Blood & Fur

Chapter Thirty-One: Consequences

The night ended like it began: in blood and tears.

The Jaguar Woman remained true to her word. To punish my hesitation, a hundred concubines were picked at random, brought to the temple, and fed to the sulfur flame. Old and young, foreign captives or locals, weak and strong, it mattered not. Some screamed, some begged, some prayed, and some fought, it mattered not. They all died. Every single one of them. They all perished, murdered for nothing, their throat slit by fangs, their tears drowned in blood.

I understood what the Jaguar Woman meant when she said we were all the same meat to her. By the twentieth execution all these lives started to blur together. A hundred victims became a procession of forgettable faces. Turkeys fed to the charnel pit.

The Jaguar Woman forced me to watch each time. Every last execution.

“This is your fault,” she would whisper into my ear when the Nightkin tossed a corpse into the sulfur flame. “You killed them.”

Perhaps she thought I would believe her lie if she repeated it often enough.

It’s not a full lie. No matter how much I told myself otherwise. My hesitation and foolishness did cost them their lives.

I would not make that mistake again.

Ingrid, Necahual, and Eztli also bore witness to the massacre. Ingrid cried and puked halfway through. I wanted to hold her in my arms, but the Nightlords would not grant me that small mercy. Necahual stood as still as stone all night long with hollow eyes, retreating into herself to spare her mind another nightmare. Only Eztli observed the massacre with unflinching coldness. Her mother survived the ordeal. That was all that mattered to her.

“This seems excessive, Sister,” Yoloxochitl complained. She alone among the Nightlords appeared disturbed by the gruesome spectacle. “Iztac’s suffered enough. He does not deserve this.”

Her concern might have been heartwarming, if she had shown any sorrow for the victims. She only cared about how their deaths affected me, her favorite.

“You cannot put a price on a lesson,” the Jaguar Woman replied dismissively. “He will never forget it.”

No, I would not. I would never forget.

“Such a waste,” Iztacoatl grunted in frustration, but not out of any moral qualms. “Sigrun added spice and intrigue to a routine that had become far too predictable. I hope your sister will prove as entertaining when she comes of age, Ingrid.”

Ingrid was too occupied holding back vomit with her hands to answer. This drew a sneer from Iztacoatl.

“Worry not, Ingrid,” the Nightlord said with all the sweetness of rancid honey. “Your mother’s soul is in a… warmer place.”

One day, I would feed Iztacoatl to the flames. I swore it.

“The night cometh to an end,” the Jaguar Woman said as we climbed down from the hill of ashes, her voice cutting through the chitchat like a sword through flesh. “Necahual Ce Quiahuitl.”

My mother-in-law’s back tensed up as a bowstring, as did mine. Eztli did her best not to show concern for her birth mother, but the worry in her eyes betrayed her true feelings.

“Our emperor has cursed you with life.” Somehow, the Jaguar Woman made gruesomely burning at the pyre sound like an honor. “You shall dedicate it to him, body and soul.”

Necahual lowered her head to avoid the Nightlord’s unfeeling gaze. “I understand.”

“Escort him back to his chambers and fulfill his wishes. A long day awaits him.” The Jaguar Woman summoned a shroud of darkness and offered me a final, ominous warning. “We shall wait for you until the next twilight, our Godspeaker.”

She vanished into the shadows without any other comment. Sugey and Iztacoatl did not linger long either, leaving only Yoloxochitl behind.

“I am deeply sorry for tonight, Iztac,” she said. She even sounded sincere. “I shall ensure your consort and her sister are taken care of.”

I turned to Ingrid. My orphaned consort, once so regal and dignified, knelt in a puddle of her own vomit and tears. Her fair skin was paler than chalk. Her graceful hands covered her mouth in a desperate attempt to silence her own sobs.

I raised my hand towards her. “Ingrid, I–”

Ingrid recoiled from my touch and comfort. The frightful look she sent me, so full of abject dread and horror, left me sweating and spooked.

She’s terrified of me. The Jaguar Woman alone heard my first choice of sacrifice, so Ingrid believed I ordered her mother’s death after all she did for me. She believed me to be a bastard willing to kill a woman only a few hours after sleeping with her. This is the worst outcome.

“Take her to her apartments to rest,” Yoloxochitl ordered a set of Nightkin. “The priests will wash her.”

The thought of priests or vampires doing that to Ingrid’s sister Astrid made me nauseous. These two would need comfort, for whatever it was worth in this prison. Thankfully, a voice interjected.

