done and what she’d become.
“I wasn’t here for him,” she said. “I didn’t know…”
“Then why are you here? You still haven’t answered me.”
Outside, she saw houses and other carriages on the road with them, as well as people on horses or walking toward or from the city-leaning out, she could see the gates of the city just ahead. “Stop the carriage,” she said. “I’d like to get out here.”
Sergei stared for another moment, then he tapped on the roof of the carriage twice; the driver pulled on the reins, calling to the horses and moving them to the side of the road. “Do you kill me now?” Sergei asked. “You’re thinking that you could probably get away with it-easy enough to get lost in the crowds here before the driver raised the alarm.”
He knows what you’re thinking… And that, Rochelle realized, meant that he probably had anticipated the act and had a plan to counter it. His hand was on the knob of his cane. Still, he was too old and slow to stop her. “Don’t,” Sergei told her. His voice almost sounded amused. “I’m not a threat to you, Rochelle. Not at this moment, anyway-though if you become a threat to Nessantico, then we’ll be meeting again. We’re very much alike, you and I-did you know that? I know you, better than you would believe. The difference is that you’re still young. You have a chance to escape becoming me, or becoming like your matarh: a madwoman haunted by the deaths she’s caused and too enamored of death to give it up. You just have to stop. Stop being the White Stone-because if you don’t, soon you won’t want to stop. You won’t be able to stop. Listen to me-I know what I’m speaking of. You don’t want that, Rochelle. You truly don’t.”
He was still holding the cane, still watching her. She saw his gaze fasten on her right hand under her tashta, on the hidden knife.
A quick upward slash. It would come before he could even move, and the blood would be spilling from him even as I leap from the carriage. He’d be dead by my first step…
She was breathing hard. But there’d be no time to use the stone. The voice might have been her matarh. You’ll be in his eyes, caught there forever at the moment of his death. His eyes will betray you.. .
The noise of the city was loud in the carriage. “Ambassador?” the driver called down through the closed curtain.
Stop being the White Stone…
“Well, Rochelle?” Sergei asked her. “What is it to be?”
A few breaths later, she descended from the carriage. She looked up at the driver. “The Ambassador says to go on,” she told him. He slapped the reins, and the carriage started forward again, slipping into the stream of traffic heading toward the gate. She watched it until it had passed the half-tumbled stone arches, then she slipped into the crowds herself.
Niente
The Tecuhtli march at midday; almost immediately afterward, one of the warriors came panting up to Niente, telling him that Citlali required his presence. His stomach churning with unease, Niente followed the man to where most of the High Warriors were gathered in a wide circle. They parted to let him pass through; in the center, Tecuhtli Citlali was seated, with the High Warrior Tototl, as usual, at his right side. Atl was standing at his left hand, stern and unsmiling as Niente entered the open space.
The burning in Niente’s stomach increased.
“Your son tells me disturbing things, Nahual Niente,” Citlali said without preamble. “He says that your path leads to defeat, not victory. He says that he sees another way, and he tells me that we must take it now before it is too late.”
Split the army in three arms, one of which must go back toward Villembouchure and cross the river. Come to the city from west, north, and south, and come at a fast march, so that you reach the city before the other army can reach it… He had seen that vision himself. He’d seen the warriors push howling into the streets, the city’s defenses too stretched to offer resistance. The city would fall, in a single, bloody day.
“My son is wrong,” Niente said. He could not look at Atl’s face. “I’ve already told the Tecuhtli this.”
“You have,” Citlali answered. “And I’ve listened to you, and to Atl. I find it rather compelling that a son who has always loved, respected, and obeyed his Taat feels so strongly that he would go against him: not only as a Taat, but as Nahual.”
“Atl believes what he has seen in the bowl, and he does have Axat’s gift,” Niente answered. “But he doesn’t yet have the skill to interpret what he sees in the mists, nor to see far enough through them. What he doesn’t realize is that one day’s victory may lead to the next day’s defeat.”
“Hmm…” Citlali’s fingers stroked his chin as if he were petting a cat. “Or an old man could be so weakened by years of using his gift that he’s no longer strong enough to see well, and instead sees only what he wants to see.”
“Don’t mistake physical weakness for something else, Tecuhtli,” Niente said. “I am still stronger in the ways of the X’in Ka than any of the other nahualli.” Now he did look at Atl, almost in apology. “And that includes my own son.”
In his visions, Axat had granted him only momentary glimpses of this moment-or perhaps that had been his own fears influencing the direction of his far-sight. Whichever, Axat had never let him see it fully. In the original vision he’d had, back in Tlaxcala, this moment had not been on the paths of the future at all. Yet the twisted snarl of possibilities had led him here, despite his attempts to evade it. It was yet another reminder that the future was malleable and changeable, and that there were other influences than Axat’s at work.
Mahri and Talis had learned that, to their doom. Perhaps it was now Niente’s own turn to be given the lesson.
Citlali was smiling, an expression that Niente had never liked in the man’s face, since what amused the Tecuhtli was often unpleasant for others. Tototl was watching also, though the High Warrior’s face was stoic- whatever he was thinking, it was hidden from Niente. “Perhaps we should let Axat decide, then,” the Tecuhtli said. “You should demonstrate your strength for me, if you’re to remain Nahual. And if not…” Citlali shrugged then, broadly, the tattoos on his body moving like painted shadows. “… then perhaps Atl will be the Nahual.”
Niente saw his son’s eyes widen as he realized the implication of what Citlali had just said. “Tecuhtli, this is not why I came to you.” He glanced toward Niente, shaking his head.
“Perhaps, but it’s what I’m asking of you. You’ve your spell-staff, and Niente has his. Let us see who is stronger. Let us see who Axat wishes to be Nahual-now, while there’s still time.”
Atl looked over at Niente desperately again. “I can’t. Taat, this isn’t-”
“You’ve no choice now,” Citlali answered, and his voice was firm but not unkind. “That’s the way of things: the weak fall to the stronger, as Necalli fell to Zolin, and when Zolin fell, the red eagle came to me.” He touched his skull, where the blood-hued bird was inked. Tototl glanced at it as well. “As one day, I will fall. Or are you telling me that Nahual Niente is correct, and that you’ve not seen correctly?”
Atl was shaking his head, and Niente saw him caught, snared like a rabbit between truth and his love for Niente. “Taat,” he said, “I ask you, for our love, for the good of all the warriors here, to give up the golden band and your bowl.”
Niente could feel himself standing at a crossroads. Even without the scrying bowl, the air around him seemed to be filled with the emerald mist of Axat, waiting for him to choose. There: he could lay down the bowl, take off the armband, and simply become Niente who had once been a nahualli, letting Atl come into his legacy. Or he could refuse… And down that road there was only mist and confusion and uncertainty. He wasn’t certain he had either the strength or the will to defeat Atl, not when it would almost certainly mean the death of one or the other of them.
Yet it had come to this. There were no other paths open.
Axat, why have you given me this burden? Xaria, could you ever forgive me for this, for killing our son?
“Niente?” Citlali said. “Atl awaits your answer, as do I.”
In the mists, his son standing in his way, barring the entrance to the path…
Strangely, there were no tears, even though the sorrow seemed to press on his shoulders as if he bore the
