Blood & Fur

Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Land of Darkness

Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Land of Darkness

A fresh human corpse lay naked on the dinner table, its pallid breasts cold as ice, its manhood turned blue by the snowstorm outside. Its shaved head stared at me with empty eyes and a ghastly smile.

I had no idea why this cadaver showcased parts belonging to both males and females. I suspected it was the result of the same kind of witchcraft that created my palace guards, or maybe the remnant of some older form of humanity preserved through the ages. Whatever its origin, I would be its end.

“Do not be shy, sweetheart,” Chamiaholom said as she guided my hand on the corpse’s chest, a wry smile on her wrinkled lips. “The dead cannot consent to anything.”

Chamiaholom decided to teach me Bonecraft through the practice of surgery. As I suspected from my adventures in Mictlan, where the dead lacked my flaming heart and breathed dust, bones fell upon the realm of the Tonalli. The Bonecraft spell didn’t differ much from the Doll: I used my Tonalli to connect with a target’s bones to control them.

However, their applications and limitations differed. Unlike the Doll, Bonecrafting required direct physical contact to influence the bones of another; and whereas the Doll spell involved either crushing or manipulating an object through the application of force, Bonecraft let me do more subtle things.

“Bones are like clay, dear,” Chamiaholom whispered into my ear with a grandmother’s kindness. “You can neither create more nor erase them, but otherwise you may shape them freely. Split, twist, break… amuse yourself.”

So I did. I applied my power to the chest and called upon the ribs to crush the heart they were meant to protect. The bones shuddered at my command, the muscles shrinking as the rib cageribcage closed in on itself. The corpse's pallid skin turned blue after I turned its insides into an icy mess of blood.

“This is too easy,” I said. “What stops me from killing anyone I touch by crushing their skull in on itself?”

“Nothing, if the mind is weak,” Chamiaholom cackled. “The stronger one's Tonalli, the more they resist alteration. Dead bones obey without complaint. The living cry and scream. The Nahualli and vampires, those who know themselves, will fight back.”

“I understand,” I said. “I may only alter a Tonalli weaker than my own.”

Being a Tlacatecolotl imbued with a dead sun's ashes meant I could probably twist any animal or normal human's bones with ease. Red-eyed priests and Nightkin would prove more of a challenge, not to mention the Nightlords themselves. I would probably need to consume more dead sun ashes before I could wipe the Jaguar Woman's smile off her face.

“You can do more than kill, dear.” My mentor put a kind hand on the corpse's face. “You can torture, mutilate, change… and disguise.”

I witnessed her expert craft firsthand. The corpse's face twisted. Its jaw retreated, its nose lengthened, and its eyes grew slightly apart. Within seconds, I found myself looking at a different person altogether: a bald man with strikingly masculine features.

Chamiaholom continued to tend to the corpse, reshaping the chest until the breasts vanished. The androgynous creature had become a man, or at least gained the appearance of one.

“I thought Bonecraft only affected the bones,” I said.

“Flesh follows the skeleton's shape, sweetheart,” Chamiaholom explained to me. “If you thoughtlessly reshape the skeleton into something untenable, the bones will pierce through their meat envelope and slay the subject… but if you act slowly and carefully, then you can transform them. Add arms, adjust the jaw, or change a face.”

“Including my own?” My hand moved to my chin. I activated Bonecraft and immediately sensed a resonance beneath my skin. “I can use the spell on myself.”

“Don't be so eager to break your own bones, dear,” my new mentor chided me lightly. “Pain is good when inflicted on others, but not on yourself.”

I held back the urge to test the spell on myself. I was no surgeon. I recalled what little I knew of the human body from Necahual’s work as a healer. I should learn more about the human skeleton before I attempted to grow claws.

Moreover, studying the corpse showed me one of the technique’s limitations. The space between the eyes had changed, but not their coloration. Flesh and organs followed the shape of bones, but my spell didn’t affect them directly.

“Is there no way to reshape the flesh itself?” I asked. “Change the eyes or the color of the skin?”

