Blood & Fur

Chapter Sixty-Five: Chindi

I found Mother waiting for me at the Xibalba crossroad.

She came in person, though the path to her house remained closed to me. That detail alone was unlike her. She warned me that she would not help me confront my trials, nor did she give me the path to her sanctuary when I first entered.

“Welcome back, my son,” Mother said upon greeting me. “I pray that you slept well.”

Her question sounded innocent enough, but it left me feeling somewhat awkward. Seeing Mother so soon after receiving a Seidr vision of my own conception through my father’s eyes unsettled me.

“I did.” Nenetl’s bosom lulled me to sleep quicker than the softest pillow. “Where is Astrid?”

“The girl is with me for now.” Typical of Mother not to call another human by name. “Your consort, Eztli I believe, was quite bold and charming for a vampire. I can see why you are so intent on curing her.”

Somehow, the thought of my mother and Eztli getting along disturbed me to my core. I had the feeling those two would only bring out the worst of each other as mutual bad influences.

Mother studied me for a moment before asking me a strange question. “Why did you do it?"

Her words puzzled me. “You ask why I would help my own flesh and blood?”

“No, I ask why did you put yourself at risk warning me? You sacrificed much to the Yaotzin for it and nearly exposed your true nature to the Nightlords.” Mother’s head leaned to the side like a quizzical owl. “Considering our differences… I do not understand why you did this. Am I truly so useful to you?”

I snorted. “You could have been useless to me and I would still have acted the same.”

“I do not understand,” Mother replied.

Tragically, she sounded entirely sincere. Only she could find such a simple concept beyond her. “This is the difference between you and me, Mother: should it come to it, I will not hesitate to put myself in harm’s way to protect my blood.”

“I… see.” Mother’s chin lowered slightly. Was that a hint of shame and embarrassment I detected in her voice? “Iztacoatl’s hunters came close to my location. What you did was foolish and irresponsible, but I thank you for it.”

“I could say the same for what you did last night.” I chuckled to myself. “You should have seen Iztacoatl’s face. No one dared to steal away one of her victims before you.”

Mother shrugged. “Iztacoatl used her to put pressure on you and your allies. I saw an opportunity to remove her and I took it.”

Her cold wording made me fear the worst. “Please tell me you didn’t kill her.”

“Do you take me for a monster?” Mother replied gruffly. “Since you were so desperate to keep the girl alive, I simply spirited her away to safety.”

“Where?”

“To the south. I will take her to a place beyond Yohuachanca’s borders, where the Nightlords’ grasp does not reach yet. It should be easy to find a family willing to take such an exotic child in.”

“Do not,” I replied firmly. “Keep her close for now.”

“Are you giving orders now, my son?” Mother rebuffed me. “I cannot keep the child with me. She is too young to take care of herself, and the Nightlords might use spells to locate her.”

“You can keep her and you will,” I replied imperiously. As I told the Yaotzin earlier, I was done asking and begging. “If you want to get rid of the White Snake who tried to ensnare you once for good, that is.”

My tone and bold declaration caused Mother to glare at me. “What do you have in mind, my son?”

“I have a plan to destroy her.” I opened my palm and fashioned a skull out of my bones. “First though, I must confer with my other advisors.”

I called upon the Legion and summoned my predecessors’ spirits.

“Greetings, our successor, Lady Ichtaca,” the Parliament of Skulls said as their medium’s eyes began to glow. “Many things have happened since we last spoke, for good or ill.”

“Indeed,” I replied, though I remained optimistic. “For each hardship that we encountered last night, I say we received a blessing in disguise. I thought we should share our information before moving forward.”

I recounted to Mother and the Parliament everything that happened that night; since the latter could see through my eyes, I assumed they caught on to details that might have escaped me. Mother scowled when she heard how I healed Nenetl’s wounds.

“You closed her wounds with your blood?” she asked me, dumbfounded.

“You said that Seidr could achieve that feat yourself,” I reminded her. Her own words inspired me.

