Prologue: The Scarlet Moon

Prologue: The Scarlet Moon

I woke up hungry on the morning of the Scarlet Moon.

It wasn’t unusual. As far as I could remember, I rarely ever went to sleep with a full belly. The cravings tormented me in my waiting hours and sleep granted me little respite. For I had dreamed of the Nightlords, whose bloody tribute was due today.

They appeared in my nightmares as great winged shadows to carry me away screaming to the Blood Pyramid. Teachers and adults said that tributes should be proud of feeding a God-in-the-Flesh, but I knew better. I had only ever seen terror in the sacrifices’ eyes as the priests dragged them to the altar.

Would I be chosen tonight? I had finally reached the age of seventeen moons ago. Youth was no longer my shield.

Eztli’s gentle voice shook me out of my dark mood. “Morning, sleepyhead. Come on, wake up.”

“I’m awake.” I groaned and turned in my bed. The house’s door was open. The light outside filtered through the entrance and hurt my eyes. Thankfully, Eztli’s shadow loomed over me. She was already fully clothed, a red sash holding her cotton skirt and blouse together. Her father, Guatemoc, was still snoring in his bed, so it couldn’t be that early. “Is it breakfast time?”

“It’s bathing time.” She threw my cotton garment at my face with a laugh. “Come on, before Mother scolds us.”

It was with a heavy heart that I followed her outside. The river ran close to our house of earth and mud, its water fresh in the morning. Eztli’s mother Necahual was outside breaking down flowers into healing powder. She smiled at her daughter and ignored me utterly.

I was fine with her disdain. It was her attention I dreaded.

Beneath the contempt, the bitter fear, the wind whispered into my ear. I ignored it.

Eztli and I were as different as light and day. Eztli was short but fit, a beautiful young woman with bronze skin, long black hair, and eyes that seemed sculpted from the purest amber. Boys fought over Eztli’s attention and a few had already asked her father for her hand.

Meanwhile, people saw me as a curiosity at best and an aberration at worst. I was surprisingly tall for my age, but a childhood of starvation had left me gaunt and emaciated. My hair was short, white, and lifeless. My pale blue eyes were like the winter sky. Even my brown skin was of the lightest shade most people had ever seen.

I imagined my late father, in his infinite wisdom, thought himself clever when he called me Iztac; the White.

Leaving my garments on the side of the river, I dived into the water. Eztli followed after me naked and immediately splashed me with a laugh. Since she had opened hostilities, I ferociously retaliated with a wave of my hand, sending water all over her face. There were other boys and girls upstream playing together under the watchful eye of their mothers. Our battle inspired them to go to war with splashes and waves as well. I often looked at the older girls’ bodies with appreciation, but Eztli always punished my inattention with a surprise attack.

My dearest rival won that round in the end, but I didn’t mind. We both had fun.

“The festivities begin at noon,” Eztli said after we reached a truce. “Do you think we should watch the ball game or the singers?”

“Neither,” I replied as I cleaned my face. A breeze coming from the northern woods brushed against my face. It was surprisingly warm for the winter solstice. “I won’t attend.”

She frowned at me, displeased. “Why?”

Because your gods are false, the wind whispered to me. No true deity would wither away before the shining dawn. The stars themselves recoil from true darkness.

“I don’t want to feel guilty.” There were so many captives this year that the red-eyed priests had to put a sacrifice to the knife twice a minute. “We shouldn’t rejoice while people die.”

Eztli sat on a stone near the riverbank. “They are war captives, Iztac. Our enemies.”

“I can think of one exception.” She looked at me with worry and I immediately guessed what bothered her. “They won’t choose me. The gods would reject the sacrifice. I’m so blood-starved, my heart’s all dried up.”

This is not about taste, the wind mocked my naivety. This is about reminding the herd of its place.

“I pray you’re right.” Eztli forced herself to smile, but I could tell my words didn’t ease her worries. “I hope the gods won’t pick Chimalli either.”

“Chimalli?” I smirked at her. “Did he ask for your hand?”

“He did.” Eztli brushed her hair with her hand. She often did that when she was pleased. “Father believes he’s not good enough for me, but Mother is leaning towards accepting the proposal.”

I wasn’t particularly close to Chimalli—we barely spoke outside school—but he seemed like a friendly fellow from afar. It would be so strange to see Eztli married. I simply struggled to picture it. “I hope he will take good care of you.”

Eztli chewed her lip. I caught a whiff of guilt in her gaze. “I will have to move out after the marriage.”

