Chapter 1 Leyenda
The jump between the two buildings is too wide, maybe ten feet. There’s only one way I can make it. I gather my vital force, my tonalli, in my legs, and soar from one rooftop to another, my cloak of darkness flying out behind me like a banner.
I rush through the afternoon, fully aware of the lookouts below searching for any sign of trouble. Any trace of me.
I’m all but invisible, and an invisible hunter is a successful one.
Seen from this high up, Santiago Tlatelolco looks grand. The daylight is several shades brighter as it reflects off the limestone buildings, and the streets glisten as if each stone were dipped in precious metal. From up here, I can see the capital and its central square, with Viceroyal Palace to its east surrounded by fountains and lush gardens. The rest of the square is bordered by the cabildo, the cathedral, and the residences of the encomenderos. Beauty fashioned from the remnants of war.
The faintest sounds buzz in my ears. The claws of scurrying rats on tile. Gurgling bellies. Dry lips parting. The vestiges of a conversation from around the corner—“I’m depending on you to make good bargains today, José.”
Tuning out the noise of the town, I land on a house made of earthen bricks shaded by avocado trees, with a small plot of crops planted on a raft platform above the water. These floating gardens are abundant along the fresh southern lakes, closer to Xochimilco and Chalco, but chinampas are not unknown in the vicinity of the north. There aren’t any inside la traza, the Spanish part of the island, but they can be found here. This is where farmers sow wheat, in accordance with the policies of the viceroy of New Spain, for if the Spaniard is to eat, he must have bread, and if the Mexica are to keep their governments and privileges, they must pay tribute to the viceroyalty and adhere to all Spanish laws.
This particular house, however, raises maize.
It is Nahua belief that once the people ate only roots and meat, until the god of dawn Quetzalcoatl brought forth corn from the Mountain of Sustenance, and from that day forward, they have planted and harvested it.
A soft feathering from the roof’s smoke hole curls above the house. Planks of wood form a trapdoor. I tug and it springs open. Inside, the bony Señor Alonso is hunched over a table, frantically unrolling slips of bark paper, reading glyphs and symbols from manuscripts older than him, with ragged edges and stains.
Señor Alonso’s curved back proves his life has been one of hardship, like a stalk of corn persevering after a bad growing season. Browned and withered. Not dead but blighted. His tonalli wanes. That’s what healers say when the body is not in harmony: tonalli is weak, tonalli is too sluggish, tonalli is flowing too much or too little, tonalli is pooling in the wrong places.
I enter quietly and slow the descent of the trapdoor. One end of my mask escapes my hood, and I tighten the strap back into my bun. My feet touch the floor softly. Señor Alonso knows I’m here, but he doesn’t bother to look at me.
“The viceroy’s men are coming for you,” I say, fighting to keep my voice steady. “We have to get you out of here. Now.”
Señor Alonso holds a parchment up to the light from the window as he strains to see better. A fly lands on his cheek, but he’s too focused to wave it away. “The Nemontemi days are upon us,” he murmurs, in slightly accented Spanish that reveals his native Nahuatl.
The last five days of the year. Unfortunate dead days.
Señor Alonso remembers the tales of his father, and his father before him. Many years ago, no prudent Nahua left their home during the Dead Days, not for food, not for anything. Those who did looked over their shoulders as much as ahead of them. A twig did not crack in the forest or lake water splash without a heart skipping a beat. In the stories Señor Alonso shares, there is sorrow, for he speaks of a world that has all but vanished. He was just a boy then.
“I’m aware,” I say, “but you can’t stay here, Señor Alonso. They’re coming, I tell you.”
“Are you aware it’s been fifty-two years since the last New Fire ceremony?” Señor Alonso says, gently rolling the scrolls.
I frown beneath my mask. Few still living remember a New Fire ceremony. It only happens once every cycle. The last time the Holy Fire burned, there was great fear of destruction. The Spaniards hadn’t arrived, Mexico-Tenochtitlan was the capital city of the Mexica-Tenochca, and Emperor Moctezuma reigned.
