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I failed.
Although she was too tired to wince, or even to look down, Rafa felt her spirit sink further at the thought, as if a giant hand was pushing her down into the overstuffed armchair she sat on.
No matter how many spins she tried to put on things, no matter how difficult she knew the task she had set for herself would be, no matter how fair to herself she was being, it was the only conclusion she could come to when faced with the ultimate results.
She had struck out to destroy Shuriki and bring peace back to Avalor this very morning, so that her son could grow up as safe and happy as possible. But Shuriki was still far too alive and healthy for the tastes of all but the sick bastards who wanted her tyranny to continue, and Rafa herself had barely escaped alive from her attempt.
Shuriki would keep plaguing Avalor, people would keep being arrested, tortured or executed for all sorts of reasons, the jaquins would keep being treated like ordinary street cats, and her son would be growing up in a kingdom ruled by fear.
As such, she had failed.
Her only consolation was that, as far as she could tell, Shuriki had no idea of who she had been up against. But it was a small consolation.
Not that she was ungrateful. She was thankful beyond measure to still be here for Mateo. It was bad enough he would have to grow up without a father. But what kind of world would he grow up in with Shuriki still on the throne?
A loud snap cut at her musings. Rafa's eyelids burst apart as the fireplace flashed brighter, the handle of the tamborita burning within it breaking in half. Both pieces released trails of sparks, and the bottom one fell onto the last shreds of the disguise she had worn, the remainder of it having burned away already.
Just like her hopes of a brighter future for Mateo.
Don't think like that. She told herself. You can't lose hope. And you can't give up fighting. Remember what...
Her eyes started to prickle from that thought alone.
Don't think about him. She demanded from her mind. Just don't think about him.
Thinking about him always ended with her crying. Despite her best efforts to feel happy at the thought of him, of how much she told herself to remember the happiness they had shared together, dwelling on the memory of him never failed to make her cry. It was less painful now, but not enough for her to think of the good times with a smile instead of tears.
Another snap flew from the fireplace - right on cue with a creak from a floorboard, as Rafa caught a burly figure dressed in black walking into the living room.
Her heart jumped and a jolt of adrenaline kicked her exhaustion away as Rafa reached to the side and seized the tamborita leaning the armchair. A startled yelp flew from her left as Rafa whirled toward the creaking noise and sprung up to a standing position even as she thrust out her tamborita like a sword, her free arm raised to smack it.
"It's me, Señora de Alva!" the same voice that had yelped called out, the figure raising its arms to shield itself.
Her hand froze a hairsbreadth from the tamborita as she recognized the man. Though he was dressed in the black uniform that the guards wore these days, he was one of only two royal guards Rafa had come to not fear, and the only one who was currently still alive.
"Sorry, Captain," she said.
"It's alright," Captain António Sandoval replied, though his hands remained raised. "I'm sorry I scared you.
Rafa lowered both arms before she hit her tamborita by accident. And with the gesture, what bits of strength her fear had kicked in faded away. Her insides seemingly gone, Rafa fell back into the armchair, her tamborita somehow falling on her lap along the way.
Captain Sandoval strode over to her, as firm and straight as a goal post, even though he was at home rather than performing a guard inspection. However, as he stopped by the armchair, a hint of softness flickered in his eyes.
"Are you alright?" he asked, the slightest concern creeping into his stern tone.
Though she was too exhausted to look up at him, Rafa managed to breathe out, "I'm only tired. After a good night's sleep, I'll get better."
The Captain grunted in assent as Rafa kept staring into the fire, where more bits of leather and wood vanished from the tamborita, her outfit completely gone by now. Not long from now, any bit of actual evidence that she had been the mysterious wizard who made an attempt on Shuriki's life would be gone.
Rafa only hoped Shuriki wouldn't hurt anyone in her attempts to find out.
The fear bringing two questions to her mind, she asked, "Is Mateo alright? Did anyone get hurt during the fight?"
Or worse? She couldn't help but think.
"Mateo is with Amelia, Señora de Alva. And no one got hurt."
Genuine relief trickled through Rafa at the knoweldge that her son was with the Captain's wife. Then, as she full took in the Captain's second sentence, some amazement pushed through her exhaustion, enough for her eyes to widen.
"Really? After all the destruction Shuriki and I caused?"
After all the green beams flying around? She added inwardly.
"Yes. There was great damage to the palace, but no one died or got injured. And Shuriki thinks it was just some rogue wizard challenging her."
For now, at least. She could almost hear the Captain adding, even as she added the same thing in her mind.
