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"Do you love me?" he asked, intent on my answer.
My heart leaped, but my mind knew I couldn't say the words. "You're a murderer."
Antonio froze. "What did you say?"
"You killed the Canciller's daughter," I said, my voice cold and steady. "You were a part of it. You're a murderer, Antonio."
Silence filled the car, heavy and suffocating. I could feel his stare on me, burning into me with accusation and disbelief.
"You don't know what you're talking about." Antonio's face twisted in anger and sorrow, his hands clenching into fists at his sides.
I let out a bitter laugh. "That makes two of us."
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“I’m sure.”
Silence stretched between us, thick with unspoken words. Part of me knew that what he said was true. Punishing him for things he might not have done was wrong, but I couldn’t take back the words.
I couldn’t erase how afraid I was for the future. When he didn’t say more, didn’t deny my accusation, I justified my actions while he drove, and I stared out the window.
Chapter33
Silencio Sagrado
The grand hall was a vast space with towering ceilings and intricate decorations that glinted in the dim light. The chandeliers above cast eerie shadows across the rows of somber faces that filled the once-vibrant room. The canción de duelo was everywhere, haunting the space like the ghosts which haunted my sleep.
Of course, I’d never been in this room before, but several people commented on it when we arrived. I shifted uncomfortably in my wheelchair, parked in the aisle between two columns of benches.
Life didn’t feel real anymore.
I looked down at the long folds of my black dress. Every part of me was tied up and painted to be pleasing to other people's eyes. Only one foot was propped up out of the hem. It tapped once, and I focused on the lost limb—as if I could will it back into existence.
It didn't work.
Physical therapy hurt worse than lying down. The prosthetic rubbed at my healed flesh, so they let me keep a wheelchair.
My arms were strong, but my mind was not. I could not be alone without screaming from nightmares. Last night, they sedated me.
The sleep that came after was not restful. It was empty.
But my mind was full of bloody ghosts. It was better to be empty.
This was meant to be mine and Santiago’s Campeón ceremony, and they had waited until I woke up. But it felt much more like a funeral. Most families had already performed quiet services for their children in the few weeks I’d been hibernating in a coma.
More dead children. Would my future child join their ranks? Were people like me destined to die?
Antonio sat at my side, and Santiago sat with his family on the other bench—the burns he had sustained in the tournament proved far more challenging to mend than I thought.
Half his face was morphed into an abstract stretch of angry, pink skin. That was what Magda had referred to when I asked over him.
The dead, so many of them, weighed heavily on our minds as we gathered for the award ceremony. Plañideras were everywhere. At every shrine, in the streets.
Everyone was mourning, and me and Santiago were the only source of comfort for the families. People lined up everywhere to catch a glimpse of me. They didn’t know how I survived, but they considered it a miracle.
I felt nothing. After my meeting yesterday with the Canciller, I was lost in an in-between space. I was wealthy now, I supposed. But almost an entire generation of Élite youth was dead. I told myself that it was shocking but not detrimental to society like the Canciller made it seem. That Arrebol was teeming with life in the other classes.
But the weight of those deaths was positioned squarely over my shoulders. It made sense, even though I had been furious when the Canciller had insinuated that I had woken up the volcano. I had made it erupt, and I could save the people on my side before the lava took them. I couldn’t even see the other side of the volcano.
