by Lani Forbes
“No, you’re not the man your father was,” she said finally. He flinched at her words, and Mayana reached out and held his good hand. “You are Ahkin, son of Huitzilopochtli, prince of light. You are a warrior. You are the emperor. You will be your own man and create your own legacy separate from his. You will be remembered for many things, and you have the freedom to choose what those things will be.”
Ahkin squeezed her hand back. She could tell he didn’t entirely believe her. “It seems like so much of a burden to bear.”
Mayana dimpled her cheek. “I think it’s too much of a burden to bear alone.”
Ahkin’s gaze shot up to meet hers again, hope trying to shine within them. “Perhaps you’re right.” Then he rolled his eyes. “Again.”
“Get used to it.” Mayana smirked and crested the next sand dune.
Whatever Ahkin was about to say in response must have stuck in his throat.
A flat expanse spread out between them and the next dune, sparse shrubbery dotting the tiny waves of the sand field with wind-blown hollows surrounding them. The small bushes were void of any greenery. Instead, black charred branches curled like fists cursing the heavens.
Tall poles like trimmed trees stripped of all their branches punctuated the landscape as well, and each pole seemed to have something shaped eerily like a limp human body hanging from it. Bodies that hang like banners. Mayana’s stomach felt sick.
“Don’t look at them when we pass,” Ahkin said. “It will make it easier.”
Her heart rate rose the closer they got to the first pole. She did as Ahkin suggested, keeping her gaze firmly on the shifting sands at her feet. The pull to look tugged at her, but she knew it would only taint her nightmares. Beside her, she assumed Ahkin was doing the same.
“I’m sure you’re used to seeing bodies butchered on the battlefield.” She fought the urge to look at him, fearing what she might see if she did.
“Less often than you’d think. Our main goal in battle is to capture enemies, not simply butcher them.”
“But you’ve seen human sacrifices before.”
“I have.” He didn’t elaborate.
Ona stayed close as they made their way across the barren field of death, ears back and tail tucked between his legs. Perhaps even he mourned the bodies hanging on the trees.
With every step she took, the thought tapped on her shoulder like an incessant child needing attention. Who are they? How did they get here? Who are they?
The sound of rope creaking against wood made her jump and almost look up. “What’s that sound?”
Ahkin took a deep breath beside her. “The bodies are hanging from ropes tied around their wrists.”
Tied like banners hanging from a city’s gates. She finally voiced the question plaguing her. “Who are they?”
Ahkin didn’t answer.
“Ahkin, who are they?”
Still he did not answer. Her self-control ached like an overused muscle close to fatigue. The need to know overwhelmed her.
“Keep your eyes on the ground, Mayana. Trust me. Please.”
The anguish in his voice undid her. She couldn’t stand not knowing another minute. If whatever he saw upset him this much, she had the right to join him in his suffering instead of letting him experience it alone. He didn’t have to shoulder the brunt of everything.
She peeked up through her eyelashes to one of the nearest posts, her eyes grazing along the bare, bloodied feet of a young man. She lifted her gaze higher, across the deep-blue fabric tied around his waist, the chest piece of jade and gold hanging across the plane of his fit chest. To the face—the achingly familiar face that had teased her and supported her through so much, including giving her a beautiful jadeite-handled knife on the eve of her departure to the capital.
“Chimalli!” Her brother’s name ripped out of her with the force of a scream.
She ran to the post suspending his brutalized body. Bruises and bloody gashes covered every inch of his skin. The gaping wounds to his head told her all she needed to know.
Her brother was dead.
Chapter
18
“Obsidian Butterfly?” Coatl asked again, running his fingers across sheets and sheets of papers lining the stone shelves in his rooms. “You’re sure that’s what she said?”
“Yes,” Yemania repeated for what felt like the thousandth time. “She said, ‘Thank you, great Obsidian Butterfly.’ ”
“Hmm.” Coatl frowned and continued his shuffling through the maguey paper sheets while Yemania waited nearby with crossed arms. “I know I’ve heard that name somewhere, but all the scrolls and codices I have in here are on healing. I think we might need to go to the library in the temple.”
“She also said something about a delegation arriving tomorrow.”
“And she didn’t say from where?” Coatl turned around to face her. “Only that I am no longer needed?”
Yemania winced at the hurt in his voice. She could see the raw pain of how that rejection raked against his ego. He had been disposable to her. That was a feeling Yemania could relate to.
“At least she said she did love you.”
Coatl looked out the window toward the towering Temple of the Sun and sighed. “Not enough.”
“It’s late, brother. You don’t have to go back to Pahtia, at least. In the morning, when I accompany Metzi to the daily sun ritual, I’ll see if I can slip into the temple’s library. But let’s get some sleep for now.”
Coatl pursed his lips. “That’s right. I forgot. I won’t be accompanying her to do the daily sun ritual anymore. I’m no longer the High Healer of Tollan.” His voice broke at the end.
Yemania blinked back tears. “Coatl, I’m so sorry. You know you are the best healer in the empire.” She placed her hand on his arm, unsure of how to comfort him.
