'A little,' I admitted, cautiously.
'Enough for me, then.'
I could probably teach him to control Chalchiutlicue's magic – and to have enough patience – but… 'Is this what you want?'
'Don't be a fool,' Teomitl said. 'Do you think I came this way for nothing?'
In many ways, I realised, he hadn't changed: still impatient, abrasive, arrogant. But still quick to lend his heart, and to expect trust in return.
Since Payaxin, I had not taken on an apprentice, even less one of Imperial Blood. 'I…' I started, and realised I had been running away from this possibility for so long I couldn't even envision it. 'You'll have to show me some respect,' I said, finally.
Teomitl's smile was like a sun rising. 'I'll work on it. Besides, I have to get your consent for courting your sister, haven't I?'
I made a mock-frown, hiding the mixture of unease and pleasure his request gave me. 'We'll see about that, young man. When this night is over.'
I stood on the platform of the shrine, and watched the light finally fade behind the rain-clouds.
Below me, Teomitl was descending the stairs. 'Come on, Acatltzin,' he called. 'The vigils have already started.'
From behind him came the mournful sounds of the deathhymns, and the reedy music of conch-shells, signalling the first Hour of the night: that of Xiuhtecuhtli, the Fire-God.
I sighed and gathered my grey cloak around me, before following Teomitl down the stairs in the growing darkness.
Above us, the clouds had broken a little, leaving just enough space for the light of one star to fall upon my temple. It was the most beautiful sight I had seen in a long time.
'Come on, Acatl-tzin!'
I was a priest of Mictlantecuhtli. I would neither have children, nor know the glory of warriors.
But this – the vigils and the conch-shells, and the setting sun that would rise again, and Teomitl, waiting for me on the steps with unbounded impatience–
This was my place, and my legacy.
II
HARBINGER OF THE STORM
ONE
I felt it when it happened, even from where I was: sitting atop the platform of my pyramid temple, so high that the city below seemed a mere child's toy.
It was as if the entire world were exhaling: a slow, ponderous shift that coursed through the streets and the canals of Tenochtitlan, through the closed marketplace and the houses of joy – extinguishing the glow of the torches in the water, muffling the voices of the singers and the poets in the banqueting halls, and darkening the moon in the sky.
The Revered Speaker Axayacatl-tzin – the protector of the Mexica Empire, the link between us and our patron god Huitzilpochtli, the Southern Hummingbird – was dead.
I looked up at the Heavens. The sky was clouded, but a faint scattering of stars shone through, already smeared against the dark background, their light growing stronger and stronger with every passing moment.
They were coming down; the star-demons, eager to walk the streets and marketplaces of the city, to rend our flesh into bloody ribbons, to open up our chests with a flick of their claws and pluck out our beating hearts. Huitzilpochtli's divine power, channelled through the Revered Speaker, had kept them away from the Fifth World, the world of mortals.
But not anymore.
I took a deep breath to steady myself. It was not unexpected, by any means; but still… The boundaries between the worlds had become weak, effortlessly breached, and the work of summoners would be easy. Creatures would soon prowl the streets, hungering for human blood. Not a propitious time. We needed to brace for it; to be ready for the worst.
Footsteps echoed beside me: my Fire Priest, Ichtaca, second in command of my order. In one hand he carried a wooden cage with two white owls, their yellow eyes wide in the dim light. The other hand was tightly wrapped around the hilt of a sacrificial obsidian knife.
'Acatl-tzin,' Ichtaca said, curtly bowing his head. The 'tzin' honorific was muted, added to my name almost as an afterthought. In that moment, that I was High Priest for the Dead and he my subordinate didn't matter. We were both kindred spirits, both aware of the magnitude of the threat. Until a new Revered Speaker was invested, the whole of the Fifth World lay defenceless, as tantalising as feathers or jade to an indebted man.
I nodded. 'I have to go to the palace.' I had a place in the funeral preparations, small and insignificant. My patron Mictlantecuhtli, Lord Death, was not the god most honoured in the Empire. But, nevertheless, I couldn't afford to stay away at a time like this. 'But let's see about the wards first.'
Ichtaca didn't move for a while. On his round face was something very close to fear; unnerving, for Ichtaca had faced down gods, goddesses and underworld creatures without ever losing his composure.
'Ichtaca?'
