fountain, and ducked again. “This way.”
“The Serpents.”
“What the hells else do you think I might be talking about?”
“We’ll die. We can’t fight through the crowd like this.”
“They’re headed for RKC. We’re in the way. We move or melt.”
“We move and die.”
“I’m going.”
He shook his head. “Wait.”
“No.”
“Wait!” He put all his anger and his trainer’s authority into the shout. She paused halfway to her feet. “When they’re nearer, the crowd will thin out. Then we go. And hope.”
She sunk back onto her calves. The air around them swelled with heat.
Temoc staggered; Caleb struck again, harder, and the priest sank to his knees.
He jumped over his fallen father onto the altar.
“Caleb.” Teo was hoarse with shouting; Temoc had cut her shirt open, and drawn a charcoal cross at the base of her sternum to guide the knife. Wet streaks ran from the corners of her eyes. Blood pulsed from two precise cuts in her left wrist.
“I’m sorry.” He tore at the manacle on her left hand. “Gods, I’m sorry.” Scars flared on his arm. Obsidian pulled and snapped like taffy. He reached for her right.
An arm strong as an iron post circled his waist and flung him to the ground. He hit, skidded, and staggered to his feet.
Blood streamed from a deep cut on Temoc’s scalp, over his ear and down his neck; rivulets ran to his chin. “Caleb,” he said, kneeling to retrieve his knife. “Do not stand in my way.”
“Why are you doing this? We had a plan!”
“Your plan will not work.”
“You didn’t even try!”
“I do not need to try. Aquel and Achal hunger for life. There is only one way to feed them. This is better, surer, than I thought possible. An altar maid’s heart offered by a high priest atop Quechaltan, as of old.”
He had loosened Teo’s right manacle enough for her to pull both hands free. Blood gouted from her wrist. She clasped her palm over the vein, and tugged against the bonds on her feet, but they did not give.
“What would you have done if Teo didn’t come? Kill me?”
“Even had we barred her way, she would not have remained behind. She is well-suited for a sacrifice. Noble intentions, and noble blood, too, if I do not mistake her features. Unsullied by man. Strong of spirit, strong of heart. She must have sensed my plan, known her fate.”
Teo slumped to one side. Her arm and head hung over the altar’s edge, and her outstretched fingers brushed the floor.
Caleb rushed toward the altar, and once more Temoc threw him. Falling, Caleb dug his fingers into his father’s shadow, and it tore. Cold strength rushed into him. He spun in midair, and landed on his feet. Darkness clung to him like a halo, and his scars glowed from within.
A bright light rose to the south.
“See,” Temoc said. “The Serpents wake. They smell their meal. Our time is short. I will save this city, with you or in spite of you. I will take her heart.”
“I’ll stop you.”
Caleb ran forward; Temoc swung the dagger’s pommel around to where his son’s temple had been a moment before.
Caleb ducked, grabbed Temoc’s leg, and pulled up. Temoc sank his weight against Caleb’s pull, and did not fall. He kneed Caleb in the ribs, scattering shadows and knocking him to the floor.
The world swam as Caleb stood. He tried to raise his fists, but could not move his right arm.
“I don’t want you to lose,” Temoc said sadly. “You put up a good fight, for an untrained boy. You have shown courage. I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks.” Caleb panted. He heard something tear.
“But I can’t let you win. I hope you understand.”
“I wasn’t…” Exhale, inhale. Take the moment slow. “I wasn’t trying to win.” The dome darkened. He smelled ozone and the pits of hell. “I just had to distract you long enough for Teo to rip up the Heartstone contract.”
Temoc blinked. A cold gust of wind blew over them. Somewhere, heavy velvet curtains swayed.
Teo sat upright on the altar, holding a torn, bloodstained piece of parchment—one half in her right hand, the other half in her teeth. Sparks trailed from sundried silver glyphs. Her shirt hung from her shoulders. Blood leaked through the fingers she’d clasped over her vein. She spat out the piece of parchment, and it drifted to the floor, landing signature side up.
Incense flames guttered and died, and with them light and life.
The dark of deep space devoured all. There was no pyramid, no dome, only emptiness, and at its core, immense, astride the husks of dying stars, the King in Red. His eyes flared like the birth of the world.
He smiled.
“Temoc,” he said. “It’s been a long time.”
47
As Mal advanced, the sky turned against her.
Wardens swarmed her on Couatl-back, black serpentine streaks striking with arcs of lightning, with silver spears and nets of green thread. Wingbeats and thunder thickened the air. A golden lasso caught Aquel’s neck; the Serpent hissed in frustration.
Of course the Wardens had come. Lapdogs of the King in Red and his brothers, murderers, servants who did not ask why they served, who let themselves be shaped into weapons against their own people. The Wardens had burned her parents in the Rising, had unleashed fire on screaming crowds. They had missed Mal in their cull, and now they realized their mistake.
She smiled, and her teeth were pointed as the Serpents’ fangs. Let them come.
Aquel pulsed sun-brilliant and threw a wave of plasma against the Warden who had caught her. The golden line snapped, and the Warden who threw it fell in smoking pieces to the ground.
Mal laughed, but in her joy an emerald net snagged her limbs, her mind. The world collapsed to a projection inside a nutshell where she hung suspended, bounded empress of space. She lived and died in the net, lived and died again, infant with every indrawn breath, growing, swelling to maturity with the filling of lungs, dwindling as she exhaled to a fragile age, arms and legs thin as mast-cord, skin taut and dry, dying to inhale and be born again.
No. She was more than this. She was rage, dying, and born again she was vengeance. The Wardens would not bind her.
Fire burst from Mal, and she was free. Spears of flame lanced in all directions, burning holes through pyramids, reducing Wardens to ash. She felt each death. She was Dresediel Lex. She was Quechal. They were her children, though twisted and deformed. She wept and moved on.
More Wardens rose against her. She broke the wings of their mounts and they fell. Some swooped low above the crowd, catching refugees and winging them to safety; these she did not strike down. Their kindness pleased her.
She approached the Canter’s Shell, and pointed toward it. Thin ropes of flame snaked from Aquel and Achal, surrounded the blue bourn and pressed in. The shell’s logic, its Craft, its mechanisms strained against the Serpents’ power, the weight of history and wrath older than gods.
At first she thought the shell might hold.
