Blood & Fur

Chapter Thirteen: Flowers of Evil

My heart pounded harder than a drum. My sun-blessed blood had turned to ice within my veins. My fingers had grown numb from the nerve-wracking tension, and I could feel the sweat falling off my forehead and onto Yoloxochitl’s arms.

I was naked in Ingrid’s bed, alone and defenseless with a mad Nightlord holding me against her chest as if she wanted to devour me. I could cut the tension in the air with a sacrificial knife.

How much did she know? How much did she know?

Calm down, Iztac, calm down, I told myself, desperately trying to control my breathing and keep a clear head. Mayhaps she only sensed a slight pulse of my Teyolia. She can’t possibly know about the Underworld, or I would already be bound and caged. I have to assuage her fears without giving anything important away. Say as little as possible–

“Why are you shaking, Iztac?” Yoloxochitl’s arms moved to my chest and held me in an unsettling embrace. Her skin was cold, colder than the Underworld. “Could you be afraid of me?”

Her kind smile unsettled me more than Tlalocan’s terrible flames. At least I knew where to stand with the latter. I could hardly predict what Yoloxochitl thought behind that eerie, pleasant face of hers.

You must speak a half-truth, Iztac, I told myself. If she smells a lie, I am dead.

“I am afraid,” I said, wording my words carefully. “You have been kind to me, and I fear I have done something deserving of your scorn.”

“Oh, my poor child, no, no, do not say that.” Yoloxochitl held me closer to her, my back on her chest, her lips gently kissing my sweat-drenched cheeks. Another man might have found the gesture sensual, even affectionate, but it only made my skin shiver. “Do you not understand, Iztac? You are perfect as you are.”

I let her touch me without reacting much, waiting for it to be over. Yoloxochitl finally released me from her embrace and rose from the bed, her red, flowery dress flowing in her wake like an ethereal veil.

“The fault lies with another, Iztac,” she said with a demure smile. “I was told you liked visiting the imperial gardens.”

With another? My mind worked furiously to decipher the Nightlord’s words. Does she know about the Parliament of Skulls? “Yes.”

“Then let us go for a walk. The dawn is still a good hour away.” She joined her hands and clapped. “Dress your emperor.”

Ingrid and Sigrun immediately walked into the bedroom with imperial clothes. Mother and daughter kept their heads down, avoiding both my gaze and that of Yoloxochitl. The Nightlord must have banished them both from their own chambers to keep me to herself.

Even the highest-ranked servant submits when the master walks in, I thought grimly as my consort and concubine covered my nakedness with a turquoise imperial mantle. Ingrid at least sent me a brief gaze full of worry, though I couldn’t tell if she feared for my safety or her own. Her fate was tied to mine. Her mother wisely acted no different than any slave.

Once she had me clothed like a pretty doll, Yoloxochitl invited me to follow her out of Sigrun’s apartments. Neither Ingrid nor her mother followed us. In fact, I immediately noticed the absence of guards of any sort. A Nightlord had no need for protection, but I took the absence of my usual jailers as a dire warning.

Is she leading me to the altar? I kept thinking as we walked down the palace’s stairs. Yoloxochitl indeed appeared to lead me toward the gardens, but I couldn’t rule out the possibility it was all a trap. The fault lies with another? What does that mean?

“What do you think of this Ingrid?” Yoloxochitl asked without warning. Her eyes did not smile when her lips did.

Did she find a way to blame Ingrid in her madness? I felt like a man walking on a sword’s edge, one step away from cutting myself. “She is…” I tried to find a compliment that wouldn’t arouse the Nightlord’s wrath. “Charming.”

“I dislike her,” Yoloxochitl declared, a sneer of disdain spreading on her fair face. “My sister Iztacoatl prefers exotic foreigners as her chosen consorts. All looks and no heart. That Ingrid is an opportunist, much like her own mother. She won’t love you.”

“Not like you do, oh goddess,” I replied. I meant it as a jab, but managed to word it as a compliment.

