Published at 13th of December 2023 3:48 pm

Chapter Fifteen: The Laws of the Realm

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In many ways, Yohuachanca’s emperor was first and foremost a prophet.

As the Godspeaker, my voice carried the weight of the Nightlords’ authority. Though the red-eyed priests held me accountable to their mistresses, I acted as the final court of the realm on judicial and religious matters. I was a living effigy, a totem whose divinely-inspired judgment could tell apart right from wrong. Eztli lurked in the shadow of my obsidian throne, the night to my daylight.

My agenda for today’s grievance hearing, the first of my reign, was quite heavy. Items on the agenda included the organization of the year’s religious festivals, justice cases my predecessor failed to settle before his death, and deciding the fate of various territories. I decided to address matters from the most urgent to the least. That way I hoped to finish in a good mood in time for my meal.

“Oh great Godspeaker, we bow before your divine majesty!” A group of red-eyed priests knelt at my throne’s feet, the sound of their hands touching the ground echoing in my hall. “We beg you to enlighten the people of the Boiling Sea and set them on the path to salvation!”

I sat in silence, my face a mask of stone, as the priests explained to me how my glorious predecessors brought the eastern islands to their knees. I remembered quite well the presence of their ambassadors on the day after my coronation. They had given me gifts to show their fealty.

The fact those same representatives weren’t present today spoke volumes about how much power they held. Words from my religious studies came to mind: woe to the conquered.

“The people of the Boiling Sea worship spirits and false deities, oh Godspeaker,” a priest said. “Vile sea monsters and broken idols. Though the children of the night led the conquest, many of the old temples still stand today and shamans still preside over sinful ceremonies. We beseech you to decide their fate.”

My first instinct was to leave them be, if only to spite the priests. Still, I decided to ask for more details first. “How did my predecessor begin with them?”

“Divine Nochtli, blessed his soul may be, proved too merciful,” the chief priest said. “He allowed them to keep their faith so long as they paid tribute and obedience to the goddesses. It was his hope that the people would grow to love the empire if the transition of power proved smooth.”

Considering Nochtli had been planning a coup against the Nightlords, I suspected he wished for the islanders to join his aborted revolt. Clearly, he had miscalculated.

“Did the people of the islands love Nochtli?” I asked.

“Of course. When he gave his life to the goddesses, they sacrificed slaves in his name so that they might guide him in the afterlife.”

A gift that proved futile once his soul was entombed in a pillar of skulls. Moreover, the islanders did not rise in revolt for him when he was brought drugged to the altar. Their recent conquest had bled the fight out of them.

“The love of the masses is cheap and easy to earn,” Eztli mused. “You get what you pay for, Iztac.”

The islanders might be thankful for small kindnesses, but we will always remain a foreign conqueror to them. I leaned in closer to Eztli, whispering. “How do you suggest we proceed?”

“I see three options,” she whispered back while playing with her nails. “You can keep things as they are. The islanders will send you seashell baskets, our priests will grumble, and nothing will change. Otherwise, the priesthood can slowly begin to assimilate the local culture.”

That was the standard procedure in Yohuachanca. Islander priests would be bound to the Nightlords and gain red-eyes. Their words and books would be slowly rewritten to merge their gods with their new vampiric mistresses in their pantheon, until one day the people of the Boiling Sea would forget all of their traditions. The process might take decades, but in the end Yohuachanca would swallow them whole.

Obviously, that option did not appeal to me. “What’s the third choice?”

“Why, but forced conversion of course!” Eztli’s smile unveiled her fangs. “We scour their temples of riches, burn them to the ground, then build new ones over the ruins! Local shamans must either convert or die!”

A chill traveled down my spine. “That will infuriate the islanders.”

“Of course.” Eztli shrugged, her smirk unwavering. “You will need more sacrifices for summer, do you not? A paltry sacrifice I must say.”

Moments like this reminded me that while part of Eztli remained within her new vampire self, bloodlust and cruelty had filled the hole Yoloxochitl left in her heart.

Still, her solution made me wonder. The islanders had witnessed Nochtli’s death without intervention because they feared the Nightlords more than they liked him. What inspired me to take arms against them?