“During an embrace, yes. I’ve never heard of a transfer of life using blood as a medium outside of vampires.”

“If you trusted Father enough to practice Seidr with him, maybe you would have learned this technique,” I retorted.

Mother bristled. My remark struck a nerve. “I admit I may have underestimated this magic,” she confessed. “With enough practice, you could learn to mimic the Nightkin’s ability to drain the life of others. The Nightlords gained immense strength from consuming the Teyolias of countless victims across the centuries. You could do the same.”

“I have no desire to consume souls,” I replied. Killing was one thing, denying a soul its eternal rest was another. “Besides, slaying many victims would inevitably draw suspicion.”

“Then take a portion of their lifeforce,” Mother suggested. She seemed disturbingly curious about my discovery and its potential applications. “A sip that would strengthen you without raising suspicions. If you switch partners regularly enough, no one will notice.”

“That, I could do,” I conceded. Truthfully, I’d already thought of it myself.

“Lady Sigrun maintained her vitality by draining us,” my predecessors said. “As much as we dislike her method, we suggest you follow in her footsteps. Repeated practice will not only reinforce your Teyolia in preparation for future battles, but teach you how to manipulate those of others in increasingly precise ways. You may eventually learn how to snuff out a life with a mere touch.”

I wouldn’t mind sharing my blood with a red-eyed priest if it meant draining them of their ill-gotten vitality. “What of Nenetl, my predecessors?” I asked, slightly uneasy. “I accidentally triggered a Seidr ritual in her company. You said you weren’t sure if the Nightlords would notice one between a consort and myself.”

“We were able to shroud your union from their sight,” my predecessors confirmed, much to my immense relief. “Between this and your blood’s inability to harm the Nightlords, we suspect that your Teyolia does not shine brightly enough for them to notice it yet.”

A saddening truth. Still, if my predecessors could shroud Seidr rituals with my consorts from the Nightlords, then it meant I could practice it with them without fear. Ingrid was trained by her mother in its arts, and Nenetl’s mighty heart-fire might yield better results than with another partner.

“Your victory in your hunt fills us with pride and joy,” the past emperors said. “The Nightlords’ unexpected resistance to your blood and the scarlet Tlahuiztli’s influence on you, much less so.”

“I remained in control of myself through the night,” I argued, though my own words sounded empty to me. I had let my own bloodlust cloud my judgment. “Blaming the First Emperor drew the Nightlords’ suspicions away from myself.”

“You play a dangerous game nonetheless,” the Parliament replied sternly. “The Nightlords fear their vengeful sire more than anything. The threat he represents will distract them, true, but the more you pretend to fall under his influence, the more they will tighten your chains. If they believe he controls you, they will torment you; if the threat lessens, they will suspect you.”

“Adopting a deity’s trappings is never without consequences either, my son,” Mother warned. “The Nightlords’ ritual carries immense spiritual weight. The more people believe that the First Emperor speaks through, the stronger his hold on you will grow.”

I crossed my arms. “I must settle on a balancing act then. Make the Nightlords believe the threat of their father looms over my shoulders while I remain manageable. They’ll never fully trust me now that I’ve tasted their sire’s power the same way they leeched it off for centuries, but I can give them cause to believe that they can still control me.”

“You must continue to play the fool now and then,” my predecessors suggested. “Your feint with Itzili will seem more genuine when seasoned with frivolity. A plotter backed by a god is threatening, while a jester with power is entertaining. Be like water; fickle, formless, and ever-changing. We fear that the White Snake will never stop suspecting you, but her sisters may come to underestimate you.”

I nodded as I considered how to put this strategy into action. I would carefully blame any sign of supernatural influence on the First Emperor or on fits of madness, then hide my better moves amidst decadence and abuses of power. Fear the god, pity the messenger.

