Passion (27 page)

“That’s the tribal leader, Zotz. Pret y haggard, right? Times are tough when your people haven’t seen rain for three hundred and sixty-four days. Not that they’re counting on that stone calendar over there or anything.” He pointed at a gray slab of rock marked with hundreds of sooty black lines.

Not one drop of water for almost an entire year? Luce could almost feel the thirst coming of the crowd. “They’re dying,” she said.

“They hope not. That’s where you come in,” Bil said. “You and a few other unfortunate wretches. Daniel, too—he’s got a minor role.

Chaat’s very hungry by now, so it’s real y al hands on deck.”

“Chaat?”

“The rain god. The Mayans have this absurd belief that a wrathful god’s favorite food is blood. See where I’m going with this?”

“Human sacrifice,” Luce said slowly.

“Yep. This is the beginning of a long day of ’em. More skul s to add to the racks. Exciting, isn’t it?”

“Where’s Lucinda? I mean, Ix Cuat?”

Bil pointed at the temple. “She’s locked up in there, along with the other sacrificees, waiting for the bal game to be over.”

“The bal game?”

“The bal game?”

“That’s what this crowd is on their way to watch. See, the tribal leader likes to host a bal game before a big sacri ce.” Bil coughed and brushed his wings back. “It’s kind of a cross between basketbal and soccer, if each team had only two players, and the bal weighed a ton, and the losers got their heads cut of and their blood fed to Chaat.”

“To the court!” Zotz bel owed from the top step of the temple. The Mayan words sounded strangely gut ural and yet were stil comprehensible to Luce. She wondered how they made Ix Cuat feel, locked up in the room behind Zotz.

A great cheer erupted from the crowd. As a group, the Mayans rose and broke into a run toward what looked like a large stone amphitheater at the far side of the plain. It was oblong and low—a brown dirt playing field ringed by tiered stone bleachers.

“Ah—there’s our boy!” Bil pointed at the head of the crowd as they neared the stadium.

A lean, muscular boy was running, faster than the others, his back to Luce. His hair was dark brown and shiny, his shoulders deeply tanned and painted with intersecting red-and-black bands. When he turned his head slightly to the left, Luce caught a quick glimpse of his pro le.

He was nothing like the Daniel she had left in her parents’ backyard. And yet—

“Daniel!” Luce said. “He looks—”

“Dif erent and also precisely the same?” Bil asked.

“Yes.”

“That’s his soul you recognize. Regardless of how you two may look on the outside, you’l always know each other’s souls.” It hadn’t occurred to Luce until now how remarkable it was that she recognized Daniel in every life. Her soul found his.

“That’s … beautiful.”

Bil scratched at a scab on his arm with a gnarly claw. “If you say so.”

“You said Daniel was involved in the sacri ce somehow. He’s a bal player, isn’t he?” Luce said, craning her neck toward the crowd just as Daniel disappeared inside the amphitheater.

“He is,” Bil said. “There’s a lovely lit le ceremony”—he raised a stone eyebrow—“in which the winners guide the sacri ces into their next life.”

“The winners kil the prisoners?” Luce said quietly.

They watched the crowd as it funneled into the amphitheater. Drumbeats sounded from within. The game was about to begin.

“Not kil . They’re not common murderers. Sacrifice. First they chop o the heads. Heads go back there.” Bil nodded over his shoulder at the palisade of heads. “Bodies get tossed into a skuzzy—pardon me, holy—limestone sinkhole out in the jungle.” He sni ed. “Me? I don’t see how that’s gonna bring rain, but who am I to judge?”

“Wil Daniel win or lose?” Luce asked, knowing the answer before the words had even left her lips.

“I can see how the idea of Daniel decapitating you does not maybe scream out romance,” Bil said, “but real y, what’s the di erence between his kil ing you by fire and by the sword?”

“Daniel wouldn’t do that.”

Bil hovered in the air in front of Luce. “Wouldn’t he?”

There came a great roar from inside the amphitheater. Luce felt that she should run onto the eld, go up to Daniel, and take him in her arms; tel him what she’d left the Globe too soon to say: that she understood now everything he went through to be with her. That his sacrifices made her even more commit ed to their love. “I should go to him,” she said.

But there was also Ix Cuat. Locked up in a room atop the pyramid waiting to be kil ed. A girl who might hold within her a valuable piece of information Luce needed to learn to break the curse.

