Relic (10 page)

Chapter Twelve

Landon awoke early the next morning. The sun hadn’t even risen yet, but pale blue light filtered in through the tiny window. He sat up with a sharp breath, as if he were startled to have fallen asleep. “Maggie?” he asked groggily.

“I’m here.”

I was standing at the washbasin, pulling my hair into a long, dark braid. I hadn’t slept a wink, but I didn’t want him to know that.

Landon rubbed the sleep from his face. “Ella any better?”

I didn’t look at him as I smoothed a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “I think so.”

I had already decided I wouldn’t tell Landon about my plans to throw myself at Señor Castilla’s feet. He’d only feel angry or betrayed. Landon had done all he could, and I was deeply grateful, but it was time to take matters into my own hands.

“Are you going out?” he asked.

Still avoiding his gaze, I picked up a ratty shawl from the top of the bureau. Landon lifted to his feet. “Maggie.”

“I’m going into town,” I said, tightening my bootlaces. “The nuns will watch after Ella.”

“What’s in town?”

“Nothing you need to worry about.” I turned for the door, but Landon grabbed my hand and pulled me to face him.

“Maggie.”

“What?”
I said, with more bite than I’d intended.

His soft blue eyes scanned my face, his expression so tender it made my throat choke up. He could see the pain. I think he knew I was about to do something rash. “Let me help you,” he said softly.

“You have helped. But I can’t ask you to do everything.”

“Yes, you can.”

“No.” I pulled away from his grip. “There are some things you simply can’t do.”

His eyes darkened. “What things?”

“Oh, leave me be.” I turned to the door, but it felt as if someone were making a fist around my throat. I paused with my back to Landon. “She’s getting worse. Look at her.”

In the dim sunlight, Ella looked as pale as the sheets she was covered with. Her little chest rose and fell with each strained breath.

Landon brushed his hand along her forehead. “There has to be some way to help her.”

“There is,” I said. “And that’s why I have to leave.” I turned my eyes on him. “Don’t follow me.”

He caught me by the waist, and with strong hands, he pulled me closer. Our faces only a breath apart, I could feel his heat on my skin. His lips hovered over my temples; his breath on my hair and skin sent tingles down my spine. I could feel his face tilt down, and I knew he was likely to try and kiss me.

My heart started to beat hard in my chest. I was so tired. So tired and afraid. And Landon’s arms around me felt strong and safe. I turned my face into his warm neck. I wanted to stay there and hide from the whole world.

But the ache in my gut was still there. The worry still weighed in my chest. And somehow it felt wrong to ignore that.

“Good-bye,” I whispered and ran from the room before he could stop me.

I left the Mission with only the flimsiest of plans. I didn’t know how to find the famous Hacienda Señor Castilla called home, and I also knew visitors were almost never allowed past the Hacienda gates, especially not a nobody like me. But I knew someone who
did
know where the Hacienda was, and who
was
allowed past the gates.

As much as I cringed at the idea of asking Mr. Connelly for help, I didn’t have many alternatives. My only hope was that my savings, tucked into my apron pocket, would entice him enough to help me out.

Wild black clouds brewed in the sky as I headed toward Burning Mesa, the wind picking up, sending tumbleweeds dancing across the open desert. There would be an afternoon thunderstorm for sure. I pulled my shawl tighter around me and picked up my pace. But as I entered the outskirts of town, I could see a different kind of tempest brewing.

The walkways were emptier than usual, and the housewives and old folks peeked down into the street from behind curtains, afraid. The raised voices of a crowd led me into the center of town.

And then I saw them. A mob of people, mostly men, teemed outside the sheriff’s office. They waved their rifles and pistols in the air. A few had torches, even though it was morning. Their harsh voices rose in a single chant. “Justice! Justice! Justice!”

All at once, I remembered Sheriff’s Leander’s words. Yahn was set to hang.

My plan came crashing down like broken glass.

Hang.