Even so, I knew I wouldn’t be able to sustain this charade forever. I would eventually slip up, or the Nightlords would descend into panic and paranoia once I slew another of their own. They only gave me some leeway because they needed to reassure their empire that everything went according to plan and because Eztli could fill in for Yoloxochitl. The loss of another sister would likely cause things to descend into chaos.

I would have to be ready to fight by then.

“The Skinwalker’s survival does not play into our hands either,” the Parliament said. “We sense ripples through our shared curse. The Nightlords have already begun to transfer Eztli’s chains to her soul.”

I clenched my fists. Once the Nightlords bound a soul to their curse, they could bring them back from death at will. “Then it is too late to kill her?”

“We are afraid so,” my predecessors replied with a frustrated rattle. “The door to their Father’s prison nonetheless remains cracked, and it would take your sacrifice during the Scarlet Moon to fix it. All they have done is exchange one key for another.”

“It would have been wiser to let those Nightchildren consume that Skinwalker’s soul,” Mother said, her head leaning slightly to the side. “Although…”

I raised an eyebrow. “Although?"

“A Skinwalker’s true name is one of their key weaknesses,” Mother replied. “They bury their broken totem under layers of skin to maintain their power and hide their identity. Their very soul is a house raised on rotting foundations; those who disturb them cause the building to collapse. Speak it aloud, and their powers are temporarily crippled.”

Oh? Fascinating. Even Lahun didn’t know that particular bit of information. Skinwalkers probably hid it with ferocity.

“You imply I could blackmail that beast into obedience should I learn her true name?” I asked with sudden interest. I had no love for the Skinwalker after she nearly killed Itzili and Nenetl, but her powers could make her a formidable weapon. “If I contacted the Yaotzin–”

Mother shook her head. “The wise Skinwalker purchases the Yaotzin’s silence with countless atrocities. I had hoped that you might have already won that information during your mental duel.”

My jaw tightened. “I did not. We simply fought.”

Mother sighed in disappointment. “A shame. Learning her true name would have guaranteed her silence.”

My eyes wandered to my predecessors’ skull medium as I tried to figure out an alternative solution. If the Nightlords indeed bound the Skinwalker’s soul to their ritual, then it created a link between us. One similar to the Legion spell…

An idea struck me like a lightning bolt.

“The Ride spell,” I muttered out loud.

“Have you not paid attention to my lessons, my son?” Mother chided me. “You need a name for the Ride spell to work.”

“We have better than a name,” I retorted. “We have a divine curse binding an emperor to his consorts.”

“Even so, possession does not grant knowledge.”

“I do not want to possess the Skinwalker’s body,” I corrected Mother. “I want to invade her mind, to dominate her spirit the way she intended to crush mine, until I rip her true name from her memories.”

My predecessors quickly guessed my intent. “The Legion spell already showed us that we could share our memories through the curse.”

“Exactly,” I confirmed. “Combining the Legion and the Ride should allow for a meeting of the souls, am I correct?”

The Parliament of Skulls pondered my theory before voicing their support. “Though the bond that unites an emperor to his consort is weaker than the one binding him to his predecessors, you crushed the Skinwalker’s will earlier. This ought to have left a bleeding wound; a weakness for us to latch onto.”

“Joining minds with a Skinwalker, even a weakened one, is a dangerous proposition,” Mother warned me. “Their souls fester in madness and corruption. It might stain you.”

“We have little choice but to try,” I replied. “If I cannot obtain her true name, then I must excise dangerous memories before the Nightlords may extract them through torture.”

“Shattering her mind beyond repair would make for an acceptable outcome too,” the Parliament concluded. “Should the worst come to pass, we will force her spirit to mesh with our collective. It should destroy her.”

I nodded in assent. I would rather add a tool to my arsenal, but should the Skinwalker prove rabid, then we better put her down before she could bite us.

“The girl’s case remains,” Mother said. By now, she had gained insight into my plans. “You intend to make use of her to put pressure on this Fjor, do you not?”