“If I may, Mother,” Eztli said with a dutiful tone. “As her fellow consort, I would like to take care of her.”

Yoloxochitl frowned at her. “Are you certain, my daughter?”

“Yes,” Eztli confirmed. “She is family too.”

Eztli understood how it felt to lose a parent. Even in undeath, she could still empathize with Ingrid over it. She moved to gently take her fellow consort into her arms and lift her up to her feet. Ingrid froze at her touch, but didn’t push her back like she did with me. I could not tell whether I should rejoice or despair.

“Thank you,” I whispered to Eztli.

My oldest friend did not answer me. She looked up to hold my gaze, and all I could see was disappointment.

She knew.

Eztli knew I tried to sacrifice her mother instead of Sigrun. She had read it on my lips and my face, and resented me for it. I could see it written all over her sorrowful gaze. She wasn’t angry or furious, or at least not anymore. She was simply saddened by my choice.

It hurt more than fury.

I watched Eztli carry Ingrid out of the temple without a word. I didn’t know what to say, and whatever I could come up with would not soothe the pain. Had I lost two consorts tonight? I hoped I could salvage this disaster somehow, but I was too emotionally drained to think straight. We all needed to clear our heads.

“I swear to you, Iztac, I will do everything in my power to find better replacements for those you have lost tonight,” Yoloxochitl promised me. “You will soon forget about that witch.”

There will always be more women, more men, more thralls, the Jaguar Woman told me atop the hill of ashes. Each of them can be replaced.

“I will ensure your favorites and descendants are shielded from my sister’s wrath,” Yoloxochitl promised me. “Ocelocihuatl is not unreasonable. If you show her you understood her lesson, she will let it stand.”

I had already seen how much her support was worth in the face of her sisters’ cruelty: nothing. Instead of showing righteous anger, I pretended to accept her words as the truth with a short nod.

“Thank you, Mother Yoloxochitl,” I replied. “You alone spoke up in my defense. I will not forget it.”

Yoloxochitl gave me what could pass for a motherly smile; one that only lasted until she remembered Necahual’s existence. My mother-in-law did her best not to make a noise.

“Perhaps you should kill this one too,” Yoloxochitl said with a glint of madness burning in her eyes. “I can tell that she will grow more insolent with time.”

Yoloxochitl loathed Necahual. She wanted my mother-in-law out of her way so she could claim Eztli for herself, and only allowed her to live because I promised to torment her myself. Twice now I had saved her from execution.

Necahual would never be safe so long as the Nightlords lived. The Jaguar Woman made that clear. The best I could do was to take Yoloxochitl off her back, and I could only see one way to guarantee it. One I loathed from the very bottom of my heart.

“No, she won’t,” I replied with a cold dead voice. “I will teach her a lesson of my own. She will remember her place.”

Necahual bit her lip at my tone, while Yoloxochitl rejoiced. Deep down, she was as cruel as the Jaguar Woman. She simply reserved her viciousness for the few rather than the many.

“Good,” the Nightlord said. “We shall meet again at sundown then.”

At long last I could finally leave this temple and leave this madwoman behind. Necahual meekly followed after me, our footsteps filling the silence. My mother-in-law dared not to say anything. She still feared for her life.

She was right too. No one was safe in this prison of a palace. Defiance was punished and service went unrewarded. Even death was no escape from a vampire’s appetite. Our pain followed neither rhyme nor reason.

It’s so hard to keep your pride in this place. My body grew heavier with each footstep. The anger that fueled me lessened, replaced with gloom. How much more pain can I endure before I lose mine too?

This year of nightmares would feel like a lifetime, and the war with the Sapa hadn’t even started yet.

My royal chambers felt cold and unwelcoming when I returned. I stared at the bed and its newly clean sheets. Lady Sigrun shared them with me a scant few hours ago. No traces of her passage remained. The undisputed queen of the imperial harem for fifteen years running would be replaced in a fortnight.

Ingrid and Eztli too. They’d both shared this place with me, and now they were gone. Maybe forever.

It killed me.

I… I couldn’t explain it. The anger that sustained me, the silent hatred that gave me the strength to lie to the Nightlords’ faces and walk all the way to this pampered prison, the divine energy that flowed through my body… they all vanished in an instant. Candles snuffed out. Light swallowed by the night.

