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A startled exclamation filters through the trees as the bandits find the dead jaguar.

  Zito lifts me again, sees the blood on my face, and slides the knife into his belt. We limp onward, with barely two good legs between us. My head throbs. I hear him talking to me, as if from far away.

  “This is well concealed,” he says. “Hard to reach, hard to find.”

  He drags me forward, and the world goes black. My next sense is that we are halfway up a sloping wall of rock and scrub. Zito no longer carries his spear. One arm is wrapped around me; the other pulls both of us upward.

  I hate this. I hate the fear. I hate that I must be helped.

  Darkness looms. At first I take it for a shadow, but my hazing vision clears to reveal a small cave, just large enough for me to crawl inside.

  “You go first,” I say. “Pull me in.”

  “Shhh,” he whispers, gently easing me sideways into the narrow opening. “Hide here. I’ll run back to the castle and bring help.”

  I grab his arm. “I’ll go with you.”

  “No.” He hands me the knife, hilt first.

  “You’ll need it if they catch up to you!”

  We hear voices in the distance.

  “I must run,” he says, pulling the knife back with reluctance. “Stay quiet. Stay alive. I’ll be back.”

  And just like that, he slips away. Tears well up in my eyes. I tell myself it’s from the pain. That’s the first thing I must do, then. Bind my ankle. Immobilize it and stop the swelling.

  I scoot farther back into the cave, where the higher ceiling allows me to sit upright. The sun is above the horizon now. Enough light filters in that I can see my ankle.

  It would be better if I could not. It is purple and swollen, and my foot turns at an odd angle. It’s not broken—it’s dislocated.

  I’ve dislocated fingers several times. There is nothing to do but yank them back into place and bind them up until they heal. Surely the principle is the same with an ankle. The good news is that the pain will be much diminished once I accomplish it. It might even support my weight, should it come to that. I unlace my boots, then brace my foot against the wall. I lean over and press my fingertips into the swollen skin, looking for the right grip. Red spots dance in my vision.

  I take three deep breaths and shove my ankle into place. Bone scrapes bone. The cave darkens.

  When I come to, I am dizzy and my vision is blurry, so it is a full second before I realize the shadow leaning over me is a person. I prepare to strike, hard and fast, when a small hand covers my mouth.

  A girl’s hand. Lupita’s hand.

  “Your Highness,” she whispers, her voice trembling.

  “Lupita!” I grab her and hug her tight. “How did you—?”

  “I’m sorry! I just wanted to find the scarlet hedge nettle. For the flowers—”

  “I remember. You’ve been here all night?”

  She buries her head in my chest. I stroke her hair.

  “What happened, Lupita? Tell me. But do it quietly.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.” She swallows hard. “I was going to look for flowers, climbing over the wall. And then . . . and then I heard . . .”

  “Espiritu.”

  She nods.

  “We have killed him, Lupita. He’ll never hurt anyone again.”

  “He leaped onto the wall, and I was so scared. I jumped down and started to run. Then there were men in the woods. Perditos. I didn’t know where I was going. I just ran and ran until I came here.”

  I marvel that this small child made the same drop that injured my ankle. “It’s all right. Do you remember Lord Zito?”

  “The man with the funny voice?”

  “He’s the one who brought me here. He is running back to the castle for help.”

  “I hope he is a very fast runner,” she says. She gestures for me to come see, and I drag myself toward the opening.

  The rising sun has revealed a small meadow between the cliffs and the jungle below. It holds a camp—the remains of a fire and some scattered supplies.

  “They hid here last night, when the soldiers were searching. I wanted to sneak past them, but—”

  “You were smart not to try. But no one is down there now.”

  She gasps and melts back into the shadow of the cave.

  Men with faces painted black emerge from the trees. Bones from their anklets rattle as they walk. They wear clothes hacked from poorly tanned hides, and their hair hangs in clumps. Perditos.

  But they are not alone.

  A tall, thin man with long white hair and a supple cloak accompanies the bandits. The staff he carries bears a glowing jewel in an iron cage at its tip.

