wisps trail at the ends of her long fingernails.
“You’re strong,” she whispers in my ear. “But I’m stronger.”
I flip to the side, narrowly missing her foot to my face. I jump
for the silver handle hiding in the blades of grass. I wrap my magic
around the mace until it looks like a weapon made of lightning. I
swing it at her head. The Devourer’s face snaps to the side. Her hand
goes to her mouth, where a thin line of scarlet blood runs down her
chin.
She touches it, holds out her fingers to examine the red droplets.
Is that fear I see in her eyes?
A sinister laugh makes me jump. Agosto crawls on his elbows toward
us. One of his eyes is swollen shut. I can’t tell where all the blood
is coming from, and then I see the hole in his head where one of his
horns has been ripped out.
“You are weakening,” Agosto says. “How long since you’ve fed,
Xara?” Zah-rah.
“I don’t answer to a mortal’s name.”
“Gods don’t bleed,” I say.
The Devourer turns her rage on Agosto. He won’t survive a second
round. I can already feel my muscles cramping from the recoil, but I
try to ignore the pain and stand between them. My power pulses at the
center of my palms, ready to strike.
The Devourer hesitates, then tilts her face toward the light that
comes from the sun and moon. What she sees seems to please her. She
places her bloody finger to her lip and smiles a cruel smile.
“The difference between you and me, Alejandra, is that I’ve lived
a long, long time.”
“That’s not the only difference,” I say.
“It’s my turn to shape the galaxies. And you’re so focused on
mourning your lot that you don’t see how insignificant you are in the
end. Don’t worry. You will beg me to end your pain soon enough.”
She conjures a great, black cloud. I run toward her, screaming at
the top of my lungs as I blast my power at her. It booms like thunder
and pierces a hole through her cloud.
She’s gone.
I release the magic I’ve built up into the sky, and I relish
knowing that I drew first blood.
26
She is the light in the hopeless places.
She is the sky when the night blazes.
- Rezo de La Estrella, Lady of Hope and All the World’s Brightness
My mother used to pray to La Estrella, the daughter of La Mama and
El Papa who birthed all the stars in all the galaxies. For a little
while, after my dad’s disappearance, my mom erected an altar for her.
She bought a statue of a woman with skin like the night sky, eyes
silver like stars, and a blue dress draped around her body. She bought
fruits and candles and a starling bird in a cage. It took up an entire
wall in the kitchen and none of us were allowed to touch it.
But then the candles burned, and the bird got sick, and the food
rotted, and one morning, we woke up and the starling was dead. That
was the day my mother lost hope and donated the statue of La Estrella
to someone else that needed it.
Here, in the Meadow del Sol, as the adas emerge from their hiding
places, as the Faun King kneels before me, I collapse. The brightening
sky still sparkles with fading stars, and so I pray to La Estrella.
“Forgive me,” Agosto tells me, crawling toward me. He takes my
hand in his. His shackles drag behind him. He can’t stand up, and for
the first time, I notice the terrible angle of his broken leg.
I take a deep breath and get on my knees, fighting the recoil that
wants to crash over me. I dig my left hand into the dirt and feel for
the pulse of the land. I take energy from it, let it filter through me
and into Agosto’s wound. The gash closes and the blood dries. The
swelling around his eye decreases, and before I can move to his ankle,
he pulls me into a tight embrace. He’s so big, so muscular that I’m
surprised at how gentle his touch is.
“Forgive me,” he repeats.
I shake my head. It’s not that I’m not forgiving him. It’s that I
can’t speak right now. My power is on autopilot, searching for his
broken bones. I hiss when I hear the snap in his ankle. Then comes
Rodriga. The adas have made a bed of flowers for her. There’s a gash
in her side, but it isn’t fatal. Her hand has been torn off. I shut my
eyes. So much blood , I think. There’s always so much blood.
Blood is life , Nova said.
I let out a shaky breath and heal her. For a long time, the
salamander girl stares at the stump where her hand should be.
“You came back,” she says. “Even after everything.”
“Yeah, even after you threw that wine at me. It’s a good thing I’m
already filthy.”
Rodriga laughs, then winces in pain.
There’s a noise off to the edge of the meadow.
“It’s just us,” Nova says, walking in with Rishi.
“Thanks for joining us,” I say.
“I feel like I’ve been hit with a sledgehammer,” Nova says. Then,
when he sees Rodriga’s wound, his face blanks.
“How does your foot taste?” Rishi asks him, heading straight to
the center of the meadow where I’m surrounded by the adas.
When I turn around, there are more of them, all chained to the
trees that create the meadow ring.
Nova walks silently behind Rishi. “What happened?”
“While you were sleeping off your drunk?” I stand, and suddenly
all the adas stand too. I take a step closer toward Nova, and they
follow.
“That’s normal,” Rishi says.
“Not fair, Alex,” Nova says. “I didn’t know what their food would
do to us. We’re in Los Lagos, not their fairy realm.”
I don’t know why I’m picking a fight with him, especially now.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. I turn to Agosto. “What do you know
about the Devourer? You called her by her human name.”
“There is much to tell, encantrix. Perhaps we should wait until
you are…better?”
I don’t know what he’s talking about until the recoil slams into
me. My knees buckle, and I swear my head is splitting open. Rishi
lunges for me, and I lean all of my weight on her.
“No.” I shake my head. “Now.”
“Very well.” Agosto raises his hands and the ground trembles.
Grass and flowers grow thick and twist into a tall chair. Agosto
motions for me to sit.
“Do you know why the creature feeds?”
“Because it’s hungry?” Nova says darkly.
Agosto looks him up and down. His lip curls, but he composes
himself. “Because the need for power is endless. You feel it too. Your
power is free in the meadow.”
“Does the meadow do something to us? Does it make our power grow?”
I wrap my hands around the roots of my chair. My magic connects with
the essence in these living things, and it calms my nerves.
Agosto shakes his head. “No, but the meadow allows you to put away
other worries long enough to let your magic come forward. Look at how
you bested Xara.”
“Who’s Xara?” Rishi asks.
“The Devourer’s real name,” I say.
“Long ago, that was her human name,” Agosto says. “She was just a
bruja then, banished here by the Deos for a crime we’ll never know.
She simply appeared. Some, bewitched by her beauty, pledged allegiance
to her. I admit, I was one of them. Others staked their claim on their
own lands and shunned her. The Bone Valle used to be the Valle Azul, a
sect of brujas and brujos that dedicated their lives to the ancient
ways lived there and in the mountains. They saw the Devourer as an
intruder. The more land she possessed, the more the tribes defied her.
The witches were the ones who planned to kill her. One of their seers
saw the threat. But they did not act in time. Overnight, the sky was