Ruin couldn’t answer; instead, he concentrated all his will on Jaid. With his eyes closed, he stretched out his senses, seeking the warm spirit he’d come to associate with her, her scent of rain-fresh magic and ancient tomes.
She’s alive. I know it!
With each beat of his heart, the White Dagger pulsed, glowing with a pale, cold light. It throbbed against his palm as hard as the heart in the demon’s hand. Like a sinkhole, the White Dagger sucked all life energy toward it. His fingers numbed. His brother made a low sound of pain and moved several steps away. Even Blood Gatherer could not take his eyes off the coveted blade.
So much power sparked within. His enemies would use it to obliterate this world…
Unless I use it first.
His skin zinged and his scalp crawled. The White Dagger blazed so brightly its image was burned into his retinas. He drew that power into his body and cast it down the faint, shimmering spirit bond that tied him to Jaid.
Find her. Bring her through.
Magic sparked in the cavern, the air so thick and heavy that it became a strain to breathe. His heart thrashed against his ribs as though Blood Gatherer had begun working his unique gift to draw forth his heart. Fireballs blazed in his mind.
The first Lord of Xibalba crawled onto the shore.
Blood Gatherer inclined his head but edged closer to Ruin, his enslaved pawn. “Welcome, Great Lord. I have prepared the way. If you—”
“Silence!” One Death wheezed on hands and knees, struggling to gain his bearings. “Surrender the White Dagger to your supreme Lord of Xibalba!”
Wrack didn’t give him a chance. Prowling as silently as a jaguar on the hunt, he seized a hank of the demon’s lank hair and jerked his head back. Wrack’s breath rushed out on a groan of pain and he hesitated, staring down at his hand with horror. His fingers had turned into emaciated flesh, leathered skin stretched tight over dry bones. The decay crept up his forearm, cracking his skin to reveal brittle sinew and stringy muscle.
Wide-eyed, he met his brother’s gaze, and Ruin watched the emotion flicker from fear to resignation. Gritting his teeth, Wrack sawed at the demon’s throat with a vicious snarl twisting his mouth. Decay reached his elbow, his biceps, so he hacked faster, deeper, determined to finish before he lost control of his body that had died a thousand years ago.
Great Feathered Serpent, is that all I will become in the end? A desiccated bundle of rotten bones?
One Death clawed at the blade and the arm wielding it, and everywhere the demon touched, death and rot spread. Clumps of flesh fell away, but Wrack refused to stop until he decapitated the Lord of Xibalba.
The demon’s body crumpled into a writhing sack, skin filled with beetles, roaches, maggots, all of which made quick work of the foul flesh. Wrack fell to his knees. Half his face had rotted away, leaving a gaping hole where his eye, nose and mouth should have been.
Every instinct Ruin possessed shrilled at him to leave his work and assist his brother, but he couldn’t abandon the Gate, not until Jaid came through. Helpless, he forced himself to watch, uncaring of the tears that fell from his eyes.
Wrack dragged himself across the crumbling pile of bones. His fingers closed around his frantically beating heart and his body shuddered. Twitching, he screamed until his voice broke and only ragged sobs escaped his throat. The woman threw herself on his body, keening, and only then did his agony subside.
Rising power hammered at Ruin’s skull and the Gate swelled. Staring at the blazing weapon in his hand, he knew the greatest temptation. With this blade, he was powerful enough to raise his brother’s body once more. He could cut down the demons one by one. He could power the Gates and conquer the very gods who had cursed him. He could spill out the bowels of Xibalba, crack the very foundations of the world, and climb to the highest branches of the Great Ceiba unaided.
Power sizzled through his veins. His bones ached as though they were dissolving in acid. A ring of fire whirled in the water, growing higher and hotter by the moment. Pain built, squeezing his lungs until he couldn’t breathe.
I can’t release the Gate—not until Jaid comes through.
He felt the Gate in Lake Atitlan blaze to life. It poured more fire into him, wide open and unwarded. Chich’en Itza’s Gate in the Great Cenote burned into life, another ring of fire searing him. One by one, each Gate he’d sworn to protect blazed to life, wide open, allowing countless denizens of Xibalba to escape.