  An Invierno. Not just an Invierno, but an animagus, one of their powerful sorcerers.

  Behind him come two more Perditos, dragging someone else, and my heart is in my throat even before my mind makes sense of the scene.

  They have captured my steward. He hangs limp between them, and blood drips from a gash on his forehead. Oh, Zito.

  No rescue is forthcoming. It will be up to me to save us all.

  9

  “LUPITA, you must help me,” I say. “I need you to bind up my ankle as tight as possible.”

  “How?” she whispers.

  I start untying the stays on either side of my stiff leather vest. “With this. Here, help me get it off.”

  Her fingers are more nimble than mine, and her hands shake less. In a few moments, we have it off and the two pieces separated. The front piece is shaped oddly, the rawhide sculpted to my curves, but it has a little more flexibility than the back.

  Outside, the Perditos argue loudly. I feel a desperate need to hurry, even if I don’t know my next step.

  “Now the sleeves of my shirt,” I say. They are also held on with laces. I wince when Lupita’s efforts scrape at my injured shoulder and breathe relief when she’s done pulling the sleeves off my arms. I tie them together and wrap them crosswise around my ankle. I need three times their length, but it will have to do.

  I grab the front half of my vest. “We need to roll this up. Leather armor is not very flexible, so you’ll have to press hard.” I show her what I mean and hand it to her. “We’ll wrap it around my lower leg, as low as we can and as tight as we can, and then we’ll tie it in place. Can you do that?”

  “Yes—”

  A scream of anguish echoes from below. Lupita’s gaze darts outside; then she twitches toward the deeper part of the cave. She is confused, frightened, ready to go in every direction at once.

  “Right here, stay with me, Lupita. I need you to be strong for me. Are you ready?”

  Telling someone else to be strong is exactly what I need. When she nods, courage fills my own chest.

  I unroll the vest just enough to slip it over my ankle, stifling a groan of pain. I take a deep breath. “Ready, Lupita? Make it as tight as you can. Don’t be afraid to hurt me.”

  She presses down on the vest piece, rolling as she goes. “Harder,” I tell her between gritted teeth. “Tighter.”

  When it’s as tight as I can bear, I wrap the laces from my vest around it and knot them. I test the brace by pressing my foot against the cave wall. The pain is not nearly as bad as when the ankle was flopping uselessly.

  The brace will do little to support it, but I hope it will shore up the exhausted muscles and tendons holding it in place. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to walk on it a little.

  Lupita and I crawl back to the lip of the cave and peek outside, careful to keep our faces in the shadows. I wish we had not.

  I cover the girl’s mouth, but only to keep myself from screaming. Zito is on his knees, his arms bound behind him. One man holds him by the hair. Another places an arrow, its iron tip glowing red, against his blistering, blackening cheek. A bloody hole in his face marks the spot where Zito’s right eye used to be.

  The Perdito shifts the arrow tip to beneath his remaining eye.

  “Who was with you, and where have they gone?” the Perdito sa
ys.

  “It was the queen of Orovalle,” Zito answers, laughing. “And she is a hawk, soaring above all of you.”

  The bandit presses the glowing arrowhead into Zito’s cheek, and blood runs down his chin as he screams. Tears stream down my face.

  “Look away, Lupita,” I say. Her eyes are wide, and her shoulders shake. I turn her head against my chest and pull her close, then bury my face in her hair. “You should not see this.”

  “She is a horse no man can catch, galloping across the desert,” Zito says. “She is—” He screams again.

  “Pack everything up, we move out now,” the Perdito says.

  “Cut his throat,” comes the animagus’ slippery voice, and his preternatural calm is more chilling than all the rage in the world.

  “Do it yourself, Chato,” the Perdito leader answers. “Use him to work your blood magic. But someone was with him, so I suggest you make quick work of it before Paxón’s men hunt us down.”

  I dare to peek from the cave’s entrance. The Perdito gestures to the others to leave.

  The animagus hisses, catlike, and the sound is so wild and inhuman that I shrink against the rock wall at my back. “The leash holding back the spring must be renewed daily,” he says. “All our work is wasted if we leave now. The land will heal itself quickly.”