“Indeed,” I confirmed. “He is a spawn of Iztacoatl herself and thus should have access to her. Moreover, he cared about Astrid enough to risk disobeying his sire to protect her. Threatening his sister’s life should ensure his cooperation.”

“You wish to use him as an assassin?” Mother inquired.

“Not as an assassin.” May Ingrid forgive me. “As a weapon.”

A heavy silence fell upon the crossroads. The eye sockets of the skull within my hand flickered with baleful flames. Fjor’s father was among the dead emperors making up the Parliament, and another sired Astrid. I was loath to propose this plan to them.

Unfortunately, this was our best chance to strike at Iztacoatl. We couldn’t exclude the option.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Fjor has consumed a skull marked with the Legion spell, thus creating a sympathetic link between us,” I explained. “This is a bond that Astrid’s presence could reinforce. I believe we can exploit it to destroy Iztacoatl.”

“I think I see what you have in mind, my son,” Mother said. She sounded cautiously impressed by my initiative. “However, you lack the power to fuel such a ritual. You would need to claim Tlaloc’s embers first at the minimum, perhaps even Quetzalcoatl’s own.”

“I intend to complete the former task soon enough.” My blood’s failure to harm the Nightlords only strengthened my resolve to complete Xibalba’s trials. “Do you think it would work?”

“It should, in theory,” Mother replied with some ambivalence. “It would require serious preparations, and failure would waste it all.”

I assumed as much. I then turned to the skull in my hand. “Do you agree with this plan, my predecessors?”

The Parliament did not hesitate. “We would rather see our sons dead than undead.”

I pondered their answer, then nodded slowly. They had long made peace with destroying the Nightkin their progeny turned into should victory require it. I would honor their resolve the best I could.

I hoped I could spare Fjor’s life, both for his sisters’ sake and to honor his late parents’ memory, but if our plan demanded his destruction… then I wouldn’t hesitate.

Once these matters were settled, I sat in the middle of the crossroads with my predecessors’ skull sitting between my hands. Mother carved words in the stone floor around me; a set of ancient prayers that should improve my odds of contacting the Skinwalker’s spirit. It was the best she could do in the absence of a name.

“I will ask you one last time, my son,” Mother said with a hint of concern. “Are you truly certain that you wish to proceed? You expose yourself to great risks by casting this spell.”

I snorted. “I stand on the razor’s edge each day I spend plotting against the Nightlords. I will take my chances.”

Mother took my answer in silence. With nothing more to say, I closed my eyes and focused. I sensed the Ride and Legion spells activate together, the techniques blending into a clumsy whole. My mind ascended to the world above as a malicious spirit hungry for a vessel of flesh, while my predecessors followed like a cohort of vengeful ghosts.

Using the Ride spell in conjunction with a name provided a trail to the target. In its absence, I followed the curse that bound my soul and those of my consorts to the Nightlords. I climbed up my leash all the way to a web of chains. I saw doorways of light leading to hearts that I already had touched: Nenetl, Ingrid, Chikal…

I quickly realized why I could heal Nenetl with blood alone. Seidr helped me understand the shape of souls, my own included. I could tell them apart and reshape them.

It helped me gain a greater understanding of the curse that bound our destinies. The Parliament of Skulls warned me that the chains binding us to the Nightlords were tighter than those that kept me connected to my consorts. They were right. The procession of emperors that stretched all the way back to the First allowed no error; each of us actors took on the tragic role without failure or interruption. The path to my successor was already mapped out. The Nightlords already knew who would replace me should I fail to avoid my fate.

But for all their importance, consorts were secondary roles in a centuries-long play. When all eyes were on the lead, it was easier to replace the lesser actors when one left the stage. Nenetl, Ingrid, Chikal, and Eztli only derived power from their link to me. Their leashes were looser.

I followed the one that once bound me to Eztli. It was weaker than the others, more fragile. At its end was the foulest Teyolia I’d ever seen; a pale, weakened flame unfit to be a torch, let alone a sun. It stank of rot and silt.

