8
A S SHE PACKED FOR THE SIX MOST IMPORTANT WEEKS of her life, Marisol could barely remember a time when she lacked this sense of purpose.
Her room was a chaotic mess of discarded outfits and overturned books, a far cry from the respectful neatness she usually maintained here in Gaspar’s ancestral manor.
This house in Estrellad, the Domingan capital city, had become another stopgap in her life, and, like all the others, she would be leaving it shortly.
Months of lessons and training, planning and negotiating, had gotten her here, so close to vengeance that she could almost see the agony in Bas Arroyo’s eyes.
Ever since Yoselin’s death, she had been drifting, a shadow of herself trying to make it from day to day.
She didn’t know why she’d been spared, so the least she could do was stay alive, even if she hadn’t really been living .
“There was a time when Domingo believed that anger was a poison,” Gaspar had said during one of their lessons.
“Healers would clear their minds by leashing their emotions in order to commune with spirits. Anger, in particular, represented a loss of control that would make it easier for spirits to overstay their welcome.”
“But?” Marisol had asked because there was always a but whenever her guardian got started.
“But that’s not always true, is it? Sometimes, anger becomes initiative.
Ruthless calculation instead of savage violence.
If you push people past a certain point of ire, that loss of control is not a single act.
It’s a movement. An unshackling, if you will, to see what we’re capable of when we have nothing left to lose. ”
“And an enemy to destroy,” she’d added.
Gaspar had laughed. “A revolution is nothing if not anger left to kindle.”
Marisol had been angry for so long that it had felt like poison. But what had once held her back now drove her forward. It had given her a home, a guardian, a name, and a mission. What happened afterward was a problem for the future. Gaspar had been right. Rage was a very powerful motivator.
“What’s that smile for?” asked Gaspar.
He leaned against the doorpost, wearing a modest doublet of light blue with dark breeches.
His face was newly shaven—she’d told him one day that his beard made him look like a bear, and he’d taken it to heart—and his eyes were bright with mischief.
Marisol’s smile widened as she turned to face him, because that mischief usually meant good things for her.
Her house back in Rojanea had evolved from an aureate cage to a lavish home, due in part to several gifts he’d given her to celebrate another skill acquired.
Not that she’d been there much during the last ten months.
After the Coronet, Gaspar had moved back to his ancestral manor in Estrellad, and he’d brought Marisol with him for the next wave of her training.
Before she’d left, Marisol had tracked down Ofelia to give her a job as her house sitter in exchange for food and shelter.
As far as she knew, the girl was still occupying the house in Marisol’s absence.
Meanwhile, Marisol had focused on the future instead of the past. Estrellad had paved roads that cut through sprawling hills, while the city itself glistened from the tallest peaks, overlooking forested areas and small creeks.
It was lodged in the center of the Alban Peninsula, with the Castellan palace—the Palacio Real—located in a repurposed fortress that could see an enemy army coming from miles away.
Unlike Rojanea, this was not a city creaking to an early grave.
This was a city that breathed and sprawled, thriving with each passing day.
Even the sun seemed to rise differently here, painting the tiled walls rose and buttercup, highlighting tawny skin and dark eyes until the people looked carved from gold.
Back in his homeland, Gaspar had softened from mystery to mentor.
There was a very strict curriculum of Domingan history, botany, and combat, but there were also family dinners.
Etiquette instruction that ended in a night at the theater.
Magical endurance rewarded with a horseback ride through the fields.
She’d gone boating and to the symphony; she’d gone to art galleries and on leisurely strolls through the park; and, slowly, she had reconstructed the kind of life she thought she’d lost that bloody night from her childhood.
Occasionally, she found herself having a day or night so wonderful she turned to tell Sofía or Rodrigo or Gabriela about it before she remembered that she now slept in a bedroom alone, living the life of a girl who had never heard of Kindred Orphanage.
But, for the most part, that loneliness and longing didn’t catch up with her.
She’d spent her life missing the things she’d taken for granted until she lost them. What was a few more?
Marisol blinked back into the present, noting that Gaspar’s hands remained behind his back as he approached. He’d brought her another gift, then.
“I love when people get what they deserve,” she said in answer to his question, smoothing her tight curls back under her jeweled cap. “Especially when I’m the one doling out justice.”
