red and the earth was scorched. The Valle Azul became a desert, their
bodies left in heaps.
“She claimed the heart of the land as her fortress and raised the
labyrinth around the Tree of Souls. You see, the tree feeds the land.
Without the life of the tree, the land cannot be replenished.”
“What happened to you guys?”
“I disobeyed her.” There’s a quiet shudder that passes through the
adas. “We were one of the first to welcome her, but the more land she
burned and sucked the life out of, the more I feared. We allied with
the avianas and remaining tribes. We lost. The birds stay in their
caves. The starlarks hide beneath the earth. As for us, she wouldn’t
let us get away. There are entire generations who will never know what
it’s like to roam Los Lagos freely. They’ll never know what it’s like
to sleep under the shade of the Forest of Lights or run through the
Valle Azul. Yes, Xara spared us. But our lives are a punishment every
day and every night.”
“Why didn’t you let her take me?” I ask. “Your job was to hold me
here until she arrived, wasn’t it?”
Agosto looks down. He tilts back and forth, like he’s adjusting to
the absence of one horn.
“Because you remind me of someone,” he says.
“Who?” I press.
“An Alta Bruja of old. Her name was Kristiсe. She wanted to return
Los Lagos to the way it was before Xara started feeding off the Tree
of Souls.”
“Hold on,” Rishi says. “Why don’t your Deos stop her? If they
created this land, can’t they just undo what she’s done?”
There’s a snicker. “Do your gods grant easy wishes?” Rodriga asks.
“The last time I checked, they were busy.” Rishi’s cheeks are pink
with embarrassment. “But something this evil has to catch someone’s
attention.”
“It’s gotten her attention,” Rodriga says, pointing to me. “The
Devourer sends her demons to search for great power because she can’t
do it for herself. She found you. You wear the symbol of El Papa on
your chain. The Deos chose you for this.”
“This was just a gift from my father. Not the Deos.” I shake my
head. “I’ve never been the bravest or best bruja in my community. I’m
just a girl.”
“Don’t say that,” Rishi says. “Look at everything you’ve done.”
“Encantrix,” Agosto says, trying to get my attention to focus. “To
free your family, you must release them from the tree. The tree is the
key to Xara’s defeat. You have the power and the freedom to challenge
her the way none of us have before, and perhaps once you save your
family, you will free Los Lagos as well.”
I press my palm to my chest. Feel my heart racing. If my family
were with me, they’d say that this is my destiny. A few days ago, I
would’ve brushed off the thought that fate weaves the strings of life
together. Today, I’m one step closer to making amends for my betrayal.
The Devourer wants to hurt me, but I can return that favor. It’s more
than just the Tree of Souls. Her destruction reaches this meadow and
the avianas. Where will she go when there’s nothing left to destroy?
I hold out my hand, and Agosto takes it. I hold his dark stare
with my own, and for the first time since we arrived, I feel like I’m
on the right path.
I walk with him to the center of the meadow, where the banquet
tree table is now empty. Since I broke the glamour, the source of the
chains is in plain sight. There’s a spike staked deep into the wood.
“I’ve tried, encantrix,” Agosto says, tugging on the metal. “I try
every day.”
“But I haven’t.” I wave my hand over the wood. The traces of the
Devourer’s power writhe against my own.
I rub my hands together, and a ball of blue energy burns between
my palms. I pull power from the soles of my feet, the pit of my
stomach, and my fast-beating heart. I picture the Devourer’s face,
hidden under a mask of death, and I let my power go. The table
splinters into a thousand bits, and blue flame rains down. A sharp
pain stabs my heart, and for a moment, I can feel the Devourer’s
wrath.
Agosto struggles to breathe. He looks down at his hands in wonder.
The manacles come undone, and the chains fall to the ground. The adas
weep from joy. They embrace each other. They kiss my hands and feet.
They run past the circle of trees and shout at the top of their lungs.
“Now,” I tell Agosto, “show me the path to the labyrinth.”
27
I believe the Deos fight as fiercely as they love.
- Philomeno Constancio Cruz, Book of Cantos
Before we go, the adas surround me. They want to touch my hair and
hands and feet. They cry and pinch themselves to make sure they aren’t
dreaming.
“Bless you,” an older ada tells me. Her hair is silver as
starlight and her dark skin is wrinkled like a raisin. “Bless you a
thousand times, encantrix.”
“You are the visage of La Tormenta, wife of El Cielo,” another
tells me.
I want to pull away, to tell them that I’m still far away from
winning, that this is too much. But their hope is pure, and I’ve let
myself go without it for too long.
Then it’s time to go, and I wave my final good-bye. I fight the
exhaustion in my bones. Mama Juanita used to tell us the story of La
Vieja Tollussa, who put herself in a hundred-year sleep to outlive her
enemies. But when she woke, her body had kept aging and ached too much
to move. She used the last of her power to turn herself into a
caterpillar because her journey was still not complete. As we leave
the Meadow del Sol and take a path east, I carry that thought with me.
Agosto leads the way, followed by Rishi and Nova. I bring up the
rear in case we have any surprise attacks. Though from what Agosto
says, this place is deserted. We cut through dry weeds and patches of
scorched woods. It’s colder here than in the other places we’ve
traveled. Thorny vines, like black barbwire, wrap around the base of
trees. Agosto calls this place the Wastelands del Este, what once was
the Forest of Lights. The ground here is dry ash littered with tiny,
gray pebbles, every tree an unmarked grave.
“Why are we going east?” Nova asks. He’s been moody and suspicious
of everything the Meadowkin have said since I freed them. Granted, he
has his reasons. I ate fruit and drank the wine, but it wasn’t nearly
as much as Nova and Rishi. It made me forget where I needed to be. It
made Nova think that his marks were healing. He walks with a
semipermanent frown to my left while Rishi is unusually quiet to my
right.
Agosto looks over his shoulder at Nova. “Because Kristiсe hid the
path to Las Peсas. I do not have the power to find it, but I believe
the encantrix can. I will take you to the Alta Bruja’s temple.”
“You’ve been in that meadow a long time,” Nova says. “Sure you
remember which way to go?”
The faun doesn’t answer. As we walk by, he lets his hands touch
the burned tree trunks until the palms of his hands are as black as
Nova’s.
“Long ago,” Agosto says, “the trees were majestic and white as the
moon. When the fires came, they consumed everything. It was a living
flame, out for blood.”
“What are these symbols?” I ask, tracing a rune in the bark.
Agosto hobbles over to me. “It is the mark of the starlarks. They
lived in the Forests of Lights before.”
“It’s hard to imagine anything living here,” Rishi says.
“All lands change for the worse when the people do not fight back.
Now there is nothing left.”
“But if the Devourer drains the land dry,” Rishi says, “what’ll