“You do not need to speak to me so formally, Iztac. We are family now, are we not?” Yoloxochitl gently stroked my hair, as if I were an adorable pet. “You may simply call me mother.”

I would rather have stayed an orphan, but I remembered Huehuecoyotl’s lessons. Yoloxochitl’s heart yearned for unconditional love; not the service and adoration of servants or the obedience enforced in her vampire children. I needed to become the dutiful son: the one who respected his elders and went along with their decisions when needed, but showed enough initiative to argue when needed.

If I failed to talk my way out of this, if Yoloxochitl ripped my veins open to see if my blood burned in the open air, I would have to use the Veil; and if it failed to deceive her… I would lose, and my skull would join those of my predecessors, but at least I would fight back.

“You need not worry, Mother Yoloxochitl,” I said, hating myself for calling her that at all. From the way her lips curved, she seemed to appreciate the name. “Ingrid might share my bed, but my heart belongs to another.”

“Indeed.” Yoloxochitl stopped in the middle of a stair step. Her hand brushed against my chest, slowly, dangerously. “You are a brave child.”

I half expected her nails to sink into my flesh and rip my heart out. I was tempted to activate the Veil and slip away, but kept enough of my composure to not to show a hint of worry. Eventually, Yoloxochitl’s hand traveled down to my navel, stopping short of my more intimate parts.

“At least Ingrid’s line has proved fertile. She should give me grandchildren in time. The other consorts possess a good enough constitution too.” Yoloxochitl removed her hand from my robes, much to my relief. “You might not realize it yet, Iztac, but fathering more blessed children is your holiest duty. Your sacred blood must keep flowing. Your seed enriches any soil in which it is planted.”

You will harvest none of the blood I sow, oh mother of madness, I promised myself. “I shall do my duty, Mother Yoloxochitl.”

Yoloxochitl nodded, happy with my answer. “I hope you beget a daughter,” she whispered wistfully. “I will be very gentle when I adopt her.”

The terrible memory of Eztli drinking her father to death flashed in my mind. But this time I imagined a girl with white hair and blue eyes sinking her fangs into a helpless man’s flesh in their place: a daughter I might have one day, and the fate that would await her should the Nightlords have their way.

Never, I swore to myself, using all my courage and willpower to hide my true feelings from my captor. I will destroy you first.

Yoloxochitl started singing to herself as we stepped into the imperial gardens, blissfully unaware of my silent hatred for her. The tune was slow in its joyful innocence, barely breaking through the gentle night breeze.

She will sing the same way when she leads you to the altar, the wind ominously whispered into my ear. In this world of suffering, there is no greater madness than an innocent heart.

For someone called the Flower of the Heart, I doubted Yoloxochitl had one.

“I must ask you again, Iztac,” she said as we walked among the orchids, her hand trailing among the petals. “Is there something you forgot to tell me?”

Now was the moment of truth. It took all of my willpower to lie to her with a straight face. “I do not remember hiding anything worth reporting to you, Mother.”

I could have sworn the orchids’ petals recoiled at my words. Yoloxochitl sent me a strange gaze. Where I expected anger at my lie, I instead found compassion. “My poor child,” she said. “You still do not see? You are better than this.”

Would you expect me to discard the sun for you?

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I thought, struggling to fake innocence. “Mother, forgive me, but I still do not understand you.”

“That whore, Necahual,” Yoloxochitl answered. “I know what she has done.”

“Necahual?” I stared at Yoloxochitl in utter confusion. She wasn’t here for my Teyolia? “What about her?”

Now she looked displeased. “Iztac, you need not lie for her sake.”

Has she discovered Necahual’s poison? I thought, desperately trying to figure out what was going on. My spine stiffened under the tension. Has Sigrun betrayed me?

“Yes, Iztac.” Yoloxochitl stroked my cheek in a way that would have felt motherly, if not for the cold edge in her eyes. “I know that ungrateful wench tried to raise her hand against you again.”