I had pushed back all the pain, all the fear, all the sorrow, and all the despair back into the dark corners of my mind. I watched Sigrun die, the first of a hundred. I buried the anguish deep inside my heart. When I tried to remember what I was fighting for, all I could recall were Ingrid’s fear and Eztli’s disappointment.

I had strained a muscle too hard, except it was inside my soul rather than beneath my skin.

I sat on the bed’s edge, unable to muster the strength to do anything else. I stared into the distance with hollow eyes and shivering hands. I didn’t have the will to do anything, even sleep.

A bucket of water had suddenly doused the fire in me and left a hole in its place. I didn’t think I could summon my Tonalli. The owl in me had gone deathly quiet. The Jaguar Woman had brutally cowed it back into its birdcage.

I sat alone in silence, surrounded by unfeeling mute guards and the woman I’d tried to sacrifice moments ago.

Of all people, it was Necahual who tried to comfort me. After a short moment’s worth of hesitation, she sat at my side and clumsily hugged me.

I felt nothing.

No warmth. No comfort. No relief.

Just arms trying to give all these things and failing miserably.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Necahual whispered to me. “It is their own. No one should have had to make that choice. It wasn’t your fault.”

I didn’t have enough strength left to look at her. “I chose you.”

“I know.” Necahual took a long, deep breath. “I do not hate you for it. I would have accepted death.”

“You might wish they had killed you too.” Maybe I should have killed Sigrun. Spared her soul a terrible fate. “Maybe they will kill you, or beat you, or rape you, or all at once.”

“Let them.” Necahual leaned in closer to whisper in my ear, too low for anyone else to hear. “So long as you kill them all and free my daughter.”

Free Eztli? Eztli was gone. I had clung to her shadow and even lost that.

“Why bother?” I asked.

For the first time since I’d been branded by the Nightlords, I started asking myself: why bother?

The Nightlords hated strength, in me and everyone else. Resistance excited them like blood from a shark. If I held on to it, to hope, they would keep crushing it. They would find new tortures to put me through. Kill and maim. A month hadn’t gone by yet and I’d already seen a lifetime’s worth of horrors. Sleep meant returning to another hell, under the guidance of a woman who would gladly let me die to protect herself.

Spending an eternity buried in the Parliament of Skulls couldn’t be worse than a year of this treatment. Even gathering the dead suns’ embers only offered a meager hope of victory.

Perhaps I should simply remember my place and enjoy my remaining time in peace. That was what everyone else did, inside these walls and out.

Necahual let go of me. I felt her judging gaze. I would have glared back at her once, matched hate with hate… but not tonight. Maybe never again.

No, I can’t think like this. I held my head in my hands. My fingers were cold and numb. They offered me no comfort, but at least I did not fall down. This is just temporary, Iztac. Get a hold of yourself. You can’t think like this. You can’t let despair crawl its way in. If you don’t save yourself, no one else will.

That wasn’t me.I wasn’t a meek turkey like everyone else. I wasn’t weak.

A pair of hands took my own.

“You are not weak, Iztac.”

When I regained awareness, I found myself facing Necahual. She moved from the bed to the floor, kneeling in front of me and holding my hands. Did she think switching places would help?

“I feel weak,” I replied.

And it was awful.

Necahual glared at me. Here it was, that same look of disgust and contempt that had followed me for so many years. Somehow it still managed to raise my blood pressure a tiny bit.

After a short moment of silence, Necahual moved my hands to her throat. She placed my fingers around her soft neck and waited. Waiting for what?

“Do whatever you want with me,” she whispered.

My eyes widened slightly. Was she serious?

“Whatever it takes for you to feel strong again,” she insisted in her madness. “I will bear it.”

By the gods, she was serious. “You are insane.”

“And you’re a coward,” Necahual said. When I didn’t answer, she spat at my imperial robes. “Cursed child.”

I squeezed.

Necahual coughed as my hands closed around her throat. My fingers warmed up as they tightened their grip. My cold dead heart pounded in my chest once again. The more her lungs struggled to grasp for air, the more fearful she looked, the more I returned to life.

Her contemptuous glare had turned into a look of fear and submission. Her face slowly turned pale streaked with blue. Her hands trembled, but they did not claw at my arms. She did not resist. Would not resist.

The guards did nothing to stop me. They would do nothing if I killed her. They would drag the corpse away, maybe bring me another victim.

Necahual’s life was in my hands. Figuratively and literally.

