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Women were meant to bear the brunt of inquiries because they descended from Eve, who had been weak and sinned, eating from the juicy, forbidden apple.
Mortals have always been frightened of the night’s velvet embrace and the creatures that walk in it, and yet they find themselves mesmerized by it. Since all gods are born from the kernel of mortal hearts, it is no wonder Xibalba reflected this duality.
After having been ordered by her family to mind her tongue and her manners, she was loath to allow a man to so quickly dictate her speech patterns.
It puzzled her to imagine death as a perfume that clung to her and, rather than striking the sour note of decay, could be as pleasant as the scent of a rose.
Death, she walked next to Death, and Death wore the face of a man.
The imagination of mortals shaped the gods, carving their faces and their myriad forms, just as the water molds the stones in its path, wearing them down through the centuries. Imagination had also fashioned the dwellings of the gods.
If gods destroyed all humans, there would be no adoration and no sacrifice, which is the fresh wood that replenishes a fire.
there is none more fearful of thieves than the one who has stolen something,
“Words are seeds, Casiopea. With words you embroider narratives, and the narratives breed myths, and there’s power in the myth. Yes, the things you name have power,” he said.
The things you name do grow in power, but others that are not ever whispered claw at one’s heart anyway, rip it to shreds even if a syllable does not escape the lips.
what mattered was not the veracity of the story, but its power. The symbol. The hidden meaning. A woman and rebirth and the restoration of something lost. A vessel, a conduit through which everything is made anew.
“Was I cruel? I was a god; you might as well ask the river if it is gentle in its path, or the hail whether it hurts the land when it strikes it. At times, I can barely recall it.”
The nature of hate is mysterious. It can gnaw at the heart for an eon, then depart when one expected it to remain as immobile as a mountain. But even mountains erode.
He’d fallen in love slowly and quietly, and it was a quiet sort of love, full of phrases left unsaid, laced with dreams.
