CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE: THE STILLBORN PAST

The Underworld shone a little brighter when I arrived.

The morning star’s glow had grown a little stronger, though by such a small amount I could hardly notice it. I wondered if that was a message from the Feathered Serpent that the road ahead of me was the right one, but that I still had a long way to go.

Whatever the case, I soon spotted Mother awaiting me. A gulf of a few dozen feet separated us, and she made no move to close that gulf. She loomed at the edge of my vision and studied me carefully, her body tense and her wings ready to carry her away.

Mother was keeping her distance.

“Are you afraid of me?” I asked.

“Shouldn’t I be?” She held my gaze, her hands rubbing her arms. “Are you thirsty?”

I bristled at the implications. “No, I am not.”

“Did you feed on that woman then?” Mother scoffed. “Or was satisfying another of your hungers enough to satiate the thirst?”

My jaw clenched on its own. I couldn’t blame Mother for responding with caution considering the way I’d nearly lost control in her presence. She at least had people around her in the living world to restrain or reason with me, but the Underworld offered her no such protection. I’d already proved in the past that a single Word of mine could disarm her.

Her words gave me pause too. I’d started using sex to deal with stress in the waking world, to reaffirm what little control I had over my surroundings. That had been the very foundation of my relationship with Necahual. She gave me the thrill of owning her and restored my confidence in return for power.

Although my concubine had become so much more than a toy to pass my nerves on, I still relished the act of lovemaking. And Mother was right; the thrill of taking another man’s wife, of siring a child on an empress and usurping the Sapa imperial line did sate the thirst that hounded me even into the Underworld.

Was that urge truly mine, or the First Emperor’s shadow looming over me? Or was it my rising divinity compelling me to act according to how others perceived me?

It is a terrible feeling, to not be certain whether our thoughts are our own or not. I’d heard that the mad usually lost their sense of reality when they began to doubt their own senses and judgment. I must remain vigilant.

“I am satiated for now, but we both know only light can keep away the dark,” I replied. Only the embers could help me shake off the First Emperor’s yoke on my soul. “We ought to stay on the move.”

Mother studied me for a moment before acquiescing. We shapeshifted into our owl forms and swiftly flew across the dark lands of the maddened dead. Mother cautiously let me fly further away from me and I respected her boundaries.

We followed the morning star’s glow across the quiet lands of the maddened dead.

That alone began to spook me. The Underworld’s Third Layer had been a land of howling winds and insanity, of deranged beings and violent cruelty. Its depraved souls delighted in the vicious dance of violence and maiming one another in terrible games.

Yet silence ruled in this corner of the dead world.

A sense of eerie wrongness continued to rise in my heart as I flew past teeth mountains and lip-shaped ravines of quivering flesh. The wind grew softer, warmer, almost pleasant. The metallic scent of blood in the air was not unusual around these parts, but not as aggressive as in other areas.

However, the true surprise came when we flew past the teeth mountains and arrived in a valley nested within them. The sight that awaited us there took me utterly by surprise, and I had to stop for a moment to check with the Gaze to see if my sight did not deceive me.

Flowers.

A valley of blooming multicolored flowers stretched ahead of us under the glow of Quetzalcoatl’s morning star. Dahlias, marigolds, vanilla, orchids, and countless other plants I’d never seen before stretched across the land. It was a dizzying sight, especially since I detected no illusion.

A clefted cedar tree of colossal size and split in half occupied the center of this hidden paradise; fountains of warm blood flowed from its severed trunk in rivers that fed the sweet plants of the fertile valley, the metallic tang mixing with a sweet aroma that soothed my soul. Obsidian spikes kept the two halves of the tree separated from each other, and it didn’t take me long to realize its branches and form vaguely resembled a giant extending its arms to the heavens above in supplication.

I looked around in surprise and spotted a few oddities across the landscape, such as the entrance of caves leading into the mountains’ depths around the flower field; small fountains of blue-green crystal-clear water whose droplets turned to mist before they could touch the ground; and isolated stone altars on which rested codices of bones, skin, and sinew.

What was this place? I wondered until I heard cries in the distance. Is this another trap?

My time in the House of Fright had made me quite wary of false paradises. Every safe haven in the Underworld had its cost; even Tlaloc’s refuge meant living according to his laws and to fear his stormy whims.

“What is this place?” I asked, and received no answer. This alerted me enough to peek over my shoulder and prepare to spellcast. “Mother?”