“Yes sweetie, there is a spell that can do that and more.” The old crone gave me a crooked smile. “A vampire spell.”

My thoughts turned to my palace’s guards and Yoloxochitl’s garden of man-eating flowers. I couldn’t see how Bonecraft could create either. “Vampires possess magic unique to them?”

“Of course, dear. Their lack of a Teyolia bars them from casting many spells, but their curse endows them with many other talents. Those who harness its darkness and hunger can wield great power.”

I feared as much. I had seen the Jaguar Woman use both the Doll and Veil in tandem, so I knew for a fact we already shared a few techniques. Spells unique to me, such as the Gaze, could take them by surprise, but I should always expect the unexpected.

“It will take you more than one session to master this spell, my sweet,” Chamiaholom said with delight. Were it not for the corpse in her horrendous living room, I could have found her charming. “We will spend such quality time together. First I shall teach you how to affect others, and then we will begin to practice on yourself. Strengthening your bones can make you faster, stronger, let you grow wings without Spiritual Transformation, or build armor that no arrow can pierce.”

“Is there any way to accelerate my training?” I asked. “No offense to you, but a year is a short amount of time. I have more trials to go through, not to mention sun ashes to consume.”

“I suggest you practice Bonecrafting on your slaves and concubines, dear,” she suggested with a dry cackle. “I once had a sorcerer student on the surface who felt the most lurid lust towards his daughters. He couldn’t bear to force himself on them, so he used Bonecraft to reshape his slaves into copies of his children and then raped them.”

I suppressed a shiver of disgust, but her suggestion did warrant consideration. Necahual was a healer by trade, so I could consult her for knowledge to shorten my training’s time. Practicing on other concubines sounded more risky than anything. Even if I stuck to subtle alterations like hastening the healing of bones or their shattering, they might notice something amiss. Perhaps animals? My menagerie held quite the number of expendable beasts for—

A terrible pain suddenly erupted inside my Teyolia, deep and sharp.

I collapsed to the floor in surprise and agony, my dreaming mind brutally collapsing on itself. The leashes around my heart-fire tightened. I could sense my so-called mistresses’ anger and fury through them.

“Oh my,” Chamiaholom said with a hint of disappointment. “You are being called upstairs, sweetheart.”

The Nightlords had found me.

I woke up with invisible hands closing on my throat.

I barely had time to open my eyes before an invisible force threw me against the cave’s stone wall. A surge of pain raced through my back. My legs dangled a few feet above the ground and my lungs gasped for smoke-filled air.

“I knew you were special.” The Jaguar Woman stood at the cave’s exit, with her sister Iztacoatl looming behind her. Her hood and mask did nothing to hide her cold fury. “I had such high hopes for you, Iztac Ce Ehecatl.”

My eyes immediately searched for Eztli’s presence. I found her near the exit, her arms bound behind her back by two Nightkin and staring back at me with frightened eyes. Whatever lies she hoped to feed the Nightlords fell on deaf ears.

“The stars told me that if we selected you as emperor, then your reign would inaugurate an age of glory and darkness. A time of bloodshed where Yohuachanca would reign supreme.” The Jaguar Woman’s teeth seethed in rage. “You turned the holy flame into our Sulfur Sun; the first emperor to do so in over six hundred years of work and disappointments. You held the glory of our triumph within your grasp.”

She pulled me closer, my body floating all the way to the cavern’s entrance. Hardly an arm’s length separated us.

“So why did this happen?” the Jaguar Woman hissed at me, the malice in her gaze almost as deep as her Dark Father’s bottomless hunger. “Why did he spare you?”

The sense of jubilation and triumph that possessed me before my sleep left my heart. For a second I was brought back to the hill of ashes, when all my pleas and tricks failed to convince the Jaguar Woman to spare Sigrun. Though Yoloxochitl’s death had rekindled the flame of hope in my heart, I was starkly reminded of the power gulf that separated me from the Nightlords. I didn’t even consider standing my ground with spells.

