Chapter Twenty-Eight. In Which the Girl Interrupts a Wedding #2
Javi might have been smiling, but by now Risa could see through him. The corner of his lips trembled from the effort of sustaining a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. His nervous fingers began to twist the rings on his hand over and over.
General Sur smiled, too, baring too many of his pearl-white teeth. “You can save her.” He cocked the pistol. “Or you can kill her. Those are your only choices.”
Risa tried to shake her head at Javi, but El Gib tightened his grip and his blade bit deeper into her skin.
She tapped El Gib’s bulging forearm with a finger, because she didn’t think he would be thrilled at the prospect of being shot at.
“If the general shot me, wouldn’t that hurt you?” she rasped, hoping El Gib managed to hear her.
He slackened his hold enough to let her breathe, or because he seemed to notice the general aiming a little too close to him. “Whoa.” He moved the blade from her throat, angling it at the general. “Be careful where you point that thing.”
“I’m not trying to shoot you,” the general scoffed. “I’m trying to shoot the girl.” He raised the pistol, ignoring El Gib’s angry growl.
Javi’s brows knit together. His eyes softened as he met her gaze. “Oh, Risa.” He whispered her name like an apology. Like a goodbye. “You know I must.”
He turned to face the bride and reached for her hand.
No. She couldn’t let him do this. She couldn’t let him give up his life for hers when she’d been so selfish, when she’d been choosing her own life over his since that first day in the Bosque. She didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve it.
A sudden howl echoed against the stained glass windows. And a voice rose above the painful cry.
“I order you to stop this nonsense at once!”
Amina had somehow managed to wrangle out of Bella’s control, and it had been Bella’s cry that shattered the moment.
Bella nursed a wound in her hand, courtesy of one of Amina’s daggers, its polished hilt sticking out of her palm.
The princess stood at the foot of the dais, hood pulled back and face revealed.
The livid red welt of her old scar glistened like a badge of honor.
General Sur’s face drained at the sight of her. As if he were witnessing a ghost returning to life.
“Amina,” the bride whispered, bouquet toppling out of her hands.
Amina took one step forward. The Sanguines dotting the perimeter moved toward her in unison, belatedly realizing that everything was spiraling out of control.
El Gib and Carlos were frozen, glancing between the general’s pistol and Amina’s slow, stalking march.
Amina raised her remaining dagger, leveling it at the bride.
“You may have murdered my family,” she said to the general. “Ensorcelled my people. Claimed my throne. But I am your queen, and you will stop this charade at once or I will kill your daughter.”
The bride whimpered, face crumpling at the words.
No one stirred at her declaration. Not the castle guards, not the priest, and certainly not the general.
The curse that ensnared everyone was too strong for them to fight.
Even the gathered guests, only partly captured in the magical web, could do little more than rise halfway out of their seats, stare in confusion, and sit back down, faces turning stony.
“Guards,” Amina called out. “I am your queen. Follow—”
Suddenly, Bella—appearing out of nowhere—grabbed Amina’s arm with her uninjured hand and twisted. A sickening snap of breaking bone rang out over the chapel.
Risa cried out with Amina just as magic surged over them, another wave unleashed. It seethed and raged, searching anew for an opening in Risa’s defenses, eager to crawl in and devour whatever it could find. The sheer force of it knocked the breath out of her.
The witch had to be somewhere in the chapel. Risa’s only thought was to follow the new trail, discover where it originated, and try to stopper the flow directly at the source. She focused her attention on each guest and each Sanguine.
General Sur canted his head and considered the princess, who hung like a marionette from Bella’s hand.
“I amend my demands. Prince Javi, you will wed my daughter, you will make her Queen Perla of Madros, and then you will kill Princess Amina.”
Javi straightened to his full height. He looked at Risa with pity. “I will not.”
“Once you kill the princess…” the general trailed off, ignoring Javi and turning his back on the prince.
He marched down the dais until he stood face-to-face with Risa and pressed the pistol against her temple.
“I will kill you for your wanton attack against the monarchy and destroying the legacy of our departed royal family. A war will begin. Your silly aunt will rally against Madros for what she will no doubt claim as an unjust death sentence. And I will win.”
Amina sobbed. The general’s daughter also cried out, taking a step toward the princess as another wave of uncontrolled magic hit Risa in the chest.