For a few seconds, I could hardly believe my ears. I was simply so taken aback, my mind so overtaken with fear and anxiety that the idea I might have misunderstood the reason behind Yoloxochitl’s presence seemed utterly absurd to me. I expected the other shoe to drop, for the Nightlord to reveal she knew of my nightly escapade. But when I searched her displeased expression, I could find none of her fury directed at me.

She… she doesn’t know about my Teyolia? I thought, gobsmacked. But the ritual… I don’t… what…

The wind whispered a riddle into my ear. The Father of Night obscures even the brightest stars, it said ominously. Even the sun shall bleed in the final feast.

I hardly understood the cryptic warning, but I figured it meant my secret was safe for now, for whatever reasons. My pounding heart slowed down, and I would have breathed a sigh of relief if not for Yoloxochitl’s next words.

“I should have her hand severed,” she said with a dangerous light in her eyes. “Maybe her tongue too.”

The tension in my flesh returned. My life was safe, but Necahual’s was now once again on the line. “Mother Yoloxochitl, you were misinformed,” I said, trying to word my supplication in a way that wouldn’t imply any mistake on her part. “This was all but play. I kissed her.”

“It did not sound like play from what I heard,” Yoloxochitl insisted. “She tried to slap you with her dirty hand. I would have executed her for less.”

And I thanked the gods below ground that it wasn’t the case. “It was a ploy on my end,” I lied. “I am taking my sweet time tormenting Necahual. I want to slowly put her through the same humiliations she visited upon me.”

“Then have her stoned,” Yoloxochitl ‘helpfully’ suggested. “A disobedient slave deserves worse than admonishment.”

My fists briefly tightened at the word slave, but too subtle for the Nightlord to notice. “It is not her flesh I wish to break,” I argued, “but her spirit.”

Yoloxochitl frowned in confusion. “Her spirit?”

“She has learned she can no longer raise her hand at me. That she was at my mercy.” That, at least, was true. “I will have her work like the most lowly servant and break her spirit. Only then, once she realizes she is my slave, will I claim her body.”

The lie flowed out easily, because I believed half of it. Though we had formed an alliance, part of me did enjoy getting back at Necahual for years of abuse. My words sounded good enough that Yoloxochitl squinted at me with slight incomprehension. “I see…”

Knowing it wouldn’t take long for her to default back to her inner cruelty, I decided to distract her away from Necahual’s fate. “There is another thing I wished to confess, Mother Yoloxochitl.”

“Oh?” Yoloxochitl immediately tilted her head to the side, immensely curious. “What secret have you been holding from me, Iztac?”

That I am planning your death, I thought. “That I wished to thank you for showing me forgiveness and shielding me from your sister’s wrath,” I said, the very words making me want to rip out my own tongue. “So I ordered Ingrid to commission a statue of you.”

“Oh, Iztac…” Yoloxochitl’s previous anger immediately vanished, replaced with emotion. My empty gesture appeared to have well and truly moved her. “That is so kind of you…”

And more than she deserved. “I wished to keep it a secret, but I believed you might wish to be consulted first.”

“I appreciate the gesture, but you did not need to.” She smiled sweetly, her fangs shining in the pale moonlight. “How would you wish to represent me, my child?”

Dead and buried, I thought. But as Huehuecoyotl so wisely taught me, she wanted to hear what her heart wanted. “Kindly offering me a helping hand.”

“You are wise, Iztac.” Yoloxochitl’s hand moved to her eye, to wipe away a tear of blood threatening to form. My words had hit right at home, and Necahual was soon completely forgotten. “Few of the previous emperors understood me as you do.”

Her lips closed into my forehead, kissing me the same way I had seen Necahual kiss her daughter when she offered her a gift. Eztli had always blushed in response; all I could do was suppress a shiver of disgust.

A cheap price to spare a life, I told myself. The more power I gather in the shadows, the quicker I can drag this fiend into the light.

“Perhaps…” Yoloxochitl whispered gently. “Perhaps I can show you the real me.”

Something in her tone—so rife with sinister, whimsical hopefulness—put ice in my veins. “The real you, Mother Yoloxochitl?”

