Ezamahual's gaze was distant. 'Two novice priests are dead. And some of them won't live out the night.'
'I see.'
'They gave their lives for the Fifth World,' Ezamahual said, his voice toneless, as if reciting something learnt by rote. 'It's our only destiny.'
It was. But it didn't mean we wouldn't mourn them. Like Quechomitl, like Commander Quiya-huayo, they would ascend into the Heaven of the Sun, to find their afterlife far more pleasant than the toil of this world. But we would still miss them.
I, more than anyone: for I had used them, barely knowing them. I knelt, slowly, by the altar and Ixtli's body, and whispered the first words of a prayer for the Dead:
When the flotilla of boats reached the island, Ceyaxochitl was the first on the ground. Accompanied by Yaotl, she made her way towards me with her usual energy, and a frown on her face which told me I would have a number of explanations to give her.
'I see you're alive,' Ceyaxochitl said, with a snort. Her eyes took in my priests, slumped on the ground; Ichtaca, who still hadn't opened his eyes; Neutemoc, sitting cross-legged in the mud; and Teomitl, standing by my brother's side, oozing Chalchiutlicue's magic. 'And I see you've had some interesting adventures.'
'I'll–'
She raised an unsteady hand. Suddenly, I saw how tired she looked; how pale was her face, and how she'd wrapped her left hand tightly around her cane's pommel, to prevent it from shaking. Tending to the Emperor had taken a heavy toll on her.
'We'll get you back,' Yaotl said. His face in the dim light was expressionless. 'We can see about the rest later.'
We had to leave most of the bodies in the water. The ahuizotls were feeding, and not even Teomitl's commands could make them abandon their grisly meals. Out of about thirty dead on our side, and the priests of Tlaloc on the other, we'd retrieved only four: two of my novice priests, one Duality warrior, and Ixtli.
On the way back, I found myself riding in the same boat as Neutemoc, watching the water part around the prow.
My brother was silent, as he had been on our journey to Amecameca. But this time the silence wasn't filled with pent-up aggressiveness, or things we'd failed to say to each other.
'You'll be fine?' I asked.
He said nothing. He watched the water, moodily. 'I don't know.'
'You can't go back,' I said, finally.
'No,' Neutemoc said. 'You never can. But you can always dream of what could have been.'
'And destroy your life?' I asked, more vehemently than I'd meant to. 'Sorry.'
Neutemoc shook his head. He dipped his hand in the water, watching the droplets part on his skin. 'It doesn't matter,' he said. He sighed. 'Huei–'
'There's no need to talk about her,' I said, more embarrassed than I'd thought.
Neutemoc didn't speak. 'She told me to forget her,' he said. 'To find myself another wife, to raise the children.'
'She told you that?' There would be no divorce, but nothing prevented him from taking on a second wife. He'd be more than able to support her.
'In the temple,' Neutemoc said. 'I don't know what I'll do.'
My chest contracted. 'You don't have to decide right now.'
'No,' Neutemoc said. 'I guess not. What will you do?'
'I don't know,' I said, truthfully. There would be accounts to make to Ceyaxochitl – vigils for Ixtli and the dead priests – and life would, I guessed, go on much as it had always done.
Neutemoc snorted. 'A fine pair we make.' His face closed again. 'So you killed the child?'
'Yes,' I said, curtly. And Eleuia, too; and perhaps Father. I wasn't sure.
'Going down alone into Tlalocan… You'd have made a good warrior, you know.'
I shrugged. 'Some things aren't made to be.'
'Perhaps not,' Neutemoc said at last. 'But you'd still have made it, if you'd wished to.'
'I didn't,' I said, finally, and it was the truth, the only reason I'd chosen that path on exiting the calmecac.
We passed through the streets of the Moyotlan district, and saw everywhere the ravages of the flood: the canals which had overflowed, bringing water into the courtyards of the grand houses, knocking down the wattle- and-daub walls of the humbler ones. In the water were wicker chests, reed mats, codices – and the bodies of those caught by the flood, facedown in the canals, as unmoving and as unbreathing as Ixtli's warriors.
People were out in the streets, salvaging what they could from the retreating water. I saw a woman carrying a very young child around her shoulders, trying to recover a rag doll, and my heart tightened.