Hate.

Once hate grew stronger than fear, it inspired a mad form of bravery in the hearts of men. Enough to defy four goddesses in my case. The courage of the desperate.

Eztli’s heavy-handed approach would invite resentment. It was one thing to conquer their land, and another to destroy their entire way of life. The islanders would fight back, even if outmatched. Since they had lost their armies, they would gut throats in the dark, set garrisons on fire, and make a nuisance of themselves. Their insurrection would be crushed in time—all were—but it would weaken Yohuachanca’s grip on the region in the short-term.

“Besides,” Eztli murmured into my ear like a demon inspiring wicked sins. “All the wealth you seize from the islanders’ temples will go to you.”

I quickly caught on to her suggestion. I could use the stolen gold for bribes, to buy out allies closer to home. Eztli had always been mischievous, and undeath had only strengthened that trait into outright deviousness.

I had two choices before me. Either rule unjustly in the hope of driving Yohuachanca’s people to revolt, or act as a merciful master in the hope that they would support me once I launched a coup against the Nightlords. I could already tell which one was more likely to happen.

The people of Yohuachanca loved my predecessor. They loved him so much that they applauded when vampires tore out his heart. Love was a fickle throne to stand on. That must have been why the Nightlords had chosen to rule through fear.

Or perhaps I could try to do both. Be a tyrant to those whose help I couldn’t expect to rise on my behalf, and generous to those who could be useful to me. I needed allies in the palace and enemies at the borders.

I had made my decision. I faced the priests and delivered my judgment.

“Turkeys love a weak master who lets them wander around. In time, they forget to fear the hand that feeds them.” I joined my hands together. “The islanders require a sharp reminder of who truly rules this world.”

The Jaguar Woman said my reign would be an age of darkness. Very well. Once I was done, historians would look to the centuries before as a golden age never to be seen again.

“I shall ban the worship of the false gods all across the Boiling Sea!” I shouted with a genuine smirk. One of delight for the chaos to come. “Seize all their holdings! Melt down their gold and silver as gifts to the true gods, and tear down their temples so we might build new ones in their place! Any foreigner that refuses to cooperate shall be executed on the spot!”

Before what had happened with Yoloxochitl, I would have hesitated to speak these words. They still tasted bitter in my mouth. But I had already committed to wage war on foreign soil. I had already bet on winning the ball game, so I might as well go all the way.

“In fact, we shall not stop at the Boiling Sea!” I declared, trying to channel some of Yoloxochitl’s zealous madness in my voice. “Let this decree apply to all of Yohuachanca’s subjects, from north to south! For the sake of their immortal souls, we shall reform today’s sinners into tomorrow’s holy ones!”

If Yohuachanca’s victims would not rise up once they saw their gods torn down, they never would at all.

The red-eyed priests lacked the fangs of their vampiric overlords, but their smiles carried as many sinister overtones. “It shall be done, oh Godspeaker.”

Beasts, all of them, I thought after calming down and slouching down on my throne. They do not need human blood to live, but they lust for it all the same.

My loathsome decree was signed with a stroke of a quill, promising the obliteration of all the recently conquered people’s traditions. The priests, wisely expecting pushback, asked for military support; which I gave. The more spread out the empire’s troops before the war with the Sapa began, the better.

“Wise choice, Iztac,” Eztli whispered into my ear with a giggle. “I wonder how many will file a complaint over this.”

Like most gods, I would see to it that these prayers never get answered. “What’s next on the agenda?”

“A boring lecture,” Eztli replied with a sigh. “I am to brief you on the New Fire Ceremony and the other religious events of the year.”

The New Fire Ceremony marked the end of the solar year and the renewal of the people’s pact with the First Emperor. To purify themselves of their sins from the old year, citizens would cast old clothes, hearthstones, and possessions into temple flames. A very special one, fueled by the remains of my predecessor, would be relinquished to the new emperor for five days.

