Chapter 1: Smoke and Obsidian
The mud was cold.
It seeped through the knees of Magdalena’s black dress, a slow, clammy invasion that felt more real than anything else in the past month. The cemetery stretched out around her, a garden of weathered crosses and granite angels worn smooth by years of rain and neglect. The sky overhead was the color of a fresh bruise, purple and green and threatening to split open. A fat drop landed on the back of her hand, followed by another.The smell of wet stone and decaying roses filled the air.
She wasn’t crying.She’d run out of tears somewhere around day ten. Now, she just felt hollowed out, like someone had taken a melon baller to her insides. The headstone in front of her was simple.Epifanio Reyes.Beloved Husband. The dates were too close together.
“He can’t feel you, you know.”
The voice was a familiar shock, a blade of smooth, dark honey cutting through the drizzle.It was his voice. Epifanio’s.But it wasn’t.Magdalena didn’t jump. She just closed her eyes for a second, listening to the thud of boots on wet gravel coming closer. She’d learned that flinching only amused him.
“The soul’s moved on,” the voice continued, circling her.“All that’s in that box is meat and fancy calcium. You’re kneeling to an idea.”
“I’m kneeling because my legs gave out,” Magdalena said, her own voice flat. She opened her eyes and looked at the worn leather of her shoes, sinking slowly into the muck.A shadow fell over her, blocking the dull light. He stood beside the grave, looking down at her. He wore Epifanio’s face, his warm brown skin, the slight crease by his eyes that used to appear when he laughed. But the eyes themselves were wrong. They were too deep, too old, and they held a smug, perpetually amused light that Epifanio never had.This was Tezcatlipoca. The god who wore her husband’s corpse like a well-tailored suit.
“You look terrible,” he observed, not unkindly.It was a clinical statement.
“You’re wearing a dead man,” she replied, not looking up. “We all have our burdens.”
He laughed, a sound that was both exactly Epifanio’s and utterly foreign. It echoed slightly in the silent cemetery.“There she is.I was wondering where you’d gone. The silent, brooding thing was getting boring.”
Magdalena finally lifted her head. Rain dripped from her dark hair onto her cheeks.“What do you want?”
“You,” he said simply. He crouched down, bringing their faces level.