And he couldn’t stop.
“I shall be the First Lord of Xibalba now.” Blood Gatherer cackled. “My greatest enemy is gone, and I have my Gatekeeper. What more should I want with the middle world stretched out like a goat for the slaughter?”
“If you want my world,” a human male yelled, “you’ll have to go through us to take it.”
Waves of golden and ruby fire filled the cavern and the air hummed with rainbow sparks. Ruin forced his eyes to focus on the water and the shapes—people—standing in the pool.
Jaid. Not only had she made the crossing, but she’d also managed to retrieve her father too. Joy filled him and relief momentarily eased his straining shoulders, until he thought about the Gates. If he kept them all open much longer, they might never lock again. He had to slam them all shut at once before the Underworld emptied upon the earth.
Closing his eyes, he smiled at Jaid, even though she might be too far away to see the love shining on his face. “My heart is yours.”
“Ruin—”
Without hesitating, he plunged the White Dagger into his heart.
Jaid felt the knife slide into his chest as though he’d stabbed her instead. Banded in iron, her lungs tightened with pain. Her heart refused to beat. Her blood felt like concrete in her veins, filling and swelling to the point of bursting.
Her mind shrilled. Ruin!
A detonation rocked the cave, throwing her to the ground. Pebbles and rocks rained down.
Sagging, he fell to his knees. She struggled to her feet and staggered, stumbling, determined to reach him. Demon howls punished her ears, but her only thought was Ruin. He’d been cursed by his own heart and love for his brother. He’d taught her enough to use the Gates so she could save her father. Then he’d broken his vow to the gods yet again and opened the Gate. For me.
His bloody hands still gripped the blade in his chest. Through the magical bond he’d forged, she felt his heart stutter. His life energy slipped away.
Gritting her teeth, she held on to that shimmering black-spotted jaguar trying to dissolve. “I’m not letting you go, do you hear me? You’re immortal. You’ve died before.”
“Not…with…White Dagger…heart.” He stretched out a trembling hand but he didn’t have the strength. She lifted his palm to her cheek. “Goodbye.”
“No!”
He fell back, his body flopping like a rag doll. “Final…death.”
His mouth opened, closed, but no more words, no breath, passed his lips.
Crying, she leaned down and felt for a pulse. He was gone. Truly gone. The air felt less alive, empty and cold without his spirit. His magic faded and died. A gaping pit spread inside her. Did she feel his death more completely because of the bond? Or because this death was his last?
Her heart wailed in denial. Another death stacked on her conscience, but that old pyramid of guilt tumbled apart like a deserted ruin. This time, she’d made no mistake. In fact, she’d finally gotten everything right. She even understood why he’d done it. Ruin would always pay the cost himself, and this time, he paid it gladly, because he loved her.
As I love him.
Blood Gatherer’s metallic laughter made her teeth ache. “The priest is of no consequence, woman. His knowledge and power are mine—because you are mine.” The demon turned toward the Gate and spread his arms wide open. “Come forth, brethren, and reap the harvest of this world!”
In answer to the demon’s call, the waters thickened into a lumpy, viscous fluid like quicksand.
The Gate’s still open.
<
br /> She jumped to her feet, but the demon stood between her and the Temple of Days. Wildly, she looked around the cave. Sam rocked back and forth against the wall, gripping his head and tearing at his hair. Wrack must have died in the fight; his woman clutched his shoulders, holding his lifeless body to her breast. Deeper in the adjoining cavern, her father bent over the altar that held the smaller replica of rings. His mouth moved and his brow was furrowed, but she couldn’t hear what he said.
“Turn the rings!” she screamed. Blood Gatherer lunged at her, and she threw her weight to the side so hard she fell over Ruin’s body. “Turn it to anything! It’ll break the magic!”
Her father must have been successful because Blood Gatherer screeched so loudly she had to cover her ears. A swirling maelstrom of water erupted like a category five hurricane crashing to shore. Winds tore at her clothing and tugged on her hair. Grit and sand scoured her face and exposed flesh.