At sunset, on the very last day of the year, I would lead a procession of priests to Smoke Mountain in the east. Once I reached the summit, all fires in the empire except for my own sacred flame would be extinguished. This would mark the end of the old world. My sacred flame would light up a bonfire at Smoke Mountain’s top, and torches would be carried across all corners of the empire to signify the beginning of a new era.

One that I hoped would see the Nightlords extinguished.

However, the New Fire Ceremony would only be the first of seven major festivals I was to oversee. In two months, I would rule over the Rain Festival, where I would beseech the sky to bless our land with water with human sacrifices.

Ceremonies would follow on Vernal Equinox, but they would be but a prelude to the much larger Maize Festival, the year’s most beloved and important ceremony behind that of the Scarlet Moon. There I would ensure a good harvest by deflowering virgins, planting seeds in the earth, and partaking in human sacrifices.

The Summer Solstice would also host its own ceremony: the Masked Festival, where I would dress as the First Emperor in a play recreating Yohuachanca’s mythical founding. I would kill impersonators of my long-gone predecessors' enemies as human sacrifices.

The fall equinox would host yet another Harvest Festival, which for once wouldn’t involve human sacrifice. Instead, I would slaughter sacred animals as a symbolic representation of my subjects’ sins and assist in an empire-wide sweeping ceremony meant to purify the land of evil.

And finally… I would be sacrificed on the night of the Scarlet Moon.

Hearing this list of rituals from Eztli’s mouth soured my stomach. I was only four days into my tenure, though it had felt like four months to me. The year’s planning promised one atrocity after another.

“So I will take care of a sacred flame for the next five days?” I summarized. Worse, from what I understood, I would ascend to Smoke Mountain’s summit while caked in ashes. “Wonderful.”

“Pretty much,” Eztli confirmed. “You start tomorrow. Priests will help you keep it ablaze, but you’re expected to do most of the work.”

Considering what I was planning, I doubted I would have much time for fire-stoking. The ceremony did present an opportunity though: namely, the last day’s procession would allow me to leave the palace and spend the night on Smoke Mountain.

Eztli guessed what I had in mind. “Don’t get your hopes up,” she whispered, too low for others to listen. “The old bats will watch over your shoulder until dawn. For your own good, of course. A child shouldn’t wander outside without his parents’ supervision.”

I scoffed. From the disdainful way she worded it, this sentence came straight out of Yoloxochitl’s mouth. I wished I could burn her with her own so-called ‘sacred flame.’ At least this promenade would give me a breath of fresh air outside the palace.

“I’ve never climbed Smoke Mountain,” I murmured.

“Must be a pretty beautiful sight from all the way up there,” Eztli replied with a strange, distant look. “I hope I can see it too.”

“I don’t see any reason why you can’t come,” I said. “We could go watch the night sky as we used to. Smoke Mountain is said to be so tall that its peak looms above the clouds.”

Eztli smiled back at me. “You are sweet, Iztac.”

Unlike her words, her eyes were utterly without joy. It filled my heart with worry. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Eztli answered with a tone that implied otherwise. “It will make for a nice date.”

It would have, under normal circumstances. The thought of Yoloxochitl and her sisters watching over us while we enjoyed a tender moment atop Smoke Mountain did not appeal to me much, but I had to make do with what I had.

“What is the next item on the agenda?” I asked one of my priestly attendants to move on, since the subject clearly made Eztli uncomfortable.

“Next month’s marriages, oh Godspeaker.” The priests unrolled entire scrolls full of names and dates. “As emperor, you possess the right of the first night of any new bride-to-be.”

I knew what was coming, but it still took all of my strength to hide my disgust. The idea of forcing myself on innocent women only inspired horror in my heart. At least waging war on the Sapa would serve a greater purpose. “I will abstain.”

“You shouldn’t,” Eztli said.

I scowled at her, both in shock and horror. “Are you approving this…” I struggled to string the words together. “This debauchery?”

“Iztac, don’t you see the bright side?” She leaned in closer to whisper into my ear once more. “It will let you exit the palace.”

My jaw clenched so tightly that my teeth started to hurt. Of course an emperor would not organize a commoner’s wedding for them. They would be hosted and feasted by the married families, adding insult to injury.

