I See Fire | Wattys 2021/22 Shortlist | ✔

Chapter Forty-Seven

Having power warped my sense of time. My mind spun faster than my footsteps, and my footsteps didn't tire; it already felt like ages since we'd left the storage bunker, though I knew we hadn't come far. Behind me, the red and black skies continued to melt together. Space bent with time, until I was running forwards but moving back, the red sky drawing closer even as I drew away. I was not out of breath, and the dogs were barely trotting. I broke into a run.

Now the red moved away from me. The hills rolled past like they were moving and I stood still. When the sky was black again, I found myself on a landscape lit by a dim gloom that came from nowhere and everywhere, denying the desiccated bushes their shadows. If not for the dogs, I was sure I would have run in circles for eternity.

I fixed my mind on the task ahead. It was a delicate balance, planning what I could do while evading thoughts of what would happen should it fail. If I was the second strongest among the gods before they took the cursed matzin, who had been the strongest? Tlaloc? Quet? Or Emma? And would they regain that strength? I could not go up alone against Coyol—certainly not if she was the type of leader to sacrifice every warrior in her army and ally at her side before she stepped up to fight. By the sound of her conversation with Mictlantecuhtli, she was not even the type of leader to supervise her army's activities. She had given them orders and then left, so confident in her strength that she had shed her disguise when a god who was not even her ally told her her forces had mobilized.

I had to avoid head-on confrontation at all costs. My target was the gods. They would know what to do about Coyol, and if I brought them this matzin and supported them with my presence and my fire, they might still have the strength to face her. If I could burn a Tzitzimitl, I could burn a Centzonhuītznāhua. I could help.

I dragged both hands down over my face. The question then was, where were the gods? If they got caught together, were they imprisoned together, too? Or would Coyol keep Xolotl separate, just in case? He was her leverage against the gods, after all. Him, and... no, Grillo Negro had been symbolic, a village to show the siblings to bait them into coming to her. As much as it hurt me, the gods who weren't Quet were unlikely to sacrifice much for Grillo Negro in the long run. Not when they had their own lives and family to protect.

But if we got Xolotl to safety...

My foot caught Tochtli's, and I nearly nosedived. She was slowing. Was she tired? Did she get tired down here? How long had we been running?

No, she wasn't tired. Something was changing.

The hills had begun to flatten and slope. We slowed to a trot, then again to a walk down the long, gentle incline. I kept my stick ready. A glint of white peeped between the hills ahead. It was a single, small house. I stopped immediately. Did the gods of the underworld have another dwelling? More storage? Tochtli had her tail between her legs again.

I lit the flame in my hand. "Mictlantecuhtli? Mictēcacihuātl?"

The flame skittered to the heel of my palm, away from whatever lay ahead. That was a long range of detection. Did Fuego's seeking distance depend on the strength of the god or being I was trying to detect? The potency of their magic? Unless the two gods were pursuing me now, this was further than I had ever sought before, Coyol aside. I pictured each deity with a differently sized bubble hovering around them, ready to trigger my flame. The underworld gods' magical reach must be massive.

Then again, Mictlantecuhtli had said that Mictlan had told him I was running around free. Maybe he had a magical tie to his realm. Gods knew, this place was saturated enough with magical trials.

"Tzitzimime?"

The flame in my palm burned steady. No skeleton-women, then. If my theory was correct, that meant they had minimal magic. More than nothing—I could detect them from farther away than I could detect Grifo—but much less than a god.

"Centzon Huītznāuhtin?"

No response.

"Coyolxāuhqui?"

The flame's response confirmed it was still working. I managed another name. "Tlaloc?"

The flame sank back to its starting size. Maybe I just wasn't seeing the motion compared to Coyol?

"Tzitzimime."

The fire did not shrink again. Tlaloc, the strongest of the gods on my side, was no more detectable than the skeleton-women—which was to say, not at all. I tried all the other gods with no more success, then extinguished the flame as the tightness in my throat sharpened to a jagged ache.

When I finally dragged my gaze from my hand, I nearly dropped my stick. Fire encased it as I turned slowly, daring any of the motionless figures around me to step forwards. Instead, a weary-looking man dropped into a bow. The rest followed.

"Ihiyohuia," said the man, a Mexica welcome. "I am sorry. We did not realize you were one of them."

Half the people had already faded back into the gloom, so quickly it made me realize I could not hear their footsteps. Were these souls? I let my peripheral vision drift to my dogs, who both lurked against my legs. Grifo's ears were back, but Tochtli was only wary. If these people posed a threat, it was not a threat she was familiar with. I called the fire off my stick and extinguished it. Slowly, I lowered the weapon.

"Would you stop to rest and come eat at my house?" said the man. "My name is Necalli. It would be my honour to serve you."

"Thank you," I said, not sure how to respond. They lived here? Was this where souls that made it through the underworld came to rest? "Maybe later. This is urgent."

Several of the souls exchanged glances. Necalli lowered his voice. "Are you with... her?"

The trepidation in his eyes told me he was not. "No," I said. "The other ones."

The next moment, I found myself caught up by several women.

"This way, quickly," one whispered. "Your friends were caught in the next village. The Centzon Huītznāuhtin took them to the tree of sunhigh, but the tree of sunset is next to open. If you hurry, you can follow from there."

Lost in the underworld, I had nearly forgotten that cycles of day and night existed. But trees?

One woman saw my confusion. "The four trees hold up the sky and serve as passageways to it at the four corners of the day. It is sunset soon, and moonrise began not long ago. You are fortunate they coincide at this point in the calendar."

Only half of what she was saying made sense, and even that half was debatable. Trees holding up the sky, I could handle. Even trees as passageways. I needed those. But moonrise? I had only ever seen the moon in flashes of memory: the gods' stories, or what Xol's dogs showed me when I touched their heads. I had not realized that it too rose. Was Coyol still bound by such cycles the same way Huitz was to the sun's?

Or the way he used to be, rather. The shard digging into my throat deepened, blocking off my airway as panicky breaths threatened to make a return. The souls here did not yet know that there was no more sun. I had never really gotten to know Huitz, but his absence felt more ominous than I had anticipated. With the sun god gone, I could not shake the feeling that something far worse was about to happen.

"There is little time," whispered another woman to the first. Her head jerked at the sky.

"Can you run?" the first asked me.

"I can."

Both women pointed me across the hills. "Go! Gods be with you!"