Blood & Fur

Chapter Seventy-Two: Forbidden Unions

Chapter Seventy-Two: Forbidden Unions

I woke up alive.

My body felt both fresh and sluggish at the same time. My skin was smooth like a fresh fruit and my flesh was brand new. The Nightlords had stripped my old, burned remains from my skeleton and draped me in a new shell of life.

My senses were sharper than knives. The smell of incense filled my nostrils and raised me from my slumber. I rested on a bed of white flowers with stone borders, all while dressed in my imperial regalia. My eyes looked up at the ceiling of an underground vault lit up by ghostly flames. The corpses of a hundred red-eyed bats were nailed to the surrounding walls with their hearts pierced by obsidian stakes. The dead servants of the First Emperor looked at their prophet in utter silence.

I realized that I hadn’t woken up in a bed, but inside a coffin.

“How is it to die, songbird?”

The snake whore who helped put me in said coffin looked over me with the coldest of faces.

Iztacoatl loomed on my left with the palpable disappointment of someone who would have preferred to see me dead and stiff rather than alive again. Eztli stood on my right, her eyes alight with a mix of relief and sorrow. From the red rings around them, she must have cried tears of blood over my corpse. I couldn’t see the other Nightlords.

How long had I stayed dead?

“I asked you a question, songbird,” Iztacoatl reminded me sharply. “How does it look on the other side?”

I wondered how much I should lie, but the Nightlords likely knew of the Underworld. I decided to stay evasive, like a man waking up from a confusing dream.

“Nothing,” I replied. “There’s nothing worthwhile on the other side, goddess. Nothing but darkness, bones, and tears.”

“How thankful I am to linger in this world then… and how I rejoice at the thought of your soul weeping in the dark for all eternity.” Her frozen hand caressed my forehead. “I should put you back into the ground, help you prepare yourself for it.”

She was angry, which I took as a good sign. “Have I disappointed you, goddess?”

“Partly,” Iztacoatl replied with a sinister glare. “Father has grown quiet, but your blood continues to burn at his command. A shame we have to parade you around for the Flower War. I would have preferred another rehearsal of the Scarlet Moon to put the both of you in your place.”

“I am truly sorry, goddess,” I lied through my teeth. “I truly wish I could serve you better.”

She didn’t believe me, and I didn’t expect her to. Thankfully, losing face in front of her sisters had forced her to play along. “You will have the opportunity to serve,” Iztacoatl said. “We are in Zachilaa’s grand temple, and we will need you to strut about to reassure the herd. Do not fail us again.”

“I shall not.” In fact, my plan required that I play along. “I have learned my lesson, oh goddess.”

“Yes, of course.” Iztacoatl shook her head in disappointment. “This will be the last night we share for a very long time.”

My heart nearly skipped a beat in surprise. “What does the goddess mean?”

“My sisters believe that I have grown too invested in you. That my…” Iztacoatl’s smile boasted a set of serpent fangs. “That my boundless affection for you clouds my judgment.”

If she had shown me affection so far, then her hatred was likely safer. Nonetheless, assuming that she was indeed telling me the truth, then I would struggle to hide my joy.

“Besides, you will move straight to the Flower War after that pointless marriage concludes,” Iztacoatl said. “Sugey will thus take over your safety and ensure you do not humiliate us in the field of battle.”

“Saddening,” I lied. I didn’t look forward to serving under Sugey, but that one at least didn’t seem as likely to put me through mind games. The Bird of War always struck me as the direct sort of monster. “I shall miss your advice, oh goddess.”

“We both know you won’t.” Iztacoatl glared at me with all of the weight of her disdain. “Deep inside your heart, you believe us to be monsters who deserve your scorn. Abominations.”

She leaned in to better look into my eyes; an act which caused me no end of concern, for her scowl swiftly turned into a ghastly smile of pure delight. I could sense her brimming impatience.

Whatever she was about to tell me, she had been dying to do so for a very long time.

“But if you ask me,” Iztacoatl whispered, her voice struggling to stifle her laughter. “The real abomination is the one you planted in your sister’s womb.”

A dreadful silence fell upon the vault, fueled by my doubts and confusion.

My sister’s womb? Does she mean Eztli? I briefly looked at her, but my previous consort looked just as lost as I was. No, that’s… not possible.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know?” Iztacoatl asked with a dark chuckle. “Nenetl and you?”

Nenetl?