Mother hovered behind me, her wings flapping so softly I could hardly hear them. No monster had ambushed us, but the way she stared at this valley of flowers made me fear that she had fallen under some force’s sway. She observed the paradise with such focus that my words had fallen on deaf ears.

The cries grew louder, sharper, and higher-pitched. I searched for their source and soon realized my mistake; I’d been looking down rather than up.

Children floated high above.

No, scratch that, ‘children’ wasn’t quite the term one should use to describe them. Children were usually complete, and the creatures above us were as unfinished as they came. They were a gallery of bloated infants with grotesque proportions, wrinkled skin, atrophied legs, drooling, toothless mouths, and black eyes staring at nothing with vacuity in place of a mind. Others were half-rotten with swollen joints and exposed bones; a few trailed umbilical cords coiling around their necks like blackened leashes; or overgrown fetuses of diseased blood staring back at me with a crimson and a hole for half a face. And they were huge, monstrously so, with gaping voids for mouths that could swallow a man whole… yet I sensed no hostility from them.

I could see hundreds, if not thousands, of these creatures peacefully floating under the pale sunlight of a dead world. They didn’t descend upon us in a ravenous swarm, though they might have the power to overwhelm us, and neither did they threaten us with silent warnings and howls. They instead assessed us with a mix of childish curiosity and caution.

This was the land of the stillborn.

This was a paradise, yes, one meant for those who had never gained the chance to live. I had a pretty good idea of who held sway over this peaceful corner of a damned world and how she would react upon seeing us.

I exchanged a glance with Mother, who observed the clouds of stillborn souls with a gaze filled with something deeper than sorrow. Was that shame? No, not shame…

Guilt.

“What did you do?” I asked warily. Had Lord Quetzalcoatl sent us to confront one of her past sins?

Mother stared at the bloody cleft tree and hovered in place for a moment. I could tell she was torn inside. Every fiber of her being told her to turn back, to fly away and avoid whatever confrontation we both knew awaited us there. Whatever crime warranted her guilt was one she would rather not face.

She turned to glance at my chest, at my flaming heart, and the dark shadow coiling around my soul. She had seen for herself the darkness that threatened to engulf me, Nenetl, and the world alike. I saw a flicker of maternal instinct pass in her eyes.

“You will see,” she replied with resignation. “Let us go.”

She flew ahead of me this time, and I followed shortly. Mother had decided to bear the consequences of whatever trial awaited us for our family’s sake, for which I was grateful.

We flew across the land of flowers towards its central tree under the gaze of the floating stillborn. A few followed after us from a distance like clouds gently carried by the wind, chirping and dancing. Seeing creatures with those horrific exteriors behave in such an innocent way felt both disturbing and oddly endearing in its own way.

Dead or not, they are still children on the inside, I told myself. Another, familiar smell began to overwhelm that of the stench of blood and the flowers’ fragrance the further we moved. I recognized the musky scent of sex, sweat, and body fluids. This is the smell ofbirth.

The feet of the tree soon came into sight, and its mistress along with it.

Itzpapalotl, goddess of sacrifice and queen of the Tzitzimīmeh, awaited us alongside my son.

It had been many nights since I had last seen the Obsidian Butterfly, but her image had been seared into my mind. Her body was carved from darkness and starlight, with the sharpness of obsidian and the lustrous curves of the original, perfect template of womanhood. Her wings rested on a humble throne of wood and flowers, and her smile reminded me of a curved dagger. A skirt of flaming snakes lit her up like a candle in the night.

My gaze lingered on the creature sitting at the goddess’ side, its feathers ruffled by her hand, its immense blue eyes staring at us with curiosity. This particular child was enormous and different from the rest in that the mark of the Tlacatecolotl was strong with them, giving them small ebon wings and talons for legs. I had seen them swallow the damned with a grotesque tongue and teeth, but seeing them now only inspired pity and sorrow rather than horror and disgust.

This fiend was what remained of my stillborn child, slain by the Nightlords before they could be born.

“Welcome home, my children,” Itzpapalotl said with a kind voice clearer than crystal that both aroused and disturbed me all at once. “Welcome to the birthplace of the human soul.”

Mother and I landed in front of the throne, shifted back into our human forms, and bowed in respect. However much I wanted to comfort my dead child, it would be unwise to disrespect a goddess in her own abode.

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“Lady Itzpapalotl,” I said with deep respect. “We pray we do not intrude.”

