Blood & Fur

Chapter Eleven: The Fourth Sun

Chapter Eleven: The Fourth Sun

Huehuecoyotl laughed like a child as I carried him in the air.

The Underworld’s winds battered my wingspan, and carrying the old conman proved quite difficult. Huehuecoyotl could hardly ride my back for two seconds before swinging his body from left to right in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the world below. I flew circles around Mictlan’s walls and Mictlantecuhtli’s finger towers while desperately trying to prevent my overactive passenger from falling.

“Amazing!” Huehuecoyotl whipped purple raindrops off his skull. “A bit too wet, but amazing!”

“Are you happy yet?!” I shouted back, having carried him for half an hour already.

“Mmm…” Huehuecoyotl stroked his chin. He considered my question for a few minutes, before answering with a flat, “No.”

I had never ridden a trihorn in my life, let alone a dead one.

“Run, my champion!” Huehuecoyotl shouted at me from the stands, his voice barely cutting through the noise and cheers of the roaring undead audience. “You’re almost there!”

I gritted my teeth, my hands hanging to a skeletal trihorn’s rib cage as it rushed across a stadium with giant bones for stands and a running track built out of fossilized flesh. Three other trihorn riders rushed after me with maddened lights glittering in their empty eyeholes. They would trample me to death in a heartbeat—if they still had hearts—if it meant getting ahead of me.

As for how I ended up in this position… I couldn’t tell myself.

My mount moved so fast that I would have fallen off without my Doll spell. Phantom strings allowed me to just barely redirect my trihorn in the direction I wanted. Even then, I was almost thrown off its back when it leaped over a trench obstacle. I shouted in panic as we crash-landed past the finish line. The crowd erupted into cheers, though none louder than Huehuecoyotl, who had bet on my victory.

“Yes, yes, yes!” The old coyote jumped out of the stands and rushed to my side to congratulate me. A wealth of new golden rings glittered on his fingers. “You’ve done it, Iztac! One to five odds, and you still did it!”

“Are you…” I didn’t truly breathe in the Underworld, and yet I found myself gasping for air. I fell to my mount’s side on the cold hard ground, staring at the rainy sky. “Are you happy yet?”

Huehuecoyotl scratched the back of his head, studied me thoroughly, and then delivered his judgment.

“Nope!” He snapped his fingers. “But I know what would do it now, though!”

There was a porphyry spire in Mictlan that offered the most ‘romantic’ view of the Market of Years. Getting safe access to the roof cost me a whole hour of constant flights to bribe the guards.

I would do anything for my ‘boyfriend’s’ sake.

The sight from the roof gave me pause though. I didn’t notice until then, but what I mistook for a chaotic maze of tents, shops, and stalls was in truth a carefully organized tapestry in the shape of an impossibly large human heart. The endless lines of visitors flowed through fossilized arteries like living blood. How and why the city’s merchants organized themselves to achieve such a feat escaped me. The market included thousands of participants; they couldn’t have all synchronized so perfectly.

I would have greatly enjoyed watching the day unfold with Eztli at my side. It would have been quite the entertaining date.

But who needed a girl when I could share a moment with Huehuecoyotl and his wonderful personality?

“Fascinating, isn’t it?” Huehuecoyotl asked at my side. The two of us stood near the roof’s edge, with nothing but a wide open void to surround us. The ground many hundred feet below called out to anyone glancing at it to fall to their death. “These dead aren’t sleeping yet, but they’re already part of the city.”

What was my line again? Since I forgot, I decided to improvise.

“I find it inspiring,” I replied softly as I observed the crowds of customers travel through the market, their words and songs giving life to Mictlan. “This is a living, beating heart.”

“Your presence makes me miss mine.” Huehuecoyotl sent me a longing, mischievous gaze. “It would pound louder than a drum right now if I still lived.”

How could he say those words without dying of shame? Did they ever work on anyone?

“Huehue…” My gaze lost itself in his shining eyes. “I didn’t bring you here just to admire the view.”

Huehuecoyotl pretended to be surprised. “You did not?”

“You must have noticed by now. All these gazes we shared, the way my hands brushed yours…” It hurt my throat to say something so stupid. “I… I…”

Huehuecoyotl covered his mouth with both hands. “Oh, Iztac…”

“I…” I mustered all of my strength, all my willpower, all of my bravery, and then uttered the dreaded three words. “I… love you.”

Huehuecoyotl gasped in shock and surprise. I couldn’t say whether he was faking it or he felt genuinely impressed that I would actually go through with this mad scheme of his. His hands moved to his chest, as if to prevent his nonexistent heart from escaping his empty ribcage. “Oh, Iztac… this… this is too much…”

I concurred. How did I ever let him talk me into this roleplay nonsense? The things I did for infinite magical power…

“I had no idea…” Huehuecoyotl swooned like a maiden in love. “I think I could die satisfied now, if I weren’t dead already.”