And however wrong it was, it felt good. It felt good to be on the other side. To torment rather than be tormented. There was no nobility in being a victim.

That’s how she felt when she threw stones at me. That was how Necahual dealt with her fear of me. Of Mother. I’m seeing the appeal now.

I wasn’t strong, because beating the weak couldn’t possibly be true strength… but for a brief moment, I felt that way. The owl inside me woke up, attracted by the smell of death and carrion.

Necahual danced on the edge between life and death. Her face was turning blue. However, she did not defend herself. True to her word, she would accept death if it meant keeping me in the fight.

I let go of her throat before it came to that.

Necahual immediately gasped for hair, her hands massaging her skin. My fingers had left red streaks where they touched her. I watched her slowly recover, scoffing to myself. I couldn’t believe her audacity.

Necahual knew me well; perhaps better than anyone save her own daughter. She understood I didn’t need comfort. I needed revenge.

“Anything, huh?” I said.

Necahual nodded slowly, her hands still massaging her throat.

If a woman so petty could find the resolve to carry on on behalf of another, then I had no excuses to give up.

It didn’t matter whether Ingrid and Eztli grew to dislike me, so long as they lived through this year of nightmares. So long as no one I cared about died a gruesome death like their mother and father respectively. I had no more time to waste on guilt or pity. Not as long as the Nightlords haunted the earth.

“I need a bath,” I declared. No amount of water could wash away the stench of blood, but I could at least try.

I moved to my private baths, with Necahual following closely behind. I sank naked into warm waters until only my head remained atop the surface. My mother-in-law quickly rubbed my shoulders.

It didn’t help. I felt unclean. I felt sick, and stained, and drenched in filth. No amount of soap would wash away that stain, that crippling sensation of weakness and humiliation. Only vampire blood could do that.

The bath helped me focus, however, and the running waters would cover our discussions. I thought of a new strategy going forward.

Lady Sigrun hid the First Emperor’s codex, or at least hints to its location, under her room’s altar. I would use the pretext of visiting Ingrid and Astrid to check up on it later after the morning’s audience.

I would need to salvage what I could from her spy network too. Ingrid wouldn’t fill the void even if she wanted to. No spy would swear long-term allegiance to a young woman promised to death within a year’s time.

“I accept your offer,” I whispered to Necahual.

She leaned in closer to listen over the noise of running water. No one would hear us.

“I will make a witch out of you, but in return I will take everything. Everything.” I would hesitate no longer. “Your service begins now.”

Necahual tried to hide her excitement behind a blank expression, but her eyes were alight with interest. “I’m listening.”

“Sigrun’s death means the loss of her spy network, and I can’t trust anyone else. You will have to pick up where she left off.”

My mother-in-law immediately deflated. “I do not know how to.”

“I do,” I replied. “I intended to settle the Tlaxcala and Tlazohtzin’s feud in Lady Sigrun’s presence. You will be there instead. Whenever I make important decisions, you will be there, in a corner, waiting.”

Necahual sneered. “Like a pet.”

“Yes, like a pet. My pet.” I glanced at her wounded throat. I would bet the Nightkin hidden in the walls already reported the incident to Yoloxochitl with delight. “This ought to take Yoloxochitl off your back for now.”

Necahual squinted slightly. She wasn’t stupid. She could connect the dots. “Even a tormented pet has the master’s ears.”

“Exactly.” I briefly raised my hand above the water’s surface, my movement sending a small ripple through the bath. “You will go meet the other concubines. Those who survived this night’s purging are sure to be on edge. All of them will fear for their lives once the truth comes out. They will want to get in my good graces, because like Sigrun before them they think that my favor will spare them an early grave.”

“I will say I can mention their names,” Necahual guessed. “You want to make me your gatekeeper.”

“Lady Sigrun can’t have been the only one with a spy network among the imperial harem. The institution must be rife with upstarts.” Desperate upstarts. “Select those who can be helpful to us. Make it a competition.”

Necahual nodded obediently. “I will do my best.”

“Next…” I breathed in the steam of the bath. “You will go to Ingrid and Astrid.”

Necahual scowled at me, puzzled.

“They need someone to support them in their grief,” I explained. And they won’t accept me. “Astrid especially. She has no one to take care of her besides her sister, who is not long for this world if we fail.”

“They will resent me,” Necahual warned me. “Their mother died in my place.”

“Good thing you’re used to being disliked.” I snorted at her glare. “It is a bad job, but someone has to do it.”