Nenetl? What absurdity was this? Was this Iztacoatl’s newest mind game? A plot to destabilize and sicken my mind with doubt? If so, then she could have found a better lie. It was so transparent, so obvious, that I should have answered it with mocking laughter.

Yet a sick feeling stank in my stomach, though I couldn’t tell why.

“Goddess, I fail to understand,” I said.

“You’ve never noticed the family resemblance? Beyond the hair and eyes? Looking at her must have felt like fucking your mirror.” Iztacoatl shook her head with a mocking sigh. “What a poor elder brother you make.”

She was lying through her teeth.

That was ridiculous. Nenetl resembled me because we were both Nahualli, born with totems marking us for a great destiny. Moreover, I would have known. Mother kept secrets to herself, but Father didn’t have an insincere bone in his body. He wouldn’t keep something so big from me.

Nonetheless, I smiled and played along with Iztacoatl’s plot. “Apologies for my forwardness, but the goddess must be mistaken,” I argued. “My father never told me of any sister.”

“Because he never knew himself, songbird. He sired her on your witch mother a mere few days before our priests came to arrest her.” Iztacoatl snorted in disdain. “My servants said you were still crying in your crib back then.”

I should have disregarded her words as mere lunacy. A diseased phantasm born of a maddened, cruel mind.

Yet… yet a memory wormed its way at the forefront of my mind. That fragment of the past which obscured my vision the two times I laid with Nenetl, where I made love to my mother in my father’s skin.

I’d heard a child’s cry in the background back then… if… if it had been mine…

“We had access to her husband’s blood, so it was easy to track her unborn child,” Iztacoatl whispered, her lips oozing venom metaphorically and very literally. “We kept hounding her for months, each day getting a little closer. I could almost taste the sweetness of her neck bending under my fangs… until that day when we found her crying child weeping and screaming alone in a cave.”

It wasn’t my conception that I saw.

“You should thank us, songbird. Your sister would have died without our rescue.” Iztacoatl’s scratched my hair, savoring every ounce of my dread and disgust. “Your mother bravely abandoned her to save her own hide. She knew how to hide herself easily enough, now that she had freed herself from the burden of a family. Did she truly deserve your help?”

Lahun’s words rang in my skull. Forbidden unions beget abominations.

No. No, no, it was a lie. It couldn’t be true, couldn’t be real. It was just a lie playing on my fears and half-cryptic prophecies. It was just a ploy to destabilize me psychologically before the Flower War, a bully’s last attempt to spit on me.

But Mother… Mother had behaved so strangely when I told her about Nenetl. I’d sensed she was hiding something; something that bothered her and compelled her to remain silent. Had it been shame?

Could Mother even feel that?

“Ocelocihuatl kept that girl in reserve like a treasure and called her Nenetl. Puppet. A doll always meant to serve a purpose.” Iztacoatl delighted in savoring my expression. She knew that I was starting to believe her. “When the stars deigned you as our new emperor, we knew that the time had come for her to fulfill her role.”

I felt sick. A wave of nausea washed over me, which Eztli’s horrified expression and guilty silence didn’t help in the slightest.

“Can you fathom how rare it is to have two Nahualli born of one?” Iztacoatl taunted me. “That gift is neither common nor hereditary, songbird. So for all of that woman’s children to show it… your bloodline is special. It had to be…”

Her cold dead hand moved under my robes and caressed my cock.

“Concentrated.”

I wanted to vomit. My heart refused to believe it, but my mind couldn’t help but see all the tiny hints, all the guilty avoidances, and the visions and the prophecies and the Nightlords’ cruelties forming a monstrous picture. I tried to tell myself that Nenetl’s other totem meant we couldn’t possibly be related, that it was a mistake.

Yet… yet I recalled how it felt to sleep with her, how our souls melded so easily and harmoniously, like halves of a greater whole eager to merge together…

“You enjoyed it, didn’t you? Rutting like an animal with your own flesh and blood?” Iztacoatl’s laughter echoed inside the vault, vile and cruel. “You must have both loved it quite a bit. It’s rare for a man to be so virile as to impregnate a woman on the same night he deflowered her. Imagine my joy when I smelled that sinful seed of blood planted in her fertile womb.”

She removed her hands from my crotch and then kissed me on the cheek, like a twisted parent approving of their child’s naughty behavior.