“Like night and day, beauty and ugliness coexist within me. Long have I hoped for an emperor who could appreciate both.” She released her hold on my head, her crimson eyes two red orbs in a sea of darkness. “Do you enjoy gardening, Iztac?”

I noticed a subtle change in the environment. The orchids’ petals shifted slightly, even though the night breeze no longer touched them. The herbs beneath my feet shivered like a frightened man’s skin. The flowers’ fragrance gained a terribly familiar metallic edge.

Magic.

“I worked as a farmer,” I said evasively, struggling not to summon my Tonalli to protect myself from the danger I knew was coming.

“So you must be familiar with what it takes to keep a garden alive. A good gardener protects their flowers as if they were their children, for the most beautiful plants in the world are also the most fragile.”

Her hand moved to my chin and raised it slightly, so she could look into my eyes.

“Much like you, Iztac,” she said. “True beauty blossoms from pain and sorrow.”

And as she spoke these words, I caught a glimpse of a shape wriggling beneath her left cheek. A furtive sight similar to a snake lurking beneath a bedsheet, or a worm digging below her head and down her neck as the white in her sclera darkened to pitch black.

Her hands… I sensed something unnatural lurking in her fingers as she held me, like boiling water waiting to erupt from the ground. What… What's going on?

The roots wriggle beneath the flesh, the wind whispered ominously. The flower of madness blooms with murder.

“Come with me, Iztac,” Yoloxochitl whispered ever so gently. She took my hand into her own and invited me to step with her among the flowers. “I will show you my secret garden.”

Every primal instinct in my body screamed at me to run away, that something horrifying and unnatural was about to happen. I wanted to listen to them. To invent an excuse not to follow that madwoman into the bushes where the gods knew what terror she had cooked up for me.

But I could not avert my gaze. If I wanted to learn the Nightlords’ weakness, I had to step into the dark. No more than I could flinch from facing the hardships underground.

So I followed Yoloxochitl through the imperial gardens. Though we tread the same grounds I visited during the day, the area slowly changed before my eyes. Red, star-shaped flowers I did not recognize bloomed from briar patches. The branches of trees intertwined into an archway leading us deeper into the vegetation. A tense silence overcame the songs of birds and the droning buzz of bugs. Even the chilly night air grew hot and humid

“Our blood carries power, my child,” Yoloxochitl said, her free hand brushing against the red plants. Their thorns wriggled in response, like children swooning over their mother’s attention. “It strengthens the flesh of those who drink it and purifies their souls of treachery. Men and beasts gain beautiful red eyes mirroring their purity.”

The metallic stench grew overwhelming. I recognized the grove of trees around us. I had visited this place with Ingrid and Nenetl on the day I met them both. I heard the sound of liquid falling into the water as we approached the imperial ponds.

Be strong, Iztac, I told myself. Do not show fear.

“Flowers take the most after us,” Yoloxochitl mused. “They recoil from the sun… and feast at night.”

She had hung two people above the fountain.

Twisted black trees had sprouted from beneath the water, their branches impaling the arms of two naked men. Needles of wood peeled skin and flesh to feast on the warm blood hidden beneath. Red droplets dripped from ruptured hands and fell into the water below. Crimson lily pads gathered in clusters to share in the feast of blood.

Scars of whips and blades covered the naked skin of the two men. Though muscled, blood loss had drained them of color into the pallid hue that preceded incoming death. They felt familiar, but I did not recognize them until I noticed the red hue in their empty eyes. They were my guards.

The very same guards that stood by when Necahual attempted to slap me.

The powerful never reward loyalty, only usefulness, the wind whispered. Yet the weak always fail to learn.

“But I…” My stomach soured at the sight of their chests rising and contracting. They were still alive. The plants would not let them die until they had drained every last drop of blood. “I stopped her.”

“It matters not to me. That they put you in danger at all is reason enough for punishment.” Yoloxochitl let go of my hand, her voice growing deeper. “The very sight of them fills me with loathing…”

I dared peek at her, and immediately regretted it.