My heart sank. The realization that I would be left alone with her parents hit me like a thrown stone. Guatemoc and I got along when his wife wasn’t looking, but Necahual? Not so much.

“Ah,” I said. I didn’t know how else to reply.

“Maybe you’ll move out before me,” Eztli said, trying to cheer me up.

“I won’t.” The matchmaker had tried to set up three marriages for me and was rejected each time. Nobody wanted a white-haired boy born on the first day of the Wind month. I would bring misfortune on my wife’s family. “I still need to study three more years before I can become a trader.”

Long-distance trading was a dangerous, but lucrative occupation. The Nightlords forbade war within their dominion, but beasts and crafty bandits still roamed the lands of Yohuachanca. As the teachers said, a good trader knew when to run, when to fight, and when to haggle for his life. Those who survived enjoyed great prestige and accumulated wealth. Since I was physically too frail to earn stripes as a warrior and too cursed for the priesthood, trading was my best shot at leaving the village besides becoming an artisan. I could make an income, explore the empire, and meet people who hopefully wouldn’t believe in stupid superstitions.

An awkward silence stood between Eztli and I, until she forced herself to smile. “Then I will visit you every day.”

“You do not have to,” I protested. I loved her kindness, but I still had my pride. “No need for pity visits.”

“I won’t leave you a choice.” Eztli put her hand in my hair and scratched it. “You will always be my precious little Iztac. That will never change.”

“We’re the same age and I’m taller than you,” I grumbled. “Don’t treat me like a child.”

“Oh, are you pouting?” She teased me with a grin. “You’re cute when you do that, you know? I can’t resist.”

“You’re insufferable.” And yet, I would miss her dearly. “But... once you’re married, you can always count on me if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Iztac. You can count on me as well.” Eztli put her hand on her chest. “Swear?”

“Swear,” I said while returning the gesture. I wasn’t sure why she would ever need the help of a cursed boy... but I would still offer it, no questions asked.

We prepared to exit the river and dry ourselves, when I felt something brushing against my submerged leg. My hand moved swiftly. My fingers closed on scales and lifted a fish out of the water. It was small with bright green scales, barely large enough to fit in my palm. Yet it felt so warm struggling to escape my grasp. Fish were rare in the area, so it was quite the catch for me. The hunger growled in my stomach, almost like a primal compulsion.

“Iztac?” Eztli asked with a frown. “Iztac, are you all right?”

I barely made sense out of her words. My mind was no longer my own. I opened my mouth without thinking. It didn’t matter that the flesh was uncooked and raw. My teeth sank into the scales and bit into the flesh, crushing bone with ease. It might have been better cooked, but meat was meat.

“Want some?” I asked Eztli after taking a mouthful.

“Ew.” Eztli stuck her tongue at me. “You’re so gross, Iztac!”

“You’re such a picky eater,” I teased her. “It literally swam to me. I say this is a gift from–”

A stone hit me in the back of the head with enough strength to make me stumble. I dropped the rest of the fish back into the river and the current carried it away.

“What did I tell you?!” Necahual shouted from the riverbank with another stone in her hand. Her lanky frame cast a long shadow on the water. She looked so very much like her daughter, but where Eztli radiated love and warmth, her mother was colder than a corpse. Her black eyes glared at me as if I had just murdered someone. “Never eat meat, you cursed boy!”

“Iztac!” Eztli immediately swam to me and examined my head. It hurt. It hurt so much. By the Gods-in-Spirit, I felt blood dripping on my skull! “You wounded him!”

“I should have hit him harder,” her mother replied coldly. The boys and girls along the river watched the scene from afar. The pity in their gaze hurt almost as much as the stone. “He won’t listen. He won’t ever listen.”

“Because it is a stupid superstition!” I snarled with a hand on my head. My warm blood slipped between my fingers. “Stupid beyond words!”

A soothsayer had consulted the stars on the day of my birth, like all newborns. As I was born on the first day of the Wind month with white-hair and pale eyes, her prophecy had been particularly grim. ‘This boy is born possessed. He is a curse and blessing both, for though he shall live a life of misfortune he will keep a great evil from the world. Do not slay him, for his death will unleash the trapped spirit. Never give him meat, lest he develop a taste for human flesh.’

That old hag had died years ago during the drought, yet her stupid prophecy still stood. I still cursed her each night. Since a soothsayer’s word carried great weight, my countrymen followed her command scrupulously. Fish and turkey were forever denied to me, as were rabbits, birds, frogs, and salamanders. I was forbidden to dine even on bugs, and I couldn’t even dream of a great longneck or a three-horns.

