Flower of War: The Unmirrored Heart
May. 3rd, 2006 06:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aithne[this is that ending/epilogue I was talking about before...That's right, Flower of War is finished.]
10/9/1487
Year 8 Acatl, Month of Pachtontli, Trecena 1 Atl, Tonalli 6 Ocelotl, sunrise
(week of Water, daysign Cat/Ocelot/Jaguar: Ocelotl is a good day for doing battle. It signifies power, valor, and reckless abandon in the face of danger.)
For the first time in days, Jade did not remember any nightmares when she woke, just before sunrise. She'd slept with Walker's clay shard in her hand, ready to use it to transport away if she needed to. But she was not attacked, and her morning prayers were not disturbed. After she was done with her prayers, she sat facing the rising sun and thought, briefly. She rose. Mantis was the first on her list of people to talk to this morning.
As usual, he opened the door before she had a chance to knock. "So." she said as he closed the door. "If I were Ocelot, I would have been biding my time until today to try and strike at my enemies. Any idea what he's going to try to do?"
Mantis nodded. "The storm is coming, Jade. You will lose many friends today."
It was what she had been expecting, if not what she wanted to hear. "Do you know who he's going to try to kill?" she asked. "Spider and Cinder, I assume."
His mouth twisted. "Everyone. Me, you, Walker, Mountain, Jaguar, Cat. All of them."
It was today, then. The day the battle she had been waiting for was to come. A good day for doing battle. The day of the cat. "Everyone except maybe Coal," she said to Mantis.
"Yes, the brother will survive as long as he doesn't interfere, then he will die as well."
She knew Coal. He would interfere. "I know how he'll probably try for Mountain--Ocelot has people among his own men. Spider and Cinder, if they can be found, are both not that hard to kill. You, I think, he'd have to try to deal with himself. Me--I don't know offhand what he might try. Walker, Cat, Jaguar...I don't know who he'll send against them. Walker, especially."
Mantis's eyes were distant. "The one that betrayed Smoke."
"Smoke was betrayed, then? I wondered. I was going to ask Mountain how he knew."
His voice was slow, as if he were reluctant to speak. "The one that hates you turned against them all to destroy you."
To destroy me. Who has their trust, and hates me? There was only one answer. "Fox."
"Yes." He nodded curtly. "The attack will come soon and all at once. Chose, Jade, who lives and who dies? You can't be everywhere."
Jade ground her teeth. "This is--not a choice I wanted to have to make." She was thinking furiously, weighing in her mind option after option.
"I will make one for you" Mantis said. "The smoke has to live. I know where she is. I will protect her."
One down, arguably the most important. "Mountain and Coal. Walker. Preferably Cat and Jaguar--I don't think the ocelot clan would forgive me easily if I got Cat killed. Spider, Cinder, maybe Shale, I think I have to let go." Pain lanced through her as she thought of Shale dead, and she swallowed and buried the pain under her pre-battle calm.
Mantis was looking at her, and something about the look on her face made her pause. "Promise me, Jade, that when I die, you are present. It's important."
She felt a weight on her, as if Mantis's very words had carried destiny in them. Make a choice. Lead the way. You are the instrument of the gods. "If I can manage it, Mantis, I promise." She nodded, her decision made. "I can warn Shale, I think. He's a good priest, almost as good as I am. Mountain, I must warn. I need to get a message out to Walker, as well. He can find Jaguar and Cat."
He nodded. "Go quickly. Smoke is in darkside. I will make her safe and see you when I can."
"I will. Good luck, Mantis."
"Today, Jade, that is what you need most. Luck. Your god's speed."
She couldn't think of anything to say to that, and simply nodded and departed. Mantis did, as well, breaking off from her at a corridor intersection a little way from his door. Jade snagged two guards. "You--go to the Chief Speaker's quarters and find the advisor Shale. You--find Spider. The message to them both is, 'Disappear.' Go, both of you, time is of the essence." She left them behind, pelting flat-out for Mountain's office.
His door was standing wide open, and she pulled up in dismay. She stepped into view of the doorway, and saw Mountain lying on the floor, two people standing over him--Sun, and Bear. Both of them were heavily wounded, and neither of them were paying attention to the doorway, looking down at the fallen Mountain.
Jade choked. Her swift assessment was that Mountain was very likely dead. However, she could take care of his killers. She raised her hands.
A voice from behind her gave her pause. "Save your strength, Jade. You will need it for Ocelot." A form brushed by her. She was a tall woman, almost as tall as Jade, with a scholar's hands and an intent manner.
Wind. It had to be Wind.
The mage raised her hands and called fire to them, and Sun and Bear both collapsed, screaming, burning. "Cinder is dead, I am going to kill Teal," Wind said to Jade.
"Thank you," she said, though the knowledge of Cinder's death was bitter in her mouth. I can do no more here. She took the clay shard out, raised it up, and broke it. The world disappeared out from under her, and she felt herself spinning out of control through what felt like a void, a swift darkness all around her.
Then she was in the clearing in front of Walker's house, and knew even before she opened her eyes that the battle had beaten her here. The air stank of sulfur and smoke. She opened her eyes and saw that Cat was lying at her feet, unconscious but still breathing.
A quick look around found Jaguar trying to stanch the bleeding from his many wounds--he was still alive and conscious, but badly hurt. There was a small woman with a knife-edged sword attacking Walker, who was trying to ward her off with a spell. Fox. I would stake my life on it.
Jade opened her mind and the woman flashed orange. Jade smiled grimly and called out, "I'm the one you want. Not him." With those words, she began to call Fox to her, trying to call the animal in her outwards. At the same time, she was moving, her hands empty of any weapon but her magic.
Fox slashed her sword across Walker's abdomen and spun as the mage fell. "You are so right," she said, and there was hatred burning in her eyes.
Jade stepped forward and then hesitated as she heard a voice. It was her god. Trust me, Jade. Sit down and concentrate on Fox. Your friends will bleed to death by the time this battle is over.
Without even thinking about it, Jade fell to her knees in the pose of the student, dropping the spell she'd been about to cast and focusing her entire will, her entire being, on calling Fox. It was not the gentle request she used with Cat. It was a command, the command of someone used to leading men in battle, the command of the fanatic.
Fox raised an eyebrow, and then strode forward. Jade could see that Fox thought she'd surrendered. She only saw that Jade was kneeling, not that she was holding her hands in the upturned pose of the student instead of the palm-downward pose of surrender. "Giving up so soon Jade? I expected more of--" She broke off with a scream.
The process of change was even less pretty than usual when it was forced. After a swift moment, where Fox had stood was her namesake, a fox the color of blood. Jade beckoned it close, calling it to her hands. It trembled but came forward. Slowly, but it came.
Its fur was coarse under Jade's hands, and she hesitated. If she let go of Fox now, the woman would just attack her again. She slid a hand up to its head. She could break its neck, and it would be over. She had no choice.
There was someone standing in front of her. She looked up and saw the face of Huitzilopochtli, looking down at her more seriously than he had in what seemed like an eternity. "Wait," he told her, and her hand stilled.
"What?" she asked.
"Separate that which is human from that which is animal," he told her, just the smallest amount of command in his voice.
Jade looked down at the fox shivering under her hands. She could feel the demarcation in it, where the animal and the human met and mingled. She understood, then, what she had not before, and understood how this was to be done.
She pulled the two apart, teasing them away from each other thread by thread. It seemed to be taking forever, but she knew that only a small space of time was passing. Finally, the last thread connecting the two was broken, and the human fell away from the fox.
Before her, a body fell away from the fox's red fur, swiftly expanding. Fox now lay in front of her, staring with dark eyes at Jade, shivering as the air touched her naked skin. "You have both the animal and the human in your hands," Huitzilopochtli said. "The power to give both life is yours, or to take it away from one or both."
Jade considered, her hands still on the fox. She nodded at the human half. "Her anger at me is entirely legitimate, but it poisoned her against those who cared about her. Especially Jaguar. This one," she said, her hand stroking the fur on its head down, "I think is blameless, in the way of animals. I don't think it hates, not like the human does."
"No, it doesn't. It is just a fox."
She nodded. "Then it goes free. The human...if I free her, she will just come after me again, won't she? I'll never convince her that I have changed." She didn't want to take this one last thing from Fox, not after she had taken everything else. But Fox had hurt Jaguar, and Cat, and Walker, and endangered Smoke. She had threatened almost everything Jade held dear.
Huitzilopochtli shook his head. "No, she will continue to hunt you."
"Then she stops here. She betrayed her own." Jade lifted her hands from the fox and somehow--twisted.
The fox, freed from her control, bolted for the trees. The human body now looked as if it had been through a fire, wisps of smoke rising from blackened skin. Jade looked at what once had been Fox, feeling curiously empty. Should she be sorry?
No. This was still battle calm, and Jade was still fighting a war. She rose swiftly and went to Jaguar. He had given up the effort to bind himself, and his chin was beginning to fall towards his chest where he sat. "Let me see," she murmured to him, and his head jerked upwards. He was barely conscious, she saw, and she began to chant, giving him back some of what he'd lost. A moment later, he was shaking his head, clearing the ringing from his ears. "Jaguar, if you're up to it, Cat needs healing. I'll get Walker."
He followed her gaze; Cat was near him. He scooted over to her and began his own chant. Jade knelt by Walker, evaluating his wounds. The belly wound was the worst, but Fox had not opened the bowel, and so she could patch him back together.
She did so, healing the worst of what had been done to him, and soon enough he opened his eyes and sat up. "Thanks," he said, as his gaze sought and found Cat and Jaguar. Cat, too, was sitting up, making a face.