A single wrong move separated me from a fate worse than death.

“If our Dark Father had consumed you on that mountain, the line of emperors would have come to an abrupt end. So why did he spare you? Why did he consume our beloved sister instead?” Her grip tightened on my throat. A bit more pressure and she could easily snap my neck. “Answer me, slave.”

My mind furiously searched for a lie, but I kept enough sense to realize how futile it would be. The Nightlords would sense deception coming from a league away.

Instead, I had the presence of spirit to settle on a half-truth.

“I…” I rasped through sheer force of will. The Jaguar Woman did not bother to loosen her hold on my throat, so I had to force each and every word. “I heard him… speak… in… the flame…”

The Jaguar Woman looked into my eyes. I saw in them something I would have thought impossible from the cold-hearted monster: a hint of unease.

She feared the First Emperor as much as she craved his power.

“In his anger… he called you…” I gasped for air and then whispered the cursed word. “Traitors…”

The Jaguar Woman’s unease turned into a brief flash of fear. Her Doll spell’s hold over my body loosened instantly. I dropped on the cold, wet floor of the cavern and immediately gasped for air, my fingers instinctively scratching my throat. I expected a second round of violence and torment to follow.

I waited in vain.

The Jaguar Woman appeared to have forgotten my existence. The ancient Nightlord clenched her jaw and avoided Iztacoatl’s unnerved gaze. Both knew all too well what my words meant: that Yoloxochitl was only the appetizer of a feast of which they were the main course. Their hungry father didn’t want my soul, or that of the cattle they despised; he wanted them. He wanted revenge.

The Jaguar Woman was too spooked for the thought of punishing me to cross her mind anymore. Her fear had quelled the flames of her fury. For perhaps the first time in her centuries of ruthless oppression, her self-control had slipped. The ritual’s failure had shaken her godlike confidence with the hammer of doubt.

The sight filled me with joy.

A new Nightkin entered the cavern, its jet-black clawed wings holding a golden trinket; which I immediately identified as a Sapa tumi. The vampire presented the treasure to its mistresses. The Jaguar Woman’s eyes widened in shock as she all but swept the idol out of her thrall’s claws.

“Where did you find this?” the Jaguar Woman asked. The Nightkin whispered an answer into her and Iztacoatl’s ears, and though I didn’t hear their words I easily guessed them from the Nightlords’ frowns of fury. “The Sapa…”

“They knew,” Iztacoatl said, her suspicious eyes settling on me. “That was why they tried to kill him. When they failed to destroy the key–”

“They broke the hinge.” The Jaguar Woman crushed the tumi within the palm of her hand, the gold folding like paper under her vicious grip. “Why was I not informed?”

“I told you we should have waited, Sister,” Iztacoatl complained to the Jaguar Woman. “Something was wrong with the mountain. We could all see it.”

I caught a glimpse of the Jaguar Woman’s lips twisting into a snarl of rage in the darkness. However, she did not say otherwise. Mayhaps she was cunning enough to understand how overconfidence doomed her plot, or she couldn’t afford to alienate her remaining sisters.

I suppressed a sigh of relief. My plan to frame the Sapa for the ritual’s failure appeared to be succeeding without a hitch.

“The Sapa couldn’t plant their cursed idols without spies in our midst,” the Jaguar Woman said with cold calculation. “We must find them. This shall not happen again.”

“Can it happen again?” Iztacoatl clenched her jaw in skepticism. “Can the three bind the one without our sister’s help?”

I kept my mouth shut, as did Eztli. The mere fact that the Nightlords discussed such matters in the open, right in front of us, spoke volumes about their panic. This might be the occasion to gather valuable information.

The Jaguar Woman did not answer her sister’s question. Her eyes turned from me to Eztli, and then suddenly stopped on the latter. The Nightlord squinted at my consort with what could pass for confusion.

“Sister?” Iztacoatl asked.

“Why is she still among us?” the Jaguar Woman replied.