I’d seen one public execution in my life, and at that moment, I relived it in my mind. Only this time, it was Yahn, not some faceless horse thief who’d been stealing Haydenville’s best mares. Yahn’s kind eyes watching me as the men led him onto the scaffolding, as they pulled the noose around his neck. Yahn’s body dropping and jolting with shock as they released the trapdoor beneath his feet. In my mind, I watched Yahn die. Yahn, who had saved my life and Ella’s, would die for a crime he never committed.

I couldn’t let it happen.

Frantic, I dove into the heaving crowd. I had to stop them, had to get Sheriff Leander to call it off. This was no justice. This wouldn’t save Burning Mesa. I had to tell the sheriff about the Chimera Gang—it was a lead, at least. Anything to make him see the Apaches might not be responsible.

As I drew closer to the sheriff’s office, my eyes fell on a figure standing in shadow, watching at a distance from the crowd.

Álvar Castilla.

I stopped in my tracks, the noise and commotion of the crowd muting and blurring to nothing. All I could see was Ella, struggling for breath, clammy in her little bed. It didn’t matter what level of humiliation or disgrace I would bring on myself in begging—I’d do it. Whatever it took to save my sister.

But then the noise of the mob seeped back into my consciousness like poison. Yahn. They would bring him out any moment. Bring him out to hang. Maybe I could quickly talk to Sheriff Leander, and then…

I looked back to Álvar. As if I were watching in slow motion, he turned away from the crowd and spoke a few words to his servant. Then they started to walk back toward his elegant carriage. He was leaving. I knew well how rarely he came into town—if I wanted to talk with him, I’d have to do so right then, before he left.

Again, I looked back to the sheriff’s office, to the cruel mob chanting for justice, hungry for death.

I had to choose, and I had to choose right then. Yahn’s life or Ella’s.

My stomach roiled at the prospect. But as I closed my eyes, I knew there was really only one answer. I swallowed down the burn of tears and hoped that somehow, if Yahn’s soul watched this moment later, he’d understand.

“Señor Castilla!” I shouted, rushing into the crowd. “Wait!”

But the noise of the mob drowned out my cry. They pushed against me as I tried to run to him, shouldering me aside, shoving me away. I thrashed my arms against them. “Let me past, you fools!”

Álvar stepped up into his carriage, clicking the little door shut behind him.

“No! Señor Castilla! Wait!”

I was almost to his carriage. Pushing a big brute of a man aside, I leapt for it. But the driver lashed his whip. “Hyah!”

“No!” I shouted. The driver didn’t hear me. Or maybe he did, but he chose to ignore my cry. Álvar Castilla probably attracted desperate beggars on a daily basis. But I didn’t want his money—I wanted something so much more important.

The clatter of horse hooves stirred up a cloud of red dust in my face. A burst of sandy wind choked my lungs. Coughing, I ran blindly after the carriage, my arm outstretched, the wheels spinning just in front of my fingertips. Blinking back sand, I noticed a little ledge made for luggage, tucked near the gilded thoroughbrace. I could reach it if I gave one good leap. But once the carriage moved beyond these crowded city streets, it would speed up, too fast for me to keep pace. It was now or never.

The rim of the wheel whirred before me. It was crazy to even
think
about doing this. I could fall on my face or trap my hands in the spokes of the wheel and be dragged across the desert. I could be caught, thrown into prison. Or worse.

But this was my last chance to save my sister, and anything was worth it for Ella. Drawing in a sharp breath, I kicked my feet off the ground and threw my body at the carriage.

My hands closed around the gilded rod attached to the ledge. For a blinding moment, I was hanging in midair, my feet scraping wildly beneath me. Then, with a burst of determination, I kicked them under me, and my shoes came down on the metal of the thoroughbrace.

My heart was pounding, my head spinning. I was sure my sweaty palms would slip right off the rod. As we pulled out of Burning Mesa and onto the dusty roads that stretched along the river, the carriage picked up speed until it shook and barreled down the path like a wild pig. My shawl slipped from my shoulders and flew off in a gust of wind. But I held on.

For my very life, I held on.