"You're welcome. I just wish I'd gotten here sooner," Jade said.
"It was soon enough," he replied.
She took a breath. "Mountain is dead. So is Cinder, and I'm assuming Shale is as well. Mantis is guarding Smoke; if Ocelot himself goes, he might have a chance against Mantis, but I'm not sure much of anyone else will."
Walker nodded. "It's possible. Take the creature and go, Jade. I will watch Cat. There is nothing I can do. My spells are gone for the day. Jaguar may still have something left."
Jade nodded and rose without further comment, going inside and fetching Thorn in its box. When she came out, she said, "Stay safe, all of you. Jaguar, your choice--you can come with me, or stay out here and help guard Walker and Cat. I don't know if Fox was the only one sent."
He was standing now, still wounded but obviously sharing her own calm centeredness. We belong on the battlefield, Jade thought. Live or die, we are where we belong.
"I will go," Jaguar said. "I can still help you. I doubt they will send more. They assume they are dead."
Jade nodded, then caught something strange out of the corner of her eye. Huitzilopochtli wandered by, and with a wink dropped something bright at her feet. "Oops, how clumsy of me."
Jade bent to pick up the objects he'd dropped. They were a pair of hummingbird feathers, bright green. Outer primaries. The same feathers that the god wore at his ankles.
"What are these for?" she asked.
Huitzilopochtli grinned. "Your god's speed."
Jade surprised herself by laughing. "All right, all right. Thank you. Here, Jaguar." She handed him a feather, then turned back to her god. "Do you know where Smoke is, or do I need to see if I can get her location from Thorn?"
"Smoke is fine. Mantis saved her. By the way, break that stone when you meet Ocelot."
"Are you going to tell me what it's going to do, or are you going to leave that as a surprise for me?" she asked.
"It's a surprise," he said, still almost laughing. "Good luck, Jade, and thank you." He faded out until nothing but his mouth was left, hanging in midair. "I am still watching you," he said, then disappeared completely.
Jade covered her mouth with her hand, hiding her smile. She turned to Jaguar. "Smoke's all right. I suppose we should head into the city. I should check on a few people with Thorn, though."
He nodded and sat down heavily, obviously intending to use the time to get himself healed up some more. She sat as well, opening Thorn's box. "Morning, Thorn. Is Teal alive?"
"Barely."
Good job, Wind, she thought. "Is she conscious, and is anyone with her?"
"She is. Wind is with her, Ocelot has just come in with another I believe called Water. And Thunder has arrived."
Jade hissed. "Damnit. That's the end of Wind. What's Thunder doing? Ordered to follow Ocelot?"
"From this point of view, I don't know. Switching." There was a pause in the words in the sand. "He is thinking of killing Ocelot. He is engaging his power that he learned from Walker. Teal has died."
Jade thought swiftly. "He'll never manage it on his own. Even if we used the feathers, we'd arrive too late. This is to Thunder--what are you doing? I hope you can reply without speaking aloud."
"Giving you a chance." Again the words paused. "He is trying to step into Ocelot, but is stopped by a shield. Water and Ocelot turn on Wind, she falls bleeding. They turn to Thunder now."
"No--" Jade said, half muttering. She reached out with her power, somehow touching Thunder through the talon in him, casting a spell that would take part of the damage he was about to take on herself.
"They both fire on him. He lives still," the words wrote. Jade nodded as wounds opened on her shoulders and arms, and she gritted her teeth against the pain. She began to send healing to Thunder as Jaguar came to her, laying his own hands on her, calling the favor of the god on her and closing her wounds.
"This from Thunder--" Stutter, begin. "Jade, I can't win this. Save your spells. Let me do what I have to."
She wanted to weep, to hit something. She was unused to feeling helpless. But if this was what he had to do-- "I understand. Goodbye, Thunder," she said, withdrawing her shielding spell.
"He steps forward and into Water. He rematerializes within her. Both die. Contact lost."
She stared at those last words for what felt like forever, then forced herself to breathe in. "All right. Thorn, I need to speak with Mantis."
"Go ahead."
"Mantis, are all of you all right? Do you need any help?" she asked.
"I am fine, the same can not be said for Flame."
Jade smiled. "Good thing, too. I know Smoke's fine, what about Onyx?"
"Dead. So is Clay."
She gritted her teeth, passing her hand over her eyes. "Ah, no, not both of them... We need to regroup. I assume that Ocelot is going to announce his marriage to Stream this afternoon."
"No, he will not. I have arrived at the palace."
Mantis, what are you up to? "Going after him?" she asked.
"There is no other choice, Jade. He is lacking in spells and there will be no better chance."
He was right. "Hold a minute or two. I'll be there shortly."
"For the record Jade. I saw Jasmine's body. She died of an overdose. Rain rescued Spider from Winter. Winter is dead. They are both alive."
Jade was mentally crossing names off of her list. "We're down many allies. But so is Ocelot."
"Talon and Piranha died defending Distant from Spark. Spark is dead by Distant."
"Distant's alive?" she asked.
"Yes he is, and with me along with Rain and Coal. Spider was too wounded to come and we didn't want to heal her with our few remaining spells left. She will live. I have no accounting of Shale, Spear or Stream."
"Cinder is dead, I assume Shale died as well. Stream might be alive or dead, depending. I don't know what happened in their quarters."
"Nor I. Does Thorn know?"
"He doesn't carry a talon. One moment." A prayer into the silence that she suddenly realized was as expectant as the air before a storm. Is Shale alive?
Yes, he is.
Jade sighed with relief. Spear and Stream?
Cinder delayed Ocelot long enough for Shale and Spear to take Stream and the young Aziuhoatl into the tunnels under the city.
Jade smiled. "Good job, Cinder," she murmured. To the box, she said, "Shale and Spear took Stream and Aziuhoatl the younger into the tunnels beneath the city. Wind killed Teal, Ocelot killed Wind, and Thunder and Water are both dead."
"I understand. Two more to die this day. Hurry, Jade."
"I will." To Thorn, she said, "Thank you," and closed the box, standing in a fluid motion. "All right, Jaguar, ready to go?"
He nodded, and his shoulders were straight. "Yes, Jade."
"Mantis is gathered with Smoke and some of the others. We should go to them." She looked at the hummingbird feather critically. "Now, how do you work..."
She took a step forward and it as if the world turned beneath her so swiftly that the trees were nothing but blurs. Jade laughed, felt a blur beside her that must be Jaguar, and began to run.
Scant seconds later, she was in the palace, in front of Mantis. The two she didn't recognize, a solidly-built warrior and a studious-looking woman who would have been pretty if it hadn't been for the frown on her face must be Distant and Rain. Jaguar was beside her. "What took you so long?" Mantis asked.
"Was taking some time to smell the flowers, obviously." Jade glanced around. "So. Ocelot needs to die. He's low on spells and on allies."
"Yes--"
That was the last thing Mantis managed to say. Ocelot stepped into the room, raised his hands, and pointed at Mantis. A blast came from his hands, centered on Mantis, but it caught the rest of them as well.
The world went white, then black. Jade woke, every inch of her hurting, what had to be no more than a few seconds later. She raised her head. Jaguar, Distant, and Rain were collapsed around her. At a glance, Jade couldn't tell if they were alive or dead. Coal was standing in front of Ocelot, bleeding heavily, but successfully keeping Ocelot from casting any more spells.
Mantis crawled over to Jade, and she rolled to a sitting position. He lifted his head and looked her in the eye. "The time has come."
"Do you know what I need to do?" she asked. The thought had occurred to her, but-- No. Please.
His glance told her that he'd heard her thought. "Yes, what you did so well just eight days ago. Sacrifice me to Huitzilopochtli."
Jade spent a bare moment in utter horror, her worst fears confirmed. Then she sternly told yourself, this is important, don't turn away from him now. She nodded. "Quickly, then."
"Destroy the stone and then take my heart, Jade." Mantis said. He lay on his back, his face composing itself into calm.
Barely believing what she did, she snatched the stone from her bag and smashed it on the ground. Six images of her appeared and began to attack Ocelot, the Tlaloc cleric firing wildly at them.
She paid no attention, pulling out the sacrificial dagger she'd rescued from the fire that Raven had caused. She did not ask Mantis if he was ready. He never would be, and neither would she.
He offered no resistance, and she made it as quick as she could. You are called to the gods, my brother, Huitzilopochtli calls you home. You are the flower of the shield, my brother, the flower of war. Go to him now, opening in the corolla of perfection. She raised Mantis's heart in her hand. It stuttered in her grasp. My brother, I grieve, but oh you are blessed!
The heart stopped beating, and burst into a flame that did not burn her but consumed Mantis's heart. In her other hand, the sacrificial dagger shattered.
Mantis died.
The world stopped.
There was something unfolding in Jade, a bud tightly closed unfurling. It felt like she had swallowed live coals, burning beneath her breastbone, and she threw her head back and screamed.
Grief. Sorrow. Joy.
The world opened within her.
She heard Mantis's voice one more time. She could not tell if it was coming from his lips or the air around her. "I was right," it said, and there was surprise and happiness in his voice.
Jade waited, but the voice did not sound again. "Goodbye, my friend," she murmured, and reached out with a bloody hand to close his eyes. Then she stood, swiftly, easily. She still felt as if she had something very small, hot, and bright within her, and she realized that her wounds had all closed.
She was perfectly centered in herself, a wild joy wide open within her. Coal glanced behind him at her, and opened his eyes wide with surprise. Jade did not know what she saw, nor did she care.
She pulled out two daggers and danced forward, laughing. She knew, now. She knew what she had seen in Mantis from the beginning and had not understood until this moment.