Yoloxochitl’s slim, beautiful body had grown bloated and misshapen. Her robes tore under the strain of expanding flesh, which now threatened to burst open. Her eyes had sunk into her deformed bones. My breath grew short as I caught a glimpse of tentacles wriggling beneath her skin.

“Do not look away, Iztac.”

Her voice had grown deep as a bottomless void, yet remained so kind, so very gentle, even as she shed her skin like a cloth.

The monster burst from Yoloxochitl’s body in the blink of an eye, as great as a tree and as thick as a bramble. A woman as thin as the Nightlord shouldn’t have kept something so big and terrible hidden within herself, but neither the rules of nature nor those of sanity applied to this abomination. Its shape was vaguely humanoid, two trunks of flesh roots supporting a steaming chest of pulsing fruits filled with blood and arms covered in fungi blisters. The shadow of an elongated, eyeless red skull was throned atop the monster, its rows of white fangs sharper than any sword. The sides of the tentacled monstrosity swelled with root-like white tentacles grasping for more. Purple flowers grew on the body like a parody of a dress. The reddest of them bloomed on the chest, its flesh petals pulsating like a beating heart.

What… What is this thing? My mind came to a screeching halt as it tried to process what my eyes saw. The creature was neither plant nor man, nor even alive. What…

“This is simply nature at work,” the abomination said. Her tentacles grabbed one of the men and carried him across the pond, closer to us. “Weeds that threaten my beautiful flower…”

The red-eyed guard did not make a sound as his mistress welcomed him with a grasping maw.

“Must be nipped in the bud.”

Her fangs closed on my guard, biting him in half from the waist up and spraying me with a shower of blood.

It felt warm pouring down from above. The gruesome nectar drenched my skin and tainted my robes. I did not step away. I did not walk away. My body was frozen in place by dread, my eyes unable to close, my ears unable to hear anything but the noise of fangs chewing flesh.

I could only wait for the sunrise.

The feast ended at dawn.

Yoloxochitl did not leave a single bone behind. Once she finished, she shapeshifted back into her human shape, her naked skin drenched in blood. She held me into her loving arms and whispered, “I love you,” before slithering away among the receding shadows. The vampiric flowers fled underground in her wake.

When servants came for me a few minutes later to carry me away, utterly ignorant of what terrible roots grew beneath their feet, I did not resist. I let them take my clothes and slid my naked body into steaming hot water.

“Iztac?” Necahual’s voice whispered out to me through the mists of steam. I hadn’t noticed her among the servants. Her hands were gentle when they cleaned the blood off my face with a towel. “Iztac, what happened?”

That was a new thing I heard in her voice: a slight hint of worry. I did not answer it with words. My unblinking eyes stared at the nearest wall, whose polished white marble surface reminded me of bones.

How many skeletons are buried under the gardens? I wondered. How many corpses have I stepped on in my afternoon strolls?If all those plants require blood to survive, how much does it take to water them each day? Two men’s worth of fluid?

That made it what, over seven hundred murders per year? For a garden. Not a Nightkin child or infrastructure with any tangible benefit, however grim.

A garden. Seven hundred deaths a year. Only the gods could know how many of them. Fifty years? A century? That would make seventy-thousand. Seventy-thousand deaths.

“Stay away from the gardens at night,” I told Necahual, my voice hollow. “For your sake.”

“I… I do not understand.”

And she should thank the gods below for it. I did not elaborate. My mind kept wandering back to that horrid thing in the darkness. What kind of warrior could hope to uproot that bloody tree and pierce her rotten heart? None. None at all.

The servants clothed me in smooth cotton robes, though I still felt dirty inside. Necahual offered me a cup full of a greenish mixture whose flowery fragrance did not smell of blood.

“For the nerves,” she said, somewhat awkwardly. It felt strange for her to act with kindness towards me. “It will soothe your mind.”

“Thank you.” I appreciated the gesture, but no drug would help me forget what I had seen. Nor did I want to. I needed to remember that the Nightlords’ cruelty knew no bounds. It would make the tasks ahead easier to justify. “It will help with my morning meditation.”