Even so… even so, I failed to even entertain the thought. At least until Eztli provided an interesting solution.

“You don’t have to deflower the bride-to-be, silly,” she pointed out. “You can simply choose to attend and complain once you find her beauty beneath your imperial standards. Then you spend the evening in revelry far away from the old bats’ gaze.”

That… that might actually work, I conceded. Who could blame me if I traveled to a wedding, realized that the bride I visited did not live up to the tales, and then decided to grace the two families anyway with my presence? It would offer an opportunity to exit the palace now and then, perhaps to meet with allies outside its walls.

It was best to do that only occasionally. If I witnessed too many weddings without exercising my ‘rights,’ the Nightlords were bound to grow suspicious.

“How…” I cleared my throat as I questioned the priests further. “How does this even work? There must be thousands upon thousands of unions each year across the empire. How would one even begin to select them?”

As it turned out, the imperial bureaucracy had solved the issue many centuries ago.

All weddings in the empire were prepared months early with the priesthood’s benediction, since the latter kept strict records on genealogy and bloodlines. Due to distance, they only selected choices from among the capital and its surrounding region—though I could exercise my ‘right’ on a whim anywhere if I traveled to another part of the empire. Afterward, the priests sorted the ‘candidates’ by age, keeping only those between sixteen and thirty, and weighted bloodlines with ‘appreciable traits’: health, beauty, and intelligence. Finally, priority was given to families who invited the emperor to the festivities.

“Invitations?” I thought I had misheard for a moment. “Are some families inviting me to bed their brides and daughters?”

The priests nodded as one, much to my bafflement. “Many do, oh Godspeaker. After all, is there no greater honor for a family to be graced with your divine presence?”

“In fact, Iztac, you received more invitations than the month has days,” Eztli mused. The situation appeared to amuse her as much as it disturbed me. “You will have to deny most of them.”

I sank deeper into my throne, trying my best to grasp the situation. I struggled to understand why anyone would invite me… until I remembered the night of the Scarlet Moon. How could I forget the hopeful visages of so many men eager to be chosen as emperor while Guatemoc and I trembled with dread? Or how many applauded when the Nightkin carried me screaming to the Blood Pyramid?

For most of Yohuachanca’s citizens, being chosen as the year’s emperor was the highest honor. I had become more than a man: I was a conduit connecting the false gods of the empire to their mortal subjects. The chosen sacrifice that was meant to keep the sun alight.

An emperor visiting a peasant family meant the Nightlords smiled kindly on them. Many would see it as a great honor—nay, a blessing—rather than a curse. Such was the strength of the vampires’ hold on my people. They had managed to turn cuckolding into a divine miracle.

I miss the Land of the Dead Suns, I thought grimly. The dead aren’t half as foolish as the living.

“I will think on it,” I replied evasively. “More urgent matters demand my attention for now.”

The priests bowed before me. “Remember, oh Godspeaker, that all mortals serve at your leisure.”

“You might not realize it yet, Iztac, but fathering more blessed children is your holiest duty,” Yoloxochitl told me. Her words echoed in my ears like the Yaotzin’s curses. “Your sacred blood must keep flowing. Your seed enriches any soil in which it is planted.”

They do have a strange obsession with the emperor’s children, I mused disdainfully. Enough to allow their puppets to leave their cage on occasion if it meant making more of them. I haven’t heard of any would-be prince or princess who had distinguished himself to warrant these efforts.

Come to think of it…

Come to think of it, I’d never heard a word of any emperor’s children. How odd.

I knew daughters were secluded inside the imperial harem, but sons were ostensibly sent to join the army. Yet I couldn’t remember any general or famed warrior with imperial ancestry. Not a single one. Lady Sigrun’s lies about her son’s fate made that doubly suspicious, alongside the Yaotzin’s insistence that the truth would fetch a high price.

Were they sent to the altar on their way out of the palace? I didn’t remember any imperial prince being sacrificed, though it might be because I never bothered to look it up. Eztli shouldn’t have any issue identifying them among the priests’ records if that were the case.

What do the Nightlords need the emperor’s sons for?

