The Jade Bones

by Lani Forbes

  Mayana summoned another orb of water for Ona, and lastly for herself, savoring the cold wetness across her parched, dry tongue.

  “Thank you,” Ahkin said. He eyed her bloodied finger with dark worry creasing his features. “But please promise me you didn’t inherit too much of your mother’s self-sacrificing tendencies.”

  Mayana pursed her lips. Was she self-sacrificing like her mother? She did jump into the underworld to save him, after all. But it felt like more than that.

  “I think I care so deeply about things it moves me to act. I can’t not do something.”

  Ahkin tightened his arms around her. “I know. That’s what scares me.”

  She laid her cheek against the smooth muscles of his chest, savoring the sound of his steady heartbeat. It was such a blessing he survived the snake. What would she have done without him?

  She couldn’t think about that now, not when they were both here and very much alive.

  Before your journey ends, you will have to make a choice that will destroy your world or mine.

  Mayana’s stomach twisted as she remembered the Mother’s words to her. The warning that she would make a choice. A choice that could possibly destroy her world. She peeked up at Ahkin. Would she be willing to destroy her world to protect the greater world around them? Maybe that wasn’t what the Mother’s warning had meant. But could it . . . ?

  Their bodies slowly started to warm the longer they pressed themselves together. Ahkin laid his cheek against the top of her head, which of course made Ona growl. Ahkin’s chuckle lightly shook them both, before his head snapped back up.

  “Mayana, do you think those snakes from the first test are gone for good?”

  “I hope so. It seemed like once we actually killed the biggest one, we passed the test. Why?”

  “Because I think we might be able to take shelter in one of the burrows inside of that hill.” He lifted a hand and pointed to where the shadow of a hill loomed ahead of them, an even darker shadow of a hole gaping in its side. It looked large enough to fit the snake that had attacked them, but perhaps they would be safe if they stayed within the mouth of the opening? They didn’t really have any other choice.

  Their sandals slapped against the pale mud as they splashed their way toward the hill. Ona darted ahead of them to reach the opening first. The dog sniffed around and finally barked an excited yelp. He sat back onto his haunches, pink tongue lolling lazily as he waited for them to join him.

  “Well, if the dog says it’s safe . . .” Ahkin laughed, his hand still gripped tight around his own shard of obsidian.

  As they stepped inside the rounded, earthy opening of the hole, several heads taller than even Ahkin, the damp smell of decay overwhelmed her. The air was still and heavy, as though the opening were a great mouth of the earth holding its breath. But at least it was dry and protected them from some of the relentless wind. The burrow curved down and away from them, deep into ominous darkness. Ahkin walked in small circles, still inspecting for safety. Her eyes followed his movements, her head swirling with thoughts. He hadn’t criticized or attacked her thoughts on the rituals. He’d taken them for what they were. Her heart swelled at the memory of the moment they’d shared—when his eyes had met hers and she didn’t see disgust or rejection hidden within them. He’d just seen the real her and didn’t turn away. It was a heady feeling, intense. She felt almost raw with it.

  Yes, they hadn’t really known each other during the selection ritual. But perhaps they were starting to.

  A small smile tugged at her lips as she and Ahkin settled in to wait out the rest of the storm.

  Chapter

  6

  Yemania knew she should run. Where there was one Miquitz soldier, there were sure to be more. She knew she should—and yet she couldn’t.

  Because his chest still lightly rose and fell with shallow breaths.

  If there was one thing to stop her from running, it was her instinct to heal. Yemania wasn’t sure if it was something she’d been born with because of her divine ancestor, Ixtlilton, god of healing, or if it was something she developed later, but she had to heal. If there was someone in pain, especially someone so close to death, it was an impulse, as if she were living out her divine purpose. There were so many things she wasn’t—beautiful, brave, strong—but she could heal. And she did it well.

  His tanned skin was tinged with blue, almost ghostly in appearance. He had lost a lot of blood. If he had washed up on the shore of the riverbed, he would have copious amounts of water in his lungs as well. Yemania chewed the inside of her cheek, but her mind was already made up.

  She pulled out the stingray spine she always carried with her and pricked her thumb. The moment the blood of her ancestor was exposed, a knowledge washed over her, whispering gently to her like a sixth sense. He was inches from death; if she was going to heal him, she had to hurry.

  Her bag hit the dirt, and she ran to his side, dropping to her knees on the riverbank. She needed to get him out of the water—his body temperature was already so low.

  Up close, she could see the defined line of his squared jaw, his full, rounded lips, parted and tinged blue, his thick dark brows. Sweet Mother Ometeotl, he was handsome for a death demon. But that was unimportant—he was soon going to meet the god his people idolized so much.

  But he was so much bigger than she was! He probably cleared her own modest height by two heads, and his shoulders were twice as wide. Moving him would be a massive undertaking. Yemania wedged her hands beneath his arms and pulled with every ounce of her strength. She thanked the gods above that the mud beneath him was so slick, or she never would have been able to manage it. Her sandaled feet slipped as she inched him away from the water, falling several times and coating her backside in mud in the process.

