He kissed her again, and it lasted forever. Casiopea thought there’d be nothing left of her when he moved away, it wouldn’t behewho was erased and granted a new identity. And when she pressed a hand to his hair she was sure nothing but love mattered, there was only the two of them in this place by the sea.
“You’ll lose me otherwise,” he said, in a whisper.
“I want you to stay with me.”
“Then make me stay.”
She was dazed and breathless, leaning forward into the touch of his fingers, and it would be the easiest thing in the world to simply whisper a new name for him. It lingered heavy on her tongue, the name.
Francisco.
He was there; he raced through her bloodstream, and she saw no way to deny him.
“I want to dance with you, to the fastest music possible. I want to learn the names of stars. I want to swim in the ocean at night. I want to ride next to you in one of those automobiles and see where the roads go,” he said, laughing, as he held her face between his hands.
She clung to him, felt his hammering heart under her palm. It was real, he was real, this was real, and the rest was just…stories. Children’s stories. There was no magic, no gods, no quests. She could convince herself she had imagined it all and then it would be that way. A wisp of a nightmare and the reality of them.
But…stories. She knew poems and she knew stories and to recognize shapes in the stars when learned men cannot make out constellations. She knew this story, and it must have a different ending. Mythmaking. It was the treacherous weight of mythmaking, of patan, that pulled her up, made her push back.
“It would not be fair,” she said, and the words were like a knife: they seemed to hurt him. He lifted his hands, beholding her.
“Fair? Nothing is fair in the universe.”
“But Iwantit to be fair. I do not want the wicked to triumph, the innocent to be slaughtered by your brother. I do not want to turn back.”
“Don’t be foolish. You cannot have a perfect, happy ending,” he said warily.
“But, Xibalba—”
“I do not care about it.”
Casiopea looked at him. His gaze was the gaze of a naïve young man, but behind it she caught the flickering darkness of Xibalba even as he attempted to deny himself and kiss her a third time. She turned her head.
“You are the Lord Hun-Kamé, and you do care about Xibalba. And life may not be fair, butImust be fair. I can’t turn away,” she said.
The words, they bruised him. A light dimmed in him, and his naïve, young face was not that naïve anymore. Lord of Xibalba again, old as the stones in the temples deep in the jungle.
“I wish you were a coward instead of a hero,” he said, speaking bitterly, like old wood cracking, snapping in two, making her ache.
“I don’t think I’m much of a hero.”
“And yet you are,” he said, his gaze deepening, becoming a velvet black as he tilted her face up. She thought he’d kiss her. He did not.
He walked past her, farther into the water. It reached his knees and she followed him, wondering what he was doing, where he was headed. He turned abruptly, and she realized he did not know where he was going, he was simply moving with the sea, troubled and adrift.
“I can’t protect you in Xibalba,” he said, his voice anguished. “How can I let you go there?”
“Would I have a chance?” she asked. “A real chance?”
“I can’t assure victory. The Black Road is dangerous. You’ll be alone, you may feel lost, but the road follows the commands of the person who walks it, and it will listen to you since you are also part of me.”
“How can I speak to it?”
“Command it as you’d command a dog, and look carefully. The road may seem a single solid line, but there are shadows where it becomes dimmer and you can jump through the shadows. Do not fear it. Fear will make it more difficult. And never step off the road.”
She nodded, taking a quick breath. “I won’t,” she promised.
“The greatest peril is inside your heart. If you focus, if you are steady, you will find the way to the city. Picture my palace and you will arrive at its doors.”
