When the group broke out of the jungle thicket, they stood at the river bank. The water was clearly powerful, yet there were very few white rapids. It was a flowing vein of life through the jungle. Perhaps that was why the ancient Maya showed so much adoration for water. It gave life to the earth and everything on it.
Cualli stilled by the edge of the bank and continued to hold the torch overhead. As the rest of the group gathered, Zanya’s gaze was pulled upstream. There was movement in the bushes—flashes of figures darting between trees.
Zanya glanced at Arwan. “Is someone else here?”
“I think so.” He searched the tree line. “It looks like villagers.”
“I thought they all left.”
“Not all,” her mother said. “Some of the men—probably those who were ill or injured—led the women and children to new lands before the battle reached their homes. The rest are here. They’re here for him.”
Drina hobbled through the group and stopped by the edge of the river. The priestess raised her hands, as if greeting them. “Kíimak 'oolal.”
Zanya had heard the Yucatec language enough to know that Drina was greeting the villagers.
As Drina continued to shout in the foreign language, the natives emerged from the tree line with leather straps over their shoulders and a pouch cradled against their bare chests.
All of them were men, wearing nothing but loincloths adorned in feathers or strips of fur. Smears of blue, white, and red ointment were streaked over their faces. Some had on headdresses. Others wore thick bracelets made of black stone and large rings through their noses and ears. Their chests were painted in elaborate patterns of black dots and colorful highlights.
When Drina finished speaking, she turned to the group and signaled for Zanya, her mother, Marzena, and Arwan to step forward.
The four of them did as they were told.
Drina looked to the sky. “T’e sun sets in t’e west. T’e time has come.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Zanya
Cualli’s voice broke the silence. She hummed a tune—the same soft lullaby she had hummed before.
Zanya secured her grip on the offering tray. She didn’t know anything about Mayan funeral traditions, but this seemed somehow…different. Special, like Renato.
The natives inched closer to the river while bouncing on the balls of their feet.
Cualli lowered the torch to the water and skimmed the flame over the rippling surface of the river.
The red and orange blaze danced over the water, and when she lifted it, a small flame was left behind, burning on top of the reflective surface.
Zanya peered at the fire as its colors changed into a deep green, and then flowered into a large, tropical lily. Blue and purple petals with a bright orange center—it was the loveliest flower Zanya had ever seen. When she looked at it closer, the middle of the bloom wavered, as if the flame were alive inside.
Beneath the flower grew a large lily pad.
Drina gestured to the river. “Put t’e offering beside t’e flower, on t’e lily pads.”
While Zanya balanced the tray in one hand, Arwan took her other hand and led her down the mud-slicked riverbank, into the water. It wasn’t nearly as cold as she anticipated. In fact, the current was warm as it rushed around her ankles, then up her calves, and over her thighs until she was waist deep. She dug her feet into the riverbed, slick with pebbles and shoots.
She laid down the offering where she was told, unsure if the lily pad would hold the weight.
One by one the others followed with their offerings, until all of them were arranged around the flower.
Marzena was last. The tips of her golden hair dragged through the current as she touched each item and spoke. “Maíz, to give Renato sustenance for his journey to the heavens. Jade to pay his way through the realms, and statues of the great deities to aid Renato in finding…” The dreamwalker paused, tears glistening in her eyes. “To aid in finding his way through the spirit world. A mirror to deflect evil spirits.” She picked up the sack of red dust and untied the grass knot, letting the burlap fall open in her palm. She took a handful of powder and blew it over the offering, coating it with a thin layer of vermillion. “And ground cinnabar, to symbolize death, and rebirth.”
Marzena looked to the villagers who stood silently on the riverbank.
When Cualli waved the torch in the air, Marzena gestured to the flowing water. “Now go. Give the offering to the river.”
Zanya looked to her mother, who smiled softly. “It’s all right. You’re the guardian now. He would want you to do it.”
Arwan, her mother, and Marzena returned the shore. This shouldn’t be happening. Renato should have been there, with them, where he belonged.
She gripped her chest as it constricted, unintentionally streaking red powder over her skin.
A single flower petal drifted past her, bobbing on top of the water. Then another—this one dark purple in color.
Zanya looked upriver at the blanket of colors swirling and drifting toward her. While Cualli’s humming grew louder, the villagers reached into their leather sacks and pulled out handfuls of petals, casting them to the wind. The flame in the center of the lily flower grew brighter, sending a plume of heat into the air.
Zanya looked to the shore, where everyone stood with their arms interlocked.
Zanya hesitated to leave the offerings, but gave them one last moment of admiration before her stone buzzed from inside its pouch, mimicking her heartache.
“I’m sorry. I almost forgot.” Zanya retrieved the stone and held it between her fingers, turning it in the sun. Inside was something peculiar—a flickering, blue light. It pulsed so quickly, not indicative of its normal swirling patterns. It must have been a sign it was mourning like the rest of them. They had all lost something when Renato died. “I’m going to miss him too.” The stone gave a dull flash of light, which she felt throughout her body. “Yeah, it’s time to say goodbye.”
