No looking back, not until she found the Moura.
“I’m here!” she shouted, her voice reverberating around her.
The damp darkness closed in, and Yzabel couldn’t see the way, but the voice called again, and the magic pushed her ahead. The inside had enough room for her to stand, and with an adjustment to her skirts and mantle, she inched forward, one hand on the steadying wall.
Her heart beat loud and fast. Her entire body became impossibly hot and awash in light, splitting the darkness in half. Right at the center, a stone of weather-worn granite, dotted with specks of red and cut in a rectangle that was not much wider than the palm of her hand.
She knelt, skirts pooling around her in a sea of wrinkles and white. In her head, the Moura spoke again, so close she seemed to be right in front of her.
“Please,” she said. “I’m right here.”
With her glowing hand, Yzabel reached, fingers brushing the surface of the stone. A tremor rocked the dolmen’s cave, showering her in pebbles. Gasping, she almost dropped her arm, almost turned back when Vasco screamed her name from the mouth of the anta—but before she could react, reality shifted. A river of air swept her up in its arms, and she fell into the stone, the mysterious current dragging her down, down, down.
A shock rattled her bones. An excruciating pain settled on her chest, as if someone had cracked her ribs open and rummaged through her insides.
In her heart, there was only one wish, one word.
Peace.
Peace from the curse and its waste.
Peace to grow strong and be the princess she wanted to be.
Peace in this country that had become hers, so no more lives would be lost to pointless wars.
Her descent slowed. Yzabel’s feet met the ground with the whisper of skin on stone. She lifted her gaze to look ahead—mists stretched for as far as she could see, leaving her surroundings clouded in mystery.
A few feet ahead, a small whirlwind spun in the fog. At its center shone a single star, a tiny kernel of light growing larger and larger with each maddening spin.
She lifted an arm to shield her eyes from the blinding brightness, but her skin radiated with its own glow, magic meeting magic. Bigger than what happened if she was near Brites when the woman cast her charms. With Brites, it was a murmur of feeling.
With the Moura, it was an assault.
Every inch of her skin thrummed. Her blood hummed in her ears, each pulse vibrating in her teeth, thumping in her temples. She endured it all, the pain a small price to pay even as she fell to her knees, clutching her head.
A final flash. The whirlwind stilled, and her magic calmed, the brightness inside fading.
She blinked, and blinked, and blinked, until at last, she could see again.
Her heart sped up, jumping to her throat the moment her eyes fell on a woman standing some feet away. The stranger looked down at her hands, examined a strand of inky hair, felt her golden face with her fingertips. Her full lips let out a gasp, appearing as astounded as Yzabel felt. Her eyes, a dark shade of green, found Yzabel’s. With a smile, and in a voice lovelier than a lute’s song, the Moura said, “Ave.”
Chapter Five
A Promise
Yzabel echoed the Moura’s Latin greeting, breathless and unguarded. “Ave.”
Wariness stilled the Moura’s steps, a frown wrinkling her forehead, followed with a hand to her heart. Big, doe-like eyes the shade of green olives, made more striking in a frame of thick, long eyelashes. Flat and bold brows, her nose strong and straight, her cheekbones sharp, and her lips, round and full, brought up the memory of rose petals, lush and pink.
With slow feet, she approached in a billowing cloud of burgundy skirts, blinking as if Yzabel could disappear and reveal herself a dream. Or perhaps it was disappointment that made her so hesitant. The Enchanted Moura’s eyes would see nothing but a waifish girl, ashen pale and malnourished, wearing a fine dress of silk and a beautiful mantle of white fur. She’d see dull brown curls framing a square face dominated by a large forehead, sunken, deep-set eyes black as a void, and a long, thick nose—far from the dashing savior the Moura had probably imagined.
“What’s your name?” Yzabel asked, shy uncertainty wavering in her voice.
The Moura’s breath caught. “So many have come here before, and you’re the first to ask.” She moved closer, every step more mesmerizing than the one before, her voice low and resonant, like the song of crystal glasses. “I am Fatyan, once the favored daughter of Abu-Hassan, Alcaide of Al-Manijah. Enchanted to meet you.” Her Latin was slightly different from Yzabel’s, but not by much, and it was easy to derive the meaning of her words. After a pretty curtsy, she asked, “And yours?”
She curtsied in return. “I am Yzabel of Aragon, future Queen of Portugal and the Algarves, daughter of Pedro the Third of Aragon and Constanza of Hohenstaufen of Sicily.”
“The future Queen of Portugal?” Fatyan laughed, a crystalline, melodious sound that echoed across the mist.
“What’s so funny?”
“The irony, dear one. The irony is hilarious.” She wiped tears from the corner of her eyes. “That the one person who’s heard me in over a hundred years happens to be everything Baba despised—Portuguese, a girl, and a princess.”
“I’m not Portuguese, though.”
“Aragonian—same thing to him, really.” Fatyan went back to regarding her with a quizzical expression. Under the scrutiny, she shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot as a blush heated her cheeks.
“I’m…sorry,” she said. “I was told you were cursed into eternity when the Portuguese took Terra da Moura. Taking back a city shouldn’t come at the cost of a woman’s eternal life. It’s not worth anyone’s, and I truly am sorry we’ve caused you pain.”
Fatyan’s frown deepened, and she blinked. “My misery is not unique, dear one. Others had it far worse.”
“It still doesn’t make it right,” Yzabel said without wavering, “and if I can help you finally end it, then I will.”
The Moura’s eyebrows arched in surprise before she cleared her throat and regained her neutral composure. “No point in apologizing. It’s in the past and not done by your hand. I’d wager you were sold to a king, same way I’d have been sold had the Portuguese not taken Al-Manijah. Not to mention…I’m here by my father’s hand, not your people’s.”
“You’re not angry?”
“I was, for a while. But when you’ve been stuck so long in a place such as this, where time is so warped you lose track of it, anger and bitterness become tiring. Eventually, I stopped feeling them. I stopped feeling anything, and all I did was wait, and sleep, and wait, and sleep…” Melancholy tinged her smile. “Then you came, and I was asleep no more.” A step closer. “So, dear Yzabel. Tell me why you’ve come.”