A flash of lightning lit the sky above me, followed by a rumbling
boom
. I looked up at the angry sky, then back at the bulge on the horizon that was Burning Mesa. Maybe the rain would postpone Yahn’s hanging. If only.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I turned away. I couldn’t think about that, not until I’d dealt with saving Ella. Then I would face the consequences of my choice.

A cool wind picked up, and then, sure as sunrise, the rain followed. It broke from the black clouds above, falling with a breath of wind, smelling of wet desert grass and dust. A hearty downpour to make up for the dry weeks we’d had. As I clung to the bounding carriage, rain streaking down my neck and back, I marveled at how far my desperation had taken me.

By the time the carriage driver called for the horses to slow, I was soaked through. My arms trembled from gripping the rod so long, and my legs were weak. I tried to peer through the workings of the carriage to get a glimpse of the Hacienda. All I could see was a flash of green treetops and a tall outer gate.

The carriage driver called out in Spanish. A few responses drifted through the air, and the gate creaked open with a low groan. My heart was beating in my throat, and I pressed as close to the carriage as I could.
Please, please, please.
The carriage slowed even more. Then the horses’ hooves clicked on a stone pathway. We were entering the grounds.

The fence passed by. I was frozen, trembling. But the two guards were occupied with pulling the wide gateway shut as fast as possible and getting out of the downpour. They didn’t so much as glance back at the carriage.

The driver pulled to a stop in a vast, tree-dotted courtyard. Bushes with bright, sweet-smelling flowers colored the brick pathway, which probably led to the house, but I couldn’t see much from where I sat. Two men ran up with umbrellas, and the weight of the carriage shifted as Álvar Castilla stepped out.

I had to act quickly. But by the time I’d pried myself off the ledge and jumped down, Álvar and the two men holding their umbrellas over his head were already rushing through the rain to the glorious scene. The walls of the Hacienda surrounded more than a single home—it looked more like a village, with a gleaming white mansion at the center. For a single moment, the grandeur of the scene stopped me cold. But then my eyes fell on Álvar, getting farther away in his dash from the rain. I made a run for him.

That was, until a pair of rough hands grabbed me by the shoulders and spun me around.

“Gotcha!” It was the carriage driver.

“I can explain,” I said, breathlessly, my heart racing from being startled.

“I’m sure,” he said. He was a rough-looking man with small, pitiless eyes.

“Please, I need to talk with Señor Castilla right away. It’s urgent.”

“That’s what they all say, sister.” He tugged my arm. “Save it for the Captain of the Guard.”

Chapter Thirteen

Nightfall found me still in the holding cell of the Hacienda’s guard station. I had spoken with neither the Captain of the Guard nor Álvar Castilla. I was cold and hungry and worried sick about Ella, plus wracked with guilt that I might have sacrificed Yahn’s life for nothing. That thought, more than anything else, knotted in me like a great, tough root, fiercely cutting through the soft flesh of my insides.

Errant rain slid down the bars and dripped from one spot in the ceiling. A puddle of water had carved its place in the ground where the drip landed. The guard had finally grown tired of hearing me holler about why I needed to talk with Señor Castilla, and he’d gone to go smoke with the others by the doorway.

I couldn’t sit on the dirt floor—the last thing I needed was to look a muddy mess. It was bad enough that I was wet as a river rat. So I paced the cell.

A laugh from the guards drew my attention. They were looking at me, smirking. One spoke a few words in Spanish, and they all laughed again. I turned my face away from their mockery.

“Do not be mad,” the guard said, his brown eyes filled with false innocence. “We only wanted to know if you’d like to get out of those wet clothes.”

I stiffened but didn’t look up as they laughed. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the guard step closer.

“Miguel thinks you might have Creolla blood in you, so we want to give you a proper inspection.”

“What do you say, señorita?” another guard said, grinning. “We’ll let you go if we confirm you’re one of us.”

“You leave me alone,” I said, mustering all the venom I could manage when my insides were quaking like a leaf. “I’m not one of your kind.”