I clenched my fists while Eztli bit her lower lip. She had suddenly earned the Nightlords’ undivided attention, which could only spell doom.

“Yoloxochitl sired her, and her other children have returned to Father,” the Jaguar Woman said with a quizzical expression. “Not her.”

A chill traveled down my spine. Returned to their father? Did killing the progenitor of a vampire’s line affect their descendants?

I glanced at Eztli with a mix of worry and relief. My consort appeared healthy and unlikely to return to dust anytime soon. While the Nightlords still frightened her, Yoloxochitl’s death had freed her from her control.

“Moreover, she was our sister’s chosen consort and incarnation,” the Jaguar Woman noted with fascination as she studied Eztli. “Why does the idol still stand when the goddess has died?”

“Yoloxochitl breastfed that one much of her blood,” Iztacoatl pointed out. “So much that I voiced my concern.”

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Eztli lowered her head while avoiding the Nightlords’ gazes. “Mistress…”

“Quiet, child,” the Jaguar Woman interrupted her with a hand on her chin. “I am thinking.”

The owl inside me had woken up and it took me some effort to suppress it. I was ready to fight if the Nightlords intended to harm Eztli, however futile it might be. Thankfully, I did not detect a hint of hostility from the Jaguar Woman. She seemed more cautious than anything. She wanted to see Eztli’s survival as a good sign that her foul ritual hadn’t completely failed, but she was too fearful of her father’s influence to lower her guard.

“She could be a trap or our salvation,” the Jaguar Woman muttered to herself before turning to her sister. “Iztacoatl?”

“Yes, Sister?”

“You shall protect and guide our emperor for now.” The Jaguar Woman finally remembered my existence, and I did my best to fake submission. I could tell she had regained her cold-blooded composure and cruelty. “The Sapa might still try to end the imperial line. Sugey has her hands full keeping order across our dominion, and I must consult the stars on how to proceed. We might salvage the ritual somehow.”

“As you wish.” Iztacoatl smiled at me, her pointed teeth pristine white in the dark. “I will be gentle with him.”

I knew better than to rejoice.

So ended Eztli and I’s half a day of freedom: carried out of the damp cave by Nightkin to be returned back to our golden cage. It had been nice while it lasted, I supposed. I followed my captors in obedient silence, feigning submission while plotting their demise.

Then I saw the rain outside.

I knew something was wrong long before the first drop fell on my shoulders, warm and viscous. Smoke Mountain thundered and vomited pitch-black smoke on the horizon, but the rain clouds covering the countryside were a different color altogether. A sea of dark crimson raged across the sky. A red fog swallowed the hills and forests of the land, the shadows of a thousand swarms of bats cast on its thick mists.

“The land bleeds and the heavens weep,” the wind whispered in my ear.

The viscous rain fell from the sky. Drops of a warm slime seeped into Yohuachanca’s rivers and contaminated them with foulness. Soon, all of the empire’s lands would drink red.

For the heavens were crying tears of blood.

The blood rain lasted for three hours. One for each of the remaining Nightlords. I didn’t miss the implications.

Smoke Mountain’s eruption had unleashed more than flames on the world.

The Nightlords forced me to sign a decree of sweeping emergency measures the moment they returned me to the palace. The capital was put under a tight lockdown, the army was deployed to the ravaged regions, and villages near Smoke Mountain were evacuated. The priesthood would enforce martial law across the land through force and religious rituals. Temporary shelters would be established in the empire’s schools for refugees, while runners would distribute a new fire born from Smoke Mountain’s flames to the temples; it wasn’t the fire the Nightlords had hoped for, but the one they received.

Food and water supplies would be tightly controlled, especially to filter out the blood that risked contaminating them, and the year’s tributes would be adjusted to help deal with the eruption’s consequences. Healers would be deployed to reduce the odds of disease outbreaks that so often prevailed in these situations.