Of course, I defied that stupid superstition. Guatemoc gave me a rabbit once when his wife was off picking herbs and I often hunted salamanders near the river. I ate them in secret without developing a taste for human flesh.

Their life is a feeble dream, the wind said. Once you awaken your true self, you shall carry them weeping into the silent dark.

“Shut up,” I whispered back at the voices.

Necahual held my gaze. She had heard me. “Your father should have drowned you in this river when you were born.”

The words hurt like a slap, and I glared back at her with silent resentment.

“Stop it, Mother,” Eztli pleaded with her mother. Other villagers watched the scene from afar in disapproval, but did nothing. Nobody ever did anything. “That’s enough.”

“Pale hair, empty soul,” Necahual said angrily. “That’s what the soothsayer said the day of his birth. An empty soul is a bane upon a house. We should never have taken him in. Even his mother didn’t want him.”

A man shouldn’t raise his hand at a woman—especially before her own daughter—but at this moment I struggled against the urge to grab a stone and throw it back at Necahual.

“What is this ruckus?” a voice called out from within the house. Necahual recoiled as her husband Guatemoc emerged from their home, his tall shadow looming in the sunlight; his cotton clothes smelled of fermented chicha. “What’s going on here?”

Three calls of a droning horn announced the emperor’s arrival. Red-eyed priests forced the crowd to split in two; leaving an open path to the Pyramid’s stairs.

“All kneel before the great emperor of Yoahuachanca, godspeaker, servant of the long night, and last king of the Twelfth Cycle, the Huey Tlatoani and conqueror of the earth!” Guards hit shields of wood with their spears, the rumbling noise ever stronger. “Nochtli the Fourteenth, and his four consorts!”

The people of Yoahuachanca knelt as one, myself included. The imperial cortege entered the plaza to the tune of booming horns and thundering war drums. I dared raise my head to peek.

A thousand soldiers marched in an orderly procession. Mighty warriors clad in jaguar skins or draped in eagle feathers walked side by side with trihorn riders and other warbeasts. Standard bearers raised the eclipse sun flag of Yohuachanca on its field of red. It was a mighty army indeed, the empire’s martial pride and the elite survivors of a hundred battles. An escort fit for an emperor.

An enormous, scaled quadruped strolled into the plaza. The ground shook with each step of its tree-thick legs. Its tail swung like a whip powerful enough to shatter stone, and its neck was as long as its body. A golden palanquin sat atop the creature’s back, carrying the emperor and his four consorts.

It was my first time seeing these people in the flesh. Nochtli the Fourteenth had spent his year-long reign either warring or whoring, subjugating chieftains and adding their daughters to his harem. I expected a titan of a warrior, a giant wielding a sword of obsidian.

Instead, I saw a big-bellied man so fat that I wondered how a woman could survive his embrace. His gorgeous cotton clothes couldn’t hide his overflowing pallid belly, nor his thick black veins. His head had been shaved. Dark circles surrounded his hollow gaze; he waved his hand at the crowd in a daze, going through the motions.

Most emperors were drugged on the way to the altar. I thought this one would be different.

His four consorts were as slim as he was thick, fair ladies chosen from all across the empire to serve as the emperor’s confidants. They too were shaved and addled, their nakedness laying exposed to the world. They reminded me of dead turkeys sent straight to the butcher’s shop.

That is what they are, the wind whispered. The feast’s sweet dessert.

The longneck beast sat at the pyramid’s base. Red-eyed priests helped the emperor and his retinue climb down from their ride and ascend the pyramid’s stairs. They dragged these five dazzled rulers upward, slowly and methodically. So heavy was our emperor that he needed four men to carry him. The red moonlight lit their way.

Guatemoc held his breath, as did everyone else. A chilling cold fell upon the plaza. The stars had gone out in the sky, leaving only the scarlet moon to paint the heavens red. I glimpsed shadows flying in the dark high above us.

All of Yohuachanca observed in silence as the emperor completed his ascent. Priests stripped him of his clothes and laid him upon the altar. With his strength and size, the emperor could have cast down one of them into the void below, but he did not. The man did not even resist, nor did his consorts. These four were bound to the altar by ropes, to make sure they wouldn’t thrash around.

Once they had the emperor lying on the altar, the priests nailed his hands and feet to the horns. The emperor did not make a sound as his blood dripped down onto the pyramid. Not a single one.

The gods, though, screeched their pleasure to the heavens.

