As the sun rose, so did the people, shambling down the hill to work in the fields of their lords while their women and children took care of the house and animals. Skinny girls and boys fed chickens, and she spotted some pigs here and there—likely being raised by the entire neighborhood for slaughter come Februarius. Older girls collected herbs from their gardens, and many houses had red cloths hanging by the windows to announce the presence of the red plague.
She made a mental note on the number of houses marked in red so she could make some medicine and arrange for it be delivered. Although she couldn’t adequately fight the plague of famine ravaging the country, she could help with the plague of disease.
The roads proved tricky, the mud slippery under the horses’ hooves. They kept a slow pace, bundled in extra layers to keep the chill and raindrops away; nevertheless, she succumbed to sneezing, throat raw and skin burning. She’d blown her clogged nose so many times the handkerchief was sandpaper on her nostrils, and although Vasco insisted she give up and return lest her health grow worse, she insisted they push on.
She looked down at her fingers, the glow of magic becoming sharper the farther they trotted along the gurgling riverbank. The Moura was still here—of that, she had no doubt. But there was still a chance she wouldn’t be able to find her. If that happened, she wouldn’t live to toast São Martinho with watered wine and take in the scents of chestnuts roasting, wouldn’t live to hear the Christmas chants carrying into the deep night. She wouldn’t live to see the country recover from long years of war, wouldn’t be alive to fight for the betterment of the commoners’ lives. Those duties had been ingrained in her, had become her ultimate goals. They were all she had left, and she refused to let go of that final lifeline.
The clouds parted in the mid-morning, and sunshine dulled the sharp edges of the breezes. Anticipation built like fire in a crackling log, and she was certain she’d burst open from the growing enthusiasm. It filled her lungs, spread through her blood, coated her sight with sparks that seemed to glint everywhere.
They kept a steady pace along the Ardila River, looking for the marker near the shore: a rectangle of old marble. Impossible to miss, it was as tall as a man and twice as large. When they spotted it, Vasco brought the horses to a halt, casting his sight east as he smoothed his mustache. “According to Brites, the Moura is supposed to be around here.”
With a nod, Yzabel dismounted, the cilice’s teeth flaring pain down her leg when her feet hit the ground and with every movement she made to peel off her outer layers. She expertly untied the knot of the flowery headscarf, taking it off along with the wide-brimmed hat that held it in place, then kicked off her shoes and freed her legs from the woolen socks. Her skirt and shirt were the last, revealing the ivory dress underneath. She stashed everything into one of the saddlebags, and from another she took her mantle, draping the fine affair of white fur across her shoulders.
The smile on her lips stretched as sunlight kissed her cheeks and her feet touched naked earth, soft and moist against her skin. The weather was blessedly warm, as if summer had reached into autumn’s kingdom for one last reprise.
“Wish me luck,” she said.
A tight smile, a comforting hand on her head. “Good luck, my princess. May you finally find peace from your curse.”
Peace. That’s exactly what she was here to find.
With Vasco leading the horses behind her, Yzabel walked on.
The Ardila River was loud and fast, swollen with October’s rains. Frogs croaked along its stony margins, and rabbits skipped across the fields of grass. To her right, the olive trees housed chirping birds, the earth overgrown with grass and flowers.
The feeling that surged when she touched food—the curse and its starry warmth—manifested, unbidden. It took root as a funny twist in her belly grew into a pulsing wave of heat that flared the sharpest on her left hand and tongue. Why those two places of her body teemed with magic, Yzabel could not tell.
Ahead, the air shimmered like the surface of a wind-blown pond.
“Magic,” she whispered in wide-eyed wonder.
Intrigue kicked her feet into a run, deadened her to the cringing pain in her bones. The strange imagery drew her, its spell calling her as sirens did sailors in the sea.
“Yzabel, slow down!” Vasco shouted somewhere behind her.
Imbued with sudden vigor, she ran faster still, crossing the glistening boundary. The enchantments in place set her skin on fire, sent the blood in her veins into a burning frenzy, and thickened the air in her throat. The overwhelming need to turn back and go away overflowed her mind, persuaded her limbs—but she held firm and kept moving forward.
And, at last, a voice she didn’t know spoke in her ear.
“—hear me?”
“Yes!” Yzabel shouted through shallow breaths, the tug pulling her toward the green fields of trees and grass. As though someone had placed an ember in her chest, the longer she dallied, the longer she took to find the Moura, the fiercer it ached. Her body had one purpose, a single need that propelled it forward—find the source of the voice.
“Please—so long,” it said. No, she, for this was clearly a woman that spoke to her. “Please find me.”
Birds took flight from their perches in the trees, rustling branches and leaves like a whirlwind. Beneath her feet, the ground seemed to yawn and shift, trying to throw her off balance. She picked up her skirts, ran faster, and the tug pulled harder, burned brighter.
“Come to me, come-comecomecome—”
She arrived at a small hill with the dark mouth of a dolmen at the bottom, a tomb from a civilization long past. Heart in her throat and the taste of metal on her tongue, she briefly leaned against the moss-covered stones, but no matter how hard or how deep the gulps of air she took, she couldn’t catch her breath.
At her back, the wind frenzied. Birds swooped, screeching and screaming and demanding she turn to look at them. When she didn’t, her sight became a blur of beaks and feathers. Claws raked her shoulders, the nape of her neck, tangled and pulled her hair. There was little else she could do besides hold up her arms to protect her face, cringing.
What if this was the Lord’s belated signal that she should stop?
She paused, almost turned around—she would have, had Brites’s voice not rung in her head, reminding her that part of the larger spell surrounding the Enchanted Moura was that nature itself would do everything to detract possible curse-breakers from their goal.
“Almost!” the Moura said, in a voice that was all anguish tinted with anticipation. “Don’t stop, please-please-please find me.”
With a scream, she spread her arms and slapped some of the birds away before crawling past the dolmen’s threshold. Once inside, the birds didn’t follow, and although she wasn’t sure they were gone for good, she didn’t dare risk a look from the corner of her eye.