It glowed from its core with hues of bright blue, white, and green, all spiraling around each other in a whirlwind of color.
The flame inside of the lily burned hotter and larger, growing into a small torch.
Zanya stepped back, making sure not to drop her stone into the river. Just as her mother had said when she first bonded with it:
Once you bond with the stone…it will feel your pain, and you will feel its pain. When you are sorrowful, it will show compassion. When you are joyful, it will celebrate your happiness. It becomes a part of you, since you are, in fact, a part of it.
And now, as always, her stone sensed she was heartbroken.
With a rainbow of colors covering the river, the lily flower closed and extinguished the fire. The flower’s bright colors dimmed until it wilted. The edges of the lily pad buckled and swallowed the offering, pulling it underwater with a low gurgle and a burst of bubbles.
The water flashed aqua blue with a burst of light, and it was over.
Zanya turned back to her friends and family. Tara sobbed into Peter’s chest, while Hawa stood with her arm still interlocked with Jayden’s.
Her mother lingered with her arms wrapped around her torso, staring helplessly into the water, as if some part of her were missing.
When Cualli’s humming faded, the only sound was the distant wind dancing through the trees.
Zanya waded through the water back to shore, skimming her fingers over the cool current as the remaining flower petals vanished into the distance.
Arwan held out his hand. She took it, and he pulled her onto dry land, into his arms. He placed a kiss on her forehead. “I don’t know what we’re going to do now that he’s gone.”
“We must prepare for what is to come,” Marzena said. “This was only the beginning.”
“Do you think we stand a chance?” Jayden asked.
“Aye.” Grima nodded. “We will, if we stick together.”
Ahmed and Yousef stayed in the back of the group—Ahmed with his small,
white hat crinkled in his hands, and Yousef silently counting prayers out on a string of beads.
Hawa drew in a deep breath, watching the river carry away what was left of the petals. “With him gone, everything seems kind of hopeless.”
“Nothing is hopeless,” Marzena said. “I will not allow Renato’s life to have been taken in vain.”
“We will rest tonight,” Drina said. “We will rest, and start again wit’ t’e new day.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Zanya
That night, Zanya lay in bed with her eyes wide open, staring into the distance while she listened to Arwan’s uneven breaths.
The room was dark except the glow of her stone. It sat on her nightstand, mimicking the luminance of a firefly, but with a tiny blue light flickering in its center.
Arwan groaned and kicked at the sheets, then rolled onto his side, facing away from her.
Since returning from the underworld, he hadn’t slept without having a nightmare. So much for the mask. It was supposed to keep away bad dreams, but so far had done a pretty shitty job.
While Arwan drifted to sleep, she was forced to sit beside him and watch as he grabbed handfuls of blanket while he contorted in pain. Maybe not physical…The pain came from somewhere else.
Arwan rolled onto his back again, sweat dotting his forehead.
She picked up her stone and held it close, rolling it between her fingers and watching the flickering light. “What are you?”
Her stone hummed quietly, sending vibrations of comfort and warmth down her arm.
“You’ve changed.”
The tiny pulse in its center flickered brighter and faster.
Arwan’s breathing suddenly slowed. Zanya turned her head and looked into his face.
He was awake now—his eyes wide open and his throat tight. His arms were still flexed from the mental onslaught. That wouldn’t wear off for a while. She knew from experience.
Zanya exhaled, the room otherwise silent. “Are you okay?”
He didn’t respond.
He never did tell her what had happened in the underworld—how Renato died, and what his father, the king, had said or done after she was pulled back to the middleworld by Yaxche.
He hadn’t told her, and she wouldn’t dare ask.
The answer might be more than she could bear.
She returned to admiring her stone. “What do you think it is?”
He sat up and threw his legs over the side of the bed, giving her his back. His shoulders rose and fell with each breath. His head hung low.
“It’s flashing so fast,” she continued, hoping to tear his attention off of the images reeling through his mind. She knew all too well how difficult it was to shake the aftermath of a nightmare—especially when they weren’t just dreams, but memories. “My stone hasn’t told me what it is. I can feel when it’s afraid or happy. Right now it just seems…warm.”
There was a long moment of silence.
“Warm?” His voice was raspy, but at least he was talking. He smoothed his hair down and faced her.
“Yeah. Literally.” She held the stone out to him. “Touch it.”
He watched its light waver and mix into clouds of light. “Will it let me?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask?”
The creases in his brow softened and he gazed at the stone. “May I?”
It flashed with a soft glow.
Arwan carefully pressed his fingertips over its smooth surface. Sparks of electricity popped between them on contact, as if it were a plasma sphere.
Arwan pulled back. “Do you know why it’s flashing?”
Zanya shook her head. “I guess maybe it’s trying to tell me something, but I haven’t figured it out yet.”
He leaned down and pressed a kiss onto her bare shoulder, and then slipped his hand under the seam of her shirt, hovering over her belly. “How do you feel?”
