For a moment, he hesitates. He licks his lips and very slowly, he swallows. “Give us a moment.”

“But –” says one of the priests.

“We are five minutes ahead. It will be fine.”

The two priests exchange unreadable looks and leave us. As the door glides shut behind them, I find myself shaking. I am breathing heavily.

“Yoltzin,” he begins, but I throw myself at him, winding my arms tightly around him. His breath catches. My fingers tangle into his robes and the heart that isn’t mine aches.

I know this heart loves him because he is Her high priest. And I know I love him for shallow reasons: because he has dark eyes, because his hair is beautiful, because his voice is soft and enchanting. It changes nothing.

We stay like this for long moments, him rigid and still in my arms, me clutching desperately at him. The knotted cord of his body tightens under my touch. He has balled his hands into fists. He dares not touch me.

But he breathes my name again and I am gasping, choking on dry sobs. I press my face against his stiff linen tunic. The strings of turquoise around his neck dig into me.

I feel as though I am drowning. I remember the, polluted waters of the Culiacán engulfing me as I plunged into them. It was Itztli, still an acolyte then, who was drowning and I rescued him. I dragged him from the dark waters of the canal. As he choked water from his lungs, he uttered Her divine name. Over and over in his delirium, he called out to Her. I did not know what to do, but I studied the sharp angles of his face and stroked the damp curls of his hair. I wanted to press my lips to his and kiss the name of the Goddess on them. I imagined it to be a sacrament; I understood so very little of the flesh.

My rescue of him was how they recognised me as the Goddess’ vessel. I cling to him now as he did to me then.

The door beeps. I step from him and try to compose myself. The door opens.

They drape a heavy jacket over my shoulders and we leave. The streets are cold at this hour and the drains are steaming. The sky is a sickly yellow. A haze clings to the city like dust on windows. Aztlán is beginning to stir. The sight of people fumbling with their keys, walking from their homes, waiting for the skyrail all remind me how selfish I have been in my thoughts of Itztli.

The speakers choke out incoherent sounds. Two hours.

I have lived for long enough. Far longer than most vessels. I have had a room of my own, an unimaginable luxury. I shared one with siblings for most of my childhood. We used to fight each other for the crackling, foil-lined blankets, tumbling over and over in the dark.

We wind our way through the bleakness and into the ziggurat. Itztli casts a glance behind but his eyes do not settle on me. The steel doors close behind us. The air is suddenly heavier and warmer. It presses damp against my skin. I feel a low hum in my bones.

I shed my shoes and the jacket; acolytes take them from me. I briefly wonder if they will clothe another of the Goddess’ vessels. The metal floor is warm against my bare feet. I am led to a steel operating table. For a moment, everything feels too still. I want to bolt, but I think again of the Goddess, of the city’s peopled streets, of Itztli, and I calm myself. I lie down, stiffly.

A priest in a turquoise mask approaches. A shock of glass cables and feathers frame the fragmented shapes of the mosaic face. I know it to be Itztli. With gloved hands, Itztli presses the laryngeal mask to my face. I breathe deeply from it.

Before the blackness claims me, I see Itztli dip his head to kiss the mask.

#

Light.

Warm, brilliant light washes over me in waves. I am in endless fields of light, each arcing beam a stalk, refracting into rainbows. I find myself wandering through the light, hands flitting through its feathery fronds. An indistinct lullaby from my childhood threads its way through the breeze.

The Goddess is crying.

She is a small child, curled like a sea-slug shell in a sobbing heap. Her hair sprawls out in a web, all sharp angles like the etchings on a circuit board, or the lines on a map of the thirteen heavens. She looks up at me with eyes that seem to have seen all of time. She reaches out to me with a thousand hands. She is looking at me and through me.

It suddenly seems so foolish to think that a change of mortal hearts every few years can fool a Goddess who Listens to the Suffering of the World. Tears stream from her face like light, like music, like waves. She hears every sorrow and feels the pain of this imperfect, created world. She cries because she cannot save us all.

I am wearing a garland of red flowers. I take it bleeding from my neck and drape it around hers. The Goddess smiles and closes Her eyes. The flowers bleed and bleed. Dark bruises blossom under her skin.

She crumples, still smiling with mottled skin, lying in a pool of infinite red.

•

My eyes open.

I did not expect that. There is an aching, empty numbness across my chest. I try to sit up, but I seem to have no control over my limbs. A draught ghosts over my skin and I shiver. Bright colours dance at the edge of my vision.

“Don’t move.” It is Itztli’s voice, gentle and firm. My head cannot turn to see him. “I’ll prop you up.”

My hand flies to my chest, or rather, tries to. My shoulder twitches and my left arm flails. Half my chest feels numb, though I can make out something heavily thudding inside me. Thoughts stumble and stagger in my clouded brain.

“What... my heart... the Goddess...”

He laughs, a sound I never thought to hear again. “Your heart of flesh and blood is in Her. Whatever good that does Her now.” As he moves into view, I see him as though for the first time. His hair has been crudely shorn close to the scalp; he looks different without the shock of beads and wire augments. His shadowed eyes seem smaller without the dark lines. I notice again the sharp angles of his face, the sharp arch of his brow, the length of his lashes. The numbness in my chest deepens.

“She needs a heart,” I murmur. I do not know if he can hear me.

Itztli arranges me into a sitting position. He is gentle, but it matters not. I can barely feel his touch. We are in a narrow corridor, dark but for a flicking light some paces ahead. Cables and pipes run the length of the walls and there is a low, persistent humming. There are numbers and markings, but they mean nothing to me.

“Why, when Her mind is stored in coiled databanks, does She need a human heart?” asks Itzli. “Why when they can make Her blinking wire-framed eyes and pulsing plastic innards can they not make Her a heart? It is nonsensical.”

“But it is Her heart.” The colours at the edge of my vision threatened to overwhelm me, flitting brilliance across my eyes.

He shakes his head. “That doesn’t matter now. She won’t survive it. I’ve...” There is an alien note of bitterness in his voice. “Don’t you want to know how I saved you?”

“I’m supposed to be...” I grit my teeth; I did not want to use the word.

“I’ve put a part of Her in you.” He glances down the corridor. “It’s not exactly Her heart, but there really isn’t much more to a heart than a series of valves and pumps. So it wasn’t hard to adapt. There was so much blood. I was scared... After I took out yours –”

“It is not mine. It is Hers,” I insist, though my voice sounds hollow, like an echo. It is strange to think that there is a part of the divine machine inside me. He says nothing and the silence is heavy between us. Though my mouth is dry, I swallow. “Why did...”

I try to pull myself to my feet, but cannot.

“You’ll need to be carried,” he says and folds me into his arms. I do not protest. I lean heavily against him. He smells of disinfectant, blood and beeswax. “Neither of us can go back. Because of what...” He does not finish the thought; he can no more speak of it than I can.

“I don’t... I... why?” I force breath into my restricted lungs. “Why did you do that?”

“You saved me. That matters.”

“The Goddess saved you.”

“No.” His voice is a whisper, but firm. I can feel him swallow. “She damned me. And you. It doesn’t matter now. It is all sophistry.”

“Of course it matters. It’s the Goddess. She sees everything.”

He gives a brief, bitter scoff of a laugh.

“She does. She listens to our suffering. She knows you. Her heart loved you because She saw your suffering. She understands.” The pain that was vague and distant before is beginning to coalesce into a heavy, thudding knot in my chest. “She knows you did whatever you did. She knows we are down here. She allows it.”