I usually used the Ride spell to suppress my target’s mind in order to take control of their body. I acted far more cruelly this time: I joined my Tonalli and Teyolias to her own the same way Seidr let me become united with my partners. I attempted to subsume her very soul.

I immediately sensed resistance. Animals and normal humans crumbled in an instant when faced with my mighty Tlacatecolotl spirit, but though weakened the Skinwalker remained a powerful witch. She identified me for who I was, and her panic let her draw into reserves of strength.

She might have succeeded without the souls of my predecessors carrying me forward. When the Skinwalker tried to push back and escape into the darkness, their ghostly mass clung to her like mud. They tightened the chain binding us until I could climb it long enough to reach her. I felt like an animal cutting its way through layers of skin in an attempt to reach the soft, delicious flesh underneath.

I briefly saw through the Skinwalker’s eyes in flashes. I felt the pain in her arms and legs as they were nailed to a cross of wood underground, screamed with her lungs, tasted the blood in her mouth, and suffered the kiss of the priests’ lashes. I saw the Nightlords’ shadows loom over her body, their claws sinking into her chest to bind her heart.

“Get out of my head!” she tried to scream, but no words came out of her throat. My dark talons strangled her mind until her body refused to obey her.

I delved deeper and clawed through her recent memories. I tasted her fear when she met my icy blue eyes in the forest and the numb cold of the Nightchildren’s caress. Seidr required both partners to align with each other, to work together. There was nothing consensual about what I was doing. I was forcing my way in, breaking through the door to her rotten heart, and answering her attempts to push me back with brutality.

It was a mental violation, pure and simple.

I would have felt disgusted at myself once. I think I may have stopped with anybody else; but the further I descended through layers of memories, the more my disgust for the Skinwalker grew.

I watched her peel back the real Cipetl’s skin with a smile and a curved knife. It was such an art to flay a human alive: you had to use the right tools, start from the back of the head, and be careful to separate the skin from the fat and cartilage. She knew doing it while Cipetl was still breathing would spoil the skin and leave traces, but the screams and blood made the chore so sweet…

I observed through her eyes how the chieftains of the Three-Rivers Federation asked her to slay Yohuachanca’s emperor on behalf of their people and spare them the plague of bats ravaging them. I heard her price: the firstborn child of each of her employers.

I felt her wolfish fangs close around a woman’s throat in a dark forest and the taste of her heart on her tongue. I recalled a time when she caught a child in a bear’s skin and asked him which part of himself he hated the most; when he answered the eyes, she cut them out and left him to bleed in the grass.

I saw her kill a bride on the eve of her marriage and impersonate her on the wedding night. Then, at the height of the consummation, she returned to her true monstrous form and castrated him. Her laugh as she fled into the night would have sent chills down my spine had I been in my body.

The rest of the Skinwalker’s memories were a cavalcade of pointless horrors that would make a red-eyed priest nauseous. I shared in the thrill and rush of putting on a new skin. She was addicted to it, for she did more than steal their face: she took on a sliver of their Tonalli, growing her strength and extending her life year by year. She carved her skin masks out of people’s souls.

Yet that dependency couldn’t explain half of the monstrous deeds I witnessed in the archive of her century-long life. Even the Nightlords’ cruelty was guided by long-term visions and ambitions, mad as they were. This thing was a beast in human skin driven by its lusts and hunger. Nay, calling her an animal would have been an insult to Itzili and Tetzon.

This Skinwalker was a monster.

Hence my utter lack of pity as I dug my way down to her childhood. I saw the glares of her fellow tribesmen, the way they threw stones at her and refused to feed her meat for her hair and eyes; she knew they would have killed her for her blue eyes and white hair had the shaman not required an apprentice.

The hate festering in her heart felt so intimately familiar to me, for I’d shared it. It was like watching a warped mirror of my own life. The Skinwalker suffered for being born a Nahualli the same way I did, but she chose to wallow in her own spite rather than do anything productive with her gifts.