“We both know that’s not true.” He fingered the ruby pendant the size of a chicken egg that lay against his bare chest: the mark of the most distinguished healer in the empire. He seemed to think for a few seconds, but then he lifted the golden chain from around his neck. His eyes met hers, and he slipped the chain over her head. The heavy ruby settled against her chest, a weight unlike any she had felt before. “Tollan now has the greatest healer in the empire as its High Healer.”
Yemania made a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “You know that’s not true.”
“Well, at least you’re the only one better than me.” He gave her a roguish wink.
Yemania slapped his arm playfully.
“I know this is something you’ve never heard from anyone in our family, but I’m proud of you. I’m terrible at showing it, but I really am.”
Yemania fidgeted, a hot uncomfortable feeling flooding through her. “Thank you,” she said.
Yemania had never witnessed a sun ceremony before. All she knew was that every morning, a descendant of Huitzilopochtli had to climb the thousands of narrow steps leading to the top of the golden Temple of the Sun. There they must offer a sacrifice of their blood. Every night the Seventh Sun died and traveled through Xibalba, and could only be reawakened through the blood of Huitzilopochtli.
And with Ahkin gone, Metzi was the last remaining descendant.
Yemania followed along in the empress’s wake, excited yet nervous to see such a legendary event take place. She supposed that to Metzi and the people of Tollan it was life as usual, but to Yemania it was a beautiful opportunity to appreciate the miracle of life granted by the gods.
A Tlana priest dressed in robes the color of blood adjusted his necklaces of glittering gemstones as he waited for them beside the massive brazier. Yemania stared in wonder at the flame within the bowl. It had been kept continually burning since the last New Fire Ceremony, years before she was born. Behind the brazier stood the altar, where strips of maguey paper waited for Metzi’s daily blood offering. Ye
mania readied the stingray spine in her hand, her gaze darting to the pinkish glow behind the mountains where the sun waited like an anxious baby bird to be fed.
Metzi approached the altar and lifted the ceremonial knife to her palm. A slice, a wave of her hand, and raindrops of blood coated the strips of paper. Metzi gathered them in her hand and tossed them into the burning flame. The papers curled into dark smoke, and Yemania sucked in a breath as the brilliant face of the sun peeked over the distant mountains. The freshly birthed sunlight warmed her face.
Metzi cleared her throat, and Yemania jumped. The empress gestured impatiently with her bleeding hand.
“Oh! I’m so sorry. I got distracted watching the ceremony,” Yemania mumbled, piercing her thumb with the stingray spine. She waved her thumb above the cut on Metzi’s palm, healing the shallow wound almost instantly.
“Thank you, Yemania. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have preparations to see to back at the palace.”
A chill swept through her at the memory of that voice.
“Oh, are we preparing for something in particular?” Yemania tried to make her voice sound casual, indifferent.
“We have some guests arriving this evening, and I want to make sure their accommodations are ready. I’m also thinking of preparing a small feast in honor of their arrival.”
Yemania stashed the stingray spine back into the pocket of her tunic dress. “Who will be visiting, if I may ask?”
“Oh, it’s a surprise,” Metzi said with a wink. She looped her arm through Yemania’s and steered her back toward the stairs. “We’ll have great fun tonight, I’m sure.”
“Actually,” Yemania said, easing her arm out of the empress’s grip. “I was hoping to visit the temple library before I return to the palace. I wanted to do some research on . . . previous High Healers of Tollan.”
Metzi narrowed her eyes, sending Yemania’s pulse racing.
She stumbled to make an excuse the empress would believe. “You know, we’ve never had a woman as the High Healer before, and I want to make a good impression. Make sure I know my history and expectations and such.” Yemania threw a prayer toward the Mother goddess, begging for Metzi to believe her.
To her surprise, Metzi’s smirk softened into a genuine smile. She placed a hand on Yemania’s shoulder and squeezed gently. “You do whatever you need to. Show them all what you’re really capable of.”
Yemania’s heart lurched at the shared camaraderie in being underestimated. She watched the empress sweep back down the stairs with a deep sense of sadness. Such elegance and beauty, and yet such a sharp and clever mind to go with it. Metzi was a gifted young woman, and it broke Yemania’s heart to see the bitterness and fear of losing control take away from her natural potential. But Yemania still believed what she had told Metzi before they went to Millacatl: that there was a stark difference between strength and cruelty. She worried that the empress’s fear might take her too far over that ledge.
With a deep breath to steady herself, Yemania turned away from the stairs and into one of the dark doorways leading into the bowels of the temple.
The massive structure was the size of a small mountain, and it certainly felt like climbing a mountain to reach its peak. The temple housed storerooms filled with religious costumes, supplies for various rituals, residences for the highest-level priests, and stacks and stacks of codex sheets recording histories and stories and knowledge accumulated by the Chicome Empire through the various ages. But perhaps the most precious of all the items the temple contained were the original codex sheets. The rituals. Guidelines supposedly passed down from the gods about how to serve and keep themselves safe from another apocalypse destroying their world. The same codex sheets Mayana had shown her weeks ago—that had not appeared as aged as the creation accounts. As though they had been created much later . . .
