Gods of Jade and Shadow(87)

She clung to him, felt his hammering heart under her palm. It was real, he was real, this was real, and the rest was just…stories. Children’s stories. There was no magic, no gods, no quests. She could convince herself she had imagined it all and then it would be that way. A wisp of a nightmare and the reality of them.

But…stories. She knew poems and she knew stories and to recognize shapes in the stars when learned men cannot make out constellations. She knew this story, and it must have a different ending. Mythmaking. It was the treacherous weight of mythmaking, of patan, that pulled her up, made her push back.

“It would not be fair,” she said, and the words were like a knife: they seemed to hurt him. He lifted his hands, beholding her.

“Fair? Nothing is fair in the universe.”

“But I want it to be fair. I do not want the wicked to triumph, the innocent to be slaughtered by your brother. I do not want to turn back.”

“Don’t be foolish. You cannot have a perfect, happy ending,” he said warily.

“But, Xibalba—”

“I do not care about it.”

Casiopea looked at him. His gaze was the gaze of a na?ve young man, but behind it she caught the flickering darkness of Xibalba even as he attempted to deny himself and kiss her a third time. She turned her head.

“You are the Lord Hun-Kamé, and you do care about Xibalba. And life may not be fair, but I must be fair. I can’t turn away,” she said.

The words, they bruised him. A light dimmed in him, and his na?ve, young face was not that na?ve anymore. Lord of Xibalba again, old as the stones in the temples deep in the jungle.

“I wish you were a coward instead of a hero,” he said, speaking bitterly, like old wood cracking, snapping in two, making her ache.

“I don’t think I’m much of a hero.”

“And yet you are,” he said, his gaze deepening, becoming a velvet black as he tilted her face up. She thought he’d kiss her. He did not.

He walked past her, farther into the water. It reached his knees and she followed him, wondering what he was doing, where he was headed. He turned abruptly, and she realized he did not know where he was going, he was simply moving with the sea, troubled and adrift.

“I can’t protect you in Xibalba,” he said, his voice anguished. “How can I let you go there?”

“Would I have a chance?” she asked. “A real chance?”

“I can’t assure victory. The Black Road is dangerous. You’ll be alone, you may feel lost, but the road follows the commands of the person who walks it, and it will listen to you since you are also part of me.”

“How can I speak to it?”

“Command it as you’d command a dog, and look carefully. The road may seem a single solid line, but there are shadows where it becomes dimmer and you can jump through the shadows. Do not fear it. Fear will make it more difficult. And never step off the road.”

She nodded, taking a quick breath. “I won’t,” she promised.

“The greatest peril is inside your heart. If you focus, if you are steady, you will find the way to the city. Picture my palace and you will arrive at its doors.”

“I’ve never seen your palace.”

“You have, you must have glimpsed it in my gaze.”

She recalled the times they’d spoken of Xibalba. He had said his palace was like a jewel, and he had mentioned the ponds surrounding it.

“There are silver trees near it,” she said tentatively. “And strange fish swim in the ponds.”

“They glow, like fireflies,” he said.

“Your palace has many rooms.”

“As many rooms as the year has days.”

“Painted yellow and blue,” she continued.

“And there is my throne room and my throne, of the blackest obsidian.”

“You sit on the throne, a diadem of onyx and jade upon your head.”

The phantom image they built of the palace was nothing but that, a fragile creation of the imagination, and yet it was solid. Casiopea saw the palace and she knew she pictured its true likeness even though she had never walked its hallways.

She took a long, deep breath.

“I can do it,” she said.

“Then there’s no more to it,” he concluded. His voice had recovered its customary coolness. “You’ve made your choice.”

“No, there is no more.”

He nodded and moved back toward the sand, trousers sodden. Casiopea’s lips tasted of salt; her throat was dry. She spoke before he set a foot on dry land.

“Wait a few minutes,” she said. “They won’t miss us for a few minutes, and this is the last time I will see you, isn’t it? Either way.”

“Yes,” he said. “I’ll be a god again, or dead.”

“Then wait a few minutes,” she said. It was stupid to try to extend the reach of time, it did them no good. She’d refused him, besides. And yet.

Casiopea looked up at the sky with its multitude of stars. Then she looked at him, standing in profile. Feeling her gaze on him, he turned to her and smiled a crooked smile. He drew her against him, and then he tipped his head up, to look at the stars that he’d never bothered to survey before.





They dallied like this by the sea, the waves splashing against their legs, attempting to make the minutes stretch, until all time had been spent. A hotel employee greeted them at the top of the stairs that led into the hotel. He informed them Zavala wished to speak to them.