by Lani Forbes
The second beast did the same, giving up in its attempt to dislodge the water and collapsing to the ground as its eyes closed. Mayana dispersed the water and its chest still rose and fell with strained, shallow breaths. Then she followed Ona into the rocks.
“Ahkin!” she screamed. “Ahkin, where are you?”
Ona barked urgently, and Mayana followed the sound. She wedged herself beneath a rocky overhang, a crevice formed between the stone and ground. Ahkin was there, his eyes closed, but still breathing. He must have lost too much blood. Ona was already working to lick the wounds closed, the skin healing beneath each pull of his pink tongue.
Mayana crouched down beside him, rubbing the short hair on his head with her hand and whispering, “Ahkin. Ahkin, wake up. Please.” Tears traced their way down her cheeks and into his hair.
His eyes finally fluttered. He groaned, and Ona leapt between them, licking Ahkin excitedly across the face.
“Dog,” he grunted, pushing Ona away, who only wiggled against him harder, licking more and more.
“I think he likes you now.” Mayana chuckled, her voice thick with emotion.
His gaze focused on her face and without a moment’s hesitation, he wrapped his arms around her neck and pulled her to him. Their lips came together, and this time, Ona let them be. His lips tasted like salt from both blood and tears, as he consumed her like a drowning man tasting air for the first time.
“You came for me,” he said against her mouth, refusing to pull away.
Mayana cried and laughed as she kissed him. “Of course. You aren’t doing this alone, Ahkin.”
He made a sobbing sound in his throat and kissed her harder. “I know,” he whispered. “I know.”
He still seemed so weak, but he broke down and told her about his father’s ghost visiting him, lecturing him on the foolishness of trying to shoulder everything by himself. Mayana raised an eyebrow at that, and Ahkin laughed. He seemed . . . so joyous. So light. Which was a miracle, considering where they were. She could sense that he really had let go of some burden that had been weighing him down since she met him. Even his smile seemed brighter, freer. He pulled her in for another embrace, kissing the top of her head. “You are my duality. And I am yours.”
“The Mother told us that already,” Mayana teased.
“Yes, but I finally understand what that means now. I don’t have to do everything alone. It’s safe to trust someone else to stand beside you. To accept help. It doesn’t make you weaker. It makes you stronger, like a rope of many strands.”
“About time you figured it out.” Mayana laid a hand against his cheek.
He leaned into it, turning his face and kissing her bleeding palms. “Let’s go before the jaguars wake.”
Ona barked in agreement.
Ahkin seemed to hold his head a little higher as they stumbled back to the river of scorpions, back across the path burned through them by Ahkin’s shield. This time, Mayana faced her fear with a greater strength. With Ahkin by her side, she felt steadier and lighter too.
The forest of dead trees began to thin, along with the mists. Mayana hoped they were finally reaching the end of such a horrific layer of the underworld.
“We should be close to the next layer, shouldn’t we? The final river?”
“I think so. We are supposed to swim across it and then climb our way up to the City of the Dead.”
“Where we will have to pleasantly negotiate with the lords of death and suffering to let us pass through and be home before dinner.”
Ahkin snorted. “Yes. Though I doubt it will be as simple as that.”
Their fingers twined together like a finely woven tapestry. The feel of his skin against hers made Mayana’s stomach tighten with the memories of the kisses they had shared. “When is it ever as simple as that?”
She started to laugh, but it stuck in her throat as the last layer of mist finally cleared and revealed a stretch of marshland. The soggy landscape was comprised of low grassy plains interspersed with pockets of connected pools. Fat-bodied black-and-yellow spiders scuttled across the exposed dirt beneath low shrubs that looked brown and lifeless.
“What is that?” Mayana wrinkled her nose at the rotten stench washing over her. The pools’ waters were not cool and smooth and clear. Instead, they were thick and even more sluggish than the blood had been. They swirled in eddies of a sickly yellow-green color. The smell reminded her of festering wounds mixed with mildew and wood rot. She covered her nose with her hand to stop from gagging.