  By the time he was safely away from the currents, she was panting heavily and wiping sweat from her eyes. She was filthy too, which she’d need to take care of quickly if she was going to address the gaping wound in his chest. His lack of blood immediately made sense.

  She lunged back to her feet and washed her hands in the river. The prick on her thumb had healed, but she’d likely need a lot more blood for a wound as severe as his. Yemania sliced across her palm with the stingray spine and quickly went to work. She moved her hand over his chest, sensing where something had pierced his waterlogged lung. Willing it to heal, she forced out the water and paid close attention to the intricacies of his internal wounds before turning her attention to the open skin. Someone or something must have stabbed him between the ribs.

  Once the wound itself healed, she reached for the bag of herbs she had collected. His pulse felt somewhat stronger, but not at all where she wanted it. His skin was still so cold.

  He needed to replenish his blood supply and get warm, or the new blood would never circulate. She dug through her bag until she found the leaves she was looking for. Hissing in frustration that she didn’t have her usual supplies, she quickly scoured the riverbed for two flat rocks to grind the leaves into a paste. She mixed the paste with some of the water from the river and dribbled what she could into his slack mouth with a folded banana leaf. What she really needed was a pestle, a bowl, and some fire. That would allow her to make the tea he needed to regain some of his strength. It would still likely be another day or so until he would be strong enough to leave, and that’s if she could get him warm enough to get his blood moving.

  “Gods above,” she whispered to herself. “What am I doing?”

  She assessed her surroundings for a place to get him situated, and her gaze fell on a hollow within the trunk of a kapok tree, its twisting roots creating a kind of burrow probably used by a deer—hopefully not a wolf or a jaguar. The soldier did have an obsidian knife strapped to his waist, but perhaps she should relieve him of it . . . just in case.

  Why did the soldier have to be so big? She’d never drag him across the dry g
round on her own. Yemania leaned back on her heels and blew the stray strands of hair out of her face. It was definitely getting dark now, but she couldn’t leave him like this. The soldier would die sometime in the night without her help. If she brought him back to Millacatl, he’d die anyway as a battle sacrifice. Something about the peaceful stillness of his face made her heart twist at the thought of him tied to the sacrificial platform.

  She’d have to stay out here all night if she wanted to save him. Which meant everyone back in the city would panic when she didn’t return. Could she pretend she got lost and slept in the jungle? It was a risk to be sure. Was she willing to take that risk for an enemy soldier she didn’t even know? An enemy soldier who would likely capture her and take her back to Miquitz as his own sacrifice, given the chance?

  She ran her hands roughly through her hair and grabbed her scalp in frustration. Gods, how did she even get herself into this position? This was not how her life was supposed to go. She was supposed to have found someone quiet and meek, a humble homemaker that would marry her and get her out of her father’s home. He was likely going to be portly, balding, and not at all the type of man that would make a girl’s heart flutter, the type of man her father would have scoffed at for his lack of health. But he would have been kind and given Yemania the sort of home she’d always wanted, where she could open her own little shop of remedies for the commoners, the ones the blood of the gods could not be “wasted” on. That’s what she always imagined for her life anyway.

  Certainly not this. Stuck in the jungle covered in mud and trying to save a dying enemy because she was escaping the company of her arrogant brother and his soon-to-be-empress, unable to return home and stuck as that same empress’s personal handmaiden. She was not supposed to be sent to Tollan as a sacrifice to bless Prince Ahkin’s marriage to her best friend, chosen to die by her father as the most worthless of his four daughters.

  Her eyes burned at the reminder that no matter where she went, she was never enough. She looked down at her hands, the hands that had healed so many wounds and saved so many lives. At least there was that. It was something her father, the rituals, Metzi and Coatl—none of them could take away from her. Her calling to heal. That was what she was born to do, and thirteen heavens above, that was exactly what she would do.

  Yemania stood, her mind made up, and found some long palm fronds attached to a low tree. It took her several minutes of pulling and hacking with the soldier’s knife, but she finally managed to break away one of the larger branches. She laid it down beside the soldier and heaved with her entire body to roll him onto the fanned-out leaves. That would make it easier to pull him, at least.

  The smooth surface of the leaves between his body and the ground allowed her to pull him ever so slowly toward the burrow. When she got him close enough, she rolled him several more times until his body was safely tucked inside the little cave of roots.

  He still needed to be warmed, but she couldn’t light a fire, not if the soldiers at the gate came looking for her like they promised. She had no furs, no cloaks. She groaned as she realized the only option she had left.

  Her own body heat.

  “Stinking, filthy, death-worshipping—” she muttered as she slowly stripped off her red dress. He better live after this, she thought savagely as she rolled him onto his side and draped the fabric across his back. Blood rushed to her cheeks and flushed across every inch of her skin at the thought of lying down naked beside this beautiful dying soldier, but she knew what she had to do.

  Yemania gently lay down and wormed her way toward him like a caterpillar, facing him and making her heart rate raise even higher. Thank the gods he was still unconscious. She pressed herself against him, hissing slightly as his almost frozen skin met her own. Hopefully her blush would help heat him up that much faster.

  Once the initial shock of what she was doing wore off, she pulled him tighter against her own chest and began rubbing his back in long sweeping motions with her hands—movement to create more heat. Definitely not to touch the sculpted muscles of his back.