“I wonder how this affront against nature will look when it crawls out of your sister’s thighs,” she whispered, so soft and sweet. “You were an aspiring merchant once. Surely having a daughter and a niece in one transaction sounds like an excellent deal.”

My body tensed with such boiling fury that I all but bolted out of the coffin. Iztacoatl’s vicious smile made me want to choke her myself with my bare hands, to smash her head against the stone and tear her apart with—

Eztli’s hand grabbed my shoulder, kindly but firmly. My head briefly snapped in her direction to see her expression of anger and concern. It brought me back to reality. I had almost made a terrible mistake.

“Enough,” Eztli rasped. “That’s enough.”

“It is not enough until I say it is, my dear new sister,” Iztacoatl replied with a hiss. She was nowhere near finished with me. “You have outplayed me, songbird. I don’t know how, but you’ve managed to make a fool of me in front of my sisters. We give emperors a measure of power so that they may embody our foolish father in the eyes of gods and men, but you already do that so well on your own. So why should I let you keep even a scrap of authority?”

She grabbed me by the throat with inhuman strength, yanking me out of Eztli’s grasp, and forcing me to look at her.

“I know how Tayatzin suggested that you organize marriages between nobilities,” she said, her snakelike eyes glaring into mine. “I’ve already denied his request. Your plans to form a power block around yourself? You can forget them. Your spies? I’ll root them out and kill them. I will tighten your leash until you choke. I will make a lake of your concubines’ blood and drown you in it, do you understand? Do you understand?”

Yes. Yes, I understood. When I looked into her eyes so desperate to hurt me, I fully comprehended the depths of hatred that I felt for this hag; and what I had to say to hurt her back.

Stolen novel; please report.

“I remember what he told you,” I whispered. “Your father.”

These two simple words caused Iztacoatl to recoil as if slapped in the face.

“What?” she asked, her fair face twisted in a scowl of anger and unexpected surprise.

“I remember what he told you, goddess,” I repeated myself, being very careful to state a neutral fact rather than a threat. “The truth he spoke through me.”

Iztacoatl slapped me with such strength I thought she would break a bone. I did not flinch. She raised her hand to hit me on the other cheek, but a mere look at my cold dead eyes was enough to shake her confidence.

We both knew how she would die.

And I swore to the gods that I would ensure it myself.

“There is so much I can do to you and your whores,” she hissed at me in an attempt to recover the initiative. “So many torments you can hardly imagine them.”

I couldn’t bring myself to respond. Not after what I’d learned today, not after what I went through. I was simply so shocked and horrified I’d grown numb, at least for a brief moment. I had died again, except I was still breathing.

I saw Iztacoatl hesitate to strike me, to threaten my consorts and to promise a hundred more tortures, but the wall of my silence proved too high for her to climb. Poisoning my relationship with Nenetl was the best victory she would earn today.

“Get out of my sight,” Iztacoatl hissed at us in disgust and impotent anger. “Both of you.”

I sensed her angry gaze on my back long after Eztli guided me out of the vault and into dark underground corridors.

While I held nothing but disdain for Iztacoatl—Nenetl might be my sister—I would be a fool to disregard her warnings. If she intended to proceed with a palace purge—Nenetl was my sister—then I might lose access to many resources. It would be a blow to my operations—I’d impregnated my sister—but no emperor defeated the Nightlords with mundane means, so long as I accumulated spells and forbidden knowledge—forbidden unions beget abominations—then I would remain on track to destroy—incestuous horror—destroy them—Mother lied to me.

I held my head with a hand as those awful thoughts continued to intrude upon my mind, even as I tried so hard to focus—a daughter and a niece—tried to focus on what mattered right now!

It took all of my mental strength to deny these vile allegations to myself, to bury all these tiny hints—my own flesh and blood—which I’d ignored and now couldn’t banish from my memory. They kept returning, again and again, waves of disgust that left me feeling soiled and violated.

“Eztli,” I said once we were alone, unable to bear it any longer. “Is it true? Nenetl?”

“I…” Eztli bit her lip. “I don’t know, Iztac.”

“I need to know.” I refused to accept it, not without proof, not without confirmation. I couldn’t. “I need to know, Eztli.”

Whether these accusations were true or a false ploy born of my own fears and Iztacoatl’s cruel lies, I couldn’t let them distract me. Not when Eztli’s own existence hung on a precarious balance, not with war coming to me, not with the trials of Xibalba soon reaching their long-overdue conclusion. I had to face the future with a clear mind.

