yzabel more than thinking of the marriage bed. “I couldn’t have been the only woman to find you.”

  “You weren’t, but the others weren’t like you. They came with wishes of marriage and riches, and the curse shaped me into whatever their hearts desired—always a man.” She bit the corner of her lower lip. “You were the perfect loophole—someone who came to ask for peace. I believe that’s why I retained my original shape.”

  She wasn’t ready for this; it was one thing to seek the help of the uncanny, but to kiss a woman? Surely the Lord would strike them where they stood. “But the Bible says a woman cannot kiss another woman.”

  A sudden gust of wind rose to freeze the air, chilly fingers sinking into her ankles to seize bone and muscle. Darkness swept in, coating the mist in shadow, and Fatyan, so warm a moment ago, stood as rigid as a statue.

  “I didn’t take you for one of their puppets,” she said, the low notes of her voice tolling like bells, echoing in the emptiness around them. “I didn’t think you’d be so opposed to the idea of a simple kiss shared to help someone and yourself.”

  The wind spun harder, lifting Yzabel’s mantle, her skirts, her heels—the balls of her feet were all that tethered her to the ground, as tenuous and as fragile as spider’s silk. The refusal to kiss Fatyan was driving her out of the stone, away from the one person who could help her.

  She fought the force pushing her up. “I’m not a puppet.”

  “No?” Fatyan’s glare didn’t wane.

  The air stole one of Yzabel’s legs out from under her, left her poised on the tip of a toe.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  A whip of air slammed into her stomach, knocking her off balance and the mantle off her shoulders. For a split second, she hovered in the dark, one arm blindly reaching for Fatyan, whose icy facade had broken into a visage of terrible sorrow and despair. Loneliness dripped from her in waves, the solitude of more than a century burrowing in Yzabel’s thoughts.

  Fatyan had been so alone, for so long. If a kiss was the price to pay for someone’s freedom, should a princess not give it willingly, and gladly? And perhaps kissing a woman was the lesser of two evils and would lead to less complicated entanglements. If she had to bring someone new to the castle to teach her magic, it was far easier with another woman—no one would find it amiss if they spent too long together, or if they slept together, even. Should they succeed, Portugal’s citizens would be better off.

  What was a sacrilegious kiss in the face of all that?

  “I’ll do it!” As soon as the shout left her lips, her feet met solid ground, and her outstretched hand met Fatyan’s shoulder.

  The warmth returned, as did the light. The Moura took a small step forward, the space between them a hair’s breadth. “First, an exchange of vows.” She brushed the hair away from Yzabel’s face, a gesture so tender that she fought the sudden urge to lean int
o it. “I promise to help you learn the sahar and will not leave your side until you are its master.”

  It took Yzabel a moment to realize it was her turn to speak. “I promise to grant you freedom once I control the magic inside me. Should that prove impossible, I’ll free you nonetheless.”

  Fatyan’s eyes widened as though she hadn’t expected that last part. Little dimples appeared in the corner of her mouth, and her fingers grasped Yzabel’s chin. “And so it shall be.”

  The breathy words teased her lips in a way she did not understand. She wanted to inhale them, roll them around in her tongue and swallow them whole. Her eyelids closed, casting her into a darkness that heightened every other sense. The tender heat from the hand holding her chin firm, and the one snaking around her waist. The hectic beat of her heart when their chests touched, the aching of her lips in anticipation until, finally, they met Fatyan’s.

  It was just a soft brush at first, barely there at all. She didn’t know what to do, and although she repeatedly told herself to stay still and let it be over with, another instinct—something buried deep inside, a part of herself she’d never met—made her lean forward.

  The flavor of cinnamon danced on the tip of her tongue, the scent of almonds on her nostrils, but before she could get a better taste, the heat of magic enveloped them both. Fatyan pulled away, and Yzabel opened her eyes to see her smiling as sunlight soaked the two of them.

