Itztli

I came to my queen as willingly as my brother, but not as easily.

My pulse hammered frantically in my throat, and my stomach churned with the sour taste of fear and uneasiness. In the joy of coming into my power last night, I’d managed to suppress the dark stains in my memory, but soon, she would know the truth. Tlacel had already proven exactly how precious he would be in her service.

Now I would prove how monstrous I would be.

Shara looked down at my obsidian blade a moment, and when she met my gaze again, the same blackness filled her eyes, a glittering icy darkness of faceted glass. Hairs rose on my arms. The goddesses walked among us tonight. Coatlicue had already doomed me. If Isis turned me away too, I would beg to be sacrificed along with the consiliarius who’d betrayed my family.

My queen tipped her head back, letting the blanket slip from her shoulders to the ground. Rain sluiced down her cheeks like tears. She let out a soft sigh and met Mayte’s gaze. “Would it be terribly inconvenient if you had a large tree in this spot?”

The sound my sister made might have been a laugh, but it hurt my ears. Last night, they’d laughed and splashed each other in the grotto like two maiden goddesses, but tonight, the earth mother’s killing devastation roared in their power. “Not inconvenient in the slightest, especially if it’s large enough to provide some shade for the courtyard.”

“Oh, it’ll be large enough, I think.” Shara dropped her gaze back to mine and I flinched. She stripped me bare. In a single look, she weighed my heart and began to sift through my mind. All too quickly she would find the poison that remained.

I didn’t pull away. I didn’t try to hide. I let her have it all.

She cupped my chin, her fingers hard on my jaw. The pressure stirred something inside me. It lifted its head, the monster’s interest piqued. Not my giant dog. No, this was something else entirely. Something I loathed with every fiber of my being.

She whispered inside my head. :What are you protecting me from?:

She could have pushed that cracked door wide open and dragged my filthy secrets out one by one. Gratitude that she didn’t, that she allowed me to face those truths one by one in my own time, clogged my throat. :It’ll be easier if I show you, my queen.:

Tales of twin gods were common to my people, which made the reality of growing up as a twin much more difficult. In ancient times, when twins were born, it wasn’t uncommon for one of them to be killed. Sometimes it was easy to see which twin should be sacrificed, because one would be born with a deformity. For others, like me, the deformity wasn’t apparent immediately.

I was the gigantic black dog, like Xolotl, Quetzalcoatl’s monstrous twin, and Tlacel was the beautiful feathered serpent.

Thus it had always been since the day I was born.

She slipped deeper into my mind, past my conscious thoughts to actual memories. Reading them like a book, watching flashes of my childhood like a movie.

Our mother had delivered us during the bloody time of Tenochtitlan’s invasion and the crumbling of the mighty Aztec civilization. Grandmama and Mayte often said our mother died when Tenochtitlan fell, but that wasn’t entirely true. She lived, long enough to deliver Mayte hundreds of years later.

But Mama was never the same after she left Tenochtitlan. After she delivered me.

As a young queen ripe with power, Citla Zaniyah had gone to foster with an older and more renowned queen descended from the Great Goddess of Teotihuacan, and when she returned, she was changed. Silenced. Broken. No one ever spoke of her time there, or who our father, or fathers, were. Though I heard the whispers.

I was so different from Tlacel. He was kind and generous, beautiful and gentle. He would never harm another.

I, on the other hand, had gained the reputation for being sullen, dark, and yes, extremely dangerous. I fought to the death like a starving dog over scraps of refuse. Mama had retreated into her mind, and Grandmama had been busy establishing the new Zaniyah nest and moving our family from Tenochtitlan. But one thing always stuck in my mind.

Mama never had Blood. Not even an alpha. So who, then, had sired us?

When I was older, I asked Grandmama what had happened to my mother. She had only shaken her head and said some things were better forgotten.

Forgotten. Like how I came to be. How I was so different from my brother. As we matured into young Aima males, hungry for the chance to serve a queen, the differences in us had become even more stark and grim.

Grimacing, I pulled back from those memories and focused on Shara. She cupped my face in both her hands and leaned down over me, staring deeply into my eyes. She turned the page in my mind, and I was sharing blood for the first time with someone not family. My first sib, my first lover. Shame clawed at my throat, and I tried to shut the memory away, but I couldn’t refuse my queen.

The first taste of sweet, new blood. Her hot skin against mine. Her cries that had quickly turned to screams. Even when she fought me and clawed at my face and arms, I couldn’t stop. The pain only inflamed me. I wanted more. I wanted her to shred my skin off in strips. I wanted to cover her in my blood and wear hers too.

They’d had to drag me off her, beating me like a wild animal until sense slowly edged back the red haze clouding my vision. Panting, achingly erect, and covered in blood, I could only watch as she fled from me. That look of horror and fear on her face flashed in my mind constantly, but especially when I fed. Even from family. I hadn’t touched Tlacel’s or Mayte’s blood in over a century. It’d been so long…

I was afraid someone would have to drag me off them, too. That I’d turn into a savage monster and devour the people I loved most in the world. Or, that if they tasted my blood, the same savage, mindless hunger for blood and pain would contaminate them, too.

