Chapter Text
Artwork by MoonkissedArt
Breaking into the temple was harder than she’d expected.
It was a plain structure. Even the mystery of night could not make it interesting: just a rectangle with a flat roof and a barely-there overhang pretending to be a portico. The two steps leading up to the temple looked like they’d never been swept, and the paint on the walls was so faded that, standing at the entrance to the courtyard only ten strides away, she couldn’t identify the figures depicted on either side of the single square doorway. At least one of them must have been Xolotl.
The little temple had sat in the ancient shadow of the Pyramid of the Sun for as long as Kagome could remember. She had passed by it dozens, maybe hundreds of times, on her way to and from the marketplace with Mama, running errands for grandfather, going to festivals and ceremonies and games with her brother and her friends. She’d hardly ever looked at the aging building, and neither had anyone else. No one guarded the entrance, or ever went in to pray… it had never occurred to her to wonder why.
Kagome took a cautious step, testing. When the barrier shimmered to life once again, just inside the courtyard wall, she frowned. It wasn’t a flashy spell– there wasn’t so much as a tingle of magic in the cool evening air, even when it was active– but it was absolutely solid.
Well, that explains the lack of visitors.
She pressed both palms flat on the barely perceptible dome. It moved under the pressure, a velvet blackness that billowed easily under her hands. It was like nothing she’d ever felt before; there was no pain, just a firm refusal to allow her entrance. Familiar frustration kindled in Kagome’s gut– If only she could strike it with her power, puncture the dome. It would be so much faster.
The image of her grandfather's smile sprang to mind instantly: “Slowness can be a gift, you know. Not all things done in haste are done well, Little Bird.” He’d said it so many times she could almost hear his voice.
Almost. But not really. Never again would she really hear his voice.
The temple was reduced to a faded red smear as tears welled, but she blinked them furiously away, as she had dozens of times over the last four days. No time for tears when there was work to do.
Farther down the side street there was a thump; it was a soft sound, probably just a cat jumping down from a wall, but it was louder than a thunderclap in the stillness of the night. Kagome whirled around, ducking as far as she could into the entrance to the temple courtyard, sending the barrier into furious undulations where she pressed too closely against it.
Silence reigned. Nothing moved.
Kagome held her breath, counting the seconds as she crouched in the apparently open gateway. When ten endless seconds had passed and no one appeared out of the darkness to ask what exactly she was doing, she took a careful step away from the stone wall. The barrier calmed as she moved away from it, and she ordered her heart to do the same.
It was strange, and more than a little unnerving, to be out alone in the city at night, but she had no other choice. A lone woman standing by the abandoned temple would attract attention if anyone happened along, but most people were by their hearths or closing up their market stalls by this time of the evening-- the only people who might come by would be guards, and they tended to patrol the palace and the main streets. As eerie as the darkness was, it would be totally impossible to sneak out with her prize during the daytime, with the main market street only an alley away. As it was, she needed to move quickly.
If she was lucky, no one at home would ever notice she'd left.
Kagome exhaled, pushing thoughts of Miroku's thunderous frown out with the gust of air. She reached out and placed just the tips of her fingers on the barrier.
Closing her eyes, Kagome focused on the strange stillness that lived in her chest. It opened and welled up immediately, a rising tide that filled her with gentle warmth. When she couldn’t feel the cool night air on her cheeks anymore, she opened her eyes.
Waited.
Slowly, slowly, the magic in the barrier began to respond; though she did not move her hands, it began to ripple faster and faster under her fingers, then gently the ripples turned into folds, and the fabric of the spell began to bunch up around her hands and slide down towards her, drawn inexorably into the small wellspring of her power. It began to drip, and then pour into the swirling, impossible place where her power lived behind her breastbone. She felt the barrier’s energy, uncomfortably cold, mingle with her own until the foreign energy faded into nothing and only that gentle warmth remained.
It took a while to drain the magic sustaining the barrier. When she felt it crumbling, she opened her eyes again. Everything was still except for the far-off light of the pine torches high above her: tiny, flickering stars dotted along the great pyramid. They were blurry smears on the black sky; Kagome blinked to clear her vision.