Necahual gave me a quizzical look, but did not deny my request. “I will do my best.”

I closed my eyes, letting the warm waves of the bath batter against my cheeks. I was tired.

So very tired.

I awoke among the dead and facing a wall of corpses.

The Underworld tunnel which my mother and I had retreated into changed greatly in my absence. A dozen Burned Men were nailed to the stone in front of me in a gruesome tapestry of flesh, their hands and feet joined together in a sinister procession. Baleful eldritch symbols had been carved into their seared bones and now burned with a sinister red glow. Their hate-filled eyes glared at me with bottomless malice.

“Welcome back, my son.” Mother greeted me while placing an obsidian nail in a Burned Man’s feet. The undead had holes where the lungs and mouth should be; only silence escaped from them. My carrying frame and its precious content lay right next to them. “I hope your day was fulfilling.”

I must have fallen asleep in the bath. I couldn’t take my eyes off the wall. I counted twelve Burned Men, each of them surgically silenced. The brutality of this display paled before what the Nightlords could come up with, but it still unsettled me. What a gruesome sight.

“What happened?” I asked Mother. “What is this?”

“They tried to rob your belongings in your sleep, so I punished them accordingly.” Mother contemplated her work with what could pass for professional satisfaction. “Have you considered my proposition?”

“Yes, I have.” This nightmarish night cured me of my hesitation. “I will Curse Smoke Mountain. You may bring how many sacrifices you need.”

Mother studied my face with her icy blue eyes. They reminded me of the Jaguar Woman’s, cold and merciless. However, unlike the Nightlord’s heartless cruelty, I detected a hint of concern coming from the woman who brought me into the world.

“Something happened,” she guessed. “A hammer’s blow that sharpened your edge.”

“The Nightlords forced me to kill over a hundred innocents.” My talons did not end Lady Sigrun’s life, nor the women who followed her into the flame, but I bore part of the blame nonetheless. “At this point, what is one more body on the pile?”

All these deaths couldn’t have been for nothing.

Mother nodded in appreciation. “You understand what it means to be a Tlacatecolotl then,” she said. “We are the owl-fiends. Demons born of death and misfortune. If the folks above had lived dutiful lives, they would not have created us.”

“I do not care for reasons or excuses.” I would shoulder whatever sins I had to commit in the service of my cause. “I just want the Nightlords gone. My predecessors are right. No matter what crimes I commit to destroy them today, it pales before the evil they will spread tomorrow.”

“Wise words. I can proceed with the ritual then.” Mother waved a hand at her mural. “I am certain that you have heard tales of possession. Fools who say that spirits rode their bodies and drove them to madness. There is a kernel of truth to these stories.”

I quickly read between the lines. “You can send souls up above?”

“No, not until the Day of the Dead. However, an Underworld spirit may temporarily control a living human from the Land of the Dead Suns under the right circumstances.” Mother placed her hand on a Burning Man’s chest. The malevolent corpse helplessly attempted to reach for her with his head, as if to bite her throat off without his toothless mouth. “This is the Ride spell: by inscribing a mortal’s true name onto the etched bones of the dead, it can allow the latter to possess the former for a brief period of time.”

“You gathered the names of people living on Smoke Mountain with the Augury,” I guessed.

“Sharp boy,” Mother complimented me. “The Burning Men despise everyone and everything. Whereas most spirits do their best to enjoy their brief time among the living, all they do is kill. Most throw their hosts off bridges out of spite when they feel their control waver.”

A chill traveled down my spine. She intended to send these madmen above and let them leave a trail of corpses in their wake. I would have no small amount of fresh bodies in which to place my feathers and sustain my Haunt spell.

However brutal, this method interested me. As far as most humans were concerned, this would be an untraceable method of assassinating targets.

“Can we use the spell on ourselves?” I asked, my eyes lingering on my exposed ribcage. “To possess those above?”

“Yes, of course. I have ridden a few men and women myself.” Mother let out a chuckle. “Now that I think of it, that may be poor phrasing.”

“Is the victim aware of the possession?” The more we discussed this spell, the more it appealed to me. “What are its limits?”

“The victim does not remember anything that happens during the possession, although they might recall parts of it through nightmares,” Mother explained. “We sadly cannot use our other spells through a host, however.”

“Because our soul remains in the Underworld?”

