Gods of Jade and Shadow(77)

“It’s always been the plan.”

Casiopea stepped away from Hun-Kamé, rubbing her left arm. The ache reached far beyond the wrist, a constant though dull pain, but worse when it came to her hand. “Then gods don’t fight with swords, but they can be as petty as men,” she mused.

“Do not chide me. I’ve waited too long for this vengeance, and I intend to enjoy it.”

“It’s unnecessarily cruel.”

“Then maybe I should rap his fingers with a ruler instead, what do you say?” he asked her. “What would you have me do, hmmm?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. She could not even begin to imagine how the conflicts between divinities played out, but she had not liked the sight of the decapitation of the Uay Chivo, even if he’d risen afterward, a strange cloud of smoke that spoke to them. She did not fancy observing the decapitation of Hun-Kamé’s brother, either.

Hun-Kamé sat down on a chair, which was upholstered in a vibrant yellow, crossing his arms. He was shy of twenty, an angry boy and nothing more. Casiopea shook her head and took a seat across from him.

“You’ve never told me what he was like, before your fight,” she said. She had not asked. Likely she wanted to imagine Hun-Kamé as a unique creature, no other like him, even if this was illogical, since the existence of his sibling proved this a false notion.

“What?” Hun-Kamé replied.

“You and your brother couldn’t have always hated each other.”

He frowned. “We are both different principles of the same thing. It was impossible for us to exist in constant hatred any more than the moon can despise the stars.”

She looked at Hun-Kamé and found herself thinking of her own family, of Martín. Had Martín always hated her? Did she truly hate him? The anger that had felt so hot in Yucatán had cooled down during her trip.

“My brother wanted more,” Hun-Kamé said. “There is a stasis in eternity, but he did not…I am the senior of the two, ruler of the night. He questioned me, spoke when he shouldn’t, did not show the appropriate deference. It was there, the resentment. That is not the same as hate.”

“You didn’t speak about it?”

Hun-Kamé scoffed, and she thought again about Martín. Had that not been what Martín wanted? That Casiopea show the appropriate deference, that she be quiet? Back in Yucatán, had her resentment not knotted and grown, poisoning her gut? She realized, with a shock, that she might have more in common with Vucub-Kamé than with his brother.

“What?” Hun-Kamé asked, frowning.

She raised her head, and she looked at him, and she thought he’d pulled her away from all that. Unintentionally, yes, but he’d granted the distance she’d needed from Uukumil, from Martín and everyone. But Vucub-Kamé had been meant to reside eternally in Xibalba, by his brother’s side, wrapped in his quiet rage.

“Maybe it hurt, for him,” Casiopea said. “Watching you have the last word, having to follow each of your commands.”

“Are you saying it was right of him to do this to me?” Hun-Kamé said, rising from the chair and pointing at his face, at the eye patch that hid the empty eye socket.

She stood up, echoing him. “It was wrong. But I have the feeling you were cruel. That who you are now is not a reflection of who you were before.”

“Anyone who expects sweetness from the grave is a fool,” he declared.

“Not sweetness. But…I don’t know, kindness. It’s strange, perhaps it is because I am dying that I do not want others to die too. I want everything to live.”

This was true. She could hear the gulls outside, the waves crashing against the rocks, and the sun filtering through the windows shined brighter than it had ever shined before. It was the memory of that old postcard, that childish joy, which made her happy; it revived her, and her face was not muted nor gray.

He looked at her with a visage as cold as ice. He allowed her nothing, and yet his expression softened, his chance to echo her.

“I’ve told you the words you speak have power, and yet you don’t seem to comprehend me, do you?”

Casiopea shook her head slowly. There he was, so near she might press her fingertips against his chest. Had he moved closer to her or had she breached the space between them?

“I am someone else when we are together. I am kinder…I want to be kinder,” Hun-Kamé said. He sounded embarrassed when he spoke, transformed into someone very nearly innocent. “Was I cruel? I was a god; you might as well ask the river if it is gentle in its path, or the hail whether it hurts the land when it strikes it. At times, I can barely recall it.”

He was not lying. Looking at his face no one could have said it was the face of a being that has existed beneath the earth for centuries upon centuries. Looking at his face anyone would have thought Who is this confused fool? and kept walking. Even his beauty was now tempered, not the handsomeness that had sliced her so painfully when she’d first looked at him, but the good looks of a young man one could find in many cities, in many streets.

“That is the magic you make, you see?” he told her, his voice low.

Hun-Kamé did not look at her when he spoke. She could tell by his expression that he was looking at Xibalba. The memory of Xibalba, realm of shadows that glistened in his mind and could not be denied.