A Mile in My Blood
The Council of the Four Suns: Book One
In 1511, the Taíno of Borikén rose against the Spanish. They drowned a Spaniard to see whether he would rise. He didn’t. The body rotted, and they learned the gods could rot. The rebellion failed. What they had learned did not. The Spanish bring steel, and they bring something worse: a labor system that uses people up, and a sickness that kills more than any blade. From the burning Caribbean to the stone cities of the Maya, from the lake city of Tenochtitlan to the mountain roads of the Inca, conquest is coming. The question is whether the information arrives first.
The Cast
Five people on two sides of an ocean. A scout, a cacique, a record keeper, a warrior, an auditor. None of them is in charge of what happens next. Each of them learns one thing the others need.
Mateo de Alvear
Infantryman and scout, garrison of San Juan
A minor hidalgo from Seville, posted to the island from Hispaniola. He scouts the western interior for the garrison and has saved the price of a passage home.
Agüeybaná II
Principal cacique of Borikén
His brother bowed to the pale men and died in their service. He wears his brother’s gold, has not bowed, and is calling the caciques to him while the valleys empty and his people die in the rivers.
Ixchel
Ix K’ubal Ik’, Chactemal
Keeper of the lord’s private books: rainfall, wells, harvests, and everything the sea washes onto the coast. She counts what is changing so that he can act before it has finished.
Chicahua
Tequihua, warrior of Tenochtitlan
A professional soldier with twenty years of victories and a weapon older than he is. He has never lost, and he has never had reason to wonder what losing is.
Beatriz de Silva
Royal Auditor, Casa de Contratación
Sent by King Ferdinand to find out what the colony of San Juan costs and what it returns. She keeps a ledger. Everyone on the island is in it, and everyone in it is either an asset or a loss.
The Civilizations
Four civilizations, and an ocean and a mountain range between them. Each has its own enemies, its own gods, and its own reasons not to listen. The Spanish have already decided which one is next.
Spain
The Crown. They read a legal document aloud on the beach, in Spanish, to people who do not speak Spanish. It claims the land, the labor, and the souls of everyone listening. Then they begin. The document has never been refused.
Taíno (Borikén)
The Front Line. Of the four, the Spanish reached them first. Took their gold, their labor, their land. The Taíno drowned one in a river to see if he would stay dead. He did. What they learned from it did not.
Maya (Chactemal)
The Watchers. The Maya built calendars that predict eclipses. They engineered cities from the jungle floor. When foreign wreckage begins washing ashore, they do what they have always done. They measure it, record it, and calculate what comes next.
Mexica (Tenochtitlan)
The Might. The Mexica have never lost. Their warriors train for decades, their armies have conquered every nation within marching distance but one, and their capital is an engineered island no force on the continent has reached. Then the reports start arriving from the coast.
Inca (Tawantinsuyu)
The Logic. The Inca built roads across the Andes, fed millions from terraced mountainsides, and governed eighty provinces without writing as Europe knew it. They used knotted cord instead. Every knot is a number. Every number is a decision.
Publication Updates
Status: Currently seeking literary representation.
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About the Author
Eric Morales was born in Puerto Rico to Puerto Rican parents and raised by a loving single mother and a supportive older brother. He carries Taíno, African, and Spanish blood. The name Agüeybaná, known to every Puerto Rican, has stayed with him since childhood, a story he always knew he would one day tell.
He is married to a Peruvian woman, and their two children carry the legacy of both the Taíno and Inca worlds. Through her family he deepened his understanding of Inca history and Túpac Amaru’s rebellion, which sharpened the question behind this series: what if these nations had found out about each other before the conquistadors reached the mainland? A Mile in My Blood is his first novel and the opening book of The Council of the Four Suns.