Naamah's Blessing

one can until I release the twilight.” As soon as the Nahuatl servant left, I let it go. The deep shadows lightened and the torches burned yellow and orange once more.
    The mayor looked a trifle pale. “A sorceress, then?”
    I shook my head. “ ’Tis a gift of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself to my mother’s folk, and it is She Herself who laid this destiny on me—not for the first time. I have travelled the far reaches of the world before, my lord. I am not some pampered court noblewoman with a foolish romantic notion of heroism, and I beg you not to seek to protect me for my own good.”
    Porfirio Reyes swirled the brandy in his glass once more, and took another measured sip. “I see.” He set down his glass. “All right, then. You’ll need to travel to Tenochtitlan to obtain the Emperor’s blessing on the venture.”
    “I know.”
    He rubbed his bearded chin. “Achcuatli’s a clever fellow. He was under pressure from our side not to open serious trade with your Dauphin’s party, but thanks to that physician’s preventative treatment of the pox, he owed them a debt. He provided them with a map to the empire of Tawantinsuyo under the guise of a reward, but I’m not so sure it wasn’t a convenient way of dodging the issue.”
    Balthasar raised his brows. “Is the empire real or not?”
    “Oh, it’s real,” Porfirio said. “Or at least so I’m told. But if Achcuatli truly had your Dauphin’s best interests at heart, he wouldn’t have given them a map that sent them deep into the heart of the jungle.”
    “There’s a better route?” Denis inquired.
    The Aragonian mayor nodded. “Overland across the isthmus, and southward along the coast to the mountains.”
    “Doesn’t matter,” Bao said with his usual pragmatism. “We’re not looking for the empire, we’re looking for the missing prince. Which means we have to follow
his
route, not a better one.”
    Porfirio Reyes sighed. “Altogether too true.”
    “Into the jungle!” Balthasar hoisted his glass, contemplating its contents. “With its myriad dangers and flowers of surpassing beauty.”
    The bewildered Nahuatl servant who had found us missing returned to the courtyard and found us restored, all of us in our seats. Porfirio Reyes issued a series of commands, and she returned to refill our glasses with stoic efficiency.
    “Whatever trade goods you’ve brought, you’d be well advised to use them in exchange for Emperor Achcuatli’s aid,” he told me. “I understand there are
pochteca
who have ventured into the green realms.”
    “
Pochteca
?” I asked.
    “Merchants,” Denis murmured. “Travelling merchants.”
    The mayor nodded again. “They guard their secrets fiercely, but Achcuatli has the authority to command them. Your chance of survival would be greatly enhanced by having a guide familiar with the territory.”
    Denis de Toluard flushed with anger. “All of this would have been most helpful to know before, my lord mayor. I may have been sicker than a dog, but I know there was no talk of better routes or knowledgeable guides; and in all the months that followed, Captain Ortiz y Ramos never breathed a word about either. If you ask me, that makes the lot of you complicit in Thierry’s disappearance.”
    “May I remind you that you weren’t welcome here?” Porfirio’s tone hardened. “Aragonia has no desire to share trade relations with Terre d’Ange! Not only that, but when your physician shared his method of inoculation with the Emperor’s
ticitls
, he took away one of our greatest weapons.”
    My stomach felt hollow. “You used the pox as a weapon? The killing pox?”
    He gave me an apologetic look. “Not deliberately, of course. But it was cutting quite a swath through the Nahuatl population before the D’Angelines arrived. It seemed they had no natural resistance to it. In time, it would have reduced their numbers to a mere fraction, rendering the entire nation ripe for conquest.”
    Reminding myself that this fellow who had seemed so charming had the power to thwart our mission, I swallowed hard and said nothing.
    “I know it seems ruthless, but believe me when I tell you that you’ll find little to love in the Nahuatl,” Porfirio said gently. “If you’d seen the steps of their temples running red with blood, you’d understand. They have no regard for human life, and they’re capable of immense cruelty. They believe their god Tlaloc requires the sacrifice of young children to bring the rain, and