Necahual nodded slightly, a hint of unease on her face. She followed me all the way to the Reliquary’s threshold. Did she hope to protect me? Or was she afraid I would do something foolish in my current state?

She did not need to worry. My mind was clear.

I stepped alone into the darkness of the shrine and faced the bones of my predecessors. The skulls’ eyes lit up at my approach. They did not offer greetings, or words of comfort. They would have been wasted.

Instead, they spoke the truth. “You have seen her true self.”

“Are they all like this?” I dared to ask. “All four?”

“Yes,” my predecessors confirmed. “Each advent of the Scarlet Moon strengthens the Nightlords’ foul magic and separates them further from humanity. Their human skin is but a shell, an echo of what they discarded long ago.”

The thing that called itself Yoloxochitl… something like that didn’t belong in this world nor the next.

“Now, do you understand why everything is forgiven in the pursuit of our goal?” The Parliament let out a grim rattle. “You are not fighting undead women with more power than any mortal. You are fighting demons hiding beneath a mask of humanity. A veneer that grows thinner with each cycle of death.”

I knew. I knew, but I didn’t fully understand. Destroying such abominations would demand absolute commitment. I had wavered on the means to use and their consequences. No longer. A war was a small price to pay to rid mankind of these… these demons.

“What weaknesses do they have?” I asked the Parliament.

“The same as all children of the night.” The skulls grinned as one. “The sun.”

Whose light now flowed through my veins. If I could lull Yoloxochitl into drinking my blood at the correct time, I could weaken her. Probably not to the point of destroying her outright—Mictecacihuatl’s warning came to mind—but enough to give me a chance at slaying her.

But my blood was meant for the First Emperor’s altar, to be shed on the night of the Scarlet Moon and no sooner. What would it take to tempt Yoloxochitl into violating that ancient tradition? Much effort, no doubt, and great sacrifices.

I will pay any, I swore to myself. My dignity, my body, my soul… I will do whatever it takes.

“We are pleased with your progress,” my predecessors congratulated me. “Your Teyolia burns with the embers of the fourth sun. In time, it will shine like the fifth.”

“Why did the Nightlords not notice?” I asked. “My heart is bound to their ritual.”

“So are we,” the Parliament answered. “Our spirits clouded your heart’s transformation from the Nightlords’ gaze. What happens in the Land of the Dead Suns shall remain hidden from their view, at least for now.”

“Thank you, my predecessors.” Still, I noticed the subtle warning. “For now? Not forever?”

“Should you continue to harvest the embers, there will come a time when your heart shines too bright for our shadows to cover. The Nightlords will learn the truth then.”

There would come a time when my growing power would force a confrontation. “How many suns will it take?”

“We cannot say. We have never been in our current position.” The Parliament’s thousand glowing eyes stared at me with sympathy. “Approach each sun as if it were your last.”

How many would it take to burn the Nightlords to cinders, I wondered. What happened tonight only strengthened my resolve to delve into Tlalocan as soon as I mastered my spells.

“Now tell us of your other exploits,” the Parliament said. “Did you uncover new spells in the city of the dead?”

I gave them a report on my progress, how I had unlocked the door to Tlalocan and the Veil spell. The previous emperors greeted my words with enthusiasm.

“Your progress pleases us,” they said. “The Veil shall serve you well in the battles to come, whether waged on the battlefield or in a council room. Though venturing into Tlalocan appears premature for now. You best equip yourself in Mictlan.”

“I must still practice the Doll and the Veil spells more,” I warned my predecessors. “But I am confident I can trick a few onlookers.”

The emperors’ skulls fell silent for a few seconds, meditating on my words. “You plan to use it today. To deceive the empire into starting a war.”

They had guessed my plan, and its consequences.

“Yes.” I’d made my decision the moment I saw Yoloxochitl’s true form. “I… I will do what I must do to bring this house of skulls down.”

One must give before they receive. This law applied to magic and the gods. Now I realized it would apply to the world of the living too. I wouldn’t win without making a sacrifice.

