Chapter Twenty-Eight. In Which the Girl Interrupts a Wedding #3
Perla shook her head and another spurt of power frizzled out of her. The new wave nearly flattened Risa to the ground. She bit her lip and planted her heels into the tile, refusing to budge.
“I cannot be forgiven,” Perla whimpered.
Looking at Perla was like peering into a mirror and seeing all her own mistakes.
All the disasters Risa had caused, all the people she’d hurt without meaning to.
Risa had spent a lifetime being told she was at fault for all the bad things that happened around her.
Perla had spent a lifetime telling herself she was at fault, paying for the crimes of her own father.
“I forgive you!” Amina wailed.
The magic receded for a breath. The current slowed.
Risa felt the change and followed the magical stream in her mind, wading into its thick murk until she found the source of Perla’s power and curse.
And there, instead of trying to unravel the knots that held everyone, instead of pulling on the vines and weeds and picking at the thorns until there was nothing left, she fed it.
She fed it itself. She urged the curse placed on the guests, the guards, even the Sanguines, to return from whence it came. She pulled at their knots and pushed the magic back to its source, all the while thinking of every time she wished someone had forgiven her.
She was tired of unraveling things. Of breaking them. Risa wanted to try her hand at fixing something instead.
How different would life have been if Risa had heard someone say they didn’t blame her for the river overflowing with rainwater?
If her parents had assured their daughter she had nothing to feel sorry for, that bad things happened to anyone and everyone, not just because some little girl existed nearby?
If the town of Barrow hadn’t decided that a girl born on a Bad Day must also be a Bad Thing?
So she forgave Perla for the things she couldn’t forgive herself for.
At first, nothing happened. Then, a rush of air swept over the chapel, rattling the chairs and the stained glass window behind the dais. Risa watched as magic seeped out of the dazed guests, the muddled guards, the affected Sanguines, and wormed its way toward Perla.
Weapons clattered to the floor. Guests stood from their seats and glanced around them in bewilderment. The Sanguines stumbled away.
But the curse did not collapse the way she’d hoped. Instead, it centered around Perla, gorging on the guilt she still felt, content to grow until it was unleashed again.
“You have to forgive yourself,” she told the witch of Madros. “Or it will eat you up from inside and never let you go.”
“I can’t,” Perla cried, her crumpled dress the broken wings of a dead bird.
“You’re the only one who can,” Risa told her, rushing to Perla’s side to take her hands. The curse tried to snap at her, too, but instead, Risa shouldered some of Perla’s guilt. Like she thought a friend might do. Like Amina and Javi had tried to do. “Not your dad. Not Amina. Just you.”
“I just wanted to make him happy,” Perla sniffled.
“You’re his daughter,” Risa said. “It’s not your fault that that’s not enough for him.”
Perla sighed, and something shifted beneath Risa’s feet. She felt the curse recede again, for good.
The general stared at Perla, then Risa, realizing that the magic had loosened its hold.
“You!” General Sur roared, anger turning his entire face beet red.
Risa scurried back to the dais, where Javi was helping Amina to her feet. He was trying to coax the princess into letting him pull out the dagger that still protruded from her hand.
But she was not listening. Amina held her head high as she marched toward the general, who trembled with unbridled fury. She did not cower when he leveled his pistol at her. She did not stop when his finger moved over the trigger.
The queen of Madros did not stand down.
Those ice-blue eyes widened. The general’s phantom had returned, and she would not disappear into the night like he hoped.
“I am Amina Durra Moro Almunia.” Amina’s voice rang out over the chapel.
The guards, the guests, and the Sanguines turned their confused faces toward her as her pronouncement echoed around the hallowed walls.
“I am the rightful queen of Madros. This man killed my family. And he will be held to account for his crimes against the kingdom of Madros.”
Like magic, the stained glass dome brightened and bathed her in dancing blues and greens.
One by one, the guards fell to their knees, hands at their hearts. The guests hurried into bows and curtsies. Even the Sanguines, loyal to no one, were humbled enough to lower their heads with respect.
Behind the general slunk a dark, frightful thing with singed fur sticking out at odd angles. Waiting, calculating, yellow-black cat eyes narrowed in determination.
General Sur laughed. “I won’t miss this time.”
A shot rang out.
The world slowed. Perla screamed. Brunie leaped into the air, but the cat was too late. Javi shouted, body twisting as he stepped in front of Amina.
Amina’s eyes widened, but she was too slow to move.
And then the prince and the princess went down.