Would I have turned out like her had the Nightlords not chosen me? Could I still end up like her if I lost sight of my goals? I would like to answer with a resounding no to both questions, but the similarities between us unsettled me. I’d reveled too much in my power last night to think myself above the temptation to abuse it.

Still, I didn’t think I had it in me to commit the crime that set this Skinwalker on her path: kinslaying.

I saw it all in her memories. The Skinwalker reserved the worst of her anger for her twin sister, Anaye, who had the fortune of being born with black strands on her head rather than white ones. She was pretty, loved, charming, and healthy. When the chief’s son announced he would take Anaye for a wife, her sibling’s envy turned into murderous rage.

She had only intended to kill Anaye when she visited her tent in the night, but when she tasted her sweet blood, evil entered her heart and opened up her mind. Everything her sister had could belong to her: her beauty, her vitality, her life. Anaye became her first skin, but it would not be the last.

That kinslayer buried Anaye’s flayed corpse in a ditch, then stole her life and husband. She had kept it up for a time until the tribe’s shaman asked her what happened to her sister. Hearing her true name made her new skin feel so uncomfortable, almost unbearable; and when her ‘husband’ saw her true face, she murdered him and burned her tribes’ teepees with their people still inside them. None would live to spread knowledge of her hated name, the proof of her guilt and weakness. She would bury that secret deep inside her rotten heart where no one would find it.

Until I unearthed it.

“Chindi.”

The Skinwalker’s true name echoed across the landscape of memories and shattered it like a broken mirror. Her resistance collapsed like a dam failing to hold the flood of my will. The mindscape shifted into a dark void kept alight by our Teyolias; mine burned like the sun and hers like an ember.

In this landscape of the soul, the Skinwalker manifested in her true, twisted, horned shape, but so small and weakened; I meanwhile appeared as a great dark owl many times her size. I towered over her like a spineking over a human. Such was the difference of strength between us.

Poor Chindi screamed as I pinned her under my talons. She tried to fight me back and move her lips in the real world.

“Your true enemy is inside my head!” She tried to plead with the Nightlords. “Spare my life, oh mistresses of the dark!”

She struggled in vain, and no sound came out of her mouth. Her pitiful attempts at begging the Nightlords for her life went unheard, for I had taken hold of her soul and flesh. She was a prisoner inside her own head, and I held the key to her cell.

“Silence, foolish Chindi,” I ordered. Her screams died, her Teyolia faltering. Uttering her name wounded her deeper than any dagger could. “You are barking up the wrong tree.”

To prove so, I gave her a peek at my own memories. I showed Lady Sigrun’s struggle and the Nightlords’ utter lack of care for loyalty. I gave her a taste of their ungratefulness, followed by a vision of Nochtli the Fourteen’s sacrifice and that of his consorts.

Chindi’s soul shrunk within my talons. She knew the fate that awaited her and that the Nightlords’ promises weren’t worth the scroll on which they were written; after all, she behaved the same way with so many others in the past.

“Ah, but fear not,” I said as I projected my most delectable memory into her mind: the crunching noise that followed Yoloxochitl’s death at her own sire’s hand and my satisfied smile at my plot’s success. “Their turn will come.”

“Who…” she whimpered with a hundred stolen voices. “What are you?”

“I am the demon who shall throw Yohuachanca into chaos. I am the last emperor, he who brings the fiery dawn.” I expanded my wings of darkness until I enveloped her in my shadow. “I am the Tlacatecolotl, the owl-fiend!”

The Skinwalker had only caught a glimpse of my soul during our last encounter, but now she saw my true self in all of its dreadful majesty. I appeared to her as a mighty sorcerer and Godspeaker with a baleful heart-fire burning with a dead sun’s embers, followed by the vengeful ghosts of ancient emperors. She felt the weight of all the lives I had taken, the sins I had committed, and the spells that I had mastered within her very soul. The disparity in power became undeniable.

Her lips stretched into a ghastly smile that felt uncannily familiar.