I would need to ask the Parliament of Skulls for details tomorrow. I had a bad feeling about this matter; a terrible intuition that something sinister was afoot behind the scenes.

This impression wouldn’t leave me for the entire morning, enough that I struggled to focus on the justice cases I had been expected to solve today. The first was relatively boring: a succession dispute over the inheritance of Xochipilli, a prominent merchant from Quetzaltenango. The man had perished without a clear heir. According to the priest’s reports, his first wife’s son, Tlazohtzin, argued that he should inherit due to being the oldest heir; while the second wife’s son, Tlaxcala, argued that since his mother was of higher social status their father meant to give him everything. Local magistrates failed to deliver a verdict, so they petitioned me for my judgment.

Eztli appeared as bored as I was by the reports. “You should seize the father’s assets and be done with it,” she suggested. “This should teach them the danger of wasting our time.”

I was tempted to go along with the suggestion, but that would achieve little except disinheriting both families. I forced myself to think the situation over. I had so little time and so few powers of my own that I couldn’t let any opportunity pass.

How would my predecessors suggest that I act in this situation?

“What made Xochipilli such a powerful merchant?” I questioned the priests.

“The late Xochipilli owned all inns within Quetzaltenango’s limits, alongside its brothels and breweries,” one of them answered. “In his later age, he started to buy similar establishments in other cities, including Your Divine Majesty’s capital.”

This aroused my curiosity enough to shake me out of my distraction. So far I had focused on fostering unrest in the empire, but I also required allies outside the palace’s walls. Sigrun had proved to me how valuable a web of agents could be. This judgment might offer me an opportunity to start building my own.

Whoever receives my benediction will be grateful to me personally, I reasoned. Maybe I could leverage it somehow.

“Are both of Xochipilli’s sons in the capital?” I asked the priests, who both nodded. As expected, they had made the journey just in case I requested an audience. “I shall receive them tomorrow and give them a chance to plead their cases personally.”

“As you wish, oh supreme emperor,” the priests answered while Eztli rolled her eyes in annoyance. She hated dragging things on.

The next case involved a heated dispute between the cities of Huitzilampa and Tonalco over a fertile patch of land between their territories. While the former intended to put it to use for agricultural purposes, the latter wanted to start a mining operation. Both cities’ rulers argued that they had an ancestral right to the location, and rather than risk angering either of them the magistrates referred the matter to the emperor’s judgment.

I immediately smelled a chance to sow discord. Much like Xochipilli’s inheritance, I summoned both sides to plead their cases during the week through representatives.

“What are you waiting for?” Eztli murmured to me in annoyance.

“The best offer,” I answered bluntly.

This caused her to smirk. “I knew you would make an excellent merchant.”

“Thank you.” I sighed as the audience came to an end. “In any case, I am spent.”

Eztli nodded happily. We were done for the day. “I will hunt down Ingrid’s missing brother in the meantime,” she murmured into my ear. “Take good care of Mother for me, and little Nenetl too.”

“Nenetl?” I repeated. I expected Eztli to ask me to look after Necahual, but not a fellow consort.

“I like her.” Eztli gently stroked my hair. “She reminds me of you a few years back. All sweet and innocent.”

“I was never so gentle.”

“You were,” Eztli replied with a chuckle. “Only somewhere along the way, you learned the meaning of bitterness.”

I had no answer to that. “Mind if I ask you for a favor, Eztli?”

“Another missing child to hunt?”

What do the Nightlords do with the emperor’s sons? The question was on the edge of my lips, but I held back. I had a more pressing matter to deal with. “Could you ensure there are fewer eyes looking at us this evening? I would like to enjoy a more private moment with Nenetl. I believe she deserves that at least.”

I expected Eztli to crack a joke about that ‘private time,’ much like what happened with Ingrid. Instead, though, she studied my face before answering. She knew me all too well. “Of course.”

After the audience, I briefly reviewed the statue project with Ingrid—the final expense ought to be as ridiculous as it was unnecessary—and then enjoyed a short meal with Lady Sigrun and Necahual in the former’s room.