I held back a breath of relief and smiled. The torture was almost over. “Have I made you happy at last?”

Huehuecoyotl joined his hands together and regained some measure of composure. “I’m touched, truly, and I believe we’ve built a special connection. However…”

My smile faded away.

“However, I believe one needs more than love to be truly happy,” the shameless coyote bastard said. “You know what the void in my soul is missing? A luxury boat–”

The flame within my chest erupted as I shapeshifted into a vengeful owl. I was too angry to string a single sentence together, so I simply shrieked.

“Hey, hey, no need to bring talons into this!” Huehuecoyotl protested as I took a menacing step in his direction. “You know the rules, right?! No violence!”

I stopped for a few seconds, just long enough to figure out a loophole. I activated the Doll spell and targeted his legs.

“Wait, wait, what are you–” I caused Huehuecoyotl’s knees to fail him before he realized the danger. “Ah!”

I watched Huehuecoyotl stumble off the roof with grim satisfaction, then I peeked into the void to watch the fall. His screams of fear and panic were music to my ears. And what to say of that delectable feeling that warmed my innards as he became smaller and smaller? I now understood what hawks felt when they dropped prey from above.

Considering how annoying this swindler had turned out to be, I half-expected Queen Mictecacihuatl to congratulate me if Huehuecoyotl actually hit the ground. Still, he didn’t deserve to die twice. That would have been too easy after all the ridiculous nonsense he put me through today.

So I dived after him, caught up to him in an instant halfway through the spire’s length, and grabbed his shoulders with my talons. “Oh, thank the gods!” Huehuecoyotl let out a short-lived sigh of relief. “I knew you wouldn’t let me—AH!”

I carried the coyote perilously close to the stalls, narrowly moving out of harm’s way whenever my prey was a single hair away from crashing into an obstacle. The poor fool struggled against my grip as we made our way towards the canals.

I flew so close to the water that Huehuecoyotl’s feet briefly touched the surface. It only made him grip me tighter in his panic, which I found deeply amusing.

“You want a boat?!” I asked my prey with a joyful tone. “Here, take your pick!”

We slalomed among surprised boatmen and narrow waterways, narrowly dodging wooden prows and bone-bridges. Boatmen stopped their skiffs dead in their tracks as we flew past them, while skeletal passengers ducked down to avoid a collision. Huehuecoyotl screamed like a child from start to finish.

When I finally grew tired of carrying the swindler around, I slowed down and tossed him along a stone walkway. Huehuecoyotl laid face-down on a road of paved bones, kissing the safe ground he had taken for granted. “Ah…” he rattled, catching his nonexistent breath. “Ah…”

“Had enough?” I asked the old coyote as I landed at his side. I didn’t shapeshift back into a man, in case I had to give him a second tour. “Otherwise, I can take you outside the walls too.”

“Ah…” Huehuecoyotl rolled on his back like a dog whose belly demanded a good rubbing. His fearful rattle turned into a bellowing, joyful sound. “Aha!”

Of the ways he could have answered, I did not expect laughter.

I watched on, mesmerized, as Huehuecoyotl laughed his ass off. He rolled left to right on the ground while holding his ribs.

“Oh my, that was…” He recovered enough of his composure to rise back up. “That was great.”

I glared at him and expanded my wings. “Clearly I haven’t tried hard enough.”

“Wait, wait!” Huehuecoyotl waved his hands at me so fast that I could feel a breeze on my feathers. “I’m serious, that was great!”

“Then teach me your damn spell!” I snarled, at my wit’s end. “All you’ve done so far is exploit me for cheap tricks!”

I had wasted most of the night on Huehuecoyotl’s insane demands. They started innocently enough, like an aerial sightseeing tour of Mictlan or singing, but then escalated to participating in races all the way to declaring my undying love for the old coyote. Eztli would have mocked him for the last one.

Having been bullied and the target of pranks in the past, I had grown thick skin over the years. Don’t let the laughs get to you, I told myself. I was ready to swallow my pride for the sake of learning magic. A beekeeper couldn’t harvest sweet honey without exposing themselves to stingers.

Yet Huehuecoyotl still managed to exhaust my patience.

“Hey, hey, come on, don’t say that, Iz. Can I call you Iz?” That cursed swindler had the audacity to look wounded. “I wasn’t exploiting you, I was teaching you.”