Before her the temple sat silent, as unremarkable as before. There was no sign at all that the barrier had ever existed. The side street was still deserted and only the stars overhead lit the empty buildings around her. It was utterly silent; even the wind was still.
Oddly silent, actually. Completely silent, all of a sudden.
She stepped through the gateway and crossed the courtyard quickly, unnerved. Her bare feet made soft sounds in the decades of dust that layered the steps up to the temple. As far as Kagome could tell there was only one entrance to the building, a single square doorway. The curtain that had been hung across it was tattered and dusty. Someone had thought to attach a small bell to the bottom of the fabric, as though it were a house rather than a temple, but it was so rusty it hardly made a sound as she carefully reached out to push the curtain aside.
Chips of mica glittered from the old carvings around the doorway, flashing like malevolent eyes in the night. Kagome frowned and stopped just before her fingers reached the fabric. The overhang of the roof was short, but it was enough to cast the entrance in shadow; she could barely see her own outstretched hand. How could it be that there was enough light for the dingy old carvings to shimmer and flash? Despite the lingering heat of the day, a cold shiver licked up her spine.
She shook her head. Don’t be ridiculous, Kagome.
It struck as soon as her fingers touched the curtain; magic poured from the unremarkable carvings around the door and lunged towards her, hissing like angry snakes.
Shock made her jump back, but the curse was powerful, and it tracked her movement easily. The attacking magic sparked against her useless aura as it passed easily through what could have been a barrier if she’d ever been able to make one. It split into two as it touched her skin, sliding up the big veins in her arms, searching for her heart.
Artwork by MoonkissedArt
The feel of it was awful, much worse than the barrier had been— oddly slimy, like the belly of a rotting fish, and almost unbearably cold. Teotl, she realized, with a jolt, this is celestial power.
Was the barrier around the courtyard the same? It hadn’t felt as cold, but it also hadn’t been hot like human energy inevitably was. Did that mean a priest powerful enough to manipulate divine power had laid these spells–- or was it one of the gods themselves? The possibilities were dizzying, and she had no time at all to consider the– the curse was moving towards her chest now, as though it could feel the pounding of her heart. Maybe it could.
Be careful what you wish for.
The warm spot behind her heart bloomed once again, familiar and calming. She imagined the little well was a lake, overflowing and filling up the space around her heart.
Kagome felt it when the curse fell into her trap: pain started to spread just below her sternum as the foreign magic responded, thrashing in the encompassing warmth of her odd power. Little shocks of cold fizzed and popped in her chest as the spell tried and failed to feed on the energy that was slowly destroying it. Kagome closed her eyes, gripping the fabric of the curtain.
She only had to wait.
The core of power that animated the spell, a little coal of burning cold, guttered as its energy was sapped. It fizzed against the back of her breastbone as the power that sustained it disintegrated. When the curse finally collapsed, it didn’t die quietly; the spell popped like overripe fruit, gushing teotl that fizzled furiously against her skin and made her stifle a cry of pain against the back of her hand.
Kagome rocked back on her heels, gasping for air. Slowly the unnatural chill faded from her chest. Teotl, she thought in amazement. Teotl, here, in this tiny little temple.
Did it mean the tales were true? The thought made adrenaline pulse through her blood.
It was said in stories exaggerated by drunks and used as threats by irritated mothers— or grandfathers, in her own case— that this particular temple hadn’t been built by the gods, unlike the magnificent pyramids and sprawling complexes around it, but rather had been built to contain a god.
If one misbehaved, the god would come out and carry you off in the night, people said. Perhaps it would eat your heart, or perhaps it would settle for enslaving you to Xolotl for eternity, condemning you to guide the souls of the dead to Mictlān forever, wandering between this world and the next with no rest or respite.
Kagome slipped one hand into the pouch at her belt and let its contents click against her fingers. It steadied her, knowing she had at least some plan.
Once, she’d thought of her grandfather as an eccentric, someone who added color to a life filled with duty, ritual, and other people’s problems with flights of fancy and a penchant for storytelling. Now, she was gambling that he had been right about everything. Before her, the inside of the temple no one ever entered was a silent black void. Inside, somewhere in the stillness, was either failure, or the impossible.
Either way, she’d come this far. Now or never. Swallowing, Kagome pushed back the curtain and stepped into the temple.