My former consort, who had acted uncharacteristically meek towards me so far, dared to speak up again on her own. “Iztac–”

“I forgive you for last night, Eztli,” I said before she could apologize. “You were forced into it. I do not fault you for participating.”

“Iztac, I helped boil you alive,” she snapped at me, her hands reaching for her arms and rubbing them. “They… they had me drink your blood too. I can’t… I can’t brush it off.”

I looked at her for a brief second, then pulled my arms around her waist and pulled her closer to me. She didn’t resist me, but didn’t return my embrace either. I forced her to look into my eyes.

“My blood is yours to drink whenever you wish to sip it,” I stated. “Freely given.”

“Iztac, you don’t know what–”

I forced a kiss on her lips, dispelling her doubts with my hunger and desire. My passion surprised her at first, having no doubt expected resentment and coldness from me after participating in the Nightlords’ rituals, but her hands eventually grabbed my hair and returned my embrace.

“All of me is yours, Eztli, without exception,” I said upon breaking the kiss. “What happened last night changes nothing between us. I love you.”

None of Iztacoatl’s vicious little games would split us apart.

Eztli’s expression twisted into one of deep doubt and sorrow. “You truly mean that, Iztac?”

“Yes,” I replied without hesitation. Much like her mother, I would do anything to ensure her safety and happiness. Even use forbidden magic. “You are mine, and I am yours.”

Eztli nodded to herself, my words reassuring her a bit. She planted a light kiss on me, short and sweet. “I love you too,” she said with a small, painful sigh. “I hope that I will remember it.”

“You will,” I reassured her. “I promise you.”

If anything, drinking my blood during the ritual would make that task easier.

Eztli looked at me for a long while. She’d detected the confidence in my voice, and she knew me well. She’d guessed I had a plan, albeit one I couldn’t discuss in the open.

“I am sorry,” she whispered.

“I told you–”

“I know, Iztac.” She put a finger on her lips to silence me before I could interrupt her. “I… I haven’t been myself for a very long time. Not with Mother, not with you. This curse of mine obscures my thoughts, but I should have… I should have seen it earlier.”

“None of this is your fault.”

“Is it?” Eztli shook her head. “I’m not so sure, Iztac. I am guilty of weakness. The way I treated you, the way they treated you and Nenetl, it’s sick.”

Eztli was sick, true, but not in a way that made her guilty. “Your mother is a healer,” I said. “She would be the first to tell you that you–”

“That the sick cannot be blamed for succumbing to their disease?” She finished for me. “Maybe not, but I’ve closed my eyes on your own suffering. I’ll try to…” Eztli gulped. “To be more mindful.”

I opened my mouth to answer, but no wise words came to me. I simply nodded in acceptance and tightened our hug. It was the only comfort we could offer each other for now.

“We should go,” Eztli said after breaking our embrace. “The others are waiting.”

Such words would usually reassure me, but not this time. Not this time.

The Nightlords had set up quarters for us almost identical to those I enjoyed in Iztacoatl’s little forest retreat; I began to think their architects followed a similar design for all of them in order to build these dens of evil more quickly. I found my consorts old and new waiting in the living room while nearly separated by a table. Chikal, Ingrid, and Nenetl faced Chindi in her ‘Anaye’ disguise with various degrees of wariness; the latter had put on a dress, though she retained her blindfold and collared leash.

I could cut the tension with a knife.

Chindi’s smile seemed demure enough, almost charming, but I could sense the undercurrent of predatory wrongness I’d noticed in her previous disguises. She could mimic normal humans well enough to pass for one among those unfamiliar with Skinwalkers, because we humans had grown to expect the familiar. Those in the know noticed the tiny hints of wrongness about her posture and character, like an actor’s true self leaking through their character.

My consorts had picked up on them. Chikal stared at Chindi with the cold, calculating focus of a warrior expecting a jaguar to jump at them at the first sign of weakness; Ingrid disguised her uneasiness behind a mask of queenly composure; and Nenetl didn't hide anything. Having nearly died at the Skinwalker’s hand, she shivered and stared at the ground rather than face her gaze.

That was good, because Nenetl likely missed the stare I sent her myself. The sight of her used to fill me with delight, like a man returning home to find sanctuary from the world’s horrors; now she only inspired doubt and shame.

“Master, goddess,” ‘Anaye’ said with a musical voice. She had sensed our approach before the others, likely thanks to her enhanced senses. “You have returned to us.”

