He met my gaze squarely. 'Let me come. Or I'll be as nothing.'
'To whom?' I asked.
'To her,' he snapped, throwing the pronoun into the air like an offering to a god. 'Who else?'
I didn't move. I simply asked, 'Her?'
'Huitzilxochtin,' Teomitl said. 'My mother.' When I still didn't speak, he said, 'She was strong and she fought to the end, but it was all for nothing. She died bearing me. And I–' His voice was bitter. 'I am nothing. I have no great battles behind me, nor feats of arms.'
'Battle isn't the only way to prove yourself,' I said, finally. But in my mind were my parents' voices, whispering about how wrong I was, how there was no glory, no honour outside the battlefield. About how I'd failed. 'And where we're going… That's no battlefield.'
Teomitl smiled. 'There are battles everywhere,' he said. 'You just have to know where to look.'
I'd forgotten the ease with which he could take control of a conversation. 'That doesn't change anything. I can't risk your life.'
'It's not yours to risk,' Teomitl said. He didn't sound as angry as he'd been. Just thoughtful. 'It's mine, and I do what I want with it.'
'I–' I said.
'Is it so hard? You let me come, when you thought I was a calmecac student. Nothing has changed. We're still the same.'
Why couldn't he see that everything had changed? 'I can't be your testing ground,' I repeated. I couldn't face the repercussions of taking him with us. What if Axayacatl-tzin died tonight, and Tizoc-tzin became Revered Speaker? I'd have endangered the life of the heir-apparent.
Teomitl watched me for a while, his brown eyes shrewd. Behind him, in the courtyard of the Duality House, the rain fell in a steady patter – the Storm Lord's magic slowly, steadily seeping into the earth. 'Why? It's a simple thing.'
He was wrong. Things were never that simple. 'I can't. Let someone else…'
I met his eyes – my apprentice Payaxin's eyes, eager to do what was right – and I realised what I was saying. Let someone else shoulder this burden. Let me go on as if nothing had changed. It was fear that made me say that: fear and nothing else. But I was no coward. No warrior – there were some things for which I would never find the courage – but no coward.
'Very well,' I said, finally. 'You can come.'
We stopped to see Mihmatini briefly. She'd followed Neutemoc's household into one of the Duality House's vast rooms. Reed mats were spread on the floor; both Mazatl and Ollin were already asleep. Mihmatini sat cross- legged against the wall. Over her was a fresco depicting the Duality's Heaven. Under the gaze of the fused lovers, a tree grew out of the waters, the shadowy souls of babies clinging to its trunk as if to their mothers' breasts. Dead babies: the Duality's Heaven was the only place that would re ceive the souls of unweaned children, preserving them until they could be reborn.
Dead babies. I was reminded, uneasily, of the bones in Ceyaxochitl's possession, and of the god-child we were seeking.
Mihmatini, oblivious to my thoughts, smiled tiredly at me. I couldn't help noticing, though, that her brightest smile was reserved for Teomitl, who had followed us into the room.
Neutemoc stopped to stroke Ollin's forehead: the baby's face shifted, and settled into a pleased smile. Neutemoc's face, a careful mask, cracked. He knelt by his son's cradle, and watched him sleep, his lips moving to whisper a mournful lullaby.
Sweat had stained Mihmatini's cotton shirt, and the dark circles under her eyes were, if anything, more accented.
'Get some sleep,' I said. 'Don't worry.'
'I am worrying,' Mihmatini said, tartly. 'You'd have to be a fool not to, with that rain.'
'It's dangerous,' Teomitl said.
'You can feel it?' I asked Mihmatini.
She shook her head. 'I'm not sensitive enough. Yaotl told me.'
'Yaotl,' I said, not quite over my rancour yet, 'interferes with what doesn't concern him.'
She smiled. 'Don't we all?' Without waiting for my answer, she turned to watch Neutemoc, who was still kneeling by Ollin's cradle.
'He tries so hard to be a good head of his household,' she said, with a sigh.
Something unnameable shifted in my chest, until I could hardly breathe. 'Yes,' I said, finally. 'But the way he behaved towards Huei…'
Mihmatini didn't answer at once. Her face had grown dark. 'Let's forget Huei for the moment.'
I couldn't. 'We'll be going out again,' I said, finally.
Mihmatini shifted. 'Then I'll renew the protection spells on you. Although they really don't hold on you, Acatl. And you–' She looked at Teomitl. 'You definitely don't need me to cast a spell on you.'
Teomitl's face fell. 'You're sure?' he asked. 'Another kind of spell, perhaps?'
Mihmatini suppressed a smile. 'Men,' she said, shaking her head, but she didn't sound angry. Quite the contrary, in fact.
There would be time to work this out later, if we survived.
Once Mihmatini finished casting the spell, we went back into the streets. By then, it was raining heavily. Storm clouds had drowned the sun, and the light falling on the Sacred Precinct was as weak as that of evening, even though it was barely noon.
Teomitl took the lead, filled with his boundless energy. In the gloom, his spell of protection shone like a beacon: a much, much stronger construction that the ones Mihmatini had laid on us.
As we walked, raindrops fell on our clothes, mingling with our hair. With each drop, the protection lessened. I could feel it fading away, a vanishing itch on my skin. Teomitl's protection, though, did not show any sign of