Still, it was good to know her plan of donning a billowing disguise that covered her whole body and crafting a tamborita from scratch for that battle was working for now. Once the fire and the potion she had poured over both things finished consuming them completely, she wouldn't be identified as that fighter.
"Thank heavens for small blessings," she replied.
Even if I would prefer for that witch to be dead.
Guilt washed over her. That task should have been up to her. And modesty aside, she had lasted a fair amount of time against the witch. But by the end of their battle, she had been so exhausted that she was sure if she hadn't used that last remnant of her strength to teleport away, she would only have gotten herself killed and left Mateo orphaned.
A shiver rippled through her. The idea of leaving Mateo orphaned gave her nightmares.
Desperate for anything to distract herself, Rafa asked the first question that came to her.
"How long did I fight her for?"
A low hum the Captain followed.
"At least three hours."
Whatever bits of strength Rafa had managed to recover flew away, to the point she swore everything around her grew darker for an instant, as if she had been about to faint but somehow managed not to.
"Three hours." Her reply was so low that even she barely heard it. "I throw everything I have at that witch for three hours, I destroy half the palace along the way, I barely manage to escape, I almost pass out from exhaustion after I do... and I barely manage to hurt her."
There was no reply from Captain Sandoval, and she wasn't looking at him anyway to see any change in his stance, but she could suddenly sense the sympathy coming off of him. Even the fire seemed to be burning more gently now, although that was likely her tiredness playing tricks on her.
"She's powerful," the Captain ground out.
"Not really," Rafa replied before she could help herself.
Sensing his puzzlement, she explained, "I mean, she is, but the real problem is that she's far more resilient than she should be."
"How so?"
Rafa barely held back an annoyed groan. Bringing up this topic of conversation really had not been a good idea. She was too tired to have any sort of conversation about the exact nature of what Shuriki was.
But simply saying 'I don't want to talk about that', felt too rude. And she saw no gentle enough way to dismiss him.
Trying to ignore her fatigue, Rafa took a deep breath to gather herself, and explained, "Petrification spells don't affect her. Freezing spells don't affect her either. And blasting spells that would blow a regular human to bits in one hit don't even scratch her. To say just a few things."
At the very least, she knew Shuriki couldn't be poisoned. Many over the years had tried to serve her poisoned meals, but half the time she hadn't even noticed the meal was poisoned, and the rest of the time she just used it as an excuse to carry out arrests or executions. And there may be more about her Rafa didn't know. Truly, all she even knew about Shuriki was that she had used some kind of extremely dark magic to boost her powers, some kind that literally seemed out of this world, some kind that normally didn't come without a heavy price.
"Can she be injured?" the Captain asked.
Rafa pushed back her annoyance once more. She really shouldn't have started up this topic of conversation. But at least, there was a marginally good answer to this question.
"Yes, she can. There were a few times when I managed to scratch her or bruise her. And she was slowing down a bit by the end of our duel. So she could be outlasted and killed through raw power and endurance. In theory."
But such a level of power and endurance were beyond her, just as much as they had been beyond her parents - at least after her father was crippled by Shuriki's magic-wielding minions. Rafa had never realized what exactly they had done to him, but she knew that his magic had never been the same after his battle with them on the day Shuriki invaded Avalor.
"What would it take?" The Captain asked.
Although he didn't move, Rafa felt as if he had actually taken a step closer, from how much his interest had grown. Again, the urge to bury the matter came over her.
Pulling effort from somewhere, she buried said urge instead and replied, "Something that could cause extreme destruction in an instant. Or one more wizard at least as powerful as me to help on the task."
Unfortunately, she didn't know where to find either. There had been a time when she had brief access to the Scepter of Light, but to her dismay, she didn't have Maruvian magic in her blood, so she couldn't wield it. And she had no idea where to even start looking for the only other object powerful enough to fit the bill. Nor did she know where to find any wizard that would fight Shuriki alongside her, not when the witch had banished or executed any magic practitioner that wasn't herself or directly empowered by her.
As if reading her thoughts, Captain Sandoval piped up, "Maybe your son can fit that bill."
Alarm and horror swelled up within her, only to be replaced with a surge of anger, to the point she rose on her seat and turned toward the Captain as her tamborita clattered to the floor, her tiredness suddenly gone.
"He's only a year old," she murmured, her voice low and threatening, and her stance tensing up as if for a fight.
The Captain grimaced as if holding back a sudden chill.
"I meant once he is old enough."
Her posture loosened the slightest edge.
"Maybe he can. But I'm not teaching him magic. I'm not even telling him that I know magic. Not for a long time, at least."