  “And all our work is wasted if we’re dead,” the Perdito says. Then he and his men melt into the jungle, opposite the direction of Khelia Castle.

  The animagus glares after them a moment, then prods Zito with the end of his staff. My steward groans and twitches, and relief fills me.

  I scramble backward, dragging Lupita with me. “Are you sneaky?” I whisper. “Are you fast?”

  “Yes,” she answers uncertainly.

  “Espiritu is dead, and the bad men have gone away, all but that one. We cannot let him escape. I need you to run back to the castle and tell everyone.”

  She shakes her head. I understand her fear, but she must do this. I reach for her arm and give what I hope is a reassuring squeeze.

  “You can sneak down on the shadowed side, hiding between the rocks. And then you must race back to the castle and tell your tía Calla everything.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “Of course you are. So am I. And Lady Calla is scared for you too. And your grandmother and grandfather. But I cannot run back to the castle, not with my ankle. You’re the only one who can do this. You must save your aunt by warning her about the Perditos.”

  I should hate myself for manipulating her this way, but I don’t. I watch carefully as the fear on her face transmutes into something else. It’s that same steely look Elisa gets when I’m about to scold her.

  Not sullenness, I understand suddenly. Bravery.

  Together we crawl to the lip of the cave. Zito sits in the center of the meadow, curled up on himself, panting. Around him, the animagus traces lines in the earth with the glowing end of his staff, a task that requires all his focus. I nod at Lupita and push her out of the cave. She freezes for just an instant, then turns and slips over the boulders as quietly as the moonrise.

  I watch her go, ready to leap out after her if the animagus notices her, but she disappears into the jungle. I exhale relief, but it is short-lived. The animagus circles Zito as if in a trance, chanting as he drags his staff through the lines he drew, over and over again. They begin to glow with bluish light, and I feel sickness rise like a miasma from the earth. When it is done, I will have lost my chance to save my steward, however small it might be. My heart kicks in my chest.

  I ease out from the cave and crouch among the boulders. My fingers close on a rock, the only weapon at hand. My ankle screams at me to stop, but I creep forward over the rocks as quickly and as quietly as I can. Gravel clatters down the slope. Surely he will hear. Surely he will look up.

  I am not quick enough. The chant slows. The light in the animagus’ staff blinks out. The glowing lines fade.

  I’ve reached the meadow, but I’m too far away as he puts the knife to Zito’s throat. I burst into a sprint, every stride an arrow of torment up my leg. But I will not falter. I will not fail.

  The animagus whirls, eyes wide. He raises both staff and knife to defend himself.

  I scream like the jaguar, raw and anguished, like a predator that will not be denied, and he freezes for the merest instance.

  I leap and smash the rock across his head.

  He falls, and I fall on top of him. I pound his head, feeling the bones crack underneath, until red and gray splash with each blow. I toss the bloody rock away, and grab the staff from his still-tight grip. I snap it across my knee, and throw the pieces into the underbrush.

  Gasping, I hold my hands up to the light, shocked at the torrent of violence that flowed so easily from them. My knuckles bleed, and my right palm is scraped raw. I look down at the animagus’ broken form, sickened at the mess I have made. And I watch, half in terror, half in relief, as his body shrivels before my eyes, like a piece of fruit left too long in the sun.

  All the sickness and decay that flowed out of his ritual moments ago rushes back like a tide, flowing over and around me, until I am swimming in it. I fall to my hands and knees and vomit long past the time my stomach is empty.

  The sickness fades, like mist dissipating in the warming sun, leaving the scents of rich soil and moist bark and morning glory blooms. They are good scents. Clean scents.

  “Zito,” I say, crawling toward him because I cannot stand. “Zito.”

  “Alodia! What happened?” He turns his face to me, but the angle is not quite right, like he’s looking at someone behind me.

  I reach for his tied wrists. “Stop moving so I can untie you.”

  “Alodia,” he whispers. “Just let me die.”