  Night had completely fallen by now, the Seventh Sun beginning its journey through the underworld. Yemania briefly wondered if there was any chance Mayana was still alive to see it as day began in Xibalba. She wondered what her friend would say if she could see what she was doing right now. But that was a fool’s hope. She and Ahkin were both gone. They were never coming back.

  The thought brought tears to her eyes and she blinked them back. She let herself nuzzle her face into the chest of the soldier, to be close to someone, to not feel so alone in the world.

  But she couldn’t hold back the tears no matter how hard she tried. Because with Mayana gone, and her brother so enraptured with Metzi, she truly was alone.

  Chapter

  7

  By the time the clouds finished their furious tantrum, Ahkin was ready to be on his feet again. Mayana had fallen asleep, her head in his lap. Restless, he watched the darkness of the tunnel curving down and away from them. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was watching them, just outside the range of his vision. It was enough to set his nerves on a blade’s edge and prevent him from getting any rest.

  He looked down at Mayana’s peaceful, sleeping face and gently ran his thumb down the length of her cheek. Gods, she was so beautiful, even if she was foolishly risking herself over and over to keep them safe.

  She would not die for him as Pech had. What a horrible emperor he was if he couldn’t even protect and take care of this single young woman. And he was supposed to take care of an entire empire? He’d obviously already failed at that, getting himself stuck in the underworld while his sister sat upon his throne. His treacherous, backstabbing . . . He reached for the bag of maize. A sour feeling roiled inside his stomach. He needed to nibble on something to settle it. But the maize kernels didn’t help, and the longer he sat alone with his thoughts, the more anxious he became.

  He thought about Metzi, now the only remaining descendant of the sun god, the only one with the power to raise the sun if he didn’t make it back. How she had stolen his throne and faked an apocalypse to convince him to sacrifice himself. Anger burned its way up his throat. How could she have done this to him? Hadn’t she loved him at all? And worse, how could he have been stupid enough to let it happen? How had he not seen her plot as it unfolded? Mistake after mistake after mistake. If he ever did make it back, he’d . . .

  But what would happen if, by some miracle, they did both make it back? Would he march into the palace in Tollan and demand she step down? He knew how determined Metzi could be when she set her heart on something. And he would not be fooled by her again. Ever.

  But Metzi was only one of the worries that plagued him. He still needed to father more descendants to protect the empire, and the one bride he actually wanted was the one bride Toani, the head priest, would never approve. An empress that didn’t believe in the rituals? Despite what the Mother had told them, there was no chance the rest of the empire would willingly give up their centuries-old traditions. Especially when they believed those traditions protected them from another apocalypse.

  That didn’t even include Miquitz and their death priest, Tzom. Ahkin had faced him once before on the battlefield, and the escape had been a narrow one. The enemy empire was certainly more active at their borders than usual, and there had to be a reason. But now he wasn’t even there to protect his people from their raiding parties.

  Shame burned hot inside his chest as he thought of the peasants he hadn’t been able to save on the misty morning battlefield in Millacatl. Tzom and his death demons had whisked them away into the mountains, and their families probably mourned them as sacrifices. He prayed he wouldn’t meet their souls somewhere here in Xibalba. Would they shame him and mock him for his failures as well?

  Maybe staying in Xibalba would be easier after all.

  And then there was the warning from the
Mother goddess, if in fact that dream had been real. One of them would not survive this journey. He dropped his gaze to Mayana’s sleeping face again, and his stomach contracted. No. There was no way. If only one of them was going to survive, it was going to be her. But he would make sure to take her as far as he could before that happened.

  Tired of being alone with only his darkening thoughts to keep him company, Ahkin gently shook Mayana awake.

  “Let’s get moving, the storm has cleared.”

  Mayana arched her back and stretched in a way that made the back of Ahkin’s neck grow hot. He lifted his gaze to meet Ona’s, who eyed him with a slightly curled lip.

  “Were you able to get any rest?” Mayana asked, worry pulling her eyebrows together.

  “A little,” Ahkin lied. Ona’s other lip curled to reveal his teeth.

  Don’t you tattle on me, Ahkin warned the dog with his eyes.

  Mayana reached into her bag and grabbed a few maize kernels to pop in her mouth. He wanted to urge her to eat more, but he knew she’d stubbornly refuse if he tried to tell her what to do. He’d seen that defiant blaze in her eyes when she felt someone trying to control her. And he was lying to himself if he didn’t admire the hells out of it.

  Mayana reached back into the bag, but instead of pulling out more kernels, she brought out the tiny worry doll the Mother had given them before they began this journey. In addition to Mayana’s jade necklace and Ahkin’s shield, both treasures of their ancestors, she had also given them some rather odd gifts. The bag of maize made sense, but the little worry doll the size of his thumb with a yellow dress? A walnut shell housing a worm that painfully bit Ahkin when he tried to open it?

  “Why do you think the Mother gave us these?” Mayana’s brow furrowed as she studied the reed pattern woven into the doll’s tiny dress.

  “Who knows? Maybe she’s gone senile over the last few millennia.”