While Necahual remained on edge from start to finish, barely eating her food or saying anything, Lady Sigrun did her best to help her break out of her shell. She asked questions about her life in Acampa, confided about her own past, and questioned her about medicines that would help Astrid focus on her lessons… which eventually broke through to Eztli’s bitter mother.

“I can brew passionflower potions for you,” Necahual suggested kindly. While she had only ever shown me bitterness in the past, she took her healer duties seriously. “It will soothe your daughter’s nerves.”

“Thank you,” Lady Sigrun replied graciously, though I suspected she already knew the plant’s properties. “Astrid can hardly stay still for five minutes before her mind wanders somewhere else. Not even the gods can command her attention.”

“Speaking of gods,” I said, my eyes gazing at her private shrine and the strange sigils carved on it. “What are those symbols meant to represent?”

“Those are runes,” Lady Sigrun explained. “In my homeland, these marks represent the gods and invite their protection.”

Is that why you secretly carved them on your pristine flesh? I thought. I still wondered how she managed to hide them.

Necahual’s eyes widened at the confession. “You worship foreign gods inside the palace?”

Lady Sigrun’s smile turned mischievous. “Winland’s gods and those of Yohuachanca are the same. Our cultures simply gave them different names. I simply worship the Nightlords in my own way.”

The lie was so flawlessly executed it could have come out of a priest’s lips. Neither Necahual nor I were blind to the truth, but we did not question it.

“What…” Necahual cleared her throat, as if afraid to ask. “What gods does this shrine pay homage to?”

“The goddess of beauty and the goddess of death,” Lady Sigrun explained. “You know them as Iztacoatl, the White Snake, and Ocelocihuatl, the Jaguar Woman.”

Beauty and death… what an interesting combination. I had wondered how she managed to stay so beautiful at her age and what trickery she used to slay Tlacaelel. I had the suspicion that both events were connected somehow.

Lady Sigrun had to be a witch of some kind. Not a powerful one, or else she would have sensed my Gaze spell. And I hardly believed the Nightlords would have let a sorceress operate in their midst for so long if she possessed any aptitude that could directly threaten them. The fact she could hide the runes on her skin from mortals attested to her true nature. This made me wonder if she had taught Ingrid anything.

“I’m afraid I will have to leave soon,” I said now that we had emptied our plates. “Nenetl must be waiting for me.”

“I understand, my emperor.” Lady Sigrun met my gaze. “Do you have time for a song before leaving?”

I nodded sharply and Lady Sigrun hastily clapped her hands. Astrid walked into the room with a smaller, handheld version of her sister’s harp instrument. Necahual was about as surprised as I was.

“What kind of tool is this?” she asked Astrid, who shyly smiled back. She probably wasn’t too used to strangers.

“A lyre,” Sigrun answered on her daughter’s behalf. “Astrid, would you kindly play a song for your brother-in-law? Something joyful.”

“Yes, Mother.” Astrid pinched the instrument’s strings and started playing an upbeat melody. She was less talented than her sister at music, but her lyre provided enough noise to give us privacy.

While Necahual was focused on the song itself, Lady Sigrun leaned closer to my side of the table and went straight to the point. “Who will you choose among Xochipilli’s heirs?” she whispered into my ear.

That she knew the details of an audience only priests were privy to didn’t surprise me in the slightest. “Are you not going to suggest a pick?”

“No,” Lady Sigrun replied as she poured me a cup of chocolate. “Instead, I expect Your Majesty to tell me which of them he intends to voice his support for ahead of time, so I can accept the winning bid.”

Her words drew a smile from me. “Is it not a sin to take credit for work one hasn’t done?”

“It would be a greater sin to appear fallible,” Lady Sigrun replied unabashedly. “Besides, I would be in your debt.”

“Duly noted.” I saw no reason to deny her wish. “My contact also provided an answer to your test.”

I recounted to Sigrun what the Yaotzin told me while paying close attention to her mannerisms. My mother-in-law’s face gave nothing away—it might as well have been made of marble—but I noticed her eyes briefly blinked when I mentioned Mazatl’s daughter. She was good, very good; but not perfect either. I might learn to read her better with time.