I had to give it to Yohuachanca. Its fearsome bureaucracy and centuries of experience meant that it could adjust to a cataclysm in record time. To my disappointment, it quickly became clear that Smoke Mountain’s eruption would be nowhere near enough to cause the empire’s collapse. I hoped its psychological impact would at least cause Yohuachanca to stagger.

However, this event was unprecedented. While Yohuachanca faced eruptions and drought in the past, the blood rain suggested a supernatural disaster. The Sulfur Sun ritual’s failure had cursed the world in strange and horrifying ways.

The Nightlords had mobilized their undead children and priests across the empire to wrestle order back from chaos. The Nightkin departed across the roads to carry messages too important for human runners and gather information about the cataclysm’s extent. At least the bloody rain seemed to have only affected the capitals’ hinterlands.

However, the weather did not even scratch our problems’ surface.

“Bats, you said?” I asked, slightly disturbed.

The red-eyed messenger nodded slowly. A delegation of priests knelt in my once busy throne room, which now had become quieter than a tomb. Undying guards had replaced my couriers, and Iztacoatl stood in the shadows behind my throne in the place of my consorts. I took her silence as a dreadful sign.

The delegation is smaller than usual, I noted. I had never seen so few priests attend an audience. Even with their numbers mobilized to deal with the eruption, I would have expected more.

“Swarms of thirsty bats arose from the woods and fell upon your capital, oh glorious emperor,” the priest said with a small, fearful voice. “As forewarned in our traditions, they broke into homes in search of children and pregnant women to devour. The faithful, those who wore masks, were spared from their thirst. The others… were swarmed and bitten and… and…”

The messenger gulped, his head hitting the floor. I had seen these fanatics inflict the worst tortures on the Sapa ambassadors after my false assassination attempt. The scene must have been particularly gruesome to disturb them.

I myself found this news unsettling. I had indirectly unleashed this calamity upon the empire’s weakest and most vulnerable citizens; worse, those bats consumed those who had been brave or foolish enough to brave the Nightlords’ inane traditions instead of the zealots and the devouts.

Children and pregnant women. My hands clenched on my throne’s armrests. Those bats culled new life… is there a method to this madness?

“Where did these bats go?” Iztacoatl whispered in my ear, her melodious voice breaking through the unsettling silence. I briefly looked in her direction and suddenly realized that the Nightlords always wore masks during their important ceremonies. I never truly considered why, but now I wondered if these events were somehow linked. “Ask them.”

Ask them yourself, I almost replied. It annoyed me that this false goddess insisted on talking with her own priests through my intermediary. Sheconsiderseven her own worshipers beneath her direct attention.

“What of the bats?” I asked the priests. “Where have they gone?”

“Everywhere, oh Godspeaker,” the priest replied. “To the north and south, to the west and east. Scouts saw swarms fly beyond the seas and mountains towards the heathen lands.”

That took me aback; from the small frown at the edge of Iztacoatl’s lips, the Nightlord didn’t expect it either.

They went beyond Yohuachanca’s borders? I had expected this devastating curse to strike the empire alone. I should have expected otherwise. The First Emperor’s hunger knows no bounds.

This could play in my favor somehow. If border nations interpreted those swarms as an attack, they might very well retaliate by striking the empire’s borders.

“Store the dead in the temples,” Iztacoatl ordered immediately. “Their deaths were punishment for their sins, but their evil might still infect their remains.”

Did she suspect they would carry diseases? I supposed it didn’t hurt to keep the corpses in observation for a time. The First Emperor’s curse corrupted everything he touched.

“You shall store the corpses of these sinners in the temples for future purification,” I ordered the priests. “Their demise was ordered by the heavens, but their curse might not have died with them.”

With Yoloxochitl gone, none of the Nightlords held me in high esteem. I wasn’t certain I could convince the remaining three that they had broken my pride back into obedience, so I decided to play it safe for now by distracting my tormentors by focusing on the Sapa who had ‘tried’ to eliminate us all.

“What of the Sapa investigation?” I asked the priests. “Have you found any leads yet?”