I held back the urge to peck him to death. “Teaching me what? I fulfilled all your requests and I’m still nowhere near close to learning the Veil spell.”

“My poor Iztac, that’s where you’re wrong.” Huehuecoyotl chuckled at my angered glare. I had to admire his bravado if nothing else. “What’s the greatest quality for a Veil user?”

“A complete and utter lack of shame?”

“Come on, I’m serious.” Huehuecoyotl crossed his arms and looked at me as if I were an unruly child. “What’s a Veil user’s best quality in your mind?”

Had I intimidated him into giving me a morsel of knowledge? Though it demanded great willpower to contain my rage, I decided to play along. “Creativity?”

“Your answer proves you don’t have any. As a reward for this night of pleasure, I will tell you the answer.” Huehuecoyotl wagged his finger at me. “It’s selflessness.”

“Selflessness?!” The nerve of this shameless fool… unbelievable. “Take a look at yourself. You don’t have a single selfless bone in your body.”

“So cold and aloof… Let me ask you a riddle–”

“No,” I said impatiently. “Oh wait, let me ask you one of mine: who is the old dog who’s about to be dumped off Mictlan’s walls if he doesn’t give me what I want in the next five minutes?”

“I’m not giving you what you think you want, Iztac.” Huehuecoyotl shook his head. “I’m giving you what you need.”

And now he tried to sound wise and mysterious. Wonderful. Still, he did sound halfway serious…

“Imagine a woman, a beautiful woman, vain and difficult,” Huehuecoyotl said. “Though it can be a man too if you want, I don’t discriminate–”

“Get to the point,” I cut in.

“Fine, fine. A vain woman says she wishes to look at her own reflection. The most faithful one, she says. So she commissions two craftsmen to help. The first offers her a mirror, the most polished mirror in the world, that shows her exactly as she is, wrinkles and all. The second, an artist, draws a painting that presents her at her best, with smooth skin and a wonderful smile. Which of the two craftsmen is the most selfless?”

I pondered the question for a few seconds before coming up with the answer. “The mirror-maker, because the mirror reflects the woman as she is, and not as the artist imagines her to be.”

Huehuecoyotl’s teeth morphed into a pleased smirk. “Wrong!”

“Wrong?” Now I felt a little confused. “Is it not selfless to tell the truth?”

“You haven’t noticed the key detail,” Huehuecoyotl chastized me. “The woman is vain. She says she wants to see her truthful reflection, and she may even think she does… but deep down, what she truly desires is that fleeting feeling of vainglorious contentment. While the mirror-maker didn’t bother understanding his customer, the artist guessed her true desire and fulfilled it.”

Her true desire? I pondered Huehuecoyotl’s words and tried to discern what his parable meant. Did it somehow relate to what happened tonight?

The old coyote is a trickster, I thought. Were his demands not mere whims, but lessons in disguise?

Huehuecoyotl agreed to teach me the Veil spell if I made him happy. It took me a moment to realize why I had failed. All along, I simply went along with what he said or thoughthe wanted rather than what he needed.

“You don’t know yourself,” I guessed, “What would make you happy. That’s why you’re coming up with all these stupid pranks.”

“Does anyone?” Huehuecoyotl laughed at me. “Everyone is a slave to something, Iztac. Few, however, are willing to accept it. So they bury their shameful feelings under mountains of lies and moral justifications. A man says he kills for his nation, and may even believe it. But if his country were to collapse, he would turn into a bandit in a heartbeat, because murder is not a means to an end for him; it is the end.”

I finally caught on. “A true Veil user must understand their target better than they know themselves.”

“Now you’re getting it.” Huehuecoyotl patted me on the wing with a sleazy grin. “The secret of life is that most people don’t know what their heart truly wishes to see. The best illusions show it to them.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me that?” I snapped at him. My time in the sleeping world was awfully limited. “You could have spared us hours of work!”

“It wasn’t ‘work,’ my slow-witted beautiful bird, it was a fun lesson.” Huehuecoyotl cackled happily. “Nobody upstairs will ever tell you what they truly want because half the time, they don’t even know it themselves. A heart’s desire is a secret treasure you must excavate with your wits and your bare hands.”

The old Nahualli put his hands behind the back of his head. “I still don’t feel all too peachy by the way,” he teased me. “You’re getting there, Iz, but I still need a little push to achieve true bliss.”

A wave of anger and frustration surged through my spine. He still wasn’t satisfied after everything? No, wait, this is a test. I mellowed out a bit after figuring this out. He gave me a hint to solve his riddle.

We had gone through so many activities yet never once did Huehuecoyotl laugh. Only when I threatened his unlife did he actually appear to enjoy himself. Did this old coyote enjoy being threatened?