The Parliament gazed at me with what could pass for grim sympathy. They offered me words of comfort. “All sins are forgiven in the pursuit of a righteous cause, our successor. Always remember these words. Our path is paved with blood and tears, but we must tread it nonetheless.”

Thousands would die, but there would come a night where no vampire would water their gardens with fresh blood. At least I prayed for it.

“You wish to meet with your fellow Nahualli tonight,” the Parliament murmured. “It is now time to put her latent powers to the test.”

“You said you had a way of revealing her Tonalli?” I hoped Nenetl would be a Tlacatecolotl. An ally would greatly help me survive the Underworld.

“Indeed.” The Parliament’s eyes glowed with a blue radiance, similar to the pale moonlight. “Through our discussions with the dead that wandered through the Gate of Skulls, we have learned of the existence of a spell called the Gaze; one that relies on a sorcerer’s Teyolia and reveals all that is hidden. Your inner radiance will dispel shadows and force out the truth. Use it on this Nenetl to unveil her animal spirit.”

“Can it shatter the Veil spell?” I wondered, squinting. “Huehuecoyotl assured me no spell could.”

“The trickster puts too much faith in his power, but he is not entirely wrong,” the Parliament replied. “From what we were taught, the Gaze spell is only as strong as its wielder. A man’s Teyolia is a feeble ember, barely able to show him the way in the dark, and a Nightkin does not even have that. Your heart, however, carries the power of a dead god’s sun. It might help you dissipate weak illusions.”

Good. If I could avoid trickery from the Nightlords, I could at least lift some doubts from my heart. “How does one use this spell?”

“According to what we learned, you must focus on your heartbeat,” the Parliament taught me. “Look at the light within yourself and guide your Teyolia’s flame to your eyes. Let the sun shine through your gaze.”

I sat inside the Reliquary and practiced as I was told. The spell came surprisingly easy to me. The fire slumbering within me desired to be unleashed unto the world. I guided the magical flame coursing through my veins to my eyes, until purple light shone from them.

My gaze illuminated the darkness around me, unveiling the obsidian walls of the Reliquary and other hidden details. Most importantly, I noticed four ephemeral, coiling chains of shadows binding my predecessors’ skulls to the ground. The very same bindings that enslaved me to the Nightlords.

One day, I will sit in this room and watch them shatter, I told myself. “This spell is noticeable.”

“It should only reveal the truth to you,” the Parliament replied. “Cloak it in the Veil to hide it from others.”

I called upon my Tonalli to hide the Gaze spell’s blinding light behind an illusion of normalcy. While I managed to shroud my inner light, my eyes quickly started to hurt. They felt as if they were drying, and I had little choice but to stop both spells.

Fools looking at the sun too long go blind, I realized. The sunlight within me will do the same if I keep the Gaze spell up too long.

In this world full of liars, I would have to use the truth sparingly.

“Hours pass and your council meeting approaches,” the Parliament warned me. “We know another Ihiyotl spell to teach you, but it shall wait until our next meeting. We wish you good luck until we meet again.”

I nodded sharply as I rose to my feet. “When I come back, the empire will be at war.”

The skulls ominously grinned at me. “Good.”

Somehow, their congratulations did not bring me any joy.

I walked out of the Reliquary to find two new guards waiting outside. They appeared younger than Yoloxochitl’s victims, though no less foolish.

“I will visit one of my consorts tonight,” I said. “My dear Nenetl loves games and foreign objects. Gather my collection in her apartment.”

“As you wish, oh emperor,” answered one of them with a deep bow. “Is there any object you wish to showcase in particular?”

“We are to play Sapa board games, so bring what we have on their culture.” Especially that magical tablet, I thought. The Gaze will reveal to me its secrets, and the Veil shall add weight to my lies.

The Parliament of Skulls warned me that the Nightlords would not attack the Sapa unless forced to. With the Veil spell, I could gain the perfect pretext. One not even my cruel captors could ignore.

By sunset, I would have my war.