“You sure? With that dark hair, and that shade to your skin…you don’t look like the other whores at The Desert Rose.”

“I’m no whore.”

“So she’s not a Creolla, eh?” the guard said, smirking. “Then she must be a stinking Apache!”

The men all laughed, goading him on.

“She ought to hang!”

“I’ll see you arrested by the sheriff if you so much as come near me,” I shouted.

The biggest of the guards smiled. “The sheriff has no power at the Hacienda.
We
are in charge here. What a shame you are not one of us.”

The bigger guard pulled his iron key ring from his pocket and dangled it in the air. I backed up slowly, not that there was far to go in that tiny cell.

“I think a full inspection is in order. Just to make sure.”

My back was to the wall, my heart rattling inside my chest. “Leave me be!”

He pushed the key into the lock. “I’m afraid not, señorita.”

“Norega.”

The voice of Álvar Castilla shot through the room like a Smith & Wesson. Everyone spun around to see him in the doorway, illuminated by lamplight.

The bigger guard, Norega, went stiff as a pole. “Señor Castilla.”

Álvar stepped into the room, his elegant face bent more sternly than I’d ever seen. He pulled the keys from Norega’s hand. “Get these no-accounts out of here,” he said to the guards who followed behind him. “I want them on suspension without pay.”

My heart was still pounding when Álvar turned his attention back to me. He hurried to unlock the cell door and pull it open. “My deepest apologies, Miss Davis. I had no idea it was you my carriage driver apprehended. Had I known, I would have come much sooner. And I certainly wouldn’t have allowed you to be treated this way.”

Maybe it was the tension from the guard’s threat or exhaustion and despair from the last forty-eight hours—or maybe it was relief at finally being face-to-face with him—but that small show of kindness pushed the tears from my eyes. I swallowed down a sob like a rock in my throat and quickly wiped the tears away.

“Dios mio,”
Álvar said, sounding genuinely sorrowful. “This distresses me greatly, Miss Davis. But I shall make it up to you, I swear it. Come. Let me show you the full hospitality of my estate. I will get you a warm meal, some dry clothes—”

“No, señor,” I said. “Please, I came because I
must
speak with you.”

He looked surprised. “But of course.”

“It’s my sister. My baby sister, Ella. She was attacked by a rock devil yesterday. We tried everything, but she’s dying, you see, and there’s only one thing that can save her.” I fell to my knees, clutching the leg of Álvar’s pants with one hand. “I beg of you, señor. Your unicorn relic is the only way she’ll live.”

“Miss Davis,” Álvar said, trying to get me to stand.

“I’ll give you all of my money,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut, unable to see him refuse. “I’ll work for a year without pay. I’ll do anything! Anything you ask!”

He lifted me by my shoulders, forcing me to stand before him. “Miss Davis. Please.”

Pain surged through my chest. I couldn’t bear to look at him as he turned me away. But then his hand set under my chin, and when I looked up, his gaze was warm.

“I saw from the first day I met you that you had spirit. And knowing that you rode on the back of my carriage in a lightning storm to speak with me only confirms this.”

I blinked, not breathing.

Álvar nodded to his two men. “Go fetch Miss Davis’s sister.”

“You’ll help me?”

He flashed an easy smile. “What use is all the money and power in the world if it can’t be used to save one small girl?”

Ella looked like she walked in the shadow of Death himself as they laid her on the table in the Grand Hall. All the color had slid from her cheeks; the only hue to break the paper paleness of her face was the red that rimmed her eyes. Damp hair clung to her skin, and her limbs hung limp, as if she were already dead. I fell down by her side, gripping her hand.

“Uncover the wound,” Álvar said, coming to her other side.

My fingers trembled as they pulled the bloodied bandages away. The three gashes had swollen on Ella’s small belly. The skin around it was a sickly purplish-red, tinged with white pus.
Please help her,
I thought, over and over.
Please, God, let her be saved.

Álvar removed his fine red-and-gold jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his white undershirt. All the while, his eyes stayed on Ella. Then he held out a hand, and one of his servants laid the unicorn horn in his palm. The polished bone gleamed with iridescent shimmers of lavender and gold. A true sight to behold.