If, every fifty-two years, on the last day of the Nemontemi, a blaze isn’t ignited atop the Sacred Hill as night descends, the sun will not rise, earthquakes will rattle the ground, and terrible star demons will come from their abyss of twilight to devour the flesh of men. Or so the ancient prophecy goes.
But no one believes in the old ways anymore. Or at least, no one openly admits it. The Spaniards made sure of that.
I jerk my head as the approaching clip-clop of hooves echoes outside. My heart pounds thunderously. “We’re out of time. We have to go!”
Señor Alonso looks at me, his gaze soft and steady. “I’m not coming with you.”
I press my lips together to stop my cry of outrage. “What?”
“I’m not coming with you.”
“If the Fifth Sun is in peril,” I say, “we can only pray that the gods have not abandoned us and they will allow the world to continue until the Dead Days pass. There’s nothing else we can do, Señor Alonso.”
I know they’re here when a frigid air chills my skin, wrapping around me like a rebozo woven from the snow itself. Their presence feels cold, harsh, and sinister.
A fist pounds on the door. My hand is already on the hilt of my sword.
Señor Alonso seizes my arm. “Don’t.”
“I won’t let them take you,” I say, shaking my head. Certainly not without a fight.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says faintly. “If the Fifth Sun should fall, so, too, will everything else.”
The knock comes again, louder this time, more insistent.
“Go,” Señor Alonso urges, forcing a smile.
“Please.” I shake my head, terrified. “Please don’t do this. What about Miguel?”
“My son will make his own choices, and I already know that I will not like them. Tell him . . .” He pauses to steady his voice. His fear for his loved ones doesn’t rule him. “Tell him that my last thoughts will be of him.”
The sheer cotton cloth behind the two slits in my mask hides my tears. “Señor Alonso.”
“You will tell him that.” It isn’t a question.
I nod. He nods. With a terrible ache in my chest, I push up the trapdoor to the roof just as soldiers kick the wooden door open. They bind Señor Alonso’s wrists behind him and shove him out of the house.
I direct tonalli to the center of my palm, flooding it with my life force, my vigor, my essence. I hold up my hand, warm with power. Do it. End all this.
Soldiers tie Señor Alonso’s ankle to a horse and drag him along the dirt road, his snowy head in the dust. It hurts to look, but it hurts more to ignore. If I look away, I abandon him.
Regathering my tonalli, I take a flying leap and land on the next rooftop with a soft thud. No time to catch my breath. I launch myself back up into a run, tears rolling from beneath my mask.
At the edge of the rooftop that overlooks the town square, I crouch like a vulture. Below me, the tianguis hums with the usual racket of merchants hawking their wares and demanding cacao beans in payment. Every fifth day is market day, just as it was before the Fall, almost thirty years ago. But the once-great market of Tlatelolco is not what it used to be.
The crowd stirs as soldiers enter the square.
Thirteen. Thirteen faces wearing perfectly rehearsed expressions of arrogance. Thirteen rotten pairs of eyes that have seen more death than life. They ride steadily, in an orderly fashion, red capes spread over their horses’ rumps, blades hanging beside their dangling boots, one long, one short. Their commander-in-chief rides at the front, the most highly regarded captain general of the viceroyalty of New Spain.
At this distance, he’s no bigger than a roach. I hold up my forefinger and thumb to measure him, then I squeeze the tips tight, squashing him.
Shouts of outrage fill the square as the guards push Señor Alonso up the stairs of a raised platform and place his head on a wooden block.
I clench my fists so tightly that if it wasn’t for my leather gauntlets, my nails would draw blood.
In spite of the preparations around him, Señor Alonso is calm. His robe is dirty. His face is swollen, bruised, and he’s bleeding from his mouth and nose. I can’t watch this unfold.
Guards stand in a line at the bottom of the platform as a barricade. They push people back, jabbing with their spears. “Keep your distance!”
