Evening bled slow across the land that had once drunk its fill of giants' blood, and under that steady wash of gold the fields lay quiet, the wind carrying no horned prayers. The day when the heavens came down and unmade a slaughter-field lay far behind, its edges worn smooth by the long turning of years. Bones had long since given themselves to root and loam; blood had dried to dust; the names once sung in low lament were lost to tongues that mattered. Only the shadows in the folds of the hills remembered, and they kept their counsel.
A lazy wind worried the shutters and sighed through wood worn smooth by years. The sun, crawling like a tired beast toward the rim of the world, spilled its last warmth through the open window of a cottage the roads had forgotten. Within, she sat.
Raquel, a woman whose twenty-eight were marked by the same cycles of sun and moon that colored the very fields of Valoria del Sol, the kingdom she called home, though she had never seen its mountains or its cities. Her raven hair cascaded down her shoulders — untouched by time, unlike the village that had cradled her all her life. Far from the grandeur of cities, her world was this small hamlet, a tapestry of daily toils and simple joys.
Her hands were quick. They wove wreaths of dry myrher and pale morningstars, flowers that woke at first light and died by noon.
"So much trouble for ornaments we're only going to burn," she murmured, nettled.
"Don't say that, por favor," said another young woman without looking up. Her needle bit and flashed, drawing bright glass beads through cloth. la Noche de las Almas Pasadas is sacred. Show some respect."
Raquel glanced sidelong. "María... You do know Her Majesty Aelithra wore a plain mantle, ¿sí?" she asked, chin at the embroidery.
"I thought this might look prettier…"
Raquel snorted. "Mira quién habla... And this woman is lecturing me on reverence."
"I heard she looked magnífica, though," María said, the needle never missing a stitch. "Like… you'd forget to breathe."
"According to Tabitha, Her Majesty Aelithra was beautiful enough to make any rags look divine."
Three hard raps thudded at the door.
"What now?" Raquel rose, smoothed her skirt, kept the latch set, and opened only a hand's width, shoulder braced in the gap.
A man filled the slit of light—broad in the chest, a little winded—hugging a wicker basket brimming with fruit, roots, and herb bundles still beaded with soil. He smelled of damp furrows and mule sweat.
Her face cooled. The smile she gave him was thin and mannerly, the sort kept for tithe-men and stubborn suitors. One glance for María, needle flashing behind her, and back again; her free hand stayed on the door as if it were a shield.
"This here's for you," he ventured, sheepish. "Thinking… maybe we can... y'know… eat t'gether?"
"No," she said, flat as a board.
His smile faltered, tried to right itself, toppled into a nervous chuckle. "Awright… but maybe Baruch or that Tabitha come look at our fields? Dirt's turned mean this year—ain't givin' nothin', and—"
The door answered with a thud before he finished.
Raquel exhaled through flared nostrils, anger hot and clean. "Everyone wants something from me," she muttered, shouldering the basket aside as if it were one burden too many. Apples and beets went rolling, lazy as dogs in heat, bumping soft against chair legs and table feet. "Especially idiots who can't string a sentence together, let alone read."
"I'd kill for your looks, chica," María sighed, too dreamy and far too loud.
"What for?"
María turned, thread looped on her finger, brows lifting like a dare. "Do you think Miguel likes me?"
Raquel dropped into her chair with a grunt, crossed one leg over the other. "No. His father does. As for Miguel—he's still got his head wrapped in swaddling cloth. If Carlos told him the sky was blue, he'd squint at it until it turned gray just to prove him wrong. And forgive me, but I doubt he's even grown the huevos to put a child in you. What do you want with that halfwit?"
"He's... cheerful. And handsome," María said, her voice softening, as if the words embarrassed her even as she meant them. "He laughs like nothing in the world can touch him. And when he smiles..." She hesitated, a blush creeping up her neck.
The easy barb rose to Raquel's tongue and stuck there. She only arched a brow and let silence do the cutting.
"And he's strong, too," María hurried on, as if that made her feelings more reasonable. "Mature or not, but he works hard. His fields are always plowed on time, and he splits wood like it's kindling. I wouldn't starve beside him."
Raquel studied the flush in her friend's full cheeks. "When was the last time you starved, mi niña?"
María shrugged, small and stubborn. "It's not for now. What if war comes? I've no brothers left. And unlike you, I don't have men lining up at my door." She nodded at the basket bleeding fruit across the floor.
"There won't be a war with the Grasslanders," Raquel said. "Baruch and Tabitha stopped that one."
"And if another comes?"
"It won't."
"So long as they're with us, you mean?"
Raquel's look turned sharp enough to cut thread. "They are with us."
"And if they leave?"
"They won't."
"You sure?"
"I am."
"They'll grow old. Die."
"They'll outlive your great-grandchildren's great-grandchildren. Stop talking nonsense."
"You're certain?"
"I know."
She rose and paced, fingers twitching for work that wasn't there. "Forget the boy. Find someone who'll chase you for once. Hell, marry Carlos himself if he's so set on offering his son like a dowry."
"You're awful," María said. "Why don't you marry Carlos?"
"I'm too young for that relic."
"And I'm not? I'm eight years younger than you!"
"Still your chance. Maybe your last." Raquel's mouth crooked.
"You're cruel," María muttered, wounded. "Twenty-eight and still alone… and a mother, besides."
Raquel looked to the window. Beyond the glass there was only sky—hers to love and loathe in the same breath. "Maybe," she said, a whisper thin as ash.
She didn't argue it. In a world no longer gnawed by hunger or war, her worst wound was love: the kind that chews under the ribs, leaves you hollow in a warm room, feels unanswered even when it isn't.
María set the finished robe aside and drew another to her lap. The needle flashed and dove, catching the last light like a fish scale.
"You're stitching that one for him too?" Raquel asked, her voice lazy, brow arched like a bow drawn halfway.
The young woman nodded without looking up.
Raquel plucked a brittle sprig of dried myrher from the table, rolled it till the bitter scent woke in her fingers. "Smear it with mud and fling it at him. Let the great man dress himself for once."
"He's playing His Majesty Diurnix," María said—quiet, certain. "I won't disgrace the Heavenly."
Raquel snorted. "Diurnix, is it now? Then cow dung would be more fitting."
"You're vile," María murmured, color rising in her cheeks, though the corners of her mouth betrayed her.
Raquel grinned. Their quarrel fit as easily as an old apron.
Then came the door.
Not a knock—only the wood complaining on its hinges, slow and grudging.
Both women turned.
A girl stood there. Barefoot. Dust to the ankles. One sleeve clung by a thread, the other torn away. A red smear marked her cheek—not deep, but raw, as if stone had kissed it. Silver hair hung in a tangle, dull with grit; dirt stippled her elbows and knees.