I froze in dread as they descended from the darkened skies. They arrived in a swarm of hundreds, their dark crimson fur reflected in the red moonlight, their bat snouts aroused by the smell of blood. Their sharpened talons could carry a trihorn away and rip a man’s head from his shoulders. Translucent wings let them glide and land gracefully onto the pyramid’s steps. None dared approach the summit. For they were Nightkins, scions of the gods and no true lords of the dark.

Their masters materialized atop the pyramid in a cloud of mist.

The four Nightlords appeared around the altar, each of them clad in ceremonial red robes of rich silk laced with gold and feathers. Dark hoods and wooden masks hid their faces from mortals unworthy of beholding their beauty. But no darkness could hide the crimson glow of their hungry gaze. They appeared almost human from afar, though they were anything but. I immediately recognized each of them by their mask: Ocelocihuatl, the Jaguar Woman; Yoloxochitl, the Flower of the Heart; Iztacoatl, the White Snake; and Sugey, the Bird of War. The ladies of the north, the west, the east, and the south; the daughters of the First Emperor and queens of the night.

The feast began with the consorts.

I was too far below to see clearly, but I witnessed enough to make my stomach turn. Each Nightlord grabbed an imperial consort and swiftly fed upon their prey. The gods’ table manners differed greatly between them. Yoloxochitl elegantly bit her tribute’s neck and painlessly drained her dry. Sugey, who hated wasting time, squeezed a consort’s skull like a fruit until her eyes popped out, ripped off her head from the shoulders, and then let the sweet blood drip down her gullet. Cruel Ocelocihuatl ripped her victim apart limb from limb, tossing the scraps to the nightkin below; the bat-faced beasts squealed and fought over a piece of leg like dogs over a bone. Iztacoatl played with her food, biting the breasts and the wrists, savoring the blood with refined savagery.

Though I observed the scene far below, the scarlet moon reflected the scene like a mirror in all its lurid details. I looked away with a bitter taste in my mouth. Many among my group did the same. The others watched on either in naked fear—mostly Guatemoc—or zealous adoration. I didn’t understand these people. I never found anything inspiring in ritual sacrifices.

Because these goddesses are false, the voices answered. Parasites forsaken from dawn to sunset, shadows on a wall.

I forced myself to look back. I didn’t want to remember this scene—I’d witnessed this ceremony too many times—but I had to. I didn’t want to forget cruelty’s face. The Nightlords wanted us afraid the same way Necahual threatened me. I might not have the power to change things, but I wouldn’t flinch from them.

Once they had finished consuming the consorts down to the last drop of blood, the Nightlords turned their attention onto the emperor. The queens of the night each lay a hand on the man’s chest.

Then they ripped him open in a flash of speed. The Nightlords’ claws grabbed the emperor’s ribs and pulled them back, severing skin and flesh. The pain must have been horrendous, for it woke the sacrifice from his drugged daze. The emperor screamed in pain as a fountain of blood surged from his body. The Nightlords showed him no mercy; in fact, his agony only drove them into a maddened frenzy. Their hands ripped him open piece by piece, their mouths feasting on his delicious blood.

It wasn’t long until they found their prize: an emperor’s still-beating heart.

The Jaguar Woman ripped it out of his chest in the blink of an eye. Her crimson robes hid the blood well. The emperor breathed his last without a final scream, and the Nightlords paraded their trophy over his corpse. Then, at the climax of this gruesome feast, they impaled the heart upon one of the altar’s horns. Its ruby eyes shone with an eldritch gleam. The stones themselves appeared to feed on the precious, precious blood.

Satisfied, the Nightlords then approached the summit’s edge to better face the people. The Nightkin obediently bowed before their mistresses, as did the people of Yohuachanca. Lady Sugey, the Bird of War and Mistress of Battle, spoke for her siblings. Her deep, powerful voice echoed across the city with a thundering boom.

“Our covenant is renewed,” she declared with pride. “We Nightlords accept your tribute on behalf of the First Emperor. A ruler’s blood shall purchase a prosperous dawn for Yohuachanca. Fear not the silent dusk, for we shall guide and protect thee through the long nights.”

She raised a fist towards the scarlet moon.

“Long live Yohuachanca!”

The crowd exploded into cheers and applause.

With the gods satisfied, the tension in the air evaporated. Women cried up tears of relief, men jumped in place, children laughed. I stood as an island of sullen silence in a sea of noise and joy. For an emperor’s death brought a prosperous year.

“I’ll miss this one,” I heard someone say behind me. “He won us many battles.”

“I hope the next emperor will bring us luck,” another man answered, almost cheerfully. “I wonder who it will be.”