“I think—” Ahkin stepped closer to the nearest pool to look, but then quickly backed away, retching. “It’s . . . pus.”
“Pus?” Mayana shrieked. Her stomach roiled at the thought. “We have to cross a marshland full of pus?” She thought she might prefer the scorpions. “This wasn’t in your descriptions either.”
Ahkin scrunched his eyebrows together. “Actually, now that I think about it, I do remember reading about rivers of blood, scorpions, and pus.”
Mayana let out a breath. “Now you remember? Anything else we need to be prepared for before we reach the final river? Fields of rotting bones? Canyons of frogs and spiders?”
Ahkin grimaced. “Actually, it looks like there are plenty of spiders here.”
Sure enough, spiderwebs glistened between the towering grass stalks, more bulbous black-and-yellow bodies wriggling across them.
Pus. And spiders.
A buzz sounded in her ear, and Mayana slapped at a mosquito that had landed on her neck.
Pus. And spiders. And mosquitoes.
Xibalba was truly a place of wretchedness, and it seemed determined to prove that it deserved its reputation.
Chapter
32
“I don’t understand . . . Didn’t you meet last night?” Coatl frowned, testing his newly healed nose for soreness with his fingertips. Yemania had finished patching him up as soon as she had the strength to sit up again. Now that they had taken care of the physical damage done to one another, they all lounged on the floor cushions of the High Healer workroom, trying to repair the damage done below the surface.
She laughed softly. “No, actually. We met outside the jungles of Millacatl.”
She could see Coatl putting everything together in his head. “The night you didn’t come back,” he said finally.
“Yes. I found him dying on a riverbank and I took care of him. It took me a while and we . . . spent a lot of time talking.”
Coatl frowned. “You said you escaped a Miquitz raiding party.”
“She did,” Ochix cut in. “They wanted to take her, and I held them back so she could escape. We thought we would never see each other again. My father tried to have me killed the first time I refused to marry Metzi. The only reason I finally agreed is because I thought coming here might give me the chance to see Yemania again.”
Coatl’s eyebrows rose. He didn’t seem convinced.
“Why did you come back to the workroom?” Yemania asked. “I thought you couldn’t wait to get down to the training fields to see Metzi.”
Coatl shrugged a shoulder. “Well, I thought about what you said, about what’s best for both of us, and I realized the only reason she left me in the first place is because she was acting on . . . orders. So, I went to her room, knowing she wasn’t there, to see what I could find out.”
Yemania felt Ochix stiffen behind her. He wrapped a protective arm around her waist.
“I came back to talk to you”—Coatl spoke out of the side of his mouth to try and exclude Ochix—“about something I learned about her . . . friend.”
“You know, if you’re going to talk about me, you can at least address me by name,” Ochix said.
Coatl sneered at him. “You know, Ochix, not everything is about you.”
Ochix sneered right back. “That’s funny, I was going to say the same thing to
you.”
“Both of you can knock it off,” Yemania said, hands back on her hips. “By her ‘friend,’ you mean the Obsidian Butterfly?”
Ochix immediately hissed at the name, drawing both Yemania and Coatl’s curious eyes.
“Are you familiar with her?” Yemania asked him.
Ochix’s face darkened. He rubbed nervously at his chin. “Yes, unfortunately. I have no love for that deity. Itzpapalotl, the Obsidian Butterfly, resides in Tamoanchan, the heavenly paradise in the stars. She can be a benevolent warrior, but one of her aspects can also be treacherous and deadly. My father has been . . . consulting with her. I confronted him about it when we got into our fight. I told him I thought she couldn’t be trusted.”