All gazes turned to me, all of them filled with relief; but Nenetl’s own filled me with a terrible kind of dread. My eyes lingered on her stomach before I knew what to do. Iztacoatl’s mocking words rang in my head and sapped me of my strength.

“Is something the matter, Iztac?” Nenetl asked me with concern.

I suddenly realized what kind of face I was making; the same one that Mother showcased when I told her how I loved Nenetl.

“No.” I used to lie so easily, but this one tore me apart to my very core. “Everything is well and fine, Nenetl.”

Her reassuring smile made me feel soiled. Stained.

I needed to wash it all away somehow, and a look at ‘Anaye’ told me how. I grabbed her leash with a firm hand and pulled her so quickly she fell off her chair. This ought to showcase to everyone the hierarchy between us.

“I see that you have been acquainted with my new consort,” I said before patting Chindi on the head as if she were an animal. “You have behaved well, pet? You know what happens to those who defy me.”

“Yes, master,” she replied with servility. “I did not forget.”

Chikal’s eyes moved from me and back to Chindi, as did Ingrid. They both guessed I had a plan in mind. My confidence also reassured Nenetl a bit, although my behavior unsettled her just as much.

“What happened, my lord?” Ingrid asked. “The goddesses would not tell us anything.”

“The goddesses put me through a purification ritual, to cleanse me of my sins before the Flower War,” I replied. Eztli couldn’t help but look away when I said that, which likely informed the others what kind of ‘purification’ I went through. “I am told Lady Zyanya’s wedding will soon take place?”

“We have a few hours before the ceremony,” Chikal confirmed. “We will depart to the frontlines tomorrow morning.”

Ingrid nodded sharply. “Ayar Cachi’s gift has also arrived, my lord. I hoped to introduce her to you early.”

“Send her to me a bit later. Eztli and I will take a moment to…” My grip tightened on Chindi’s leash. “Rest.”

I would soon see if my new consort would live up to her predecessor.

She did not.

Making love to a Skinwalker was a miserable experience, even with Eztli there to keep us company. Part of it was my fault. My mind kept wandering back to my sist—Nenelt and Mother whenever I tried to focus on strangling her to calm myself. I couldn’t use Seidr with her either for fear of her learning my true plans for her.

Chindi wasn’t a good partner either. She shared none of the affection I had with my other consorts, not even lust. She wasn’t a woman in search of a steady partner nor a good time, but a monster who craved the power I possessed. Nothing more.

Only when I cut my hand with a knife did she show arousal.

I recalled the visions I saw of her past back when I first invaded her mind. The Skinwalker enjoyed replacing women and then murdering their husbands after a night of passion. She craved death and suffering the same as any Nightlord would.

I think knowing I intended to dispose of her made it easier on my mind.

“What do you think of her?” I asked Eztli as I force-fed Chindi my burning blood, thus forming a link between us. “Do you find her pretty?”

“She has a certain wild edge,” Eztli whispered in my ear from behind, her arms wrapped around my chest and her chin resting on my shoulder.

“But is she fit to replace you?” I asked her. “Would she live up to your example?”

Ezli’s grip tightened slightly. She had sensed a hidden message in my words, but lacked the context to interpret it correctly. I didn’t need her to yet. I was only… planting seeds.

“I do not think so,” she replied honestly. “I fear you will find everyone lacking compared to me.”

“When can I change my skin, master?” Chindi rasped after I freed her mouth. She scratched her cheeks as if to remove them. “I suffocate within this one. I have so many better faces to show you.”

“When permitted,” I replied before slouching on the bed. My two consorts crawled up to me; Eztli, with affection; and Chindi, with craven servility. “Can you detect lies as easily as you can switch skins?”

“Yes,” Chindi boasted. “I weave them, smell them, live them.”

“Good.” I stroked her hair. “A liar is coming to visit us soon. I want you to observe her closely.”

Chindi sensed a test. “The master wishes for me to keep an eye on her?”

“Yes,” I replied, though it was mostly to distract Chindi from my true plans. “Treat her kindly and report anything suspicious to me.”

“Shouldn’t we do this with everyone, Iztac?” Eztli asked mirthfully. “So many people wish you dead.”

“And they are welcome to try to take my life, if they dare,” I replied with false arrogance. “Those who defy the goddesses’ prophet will learn the meaning of suffering.”