Am I mad? I wondered. Was I the only one to whom this ceremony felt wrong? Perhaps I’d spent too much time listening to voices decrying the gods as false.

Not all gods are false, the wind replied, but true deities have nothing to prove.

For once, the voices in my head sounded halfway wise. Neither did Guatemoc find much joy in the emperor’s death. The throne never stayed empty for long.

The Jaguar Woman clapped her hands, and the million-strong crowd fell silent.

“The Twelfth Cycle ends tonight with the tribute of its fifty-second emperor.” Ocelocihuatl’s voice was less rough than her sister’s, but sharper. Each word sent shivers down my spine. “The stars foretell that the Thirteenth Cycle shall be an age of glory. We shall now crown a new emperor to usher it in. He shall guide our herd, protect you from your enemies, and forgive your sins. Then, one year from now, he shall ascend these steps to renew the covenant.”

Most members of my group held their breath, but not out of fear, far from it. Being chosen as the emperor was the highest of honors. Short his reign might be, it would be spent in glory and luxury. Their names would forever endure beyond their death in history books.

Guatemoc didn’t share their opinion. He shivered so much I thought he might collapse dead at my feet. Eztli’s father loved wealth, but he would rather die in his bed in ten years’ time than on an altar in one. And I felt the same.

“The stars have spoken,” the Jaguar Woman said. “This year’s emperor shall be chosen from the Acampa Calpulli.”

My heart skipped a beat. My head snapped in Guatemoc’s direction. His forehead sweated more than a fountain and his hands joined in a foolish prayer. Who was he even begging to? No one would be listening tonight.

“Born on the first day of the month,” the Jaguar Woman carried on, “under the auspices of the Wind–”

I ran.

I didn’t think, I didn’t breathe, I didn’t stop. I just ran as fast as my legs could carry me. I pushed Guatemoc aside with such strength he collapsed head-first into the brick ground. I immediately regretted it, but I did not come back to pick him back up. I was too frightened.

My panicked reaction took the red-eyed priests by surprise, and I managed to get past them. The crowd before me dispersed with a scream of surprise. I didn’t wonder why for long. A winged shadow descended upon me and grabbed me by the shoulders. My feet dangled above the ground as talons carried me upward, and the plaza started to become smaller and smaller.

I was flying for the first time in my life. And it sucked. I shivered in dread, with the wind blowing into my face and the bloody ground calling out to me.

“Let me go!” I struggled against my captor’s grip. The fact that freedom meant a fatal fall and a gruesome crash didn’t cross my mind immediately. “Let me go!”

The Nightkin holding me only tightened his talons’ grip. He flew towards the pyramid’s summit and gently dropped me in front of the altar. His claws released me into the hands of a greater danger.

“Here you are, Iztac Ce Ehecatl.”

A cold more intense than anything I had ever felt seized me. My muscles moved on their own, my neck lifting my head until I faced four pairs of eyes looking down on me. My knees remained anchored to the ground, deep into a viscous puddle of blood. Whether it belonged to the consorts or the emperor, I couldn’t tell. The stench was nauseating.

“My poor child, so full of fear.” Yoloxochitl leaned in to better look at me. Her voice was soothing, almost motherly, but her flowery mask failed to hide her sharp fangs. “Why do you seem so unsettled? You have been chosen for the greatest honor.”

You’re mistaken, I wanted to say, but my mouth refused to open. The Nightlords’ red eyes commanded my bones and muscles; her magic overwhelmed my mind. Like a puppet, Sugey gently took my hand into her own and lifted me up. My body turned to face a crowd of a million. People looked so small from here... I could hardly tell one face from the other.

“The old emperor is dead,” Sugey addressed the crowd, before presenting me to the people with a wave of her hand. “All hail the new emperor, long may he reign!”

A thunderstorm of claps and applause welcomed my coronation. The Nightkins echoed the mortals’ joy with screeches of impatience. The people of Yohuachanca laughed and smiled and cheered for my coronation. For my future death.

I had waited so long to escape this place. I had bit my tongue and suffered every indignity. I had waited and worked and toiled, all for nothing. My wishes had gone unanswered, and now I had been marked for death.

Do you yield? the wind asked me. Or do you die?

“I hope you shall taste better than your predecessor,” Sugey whispered to me with the tone Eztli used when she complained of overcooked tortilla.

A surge of anger rose within my heart. A fire born of wrath and injustice. Whether it gave me the strength to overcome the shackles on my mind or whether the Nightlords released their control long enough to let me speak, I managed to say two words. Two small words that would define my entire tenure.

“I refuse,” I said.