No, I thought after mulling over our latest adventure, he didn’t look too pleased when I threw him off the spire. He was laughing too when I asked him to teach me his spell.

I studied Huehuecoyotl without a word, who grinned back at me. This man was a griefer, a daredevil, and a trickster. He seemed to find joy in annoying me, but I knew true bullies. I would never forget the laughter of my classmates when they tossed me into a sanitary pit.

Huehuecoyotl wasn’t a cruel man. He never laughed at what he had put me through today. He did not annoy me for its own sake. He struck me as a curious dog constantly poking a turtle to see how it would react.

The truth hit me like a stone to the face.

He likes being surprised, I realized. Huehuecoyotl only laughed when I took him aback. He enjoyed the unexpected. But what would surprise a legendary trickster enough for him to feel bliss? A joke of legendary proportions, no doubt.

A divine prank.

“Eh…” I chuckled to myself. “I understand now.”

“You do?” Huehuecoyotl started violating my personal space again, his hands rubbing against my feathers. “You’re finally going to take me to your secret love nest?”

“Who knows?” I grabbed him with my beak, the way a mother dog would carry a puppy, and tossed him onto my back. Being a giant owl did wonders for my neck’s flexibility. “You’ll have to see and find out.”

It was time to kill two birds with one stone, as they said.

“I was wondering how you were doing, Iztac,” Queen Mictecacihuatl greeted me as we landed in her husband’s court. The ashen plaza dampened the sound of my flapping wings into near silence. “Have you come to train with me?”

“Very soon, oh queen of the Underworld.” I dumped Huehuecoyotl onto the ground before bowing before Mictecacihuatl. “I have come to pay your husband his due.”

“Iz, you didn’t tell me you had friends in low places!” Huehuecoyotl dusted off his clothes and smiled at Mictecacihuatl. “Oh my queen, how beautiful you are tonight! But then again, you are always beautiful. How’s your husband treating you?”

Mictecacihuatl ignored the trickster utterly. She didn’t even spare him a single glance. “I warned you that he would be insufferable, Iztac.”

“The tales did not do him justice,” I replied with a sigh.

“Did you mean that as a criticism or a compliment?” Huehuecoyotl nagged me. “Because it sounds intentionally vague.”

Taking a leaf from Mictecacihuatl’s book, I shapeshifted back into a man without answering him. The bag I bought from the Market of Years fit me in any form. I opened its content and unfurled the old, dusty map inside.

“Oh great queen of the dead,” I pleaded with Mictecacihuatl. “I beseech thee to grant me an audience with King Mictlantecuhtli.”

“Your request is granted.” Was that a flicker of amusement I saw in her eyes when she studied my map? She appeared to have guessed my plan. “I shall offer a warning. If you cannot deliver my husband’s tribute, do not expect a third audience.”

Her tone gave me pause. “Because King Mictlantecuhtli will not answer another demand, or because he will annihilate me?”

The queen’s silence was an answer in itself. How worrying.

“I would like for Huehuecoyotl to witness the audience,” I asked her.

“Poor old me?” Huehuecoyotl gasped in false shock. “Aww, I knew you cared.”

Mictecacihuatl stared at the trickster with a look of utter annoyance. “So long as he does not speak a word,” she decided. “Otherwise, I shall smite him to dust.”

“My, the thought of being manhandled by a goddess fills me with—mmmm!” Huehuecoyotl’s jaw snapped shut on its own, much to his annoyance. It took me a moment to notice the near-invisible strings binding his maw to Mictecacihuatl’s hand. “Mmmm!”

“In time, Iztac, you will understand the main advantages of the Doll spell,” Mictecacihuatl mused. “Silence.”

Like any good teacher, she understood how to motivate her students.

With Huehuecoyotl reduced to a silent spectator, I knelt among the ashes as Mictecacihuatl petitioned her mountain of a husband to grant me an audience. “The young Tlacatecolotl has returned, my king.”

For a long, agonizing minute, it seemed as if the goddess’ appeal had fallen on deaf ears. However, I had grown more attuned to the invisible energies that pervaded the Underworld across my multiple journeys. A foreboding sensation filled the cold dead air. A subtle pulse coursed through the ground as if heralding an incoming earthquake. The shadow that King Mictantecuhtli’s colossal skull cast over me lengthened until it engulfed the entire plaza. Even the carefree Huehuecoyotl crawled onto the ground and did his best to look small.

Ethereal stars lit up inside Mictlantecuhtli’s empty eye sockets. Their eldritch radiance put the fire in my chest to shame and dimly illuminated the darkness. A terrible silence swallowed all noise, for the god tolerated no other sound than his own whispers.