Jade was moving quickly, more quickly than should have been possible, the blessing of Huitzilopochtli still on her. Coal fell back as she went at Ocelot. He was out of spells, she saw. She could take her time.
He had a sword, but it might as well have been edged with feathers instead of obsidian. He cut her, but she healed almost as soon as the sword left her skin. She drove him, taunted him, and demonstrated exactly why the priesthood of Huitzilopochtli had been feared even by warriors for a very long time indeed.
Ocelot went down, drowning on the blood that filled his lungs, bleeding from everywhere. She finished him with two daggers, one through his eye into his brain, the other between the ribs into his heart.
She stopped, cocking her head, listening to what sounded like a voice from very far away. Then she went to where Jaguar lay and dropped to her knees beside him, somehow pulling his own injuries into herself. She felt all of the wounds, and then the pain faded and Jaguar was looking into her eyes, astonished. She lay a finger on her lips, smiling, and turned to Distant, then Rain, and then Coal.
Only then did the ecstasy of battle slip away from her. She reached out and put a hand on the wall, feeling briefly dizzy. "Well," she said, not sure what to say, but feeling as if she needed to speak. "It rather appears that we won."
Jaguar answered her. "Yes, we did. But it had costs."
She turned her eyes to where Mantis's body lay, the shell of a man she had known too little, and yet felt as if she understood completely. She thought about Mountain and Thunder, men who had earned her respect and loyalty, and about Cinder, who had been far braver than Jade had given her credit for. "It did," she said. "And now we need to hold the empire together, because I have a feeling that this will shake it to its roots."
"Smoke can handle it. She is strong. Grieving, but strong."
Jade nodded. The dizziness was passing, and she straightened. "She lost both her mother and Onyx today. As I think we all lost people."
He was looking at her now, and there might not have been anyone else in the room, or the universe, but the two of them. "We did. I am glad I didn't lose you."
She caught his gaze with hers. "As am I." She hesitated, then stepped forward. She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him, hard. He was reassuringly solid, so very real. Jaguar put his own arms around her, holding her.
He didn't let go for a long time, and neither did she. She turned her head slightly and murmured into his ear, "I think we have a lot to talk about. But it can wait for a bit."
Jaguar nodded, and--
The world stopped again.
"It ends the way it began." Huitzilopochtli was behind her, and she gently disentangled herself from Jaguar and turned to face him.
There were tears standing in her eyes, and Jade wiped them away with the back of her hand. "You won your battle, I take it?" she asked him.
He shrugged. "Well it's not a battle I can win, really. Hard to kill a god. But I will kick his butt around the universe a few more times."
Jade nodded, satisfied. "Good enough for me. And now come those changes you mentioned before." She glanced back at the frozen tableau behind her. "I'm going to miss them. The ones that died, I mean."
The god's smile was warm and gentle. "I know, Jade, but you will have many more friends in the future. Good friends. But no more have to die just to keep the sun turning. It will do that all on its own."
It was done, then. She was free. "I believe, then, that I have an altar stone to destroy."
"Yes, you do."
She raised an eyebrow. "Want to help me make that suitably flashy?"
"Sure, what did you have in mind?" Huitzilopochtli asked, a chuckle in his voice.
"It exploding in a big bolt of lightning at an appropriate moment during a speech, I was thinking. Something to indicate that I actually do have your approval, more or less."
"I can do that. Tomorrow, Jade. I know you have questions."
The day of the Eagle. The day of rebirth. "Tomorrow would be a good day for it. Where to start with the questions? Well, I don't suppose you know if Mantis got what he was looking for?"
The god nodded. "He did. I forgave him and he rests now in comfort. Or, really, he forgave himself."
She hesitated, but decided she had to ask. "What about me and Jaguar? Have we earned that, as well?"
"It was never really about me, Jade. Do you forgive yourself? If you do, you will follow Mantis. Jaguar will, and so will you, I believe."
She looked away, thinking of Moth, thinking of all the faces in her memory that she could remember more clearly with every passing day. "It...might take me a little while. I still have some ghosts to lay to rest."
Huitzilopochtli smiled. "You have plenty of time. Mantis saw to that."
"Am I going to keep what I got from him?" she asked.
"I told you. It wasn't a god thing. It was something other." He shrugged. "I can't do much to something other. I see a long life still ahead of you. Will you die of old age, maybe some time, some century."
Lifetimes yet, to work on this, to forgive myself. "I suppose I will have that time, then. At least I might beat the average for the high priest lifespan."
"I am sure you will. Bits of the future you will see, just like Mantis, hopefully not as powerfully but it will be there just the same."
She felt the flower unfurled within her, burning like a star. "I certainly hope it's not as powerful as Mantis's gift was. We'll see, I suppose."
"Anything else, Jade? Anybody else?"
Jade nodded. "Cat--she's going to take over from Walker, isn't she?"
"Yes she is. Walker lives for many years to come. Cat goes on to rival anything that Wind or Teal could handle." There was a note of pride in his voice.
"She's a good child. If she pays attention, she may be as wise as Walker, some day. Speaking of, what exactly was Walker and Ocelot's issue with each other? Walker will never tell me."
The god shook his head. "Walker is his and Coal's father."
Jade drew in a sharp breath, understanding. "What happened between the three of them?"
"Ocelot chose to climb to power anyway he could. He became a cleric of Tlaloc. His first sacrifice ordered by Tlaloc was his own mother." Huitzilopochtli shook his head, regretfully. "He will have his wish though, that his blood will be on the throne."
Jade thought. Certainly-- "Aziuhoatl the younger? He's still the official heir."
There was a faint smile on her god's face. "No, Stream will leave for good. She can't handle it. Smoke and Coal's children. His nephew Mountain will inherit the throne."
She laughed outright, then. "I think I'll wait to tell him that he's going to marry Smoke for a little bit. And I honestly can't think of anyone I'd prefer to rule beside Smoke."
"I am not sure I would tell him. Just write him a note that says to open on day of his first child's birth."
Jade nodded. "I'll do that. It would still be amusing to see his face, though. But possibly counterproductive."
"Yes." He opened his arms. "Well, Jade, I need to run. Give me a hug and I will be on my way."
She grinned and stepped into his embrace, hugging him hard. "You're my very favorite god ever, by the way," she told him in a very serious voice.
He hugged her back and let her go. "Better be. See you briefly tomorrow," he said, and faded away.
Time began again. Jaguar looked a bit startled to realize that Jade seemed to have teleported three feet to the left, and the rest all blinked at her. "Well. Shall we see if we can gather everyone together and decide how we're going to announce that Smoke's taken the throne?" As an afterthought, she added, "Though, I suppose we should start by telling Smoke..."
Laughter rippled through the small gathering, and they went in search of their allies. Spider was found first, and Jade healed her as she'd healed the rest. Then she watched astonished as Spider jumped up, threw her arms around Rain, and kissed her soundly on the lips.
Now, I believe, I've seen everything. Oh, my.
Smoke, when they found her, fell into Jaguar's arms, giving herself over to a bout of weeping. Watching Jaguar comfort the girl, Jade had a strange moment where another scene seemed to lay itself over the one she was actually seeing. It was Jaguar, holding another child in his arms, this one an infant.
His son.
She flushed, and was suddenly glad that everyone was paying attention to Smoke instead of her. By the time that Smoke was wiping her eyes and apologizing to everyone present, Jade was back to normal, and added her voice to the suggestions that were being made.
It was a busy afternoon and evening. The next morning, the Temple was gathered at the altar stone at sunrise. Jade made a speech that she had been rehearsing, it seemed, since the day she had learned the truth about the sacrifices. At the appropriate moment, she gestured at the main altar stone, and purple lightning danced down to it, shaping itself in Huitzilopochtli's symbol and then into the sign of the hummingbird before obliterating the stone in a flash of light.
Into the silence that reigned afterwards, she said, "From this moment forward, my brothers, we become what we were always meant to be. We have a new purpose, a new covenant with Huitzilopochtli. We are the agents of change in this world. We show the way and clear the path. I suggest that all of you spend the rest of the day in prayer. From today, everything changes."
Everything changes.
She felt the approval of her god, within the open flower of what she had become.
*****
By necessity, the next few days were busy. Jade looked up and realized that over a week had passed, and it was now the week of Eagle. She hadn't seen Jaguar for days; he had faded away as Smoke had taken power, letting Coal and Jade take over the job of advising the new Chief Speaker.
Shale had departed a few days before with Stream and Aziuhoatl the younger. She remembered her astonishment when Shale had come to her and told her that he was marrying the former royal wife and leaving for the edge of the empire with her, where nobody would know who she or her son was.
"Shale, are you sure? I mean--I know--" Jade faltered.
"I know, Jade. This is my penance--part of it, anyway. She needs me, and in some way, I need her. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine." He'd taken her hands, and kissed her on the cheek. "Goodbye, big sister. Wish me luck, and come to visit sometime."
"Luck," she told him, and squeezed his hands tightly.
"And don't let Jaguar get away, all right? You pined yourself nearly to death when he disappeared. Not everyone gets a second chance."
Jade had flushed, then. "I don't remember that."
"Well, you did." He'd kissed her on the cheek again. "Goodbye, Jade. Good luck."
And now it was a few days later, and Jade thought she knew where she might find Jaguar. She walked out of the city, enjoying the crispness in the air as fall gave way to winter. Walker's small house held one very enthusiastic Cat, who was throwing herself into the study of magic with all of her might, a long-suffering-looking Walker, and Jaguar, who was watching the two with amusement on his face.
That amusement died when he saw her. She nodded to all in the room and said, "Jaguar? It's a nice day. Want to come for a walk with me?"
