Rae Carson - The Shadow Cats

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.

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.

THE wedding is delayed for two weeks to give Zito and me some time to recover. Within days, the land begins to bloom again, like new growth forest after a cleansing fire. People call it a miracle.

I do not correct them. I haven’t decided what to do with my knowledge that the Perditos have allied with Invierne, that magic was used to sicken our land. I say only that Zito and I rescued each other from bandits, that we killed Espiritu and scattered the Perditos. I order my guards to spread the idea that maybe the Perditos were the ones causing God’s wrath, that the land heals itself because we chased them away.

When Conde Paxón presents Zito with a new spear—sturdier than his old one and carved with swirling jungle vines—I remember the animagus’ broken staff. I’m sure Father Donatzine at the Monastery-at-Amalur would love to study such a talisman. If nothing else, the jewel on the end of it might be of value. But my ankle is too fragile to retrieve it myself, and I’m not sure who to send in my place without raising questions I’m unwilling to answer. I decide to let it go. The jungle will claim it soon enough, with creepers and detritus and thick ferns. It will never be found.

In the days leading to the wedding, Conde Paxón and Lord Jorán share hunting escapades and late-night dessert wines like they’ve been friends for decades. Soldiers from Khelia and Isodel cheerfully practice together in the yard. Lord Jorán even pulls me aside one day and expresses a sincere hope that Isodel will once again come into the fold of Orovalle, that he is prepared to swear himself as my vassal.

Papá will be proud of everything I have accomplished here.

But Zito says nothing. He refuses to talk about what happened, even to me.

The day of the wedding dawns more beautiful than anyone anticipated. Lady Calla is a lovely bride, and Conde Paxón an endearingly nervous mess. After the ceremony, Zito and I are seated on a dais apart from the others, because of our injuries and my station. He wears a red cloth over his eyes, tied at the back of his head. He leans into his new spear, his ear turned to the sounds of celebration.

“Describe everything to me,” he says.