Risa blinked through the suffocating grasp of the curse trying to pry her open like a clamshell. She needed to find the source, but she was buckling under the powerful surge as it tried to drag her deeper into its depths.
“If you want to kill the rightful queen, do it yourself,” Javi spat.
The general shrugged. “Fine.”
He spun and took aim at Amina.
“Father, no!”
Perla flung herself from the dais. She crashed into her father and grabbed for the pistol. General Sur stumbled, bewildered by the attack, but only for a moment before he gripped his daughter’s chin in a bone-crushing grasp.
“You.” It was an accusation. Cruel and dripping with venom. “You saved her life. I asked for one thing and you defied me.”
“Let her go,” the bride begged, tears clinging to her lashes. One trembled at the bow of her lips. “I’ll kill the prince myself. Take Madros, the whole world—but let her go.”
“No,” Amina cried. She aimed her dagger, but Bella grabbed it from her with a snarl before returning Amina’s favor and stabbing it through the princess’s hand.
“Please.” Perla’s voice turned desperate, even as her father’s fingers sank painfully into her cheeks. “I’ll do whatever you like. I’ll extend the spell. I’ll force it past the desert even if it kills me, and then you’ll be rid of the daughter you never wanted. But you have to let Amina go.”
General Sur stared between his daughter and Amina. “She was always your weakness.”
And suddenly, Risa understood.
Madros was not cursed.
Perla was.
Somehow, what had started as a spell for General Sur—something around the power of control, perhaps controlling one person in the guard, or one member of the royal family—had gained enough power to become a curse that pulled nearly everyone into its orbit.
The general had forced Perla to extend her magic until it turned against her and became a breathing, writhing thing that sloughed off Perla in thick, slow globs.
No wonder the curse was powerful. It was spurred on by Perla’s irreparable guilt and regret. It had an endless source of power, continually replenished by her father’s actions and her inaction.
And now that Risa understood, she closed her eyes and dived into the magic once more.
The curse had morphed into a hideous mass that was more comparable to a heaving ocean than to the vines Risa knew and the knots to which Linda had likened magic.
This felt like swimming against a current, only the water was made of viscous pitch, subsisting on Perla’s guilt.
Perla’s conviction of her own villainy was too strong for Risa to unravel with her desperation, and there wasn’t much she could do against a curse that someone didn’t want broken.
But Risa had to try.
Before she could dive into the curse, though, she had to escape her actual imprisonment in El Gib’s grasp.
Risa sagged in his arms and became deadweight.
El Gib was entirely unprepared, grunting as she slipped from his hold and landed in a heap on the floor.
Once free, Risa scrambled away, rushing toward Perla.
If magic was about belief, then she was going to get Perla to believe in herself.
“It’s not your fault!”
Perla turned to her, face stricken and tears tracking down her cheeks.
Risa shouted, “You shouldn’t have been forced to place Madros under a spell. You were a child—you didn’t know better. He was your father. He should have been looking out for you.”
The Sanguines, littered across the chapel, all turned to Risa. “She’s a witch!” Carlos reminded them, stumbling farther back to get away from Risa. “She’s putting a spell on us!”
“Grab her!” General Sur pointed at Risa.
Risa swerved out of El Gib’s way, even as he brandished his knife and it slashed her side.
But she hardly noticed the sting of it slicing through her shirt and skin as she barreled on.
“It’s not your fault you’re a witch. But you can’t let a greedy man use your power for his own gain even if he’s your father. You have to forgive yourself.”
Risa had almost reached the girl’s side when General Sur thrust Perla to the floor. She crumpled at his feet, white dress fanning out around her like the wings carved into the doors of the chapel.
Her father stepped over her and advanced on Risa. Another surge of magic pulsed from Perla, crashing against the advancing Sanguines and dragging most of them under her control, stilling their movements. Even El Gib slowed, hardened face going slack.
“I can’t,” Perla sobbed, her voice breaking at the end.
But General Sur raged on, unaffected.
Risa dodged the pistol he raised and aimed at her. “You must!” she screamed at Perla, tracking the general’s every move. She swerved as he swung the weapon at her head. “That’s the only way to break the curse. To free everyone. To help Amina!”