Scrambling upright, she wrapped her fingers around the White Dagger still buried in Ruin’s chest and yanked it free. The knife looked like it was made from crystal, but it pulsed in her hand like a slimy mockery of a living heart. She’d never touched anything more loathsome in her entire life.
Darkness hammered at her, demanding that she offer sacrifice. She could kill Sam, the one who’d betrayed them. He’d slaughtered innocent people in cold blood. He’d conspired with demons. He deserved punishment, eternal damnation, all the agonies of hell.
Blood. Blood. Blood.
A legion of voices screamed in her head. Trapped inside the White Dagger, thousands of souls wailed in agony. They’d been sacrificed by the Lords of Xibalba over a thousand years ago, but they were still trapped inside the knife, and now Ruin was one of them.
She hadn’t heard all those bedtime tales from the Popol Vuh for nothing; she knew exactly how to kill a Lord of Xibalba. “Come and get me, you son of a bitch!”
The demon snarled, blackened blood dripping from his mouth, but didn’t dare approach. Wary, he knew very well what the blade in her hand could do to him. So I will hurt him in a different way.
She slammed the point of the knife into the stone wall of the cave. A bone-deep shock vibrated up her arm. With a clatter of claws and snapping teeth, the demon charged. Ignoring the shattering pain in her arm, she slammed the knife again with all her strength, grinding the tip into the rock, frantic to break the damned blade before the demon could kill her.
Screeching like a demon himself, Sam leaped to his feet and threw himself at Blood Gatherer. He tore at the white flesh and those red burning eyes, screaming, “I hate you! Look at what you’ve done to me!”
Blood Gatherer fisted his hand in the human’s hair, peeled him twisting and clawing away, and bashed him into the stone wall until Sam crumpled to the ground.
Blinking tears away, Jaid redoubled her efforts, using the time Sam had bought her. The tone of the knife changed, rising brittle and sharp. Voices shrilled so loudly in her head that her skull ached. Taking one last deep breath, she crashed the sparkling blade against the stone with all her strength.
The White Dagger exploded, flinging her backward with a turbulent wave of power. Dazed, at first she thought the spots swimming in her vision were the beginning of a concussion. Energy hummed in the air, a dizzying rainbow glowing and swirling over her head.
Her breath caught in her throat. Souls. So many.
They ranged from a sweet liquid gold like honey to fiery red and sky blue. Some were darker, a bruised violet that made her involuntarily wince. They carried such pain and rage. Many of the lights flooded toward the Gate; some of the souls raced up the tunnels toward the surface; and others flooded Blood Gatherer, tiny battering lights of fury.
Swiping at the vengeful souls, the demon howled at her, even as he fled toward the tunnel. “There are other priests in this world! Other Gates! When I forge a new Dagger, your soul will be the first to empower it!”
Her body ached, stiff and brittle as though she’d broken something deep inside, but she forced herself upright. Someone touched her shoulder. Numbly, she raised her gaze to Ruin’s brother.
The horrible scar that once had run from Wrack’s breastbone to his pelvis was gone, and the flat look of death in his eyes had been replaced by new emotions: sympathy, forgiveness, and love.
“Thank you for bringing my heart out of Xibalba.” He sighed heavily and squatted down beside his brother. “I wish he’d lived to see us free and happy.”
“He knows,” Jaid whispered, her throat aching. “He always loved you. Everything he did…” She swallowed hard, unable to continue. Everything he’d done had been for love, even if he’d broken his oath to his gods.
Wrack stood. Now healed and returned to her beauty, his woman stepped closer and wrapped both arms around his waist. He smiled down at the brother he’d been trying to kill for centuries. “I shall sit in the shade beneath the Great Ceiba and tell him how you saved us.”
Jaid’s heart screamed with rage and grief. I don’t want to lose him. Not so soon.
Together, Wrack and the woman walked into the water. “When you destroyed the White Dagger, something changed. The Gate feels…”
He turned back once again, his face twisted with grief yet alight with wonder. “I hear the sweetest music I’ve ever heard in my entire life. It’s so golden. So bright.”