With a stony expression, Captain Nabarres dismounts his reddish-brown steed and approaches the guards. Strikingly tall, broad-shouldered, with a bearded mouth perpetually downturned, the man always looks as though he’s smelled something foul. He sweeps his red cloak over his shoulder, revealing the glinting breastplate beneath. His hand rests on the hilt of his rapier, waiting for a reason to draw. A valuable sword indeed, finely forged in Toledo. Kings from other parts of the world have wielded arms of Toledan provenance. No blade rivals the superior craftsmanship.
Except for mine.
Don Diego de Mendoza, the governor of Santiago Tlatelolco, moves through the crowd with his Mexica lords. Their bodies are richly clothed in fine mantles, though it’s their heads that draw attention. Their headdresses are beauties made of quetzal feathers, ornamented with turquoise and gold.
Captain Nabarres nods. “My lords.”
“What is the meaning of this, capitán?” asks Don Diego.
“This brujo,” Nabarres replies, gesturing to Señor Alonso, “is accused of healing by incantation and resorting to the use of herbs for witchcraft.”
The viceroyalty is highly suspicious of the magical powers of curanderos. Witchcraft, the Spaniards call it, but they don’t understand the complex cosmos. What they don’t understand, they destroy.
Captain Nabarres’s second-in-command, General Valdés, comes forward with a bill of law and reads from it. Witchcraft is punishable by death, with the support of the Holy Church. It’s heretical and evil so execution is the correct end.
“Curandería is not witchcraft,” Don Diego adds quickly. “We wear the Cross; we are followers of Christ; Señor Alonso’s patients are cured through the grace of God. Surely, using medicinal herbs for treatment doesn’t merit any type of condemnation.”
“This is the work of the Devil, Don Diego.” Captain Nabarres holds up Señor Alonso’s calendar scrolls as evidence. He raises his jaw and casts his fierce gaze on the crowd. “People of Santiago.” His voice cuts easily across the market, trained to carry over a battlefield. “I can’t have you all consorting with el diablo, now can I? What sort of chaos would follow?” He says Santiago, of course, because Tlatelolco is too difficult for his European tongue.
“Capitán, let us handle this matter in the cabildo,” Don Diego says evenly, although the crowd is in a tumult, and his tone has taken a sharp edge. “We will interrogate the accused and determine his punishment if found guilty.”
Captain Nabarres takes a few steps closer to where Señor Alonso is held down by two guards and surrounded by others. “It is well for you that I am a merciful captain general,” he says. “Give me the witch, the one who calls herself Pantera, and you will be spared.”
Señor Alonso slowly lifts his white head and stares back at him defiantly. “You fool,” he says in Nahuatl, “your feeble little mind can’t begin to imagine what’s coming for you.” He spits at the captain general’s boots.
Captain Nabarres doesn’t speak the Nahua language, but no interpreter is needed.
Yells and curses are drowned out by three long bursts of a horn. I’m being summoned. A dark-haired boy steals through the crowd, leaping out of the way as he races past the guards. There is a wildness to Miguel, like a colt ready to bolt. Jaw clenched, he lurches forward to defend his father. Señor Alonso meets his son’s brave gaze before his face hardens and he looks away. Guards close in on Miguel.
I pull the chain underneath my cloak and clench the obsidian medallion in my palm. It’s all I have of my father. If he were here now, he’d gather his honorable character and convictions, and justice would somehow prevail today. He was a man of reason, not violence.
But he’s not here. I am.
I tuck my medallion back inside my cloak and vault from the roof, my robe rustling like the unfurling of wings. To soften my landing, I push my tonalli downward, sending up a blinding cloud of dust. When it settles, I come into view. My back is to Miguel to shield him.
All around me, people shout, “Pantera! Pantera!”
“I knew you would come.” Miguel holds a rusty blade with a reach half as long as his arm, ready to do his part. “They’re too many. What’s the plan?”
I look over my shoulder. “The plan is for you to get back.”
Miguel protests, but I ignore him as soldiers come at me with arms and anger, one after the other. My fingertips curl as I focus my tonalli into my hand, then I turn to the nearest soldier and release it at his chest. He falls back as if caught by a wind. I strike one in the stomach, another in the face, anyone who stands in the way. A bullet goes right through my robe, shooting down a soldier instead.