Luce teetered in place—one foot toward the amphitheater, one toward the pyramid.

“What’s it gonna be?” Bil taunted. His smile was too big.

She took of running, away from Bil and toward the pyramid.

“Good choice!” he cal ed, flit ing quickly around to keep pace at her side.

The pyramid towered over her. The painted temple at the top—where Bil had said Ix Cuat would be—felt as distant as a star. Luce was so thirsty. Her throat ached for water; the ground scorched the soles of her feet. It felt like the entire world was burning up.

“This place is very sacred,” Bil murmured in her ear. “This temple was built on top of a previous temple, which was built on top of yet another temple, and so on, al of them oriented to mark the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. On those two days at sunset, the shadow of a serpent can be seen sliding up the steps of the northern stairs. Cool, huh?” Luce just huf ed and began climbing the stairs.

“The Mayans were geniuses. By this point in their civilization, they’ve already predicted the end of the world in 2012.” He coughed theatrical y. “But that remains to be seen. Time wil tel .”

As Luce neared the top, Bil swooped in close again.

“Now, listen,” he said. “This time, if and when you go three-D—”

“Shhh,” Luce said.

“No one can hear me but you!”

“Exactly. Shhh!” She took another step up the pyramid, quietly now, and stood on the ledge at the top. She pressed her body against the hot stone of the temple wal , inches away from the open doorway. Someone inside was singing.

“I’d do it now,” Bil said, “while the guards are at the bal court.”

Luce edged to the doorway and peered in.

The sunlight streaming through the open door lit up a large throne in the center of the temple. It was shaped like a jaguar and painted red, with spots of inlaid jade. To the left was a large statue of a gure reclining on its side with a hand over its stomach. Smal burning lamps made of stone and l ed with oil surrounded the statue and cast a ickering light. The only other things in the room were three girls bound together at the wrists by rope, huddled in the corner.

Luce gasped, and al three girls’ heads shot up. They were al pret y, with dark hair in braids, and jade piercings through their ears. The one on the left had the darkest skin. The one on the right had deep-blue swirling lines painted up and down her arms. And the one in the middle … was Luce.

Ix Cuat was smal and delicate. Her feet were dirty, and her lips were chapped. Of the three terrified girls, her dark eyes were the wildest.

“What are you waiting for?” Bil cal ed out from his seat on the statue’s head.

“Won’t they see me?” Luce whispered through a clenched jaw. The other times she’d cleaved with her past selves, they’d either been alone or Bil had helped to shield her. What would it look like to these other girls if Luce went inside Ix Cuat’s body?

“These girls have been half mad since they got selected to be sacri ced. If they cry out about any freaky business, guess how many people

“These girls have been half mad since they got selected to be sacri ced. If they cry out about any freaky business, guess how many people are going to care?” Bil made a show of counting on his fingers. “Right. Zero. No one’s even going to hear them.”

“Who are you?” one of the girls asked, her voice splintered with fear.

Luce couldn’t answer. As she stepped forward, Ix Cuat’s eyes ignited with what looked like terror. But then, to Luce’s great shock, just as she reached down, her past self reached up with her bound hands and grabbed fast and hard to Luce’s. Ix Cuat’s hands were warm, and soft, and trembling.

She started to say something. Ix Cuat had started to say—

Fly me away.

Luce heard it in her mind as the ground beneath them shuddered and everything began to icker. She saw Ix Cuat, the girl who’d been born unlucky, whose eyes told Luce she knew nothing about the Announcers, but who had seized hold of Luce as if Luce held her deliverance. And she saw herself, from outside herself, looking tired and hungry and ragged and rough. And older somehow. And stronger.

Then the world set led again.

Bil was gone from the statue’s head, but Luce couldn’t move to search for him. Her bound wrists were raw, and marked with black sacri cial tat oos. Her ankles, she realized, had been bound, too. Not that the bindings mat ered much—fear bound her soul more tightly than any rope ever could. This wasn’t like the other times Luce had gone inside her past. Ix Cuat knew exactly what was coming to her. Death.

And she did not seem to welcome it as Lys had in Versail es.

On either side of Ix Cuat, her cocaptives had edged away from her, but they could move only a few inches. The girl on the left, with the dark skin—Hanhau—was crying; the other, with the painted blue body—Ghanan—was praying. They were al afraid to die.