Talking about the baby still made her wildly uncomfortable. It was like she was a knocked up teenager every soccer mom gossiped about, and she’d do just about anything to hide her dirty little secret until she figured out what she was going to do with it.
She looked away from him.
Do with it—what a shitty thing to think about her own baby.
She was more screwed up than she thought.
“It’s okay if you’re scared.” His voice brought her back. “I think that’s normal.”
“What do you know?”
He stopped tracing circles around her bellybutton and laid his hand flat over her stomach. “I don’t know anything except…” He watched his hand, as if he could see the tiny life inside her.
“Except what?”
“Except this baby is us.” He looked into her eyes. “I never thought about having a family. It was out of the question, so I pushed it out of my mind. Even after I met you…I knew it would go all wrong, but you kept pulling me in.”
“If I remember right, you were the one pulling me in.”
He smirked. “Maybe we needed each other more than either of us knew. Maybe this baby was meant to happen.” He spread his fingers over her skin. “I can feel it.” He looked up at her stone. “Now, thanks to your stone, so can you.”
Zanya’s mouth went dry, and she examined the tiny, flickering light. “You mean…”
“The heartbeat matches. They are the same, just like you and the stone are the same.”
“Like me and our baby are the same,” she whispered.
A strange flood of emotion gripped her heart. Just like when she bonded with the stone and was taken by a fierce protectiveness, the same instinct seized her now. She rested her other hand over his, over her belly, and wove her fingers between his. “I could have hurt her by going to the underworld.”
“Her?”
“All Stone Guardians are women. It has to be a girl, or I’d have no one to pass the stone to.”
He gave a brilliant smile. “I forgot.” His face flushed with color. “A girl.”
A new worry washed over her. One she barely had time to consider past her own distress. “Are you happy? I mean, are you okay with this?”
He chuckled. “I wasn’t exactly expecting this to happen—ever, let alone right now. But—”
“Please don’t feed me some cliché line like it’s a blessing, or everything happens for a reason. I’ll slap you.”
He laughed again. “I was going to say, I’m happy because it’s you. If this were happening with anyone else, I don’t think I’d be. But with you…” He kissed her belly. “I’ll be here every step of the way, whatever you need, forever.”
***
Arwan
The next morning, Arwan was first to get out of bed. The sun was barely rising, but they had work to do, and there was no telling how long the king would wait before he brought his minions into the middleworld for the fight of their lives.
After getting dressed, he left Zanya to sleep, and walked through the house. The door to the spare bedroom where Drina slept hung open, with the patterned blue and red quilt folded at the foot of the bed.
When he continued into the living room, Balam lay in the corner, in his usual spot. Arwan’s presence woke the jaguar deity, who yawned, letting his tongue curl out of his mouth with massive canine teeth on display. His snout crinkled and Balam licked his paw, then blinked lazily at Arwan.
“Good morning.” He took a quick account of what they had left in the kitchen—a few fruits and vegetables, but no meat. Arwan gathered the rations on the countertop and crossed his arms, taking a mental headcount of the people camped outside. “We have a lot of mouths to feed. I think you’ll have to step up your hunting if we want to keep everyone from starving.”
Balam let out a low, lazy growl and plopped his head back onto the floor.
“We’re counting on you.” Arwan waited for the deity to budge, but he didn’t. “Zanya will need her strength now that she’s eating for two.”
Balam’s ear twitched, and he blew a huff thr
ough his nostrils. He pushed to all fours and dragged one large paw after the other toward the front door.
Arwan hurried to open it. “Thank you, Balam. Your hunts are keeping us all strong enough to fight.”
The cat’s tail flicked as he sauntered out, vanishing around the corner.
“I think he’s warming up to you.”
Arwan turned to Zanya, who stood in the hall with her back against the wall and her arms wound around her body, as if she were cold. A sheer robe hung open, layered over a tank top and pair of shorts.
“At least he’s not growling at me anymore.”
Zanya tucked strands of wild hair behind her ear—a gesture that drove him crazy. Her hair was tousled and her robe wrinkled, but she was the single most beautiful thing he’d ever laid eyes on.
“What are our plans for today?” she asked.
They both sensed the sudden tension in the air, though neither of them acknowledged it. The anticipation of an attack was worse than an attack itself. But maybe in this case that wasn’t completely true, considering this war might end the middleworld as they knew it.
“The king will only wait so long for me to return.”
“Why do you think he’s waiting?”
He frowned. “I’ve been dreaming…having visions, maybe. I see his eyes.” His stomach tightened. “Just his eyes.”
She walked toward him, her bare feet pressing silently over the stone floor. Bright rays from the rising sun beamed through the windows, casting a warm light over her skin.
She looked like an angel.
She settled her hands on his chest and pressed a kiss onto his lips.
In that moment he let himself forget about everything but her. He wrapped his arms around her pulled her closer, this time taking care to be gentle. She was different now—fragile, and it was his job to protect not just her, but their child she carried.
Zanya parted her lips and glided her tongue over his. His skin flushed when she pushed her fingers under his shirt and ran her hands over his stomach.
Birthright (The Stone Legacy Series Book 5) Page 20