I snapped my fingers, and Ingrid soon brought the Sapa spy to us.

As expected, Ayar Cachi’s messenger was a vision of charm and elegance. The lady standing before me couldn’t be older than twenty, with long chestnut hair woven into a braid falling onto the left side of her fair, aquiline face. Her pale green eyes were much paler than even Ingrid’s, and she dressed in a fantastic dress of woven fibers.

However, it was the color of her skin that struck me the most.

Golden.

I’d heard rumors that the Sapa people held rituals where their rulers would be caked in gold dust and then swim in holy lakes to purify them. This woman may have undergone those rituals once, except the water failed to cleanse her. Her skin had gained the very color and texture of glittering gold to the point I could have mistaken her for a moving statue without her eyes and hair.

This woman was a treasure, figuratively and literally.

Ingrid proceeded to introduce her. “My lord, this is Aclla Kuraka Coricancha, a virgin slave-wife and half-sister to Ayar Cachi, heir presumptive to the heavenly throne of the Sapa Empire.”

The man sent us his half-sister? My mind briefly conjured an image of Nenetl in Aclla’s place, which sickened me to my core. Families shouldn’t be treated like animals to be traded and… bred. What kind of man enslaved his blood and then sold her to a foreigner?

“Words of Your Divine Majesty’s bravery and cunning extend beyond the mountains,” Aclla declared in near-perfect Yohuachancan. She managed to mimic the Yohuachancan salute to the point I could have mistaken her for a native noble. “My master, the great and wise Ayar Cachi, sent me to strengthen the alliance between our honored nations.”

“I have no allies,” I declared with a fake scoff. Losing myself in the emperor act let me forget my true feelings for a moment. “Only thralls and enemies. Does your master wish to bend the knee, or to fight?”

The woman gave me a smile that reminded me of Lady Sigrun’s. “Your Divine Majesty is my master now.”

I smiled ear to ear. I recognized a trained diplomat.

“My honored brother does not wish to become Your Divine Majesty’s enemy, and he hopes that my presence shall be proof of his goodwill,” Aclla said. “I have been tasked with advising you towards the highest of paths: that of peace.”

“You people have tried to murder me and my consorts, among many other crimes,” I replied. “Would your emperor choose peace if he were in my place?”

“The fiends who threatened Your Divine Majesty should indeed be punished,” Aclla remained calm. “Wise Ayar Cachi will gladly assist you in bringing justice to the guilty and shielding the innocent from wrongdoings.”

In short, he asked that I kill his brother and deal with him as an ally so he might inherit the throne. Or so it seemed at first glance.

I could see two possibilities: either Ayar Cachi was indeed a self-serving snake, in which case Aclla would serve as his personal ambassador tasked with championing his cause and sabotaging Manco’s war effort; or he was secretly loyal to his brother and she would be a spy for the Sapa Empire as a whole.

Either scenario worked for me. I could make use of both allies and enemies.

“I shall inform Ayar Cachi that his gift is well-received and appreciated,” I replied with the dignity of an emperor. “You shall henceforth be assigned as my dear consort Nen…” I suppressed a wave of nausea and powered through. “My consort Nenetl’s handmaiden. Serve her faithfully and showcase your loyalty to your new home. Should you prove worthy, I may grace you with my favor.”

I’d been looking for a candidate to serve as my sist—Nenetl’s handmaiden for a while now. Aclla would do. She would do. Let me focus on something else whenever I… whenever I visited Nenetl.

I would have preferred a loyal servant to serve in this capacity, but a Sapa spy would prove even better. How unfortunate it would be if a critical message ‘accidentally’ fell into the enemy’s hands because Aclla overheard something she shouldn’t have…

“Your Divine Majesty’s wisdom more than lives up to the tales,” Aclla flattered me. “I shall endeavor to prove my usefulness to you and your esteemed consorts. Besides the arts of diplomacy and the history of my people, I can weave, cook, brew chicha, dance, sing…”

“A woman of many talents,” Eztli mused.

“Those are interesting skills, but many share them in my harem,” I replied. “I am interested in… practical applications.”

Aclla’s smile failed to hide her calculating gaze. “If Your Divine Majesty would allow me to fetch a map, I would gladly enlighten them in the secrets of my homeland.”

She knew how the game was played. Good.

So many soldiers never managed to return from foreign conflicts.

I would ensure Sugey joined their numbers.