“You are possessed!” Hanhau sobbed through her tears. “You wil contaminate the of ering!” Ghanan was at a loss for words.

Luce ignored the girls and felt around Ix Cuat’s own crippling fear. Something was running through her mind: a prayer. But not a prayer of sacrificial preparation. No, Ix Cuat was praying for Daniel.

Luce knew that the thought of him made Ix Cuat’s skin flush and her heart beat faster. Ix Cuat had loved him her whole life—but only from afar. He’d grown up a few buildings away from her family’s home. Sometimes he traded avocados to her mother at the market. Ix Cuat had been trying for years to get up the courage to talk to him. The knowledge that he was at the bal court now tormented her. Ix Cuat was praying, Luce realized, that he would lose. Her one prayer was that she did not want to die at his hand.

“Bil ?” Luce whispered.

The lit le gargoyle swooped back inside the temple. “Game’s over! The mob’s heading over to the cenote now. That’s the limestone pool where the sacrificing takes place. Zotz and the winning players are on their way up here to walk you gals over to the ceremony.” As the din of the mob faded, Luce trembled. There were footsteps on the stairs. Any moment now, Daniel would walk through that door.

Three shadows darkened the doorway. Zotz, the leader with the red-and-white-feathered headdress, stepped inside the temple. None of the girls moved; they were al staring in horror at the long decorative spear he held. A human head was spiked atop it. The eyes were open, crossed with strain; the neck was stil dripping blood.

Luce looked away and her eyes fel on another, very muscular man entering the tomb. He was carrying another painted spear with another head impaled on its top. At least this one’s eyes were closed. There was the faintest smile across the fat, dead lips.

“The losers,” Bil said, zipping close to each of the heads to examine them. “Now aren’t you glad Daniel’s team won? Mostly thanks to this guy.” He clapped the muscular man on the shoulder, though Daniel’s teammate didn’t seem to feel a thing. Then Bil was out the door again.

When Daniel walked into the temple at last, his head was hanging. His hands were empty and his chest was bare. His hair and skin were dark, and his posture was sti er than Luce was used to. Everything from the way the muscles of his abdomen met the muscles of his chest to the way he held his hands lifelessly at his sides was di erent. He was stil gorgeous, stil the most gorgeous thing Luce had ever seen, though he looked nothing like the boy whom Luce had got en used to.

But then he glanced up, and his eyes glowed exactly the same shade of violet that they always did.

“Oh,” she said softly, thrashing against her bindings, desperate to escape the story they were stuck in during this lifetime—the skul s and the drought and the sacrifice—and hold on to him for al eternity.

Daniel shook his head slightly. His eyes pulsed at her, glowing. His gaze soothed her. Like he was tel ing her not to worry.

Zotz motioned with his free hand for the three girls to stand, then gave a swift nod, and everyone filed out through the northern door of the temple. Hanhau rst, with Zotz at her side, Luce right behind her, and Ghanan bringing up the rear. The rope between them was just long enough for each girl to hold both wrists together at her side. Daniel came up and walked beside her, and the other victor walked beside Ghanan.

For the briefest instant, Daniel’s fingertips grazed her bound wrists. Ix Cuat tingled at the touch.

Just outside the temple door, the four drummers were waiting on the ledge. They fel in line behind the processional and, as the party descended the pyramid’s steep steps, played the same hectic beats Luce had heard when she’d rst arrived in this life. Luce focused on walking, feeling as if she were riding a tide instead of choosing to put one foot in front of the other, down the pyramid, and then, at the base of the steps, along the wide, dusty path that led to her death.

The drums were al she could hear, until Daniel leaned in and whispered, “I’m going to save you.” Something deep inside Ix Cuat soared. This was the first time he had ever spoken to her in this life.

“How?” she whispered back, leaning toward him, aching for him to free her and fly her far, far away.

“Don’t worry.” His fingertips found hers again, brushing them softly. “I promise, I’l take care of you.” Tears stung her eyes. The ground was stil searing the soles of her feet, and she was stil marching to the place where Ix Cuat was supposed to die, but for the first time since arriving in this life, Luce was not afraid.

The path led through a line of trees and into the jungle. The drummers paused. Chanting l ed her ears, the chants of the crowd deeper in the jungle, at the cenote. A song that Ix Cuat had grown up singing, a prayer for rain. The other two girls sang along softly, their voices quaking.