His hand moved absently to the scar across his stomach. “My father has always been a bit . . . different. Obsessive when it came to unraveling the will of the gods, a little on the eccentric side. But when he started summoning her a few months ago, it was almost as though he fell off the ledge into madness. He’d stay up for days at a time, poring over ancient texts. Every wall in his room in the temple was covered in star charts and complicated drawings I didn’t understand. He would talk to spirits that no one else could see. He even attacked and killed one of his servants for daring to interrupt him. He is not himself anymore, and it began when he started summoning her.”
Yemania shivered. “How does he summon her?”
“It’s a complicated ritual, but I’ve seen him do it. The lesser gods and goddesses cannot travel between the layers of creation except during times of cosmic instability. Only the creator, Ometeotl, can move however she wishes. In order to communicate with Itzpapalotl, you must sacrifice some of your own blood to a fallen star, a piece of the heavenly realms where she dwells.”
“A fallen star,” Coatl said quietly. He immediately started pacing the room, running his hands through his hair. “You mean like a meteorite?”
Ochix nodded gravely. “They are extremely rare and difficult to find, but we keep a fallen star in our temple in Omitl.”
“We keep them in our temples here as well. They are regarded as holy gifts from the gods, tools used for certain rituals,” Coatl said, still pacing.
“I didn’t see it there, the last time I was in the library. I think I saw the shelf that usually housed it,” Yemania whispered.
Coatl turned back to face them. He crossed his arms over his chest and rocked slightly. “Metzi has it. I remember her showing it to me. It was a gray stone as big as my palm, dark and jagged yet shining with something like stardust.”
Ochix nodded slowly. “That sounds like a star stone.”
“She must be using the stone to summon the Obsidian Butterfly,” Yemania guessed. It might explain her constant headaches as well. If Metzi was expending so much of her energy to summon such a great power . . .
Coatl slammed a hand against the stone table beside him. “Why is she doing this, though?”
Ochix’s face remained grave. “I’m less worried about Metzi’s plans and more worried about whatever the Obsidian Butterfly is orchestrating. Metzi may think she is in control, but the goddess will use her. I feel like I’m a piece in a game I didn’t know I was playing. And if that goddess can push my father into madness, I would hate to see what she could do to your empress.”
Yemania squeezed his hand reassuringly. “Well then, we can’t let her. Coatl, you said you had learned something when you went to her rooms?”
Coatl nervously rubbed the back of his neck. “I might have gone through some of her correspondences, messages she left out on her tables.”
Ochix snorted in disgust, and Coatl shot him another nasty glare.
Yemania jumped in before either of them could say something inflammatory. “What did you find in the letters?”
“Mostly they were updates on the negotiations with Ehecatl, but I did find a letter from Tzom, head priest and emperor of Miquitz.”
Ochix’s eyes grew even darker at the mention of his father.
But Coatl continued, “It was a request for Metzi to visit Miquitz after the wedding. To join them for their eclipse ritual in a few weeks.”
“What’s unusual about that?” Yemania asked.
“It’s how he signed it. At the end, it said, ‘Thank you for your mutual service to our patron.’ ”
“Itzpapalotl must be the patron,” Yemania guessed.
Coatl turned to Ochix. “No offense, death demon, but I don’t trust you or your kind in the slightest. I trust this goddess even less. I’m worried Metzi is walking into some kind of trap set up by your father.”
“My kind?” Ochix clenched his hand into a fist. “What is that supposed to imply?”
“This is your father, isn’t it? Your crazy, bloodthirsty father scheming and making plans with some goddess and convincing Metzi to make these horrible decisions that—”
“That what? Take her away from you? I haven’t known Metzi very long, but I’d be willing to give her much more credit than you are right now, and you are the one who supposedly loves her.”
“I’m concerned about her! I don’t want this Obsidian Butterfly influencing her! Driving her insane! What if this is all Miquitz’s way of taking over the Chicome Empire, so you can be emperor of both!”
Ochix scoffed. “You’re the insane one, son of healing, if you think that’s the reason I’m here.”