But Yemania didn’t have time to worry about that now. Her goal today was not to find the holy ritual codices, but the lesser-known histories.
She hurried along a hallway, the light of numerous torches reflecting off the patterned red walls. She roughly remembered the location of the library from her visit with Mayana, so she headed in that general direction. She had to ask a lower-level Tlana priest once for directions, but eventually she found the section of the temple that housed the library.
The room was as large, if not larger, than the banquet hall of her home palace in Pahtia. Light of the freshly risen sun flooded in through the wide windows cut along the wall. Torches would be too dangerous to keep near such an extensive collection of maguey paper and animal-skin codex sheets. She wondered how the many scribes bustling between the stone tables and shelves studied and painted at night, but perhaps they only worked during the day for that reason.
She approached a young man hunched over a sheet of paper spread out across a stone table. His nimble fingers painted the pictures of whatever event he was recording with a long, thin brush. A dark knot of hair rose above his angular face, and the crisp white tunic he wore was belted at the waist with a strand of rope the color of red cinnabar.
“Excuse me,” Yemania asked. “Do you know where I might find histories on the lesser-known gods and goddesses?”
“Is there one in particular you are hoping to find?” He didn’t bother looking up from his work as he continued to fill in the small image of a hummingbird.
Yemania chewed her lip, unsure if she should ask about the Obsidian Butterfly directly.
“Uh, I heard—someone—in passing—mention a goddess of butterflies or something like that, and I was curious—”
The paintbrush tip paused on the paper as the young man lifted his gaze to meet hers. “Goddess of butterflies?” he hedged. “Do you mean Itzpapalotl?”
Yemania’s hands twisted behind her back. “Maybe that’s what she’s called, I’m not sure. If you point me in the right direction, I can always go look for myself and see if anything helps me remember exactly what I heard.”
The scribe’s eyes went wide. Yemania swore he shivered slightly. “You are not the first to inquire. But if you are curious about the lesser gods, I would research any but her.”
Yemania didn’t say anything for the length of several heartbeats. “Why?”
This time, the scribe shook out his arms as though he was dispelling an unpleasant feeling. “I’d research ones that are a little less . . . likely to haunt your nightmares.”
A chill swept through the room. She shivered. Maybe Yemania didn’t want to know more. Some part of her spirit whispered for her to leave and not press any further. But Yemania glanced down at the ruby around her neck, running a finger across its smooth glassy surface. This goddess had demanded that Metzi break her brother’s heart. She owed it to Coatl to at least find out who she was.
“Maybe it wasn’t even her I am thinking of. Probably some other lesser goddess. Where can I find the history sheets about them?”
“The histories of the lesser deities—the ones that did not sacrifice themselves to create one of our suns—can be found by the back wall there.” He waved a hand to the left corner and returned to painting.
“Thank you.”
Yemania made her way past several stone shelves containing various supplies for rituals, knives and measurement tools, jewels and masks, ritual costumes, and even the blue paint used on human sacrifice victims. Her eyes lingered on an empty shelf coated with dust everywhere but one small shining circle, as though whatever used to sit there had been removed. A whisper of wind blew across the back of her neck, making her skin prickle. Her heart seemed to pound a little louder. She tore her eyes away from the shelf.
Long stone tables were piled high with yellowing, aged sheets, all folded and stacked in neat rows. Each of the codex sheets could be unfolded and laid out to decipher the pictures if there was room enough to do so.
“Oh, Mother help me,” Yemania whispered to herself as she took in
the sheer volume of codex sheets, some stacks stretching high over her head. She blew away a strand of hair that had escaped from her braid and set to work.
The identity of the Obsidian Butterfly was hidden somewhere in these stacks, and she was going to find it.
Chapter
19
Fear spider-walked down Ahkin’s spine when he had noticed the bodies hanging from the wooden posts, but then sank in with venomous fangs when he noticed exactly whose bodies they were.
His mother. His father. His general and mentor, Yaotl. The young men he’d trained for battle with since he was a child. Even Metzi and Coatl. Everyone he had ever loved or cared about now surrounded him, as dead as the sacrifices who painted the altar in Tollan with their blood.
It took every bit of his strength not to cry out when he first saw them, logic telling him that this shouldn’t be real. It couldn’t be.
When he saw Mayana’s hanging body, he knew. This was a fantasy created by this layer of Xibalba. A deeper level of horror—beyond monstrous crocodiles and snakes, beyond death-filled caverns and demon children. All of those had been designed to torture the body, incite fear of destruction.
But this layer? This layer tortured the heart and soul. The girl he loved walked beside him and yet also hung from a post with her heart ripped from her gaping chest. It was the reality of what might have happened to her had he chosen another bride instead. The thought winded him like a blow to the stomach. A lump formed in this throat. He never could have chosen someone else. He couldn’t have watched that heart of compassion ripped from her body, to beat no more.
One of you will not survive.
He made a vow that he would never see that image again as long as he lived.
He needed her heart to beat like he needed the air in his lungs. She made him feel a little less alone. She had painted his world with color, and he could never go back to seeing everything in shades of gray.