“Can man intrude upon his own cradle, Cizin?” The goddess observed us both with eyes shining with bright light. Although they lacked the warmth of a true sun, they radiated the comforting acceptance of a guiding star. “My dear Ichtaca will always be welcome in this place, and so shall you, son of man.”

“The cradle of man?” I repeated. “Then this place…”

“This is where the four celestial gods wrote the books of years, dreams, and fate that brought order to the chaos that came before, and where the first mortals were created.” Itzpapalotl sensually cradled a blood fruit hanging from one of the tree’s branches, her fingers caressing its smooth exterior without seizing it. “This is mankind’s cradle, where the unborn wait for the world to end and begin again.”

My heart ached in my chest. This sanctuary indeed filled me with an odd sense of nostalgia, though I had never visited it. Much like the owl in me had recognized Xibalba as the nest of nightmares from which it first took flight, my humanity carried a phantom memory of this domain that stretched all the way back to the childhood of mankind.

Should a Sixth Sun ever rise and the gods prove kind enough to give mankind yet another chance, then these children above would become reborn with the new world.

My gaze lingered on my child. Would they linger here for eons until that day, resting in this sanctuary during the day and then prowling the land of the damned dead during the night in the form of a foul fiend? An eternity spent as a demon waiting for a chance at another life didn’t sound like an enviable fate to me.

“Come here,” I said softly.

The monstrous owl-child of my loins stared back at us with its pale blue eyes so similar to mine. I saw a glint of recognition in its pale gaze, the knowledge that we were kin, and a slight wariness.

“Come here,” Mother whispered behind me after a short silence.

My child obeyed this time. It rose on its lumbering talons and walked towards Mother, not like a man, but like a young bird hopping on the ground. My hands trembled at the sight, not only because it reminded me of what I had lost, but because the child’s behavior didn’t sit well with me.

Something was wrong. I could feel it in my bones. Something didn’t add up.

“Why won’t they listen to me?” I muttered to myself. It recognized me as kin, but my pleas had fallen on deaf ears.

“He won’t obey you,” Mother said, her voice quieter than usual.

He? How could she know my unborn child’s gender, unless…

My spine soon stiffened, and my eyes widened in understanding. I observed Mother gently caressing the stillborn child’s cheek with deep sorrow, seeing the guilt and regrets, the way the creature seemed to recognize her and crave her touch.

Only then did I understand.

I understood why the goddess of the stillborn had shown Mother so much affection during our last meeting, why she offered her services as a midwife to the Sapa until they found out about her powers, which breath she had used to unlock this Layer’s lock, why she had feared to come to this place so much…

“You were mistaken, Cizin,” Itzpapalotl confirmed. “This child is not yours.”

This creature was my kin indeed, but no son of mine.

I stared at him and Mother, who avoided my gaze. I seized one of my bones after a moment’s consideration and raised a body for my father’s spirit to inhabit. I didn’t need to tell him anything. He had seen so much through the bond that united us, and he knew what faced us the very moment he manifested to meet the child’s gaze. Perhaps it was paternal instinct, or maybe a part of him had always suspected the truth.

Whatever the case, he didn’t recoil from the demon. Father never responded with cruelty when he could default to kindness, and this moment was no exception. He reached out to the child to gently caress its enormous cheek without even sparing a glance at the goddess observing us. I feared she would smite him on the spot, but she had the wisdom and grace to let this moment of disrespect slide.

“What is his name?” I asked Mother.

“I don’t know,” she whispered back, her voice breaking into sobs. “I never had time to give him one.”

“Nenetl…” Father guessed, his voice hardly anything more than a whisper. “She… she had a twin?”

Mother nodded, though it seemed to take all of her strength to do so. “When the Nightlords and their spawn came, I…” She gulped. “I was forced to… to…” She covered her mouth. “Nenetl had the strength to live, but her brother…”

Mother burst out crying.

Tears rained down her pale cheeks, and she crumbled to her knees like an old tree felled by lightning. I had only ever seen her like this once, when the Lords of Terror had broken her by feeding my father to the First Fear. I had answered her pain with fury back then, but here I could only feel kinship and sympathy born of shared suffering. Father moved to hug her with all of his strength and sorrow.