“I am surprised,” Sigrun said, and for once she appeared entirely truthful. “Few even know that the man has a daughter, let alone her name. He is a very private person. The fact you learned this information within a day’s time, if it proves correct…”

“Once it proves correct,” I insisted. The Yaotzin never lied. While I couldn’t rule out the possibility that Mazatl’s daughter didn’t go along with his wishes, I doubted the wind wouldn’t have informed me. Like any good merchant, it required repeat customers.

“Did the Nightkin tell you?” Lady Sigrun asked. I smiled in response without giving anything away. “You have grown better at hiding your thoughts, Lord Iztac.”

“I will take that as a compliment.”

“It is one.”

“Thank you.” I noticed Necahual turning away from Astrid’s song and squinting at us. She probably figured out we were scheming together, but wisely did not mention it. “I do wonder why you need that information though.”

She smiled at me. “The answer might cost you.”

Ever the opportunist, I see. “I will pass for now.” I was more interested in her runes anyway. “I have another request for you.”

Lady Sigrun glanced at Necahual, who returned her gaze. “You want me to look after her now that her daughter has grown distant.”

“You are quite astute,” I complimented her. From the way Necahual stared at us, she had guessed what we had whispered about. “Can I count on your support?”

“I shall teach her court etiquette in return for your assistance on the Xochipilli case,” Lady Sigrun promised with a sharp edge in her gaze. “It is getting late, Emperor Iztac. Your consort must be waiting for you.”

Indeed. I loudly thanked Lady Sigrun for the meal and song, kissed her daughter Astrid on the forehead, and did the same with Necahual’s cheek. “Be wary,” I whispered to her, too low for our host to hear. “She is an ally for now, but a fickle one.”

Necahual bit her lower lip without answering, her nod almost imperceptible. She was a novice at this game, but she had good instincts. A lifetime of keeping her emotions bottled up inside her heart probably helped.

I am starting to get it, I thought while leaving Sigrun’s chambers with guards shadowing my steps. How this game is played.

The world of the living and that of the dead did not differ much. In both cases, one had to first give in order to receive in turn. Everything I did on the behalf of another should have a price attached to it. The right information was worth more than gold, and there was nothing more precious than trust.

These were simple rules to follow. At least so far.

Nenetl’s chambers, as befitting those of a consort, were located within a short distance of mine. I immediately noticed a strong smell of cacao when I approached its barkwood door.

“Nenetl?” I raised my hand to knock on the door, but a guard did it for me. “Are you there?”

I heard her answer from the other side with a trembling voice. “C-C-Come in!”

I exchanged a glance with one of the guards, who opened the door. “Keep watch outside,” I told them after crossing the threshold. “I will call for you if I need it.”

Though I suspected they would rush in on their own by the evening’s end. I intended to make noise.

Unlike Lady Sigrun and Ingrid’s tidy apartments, Nenetl’s quarters reminded me of the capital’s chaotic marketplace. The antechamber alone was a spacious hall of shelves filled with maize, squash, and most of all, cacao beans. The smell of it was almost intoxicating, and I nearly stumbled on a grinding stone filled with chocolate. From the look of it, Nenetl had to have stopped midway through the process.

“I’m so sorry!” I heard Nenetl apologize from two rooms over. “I am so sorry, my lord, my emperor, I—the oven is not working properly! I’m sorry!”

“The oven?” I blinked in astonishment as I followed her voice. “You have a kitchen in your quarters?”

“A-A small one, yes!”

She was cooking for herself? In a palace with thousands of servants?

Nenetl’s constant litany of apologies led me straight into her quarters’ main room, a large hall with a central table surrounded by scattered board games and other exotic decorations. Exquisitely crafted patolli boards with jade pieces waited next to a miniature replica of a ballgame court whose wooden players were held by sticks. Ceramic pots were piled in a corner next to painted dolls, bizarre clay figurines, obsidian mirrors, and a collection of various shiny stones with as many colors as the rainbow. I failed to find a pattern of any sort. I couldn’t even identify half the trinkets in this room.

However, none of the strange items in Nenetl’s collection could stand up to the Sapa’s tablet.