“Coatl,” Yemania cut in. “Ochix has a point. Metzi is clever and I don’t think she’d—”
“You don’t understand! This was all her idea!” Coatl burst out. “Everything. From the beginning. Metzi asked me to poison her father, help her make Ahkin think the world was ending, and I did it all because—because I thought I was helping her escape from an arranged marriage. I thought she wanted to be with me. She told me the idea to steal the throne from her father and brother came to her from the gods, that she was acting out the divine revelation given to her . . . and now everything makes so much more sense. The idea must have been whispered into her ear by that mother of demons.”
Yemania chewed on her lower lip as Ochix’s chest heaved. She could see him barely managing to contain his rage. “Do you think that’s something your father could be capable of? Influencing Metzi through the goddess?”
Ochix let out a breath. “I don’t know. Like I said, he’s been acting so differently. Before the sun prince died, he was obsessed with talking to him, of finding a way to get him to come to Omitl.”
“Ahkin,” Yemania breathed. Saying his name ripped open the scab that had been forming over her heart at the thought of him and Mayana.
Ochix continued, “If he wanted to kill him or take over the Chicome Empire, I don’t see why he’d care about that. As soon as the prince sacrificed himself, my father’s manic focus shifted to Metzi, hence the wedding proposal. He acted as if the world depended on it, and he was the only one that could find the answers. I put my foot down then, confronted him on everything I was noticing. And all it got me was a knife blade in the gut.”
“But you finally agreed.” Coatl narrowed his eyes. “You say it’s because you love my sister and wanted to come to Tollan, but what if you’re here for a different reason?”
Ochix rose to his feet and withdrew a long obsidian blade, its handle carved with the image of skulls. Yemania gasped, but before she could worry, Ochix flipped the blade over in his hand and offered the handle to Coatl.
“If I am such a threat, then end my life right here. I assure you I have no interest in your sun throne. I will take the throne and mantle of head priest in my own empire, I don’t need another. The only thing about this place that holds any interest for me is sitting right here.” He placed a hand on Yemania’s shoulder. She reached up and put her hand over his.
Coatl didn’t take the offered knife. “Then call off your wedding to Metzi.”
“My father threatened to kill me a
nd said I would never be welcome home if I didn’t marry her. And with how you feel about my people here in the valley, where else would I go? I don’t have a choice if I want any kind of life for myself besides living alone in the mountains.”
“But what if Metzi called it off?” Yemania asked quietly.
Ochix opened his mouth to object, but then considered for a moment. “Actually . . . I don’t think my father could blame me if she were the one to call off the engagement. But she isn’t going to, especially not if the goddess wishes it.”
Coatl’s eyes grew bright. “I know I can convince her to call it off. If I could—”
“No,” Yemania cut across him, already seeing where his head was going. “You aren’t going to be able to convince her, not if the Obsidian Butterfly still has any influence over her decision. What we need to do, I think, is break off her connection to Itzpapalotl. Then maybe Coatl can convince her to end the engagement. I think she still has feelings for him. She told the Butterfly she did.”
Ochix was following along with her. “Then we need to steal her star stone. If Itzpapalotl can’t direct her, perhaps she would be willing to break the engagement. Which means”—he turned his gaze hopefully to Yemania—“I would be free to marry someone else.”
Yemania’s stomach flipped at the thought.
They had to do this. Find a way to convince Metzi that marrying Ochix wasn’t the best idea. No one really wanted them to anyway, including Metzi herself. The only reason she had agreed was because the Obsidian Butterfly had told her it was how she could find freedom. And Metzi would do anything to secure her own freedom. Ochix’s father obviously wanted to worm his way into Tollan like a maggot through a corpse. The council was nervous about the alliance—it was dried kindling waiting for a spark. Metzi didn’t love Ochix, and he certainly didn’t love her. Their hearts all belonged somewhere else. It seemed so perfect . . .
“But she keeps it locked in a blood chest in her room,” Coatl said.