The Nightlords believed in the false Sapa lead I set for them and expected more assassination attempts on my consorts and myself. Keeping us in separate locations reduced risks, so I had been forbidden to meet with Eztli, Nenetl, Chikal, and Ingrid. I didn’t even know if they were still in the palace.

Of all of them, I worried for Eztli the most. I knew from experience that nothing good came from earning the Jaguar Woman’s attention.

“We have made progress in tracking down the heathens, oh Godspeaker,” the messenger said. “The cursed tools planted on the holy mountain were planted by one of Your Majesty’s own petitioners, Tlazohtzin.”

“Tlazohtzin?” I feigned surprise. “I denied that man’s request for his father’s inheritance.”

“You were wise in your choice, oh farsighted Godspeaker, for Tlazohtzin has proved deceitful. According to early questioning, the man had planted forbidden foreign artifacts across Smoke Mountain on behalf of a false deity.”

Iztacoatl let out a barely audible chuckle behind me. I supposed the irony of a false goddess being outplayed by another did not escape her.

“A false deity?” I asked with a frown. “For what purpose would he betray us for the Sapa?”

“The man pretends to have been deceived,” the messenger replied with a hint of zealous scorn. “A spirit pretending to be a god offered him to undo your own divine will, oh Godspeaker, if he befouled Smoke Mountain with foreign offerings.”

“I see,” Iztacoatl whispered to herself. “Their tablet allowed the Sapa to spy on you, Emperor Iztac. They must have eavesdropped on those brothers’ feud and seized the opportunity to recruit an asset.”

“They would have approached either brother; the one I could not satisfy,” I lied through my teeth before addressing the priests again. “I expect you to thoroughly check every lead that you may find. We cannot allow foreign spies to infiltrate our capital again.”

The priests joined their hands in abject devotion. “Our guilt knows no bounds, Your Divine Majesty,” their leader said. “We shall bring you your foes’ heads in penance. We have already arrested the traitor Tlazohtzin’s kin.”

“His brother?” I scowled at the news. Tlaxcala remained a valuable asset.

“His brother and his wife,” the priest replied. I did my best to hide my surprise. “We have no cause to suspect the former of complicity yet, considering their known animosity, but the latter might have collaborated with her husband.”

I didn’t know Tlazohtzin had a wife. Curses, of course he had a wife, he was one of the adult heirs of a wealthy commercial enterprise spanning the entire empire. I should have guessed that the priests would target anyone related to him.

I should attempt to spare Tlazohtzin’s family if I could. I owed him that much, after using him as a sacrificial offering in my plot.

“What’s the woman’s name?” I asked. “Who is she?”

“She is known as Zyanya Quiabelagayo,” the priest replied. “She is a noblewoman from Zachilaa. Far better born than her commoner husband.”

Zachilaa… yes, I recalled it as the capital of a country Yohuachanca absorbed a few hundred years ago. That region remained one of the empire’s wealthiest regions to this day. I suppose Tlazohtzin’s father arranged the match in hopes of expanding his operations there.

I might as well kill one bird with two stones: save an innocent and build my network of allies.

“Tlazohtzin’s brother Tlaxcala is an honest man,” I said. An honest scoundrel at least. “I would be surprised to learn he has anything to do with his brother’s deceit, and I wish him not to be harmed. I shall also interrogate this Zyanya myself. As a well-born woman from a southern tributary state, I might have some use for her.”

“As you wish, Your Divine Majesty.” The messenger marked a short pause, his fingers trembling. He wished to tell me something, but he dreaded my answer.

I narrowed my eyes at the delegation. “What is it? Speak your mind.”

“As Your Majesty wishes.” The messenger clenched his fists and gathered his courage. “I know it is not our place to question the goddesses’ wills, oh Godspeaker, but many among us are wondering…”

Why Smoke Mountain blew up and why the clouds are raining blood? I thought, Iztacoatl scowling behind me. Go on, show your false goddess your fears and doubts. Show her the cracks in the wall, so that she might fear the collapse.