“Wonderful,” she whispered. “Absolutely wonderful…”

Of all her possible answers, I hadn’t expected this one.

The Skinwalker lowered her head in craven submission. She had finally ceased her foolish struggles. Her body had gone limp in the real world too. She was a prisoner within her own mind and at my mercy.

But I sensed no more fear coming from her. Instead, her soul radiated a twisted, delirious kind of joy. A deep, confusing sense of exhilaration.

I finally recognized why her expression felt so familiar. It was the same that Chamiaholom gave me whenever she voiced her approval.

“You are like me,” Chindi muttered in warped adoration. “But so much greater…”

A wave of disgust and revulsion overwhelmed me.

“We are nothing alike,” I replied coldly. “You are but an insect who dared to fly too close to the sun.”

She didn’t even deny it. “Yes… yes, I see that now,” she muttered while licking her lips. “I wanted to rip out your spine and suck the marrow out of your bones, but your blood was not mine to spill…”

Nothing in this mindscape was real, yet her eyes managed to form tears of blood nonetheless.

“You are the bleeding dawn who will throw this world into chaos,” she cried. “What delightful slaughter it will be… what grand rapture…"

This creature was insane.

Had the Nightchildren and I scrambled her mind beyond recovery? Or had she always been like this?

“Please forgive me, oh lord of darkness,” Chindi begged me, not out of fear but out of submission. “I did not know the true extent of your power and vision. I did not know.”

“You have sought my death and harmed my consorts,” I replied in utter disdain. “Though you never had a chance of achieving either, that crime warrants a fate worse than death. Why should I spare you?”

She kissed my talons with her bloody lips. “I offer myself to you, Master… Take my flesh to serve your purpose and point me at your enemies. I will peel back their skin and wear it like a cloak, yes… I will serve you, I will love you, I will scream for you…”

I briefly wondered if she was lying to me in a last-ditch attempt to save her miserable life, but I held her true name over her in the depths of her soul. I sensed no deceit. Hers was a sincere kind of madness. Her terror had morphed into admiration and worship.

I struggled to contain my disgust. This Skinwalker was a bully at heart, cruel to the weak and fearful of the strong. After I showed her how the Nightlords wouldn’t reward her loyalty and claimed her true name, she decided to cast her lot with me. She craved my power and wished to revel in the destruction I would no doubt continue to sow in my wake.

She was a cowardly opportunist, nothing more. A lesser horror pandering to a greater one.

What should I do with her? Reading Chindi’s memories only solidified my distaste for this vicious creature. If there was any shred of goodness in her heart, she ripped it out long ago. She was just as bad as the Nightlords themselves; her cruelty only differed in its scale rather than its depth. Her many victims would praise me for ridding the world of her loathsome presence.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t destroy her Teyolia now that the Nightlords bound it to their foul ritual. They would drag back her black soul straight from the Underworld the moment I snuffed it out.

I could go with my predecessors’ suggestion. Throwing this monster’s mind into a boiling cauldron of over six-hundred dead emperors would shatter her mind beyond repair. I doubted she would be able to speak afterward, let alone plot against me or reveal my secrets. On one hand, a catatonic shell would be of no use to me, but it wouldn’t become a liability either.

On the other hand… on the other hand, a shapeshifter in my employ would come in handy. I suspected the Nightlords would wisely cripple Chindi’s power the same way the Jaguar Woman limited Nenetl’s, but I had subverted the latter’s tattoo once. I was confident I could figure out a way to do it again with my current resources.

However fickle her newfound ‘loyalty’ might be or how profound her mental instability, my knowledge of her true name would ensure her obedience. The Nightlords couldn’t read minds in spite of their power, so the risk of another gaining dominion over her was remote.

I had to decide whether the potential benefits of taking Chindi into my employ outweighed future costs.

I pondered my options until I realized my Tonalli manifested in the mindscape. I plucked a feather off my wing and quickly confirmed my suspicions.