“This is why I… I couldn’t bring myself to tell you…” Mother sobbed on my father’s shoulder. “I… I’m sorry…”

“This is…” Father stopped. Even he couldn’t lie and say all would be okay after this, though he still found the strength to squeeze my mother tighter. “I am here…”

My stillborn brother let out a soft cry halfway between that of a human baby and an owl’s chirping. He rubbed himself against my parents, matching their grief with his own. I ruffled his feathers as well to provide what meager comfort I could.

“Then…” My voice died in my throat. “My child…”

“Is suffering with his mother inside Yohuachanca’s belly,” Itzpapalotl replied with a hint of sympathy. “His greed and hunger suffer no exceptions.”

The thought that my unborn child suffered in the First Emperor’s stomach rather than this hell filled me with nausea. However terrible, the latter was still an afterlife.

Vampires had taken so much from our family. They had murdered my infant brother before he could live, fed my child to their vile god, enslaved my sister and I, murdered Eztli’s father, and tried to rob us of light itself.

My hatred had long transcended into resolve. This was only another reminder of what had to be done.

“We… we can’t let him stay here,” Father said upon staring at my monstrous sibling. “Not like… not like this. Not alone.”

I clenched my fists and faced Lady Itzpapalotl. The goddess’ smile hadn’t wavered since we arrived, and her quietness put me ill-at-ease.

This was a test of some kind. I could feel it in the dim light of Lord Quetzalcoatl’s sun. The Feathered Serpent led us here for a purpose.

“Is there any way to return him to life, Lady Itzpapalotl?” I asked the goddess.

“Of course not, Cizin,” the goddess replied calmly. “The dead do not belong among the living. There is no spell in this world that can return ghosts to true life. You of all people should know that.”

Yes, I did. Even the likes of Yohuachanca could only raise the dead as murderous mockeries of the living. The Ride only allowed a soul to possess a body for a time, Mother’s transfer ritual had demanded conditions near impossible for us to replicate, and the Mallquis only delayed their inevitable demise by feeding on their relatives’ faith and worship. At no point had I ever encountered a spell capable of truly returning the dead to life.

Life was fleeting while death was eternal.

“Nonetheless, my nephew’s words ring true.” Itzpapalotl rested her head on her hand, her white hair flowing with a faint breeze. “This hell’s doors are open, and you may leave at any time.”

“We may leave?” Father asked. He finally remembered to bow to Lady Itzpapalotl, who graciously allowed him to. “Lady goddess, I do not understand…”

“We cannot return the child to life, but we can decide its afterlife,” I guessed. Each Layer of the Underworld had its own resting place for the departed… yet I struggled to imagine the likes of Tlaloc welcoming a monster into his paradise. “How could this curse be lifted?”

“That is sadly beyond my power,” Itzpapalotl replied calmly. “There are only two gods with purview over the dead. They alone may restore the child to a shade of humanity, or allow him to find rest.”

Mother froze in place, her face that of a criminal realizing that she may have to confront the very authorities she had run away from.

“You may go to Mictlan and implore the queen of the dead for mercy,” Itzpapalotl said. “If you supplicate yourself at her feet, I am sure she will take pity on the child and grant him the peace he craves.”

“She… she won’t forgive me,” Mother replied, her hands rubbing her arms. “She will smite me the moment she sees me.”

“I am sure she will demand proper penance, but she was human once. Her heart may no longer beat, but it still bleeds.” Lady Itzpapalotl glanced at the demon children dancing in the sky above us. “You may also stay here as one of my Tzitzimīmeh. I will allow you to care for your son until the curtain falls on the Fifth Humanity.”

I scowled. “They will be demons stuck in hell…”

The goddess did not deny it. “But they will be together.”

“Would you truly let my brother go, Lady Itzpapalotl?” I asked. It surprised me that a goddess prophesied to end the world would prove so accommodating. There had to be a catch of some kind. “Isn’t his soul under your purview?”

“I am the lady of sacrifices, Cizin, not cruelty,” the goddess replied calmly. “Any choice your mother shall make tonight carries a great cost, and that I must respect.”

I pondered her words and turned to face my family. Mother had wiped away her tears and now observed her lost son with hesitation. My stillborn brother tensed up in anticipation upon sensing that his fate was in the air. His enormous head tilted to the side as he waited for his parents’ decision.

We could all see the writing on the wall.

Queen Mictecacihuatl will never allow Mother to leave Mictlan again in her sleep, not after she abducted souls from the City of the Dead to Xibalba. Mother would have to spend the rest of her nights in the First Layer, caring for the family she abandoned, denied access to the lower realms of the Land of the Dead Suns and the power they offered. Entering Itzpapalotl’s service as one of her handmaidens meant serving her until the prophecy of doomsday.