He nodded without hesitation. Cat smirked as Jaguar walked past her, and Jade gave her a glare with no heat behind it.
She and Jaguar walked wordlessly for some time, heading deep into the swamp along the narrow paths worn between ponds and hummocks. They came to a clearing with a fallen log in it, and Jade sat down on it. Jaguar sat, too, just out of arm's reach.
"I missed you," she said, looking at him sidelong. "I'm...not very good at this, am I?"
Jaguar laughed. "No, Jade, you're not. You never have been."
She smiled, still refusing to look directly at him. "I have a story to tell you. It might explain a thing or two."
She could almost feel his eyes on her, open, interested. "Do tell."
"Do you remember the priest Moth?" she asked. "He died...it will be fifteen years ago next year."
He was silent for a moment, then out of the corner of her eye she saw him nod. "He was accused of being a heretic. He was very serious, I remember, but he had a good laugh sometimes."
"He was. I was the one who ended his life." She looked over at him now, letting him see whatever he could see in her. "He and I had been--involved--for eight months before that, secretly. I was in love with him. The high priest, Swift it was at that point, chose me to sacrifice him. I could not refuse without giving up my position. I chose being a priest over the life of someone I loved, and to justify it I believed in the correctness of what I was doing absolutely. If the sacrifices were not necessary, then what I had done was murder."
Jaguar took a long breath. "You feared it happening again."
Jade nodded. "I didn't love again, after that. Once nearly destroyed me. Twice would have. At least...I didn't love again, until now."
He was silent for a long moment. "When we were together before--"
She shook her head. "I left you, Jaguar, because I was getting too attached to you. I don't know. I don't even know what it is I’m feeling now, only that regrowing a soul after you've lost yours hurts--"
He moved closer to her, and reached out. She interlaced her fingers between his. "This is all I have to offer you," she said. "Broken pieces, all put together in the wrong order."
Jaguar slipped a hand under her chin, tilted her head up. "Not out of order, nor broken. Simply a bit late coming to flower, Jade."
Then he kissed her, and she kissed him back.
There were no fireworks, nor divine signs. Just the two of them in a swamp much bigger than they were, holding on to each other, small and simply, perfectly, human.
*****
It was not that easy, of course. It never was.
It took Jade two weeks to work up the courage to invite Jaguar to her bed. They saw each other once or twice a week after that, and gradually the length of time between visits shortened. They had several spectacular fights during this time, Jade having a terrible time letting go of her ingrained reluctance to grow attached to anyone, but their relationship survived and, then, thrived.
Meanwhile, other relationships were beginning to flower. Jade, a week or so after Smoke took the throne, had given him a letter wrapped in maguey twine. "Open it the day your first child is born," she said.
He'd frowned. "Jade, that's probably going to be some time. I'm a bit busy at the moment, and I don't exactly have any prospects on the horizon."
"Just trust me, Coal." She'd smiled at him, and left him puzzled behind her. In the months after that, Coal became Smoke's most trusted advisor. They spent most of their waking hours together, occasionally working through the night on something important.
Jade fought the urge to burst into a grin the day, eight months after Smoke had taken the throne, that she arrived at the palace only to be told that Smoke was sleeping late that morning. "And Coal is nowhere to be found," Spear added, shrugging.
She laughed. "I believe Coal has discovered that our leader's finally over the worst of her grief about Onyx," she said, and Spear's eyebrows raised.
"Really." He glanced at the door to the Chief Speaker's quarters. Then he smiled. "Lucky bastard."
Jade looked at Spear, and visions drifted through her mind. "The girl, Spear. The ring around the sun. Marry her, and quickly, before she changes her mind about you."
Spear choked, and his ears went bright red. He knew about her visions, of course, but this was the first time she'd shared one of them with him. "Her name is Corona. Her father's being difficult."
She smiled. "I'll talk to him."
"No, you really don't need to--"
"I do." She fixed him with a stern gaze. "He will change his mind about you."
And he did. Spear married about two months before Coal and Smoke announced their marriage. A few months after that, Jade and Jaguar noticed that Jaguar appeared to have come back into the Temple for good, and that they seemed to be living together. The announcement of their marriage completely failed to surprise anyone who knew either one of them.
Cat, of course, was smug about the whole thing, and Jade smiled and let her be. Jade had found a way to share part of what she was with Jaguar, enough so that he would live as long as she did.
Smoke gave birth to her first child, a boy they named Mountain, some months after she and Coal married. Around that time, the advisor Distant married one of the people he had been working with, a woman named Plume.
About a ritual year after she and Jaguar married, Jade, much to her surprise, found herself pregnant. She had thought she was too old for children. She considered this for some time, thinking hard, and decided in the end that bringing new life into the world might balance some that she'd taken. Jaguar was surprised as well, but immediately delighted.
Jade had twin boys. She and Jaguar named the firstborn Mantis, and the second one Thunder. Smoke, not to be outdone, had two more children in the years that followed, another boy named Onyx and a girl that they named Cinder.
Jade did not have much for maternal instincts or, truly, any idea what to do with babies and children, but she learned, and her sons were not much the worse for wear for her mistakes. She did have expert guidance in the form of Spider and Rain, who it turned out had both had a much more traditional upbringing than Jade had, complete with taking care of the neighborhood's babies while the adult women were out at the market.
Life settled into a rhythm then, Jade dividing her time between the palace, the Temple, and the nahual clans outside the city. Word got around that Jade could cure those who did not want to be nahual, and for a while she had a steady stream of people coming to her and being asked to be separated from their animal selves. To a person, they had not been born nahual but had had it inflicted on them.
Part of the penance she'd set herself for who she had been was to make sure that the Temple of Huitzilopochtli would never again fall to ritual sacrifice, and to work through Distant to find the families of those she had killed and make what reparations she could. The other part was that as long as she lived, she strove to never hurt an animal. The nahuales began to refer to her not by her name but simply as "The Guardian".
Jaguar chose a different path.
She came in one day to find him making markings with charcoal on a large piece of maguey paper. He appeared to be tallying something. "What are you doing?" she asked, craning her neck.
"Counting the people I sacrificed," he said. He held up another piece of paper, this one with far fewer marks on it. "These represent the people I've saved from death. When the one balances the other, then I think I’ll be able to rest."
Jade nodded and, wordless, kissed him.
So life in Tenochtitlan moved on. Thorn, when she'd asked him if he wanted to be freed, hesitated and then said, "Being with you is more interesting than wandering around a desert. I will stay." She took one of his talons for herself the next day, an expression of trust in the strange creature she had come to think of as a friend.
Both Spider and Rain stayed on as advisors, their relationship not exactly public but neither exactly private. Between Spider and Jade, there was very little that Smoke was not apprised of before it happened. Rain and Spider also took turns babysitting both the royal children and Jade's hellion twins.
Jade, for those years, could not recall ever being happier.
*****
She was standing at the top of the Temple of Huitzilopochtli, where the killing stone had once stood, looking towards the west and the setting sun. There were tears on Jade's cheeks that the evening breeze was drying.
That was Jaguar's familiar step behind her. "What's wrong?" he asked, seeing how she was standing, as if holding a great wound somewhere inside of her.
"They come," she said. "The men who walk like gods are coming. We've delayed them as much as we can."
He stepped up beside her and put an arm around her. Fifty years had passed, and neither of them looked a day older than they had when Mantis had died. "There's nothing we can do?"
"They come with fire in their hands and weapons ours cannot withstand. They bring illness with them as well. It will kill almost all the children and the old, and the warriors will die singing." She turned to Jaguar, eyes bright with tears. "The time of the Mexica is almost over. We have safeguarded the old ways as long as we can. We will rise again, centuries from now, but for now, it is done."
"You've seen this, then." It was almost a question.
She nodded. "The younger Mountain is dying, Jaguar. There is nothing more I can do for him. Sunset will take over, and under Sunset's rule we will fall." She was staring down into the empty courtyard of the Temple, seeing a very different scene laid over it. "It starts down there, Jaguar. They come, and they kill us while we are singing the praises of Huitzilopochtli. We will defeat them afterwards, for a time; the heart of our people is not easily broken. But they will return. It's time to go, love."
He tightened his arm around her and nodded. "South?" he asked. "The jaguar clan here has ties with those south, and some farther south still. Cat should come, too, and her family."
Jade shook her head. "This is where our paths and Cat's diverge. She will go, but not with us. She and her people will go east to the ocean and then north. They will change, but they will survive. We go south."
"Now?"
"Tomorrow morning. I've already warned Cat. She will spread the news. The boys, too, I warned them, and they will be leaving shortly." The "boys" were their sons, fifty years old and grandfathers themselves, both of them looking older than either of their parents ever would. "It's a big world, Jaguar. Much bigger than this city. We have time to see it in," she said, and smiled.
The next morning, the two of them vanished, leaving behind almost all of their possessions except some weapons, some clothing, and the box that held Thorn.
*****
Jade and Jaguar disappeared into the wilds of what would eventually come to be called Brazil, never to be seen again by their fellow humans. They lived among the nahual clans, and both of them eventually forgave themselves. Jaguar balanced his tallies, and Jade was a fierce protector of the nahuales.
Unlike Mantis, neither of their bodies were born to take the power that sustained them. Jade's flower folded shut about four centuries after she'd taken charge of the power, and she died soon afterwards.
Jade was found by the jaguar nahuales she and Jaguar were living among, sitting tailor-fashion beneath a tree, lifeless. In her lap was Thorn's box, the magic gone and Thorn itself dead. It had been sustained by Jade's life, and when she died it did, too.
Jaguar buried her, then dug a grave for himself and waited. He passed into The Place Where One In Some Way Lives the next morning.