“Has Lady Yoloxochitl forsaken us?”

The priest’s question almost threatened to make me laugh, but the oppressive aura coming from Iztacoatl dissuaded me. Instead, I feigned confusion. “What makes you think so, faithful one?”

“Lady Yoloxochitl’s priesthood suffered a set of calamities after the eruption,” the messenger replied with a trembling voice. He knew he should not address the subject in one of his goddesses’ presence, but his doubts proved too great to overcome. I wondered if the other priests had volunteered him for the role. “Faithfuls who had served her for centuries aged to dust in the blink of an eye. The young suffered from a weak heart or went mad. We had to chain them in the temples’ basement so they would not harm their brethren.”

I listened to this news with rapturous intention. This suddenly recontextualized the Jaguar Woman’s words.

Red-eyed priests received their immortality from ingesting a Nightlord’s blood. This tied their life to their mistresses, stopped their aging, withered their loins, and protected them from disease. They had sold their very souls to the vampires. With Yoloxochitl’s death, the people depending on her existence to survive now found themselves bereft of purpose and immortality. King Mictlantecuhtli had reaped their damned souls with interest.

I guessed I should consider Eztli’s survival a small miracle.

I suppressed a smile of triumph. Priests oversaw mandatory public rituals during the New Fire Ceremony. The news would spread quickly. Soon, thousands among the empire would wonder why Yoloxochitl’s favored servants suddenly all perished at once.

“Has the goddess…” the messenger gulped. “Has she forsaken us?”

Iztacoatl’s cold hand clenched my shoulder with a gentle grip before I could open my mouth.

“Yes, she has,” she whispered in my ear. “This disaster is a divine punishment for you mortals’ lack of faith. The priesthood failed my sister’s trust and suffered accordingly. Tell them. Tell them the consequences of failing a Nightlord.”

The lie was spoken with such authority and confidence that I would have been tempted to believe it, had I not witnessed Yoloxochitl’s demise myself. I had to admire Iztacoatl’s bold improvisation. She had managed to lay blame for a disaster at the victims’ feet.

“Our citizens’ lack of faith brought about the wrath of Smoke Mountain,” I lied to the congregation. “The goddess Yoloxochitl was so incensed by your failure to properly foster devotion among the faithful that she has decided to punish her followers. Failure to serve is failure to live.”

“I… I understand, oh great Godspeaker.” The messenger didn’t ask for more details, and neither did his terrified colleagues. I had already confirmed their worst fears. “Thank you for indulging this small man’s curiosity.”

“They may leave now,” Iztacoatl declared. “We must discuss an important matter in private.”

I quickly dismissed the priests with a wave of my hand. They quickly crawled back into the dark, leaving me alone with my captor and a set of silent guards. One could cut the tension with a knife.

Iztacoatl removed her hood and let her mask fall onto the ground. Her long hair cascaded upon her shoulders, while her inhumanly beautiful face smiled at me. The sight would have caused many men to fall to their knees in adoration. Not me. I remained firmly seated on my throne, quiet and wary.

“Repeat after me,” Iztacoatl said with a sweet, melodious voice. “This disaster is divine punishment for its people’s faithlessness. The First Emperor found their devotion and sacrifices lacking. Had you not convinced him to spare the world as our Godspeaker, the world would have ended. The people of the world owe their sunrise to you. To us.”

I couldn’t believe the gall of this woman. She and her sisters tried to rob the world of its sun, and now had the nerve to pretend they saved it? As they said, the shameless dared it all.

Iztacoatl kept piling more lies on my plate. “Meanwhile, my sister Yoloxochitl was so disappointed by her priesthood’s failure to inspire true devotion among the cattle that she denied them her favor. If they prove their faith again, she might return it.”

An unlikely prospect. “I see…”

She wagged her finger at me. “I want to hear you say it, pet.”

It took all my strength not to show distaste at the nickname. The world quaked, and yet it changed so little.