I had a way of ensuring her long-term obedience.

“Very well,” I decided, much to her abject joy. “I claim you as my servant by right of wits and strength. Your true name and weakness compel you to do my bidding. Serve me loyally, and I shall share my power with you.” A lie that I had no intention of fulfilling. “If you dare challenge me again though…”

I called upon the Curse spell and infused the feather with my seething hatred. I bound it with Chindi’s true name and placed it in the deepest depths of her soul, where not even the Nightlords would find it.

“I now place a curse upon your Tonalli,” I declared. “If you speak a word of my true nature to anyone, anyone, if you reveal so much as a hint of what I showed you tonight, if you harm my consorts and servants again or dare turn against me, then you shall suffer a fate worse than death. Eternal suffering shall be your afterlife. Your screaming soul will languish in the Silent Dark, your weeping ignored, your pleas forgotten. You will regret your foolishness for all eternity.”

“I understand, Master.” Chindi knelt the moment my talons released her. “My life is yours, with a thousand skins at your bidding.”

“Then listen well,” I said. “Soon the so-called Nightlords will interrogate you. Their time will come, but for now you will feign weakness and tell them what they want to hear: that you came to this land on behalf of the Three-Rivers Federation to kill their chosen emperor, whom your shamans predicted would herald an age of darkness. You will say that you have been humbled and you shall act like it. Hide your strength and mine.”

“Yes, yes, clever, one step ahead…” I could almost taste the malice in her maddened eyes. “No use running when the time comes… my fangs remain forever sharp.”

A predator through and through. The thought of keeping her close to Nenetl and the others frustrated me, but at least I ensured she couldn’t turn her bloodlust against us. Still, I better inflict a punishment of some kind; something that would remind her not to overstep again.

“Your first kill was your sister, Anaye,” I recalled. “Henceforth, you shall wear her skin and use her name in the living world.”

Her gruesome smile faded away. “Master, I possess countless prettier faces…”

“And I may allow you to wear them once you earn my forgiveness. Until then, you will remember that I know your true self hidden beneath her skin each time you look in a mirror.” I expanded my wings and prepared to retreat back into the Underworld. “Do not disappoint me.”

And if she did… I could think of another use for her.

A final one.

I returned to Xibalba and opened my eyes to find Mother patiently waiting for me. “So?” she asked me as I rose back to my feet.

My gods, was she starting to care? It seemed saving her life did wonders to endear me to her.

“The Skinwalker has been taken care of, for now,” I replied. I would have killed her if the Nightlords’ curse made it possible, but for now I would make good use of her. “I learned her true name and taught her the value of hierarchy. She will behave as I command.”

“We pray that you did not err in your judgment, our successor,” my predecessors warned me. “He who intends to tame a jaguar should keep it on a tight leash, and this one is rabid.”

“I will shatter her mind and feed her flesh to Itzili if she proves more trouble than she is worth,” I reassured them before reincorporating the Legion skull into myself. “It is time I challenge my next trial.”

Mother watched as I took a step towards the archway of mist leading to the fourth House of Xibalba. I sensed a strange weight in her gaze. She had something on her mind that she wanted to tell me, but struggled to.

“What is it, Mother?” I asked to ease her burden.

“I am proud of you, Iztac.”

These were words I didn’t expect to hear from her.

“You possess a keen intuition when it comes to sorcery,” she complimented me. “You explore paths I never considered and gained strength from it. I find it… inspiring.”

If only she knew what else I inspired tonight… Nonetheless, her appreciation didn’t fill me with disgust the way Chindi’s malevolent adoration did. In fact, her approval did give me a little joy.

She is capable of gratitude and good deeds now and then, I thought. Could Father have been right? Had I misjudged her? Perhaps she can indeed become a better person one day…

“Thank you,” I replied. An awkward silence settled between us as neither found what to say next. We still had a long way to go before we could act like a real family.

I walked into the Fourth House of Xibalba with a sigh.