“Don’t get too arrogant,” Gaspar said, but there was a smile tugging at the corner of his own mouth. “Everything may be coming to fruition, but one wrong move—”
“—sees us both at the end of a noose, I know .” She rolled her eyes. Even now, Marisol’s guardian was cautious to a fault, tempering the worst of her impulsive instincts. “What have you brought me?”
“Who says I’ve brought you anything?”
Marisol moved to the left, but Gaspar turned so she could still see only his front.
She darted to the right, but he twisted more quickly than she would have expected from an old man in his forties.
She groaned, but this only made him laugh, that rumbling sound that never failed to pull a smile from her.
“Please—”
“All right, all right.”
He revealed a medium-size box with intricate designs carved into the wood and an iron clasp.
Marisol reached for it, then hesitated until he nodded for her to go ahead.
Inside, resting in the red satin lining, were two gorgeous daggers, their silver blades gleaming in the sunlight.
Both had downturned guards and wheel pommels, the grips made of dark green leather.
They were similar to several knives she’d trained with, except newer and, if she wasn’t mistaken, sharper.
She touched the handles in silent awe. “These are for me?”
“I had them specially commissioned,” Gaspar confirmed. “Try not to leave them in the bodies.”
Marisol made a face at him, but she was too touched to maintain an attitude.
Lifting the daggers from the box was like replacing a missing limb.
They were perfectly weighted for her fighting style, and, now that she was looking even closer, she could see the fine embroidery in the leather grip. Ocean waves and six-point suns.
Mar y sol.
“I love them,” she whispered. She turned around to replace the knives in her thigh holsters with these new daggers, but she also took that moment to get herself back under control. She hadn’t cried in front of anyone since she was seven years old, and she wasn’t going to start now. “Thank you.”
Gaspar had placed the box on her side table, and now stood close enough to tower over her.
The mischievous sparkle was gone, replaced by grim determination.
He held her face between his hands, a now-familiar gesture.
Gaspar, she had learned, was a tactile man, prone to ruffling her hair, squeezing her shoulder, carrying her to the physician when she lost a spar or got too sick.
Every touch had become like water to her starving plant, strengthening her belief that someone finally cared for her again.
“Tonight’s dinner is the last bit of time we’ll get to spend together.
Once you return to Coventry, I can no longer physically help you.
You can send coded messages, but, if you find yourself in any real danger, you’ll be on your own.
” He scanned her borrowed face, searching for something she couldn’t guess at.
Meanwhile, she studied his, suddenly despondent at the thought of their father-daughter fantasy life coming to a close.
“After I lost my family, I thought of nothing but vengeance. You know that. I worked tirelessly to create this potion and research the rest, taking little care of myself because what did my health matter if I was destined to be alone? But this past year… Marisol, it’s like you brought my family back to me.
I am so proud of you and all you have become. ”
Her eyes stung. Tears begged to fall, but she shoved them back, back, back . They were not family, not really. Neither of them would ever get their families back. But for ten months, she hadn’t felt alone or unwanted. That was more important right now.
“I won’t let you down,” Marisol said. She cleared her throat. “Either of us. I won’t let either of us down.”
He kissed her forehead and then drew away. “I’ll see you at dinner.”
Marisol watched him collect the box and leave, trying not to smile.
She wasn’t doing this solely for him, but his unwavering faith in her made her confident.
She hadn’t realized that part of her had been waiting for him to get tired of her until now, when she wiped her damp eyes and acknowledged, in the silence of her room, how touched she was by his care.
He’d given her more good memories this year than she’d managed since she left Seaward Palace: more laughter and understanding, more education and banter.
Sure, he was all she had, and she was all he had. But maybe in another life, they still would have picked each other. Maybe in another life, they could have been happy and whole.
Instead, they had cultivated what little joy they could find in this one, and now it was her turn to hold up her end of their bargain.
For a moment, she considered pulling back her morpher magic, revealing her true face for the first time in a year and saying a proper goodbye to the girl she had been.
But she had come too far to let sentiment trip her up now.
This was her face. Marisol Vinyet was her identity.
And the witches of Coventry would fall as the Seawards before them.
Marisol closed her final suitcase and prepared for her latest performance.