  The same invisible current that had swept Yzabel into the stone lifted their feet from the ground, and like two stars, they shot upward into the mist. Fatyan clung to her, and Yzabel wrapped her arms around the shaking Moura. Vibrations hummed around them as the stone’s realm crumbled, the magic pieces a river flowing into Fatyan, condensing the timeless prison into its inhabitant’s flesh.

  Fatyan groaned through gritted teeth. Yzabel’s ears popped, her eyes blind against the bright light, and then—

  Solid ground. Damp air, the scent of earth heavy upon it.

  In a small voice, Fatyan asked, “Did we…?”

  Yzabel ran a comforting hand across the other girl’s back. “Yes.”

  Slowly, Fatyan opened her eyes to the cave, a slow laugh building low in her throat. She giggled as she kissed Yzabel’s alarmed cheek, hugged her tight, and said, “Thank you.”

  Strange as it was, Fatyan’s warmth wasn’t an unwelcome feeling. As Yzabel let herself bask in it a second longer, she wondered if it was even possible to grow used to this.

  Chapter Six

  A Thread of Hope

  As soon as Fatyan took her first glimpse of the orange sunset, she launched into a run, leaving Yzabel behind in the dark.

  A lick of her tingling lips brought back the cinnamon, and with it, the twisted rumbling of hunger. She gathered her breath and composure, the familiar exhaustion waking up inside her, but as she started to follow the giggling melody outside, her toe met something hard and sent it spinning forward.

  Amid the roots and earth, sat a stone. The stone. Back aching and knees groaning, she bent to pick it up, inspecting it with a frown. A trace of magic hummed against the flesh of her hand in an ominous warning, the terms of their deal whirling in her head.

  Her last shred of hope lay with someone she barely knew, her faith in a single promise that could be broken at any time. Her practical side, asleep inside Fatyan’s cursed realm, erupted with berating thoughts about the precariousness of her situation, of what she’d have to do just to keep Fatyan nearby. It hadn’t even occurred to her that freeing a Moura from her prison would bring its share of lies and trouble.

  A sound from outside scattered her thoughts and guilt. Vasco asking, “Who are you? Where’s Yzabel?”

  She immediately scampered out of the dolmen, shouting, “Here!” as she forced her sluggish feet to crest the dolmen’s entrance. “I’m fine.”

  “I couldn’t find you for most of the afternoon. You went in there, and when the mantle came flying out, when hours passed, I thought…”

  Yzabel had thought it odd that the sun had come close to setting in such a short amount of time, and she looked to Fatyan, who read the question without her needing to voice it.

  “Time passes differently in the stone,” the Moura explained. “Sometimes slower, sometimes faster, and you can never tell which is which. Especially when you’re stuck in a cave without sunlight.”

  Shaking his head, Vasco lowered dazed eyes to Yzabel’s cloak draped in his arms like a blanket of snow, then came over to place the heavy warmth back on her shoulders. He grabbed both her arms for a second as if to ascertain she was truly here, then settled his attention back on Fatyan. “Is she…?”

  Under the setting sun, her guard and the Moura exchanged a glance that brimmed with mistrust. Fatyan bristled at the way his eyes raked her over from head to toe, her arms coming to a defiant cross over her chest.

  Yzabel stepped between them. “Yes. This is Fatyan, the Enchanted Moura. Fatyan, this is Dom Vasco Pires, head of my Guarda.”

  Vasco’s thick-eyebrowed glower intensified. If Fatyan was uncomfortable, however, it didn’t show in the flamboyant bow that followed, or her teasing, “Enchanted to meet you.”

  Vasco didn’t move, and the unamused dark of his eyes didn’t leave Fatyan. “I assume she managed to rid you of the curse, then?”

  A fierce scowl took over Fatyan’s face as her hands became fists, ready to demand respect over being ignored. Yzabel needed to smother the suspicions between these two before any conflict could escalate.