Either option carried the same price.

Mother would never become a goddess. She would have to abandon her ambitions, to swallow her pride, and find penance. After a lifetime of putting herself ahead of others, she would have no other choice but to take care of her family.

Of course, nothing forced her to go along with this. Mother could refuse, or saddle Father with all the parental responsibilities like she did with me so long ago. I was certain the temptation of selfishly dumping the responsibility of caring for her child on her husband remained strong… yet that too would come at a cost. She would lose the trust she had managed to recover from her family. Father might grow to forgive her again, as he had absolved her so many times before, but I certainly wouldn’t give her a third chance.

Lady Itzpapalotl’s words rang true. Any option involved a sacrifice of some kind. Nothing stopped Mother except her own hesitation.

“I can take him above,” Father told Mother. “I have a body and I know where the entrances are. I can take our son to Mictlan.”

“Traveling alone would be madness,” I countered. Although the Legion bound our souls together and provided him with a body carved from my own bones, we had never tested how far the spell’s range extended; not to mention that all Underworld Layers carried their own lot of dangers. “Tlaloc ended their punishment, but the Burned Men remain feral, not to mention the creatures of this maddened land.”

My father and brother would both encounter an unfortunate fate should they go on their trip, and we all knew that.

“No,” Mother said, so quietly I almost failed to pick up on it. “No, Itzili. Not this time.”

I remained silent while Father tried to console her. “Ichtaca–”

Mother didn’t let him finish. “I cannot… I cannot do this again. I cannot run away again.” She gathered her composure and straightened up. “I’ve fled all of my life, and… and I can’t bear it anymore.”

Cowardice was a heavy weight on the soul. It was the one sin none could take pride in.

“I will go with him above, to Mictlan.” Mother glanced at the false paradise around us, at the flowers blooming amidst the blood and the mountains of madness. “This place… is not good for him. For us.”

“Are you certain, Mother?” I inquired out of concern. Traveling to Mictlan meant confronting Queen Mictecacihuatl’s judgment, and while I believed in her mercy, I could not guarantee it. “There will be no going back.”

She nodded, first weekly, then with greater resolve. “You were right, my son. I… I do not have your strength. I do not have what it takes to ascend to the heavens and dance with the suns. I knew it even before we met. I…” Mother looked away. “I simply refused to accept my… weakness.”

“You are not weak, Ichtaca,” Father reassured her. “Facing oneself is one of the hardest things a person can do.”

“It is,” I conceded. I had undergone a similar ordeal after Eztli’s ritual, when I had no choice but to confront my own misplaced arrogance. No one wished to look into a mirror only to see the flaws.

My brother let out a soft, eerie sound akin to a mix between a bird’s cry and a human one. Mother struggled not to break down again upon hearing it, though she recovered her composure and pressed a hand against his cheek. My sibling’s eyes closed, his soul lulled to sleep.

“I… I do not think I can do it alone, Itzili,” Mother said, her voice wavering with fear and hesitation. “Will… will you come back with me to Mictlan?”

“Yes… yes, of course,” Father replied softly, without fear or hesitation. “I won’t leave either of you. I will beg Queen Mictecacihuatl to spare you if I must.”

“Tell her you will hold the Day of the Dead,” I told Mother. “If you do–”

“No… no, my son.” Mother shook her head. “Queen Mictecacihuatl will not accept a bargain, only humble penance.”

My jaw clenched. I feared that she was right, and I hated it. Confronting the queen meant accepting her judgment unconditionally, without leverage or alternative. It meant facing the unknown.

And in that moment, I could only feel one thing for that woman I had once so despised.

“I am proud of you,” I said sincerely.

In spite of all she had done, all of her human frailties and all of her flaws, I still wanted her in my life and beyond. She had finally decided to do the right thing, to atone for her mistake, the same I struggled to, and I could only respect that.

Then there was light, and a song.

A powerful radiance shone from the sky, awing the stillborn dead into silence. Beautiful music echoed across the land of the damned, a song of gentle pipes and thundering drums joined in a rising melody too complex for any man to play. Father and Mother had to cover their eyes not to go blind from the sudden glow, but Lady Itzpapalotl and I both dared to face the sun. I immediately spotted a great winged, serpentine shadow that circled the heavens under the bright morning star.

The Feathered Serpent descended upon us.