“I’ve been practicing! When I’m not being queen or when I’m not with you, it’s all I do! I’m starting to think what I did at my coronation was a fluke.”
“It wasn’t! My training with the healers shows how hard it can be to control magic. It’s about focus and determination. So something must be making you distracted.”
“Hm, I wonder what it could possibly be,” I said sarcastically.
Nix frowned. “Is this still about Lucas?”
Heat rose to my face. “No.”
“Liar.”
Only my best friend could get away with calling me out. “How can you tell?”
“Your heart rate accelerated, your body temperature rose, and your sweat glands have begun to produce more—”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” I said, before she could go on one of her famous tangents. I nudged her with my elbow and couldn’t help but smile. “You don’t have to use your magic. Show-off.”
Nix looked all too proud of herself. “You just need to give it time. You’re too hard on yourself.”
I let out a huff. I knew she was right—it would take time and practice for me to get anywhere with my power, but it still felt like I was running on a treadmill, going nowhere. Every time Lucas came near me, ignored me, pretended like I didn’t exist, it felt like I was less than nothing. How could I focus on my magic when that was all I thought about? “I can’t escape him,” I said. “Seeing Lucas’s face reminds me he’s marrying…her.”
Just at that moment, I spotted Amador Oscura. She was standing in the garden, gazing at her reflection in the pond, and smoothing out her blue-black hair. When she heard us coming, she whipped around, smiling brightly. “I was hoping you’d—” When she saw it was me, her smile dropped, but it didn’t take away from her beauty. Her skin practically glowed against her soft peach Maria Clara dress, like she’d just stepped out of a fashion shoot. The only thing out of place was a smear of pink lipstick on the corner of her mouth, which she wiped away with the back of her hand. I imagined Lucas had been the one responsible for smearing her makeup, and it made my shoulders tense up.
Lady Amador Oscura was the grand duchess of the Sigbin Court, the same court Lucas belonged to. She was a royal, just like me, but of a lesser house, still bound to the council and an active member of the parliament. Royals came in and out of the palace, especially to see Elias, so I shouldn’t have been surprised to findher here. And yet I was. She always found ways of undermining me, belittling me, making comments about my half-human lineage. I’d dealt with queen bees at school before, but she was on another level.
“What are you doing here?” I snapped.
Amador looked shocked for the briefest moment before she gathered her wits and straightened her shoulders. She scrunched her nose like she smelled something foul and lifted her chin. “Official business,” she said.
“What business?”
Amador only lifted a shoulder and repeated, “Official.”
What kind required Amador to be in the garden was beyond me, but then again, Elias oversaw so many meetings, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had been told to wait outside while another meeting ran late.
I glanced at Nix, who was pretending to inspect a bed of purple peonies. Nix had never liked Amador, and they always butted heads. After all, Nix was the one who’d warned me about Amador from the start, and I had the feeling that Nix was afraid of her but chose to pretend like she didn’t exist as a defense mechanism. Amador’s eyes darted to Nix, too, and her expression narrowed, making her small mouth even smaller. She dragged her thumb against her mouth and glared at me.
“What areyoudoing here?” Amador asked, as if making a keen observation.
I almost laughed. “You’re inmygarden.”
“Oh,yourgarden?” Amador asked innocently. “I didn’t know our queen was so protective of her weeds.”
I rolled my eyes. “The pigs are out back, rolling in the mud. You should join them. I’m sure you’d love it.”
Amador’s face soured. She looked me up and down, taking in my Arnis uniform coated in sand and still damp with salt water. Compared to her, I looked like something the fishermen dragged out of the ocean. Whatever she saw satisfied her, and a haughty smile curled her mouth.
From behind, the sound of heeled shoes on the stone path grew closer, and a feminine voice called out, “What is going on here?”
A tall female encanto with long pointed ears walked toward us, her hands clasped delicately in front of her slim waist. Her head tilted with curiosity. She wore a long Maria Clara dress in Sigbin blue just like Amador’s, large diamond earrings, and an even bigger diamond necklace, which was cinched at her throat. It was like she was covered in diamonds, from the ones pinning up her dark hair to the ones on her fingers. In human years, she looked like she would be in her forties, but in encanto years, it was difficult to tell.
“I’m having a chat with the queen, Mother,” Amador said.
This was Amador’s mom?
The woman blinked, surprised. “Oh! Your Majesty, I didn’t recognize you in your—” Like her daughter, her eyes went to my clothing, and she turned her head ever so slightly, as if she were trying to find the best word before she settled on: “State. Forgive me, I do not believe we’ve had the pleasure of introductions yet. I am Amihan Oscura, archduchess of Sigbin Court.” She curtsied so smoothly, she could have been floating.
I was amazed I hadn’t seen the family resemblance sooner. She and Amador had the same pinched expression, the same cold blue eyes, and even the same smile.