It might make her a cruel bitch, but his sorrow made her feel a little better. This man had killed Ruin before her own eyes, yet now he was happy and reunited with the love of his life, while she was left alone to grieve. “I don’t hear anything.”
They waded deeper into the water. He smiled down at Butterfly Star with such a look of love that Jaid had to turn away. It hurt too much.
A flood of light made her jerk her head back around in time to catch a glimpse of the inner world through the Gate. A gleaming black pyramid touched the sky with a brilliant sun blazing at the apex, spinning rainbows down the obsidian slopes. Jade-colored feathers flickered like a wing brushing the world, and the pair disappeared into the void.
While the man who’d died to free them lay crumpled in a forgotten cave beneath a crumbled, insignificant ruin.
Smoothing Ruin’s hair out of his face, she forced herself to face the truth.
He was really gone this time.
Even when he’d been shot in the head, she’d quickly felt a sense of his returning spirit. She’d known, deep down, that he was coming back. Now, his body cooled and the prowling jaguar had melted away into mystical jungles where she couldn’t follow.
Behind her, the Gate pulsed with light that felt warm upon her back and shoulders like a toasty fire. A deep sense of peace beckoned, offering not a Place of Fright, but a place of rest. Heaven, First Five Sky. Wrack and his woman had gone to peace. Now it was his brother’s turn.
She swallowed the hard, cold lump of grief in her throat. He’d suffered for so long. He deserved his paradise for everything he’d done to save her and this world.
Forcing a smile, she whispered, “Go home, Ruin. You will always be Yax-Balam, precious jaguar, to me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Panic and rage still shrilled through Ruin’s consciousness. He didn’t feel dead, or at least no different from the many other times he’d died. Yet this time he felt a deep compulsion from the Gate. A rich voice rumbled through his mind.
“Well done, my jaguar son.”
Flying through a night sky, he followed a sparkling trail of stars. Blue-green feathers fluttered around him, bearing a bright, sharp scent of magic. Sorrow choked him. Jaid had smelled like magic, too.
“Forgive me for my failures, Great Feathered Serpent. I used the Gate once more for personal gain in defiance of my oath. The Lords of Xibalba have escaped.”
“There is no sin in following your heart.”
Even without a corporal body, he felt numbing shock. All these lifetimes, he’d believed his greatest sin had been using the Gate to save his brother, a sin he’d repeated by allowin
g Jaid to continue learning and ultimately using his magic.
He’d carried the guilt of his failure and the death of his people for centuries.
“There is nothing to forgive, my son. Your heart led you to accomplish my will.”
“But my people, my city, all destroyed…”
“The Lords of Death conspired to capture the great king and his priest to use as puppets of Xibalba. My dark brothers have always coveted the gates and the worlds within. You kept them from succeeding. Now you may have the rest you deserve in my shade.”
Centuries of guilt tumbled away. Eagerness filled him. At last, he could cross to First Five Sky. He could sit beneath the Great Ceiba with his brother with all the other great warriors of their age.
Yet there were demons loose in this world. They would ravage the face of the earth until the Return. Jaid, the brilliant woman with knowledge of his magic and the sweetest soul, still lived.
His heart.
At the thought of her, he saw her beside his empty body. She cried for him, but she smiled, too. Yax-Balam. It might have been his name, but only she had ever thought to call him precious. She wanted him to have peace.
How could he leave her? He’d never again see her brow furrowed in thought, her teeth nibbling at her lip as she puzzled out a glyph. Never hold her against his heart and feel her courageous spirit.
“The choice is yours.”
After a lifetime of suffering and death, he wanted a single life with her. It would make the centuries worthwhile if only he could see her face once more and touch her hand and see her eyes light up with excitement.
“It is done.”
As a jaguar once more, he prowled through a darkened jungle. Scents of loam and fresh green things filled his nose. A cacophony of monkeys and quetzl sang in giant trees with pearly trunks and jeweled leaves. The moment he caught a female scent, he knew it was Jaid’s delicate magic. He streaked through the night, beneath the earth into the caves of Iximche, to hover over his empty body. Glowing with light and love, he studied her a moment, waiting for her to look up and acknowledge him.
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