  “There’s been a change of plans. Fatyan will stay with us a while, and you will not speak of her as though she’s not present.”

  The bags he carried fell to the ground with a heavy thump. “She didn’t end the curse?”

  The gall of him to do it right after she told him not to. Yzabel fixed him with a glare, not speaking until Vasco apologetically turned to Fatyan and reframed his question.

  “You couldn’t take it away?”

  “No. It’s impossible to take away someone’s magic when they’re born with it. All I can do is teach her to control it.”

  Vasco regarded Fatyan with a critical eye. “You are going to pose problems.”

  Fatyan snorted. “Why, because I’m a Moor?”

  “No, that part of you blends in just fine, since most Moors are Portuguese nowadays. The problem is that you’ll be a beautiful stranger staying with the princess.” He turned to Yzabel. “Surely you don’t need to be reminded of whom you’re engaged to.”

  Yzabel’s sigh was as guilty as her avoidant gaze. As much as she was loath to admit it, Vasco had a point—she couldn’t show up with a woman out of nowhere. Especially one who was bound to draw Denis’s gaze; one who smelled like almonds and tasted of cinnamon.

  The stone dangerously heated up in Yzabel’s hand, and she could’ve sworn Fatyan flickered—there, then not, then there, then not.

  “What does he mean?” Fatyan’s wispy question barely reached Yzabel.

  “That my betrothed is a known philanderer and you’re… Well.” The flashing heat of the stone climbed to her face, and she cleared her awkward throat. “But as far as I know, he doesn’t tend to chase unwilling skirts.” Her own included. Come to think of it, Denis had rarely spent a night out at the brothel, and much preferred to keep the company of Aldonza, one of Yzabel’s future ladies-in-waiting.

  “All right.” Fatyan relaxed, and Yzabel released her pent-up breath before putting the stone in her pocket.

  “Do you have any idea how long it might take for me to master the curse?”

  “Hard to tell.” The Moura looked up to the sky and the already visible close-to-full moon. “If we can get you to accept your sahar, we can perform the ritual in a couple of days. We need a full moon, plus some herbs and spices. After that, controlling your gift should be easier—but I’ll have to remain at your side until our bargain is seale
d.”

  “And it won’t be until I can make bread out of roses.” Yzabel chewed on her lip. “Might be best if we sneak you in and we stay in my rooms until then.”

  Face drained of color, Fatyan took a step back, hugging herself as if struck by an onslaught of cold. From her lips tumbled out a plea, “I can’t be locked up again. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t—”

  The harrowing sorrow heated the stone again, and before it could burn a hole in her dress, Yzabel rushed to envelope Fatyan in a hug. The gesture surprised even herself, as she wasn’t prone to touching others, but the instinct to comfort Fatyan had been so strong it overpowered the rest. This poor woman had been locked away for half a century, no wonder this was her reaction.

  “It’s all right,” she whispered, hands circling comfort around Fatyan’s trembling back. “We don’t have to hide you, but we do need to come up with a story. If we tell the wrong person you’re an Enchanted Moura, they’ll either try to pry the supposed demons from our skulls or execute us for black magic.”

  Fatyan nodded against Yzabel’s neck. “Thank you. I just… I can’t bear the thought of being a prisoner again.”

  “You won’t be,” Yzabel said, Fatyan’s nerves quieting under her touch. As she racked her mind for ideas, what she’d witnessed this morning came back to haunt her with full force. Overworked men, incredibly thin children, the red cloths over windows.

  Denis wouldn’t let her give them food, true—but she could give them poultices to help with the red plague. An extra pair of hands to help with the task wouldn’t be unthinkable. “If you want to walk around freely and go unmolested, we can say you’re a young sister from the Carmo Convent, and that the Abbess asked me to train you in the making of herbal medicines. Does that agree with you?”

  “I…” Fatyan stepped back, biting into her lower lip as she considered. “I can do that.”