"I see," I said. The cold was in my bones and in my heart. "I see. Thank you, Axayacatl-tzin."
When I opened my eyes, I was back in the Fifth World within my blood-quincunx, the potency of which was slowly leeching away. Axayacatl-tzin's corpse still sat facing me, but something seemed to have gone out of him, some bright, subtle light that even death had not extinguished. His soul – his heart, the divine fire which animates us all – had passed into Mictlan, never to return.
But what he had left me with was troubling. I had forgotten that the Sixth Sun was Tezcatlipoca, and that the devotees of the Smoking Mirror would therefore have ample motivation for ushering in chaos – a chaos that would lay the ground for their god's rise to power. They might not worship She of the Silver Bells, but did it matter, as long as they could control the star-demons?
But still, that would require the devotees of both gods to be in collusion. It wasn't uncommon. The previous year I'd uncovered a plot between Xochiquetzal, the Quetzal Flower, Goddess of Lust and Desire, and Tlaloc, the Storm Lord. But it still seemed a very complicated conspiracy, if conspiracy there was.
I sighed. The light that filtered through the entrance-curtain was the pale, grey one before dawn. as expected, the ritual had taken all night. There would be time, later, to reflect on the consequences of what I had learnt. What I needed now was rest.
I made it home just in time for the blast of conch-shells and drums that announced the rise of the Fifth Sun, did my offerings of blood; and fell on my sleeping mat.
When I awoke, the sun was slanting towards the horizon, bathing everything in the room in warm, golden light. I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts.
Outside, I half-expected to find Teomitl waiting for me, but though there was someone in my courtyard – which could hardly be called "private" anymore given the sheer flow of visitors that came through it – it wasn't my student.
"Yaotl?"
Ceyaxochitl's slave was still dressed sumptuously and his eyes shone with a resolution I'd seldom seen, though his face was haggard beneath the makeup. The eagle feathers of his headdress drooped, as though he'd walked through a squall; and his embroidered cotton cloak was slightly askew on his shoulders. Any humorous remark I might have made about his intrusion died on my lips.
"What observation skills," he said. It started bitingly, and then became toneless as he remembered the seriousness of the situation.
"Any news?"
He shook his head. "The physician said that she might live if she can survive the next day. Her body might purge the poison on its own."
One day. Fourteen hours. We both knew this wouldn't happen. Though she lived and breathed, Ceyaxochitl was as dead as the Revered Speaker.
"You haven't come here for that," I said.
A shade of the old sarcasm shone in his eyes. "No. I came to tell you we know what poisoned her."
"So?" I asked.
He raised a hand. "All in good time." There was a gleam in his gaze that suggested that what he had to tell me was of much more import than the nature of the poison – Storm Lord blind him, this wasn't a time for his usual equivocations.
"Yaotl–"
"It's obscure," Yaotl said. "The physician looked through all his notes, and finally found a case that was similar."
"You're enjoying this, aren't you."
He looked up at me, and let me see for the first time what lay beneath the mask of irony – an anger that possessed him to the bones. "She's as good as dead, Acatl-tzin. Doomed. Gone from the Fifth World. She took me from the marketplace, and turned me from a slave into her assistant. She gave me status and riches. And you think I don't want her murderer punished?"
"She helped me too," I said.
Yaotl's face clearly said that I couldn't understand – that I'd been a priest long before Ceyaxochitl took an interest in me. He had been a captive destined for a life of drudgery. He breathed in, once, twice. I could almost feel the air trembling in his lungs. "It's a newt. A fiery-looking critter with a red-belly and stripes across the back. Rather distinctive. They secrete a poison that acts that way, shutting down the muscles one after the other."
A newt. I thought, uneasily, of all the times in the palace I'd eaten one. Why, I had taken some from the kitchen only a few hours ago. "That wasn't all you had, was it?"
Yaotl's smile was like the rising of a star, as red as blood and as bent on causing chaos. "They're uncommon. Finding them takes work. Except–" he brought both hands together with the finality of a book closing. "Except that they flourish on the lake shore near Texcoco. Xahuia-tzin asked for them specifically last week. She said it was for cosmetics."
And what interesting makeup those would make.
Yaotl, predictably, was eager to take a troop of Duality warriors into the palace and bodily arrest Xahuia.
I, on the other hand… I could remember Xahuia's spell, and the aura of power that hung around Nettoni, enough to make me a lot less eager than Yaotl. "Tlaloc's lightning strike you, I need to think! We can't possibly barge in there that way."
"Why not?"
Because… Because, if Axayacatl-tzin was right, the She-Snake might be complicit, or at the very least sympathetic. Because Xahuia and Nettoni, between them both, had enough power to level this palace twice over.
"There's too much at stake," I said. "This is going to be a declaration of war against Texcoco."
Yaotl shrugged. His stance said, very clearly, that if I cared about such trifles I was an ungrateful fool.
I could guess what Tizoc-tzin's reaction would be, if we brought him the news. Sarcasm, and perhaps even a declaration that he cared little about the Guardian's fate. But we needed allies, and they were in short supply. We needed someone to give us their support.
"We need Manatzpa," I said. This was political and if we had it wrong, if Yaotl's guesses and my circumstantial evidence gathered from Axayacatl-tzin's vague memories were just coincidences, then the Triple Alliance would tear itself apart for nothing.
That is, if we survived the arrest at all. I doubted Xahuia or Nettoni would go down peacefully.
"That's not his place," Yaotl said, sharply.
"This is a princess of Texcoco. Not just some grubby little summoner in a peasant's hut in the Floating Gardens." I hated politics, but I could see the shape of the game, all too clearly.
Yaotl watched me for a while, and relented. "Fine. But if you're not here at the Hour of the Earth Mother, my men and I will go in regardless."
For once, I was lucky. Manatzpa and Echichilli were both in the council room, going over some papers.
"See, the province of Cuahacan hasn't delivered their tribute of jaguar pelts," Manatzpa was saying.
"I think it was waived this year," Echichilli said, his wrinkled face creased in thought. "Let me see…" He reached for some of the other papers in the pile, and stopped when I entered in a tinkle of bells. "Acatl-tzin?"