In the end, both of them were accepted into the light of their beloved god, and live there to this day, hummingbirds joyfully chasing the sun.
10/9/1487
Year 8 Acatl, Month of Pachtontli, Trecena 1 Atl, Tonalli 6 Ocelotl, sunrise
(week of Water, daysign Cat/Ocelot/Jaguar: Ocelotl is a good day for doing battle. It signifies power, valor, and reckless abandon in the face of danger.)
For the first time in days, Jade did not remember any nightmares when she woke, just before sunrise. She'd slept with Walker's clay shard in her hand, ready to use it to transport away if she needed to. But she was not attacked, and her morning prayers were not disturbed. After she was done with her prayers, she sat facing the rising sun and thought, briefly. She rose. Mantis was the first on her list of people to talk to this morning.
As usual, he opened the door before she had a chance to knock. "So." she said as he closed the door. "If I were Ocelot, I would have been biding my time until today to try and strike at my enemies. Any idea what he's going to try to do?"
Mantis nodded. "The storm is coming, Jade. You will lose many friends today."
It was what she had been expecting, if not what she wanted to hear. "Do you know who he's going to try to kill?" she asked. "Spider and Cinder, I assume."
His mouth twisted. "Everyone. Me, you, Walker, Mountain, Jaguar, Cat. All of them."
It was today, then. The day the battle she had been waiting for was to come. A good day for doing battle. The day of the cat. "Everyone except maybe Coal," she said to Mantis.
"Yes, the brother will survive as long as he doesn't interfere, then he will die as well."
She knew Coal. He would interfere. "I know how he'll probably try for Mountain--Ocelot has people among his own men. Spider and Cinder, if they can be found, are both not that hard to kill. You, I think, he'd have to try to deal with himself. Me--I don't know offhand what he might try. Walker, Cat, Jaguar...I don't know who he'll send against them. Walker, especially."
Mantis's eyes were distant. "The one that betrayed Smoke."
"Smoke was betrayed, then? I wondered. I was going to ask Mountain how he knew."
His voice was slow, as if he were reluctant to speak. "The one that hates you turned against them all to destroy you."
To destroy me. Who has their trust, and hates me? There was only one answer. "Fox."
"Yes." He nodded curtly. "The attack will come soon and all at once. Chose, Jade, who lives and who dies? You can't be everywhere."
Jade ground her teeth. "This is--not a choice I wanted to have to make." She was thinking furiously, weighing in her mind option after option.
"I will make one for you" Mantis said. "The smoke has to live. I know where she is. I will protect her."
One down, arguably the most important. "Mountain and Coal. Walker. Preferably Cat and Jaguar--I don't think the ocelot clan would forgive me easily if I got Cat killed. Spider, Cinder, maybe Shale, I think I have to let go." Pain lanced through her as she thought of Shale dead, and she swallowed and buried the pain under her pre-battle calm.
Mantis was looking at her, and something about the look on her face made her pause. "Promise me, Jade, that when I die, you are present. It's important."
She felt a weight on her, as if Mantis's very words had carried destiny in them. Make a choice. Lead the way. You are the instrument of the gods. "If I can manage it, Mantis, I promise." She nodded, her decision made. "I can warn Shale, I think. He's a good priest, almost as good as I am. Mountain, I must warn. I need to get a message out to Walker, as well. He can find Jaguar and Cat."
He nodded. "Go quickly. Smoke is in darkside. I will make her safe and see you when I can."
"I will. Good luck, Mantis."
"Today, Jade, that is what you need most. Luck. Your god's speed."
She couldn't think of anything to say to that, and simply nodded and departed. Mantis did, as well, breaking off from her at a corridor intersection a little way from his door. Jade snagged two guards. "You--go to the Chief Speaker's quarters and find the advisor Shale. You--find Spider. The message to them both is, 'Disappear.' Go, both of you, time is of the essence." She left them behind, pelting flat-out for Mountain's office.
His door was standing wide open, and she pulled up in dismay. She stepped into view of the doorway, and saw Mountain lying on the floor, two people standing over him--Sun, and Bear. Both of them were heavily wounded, and neither of them were paying attention to the doorway, looking down at the fallen Mountain.
Jade choked. Her swift assessment was that Mountain was very likely dead. However, she could take care of his killers. She raised her hands.
A voice from behind her gave her pause. "Save your strength, Jade. You will need it for Ocelot." A form brushed by her. She was a tall woman, almost as tall as Jade, with a scholar's hands and an intent manner.
Wind. It had to be Wind.
The mage raised her hands and called fire to them, and Sun and Bear both collapsed, screaming, burning. "Cinder is dead, I am going to kill Teal," Wind said to Jade.
"Thank you," she said, though the knowledge of Cinder's death was bitter in her mouth. I can do no more here. She took the clay shard out, raised it up, and broke it. The world disappeared out from under her, and she felt herself spinning out of control through what felt like a void, a swift darkness all around her.
Then she was in the clearing in front of Walker's house, and knew even before she opened her eyes that the battle had beaten her here. The air stank of sulfur and smoke. She opened her eyes and saw that Cat was lying at her feet, unconscious but still breathing.
A quick look around found Jaguar trying to stanch the bleeding from his many wounds--he was still alive and conscious, but badly hurt. There was a small woman with a knife-edged sword attacking Walker, who was trying to ward her off with a spell. Fox. I would stake my life on it.
Jade opened her mind and the woman flashed orange. Jade smiled grimly and called out, "I'm the one you want. Not him." With those words, she began to call Fox to her, trying to call the animal in her outwards. At the same time, she was moving, her hands empty of any weapon but her magic.
Fox slashed her sword across Walker's abdomen and spun as the mage fell. "You are so right," she said, and there was hatred burning in her eyes.
Jade stepped forward and then hesitated as she heard a voice. It was her god. Trust me, Jade. Sit down and concentrate on Fox. Your friends will bleed to death by the time this battle is over.
Without even thinking about it, Jade fell to her knees in the pose of the student, dropping the spell she'd been about to cast and focusing her entire will, her entire being, on calling Fox. It was not the gentle request she used with Cat. It was a command, the command of someone used to leading men in battle, the command of the fanatic.
Fox raised an eyebrow, and then strode forward. Jade could see that Fox thought she'd surrendered. She only saw that Jade was kneeling, not that she was holding her hands in the upturned pose of the student instead of the palm-downward pose of surrender. "Giving up so soon Jade? I expected more of--" She broke off with a scream.
The process of change was even less pretty than usual when it was forced. After a swift moment, where Fox had stood was her namesake, a fox the color of blood. Jade beckoned it close, calling it to her hands. It trembled but came forward. Slowly, but it came.
Its fur was coarse under Jade's hands, and she hesitated. If she let go of Fox now, the woman would just attack her again. She slid a hand up to its head. She could break its neck, and it would be over. She had no choice.
There was someone standing in front of her. She looked up and saw the face of Huitzilopochtli, looking down at her more seriously than he had in what seemed like an eternity. "Wait," he told her, and her hand stilled.
"What?" she asked.
"Separate that which is human from that which is animal," he told her, just the smallest amount of command in his voice.
Jade looked down at the fox shivering under her hands. She could feel the demarcation in it, where the animal and the human met and mingled. She understood, then, what she had not before, and understood how this was to be done.
She pulled the two apart, teasing them away from each other thread by thread. It seemed to be taking forever, but she knew that only a small space of time was passing. Finally, the last thread connecting the two was broken, and the human fell away from the fox.
Before her, a body fell away from the fox's red fur, swiftly expanding. Fox now lay in front of her, staring with dark eyes at Jade, shivering as the air touched her naked skin. "You have both the animal and the human in your hands," Huitzilopochtli said. "The power to give both life is yours, or to take it away from one or both."
Jade considered, her hands still on the fox. She nodded at the human half. "Her anger at me is entirely legitimate, but it poisoned her against those who cared about her. Especially Jaguar. This one," she said, her hand stroking the fur on its head down, "I think is blameless, in the way of animals. I don't think it hates, not like the human does."
"No, it doesn't. It is just a fox."
She nodded. "Then it goes free. The human...if I free her, she will just come after me again, won't she? I'll never convince her that I have changed." She didn't want to take this one last thing from Fox, not after she had taken everything else. But Fox had hurt Jaguar, and Cat, and Walker, and endangered Smoke. She had threatened almost everything Jade held dear.
Huitzilopochtli shook his head. "No, she will continue to hunt you."
"Then she stops here. She betrayed her own." Jade lifted her hands from the fox and somehow--twisted.
The fox, freed from her control, bolted for the trees. The human body now looked as if it had been through a fire, wisps of smoke rising from blackened skin. Jade looked at what once had been Fox, feeling curiously empty. Should she be sorry?
No. This was still battle calm, and Jade was still fighting a war. She rose swiftly and went to Jaguar. He had given up the effort to bind himself, and his chin was beginning to fall towards his chest where he sat. "Let me see," she murmured to him, and his head jerked upwards. He was barely conscious, she saw, and she began to chant, giving him back some of what he'd lost. A moment later, he was shaking his head, clearing the ringing from his ears. "Jaguar, if you're up to it, Cat needs healing. I'll get Walker."
He followed her gaze; Cat was near him. He scooted over to her and began his own chant. Jade knelt by Walker, evaluating his wounds. The belly wound was the worst, but Fox had not opened the bowel, and so she could patch him back together.
She did so, healing the worst of what had been done to him, and soon enough he opened his eyes and sat up. "Thanks," he said, as his gaze sought and found Cat and Jaguar. Cat, too, was sitting up, making a face.
"You're welcome. I just wish I'd gotten here sooner," Jade said.
"It was soon enough," he replied.
