Naamah's Blessing

how sharply your sword cuts.”
    “Raphael…” I murmured helplessly.
    “Be quiet, Moirin!” Lightning flashed in his eyes. “Be glad I have need of you, else I’d have
you
slain for meddling! My tolerance has its limits.”
    I fell silent.
    “This one is yours,” Raphael said to Prince Manco, indicating the fellow he’d addressed as Michel. “And for the other…” He tapped his lips, beckoning to Temilotzin. “I do believe I’d like to use this opportunity to garner proof of your loyalty, Nahuatl.” He indicated the second of Thierry’s companions. “This one, you will kill for me. Do you understand?” At Temilotzin’s blank gaze, he repeated the words slowly in Quechua, slicing his hand across his throat and pointing to the fellow. “Do you understand?”
    Temilotzin nodded impassively.
    Raphael returned to his throne, raising one careless hand. “Do it.”
    The Jaguar Knight struck without hesitation, his sword rasping clear of its scabbard. Pivoting on one foot, he leveled his blade in a hard, flat swing, beheading Thierry’s comrade with the same remorseless efficiency with which he had dispatched the traitor Pochotl, gouts of blood spraying everywhere, the poor fellow’s head rolling as his body slumped.
    As horrible as it was, Prince Manco’s inept effort was worse.
    He wielded his sword like a club, hacking frantically at his victim, who fell to his knees, keening, raising his hands in a futile effort to defend himself, his palms and forearms slashed and bleeding.
    I clenched my own wounded hand into a fist. “Temilotzin, please!” I begged in Nahuatl. “Make an end to it, won’t you?”
    Without acknowledging me, the Nahuatl warrior strode forward and shouldered Manco out of the way, thrusting the point of his blade into the fellow’s chest and shoving it home.
    Sighing, he died.
    The coppery-sweet scent of blood hung in the air, thick and cloying. The black tide of ants advanced and retreated, mandibles clicking.
    “Yes,” Raphael mused aloud. “I think you’ve earned the right, mylittle darlings, and these men have forfeited theirs. Go ahead.” In a trice, the tide surged forward and poured over the fallen bodies of the slain, covering them in a living carpet as the ants began to feast.
    Still on one knee, Prince Thierry retched.
    “I
am
sorry that this was necessary,” Raphael said apologetically. “But I fear it was. You understand, don’t you?”
    No one answered him.
    I made myself meet his gaze. “Aye, my lord. Your point is clear.”
    Raphael smiled at me. “I am glad.”

SIXTY-FIVE

    T hree days later, word came.
    The
Sapa Inca
discredited the tales the runners had carried of a living god in Vilcabamba with the power to command a black river of death. He had no intention of entertaining the notion of surrender.
    We were going to war.
    The fields were plundered in preparation, every ripe tuber, vegetable, or fruit harvested. The trees in the sacred orchard were stripped bare. Flocks of fowl were slaughtered, their meat dried and smoked. Thousands of baskets were woven for the transporting of goods.
    The Maidens of the Sun took part in the latter task, and I did my best to assist them, since it afforded a chance to further our plans.
    Ocllo shared her knowledge of the Temple of the Ancestors with me, having visited it many times as a young woman in Qusqu before she was sent to Vilcabamba to teach the maidens there.
    “Here is where the ancestors sit,” she said, sketching on the floor of the Temple of the Sun with a charred stick. “They face the altar before which Lord Pachacuti will be declared the
Sapa Inca
.”
    I glanced at Cusi, her deft hands weaving palm fronds, her face tranquil. “The altar where…?”
    Ocllo shook her head. “The prophecy says it is to be done in a high place in the temple.” She drew a jagged stairway between the seated figures of the ancestors. “Here is where the high priest would enterwith the sacrifice from a hidden chamber.” She tapped the top of the stairway. “So I think it is here. It is the highest place.”
    “A high place, yes,” Cusi agreed calmly.
    I studied the drawing. “How do we get Bao into the hidden chamber? And what is to keep Lord Pachacuti from ordering him killed the minute he shows his face?”
    “The first thing, I do not know,” Ocllo admitted. “It will not be easy. But the twice-born does not need to show his face.” She pointed at the sun disk on the far wall of the temple. “The