“This disaster is divine punishment from the First Emperor for his chosen people’s faithlessness,” I lied. “On behalf of the goddesses-in-flesh, I convinced him to give us mortals another sunrise. However, Lady Yoloxochitl punished her priesthood for failing to inspire faith among the good people of the empire. She might return her favor once the people prove worthy of it.”

“Good.” Iztacoatl kissed me on the forehead. Her lips were colder than the Rattling House’s snowstorm. “If you are wise, my beloved emperor, you will repeat this lie to everyone until you start believing in it too. Your survival, and my happiness, depend on it.”

I forced myself to smile back. “I live to serve.”

“No, you do not.” Iztacoatl put a hand on my chin and lightly forced me to look up at her. “Show me your true face,”

My heart skipped a beat in my chest. “I do not understand.”

“You do.” Her smile turned predatory. “Are you deaf? I ordered you to show me your true face.”

My fingers clenched on my throne’s armrests. “Goddess, I am not certain I–”

She slapped me on the cheek with a hand as hard as stone.

I had taken hits from warriors, Underworld demons, and Nahualli, but rarely one so powerful. Iztacoatl’s slime frame belied the inhuman strength and the weight behind her blow. My entire head hurt. I saw stars, and for a second I thought that the blow would tear my skull off my shoulders.

“Do you truly believe me as naïve as my sisters?” Iztacoatl snorted in contempt as I massaged my cheek. “Yoloxochitl lied to herself because she wanted your love, Sugey does not care, and Ocelocihuatl thinks that she has crushed your spirit. I know better. I can recognize a snake biding its time when I see one, one serpent to another.”

“You are mistaken,” I lied, seething through my teeth. “I’ve learned my lesson. Painfully.”

She slapped me on the other cheek. This time, the blow nearly threw me off my throne. My teeth clenched in rage, my heart and blood boiling with the fury of my soul. Behead her, tear out her throat, impale her heart—if she had any—or twist her bones until she choked on her own blood! I had so many ways to kill, each of them so tempting.

“Finally, you bare your fangs at me.” Iztacoatl grabbed me by my hair with one hand and forced me to look up at her. “It excited you to see my sister die, am I wrong? You felt vindicated for your foolhardy beliefs.”

She stuck out her tongue and licked my cheek. I would rather have been shat on by a slug.

“Do you know what excites me, human? Collecting pets.” Iztacoatl’s inhuman shadow loomed over me, with great wings and coils that were nowhere to be seen in her human disguise. “For the crime of rejoicing over my sister’s demise, Iztac, I will make you my personal project. You have earned my full and undivided attention.”

The Nightlord pinched my cheeks with her cold, icy hands, as if I were a delightful child who had embarrassed himself in an entertaining way.

“Unlike my sister, I don’t want your fear, Iztac. I want your adoration.” A forking tongue briefly slithered between her sharp fangs. “If you displease me, you will come to look fondly on that night where we executed dear Sigrun. If you entertain me, I will reward you with pleasures greater than anything you can imagine. I will reshape you, piece by piece, until you can no longer recognize yourself. By the time I am through with you, you shall do more than love me.”

She laughed to her heart’s content.

“You will worship me. You will venerate me. You will beg for my favor and attention… and I shall return none of it.”

She was close enough for my hand to punch her. I so desired to do it, to cave her skull in on itself with my Bonecraft spell and spill her brain out all over the floor.

But I held back. Unfortunately, such attacks would result in little more than pain and humiliation for now.

For now.

“Remember those words,” I dared to tell her, knowing she would not believe my lies. “When you fail miserably.”

“See?” Iztacoatl chuckled in delight. “You need a good whipping. I am currently in a very, very dark mood, so I need entertainment. I will gladly make you my toy.”

I did not bother answering with words. Instead, I glared at her with all of my endless hatred. It only served to amuse her further.

“So play on, puppet emperor,” Iztacoatl said with playful arrogance. “You will amuse me for what little time you have left.”

It will still be longer than yours, I thought. I promise you that.