She took a breath. "Mountain is dead. So is Cinder, and I'm assuming Shale is as well. Mantis is guarding Smoke; if Ocelot himself goes, he might have a chance against Mantis, but I'm not sure much of anyone else will."
Walker nodded. "It's possible. Take the creature and go, Jade. I will watch Cat. There is nothing I can do. My spells are gone for the day. Jaguar may still have something left."
Jade nodded and rose without further comment, going inside and fetching Thorn in its box. When she came out, she said, "Stay safe, all of you. Jaguar, your choice--you can come with me, or stay out here and help guard Walker and Cat. I don't know if Fox was the only one sent."
He was standing now, still wounded but obviously sharing her own calm centeredness. We belong on the battlefield, Jade thought. Live or die, we are where we belong.
"I will go," Jaguar said. "I can still help you. I doubt they will send more. They assume they are dead."
Jade nodded, then caught something strange out of the corner of her eye. Huitzilopochtli wandered by, and with a wink dropped something bright at her feet. "Oops, how clumsy of me."
Jade bent to pick up the objects he'd dropped. They were a pair of hummingbird feathers, bright green. Outer primaries. The same feathers that the god wore at his ankles.
"What are these for?" she asked.
Huitzilopochtli grinned. "Your god's speed."
Jade surprised herself by laughing. "All right, all right. Thank you. Here, Jaguar." She handed him a feather, then turned back to her god. "Do you know where Smoke is, or do I need to see if I can get her location from Thorn?"
"Smoke is fine. Mantis saved her. By the way, break that stone when you meet Ocelot."
"Are you going to tell me what it's going to do, or are you going to leave that as a surprise for me?" she asked.
"It's a surprise," he said, still almost laughing. "Good luck, Jade, and thank you." He faded out until nothing but his mouth was left, hanging in midair. "I am still watching you," he said, then disappeared completely.
Jade covered her mouth with her hand, hiding her smile. She turned to Jaguar. "Smoke's all right. I suppose we should head into the city. I should check on a few people with Thorn, though."
He nodded and sat down heavily, obviously intending to use the time to get himself healed up some more. She sat as well, opening Thorn's box. "Morning, Thorn. Is Teal alive?"
"Barely."
Good job, Wind, she thought. "Is she conscious, and is anyone with her?"
"She is. Wind is with her, Ocelot has just come in with another I believe called Water. And Thunder has arrived."
Jade hissed. "Damnit. That's the end of Wind. What's Thunder doing? Ordered to follow Ocelot?"
"From this point of view, I don't know. Switching." There was a pause in the words in the sand. "He is thinking of killing Ocelot. He is engaging his power that he learned from Walker. Teal has died."
Jade thought swiftly. "He'll never manage it on his own. Even if we used the feathers, we'd arrive too late. This is to Thunder--what are you doing? I hope you can reply without speaking aloud."
"Giving you a chance." Again the words paused. "He is trying to step into Ocelot, but is stopped by a shield. Water and Ocelot turn on Wind, she falls bleeding. They turn to Thunder now."
"No--" Jade said, half muttering. She reached out with her power, somehow touching Thunder through the talon in him, casting a spell that would take part of the damage he was about to take on herself.
"They both fire on him. He lives still," the words wrote. Jade nodded as wounds opened on her shoulders and arms, and she gritted her teeth against the pain. She began to send healing to Thunder as Jaguar came to her, laying his own hands on her, calling the favor of the god on her and closing her wounds.
"This from Thunder--" Stutter, begin. "Jade, I can't win this. Save your spells. Let me do what I have to."
She wanted to weep, to hit something. She was unused to feeling helpless. But if this was what he had to do-- "I understand. Goodbye, Thunder," she said, withdrawing her shielding spell.
"He steps forward and into Water. He rematerializes within her. Both die. Contact lost."
She stared at those last words for what felt like forever, then forced herself to breathe in. "All right. Thorn, I need to speak with Mantis."
"Go ahead."
"Mantis, are all of you all right? Do you need any help?" she asked.
"I am fine, the same can not be said for Flame."
Jade smiled. "Good thing, too. I know Smoke's fine, what about Onyx?"
"Dead. So is Clay."
She gritted her teeth, passing her hand over her eyes. "Ah, no, not both of them... We need to regroup. I assume that Ocelot is going to announce his marriage to Stream this afternoon."
"No, he will not. I have arrived at the palace."
Mantis, what are you up to? "Going after him?" she asked.
"There is no other choice, Jade. He is lacking in spells and there will be no better chance."
He was right. "Hold a minute or two. I'll be there shortly."
"For the record Jade. I saw Jasmine's body. She died of an overdose. Rain rescued Spider from Winter. Winter is dead. They are both alive."
Jade was mentally crossing names off of her list. "We're down many allies. But so is Ocelot."
"Talon and Piranha died defending Distant from Spark. Spark is dead by Distant."
"Distant's alive?" she asked.
"Yes he is, and with me along with Rain and Coal. Spider was too wounded to come and we didn't want to heal her with our few remaining spells left. She will live. I have no accounting of Shale, Spear or Stream."
"Cinder is dead, I assume Shale died as well. Stream might be alive or dead, depending. I don't know what happened in their quarters."
"Nor I. Does Thorn know?"
"He doesn't carry a talon. One moment." A prayer into the silence that she suddenly realized was as expectant as the air before a storm. Is Shale alive?
Yes, he is.
Jade sighed with relief. Spear and Stream?
Cinder delayed Ocelot long enough for Shale and Spear to take Stream and the young Aziuhoatl into the tunnels under the city.
Jade smiled. "Good job, Cinder," she murmured. To the box, she said, "Shale and Spear took Stream and Aziuhoatl the younger into the tunnels beneath the city. Wind killed Teal, Ocelot killed Wind, and Thunder and Water are both dead."
"I understand. Two more to die this day. Hurry, Jade."
"I will." To Thorn, she said, "Thank you," and closed the box, standing in a fluid motion. "All right, Jaguar, ready to go?"
He nodded, and his shoulders were straight. "Yes, Jade."
"Mantis is gathered with Smoke and some of the others. We should go to them." She looked at the hummingbird feather critically. "Now, how do you work..."
She took a step forward and it as if the world turned beneath her so swiftly that the trees were nothing but blurs. Jade laughed, felt a blur beside her that must be Jaguar, and began to run.
Scant seconds later, she was in the palace, in front of Mantis. The two she didn't recognize, a solidly-built warrior and a studious-looking woman who would have been pretty if it hadn't been for the frown on her face must be Distant and Rain. Jaguar was beside her. "What took you so long?" Mantis asked.
"Was taking some time to smell the flowers, obviously." Jade glanced around. "So. Ocelot needs to die. He's low on spells and on allies."
"Yes--"
That was the last thing Mantis managed to say. Ocelot stepped into the room, raised his hands, and pointed at Mantis. A blast came from his hands, centered on Mantis, but it caught the rest of them as well.
The world went white, then black. Jade woke, every inch of her hurting, what had to be no more than a few seconds later. She raised her head. Jaguar, Distant, and Rain were collapsed around her. At a glance, Jade couldn't tell if they were alive or dead. Coal was standing in front of Ocelot, bleeding heavily, but successfully keeping Ocelot from casting any more spells.
Mantis crawled over to Jade, and she rolled to a sitting position. He lifted his head and looked her in the eye. "The time has come."
"Do you know what I need to do?" she asked. The thought had occurred to her, but-- No. Please.
His glance told her that he'd heard her thought. "Yes, what you did so well just eight days ago. Sacrifice me to Huitzilopochtli."
Jade spent a bare moment in utter horror, her worst fears confirmed. Then she sternly told yourself, this is important, don't turn away from him now. She nodded. "Quickly, then."
"Destroy the stone and then take my heart, Jade." Mantis said. He lay on his back, his face composing itself into calm.
Barely believing what she did, she snatched the stone from her bag and smashed it on the ground. Six images of her appeared and began to attack Ocelot, the Tlaloc cleric firing wildly at them.
She paid no attention, pulling out the sacrificial dagger she'd rescued from the fire that Raven had caused. She did not ask Mantis if he was ready. He never would be, and neither would she.
He offered no resistance, and she made it as quick as she could. You are called to the gods, my brother, Huitzilopochtli calls you home. You are the flower of the shield, my brother, the flower of war. Go to him now, opening in the corolla of perfection. She raised Mantis's heart in her hand. It stuttered in her grasp. My brother, I grieve, but oh you are blessed!
The heart stopped beating, and burst into a flame that did not burn her but consumed Mantis's heart. In her other hand, the sacrificial dagger shattered.
Mantis died.
The world stopped.
There was something unfolding in Jade, a bud tightly closed unfurling. It felt like she had swallowed live coals, burning beneath her breastbone, and she threw her head back and screamed.
Grief. Sorrow. Joy.
The world opened within her.
She heard Mantis's voice one more time. She could not tell if it was coming from his lips or the air around her. "I was right," it said, and there was surprise and happiness in his voice.
Jade waited, but the voice did not sound again. "Goodbye, my friend," she murmured, and reached out with a bloody hand to close his eyes. Then she stood, swiftly, easily. She still felt as if she had something very small, hot, and bright within her, and she realized that her wounds had all closed.
She was perfectly centered in herself, a wild joy wide open within her. Coal glanced behind him at her, and opened his eyes wide with surprise. Jade did not know what she saw, nor did she care.
She pulled out two daggers and danced forward, laughing. She knew, now. She knew what she had seen in Mantis from the beginning and had not understood until this moment.
Jade was moving quickly, more quickly than should have been possible, the blessing of Huitzilopochtli still on her. Coal fell back as she went at Ocelot. He was out of spells, she saw. She could take her time.