Sometimes the gods are kind.
The points of two swords hang in the air, just inches from the nape of my neck. I raise my hands, deluding the men into a false sense of their own power. Then I drop to the ground, spin, and stretch my leg out to sweep the men backward.
“The legendary Pantera,” Captain Nabarres says. “Not bad, for a witch.” His mouth barely moves as he speaks, as if he’s bored by it all.
Sorceress. I scowl, begging my mind to let it go, but it doesn’t. Drive your sword right through him, it screams at me from the shadows. Show him how powerful you are.
I stare into the face of a murderer, but my mind shifts to my most primal self. A wild animal. I circle my foe, all flashing eyes and fury beneath my mask, forcing him to turn constantly to keep me in sight. Captain Nabarres is dangerously close. If I wasn’t wearing a disguise, he would recognize me immediately. The thought sends a shudder of fear through me, but I tip my chin up, refusing to cower.
“What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue?” His lips twist in a grin under his mustache. “Is that why you’re known as the Panther?”
“I do not fight with my tongue, capitán,” I say from deeper in my throat to change the pitch of my voice. “It’s me you want. Release Señor Alonso.”
“You fight with La Justicia?” he asks.
“I fight with all who oppose tyranny.” The great Indigenous uprising—I have yet to meet them, but he doesn’t know that.
I slowly advance. Nabarres fixes his gaze on my hand, enthralled by the Sword of Integrity, the mysterious composition of the blade glowing with green light. Damascan steel? I can almost hear him wondering. Swedish? French? What? A Spanish blade will bear the mark and name of the smith who forged it, but Nabarres knows, if he knows anything, he will find no engraving on mine.
I toss my sword, and he catches it.
“The sword doesn’t lie,” I say as the blade’s glowing green fades away. “Integrity eludes you, but you can feel its power, can’t you? Vamos, capitán. Before the day is over.”
I let him come. In a furious flurry of movement, he thrusts the Sword of Integrity with a move that would’ve decapitated me had I not bent backward. He swings with brute force. I dart from left to right. Enchanted swords have a way of causing problems if placed in the wrong hands. After all, what is sorcery if not a double-edged blade?
When Captain Nabarres raises the Sword of Integrity over his head, it dips behind his back, throwing him slightly off balance. I take the opening and shoot a burst of tonalli. As he staggers to the ground, the sword flies out of his grasp and into mine. In my hand, the Sword of Integrity hums through the air in a blur. Nabarres twists at the last moment. He loses a few hairs from his beard. The sword’s tip rakes across his breastplate, which falls to the ground with a clatter, but I don’t draw blood.
Captain Nabarres scoffs and rolls to his feet. “The great hero of the people,” he says, brushing dirt from his sleeves. “You have so many appearances to keep up, don’t you, Pantera? So many masks. You can only hide for so long. You are foolish, girl, and now you prove an unworthy opponent. That is all I need to know to defeat you.”
On the outside I remain calm, but my stomach is a seething knot of fury.
“Do it,” he orders the executioner.
My head jerks to the side. I’m fast, but not fast enough. The blade falls. I flinch at the sound of it slicing through flesh and bone. The head makes a loud thud as it falls into a basket. Señor Alonso’s body twitches and goes limp. A waterfall of blood spurts from his open neck, spilling across the platform.
No, gods, no. My throat burns with a silent scream. I stare at the gruesome sight in shock. If I could move at this instant, I would shift into my nagual. Show Nabarres why they call me Pantera. It would be so much easier to let the Panther settle this, claw him apart. But I can’t do anything, not shift, not growl, so I just stand there, wondering if air will ever enter my body again.
Miguel lets out a strangled cry, shoving through the crowd. It seems to come from deep inside him, a chilling wail wrung from a tortured soul, a sound I’ve never heard a human make. It brings me back to myself.
Captain Nabarres smiles, satisfied with his demonstration. “Hang up the body for all to see what becomes of those who support the witch. As for you, Pantera, I appreciate your appearance. Now I have another criminal to arrest. Get her!”
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