'Unfit to rule,' I said, slowly, softly. 'Is that what you think, Teomitl?' I knew it was; I just hadn't thought he would voice it, much less act on it.
'Isn't that what you think?' His voice was fierce, as cutting as obsidian shards. 'Don't look so surprised. I've seen you, Acatl-tzin. You brood like a jaguar mother over a lame cub. You wonder if you were right to bring him back.'
'No,' I said. 'I brought him back with the Southern Hummingbird's sanction, with the blessing of Izpapalotl, the Obsidian Butterfly. You can't change the truth, Teomitl. I'm a priest, and when the gods speak, I obey.'
'They're not your gods.'
'They're the gods of the Mexica Empire.' Didn't he understand anything? 'The ones who protect us, who bring us victory after victory, who gather in all the tributes from the hot lands and the deserts. What I think of them doesn't intrude. It shouldn't intrude.'
'Then you're a fool.'
Was I? 'If I am, it's no place of yours to tell me.'
'Because I'm your student? No longer.'
I thought of the calendar priest's vacant gaze; of Teomitl's voice, a lifetime ago.
'No,' I said. 'I should think you've made it abundantly clear.' I raised a hand to forestall his objection, and miraculously, he stopped. 'Listen to me – as a parting gift, if nothing else. The Empire dances on a knife's edge, with a Revered Speaker half-back from the land of the dead. And you – you'd think to replace him, as easily as you spend breath. Except you can't. You just can't. We've barely recovered from one disaster already, and to depose the Revered Speaker will cause an upheaval we're not equipped to deal with.'
'Still the same.' Teomitl's lips were two narrow lines, as pale as those of a drowned man. 'You're too cautious, Acatl-tzin. Moments should be seized; opportunities should be wrestled into fruition. I'll not wait in my brother's shadow for years on end, wondering when he'll have the decency to complete his journey into the world beyond. I will act now.'
One Revered Speaker deposing another was bad enough – 'And what – kill him?'
His gaze didn't waver. 'As you said: he's already halfway there.'
To kill his own brother… But then I remembered that they'd never been close; that Tizoc-tzin's persistent mocking of Mihmatini had driven the final wedge between those two.
'You're mad.'
'Desperate,' Teomitl said. 'It's not the same.'
'Fine.' I said it more acidly than I meant it. 'But you can't count on me.'
His gesture was dismissive – as if he'd never counted on me at all. How dare he?
'I have all I need here.'
'You have a wife.' Again, more acidly than I meant to. 'Do you think she would approve?'
For the first time, I saw doubt in his face – swiftly quashed. 'She's Guardian. She knows that I only act in the best interests of the balance.'
'If you say so. Do tell her that – because I most certainly won't.' And I could guess how Mihmatini would react – enough to make sure I was some distance away when she got the news.
Again, that small, dismissive gesture – a curt brush off, a judgment that I could offer nothing of value. 'You've made your position clear. Will that be all, Acatl-tzin?'
He stood, just a few paces from me, decked with finery fit for a Revered Speaker; escorted by warriors in his own house, doing the Duality knew what with his magical practitioners. I wanted to scream at him not to do anything foolish – not to break us more than we already were, to pay attention to the magical currents he so casually ripped through – but, as he had said, I had already made my position clear.
I could have asked him what the priest had said, but then I would have been party to his violation of the divine secrets.
'No,' I said. 'You're right. There is nothing more I can do here.'
I did go to see Mihmatini – after dropping off Palli at my temple. I had no idea what he'd seen or heard while I was away, but he wouldn't stop shivering, and every time his eyes strayed to the ground he would give a little start, as if waking from a nightmare.
I found the Duality House much like the air before a storm: very little activity, but every gesture charged with a meaning and import I couldn't decipher – and, throughout, a leaden weight, a sense of something large and unpleasant about to happen, lodged in my throat and chest. Mihmatini was in her rooms with Yaotl. She was staring at a divination book, impatiently turning pages as if each of the hollow-eyed deities had offended her.
'Acatl.' She looked up, a smile starting to tease the corners of her eyes, and then her face fell. 'You haven't found him.'
I took the coward's way out, and said nothing; it must have been answer enough for her. 'You look tired,' I said, sitting by her side.
She waved a hand – in a gesture eerily reminiscent of Teomitl. 'I've been busy.' She stabbed the paper. 'I have to do something, or I'll burst. So I've been looking into matters. It's not good, Acatl.' 'Not good?' I hadn't thought my stomach could be colder.
'Chalchiuhtlicue's power has been increasing these past weeks,' Mihmatini said. 'It is the Ceasing of the Waters: a time for propitious sacrifices.'
'You think–'
'Something is going to happen. Something bad.'
'The prisoners,' I said.
'The She-Snake moved them to different quarters; we've warded them pretty tightly.' Mihmatini puffed her cheeks, thoughtfully. 'I don't think they'll go that way. It's like water – they'll find the path of least resistance.'
Which, by definition, we wouldn't have considered. Great.
Mihmatini tapped the book again. 'I just wish – there's something about this that should be obvious.'
'The date?' I asked, a tad too sceptically.
