Today, we’re thrilled to bring you an exclusive excerpt from The Jaguar Path!

The Jaguar Path is the second book in Anna Stephens’ Ancient Central-American themed series The Songs of the Drowned, which started with The Stone Knife.

The Jaguar Path is out on February 16th. You can pre-order your copy from Bookshop.org

Before we get to the excerpt, a quick note from us here at the Hive.

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The Jaguar Path

Please note there will be 

MINOR SPOILERS FOR THE STONE KNIFE

‘I thank the  Feather  for  the lesson,’  Lilla  panted. It  wasn’t a lie. He did thank Ekon, because despite being badly beaten, he knew a little more of the Melody’s fighting style than he had the day before. And, perhaps, the Pecha trusted him a little now, to gift him this extra time and practice.

Lilla rested on one knee, chest heaving for breath and running with sweat so his tunic clung to him, hands aching from the jolting  of  his axe in his grip as Ekon  had  battered it down and away time and again, a relentless, flowing attack Lilla could do little but withstand. He hadn’t managed more than a dozen counterattacks, and only one had landed, and even then without force. The Feather well deserved his title: he was power and grace and ruthlessness. All-seeing and cruel but only as necessary. A wild hunter and  one it was both easy and prudent to respect.

The rest of the Eighth had finished training when the afternoon began to lilac into dusk, but Ekon had called him back for extra sparring. Now he grinned. ‘Better than last time,’ he said. ‘Not quite a rancid monkey turd today.’

Lilla managed a wry smile in return. ‘The Feather’s  praise is mighty indeed.’ He snapped his mouth shut as soon as he spoke, unsure how Ekon would respond, but the man only laughed, genuine and from the belly, pulling a crooked grin from the Toko that he was unable to quell.

‘The Feather is a little less disgusted with your ability than yesterday,’ he agreed and then startled him by offering a hand. Lilla took it and Ekon ha uled him to his feet without apparent effort. His palm was hot and calloused yet dry, unlike the sweat slicking the Tokob own. ‘You learn quickly. That is good.’

‘You honour me,’ Lilla said. ‘But it is your teaching that makes me  better.  I …  forgive  me. This  slave  speaks  out of turn.’

‘Please, continue.’ Ekon was warm with curiosity, a small smile hinting at the dimple in his cheek.

Lilla looked away. ‘As a Tokob warrior, I believed myself capable, and then  I fought  the eagles  of  the Melody. When I was first brought here, I tried to learn well. And yet still, after all this time, there is more I do not know. It is humbling.’

Ekon was silent and then he sighed, light  as the  breath of a lover. ‘There are few things that will take a warrior’s honour faster than knowing they are not all they thought  they were. It is why we ensure new slaves are in a weakened state when they swear the oath. We keep you captive to allow you to absorb the song uninterrupted but also so that the first time you fight us again, or see us fight, you can’t  win. It  made you angry, didn’t it? That you couldn’t beat us in those early days here?’

Lilla ran his tongue across his parched  lips, swallowing the first retort that sprang to them. ‘It did, high one.’

‘And yet in the last two years we have moulded your fighting style to one that fits with ours. We have  brought  you from below your previous standard to better than you were, not just as warriors, but in what you  know. In  what you are, and what you can accomplish. Warfare for us is as much an art form as pottery or weaving or  painting. You fight – fought – very well, you and the Yaloh, but now you fight in the Pechaqueh style, and so you fight better. Our gift to you, alongside the song. Among so much more.’

‘And yet dishonourable.’ Ekon’s face went hard and Lilla’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘F-forgive me,’ he stuttered, throwing himself back on to his knees and pressing his face to the dirt. There was a long, pregnant silence above him and his shoulder blades twitched, awaiting the blade that would ram past them into his lungs. ‘Why dishonourable? And stand up to answer me.’

Lilla’s heart was pounding so hard his vision was pulsing with it, but he stood. ‘I … you said you ensure we are weak and broken before you fight  us  the first  time. That  is  not the way of my people. Not the way of the jaguar path. You put us at a disadvantage so you might trick us into thinking you are better than we are.’

Ekon snorted. ‘Trick? We are better than you; it is why your people have been brought  under the glory of  the song. It is why you fell.’

How easily he spoke of Pechaqueh superiority, as if Lilla should feel nothing but gratitude for being in the presence of one so far above him. And how easily he dismissed the Tokob jaguar path as having no worth. Lilla breathed and bowed. ‘Your patience for this slave’s hasty words is generous indeed, high one, as is your skill and the wisdom of the lesson. With your permission and his kind thanks, this one will take his leave. Under the song.’ It was  the best he could do, all he could offer if he did not want to rage and scream and take the eagle by the throat and force him to listen.

‘Wait, Lilla.’

Lilla’s eyebrows rose. He didn’t think Ekon had ever used his name before. The Pecha handed off the axes to a waiting slave, who took them and trotted off ahead, and began  to walk slowly to the yard’s gate. Lilla fell in just  behind, as  was customary, and Ekon gestured that he should walk by his side. Another surprise. ‘That was  perhaps  unthoughtful of me,’ he said, but didn’t look in the Tokob direction.

Lilla startled, but to acknowledge the apology would shame the man.

‘I would ask you about the Tokob ejab. No, no, there is nothing to fear,’ he added when Lilla pulled back on instinct and began again to  kneel. ‘Please, stand. As  you  know, it is a … horror to us, what your people have done to our gods. Your heresy, your ignorance – though of course you could  not be expected to know any better.’

