Harbinger of the Storm - By Aliette De Bodard Page 0,70

other hand, I didn’t see why I’d trust the boy just yet, with something that important. And yet…

I closed my eyes. The Duality was the source and arbiter of all the gods; our protector, the keeper of the souls that would be reborn under the Sixth Sun. Ceyaxochitl had been Their agent, and no new one would be invested for a while, not until the rituals for her succession could be completed; but it didn’t mean They had withdrawn from us. Their wards around the palace, flimsy as they were, were probably our last possible defence.

But there had to be a way…

I was a priest for the Dead, and I did not know much of Duality lore.

But I knew someone who did.

“You cannot be serious.” Yaotl’s lips had thinned to a harsh line, the same colour as heart’s blood.

”Do you see a better plan?” I asked.

We had left the boy-emperor of Texcoco to make his own way into the palace, no doubt clamouring for an absent Tizoc-tzin. He had looked at me thoughtfully as he left, a gaze that promised something I couldn’t quite interpret: another meeting, or a challenge? He had more depths than I could probe currently, and since his protector god was not involved in the ongoing troubles, I was going to leave him well alone for now.

But I had little doubt we would meet again.

We had made our way into the Duality House, where we had found Yaotl having his noon meal. He had invited us to join him, though he surely had to be changing his mind, now that he knew what we were asking for.

Yaotl shook his head. “No. But it’s not–”

”Ideal? I think we’re well past that stage.”

Yaotl sighed. “Fine. I already have all the priests I can spare warding the major temples of the Sacred Precinct. But it’s not going to be enough.”

”Then what would be?” I asked. “A new Guardian?”

”You don’t become Guardian that easily.” Yaotl’s voice was grave, measured, carefully counting words, not focusing on their meaning. “The rituals of the investiture take time.”

In other words, what I had known all along: it would be too late by the time the Duality could intervene. “There has to be a way we can get more than wards,” I said. “Their equivalent of living blood.” For any other god, it would have taken a human sacrifice: a removal of a heart, a drowning, a stabbing, the offering of a whole life and vessels brimming with blood. After all, the gods were dead, Their blood drained to feed the sun at the beginning of this age, Their own hearts long since torn out and burnt in honour of Tonatiuh the Fifth Sun. Only through living blood could They exercise Their power.

Yaotl grimaced. His eyes, wandering, fell on Teomitl; he stopped then, stared at the fresco behind Teomitl, which depicted the Fifth Sun rising from His pyre. “Wait here,” he said, and was out of the room before either of us could stop him.

When he came back, he had two old priests in tow, a man and a woman who moved in precise, economical gestures. They wore the regalia of high-ranking clerics, a headdress of heron and duck feathers, and black cloaks with a blue hem depicting the fused-lovers symbol of the Duality. The priests looked at Teomitl speculatively for a moment, and then gave Yaotl a curt nod.

Teomitl, for whom patience was an alien word, wasn’t about to be cowed, old priests or not. “Well?”

”There is a way,” Yaotl said, slowly. “You’re not going to like it.”

That he said it in such a fashion, with no attempt whatsoever at sarcasm, was possibly the most worrying thing.

”Tell us,” Teomitl snapped.

”You mentioned a new Guardian.”

”To which you said it wouldn’t help.”

”They wouldn’t have the Duality’s powers, no,” Yaotl said. “That takes time. The Duality doesn’t choose Their agent on a whim. But, symbolically…” He pursed his lips. “Guardians are still the representative of the Duality in this world. The right choice, accompanied by the right rituals, could be the equivalent of a magical statement.”

”The right choice,” I said, slowly. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

”Imperial Blood,” Yaotl said. “To signify the tie between the Duality and the Fifth World. And a young woman, to remember that the Duality is the source of all life. The creator principle, male and female…”

”I don’t understand,” Teomitl said.

I did, and I didn’t like where this was going. I remembered Ceyaxochitl’s late-night confidences, that she had been married