“Yes,” Mother confirmed. “Otherwise, the Ride spell cannot affect supernatural creatures like vampires or the Mallquis. Red-eyed priests are much harder to take over than most mortals due to their foul blood, but this limit can be overcome with sufficient preparations. Finally, most Riders rarely last more than a few hours before the native soul ejects them. My current best is twelve, though I have high hopes of refining the spell until the possession becomes permanent.”

“Permanent?” I squinted at her. “You intend to steal another’s life for yourself?”

“Why not?” Mother looked at me as if I had asked the stupidest of questions. “Our mortal bodies have finite time, Iztac. A hundred years is too short a time to master the abyss of sorcery. If we are to ascend ever higher, we must find ways to extend our lifespan in a way that will preserve our magic. Becoming a Mallquis or vampire would bar us from the Underworld, so we must find other alternatives. Permanently transplanting our minds into new vessels is a potential solution.”

The idea left me uneasy, but I hardly saw any downside in permanently taking over the likes of Tezozomoc. Whatever new soul rode his body would be an improvement over its previous occupant.

However, the thought of living forever was a far away prospect. I would be greatly lucky to survive the year at all.

“The Ride spell will not save your soul,” Mother warned me, as if sensing my thoughts. “So long as your spirit remains bound to the vampires’ curse, it will find no rest.”

“I suspected as much.” I shrugged. “I would like to learn this spell too. It will come in handy.”

“You will master it in due time.” A terrible screech echoed from outside our hideout. Mother glanced at the tunnel’s exit. “Azcatlapalli is growing restless and should fly away soon. Once he does, we should reach Xibalba before you wake up.”

Xibalba. The House of Fright. A land of terrors where my father’s soul rested among ten thousand nightmares.

“Can Nightlords feel fear?” I asked Mother.

Mother chuckled. “Of course they do. All vampires fear true death.”

I recalled Eztli’s face when she looked into the sulfur flame. Mother was wrong. Some vampires craved death.

“Why did you Curse Necahual?” I questioned Mother. Eztli needed her family more than ever, so I should remove that insidious threat as soon as possible.

“Who?” Mother asked. “The name sounds familiar.”

The fact my mother struggled to recall someone she had cursed in the past spoke volumes about how much she abused her power. “My mother-in-law,” I said. “Your rival for father’s heart.”

“I have no rivals, son,” she replied with a hint of arrogance. “I do not suffer from their existence.”

“She saw you transform one night,” I argued. “You said you would kill her and her entire family if she revealed your secret.”

“Ah yes, that mundane wench.” Somehow, that part finally juggled Mother’s memory. “I considered killing her on the spot, but instead I decided to curse her on a whim. I bound her to die if she revealed my secret… and to be forever unlucky in love.”

I knew it. At least the Curse’s clause spared her when I revealed Mother’s true nature first. “That was petty.”

“Those are a fool’s words. When you want something, son, you must do everything in your power to get it. I wanted your father. I did what I had to do to claim him for myself. No more, no less.” Mother’s head tilted to the side. “Why these questions?”

“I require Necahual’s services,” I explained. “I need to remove your Curse undetected. I cannot let it accidentally interfere with my affairs.”

“Simply grab my lost feather in your Tonalli form. I was young and inexperienced when I placed it, so it should be easy to remove.” Mother suddenly tensed up. “She is in the palace with you.”

“Yes, she is.” I quickly guessed what bothered her. “I do not think the Nightlords have noticed the feather. Necahual is beneath the notice of most of them.”

“Most.” Mother squinted. “Not all.”

I assented with a nod. I doubted Yoloxochitl had paid Necahual enough attention to detect the Curse placed upon her, but she might in time.

“Remove the feather as soon as you can,” Mother all but ordered. “An ill-placed Curse can be used to track down its caster. I do not want the Nightlords to hunt me down.”

I briefly considered using the threat of using Mother’s own Curse against her to exact concessions, before deciding otherwise. However fair-weather a friend she was, she remained my only ally in this stretch of the Underworld and could cause me many headaches. And neither did she deserve whatever the Nightlords planned to put her through if they caught her.

“I will,” I promised. “However, you must teach me how to disguise my Curses. We have only three nights left before the New Fire Ceremony.”

“Yes, yes. Thankfully these silent gentlemen will kindly offer their bodies for you to practice on.” Mother observed me with what could pass for motherly pride. “Fear not for your future, Iztac. Now that your mind is set, there is no way you cannot win.”

Yes, I would win.

No matter what may come.