He had a sword, but it might as well have been edged with feathers instead of obsidian. He cut her, but she healed almost as soon as the sword left her skin. She drove him, taunted him, and demonstrated exactly why the priesthood of Huitzilopochtli had been feared even by warriors for a very long time indeed.
Ocelot went down, drowning on the blood that filled his lungs, bleeding from everywhere. She finished him with two daggers, one through his eye into his brain, the other between the ribs into his heart.
She stopped, cocking her head, listening to what sounded like a voice from very far away. Then she went to where Jaguar lay and dropped to her knees beside him, somehow pulling his own injuries into herself. She felt all of the wounds, and then the pain faded and Jaguar was looking into her eyes, astonished. She lay a finger on her lips, smiling, and turned to Distant, then Rain, and then Coal.
Only then did the ecstasy of battle slip away from her. She reached out and put a hand on the wall, feeling briefly dizzy. "Well," she said, not sure what to say, but feeling as if she needed to speak. "It rather appears that we won."
Jaguar answered her. "Yes, we did. But it had costs."
She turned her eyes to where Mantis's body lay, the shell of a man she had known too little, and yet felt as if she understood completely. She thought about Mountain and Thunder, men who had earned her respect and loyalty, and about Cinder, who had been far braver than Jade had given her credit for. "It did," she said. "And now we need to hold the empire together, because I have a feeling that this will shake it to its roots."
"Smoke can handle it. She is strong. Grieving, but strong."
Jade nodded. The dizziness was passing, and she straightened. "She lost both her mother and Onyx today. As I think we all lost people."
He was looking at her now, and there might not have been anyone else in the room, or the universe, but the two of them. "We did. I am glad I didn't lose you."
She caught his gaze with hers. "As am I." She hesitated, then stepped forward. She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him, hard. He was reassuringly solid, so very real. Jaguar put his own arms around her, holding her.
He didn't let go for a long time, and neither did she. She turned her head slightly and murmured into his ear, "I think we have a lot to talk about. But it can wait for a bit."
Jaguar nodded, and--
The world stopped again.
"It ends the way it began." Huitzilopochtli was behind her, and she gently disentangled herself from Jaguar and turned to face him.
There were tears standing in her eyes, and Jade wiped them away with the back of her hand. "You won your battle, I take it?" she asked him.
He shrugged. "Well it's not a battle I can win, really. Hard to kill a god. But I will kick his butt around the universe a few more times."
Jade nodded, satisfied. "Good enough for me. And now come those changes you mentioned before." She glanced back at the frozen tableau behind her. "I'm going to miss them. The ones that died, I mean."
The god's smile was warm and gentle. "I know, Jade, but you will have many more friends in the future. Good friends. But no more have to die just to keep the sun turning. It will do that all on its own."
It was done, then. She was free. "I believe, then, that I have an altar stone to destroy."
"Yes, you do."
She raised an eyebrow. "Want to help me make that suitably flashy?"
"Sure, what did you have in mind?" Huitzilopochtli asked, a chuckle in his voice.
"It exploding in a big bolt of lightning at an appropriate moment during a speech, I was thinking. Something to indicate that I actually do have your approval, more or less."
"I can do that. Tomorrow, Jade. I know you have questions."
The day of the Eagle. The day of rebirth. "Tomorrow would be a good day for it. Where to start with the questions? Well, I don't suppose you know if Mantis got what he was looking for?"
The god nodded. "He did. I forgave him and he rests now in comfort. Or, really, he forgave himself."
She hesitated, but decided she had to ask. "What about me and Jaguar? Have we earned that, as well?"
"It was never really about me, Jade. Do you forgive yourself? If you do, you will follow Mantis. Jaguar will, and so will you, I believe."
She looked away, thinking of Moth, thinking of all the faces in her memory that she could remember more clearly with every passing day. "It...might take me a little while. I still have some ghosts to lay to rest."
Huitzilopochtli smiled. "You have plenty of time. Mantis saw to that."
"Am I going to keep what I got from him?" she asked.
"I told you. It wasn't a god thing. It was something other." He shrugged. "I can't do much to something other. I see a long life still ahead of you. Will you die of old age, maybe some time, some century."
Lifetimes yet, to work on this, to forgive myself. "I suppose I will have that time, then. At least I might beat the average for the high priest lifespan."
"I am sure you will. Bits of the future you will see, just like Mantis, hopefully not as powerfully but it will be there just the same."
She felt the flower unfurled within her, burning like a star. "I certainly hope it's not as powerful as Mantis's gift was. We'll see, I suppose."
"Anything else, Jade? Anybody else?"
Jade nodded. "Cat--she's going to take over from Walker, isn't she?"
"Yes she is. Walker lives for many years to come. Cat goes on to rival anything that Wind or Teal could handle." There was a note of pride in his voice.
"She's a good child. If she pays attention, she may be as wise as Walker, some day. Speaking of, what exactly was Walker and Ocelot's issue with each other? Walker will never tell me."
The god shook his head. "Walker is his and Coal's father."
Jade drew in a sharp breath, understanding. "What happened between the three of them?"
"Ocelot chose to climb to power anyway he could. He became a cleric of Tlaloc. His first sacrifice ordered by Tlaloc was his own mother." Huitzilopochtli shook his head, regretfully. "He will have his wish though, that his blood will be on the throne."
Jade thought. Certainly-- "Aziuhoatl the younger? He's still the official heir."
There was a faint smile on her god's face. "No, Stream will leave for good. She can't handle it. Smoke and Coal's children. His nephew Mountain will inherit the throne."
She laughed outright, then. "I think I'll wait to tell him that he's going to marry Smoke for a little bit. And I honestly can't think of anyone I'd prefer to rule beside Smoke."
"I am not sure I would tell him. Just write him a note that says to open on day of his first child's birth."
Jade nodded. "I'll do that. It would still be amusing to see his face, though. But possibly counterproductive."
"Yes." He opened his arms. "Well, Jade, I need to run. Give me a hug and I will be on my way."
She grinned and stepped into his embrace, hugging him hard. "You're my very favorite god ever, by the way," she told him in a very serious voice.
He hugged her back and let her go. "Better be. See you briefly tomorrow," he said, and faded away.
Time began again. Jaguar looked a bit startled to realize that Jade seemed to have teleported three feet to the left, and the rest all blinked at her. "Well. Shall we see if we can gather everyone together and decide how we're going to announce that Smoke's taken the throne?" As an afterthought, she added, "Though, I suppose we should start by telling Smoke..."
Laughter rippled through the small gathering, and they went in search of their allies. Spider was found first, and Jade healed her as she'd healed the rest. Then she watched astonished as Spider jumped up, threw her arms around Rain, and kissed her soundly on the lips.
Now, I believe, I've seen everything. Oh, my.
Smoke, when they found her, fell into Jaguar's arms, giving herself over to a bout of weeping. Watching Jaguar comfort the girl, Jade had a strange moment where another scene seemed to lay itself over the one she was actually seeing. It was Jaguar, holding another child in his arms, this one an infant.
His son.
She flushed, and was suddenly glad that everyone was paying attention to Smoke instead of her. By the time that Smoke was wiping her eyes and apologizing to everyone present, Jade was back to normal, and added her voice to the suggestions that were being made.
It was a busy afternoon and evening. The next morning, the Temple was gathered at the altar stone at sunrise. Jade made a speech that she had been rehearsing, it seemed, since the day she had learned the truth about the sacrifices. At the appropriate moment, she gestured at the main altar stone, and purple lightning danced down to it, shaping itself in Huitzilopochtli's symbol and then into the sign of the hummingbird before obliterating the stone in a flash of light.
Into the silence that reigned afterwards, she said, "From this moment forward, my brothers, we become what we were always meant to be. We have a new purpose, a new covenant with Huitzilopochtli. We are the agents of change in this world. We show the way and clear the path. I suggest that all of you spend the rest of the day in prayer. From today, everything changes."
Everything changes.
She felt the approval of her god, within the open flower of what she had become.
*****
By necessity, the next few days were busy. Jade looked up and realized that over a week had passed, and it was now the week of Eagle. She hadn't seen Jaguar for days; he had faded away as Smoke had taken power, letting Coal and Jade take over the job of advising the new Chief Speaker.
Shale had departed a few days before with Stream and Aziuhoatl the younger. She remembered her astonishment when Shale had come to her and told her that he was marrying the former royal wife and leaving for the edge of the empire with her, where nobody would know who she or her son was.
"Shale, are you sure? I mean--I know--" Jade faltered.
"I know, Jade. This is my penance--part of it, anyway. She needs me, and in some way, I need her. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine." He'd taken her hands, and kissed her on the cheek. "Goodbye, big sister. Wish me luck, and come to visit sometime."
"Luck," she told him, and squeezed his hands tightly.
"And don't let Jaguar get away, all right? You pined yourself nearly to death when he disappeared. Not everyone gets a second chance."
Jade had flushed, then. "I don't remember that."
"Well, you did." He'd kissed her on the cheek again. "Goodbye, Jade. Good luck."
And now it was a few days later, and Jade thought she knew where she might find Jaguar. She walked out of the city, enjoying the crispness in the air as fall gave way to winter. Walker's small house held one very enthusiastic Cat, who was throwing herself into the study of magic with all of her might, a long-suffering-looking Walker, and Jaguar, who was watching the two with amusement on his face.
That amusement died when he saw her. She nodded to all in the room and said, "Jaguar? It's a nice day. Want to come for a walk with me?"
He nodded without hesitation. Cat smirked as Jaguar walked past her, and Jade gave her a glare with no heat behind it.
