The old woman inclined her head. "Good. That leaves only one thing."
Teomitl pulled himself up. His gaze was unreadable; his face turned away from me or Mihmatini. "I know."
I heard Mihmatini's breath quicken. She looked from Neutemoc to Teomitl. For a moment, anguish was written on her face, but then her hands clenched, and she wrenched herself from her immobility. She bypassed Neutemoc before he could stop her, and came to a stop in the centre of the courtyard – standing under the warm gaze of the Fifth Sun, which shimmered on the hundreds of wards she was weaving around her. "We won't let you pass." Her voice shook, but her hands were utterly steady.
"We?" the old woman's voice was sarcastic. "I can't see anyone with you, girl."
Mihmatini flinched – I couldn't see Teomitl's face, but never mind, it was too late for that; far too late. Slowly, with as much dignity as I could master, I walked in my sister's wake, ignoring the sharp glance Neutemoc threw at me – and came to stand by her side – blood to blood, brother to sister.
The old woman cocked her head. "Two doesn't make an army."
"Listen to me," I said. "This is foolishness, Teomitl. You can't possibly–"
"We've already had this conversation." He still wouldn't look at me; his voice was low, emotionless, instead of the anger I'd expected. "This is what the Empire needs."
"You know it's not."
The old woman smiled. "You know he has a destiny, priest. You can feel it, hanging over him."
Right now, all I could see was the jade cast to his features, the living remnants of Jade Skirt's magic, which had given us so much pain. "Yes, he would rule the Mexica, and rule them well. But not now. Destiny is for fools to manipulate."
"He'll never be this ready."
"What do you gain?" I asked.
She laughed – low and without joy. "Tizoc is no better than his brother. They both used me and discarded me without a second thought. Now I grow old in the shadow of Mictlan, and I would see the better brother made Revered Speaker."
As I had thought – an imperial princess playing at politics – and she was saturated with the magic of Grandmother Earth, probably what had aged her until she seemed old enough to be a generation above Teomitl.
"As Guardian of the Sacred Precinct, I won't let you pass," Mihmatini said. She masked her hesitation well, but I wasn't sure whether it would be enough – the old woman was a canny practitioner.
"Mihmatini…" Teomitl looked straight up, but his eyes were as shadowed as Coatl's had been, and I could read nothing from him. The Duality curse me, when had I ceased to understand him? "You have to understand."
"I – I understand, but I don't approve. You'll break the Fifth World, Teomitl, worse than anything he's ever done." Her hands swung, pointed to the charred body on the ground. "And he hated us – hated us so much…" She couldn't quite repress the shiver that ran through her. "All that for what? To grasp a toy you can't have now, like a spoiled child?"
"You know Tizoc," Teomitl said. "You know his mere presence opens up the breach, that there will be more demons in the streets, more beasts of shadows taking people." He swung to look at me, and the light of the Fifth Sun dispersed the shadows over his eyes, letting me see the anguish in them. "You know this, Acatl-tzin. You know he'll kill us slowly, take us apart piece by piece. You know there's no other choice."
"This will break us," I said, finally. What did he want from me? My approval? I was no longer his teacher; that much had been made abundantly clear. "You know it will."
"I know." His voice was an anguished cry. "But there is no other way!"
The old woman said nothing; she merely stood, looking smug.
"I have to do this," Teomitl said, slowly, carefully. His voice gained strength as he spoke – becoming once again the confident one of a man who moved in the highest circles of power. "This is right." He hefted his macuahitl sword, holding it as if he could draw power from within the obsidian. His skin had the greenish cast of jade, of underwater algae, and his aura of magic had grown stronger.
But I knew he had doubts, that there was a crack. I could – no, I might find it, but I needed to find it fast.
"You have to step aside."
"I can't."
"You–" His face twisted. "Why do you keep involving yourself in this, Acatl-tzin?"
Because – because it was the Fifth World, because I knew it would collapse if Teomitl did this. And something else – as usual, in the end, it is the smallest and pettiest things that define us. "You're my student. Whatever you do is what I taught you."
"Do you truly believe that?"
"I–" He was my beloved son, as akin to me as the blood of my blood; he made my face wide, gave me the pride I would never have as a childless priest. Neutemoc had said children went astray, but most children didn't end up endangering the safety of the Fifth World. It was his pride, his accursed pride, and his desire to do what he believed was for the good of the Mexica – regardless of whether it actually was good for them.
But…
He did have doubts. I had seen them. There was a crack.
Tizoc-tzin. He did all this because of Tizoc-tzin – because the man he had admired, the man who had taught him politics and tactics, had turned out to be such a disappointment. He did it because he didn't want Tizoc-tzin to rule us.
"There was someone else who reached for the Turquoise and Gold Crown in a time of turmoil," I said, slowly. "Someone who thought it had been denied to him for too long, and grasped it before he was ready."
Teomitl paused – his hand frozen in the act of lifting up his blade.
"If you do this, if you seize power now, when we're most vulnerable, then you'll be just like him. Just like Tizoc-tzin – throwing the Mexica Empire in disarray just for the sake of something you think should be yours."
"Don't listen to him." The old woman's voice was low and fierce. "He doesn't know what he's talking about. He's a priest who won't join the heights of the powerful; a poor, sad little dove who keeps looking down at the ground whenever an official passes him, doomed to always be carried in someone's arms, like a child wrapped in a mother's mantle."
Teomitl turned, halfway, to look at both of us. In the warm light of the afternoon, his haughty profile had never looked more like Tizoc-tzin's. "You're wrong," he said – not slow or stately, he'd never been much for either. "Both of you. I – I do it because there is no other choice. Because Tizoc will lead us into ruin." He turned, to look at me – his eyes wide, his face ordinary again, with no trace of Jade Skirt's magic, but his gaze as piercing as a spear. "Don't you believe this, Acatl-tzin?"
"You know what I think."
"No," Teomitl said. "I know you think the Fifth World can't take another change of Revered Speaker, not so soon. But what do you think of Tizoc?"
"I–" I was taken aback at the question – and the only thing that occurred to me was the truth. "He killed the clergy of Tlaloc, as surely as if he'd cast the spell himself." Over and over, we had seen evidence of his growing paranoia, of his instability.