Álvar lowered the tip of the horn over Ella’s bare torso. He hesitated for a single moment, then looked up. “Miss Davis.”

His hand was stretched out to mine. Trembling and unsure what he wanted, I didn’t move. He nodded once, as if to say it would be okay, and took my hand. The weight of the earth magic settled over me, stronger than anything I’d felt before. Álvar gave me a sidelong, analyzing look, as if he could somehow sense my reaction to it. Then his eyes closed.

The tip set against Ella’s skin. As Álvar and I concentrated, the horn began to glow like the sun slowly cresting over a mountain. It gleamed tenfold times brighter than when I’d seen it the first time, a brilliant blaze of pure light.

I held my breath, my eyes moving from the glittering relic to Ella’s wound. Silence prevailed. I counted ten pulsing seconds, but nothing happened. Ella didn’t budge, and her injury looked as bad as ever. Despair crashed into me. It had gone too far. She was beyond help.

Then her body twitched.

The movement sent a current of raw hope through me. Álvar pushed the tip of the horn harder against her, and suddenly Ella drew in a huge gasp, like someone who had been held underwater too long. Her back arched, and her head snapped back. Watching in horror, I had a flash of a thought that he’d somehow killed her. But then she exhaled deeply, and her body straightened back to normal. It was as if she were letting all the injury out of her with that breath. It ended in a shudder, and then she was still.

No one in the room moved or spoke. No one even blinked. We all stared at the wound on Ella’s frail little body. Perhaps my weary mind had started to play tricks on me, but as I watched, a healthy color started to seep into the skin. Ella’s breathing steadied, and her cheeks looked flushed. She was healing.

Relief could be a strange thing. In spite of everything that had happened to me in the past two days, I’d never felt more drained than in that moment, watching her heal. I slunk back and would have lost my footing if a servant hadn’t been there to prop me up.

Álvar set his hand on Ella’s head with a satisfied nod. I could barely stand, let alone form the words in my mouth.

“Señor…” I fell to my knees before him and pressed my lips to his hand, again and again. “Thank you.” My voice was little more than a whisper.

“Please,” he said. He lifted me to my feet and put a hand on my cheek. “I insist that you and your sister stay as my guests tonight to recover.”

They put us on one of the most comfortable beds I had ever set a hand to, in one of the most beautiful rooms I’d ever seen, but I didn’t dare sleep. I sat up, watching Ella in the candlelight. It filled me with unspeakable relief to know she was safe now, but heaviness still hung over my heart.

I knew that I owed Ella’s life not just to Álvar but also to another. I owed it to Yahn.

The brave man who’d brought us through the flames that killed my parents. He’d taken a risk to save us. And when the moment came to repay that debt, I’d chosen differently.

I didn’t allow myself to envision his unjust death. I pushed any vision of it away before it even formed in my mind. But the awareness still burned a hole in me.

If there had been any other way, any other choice.

Forgive me, Yahn. Forgive me.

I gazed at Ella, stroking her forehead. If only I knew for certain that Yahn’s sacrifice would purchase Ella a long, happy life. But doubts and fears still clouded my heart.

I had come so close to losing her. Who was to say it wouldn’t happen again?

Even now, with Ella finally healed and no chance of any rock devils creeping about in this spacious room, I didn’t want to stop watching her. I could see plainly how fragile it all was. How in a single, flashing moment, everything you love could be taken from you. Tomorrow I could lose her again. Or the next day. She could fall off a horse and snap her neck in an instant. Or catch pneumonia like Josiah. Or burn in a town razing.

I pressed my face against the soft white pillow. I knew that I would die to protect my sister, but what if she died because I
couldn’t
? The heaviness of my task weighed upon me. Tomorrow we would return to the mission, to uncertainty. I should have been elated with Ella’s recovery, but instead, I drifted off to a fitful sleep wondering what the next danger would be, when it would come, and if I would be able to save my sister when it did.