notapaladin

Have some ANGST and a BAD END AU. I am so, so sorry.

-

The sun lances through high windows, striking him full in the face and turning his golden ornaments to fire. He’s still cold. He’ll be cold even wrapped in cloaks, even sitting next to a roaring fire. He hasn’t felt warm since...

Since...

(That day in the courtyard? No. Before that. His heart had been a calcified thing in his chest already, by then.)

(But oh, the stone had broken.)

He breathes. In and out, and in again. He’s still alive. All the spells cast and blood spilled in his name has brought him here, to this throne, where he will lead the Mexica to glory. He will erase Tizoc’s name as though it’s never been. He will be a Revered Speaker for the ages, spreading his smoke and mist throughout the land. Huitzilopochtli’s power pulses through him like a second heartbeat, and his people will never fear ghosts or star demons again. It was worth it. It was all worth it.

(There had been so much blood.)

For the moment, he is alone. Chalchiuhnenetl, his constant ~~shadow~~ advisor, holds her own court in what used to be the women’s quarters. They are hers, now. The others remain on her sufferance, his other sisters and aunts and cousins pressed into her service. They keep their eyes downcast and never raise their voices in his presence.

(Mihmatini’s eyes hot with fury as he’d taken that one step forward, fading first to shock and then disbelief as his warriors struck her down midstride. The obsidian axe shattering as it fell. Neutemoc’s deep roar of rage cut off with a horrible, final gurgle.)

(Her head rolling to land at his feet.)

He’s ordered lamps to be kept burning, but they never seem to help—or maybe it’s just that his vision is dark. Shadows mass like cobwebs in the corners of the room, in the corners of his eyes. He is Emperor Ahuizotl, the gods’ hand in the Fifth World, and he should have light and warmth around him. Shouldn’t he? There are the quetzal feathers, the jaguar pelts, the jade. The light of the Fifth Sun soaks into him as it does them, setting the precious metals to blazing and the stones to glowing. He is surrounded by riches and glory, and he has earned this.

(Cutting Tizoc down had been so easy, after that.)

The shadows waver like flame, like light on the lake’s surface. The movement of his fingers is the dry click of defleshed bones. He inhales and tastes ash on his tongue.

Footsteps approaching down the corridor, slow and measured. The faint rustling of someone removing their bone-white sandals. The rattling of the entrance curtain.

A voice as lifeless as a corpse. “You summoned me, my lord?”

He does not look at the High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli. The High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli does not look at him. In and out and in again goes his breathing, too loud in his ears. It was worth it, all the blood and betrayal on his hands, for this. For the gold, the silver, the turquoise crown and turquoise rings. For the glory of the Empire, for the sake of the Fifth World, for the High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli to prostrate before him and not even meet his eyes—

He did summon him. He speaks. It’s a wonder the words don’t tear his throat on the way out, leaving him choking on his own blood. “We did. We wished to have your blessings added to our planned expansion of the Great Temple.”

For the span of a heartbeat, there is silence. Then: “As my lord wills.”

“Good. You are dismissed.” His voice is steady. Calm. Regal. His mind is a choked-off scream, an arterial spray.

There is motion. He catches a fluid rise, the swirl of a gray cloak, the tumble of an errant lock of black hair. Soon he will be alone again, and that’s too much for him to bear. His chest is full of knives carving him open from the inside out. Not again.

It leaves him like an arrow, like thought, and is out in the air before he can even think to take it back. “Acatl.”

Stillness. The flicker of an eyelid. A slow, indrawn breath. “Teomitl-tzin.”

(He’d said his name just the same on that day, in front of his siblings’ corpses and Teomitl’s warriors. Cold and measured and echoing with the cavernous grief of Mictlan, held back only because he was too proud to break in front of him. It would have been easier to bear if he’d screamed.)

The knives rotate slowly, splaying his ribcage wide.

i love you i’m sorry i love you

this was never supposed to happen. not like this

He breathes. In. Out. In again. His heart is stone, is ice, and the knives cannot touch it. He closes his eyes.

“...Nothing. You may go.”

The Revered Speaker sits on his throne, laden with gold and jade and jaguar pelts. He does not weep.