The man seemed oblivious to this further offence and so Lilla kept breathing and let the insults wash over him. He can’t help it. He truly believes these things about us. But he was surprised at how much it still stung.

‘I would try and understand it,’ the eagle continued. ‘And try and make you see why it is wrong. If you are to live  under the song, if you are to earn your freedom and live among us, we must know we can trust you as we trust the Chitenecah or the Tlaloxqueh, for example. That means trusting that your ejab will not begin their wickedness again as soon as they are free.’ He paused a moment and glanced sidelong at Lilla, as if weighing his words. ‘Many of your people are proud of their god-killers  and  wear  that  pride like eagle feathers. But not you, I think.’

Be Pechaqueh in your heart, Lilla. Believe what they

believe, the better to end them all. Betray everything to save everything.

‘I was proud,’ he said softly, Xessa’s face mocking him, calling him a traitor, from the depths of his memory. Malel, but he missed the bite of her ire. ‘This slave wished to walk their path himself, though it was not to be. You must under­ stand, ejab are respected and honoured  among  my  people for everything they do, not just the risk of the hunt itself, but all they suffer under the spirit-magic  that deafens them to the Drowned’s song. Forgive me, the holy Setatmeh song.’ Ekon’s expression was a mix of disgust and curiosity as they passed through the gate and down the long, open passageway.

‘They are our … the holy Setatmeh are our greatest predator, high one. To us, the concept of human sacrifice is inextricably bound up with our god,  Malel  the  mother  of all, on whose skin we live. A sacrifice to her is rare and only offered during the greatest need. And, of course, our numbers are not enough to sacrifice to the Dr- the holy Setatmeh regularly, as you do here. So what other choice did we have? Water is life, but they are death. High one.’

‘But they are gods,’ Ekon said, and though his voice was soft it echoed back from the walls hemming them in.

‘They are your gods,’ Lilla corrected, his scalp tightening at daring to speak so. ‘Tokob histories tell of these creatures appearing in our waters hundreds of years ago. The shamans of that time could find no link between them  and  Malel. They were simply a new, terrifying predator, deadlier  than the jaguar. What else were we supposed to do?’ Ekon didn’t answer and Lilla dared again, his heart beating hummingbird wings against his ribs.

‘If an unknown creature, something you had never seen or heard of before, suddenly began slaughtering your people, would you name it god, high one? Or would you  fight against it?’

Ekon glanced at him, anger and possibly something else tightening the muscles around his mouth. ‘You said “I was proud”,’ he said in a neutral tone, evidently unwilling to address anything else Lilla had said.

The Toko ducked his head. He had pushed, possibly too far. But had he made the Feather think, at least? What does it matter if I did? These people can’t be educated, will never see reason. Why, then, did he feel compelled to try with Ekon? ‘Yes, high one, this slave was proud, all his life he was proud of the ejab, honoured them, revered those who died performing their duty. This slave danced and drummed for them, prayed for their spirits to find rebirth. And then … ‘ Lilla lost the formality of his speech as he spoke, the words coming from  deep within. ‘I came  beneath  the song. I know I have not heard it for  long, and  I know  from  the  talk of the dog warriors that the song is not how it used to be, but… but it is a wonder, is it not? It,’ he paused again, not because he worried he would sound foolish, but to find the truth of the words he wanted to speak. ‘It tells me  things. Tells me who I am and  what  I can  be. What I should  be. Is it so for everyone?’

Ekon’s disgust faded and his face became still, almost wondering. He gripped Lilla’s forearm and drew him to  a halt. ‘Yes. Or I believe so. The song finds our deepest truth and shows it to us. What does it show you?’

‘That I am not worthy,’ Lilla said  honestly. Pain flickered at the admission and he looked down at the Pechaqueh hand on his arm, then further down, to his own dusty feet and legs. ‘That I, this slave, will never be worthy.’ His voice was husky and rage and loneliness battered against his ribcage, straining to break free in a roar of sound that would never end.

‘That will change,’ Ekon promised in a low voice, squeezing his wrist. ‘As your status changes, the song’s truth – your truth – will change with it.  It  is  already  in  your heart, Lilla. Now you must let it into your spirit, into every part of you, your breath and blood and balls. Drink it like honeypot and feel its warmth steal through you. Alter you. The more you bathe in it, the cleaner you will become. The higher you might rise.’

Ekon’s fervour was a physical warmth on Lilla’s skin.

‘I have always sought to give myself to something greater,’ he whispered. ‘For Tokob, it is Malel and the spiral path to rebirth. The drum-dances to the ancestors used to pull my spirit  free of  my  body  and send  it soaring. I never  thought I would feel anything like that again when I was stolen from my home and brought here. I never thought there was anything else, anything I could cling to.’

‘The song is but the beginning,’ Ekon said and though his hand gentled on Lilla’s arm, it didn’t release him. ‘The song leads us to the world spirit. The song is our call to it and when it wakens from its long sleep, everything will change. Everything. Soon, perhaps.’ He moved closer still until Lilla could taste his breath. The Feather wasn’t particularly hand­ some, but in this moment, in this yearning for Lilla to understand, he was almost beautiful. The Toko shivered and longing poured through him, entwined with the song. Longing to possess and be possessed by one so far above him. So much greater than him.

And then Ekon stepped back and began walking again. ‘Rest. And remember the lesson of the punishment run.  I don’t expect to see you make a mistake like that again.’

‘As the high one commands,’ Lilla said, but the  Feather was already gone.