She and Jaguar walked wordlessly for some time, heading deep into the swamp along the narrow paths worn between ponds and hummocks. They came to a clearing with a fallen log in it, and Jade sat down on it. Jaguar sat, too, just out of arm's reach.
"I missed you," she said, looking at him sidelong. "I'm...not very good at this, am I?"
Jaguar laughed. "No, Jade, you're not. You never have been."
She smiled, still refusing to look directly at him. "I have a story to tell you. It might explain a thing or two."
She could almost feel his eyes on her, open, interested. "Do tell."
"Do you remember the priest Moth?" she asked. "He died...it will be fifteen years ago next year."
He was silent for a moment, then out of the corner of her eye she saw him nod. "He was accused of being a heretic. He was very serious, I remember, but he had a good laugh sometimes."
"He was. I was the one who ended his life." She looked over at him now, letting him see whatever he could see in her. "He and I had been--involved--for eight months before that, secretly. I was in love with him. The high priest, Swift it was at that point, chose me to sacrifice him. I could not refuse without giving up my position. I chose being a priest over the life of someone I loved, and to justify it I believed in the correctness of what I was doing absolutely. If the sacrifices were not necessary, then what I had done was murder."
Jaguar took a long breath. "You feared it happening again."
Jade nodded. "I didn't love again, after that. Once nearly destroyed me. Twice would have. At least...I didn't love again, until now."
He was silent for a long moment. "When we were together before--"
She shook her head. "I left you, Jaguar, because I was getting too attached to you. I don't know. I don't even know what it is I’m feeling now, only that regrowing a soul after you've lost yours hurts--"
He moved closer to her, and reached out. She interlaced her fingers between his. "This is all I have to offer you," she said. "Broken pieces, all put together in the wrong order."
Jaguar slipped a hand under her chin, tilted her head up. "Not out of order, nor broken. Simply a bit late coming to flower, Jade."
Then he kissed her, and she kissed him back.
There were no fireworks, nor divine signs. Just the two of them in a swamp much bigger than they were, holding on to each other, small and simply, perfectly, human.
*****
It was not that easy, of course. It never was.
It took Jade two weeks to work up the courage to invite Jaguar to her bed. They saw each other once or twice a week after that, and gradually the length of time between visits shortened. They had several spectacular fights during this time, Jade having a terrible time letting go of her ingrained reluctance to grow attached to anyone, but their relationship survived and, then, thrived.
Meanwhile, other relationships were beginning to flower. Jade, a week or so after Smoke took the throne, had given him a letter wrapped in maguey twine. "Open it the day your first child is born," she said.
He'd frowned. "Jade, that's probably going to be some time. I'm a bit busy at the moment, and I don't exactly have any prospects on the horizon."
"Just trust me, Coal." She'd smiled at him, and left him puzzled behind her. In the months after that, Coal became Smoke's most trusted advisor. They spent most of their waking hours together, occasionally working through the night on something important.
Jade fought the urge to burst into a grin the day, eight months after Smoke had taken the throne, that she arrived at the palace only to be told that Smoke was sleeping late that morning. "And Coal is nowhere to be found," Spear added, shrugging.
She laughed. "I believe Coal has discovered that our leader's finally over the worst of her grief about Onyx," she said, and Spear's eyebrows raised.
"Really." He glanced at the door to the Chief Speaker's quarters. Then he smiled. "Lucky bastard."
Jade looked at Spear, and visions drifted through her mind. "The girl, Spear. The ring around the sun. Marry her, and quickly, before she changes her mind about you."
Spear choked, and his ears went bright red. He knew about her visions, of course, but this was the first time she'd shared one of them with him. "Her name is Corona. Her father's being difficult."
She smiled. "I'll talk to him."
"No, you really don't need to--"
"I do." She fixed him with a stern gaze. "He will change his mind about you."
And he did. Spear married about two months before Coal and Smoke announced their marriage. A few months after that, Jade and Jaguar noticed that Jaguar appeared to have come back into the Temple for good, and that they seemed to be living together. The announcement of their marriage completely failed to surprise anyone who knew either one of them.
Cat, of course, was smug about the whole thing, and Jade smiled and let her be. Jade had found a way to share part of what she was with Jaguar, enough so that he would live as long as she did.
Smoke gave birth to her first child, a boy they named Mountain, some months after she and Coal married. Around that time, the advisor Distant married one of the people he had been working with, a woman named Plume.
About a ritual year after she and Jaguar married, Jade, much to her surprise, found herself pregnant. She had thought she was too old for children. She considered this for some time, thinking hard, and decided in the end that bringing new life into the world might balance some that she'd taken. Jaguar was surprised as well, but immediately delighted.
Jade had twin boys. She and Jaguar named the firstborn Mantis, and the second one Thunder. Smoke, not to be outdone, had two more children in the years that followed, another boy named Onyx and a girl that they named Cinder.
Jade did not have much for maternal instincts or, truly, any idea what to do with babies and children, but she learned, and her sons were not much the worse for wear for her mistakes. She did have expert guidance in the form of Spider and Rain, who it turned out had both had a much more traditional upbringing than Jade had, complete with taking care of the neighborhood's babies while the adult women were out at the market.
Life settled into a rhythm then, Jade dividing her time between the palace, the Temple, and the nahual clans outside the city. Word got around that Jade could cure those who did not want to be nahual, and for a while she had a steady stream of people coming to her and being asked to be separated from their animal selves. To a person, they had not been born nahual but had had it inflicted on them.
Part of the penance she'd set herself for who she had been was to make sure that the Temple of Huitzilopochtli would never again fall to ritual sacrifice, and to work through Distant to find the families of those she had killed and make what reparations she could. The other part was that as long as she lived, she strove to never hurt an animal. The nahuales began to refer to her not by her name but simply as "The Guardian".
Jaguar chose a different path.
She came in one day to find him making markings with charcoal on a large piece of maguey paper. He appeared to be tallying something. "What are you doing?" she asked, craning her neck.
"Counting the people I sacrificed," he said. He held up another piece of paper, this one with far fewer marks on it. "These represent the people I've saved from death. When the one balances the other, then I think I’ll be able to rest."
Jade nodded and, wordless, kissed him.
So life in Tenochtitlan moved on. Thorn, when she'd asked him if he wanted to be freed, hesitated and then said, "Being with you is more interesting than wandering around a desert. I will stay." She took one of his talons for herself the next day, an expression of trust in the strange creature she had come to think of as a friend.
Both Spider and Rain stayed on as advisors, their relationship not exactly public but neither exactly private. Between Spider and Jade, there was very little that Smoke was not apprised of before it happened. Rain and Spider also took turns babysitting both the royal children and Jade's hellion twins.
Jade, for those years, could not recall ever being happier.
*****
She was standing at the top of the Temple of Huitzilopochtli, where the killing stone had once stood, looking towards the west and the setting sun. There were tears on Jade's cheeks that the evening breeze was drying.
That was Jaguar's familiar step behind her. "What's wrong?" he asked, seeing how she was standing, as if holding a great wound somewhere inside of her.
"They come," she said. "The men who walk like gods are coming. We've delayed them as much as we can."
He stepped up beside her and put an arm around her. Fifty years had passed, and neither of them looked a day older than they had when Mantis had died. "There's nothing we can do?"
"They come with fire in their hands and weapons ours cannot withstand. They bring illness with them as well. It will kill almost all the children and the old, and the warriors will die singing." She turned to Jaguar, eyes bright with tears. "The time of the Mexica is almost over. We have safeguarded the old ways as long as we can. We will rise again, centuries from now, but for now, it is done."
"You've seen this, then." It was almost a question.
She nodded. "The younger Mountain is dying, Jaguar. There is nothing more I can do for him. Sunset will take over, and under Sunset's rule we will fall." She was staring down into the empty courtyard of the Temple, seeing a very different scene laid over it. "It starts down there, Jaguar. They come, and they kill us while we are singing the praises of Huitzilopochtli. We will defeat them afterwards, for a time; the heart of our people is not easily broken. But they will return. It's time to go, love."
He tightened his arm around her and nodded. "South?" he asked. "The jaguar clan here has ties with those south, and some farther south still. Cat should come, too, and her family."
Jade shook her head. "This is where our paths and Cat's diverge. She will go, but not with us. She and her people will go east to the ocean and then north. They will change, but they will survive. We go south."
"Now?"
"Tomorrow morning. I've already warned Cat. She will spread the news. The boys, too, I warned them, and they will be leaving shortly." The "boys" were their sons, fifty years old and grandfathers themselves, both of them looking older than either of their parents ever would. "It's a big world, Jaguar. Much bigger than this city. We have time to see it in," she said, and smiled.
The next morning, the two of them vanished, leaving behind almost all of their possessions except some weapons, some clothing, and the box that held Thorn.
*****
Jade and Jaguar disappeared into the wilds of what would eventually come to be called Brazil, never to be seen again by their fellow humans. They lived among the nahual clans, and both of them eventually forgave themselves. Jaguar balanced his tallies, and Jade was a fierce protector of the nahuales.
Unlike Mantis, neither of their bodies were born to take the power that sustained them. Jade's flower folded shut about four centuries after she'd taken charge of the power, and she died soon afterwards.
Jade was found by the jaguar nahuales she and Jaguar were living among, sitting tailor-fashion beneath a tree, lifeless. In her lap was Thorn's box, the magic gone and Thorn itself dead. It had been sustained by Jade's life, and when she died it did, too.
Jaguar buried her, then dug a grave for himself and waited. He passed into The Place Where One In Some Way Lives the next morning.
In the end, both of them were accepted into the light of their beloved god, and live there to this day, hummingbirds joyfully chasing the sun.
