Note: This is a work of historical fiction based on the Aztec New Fire Ceremony, last held in 1507 in what is now central Mexico.

The Rite of New Fire. Xiuhtlalpilli.

We huddle on the rooftop in utter darkness. Even the stars, the lights of the Tzitzimime, are hidden by dense cloud. We wait.

I clutch a maguey thorn in my small brown hand. It would be the greatest gift to be able to use it on myself. To bleed my ears in thanks and love and submission and offering. To live one more year, one more epoch.

But that’s not what I am thinking about.

I am thinking about grandfather, my mother’s father. I am thinking of how he always smiles. I am thinking of my mother, crouched beside me now, her face calm despite everything. And I am thinking of the gods.

The gods need us, my mother told me once. They need our blood, our power, our spirits after we die. Without us they would be weak, and without them—without the rain and the earth and the maize—we would die.

But she had never said that they would need my grandfather.

I try to be as still as my mother, but my hands fiddle with my cotton shift, clench around my awl. Take care, I remind myself, for it is still Nenontemi, and unlike the Rite of New Fire, I have seen many Nenontemi’s. They are the last five days of the year; the dead days are how I have always thought of them. The days when no one works and the courthouse is empty. The days when no one argues, when everyone is like a shadow of themselves. Five days of no fires. Five days of uncertainty. Five days in a time apart from time.

But this is no ordinary Nenontemi.

Four of my family members crouch on the roof around me, but I can’t hear anything, not even my mother’s breathing. We don’t wish to draw attention, I know, but maybe too, there is nothing to say. We watch the Hill of the Star, rising up over the great capital of Tenochtitlan, and we wait.

I was taught of the first four ages. Of the Age of Earth, the Age of Air, the Age of Fire, and the Age of Water. Of their destruction by jaguars, hurricane winds, raining fire, and floods respectively. Four times a sun died, and now we lived with a fifth, in the Age of Movement. And like all of the others, someday, maybe today, the fifth sun would no longer rise. Someday, maybe today, the end of the world was coming.

The gods gave us life with their blood, my grandfather told me once, but nothing lasts forever.

My mother’s hand suddenly touches my own, which were twisting in my lap, and I still. She spares me only a glance, but it is enough. I obediently turn my gaze back to the hill, back to the darker patch of black against the night. And I think of my grandfather.

He is fifty-two. Fifty-two years ago, he was born during the last New Fire Rite. That was only one of the reasons he was chosen to be the sacrifice today, but that was all I had paid attention to. I understand the important parts. I understand that I will lose my grandfather, that my mother will lose her father, and I understand that that means nothing. I understand that one life is always worth many. I understand that the sun, like everything, is fragile. I understand that life is a tragedy and a dream, but that we choose to keep going until our last day because it is still worth it.

But still, my stomach churns uneasily.

There is no colour left in the night, only silver and black. It is such a contrast to the bright beauty of turquoise and quetzal feathers and all things precious. Such a contrast to the sounds and bustle of the city on most days.

I look up as a cloud parts and the light of Coyolxauhqui, the moon, streaks through. I think of how she is dismembered each night as she wanes, and wonder if that will be our fate. I think of the Tzitzimime beside her, marvelous and mahuiztoc goddesses of healing and birth, shining through the starlight. They are always present for the birth of a child, and now they are here for the birth of an age. If that doesn’t happen, my mother had explained to me as calmly as if she were correcting me on my corn-grinding technique, their power will destroy us, and that will be our end.

My arms have goose-bumps in the cool night air of our high valley, but I ignore them, pressed firmly to my sides, my breath as slow and even as I imagine my mother’s must be beside me.

I am an adult, but only newly so. Thirteen this year. Children like my younger brothers are hiding inside for their own safety. I don’t know if this privilege is one I want, but it is one I bear with responsibility. We all have a part to play. We all are part of everything. And everything must die.

My eyes stray in the direction of the Great Temple. Even it is dark, its lights extinguished with every fire in the empire. If the priests are able to light the fire on the hill, if my grandfather’s sacrifice and the procession and the everything is enough, then the fire will be carried to the temple first. It will be a long time in coming to my home, and much longer to those outside of the city, but the time would seem like nothing compared to this waiting.

I think of my grandfather again, of his death this time. Of a quick, merciful death, followed by the removal of his heart. Of flames kindled on his chest, and that heart fed into them. Of the musicians fallen silent, of the priests doing what only they have the strength to do.

I try and think of the last thing I said to my grandfather, but I can’t remember. This distracts me longer than it should.

Today is also called Toximmolpili, the “Binding of the Years.” It is Xiutecuhtli’s day, the god of time and fire. It is the day when the 365-day solar calendar and the 260-day moving calendar of festivals end together. It is a moment of rupture. An edge of time that needs to be sewn, needs to be bound, or the cloth is finished.

I realize I am afraid. I wonder if my mother is. I wonder if my grandfather was.

I can’t close my eyes, can’t look away for more than a moment. There is nothing else to look at, nothing to see but other huddled silhouettes on rooftops and the stars waiting for us far above. There is nothing to hear but the gentle hush of Tezcatlipoca’s—the night wind’s—brooding. There is no music, no laughing, no loving. Maybe, there will never be again.

I hardly know what that means, but it makes me want to cry.

I know death. I have seen it take the friends of my childhood; I know it took my father in battle; I know it will claim me too. But a death that maintains life for everyone else is one thing. The death of everyone and everything is another.

My legs have cramped, and I shift my position slowly, carefully, quietly.

When I am settled again, I look back at the hill, but no yellow glimmer of fire has appeared.

A cool breeze brushes by me, fingering my skirt, my shift, my hair, my skin. Tezcatlipoca is the night wind, but Ehecatl, his brother, is the day wind, and Ehecatl heralds the coming of the rains each year. Would Tezcatlipoca, I wondered over the tension in my body, herald the coming of fire tonight?

But I release my hope. As I have been told so many times before, I know that this night, the future, my health, everything, is and always has been in the hands of the gods. I can only wait, powerless, and try to emulate my mother. To look as she does—serene, quiet, powerful like the great mountains around us—and to not fear an end that I have always known was coming.

But I do not find it easy.

I clutch my awl as I think of everything I have seen in my life, of everything I want to see. I reach out a hand, tentatively, and take my mother’s hand in mine.

She glances at me once—her dark brown eyes black in the night—and then refocuses on the hill, squeezing my fingers lightly. But my gaze lingers on her.

Trust in the priests, my mother had whispered to me earlier, before the sun had fallen for what might be the last time, lowered by the dead. Trust in us. There is nothing we can do, she had murmured, and that is okay. If we live, then we live, and we must live fiercely. We must love, and hold dear what we love. We must give what we can to others and to the gods. But if we don’t live, then we did our best. Death will come, my love, my beautiful, and that is okay. And then she had hugged me tightly, for longer than she normally did, and I had not wanted her to let go.

She cannot hug me now. We dare not make noise, dare not attract attention. I lift my eyes again to the Hill of the Star. I cannot miss my grandfather now, because there is too much else at stake, but I remember his smile. I remember the things I love, because maybe that is all you can do at the end.

My mouth parts.

A spark of yellow. Yellow, the colour of maize, the colour of fire, the colour of the god Xiutecuhtli, pierces the night. Something bright and painful and beautiful and tragic flares within me like that fire on my grandfather’s chest. There is a tear in my eye, but I don’t believe that the world will keep going until I see my mother smile tiredly beside me. Then, I exhale sharply, and drop my head into my hands in relief.