“Agosto—”
I drag Rishi to the edge of the meadow before my arm muscles burn and I can’t go any farther. Nova staggers toward us, and I fear I truly will have to leave them behind.
Fight, the voice in my head growls.
Lula’s done all my fighting for me. Ever since we were little, she was the one to step forward and punch girls or boys who threatened me. Rose fights the visions in her head every day. My mother—my mother is the strongest woman I know, battling the sadness and grief that comes with raising children alone. All I’ve ever done is run from things that scare me.
A deep growl shudders through the trees. The Devourer has recovered, and then there is a terrible crunching sound. Agosto’s and Rodriga’s screams pierce me right down to my bones. I tell myself that they were trying to keep us there for the Devourer. But I saw the desperation in Agosto’s eyes. The chains that make him a slave to the creature. They’re trying to help me.
There might be hope yet, Rodriga said.
I pull Rishi and Nova behind a tree. I cover them with giant leaves and then run back into the meadow.
The Devourer flips Agosto and Rodriga over her shoulders. The adas are tangled in their own chains. I raise the mace to strike, but when I swing, it slips out of my grip. The Devourer’s blast slams into my chest and I land on my shoulder.
“Your heart gives you away,” the Devourer tells me. She turns around to face me. “It’s like a warning bell the way it beats so loud. So scared. I’ll gladly rip it out for you. Save you the trouble it’ll give you down the line.”
“Funny,” I say, pushing myself up. “I was going to say the same thing about your mouth.”
I pull on the anger and fear I’ve felt all my life. I pull on the hope that always feels like it’s slipping away. My magic surges through me, fills me with a power stronger than ever before. I blast the Devourer in her stomach. She deflects it with a wave of her hand, but I catch the worry that sparks in her red eyes.
I find myself smiling because I put that worry there. I’m not running.
Unlike so many times before, I call on my power willingly. It’s an instinct I can no longer ignore. I’m a wild thing, shooting sparks from my fingers. My throat burns from screaming as the Devourer slaps me with the force of her power. It stings cold all over, and I fall and freeze. I shudder as my magic warms me, my muscles seizing as they thaw.
My vision is filled with red. The Devourer stands over me. Black 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.