Abnerys Reyes's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Abnerys Reyes owned half a vineyard now, and no one could see past her face to trust her with it. She stood in the estate's ruined parlor and studied the man who had handed her that half. Sebastian Batista leaned in the doorway, hands in his pockets, watching her like she was a painting hung on his wall. He had signed away half his family's land for her labor and her command of six workers. But she wanted more than a signature. She wanted him to know the mind behind the deal. "You keep looking at me," Abnerys said. "You haven't asked me a single question about the soil." Sebastian smiled, easy and slow. "I don't need to. You look like you belong on the label, not in the dirt." That was the wall. She had climbed it her whole life. She needed one honest hour with him, no jokes, no charm. She needed a place to sit and be heard. She looked around the parlor. Every chair had a broken leg or a coat of dust. The couch sagged with rot. There was nowhere to talk like equals. "Come with me," she said. She led him out the back and across the dead yard. The workers had gone home. She found two crates near the old press and dragged them under a bare trellis. She set them face to face and sat. "Sit," she said. "Just sit and listen." He sat. For the first time, he stopped smiling. Abnerys pulled the failed soil report from her jacket. She spread it on her knee. "Your land isn't cursed," she said. "The last three harvests failed because the drainage rots the roots. I studied it for a week. I know how to fix it. That's why I took your deal. Not for the view." Sebastian looked at the paper, then at her. "You read all this." "I wrote half of it." She held his eyes. "You gave me half your family's name. I want you to trust the half you can't see." He was quiet a long moment. Then he took the report from her hand and read it himself, line by line, the way she had hoped. Something in his face shifted from charm to respect. "Show me the drainage," he said. "Tomorrow. First light." It worked. He had finally looked past her face. But then he set the report down and frowned at the empty yard. "There's a problem," he said. "To fix the drainage, we need skilled hands. And no worker in this region will touch land with a failed name. Your six won't do it alone." Abnerys looked at the ruined estate around them. He was right. She had won his trust. Now she had to win it a workforce, from people who had already decided the ground was cursed.