Her breath went thin in her lungs at the sight of the etched knife, which was sand-polished obsidian, worked with the jaguar and the ju. “Whose was it?” she asked softly, curling her fingers into her palms to keep from reaching for the blade, even though she was dying to snatch it from him. She didn’t know whether the impulse came from her newly minted warrior’s instincts or a chef’s appreciation of a good edge, but she wanted the knife, wanted it badly.
“The queen’s.”
The queen. Her mother. The woman who’d saved her by giving her to a madman. Sasha wasn’t sure how she felt about that, wasn’t sure what to think about the things she’d just learned. But she could no more refuse the knife than she could undo the past. She wanted the blade, wanted the symbol. She reached for it, then hesitated and looked at Anna. “You don’t mind?”
“Warrior’s prerogative,” Anna said. “Go ahead, please.” She touched the heavy chain she wore at her throat. “I’ve got our mother’s pendant.”
Our mother, thought Sasha, her heart kicking in her chest at the realization of a childhood wish fulfilled, though not how she ever would’ve expected it to be. Not now, she told herself. Later. She could process everything later. Her time wasn’t entirely her own anymore, and the Nightkeepers had priorities other than welcoming their newest member.
Throat closing, she took the knife, which was warm and heavy in her hand. As she tested its weight, Strike stepped forward and kissed her on the cheek. “Welcome home,” he said simply. Then, moving to her side, he waved the others forward to formally welcome her into the group. Anna was first, and gave her a big hug. The others greeted her one by one, both winikin and magi, with a handshake or brief kiss, acceptance as one of them. More, acceptance as royalty.
Michael held back until last. When he finally moved up to face her, the intensity in his eyes brought a jitter to her stomach and a skirr of warning from her warrior’s mark. Instinct said for her to back away, but pride had her holding still and offering him her hand rather than a kiss. He ignored the hand, leaned in, and touched his lips to hers. For a moment, she thought she heard his voice inside her head, a soft whisper: I’m sorry for last night.
Then he withdrew, leaving her to stare after him, trying to figure out if that had been wishful thinking or not. More shaken than she wanted to admit by the suspicion that she’d just touched on Michael’s thoughts, another sign that they were destined—or had been at one point—to be mates, she gripped her new knife convulsively. Forcing herself to ease up, she returned to her seat as the others took theirs. She didn’t move away from Michael, didn’t want to deal with the questions the move would raise. And, damn it, she would’ve been physically aware of him regardless of where either of them sat.
Strike brought the meeting back to order. “Jade? Anna? One of you want to bring us up to speed on where we stand with the Aztec research?”
In the weeks since Sasha’s rescue, although she’d been immersed in her studies, she’d been aware of the Nightkeepers’ ongoing efforts to find Iago’s stronghold, or at the very least project the Xibalbans’ next set of moves in the countdown to the end-time. Strike had sent teams to check out several of the mountains the Aztec had considered sacred, but they’d come back with a whole lot of negatives. The Florida compound was a crater, and there was no sign of Iago or his people anywhere else. It was like they’d disappeared, though not even Iago had power enough to tuck a few hundred Xibalbans into the barrier. Apparently it was far easier to fold away inanimate objects than people—it required serious magic to get a sentient being across.
Their inability to find Iago or catch a hint of any Xibalban activity on earth had left the magi trying to guess what they would try to do on the night of the winter solstice, when the three-year countdown began. Also, there was no sign of the Banol Kax. Instead of reassuring the magi, it had put them on edge.
Anna stood and walked past the tables to take Strike’s place. “I’m going to assume you’ve all read —or at least skimmed—the report Jade sent around last week. Suffice it to say that the deeper we go into the research, the more it looks like the Xibalbans all but created the Aztec empire, and that, if it hadn’t been for Cortés’s arrival and the subsequent Spanish conquest, the Xibalbans and Aztec might have wound up ruling all of Mesoamerica.” She paused. “Based on what we’ve seen from the Xibalbans so far, I think it’s a pretty good bet that Iago is planning to complete that rulership. I don’t think he’s trying to ally himself with the Banol Kax, as we had originally believed. I think he destroyed the intersection and hid the hellroad with the prime purpose of barring them from the earth for the time being.”
“But why?” Strike asked, frowning.
“I think he’s trying to preempt the end-time itself.”
That brought a murmur of surprise from the assembled group. When it died down, Anna continued.
“The Aztec calendar was akin to, but not identical to, the Mayan Long Count. It delineated a five-
thousand-year cycle broken into five periods, called suns. Each sun began with peace and prosperity, then deteriorated toward chaos, whereupon the gods rose up and destroyed their creations in order to bring them back to life, purified. The first period—the Sun of Precious Stones—ended when the jaguars and other animals rose up and slaughtered mankind. The Sun of Darkness ended with the destruction brought by a huge hurricane. The Sun of Fire was destroyed when fire rained down from the heavens. The Sun of Water ended in a terrible flood. The final and current period, called the Sun of Movement, is destined to end on December 24, 2011, almost exactly a year before the actual zero date.
On that day, a terrible earthquake is, at least according to Aztec prophecy, supposed to tear the earth apart.” Anna spread her hands. “Game over.”
Michael frowned. “What good does it do Iago to precipitate a full apocalypse? Unless he’s an idiot —which I don’t for a moment think he is—he’s got to have a plan to keep the earth intact and install himself as ruler, presuming that’s his goal.”
“There’s an even more specific Aztec prophecy dealing with their end date,” Anna revealed. “It predicts that the Life Tree will bear a new sort of fruit, namely a new world order. At that point, the god of death will remove his jade mask, revealing himself as Quetzalcoatl, god of peace, and returning the great emperor Moctezuma back to his rightful place as the ruler of all creation.” She paused. “I suspect that Iago is taking this to mean that the earthquake will destroy civilization but not the earth itself, making room for the Xibalbans to move into power. He may even see himself as the reincarnation of Moctezuma, the god-king who ruled the Aztecs at the time of the Spanish conquest.”
“But if the Xibalbans are an offshoot of the Nightkeepers,” Sasha said, thinking aloud, “then how did they come up with a different zero date? Is there a conjunction on the earlier date, too?”
Anna shook her head. “If you ask me, it’s an artificial date, one designed to preempt the Nightkeepers’ end-time.”
“It might work, too,” Michael said grimly. “If Iago’s magic is stronger than we think, and he’s truly managed to trap the Banol Kax in Xibalba, we could be in serious trouble here.”
“I think it’s more likely that it suits the lords of darkness to remain below for now,” Anna said.
“But you’re right that we could be in trouble, either way. Which is why I think we need to plan a raid on the haunted temple as soon as possible. Hopefully, we can get past the demi- nahwal now that we have Sasha with us.” She paused, then looked at Sasha. “We need the library now more than ever.