It was one reason we’d never served a queen despite our age and potential power. Tlacel refused to go without me, and I couldn’t bear to feed or risk touching a woman ever again.

:After that incident with the sib, Grandmama sent us to the same nest where Mama had fostered. She said I needed to know the truth about how I was sired. I needed to understand what I came from, in order to protect us all.:

We’d gone to the nest of Theresa Tocatl, descended from the Great Goddess of Teotihuacan. Little was known about the goddess, though She was always depicted with spiders. Sometimes as a giant mouth lined with teeth. Her Blood each descended from the old gods. A jaguar god. A sun god. A quetzalcoatl god. And the flayed god.

After seeing how the latter Blood fed, I knew who my father had to be.

Even now, my mind flinched from the memory.

We Aima reveled in blood, but the Flayed One reveled in pain as much as the blood, and he saved his darker tastes for hapless human women. He could strip the whole skin off his sacrifice with only a small slit in the chest, and he gave the skin to his queen to wear.

Worse, his power allowed him to keep his sacrifice alive and screaming the entire time. He feasted on her pain as long as possible, until she ultimately died. Humans were too fragile after all. Nothing like Aima queens.

Unfortunately for him, drinking pain made him as loose-lipped as a drunk human, and he had told me, in brutal detail, exactly what had happened to my mother years before.

A young queen without Blood. Without protection. With a great deal of power that she didn’t know how to wield.

I killed the monster who’d fathered me. I killed them all, even their queen, but the damage had already been done.

:He tortured her and used her power to keep her alive while they all raped her.: I whispered, squeezing my eyes shut. :Tlacel and I were sired by Tocatl’s Blood through rape and horror, and I was her greatest horror. The one who tortured her the most lives on in me.:

Shara

So much pain and guilt and shame, all for something completely out of his control. He’d carried that needless guilt for hundreds of years, to the point where he hadn’t fed or enjoyed the powers he’d been born with.

:How did you make it through last night? You were able to take my blood, and you allowed me to feed as well. I sensed nothing amiss, and I was looking for a reason not to trust you.:

A grim smile twisted his lips. :The goddess sent me a vision of you killing a magical spider without hesitation, and I hoped you could also kill the spider that I carry. The Great Goddess and the Flayed One live on inside me, my queen. I fully understand if you cannot abide such Blood. I only ask that you sacrifice me here, so my blood will at least feed Zaniyah lands, and I beg you to allow Tlacel to continue to serve.:

I had envisioned the geas on Mayte’s nest as a spider, but I’d sensed nothing like that in his bond. Only the giant black dog.

However, I hadn’t sensed his reluctance to feed or allow others to feed, either.

His bond firmed with conviction. He knew I would reject him. He braced for his own blade to sink into his heart.

:If I’m not mistaken, your sister’s crown was made to look like human hands and hearts. All goddesses have their dark side of death and destruction, and we are given their gifts as they see fit.:

His face hardened, his eyes flashing like his blade. :I begged Coatlicue for centuries to lift this curse from me. Or at least allow me to die, so Tlacel could have a normal life. But she refused to even allow me honor in death.:

I softened my grip on his face and lightly trailed my index finger over his lip. His eyes narrowed, suspicious of even the smallest caress. :Did it not occur to you that your goddess has a purpose for you? That I may have a purpose for you? Despite these dark needs you’re worried about?:

:I do not wish to be a darkness that only reminds you of how precious and wondrous the light is when it returns. Take Tlacel. Sacrifice me. It’s the best option.:

The goddesses whispered in my head. Make the sacrifice. Grow the heart tree. Plant our seed in Zaniyah’s nest. Another tree in Our grove.

Would this tree be able to communicate with mine at home? What kind of tree would She grow? How much blood would it require?

I let these questions flicker through my mind, a distraction while I thought about my options. I wasn’t eager to die on a heart tree again, but I’d do it without hesitation, if it would protect Mayte and her people. But I didn’t feel called to give them my life’s blood this time.

I felt called…

To give them his.

I hesitated, making sure of Her will. I wasn’t even sure which goddess wanted his blood and the promise of his life, whether it was Isis, Coatlicue, Morrigan, or even this Great Spider Goddess I’d never heard of before. Or all the above. The desire for his blood, pain, and ultimate sacrifice swirled through my power. Like an eager drip of blackest ink on crystal clear water, swirling and spreading to stain the entire pool.

He wanted to die and prove himself needed. He wanted me to punish him for the dark gifts he carried.

When my own power would revel in those gifts.

I reached down and picked up his obsidian blade. Straightening, I watched his face, and more importantly, I listened to his bond. He didn’t flinch, look away, or pretend surprise that I was apparently willing to take him up on his offer. His bond remained as grim as before, eerily silent except the low, mournful whine of his black dog, pleading for forgiveness when his master could not.

“I require your blood, Itztli, and quite possibly, your life.”

“Take every drop of blood in my body, my queen. I’m yours.”