At the Captain's inquisitive look, she added, "It's for his own good. Children as a rule are terrible at keeping secrets. And I can't in good conscience teach my son something that will get him killed if it comes out, or let him know something that will get him orphaned at best if it's discovered."
The same shiver from before rippled through her. Her fear of Mateo ending up orphaned came up on a daily basis, but it never got less intense. Even in the old days, that wouldn't have been an impossibility, but with a tyrant in power, there were far too many ways for that to happen. And if Shuriki ever actually found out Rafa was Alacazar's daughter, she Mateo would only end up orphaned, because chances were no descendant of Alacazar would be allowed to live. And leaving was not an option, because while Shuriki could only fully enforce her tyranny in Avalor, there were 'substantiated rumors' that some of her followers covertly hunted down and killed 'particularly dangerous dissenters' who hid in foreign kingdoms. A woman who had taken up residence in Alacazar's abandoned house and suddenly left was bound to be treated as suspicious, even with her claim that she had only gone there because she was out of options.
For better or for worse, she was stuck in Avalor now.
Again, Captain Sandoval spoke up.
"What if he decides to learn magic on his own?"
Rafa narrowed her eyes.
"I'll cross that bridge when the time comes. It if does."
Hopefully, it never will. She added inwardly.
But it could. After all, her father's old things were still in their house's basement, where her mother had hid them before they temporarily left Avalor. Mateo could run into them eventually. Or he could find her hidden tamborita and ask what it was for.
Maybe she should just destroy those things after all.
No. She told herself, with all the finality of the Grim Reaper claiming a victim.
She couldn't do it.
If by some miracle her father came back, he would be heartbroken if he saw they were gone.
And she never knew when they might be needed. Even though none of those documents had information on how to defeat Shuriki, and none of the ingredients in the basement could be used to make a potion that would defeat her, there were still many threats they could help Rafa against.
The only problem was that Mateo could find them some day.
Like I said, I'll cross that bridge if it comes to that. She told herself.
There was a weird glint in Captain Sandoval's eyes, as if he had read her thoughts, had his own opinion on them, and said opinion disagreed with hers.
But, to her relief, he refrained from voicing it, and simply gave a respectful nod at her as he grunted in assent.
Her burst of strength fading again, Rafa crouched to pick up her tamborita and then sank back into the armchair, staring into the dancing flames. By now, the tamborita she had made for her battle with Shuriki was almost vanquished, reduced to a few bits of burning wood and leather.
Her head dropped from tiredness, and her eyes fell on her left hand, locking on the two wedding rings that rested on the proper finger.
And again, tears started to prick at her eyes.
One of those wedding rings was her own, but the other had belonged to the man she loved. The man she had hoped to have children with, to grow old with, to be with forever. Only for him to not even get to meet his son. Only for him to leave her life without even saying goodbye.
I miss you, Emiliano. She thought. I wish you were here.
But he wasn't here. He would never be here again. She had seen him vanishing right before her eyes as he had jumped in to take a vaporizing bolt that Shuriki had fired at her and their unborn son less than a year and a half ago.
One of the few things she had left from him was his wedding ring, which had somehow fallen from his finger. And her memories of him, which she treasured dearly, as many tears as they brought her.
How much longer must this go on? She mentally screamed, her gaze transfixed onto her husband's wedding ring. How much more darkness must I face before this is all over?
No answer came. But somehow, as she stared onto the ring, words her husband had told her floated into her ears. Words he had told her back when she still didn't fully trust him, back when he hadn't even been her suitor, but from a time when they had both been opening their heart to each other.
"The minute I give up fighting will be the minute I'll know I've lost."
Tears started to leak out of her eyes at the memory. But the sense of kinship she had felt at the time echoed in her mind. It had been the closest they had been at that point. Rafa had already been all too able to relate to the difficulties of keeping her hopes up when it was in such short supply. But she had wanted to do so then, and she still wanted to do so now.
Maybe they were fighting a losing battle. But if they didn't fight at all, it would truly be hopeless. And her husband might have given his life for hers and their unborn son's, and she didn't intend to throw his sacrifice away, but she knew she couldn't use it to just buckle under Shuriki's tyranny and live out her life quiet like a mouse. The only way that witch would ever be removed from power would be if enough people fought her and her followers. If, to be poetic in that awkwardly endearing way Emiliano used to go for, they kept the flames of hope burning within them.
Yes, they would still have to wait for the right chance. But they would also have to be ready to act when said chance arrived.
And whatever the future held in store for her, Rafa was determined to do that.