against a blood-red sky

[notapaladin]

LOOK you're not telling me Chalchiuhnenetl WASN'T egging Teomitl on (and/or flatout manipulating him) during Master of the House of Darts. I felt like causing myself pain, so I wrote it.

-

It takes her a while, but after he returns from the coronation war, Chalchiuhnenetl decides she quite likes her baby brother. She’d discounted him at first—after all, she has many brothers, Tizoc and Axayacatl as shining examples of their general mediocrity—but he is different from the others. His conviction and ambition burns brightly within him. He is strong. Proud. A skilled warrior, even at his young age.

And so, so deliciously easy to manipulate.

She is no longer the fragile girl sold to Moquihuix-tzin’s bedchambers, not after all these years in service to Grandmother Earth. (All the sacrifices—her beauty, her youth, her physical strength—they were as nothing. Nothing compared to power.) She has learned that each man has his lever, his weak spot, where the skin is thinnest and the blood easiest to spill. It takes her only a few private conversations to learn Teomitl’s, though the answer surprises her when she does. A new-married man, still uncertain on where he stands in his wife’s heart, might be sensitive to her lack of respect for him, to her apparent lack of care for his feelings. (For she is the new Guardian of the Duality, and known to have a sharp tongue besides.) A freshly-appointed Master of the House of Darts, so loyal to his country and so determined to lead it to glory, might be infuriated by Tizoc’s utter failure of a coronation war. (For it is a failure, with only forty captives and most of those ill; Axayacatl would be ashamed if he could see what his brother has managed to do with the Empire he handed him.)

Teomitl is sensitive. Teomitl is infuriated. Mihmatini and Tizoc, then, are easy cracks in his armor.

But she listens, smiling at the right times and frowning at others, until she peels back the skin of him to the raw and quivering nerves below.

Acatl. High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli, brother to the Guardian Mihmatini, and Teomitl’s teacher in the magical arts. And—so clearly, so disgustingly clearly—the man Teomitl is in love with.

“Acatl-tzin,” Teomitl still calls him, with a sort of tender exasperation that comes close to tugging on the heartstrings she buried when Moquihuix cast her aside. Though he is Master of the House of Darts and therefore at least Acatl’s equal, though there simply isn’t much the man could possibly teach him anymore, he still insists upon addressing him with all due deference and honor. It’s clear to her that he thinks Acatl set the sun in the sky, that he reveres Acatl far, far more than the bond between student and teacher. He spends half his time worrying over the man’s health (pretending he isn’t, of course, but oh how transparent he is) and the other half cursing him for a fool to overwork himself so. (She thinks of telling him that when he is Revered Speaker, he can easily assign the man a dozen personal slaves—but that’s too obvious, even for her.) And under all his noble concern and reverence, like poison glimmering in the shine of a salamander’s skin, lies his certain knowledge that his feelings for Acatl will never be returned. That he will only ever be a student to him, never respected as a man. (Certainly never loved in return, for where can love follow where respect has not led?)

When she realizes it, she laughs until her guards step forward in concern. She waves them off, still chuckling, and permits herself a smile. This will be easier than she thought.

(No, she’ll still never be an Imperial Consort. But having been the one to set the Revered Speaker on the throne, having his ear while knowing she could remove him just as easily...there’s power in that, too.)

From then on, it’s easy. The spreading plague grants her an opening and she takes it, opening her house in Zoquipan for the quartering of her troops. (Teomitl’s in name, yes, but hers. Hers as long as Toci’s power pulses in her veins.) Teomitl comes with her, wearing gold at his throat and a cloak that is almost turquoise, and they speak long into the night. His doubts shine like cracks in jade, and she leverages them until the stone splinters.

“You know you’ll be a far better Revered Speaker than Tizoc could even dream of.”

“Look at how the boundaries are tearing themselves apart, how our enemies bay at our borders like wolves. I cannot wait for your reign to bring us back together.”

“Acatl will never respect you as a warrior, as a leader—unless you make him. Unless you show him your might.”

There is a minor setback when Acatl finds them and deems it necessary to investigate the situation in person. True, she almost laughs in his face at first—she is older than him, and for all that he can muster the raw power of Mictlan she has had decades more years than him to learn the finesse of her own skills—but before she can crack his ribcage like so many raw eggs Teomitl appears, and for a moment she thinks she will lose when he enters in turquoise and gold to confidently declare Acatl his. (Love, even doomed and one-sided, can be a powerful force in its own right. She should know.)

Then she sees the priest’s face, shuttered and raw-edged and very nearly furious, and she realizes she has nothing to fear. Though she cannot hear their conversation, Teomitl is angry and shaken when he returns to her side, and anger widens the flaws in his jade until her words can slip in like smoke.

“See? He always worries too much, doesn’t he? You must be strong.”

“Of course he doesn’t understand. You told me yourself he’s always hated warriors, always known that you have strengths—experiences—that he could never match.”

“I’m sorry, Teomitl. I suppose you’ll always be a child to him. He’ll never see you as the strong young man you are.”

Young Mihmatini is next to arrive, and that’s even more trivial to deal with. Whereas Teomitl has known and worked with Acatl for years, he and Mihmatini have still barely spent a week together without a chaperone. She is prickly, bold, opinionated, and somehow even worse at delicate diplomacy than her elder brother. Teomitl’s heart is hard as stone by now—as hard as any heart of a true Revered Speaker—and she is near to tears by the time she finally retreats. He’s quiet afterwards, but it’s obvious their exchange bothered him as well.

And so Chalchiuhnenetl steps in, once again the wise, understanding elder sister. “Imagine her face, Teomitl. Imagine how she’ll love you, honor you, when you are Emperor.”

“She’s your wife, and the Guardian besides. She’ll understand.”

“It’s all for the good of the Empire.”

He starts to smile at that, and she knows she’s got him in the palm of her hand. Yes, his rule will be for the good of the Empire. He will not only hold it together where Tizoc is tearing it apart, he’ll lead it on to new heights of glory. His name will spread like smoke, like mist, and she will be behind him every step of the way.

Finally, the hour approaches. The calendar priest they’ve...borrowed is clear; if they strike now, they will achieve their goals. And from a purely practical standpoint, this is the best time for Teomitl to seize his destiny; he has strong warriors behind him, Tizoc has fled the city for fear of the plague, and the clergy—especially Teomitl’s beloved Acatl—are busy with the breach in the boundaries. Teomitl is proud and stubborn, sure that what he is doing is right, and she knows he won’t be dissuaded. Because he is right. Tizoc is a failure, and it is his destiny to rule.

And then she and Teomitl are facing Mihmatini and Acatl, and Acatl—with his fists clenched and his face far too calm for a man who looks like his heart is breaking in two—is tearing through her carefully laid plans like cobwebs with a single sentence.

“I’m asking this as one man to another.”

She sees Teomitl’s face when he speaks, hears his indrawn breath, and knows that her hold over him is slipping; if she doesn’t act now, she’ll lose it entirely. And if he falters—if she allows him to falter—they will never have a better chance. She tells him this, voice cracking with desperation.

“You’re right,” he tells her. “It won’t happen again.”

Triumph.

And then he continues, dashing all her hopes. “But I’ll make it happen. Someday.”

She wants to scream. She thinks she does scream, in her hatred and fury. But it’s too much—he turns and lashes out, Jade Skirt’s power rising like the waters of the lake in flood, and she knows in that moment that she has lost. She has lost, and he will never trust her again.

In the end, she walks away silently. It’s clear she’s misjudged; the ties that bind her brother to Acatl are stronger than any words she could spin.

(Respect has led the way. She wonders, idly, if love will follow.)