  “We’re going back to the castle.” His bonds are soaked in blood. My fingers fumble as I work the slimy knots.

  “Without my eyes, what am I? Even less of a man than I was before.”

  I want to slap sense into him, but I am done hitting things today. Tears roll from my eyes. “Idiot. None of my guards are half the man you are. I can’t make it without you.”

  “Alodia—”

  “Shut up.” My hands are shaking hard, but I finally untie the knots that bind his hands. “You’re my best friend, Zito, and I need you.”

  “You don’t need anyone,” he says, rubbing his wrists.

  “I need you,” I repeat, wiping my nose on my bare arm. But such a declaration is too raw for me, no matter how true, so I add, “I can’t walk on my own. I need you to lean on. Once we get back to the castle, you can crawl off and die.” I find his spear on the ground and thrust it toward him. “So stop whining and get on your damn feet.”

  I can’t tell if he’s laughing or choking, and I don’t care. He leverages himself up, then runs his hands along the length of his spear, as if getting to know it all over again.

  He holds out his arm. “I can’t see the way, Alodia,” he says. “I suppose we need each other right now.”

  Half a dozen inappropriate replies jump to the tip of my tongue, but I keep my mouth firmly closed. We link arms and hobble back the way we came.

  10

  WE are nearly to the castle when something rustles through the underbrush ahead. I hear footsteps, and I’m about to yank Zito into a hollow of ferns when I also hear the creak of armor. The Perditos don’t wear armor.

  “Lupita?” I whisper.

  Figures barrel down the deer path—four of my guards, Lupita, Nurse Ximena, and to my absolute shock, my little sister. Elisa’s hair is full of dirt and leaves, her cheeks are flushed, and the hem of her gown is thick with mud, but she plows forward, her face set stubbornly. She holds a knife in her hand. A kitchen knife, I note with no small amount of amusement. What she thinks she’ll do with it, I’ve no idea. When she sees me, her features melt into relief.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, and it comes out sharper than I intend.

  It stops her cold. “I . . . well . .
. I heard you leave last night. But then you didn’t come back, and Zito was gone too. . . . And the cat screamed, so I fetched the guards, and then we found Lupita, and . . .” Something in my face makes her pause, and her own features harden in response. “I was worried for Zito. I know you can take care of yourself.”

  Lupita weaves through the guards toward me, then wraps my legs in a great hug, squeezing tight. I pat her head absently. “But why are you here? Why not send Khelia’s guards?” How could she risk herself like this? She’s the farthest thing from a warrior I’ve ever known. Of all the stupid . . . My anger dissolves. No, my sister has never been stupid.

  “You left in secret,” she whispers, fully cowed. “So, I knew you had a plan. You always have a plan. And I knew you would be so irritated with me if I spoiled it by telling everyone.”

  I stare at her, dismayed, because she is exactly right. “Elisa, I’m s—”

  Zito places a silencing hand on my shoulder, probably thinking I’m about to scold her as usual. “Thank you for coming, Highness,” he says. “And for bringing aid. It was quick thinking and brave.”

  Elisa gasps, as if seeing him for the first time. “Oh, my God,” she says.

  If she is just now noticing the blood dripping from his ruined eyes and the burn marks on his cheeks, then her only thought when undertaking this ridiculous rescue was for me. She truly thought she was rescuing me.

  “We need to get Zito to the castle,” I say, and my voice is gentler with her than it has been in a long time. “I’m worried about infection.”

  “Of course,” she says. And my weak, lazy, selfish sister clamps the silly kitchen knife between her teeth, hitches up her sleeves, and lodges herself under Zito’s other arm. “Big rock just ahead, Zito,” she says. “You’ll have to step high.”

  A guard takes my spot beneath Zito’s other arm, and I follow behind, aided by Lupita. As we shuffle back to the castle in the least royal, most awkward procession of my life, I stare at my sister’s back. By not involving Khelia’s or Isodel’s soldiers, she has salvaged my plan.

  Espiritu is dead. The blight on the land will fade soon enough. And no one will be able to deny that it was the crown princess and her people who made it happen.