As per my orders, my servants had transported it to Nenetl’s apartments; though since it was ten feet high and half as wide, they had to put it sideways to fit it inside the hall. It remained as impressive as the day the ambassadors presented it to me, with its smooth volcanic stone surface covered in silver patterns mimicking the sky. An eclipsed sun of an obsidian stone circled with gold occupied the design’s center.

What did the Sapa call it again? The Chaskarumi? Its surface felt strangely warm when my fingers brushed against it. They said they used it to calculate the movement of the stars...

It was the eclipsed sun that fascinated me the most, however. I almost imagined the Chalchiuhtlicue’s dead one in its place, a purple circle raining tears onto a grim god’s skull. How would the Sapa have represented Tlalocan’s sky? A sapphire surrounded with burning rubies?

“I am so sorry, my Lord Iztac.” I turned my head to the side to see Nenetl walk out of an obsidian archway to my left. I caught a glimpse of a stone oven behind her. “I, I wanted to bake cacao sweets for you, but the fire, the fire is not… it’s not good enough…”

“I told you, call me Iztac, and skip the lord part,” I replied with a warm smile. “I’ve got enough flatterers to compensate.”

I meant it as a joke, terrible as it was, but it only caused her further distress. “I… I’m sorry. I forgot.”

I sighed and studied Nenetl. I had expected the most shy of my consorts to wear a dress or something formal; the way Ingrid had when I visited her mother. Instead, she welcomed me in a common, dirtied sleeveless blouse covered in chocolate stains and she had soot on her white hair and hands.

“You need not apologize, Nenetl,” I reassured her. The wolf inside her was buried very deep. “But, forgive me for asking… Why do you have a kitchen in your quarters?”

“I, uh, I cooked for the priests all my life.” She smiled shyly, her fingers trembling. “It… it calms me when I’m stressed.”

Considering how she looked, it didn’t help much. “I apologize if I put pressure on you,” I said. “I intended for today’s afternoon to be a relaxing moment.”

“No, no, this is all my fault, I–” Nenetl blushed enough to turn her pale skin scarlet. “It’s the first time I’ve hosted someone.”

“Truly?” I squinted at the dozen or so games she had laying around. “What are these for then?”

“I, uh…” Somehow Nenetl became even redder. “I… I mostly play against myself. I switch from one chair to another.”

That was both strangely adorable and terribly sad. If anything though, it made me appreciate her more.

She is painfully awkward and transparent, I thought, but it is all genuine.

“Well, now you have a partner,” I replied with amusement. “Though you’ll have to teach me how to play most of these.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Nenelt nodded joyfully. “I have patolli, Sapa games, that new Board & Conquest from the north. Which one would you like to try first, lor—Iztac?”

“Surprise me.” I hoped that by encouraging her to take charge, she would grow more comfortable around me. “We have the afternoon and evening ahead of us.”

“Oh, then we can try the Sapa games,” she happily suggested. Her eyes turned toward the Chaskarumi. “They are almost as pretty as this tablet.”

“I like it very much,” I confirmed. Though I would have to destroy it by the evening’s end.

All the pieces were now in place.

I activated the Gaze and the Veil spells in tandem. I immediately felt the weight of others’ attention on my shoulders. Nenetl, a rat hiding within the walls… and someone else.

This third presence immediately put me on edge. My entire plan revolved around deceiving a handful of people with my Veil spell. The more onlookers present, the greater the risk of failure. Moreover, the presence was close. So close it might as well have been…

Standing right in front of me.

I turned my sun-empowered eyes toward the Chaskarumi. My Gaze spell dispelled the illusions that covered its surface. The stars remained as sparkling as ever, shining lines of metal in a sea of blackened stone. But the eclipsed sun…

The obsidian stone at the center of the tablet had grown a reddish, vertical line in its middle. The golden circle’s curves had stretched left and right into a familiar shape. The same one I saw each morning when I cleaned before an obsidian mirror.

An eye.

Someone was observing us through the tablet.

Good, I thought, a smile on my lips. This would make things so much easier. Keep watching. You will like what you see.

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