“Your heartbeat quickens, little bird.” Mictlantecuhtli’s words sounded no louder than falling raindrops, yet they carried the weight of an ocean. “Are you afraid?”

Of course I was afraid. My experience with the Nightlords had strengthened my will, and I believed I had found a solution to the god’s request, but I was still an ant trying to bargain with a giant. Mictlantecuhtlu could wipe me out of existence with a stray thought. To dare presume how he would react was folly.

The god might be bound to follow his word, but nothing would prevent him from crushing me afterward if I somehow annoyed him. My only hope was to be as polite and deferential as possible in the hope he wouldn’t punish me later.

“Only the mad would not fear you, Your Majesty,” I replied, trying to find the most diplomatic words possible. “My immortal soul is at your mercy.”

“It is. You would have been wiser to learn patience and never return.” There was no anger or annoyance in Mictlantecuhtli’s voice. I did not think the god was capable of such emotion. Death felt nothing. “You kneel before me once more, yet I see no ocean of blood outside my walls. Have you come to me without a tribute?”

Now was the moment of truth. I gathered all of my courage, invited the frosty air of the Underworld into my throat and body, and then laid my map on the ground.

“There aren’t enough bodies above ground to satisfy Your Majesty’s demand,” I replied, my voice no louder than a whisper. “So I shall shed the offering myself.”

I raised my left arm and bit into my own veins. I gnawed at my own flesh until my teeth reached a thick liquid. A metallic, rancid taste filled my mouth.

“This is the world.” I raised my bleeding arm over the map. “And this… is the ocean.”

Drops of my blackened blood fell onto the map and filled the Boiling Sea’s drawing. The warm liquid flowing through my veins, the last vestige of life one could carry into the Land of the Dead Suns, flowed out of my veins and onto the paper below. It painted the drawn oceans with a dark crimson hue.

“I have brought the tribute you asked for, oh great king of the Underworld.” I grabbed the map and presented it to Mictlantecuhtli. I lowered my head in submission, and prayed to all gods who would listen to spare my life. “An ocean of blood.”

Huehuecoyotl watched the scene with a hint of muffled laughter, his jaw too tightly bound for him to express his amusement. Queen Mictecacihuatl joined her hands together, her back as straight as an arrow.

Her husband answered how I expected him to.

“I am not impressed.” Mictlantecuhtli found my offering wanting. “This is not what I asked for.”

I was warned he would try to haggle. Gods were bound by the letter of their word, not its spirit. “This is the Boiling Sea, an ocean that stretches across the east,” I insisted. “You asked for an ocean of blood.”

“This is naught but a puddle bound by ink.” I believed Mictlantecuhtli was incapable of emotion, but I detected a hint of annoyance in his words. “Cunning is the lowest form of intelligence, little bird, and no substitute for hard work.”

No amount of hard work would let me fulfill this task, oh king of the dead, I thought. You asked for the impossible.

Thankfully, Queen Mictecacihuatl came to my rescue. “My king did request an ocean of blood,” she pointed out. “Cunning might be the lowest form of intelligence, but it is intelligence nonetheless. Shouldn’t it be rewarded?”

“Wisdom is to be honored,” Mictlantecuhtli replied coldly. “I do not find his wit worthy of a reward.”

I was losing him. “You promised me a sun’s embers for my gift.”

An invisible weight fell upon my shoulders, so great I dared not look up at Mictantecuhtli. I froze in anticipation, my tribute raised up by my trembling hands, the flame within my chest flickering with dread.

“I gave my word, and I shall grant your request once you offer me a worthy price.” Mictlantecuhtli let out a rattle that shook the very earth beneath my feet. “There is more than enough blood above my gray city to fill an ocean. Return to me with a proper harvest or not at all.”

A harvest.

The word brought me back to that fateful night when the Nightlords crowned me atop their sinister pyramid. They had harvested a bounty of their own, thousands of skulls and lakes of blood, and then asked me to provide another after enslaving me. I felt the same fury I did back then, and the terribly painful sting of injustice.

So great was my anger that I briefly forgot I was facing a god.

“I refuse.”

The two words escaped my mouth on their own, and a terrible silence followed.

Two eyes each larger than the Blood Pyramid gazed at me impassibly. Not a single sound would escape from Mictantecuhtli’s ancient teeth. Huehuecoyotl had frozen in place, too frightened to even move. Queen Mictecacihuatl stared at me in shock.

I am dead, I realized. I won’t leave this city alive.

Queen Mictecacihuatl attempted one last-ditch attempt to rescue me. “My king–”

“Let the bird sing.”

The world around me slowly darkened. Mictantecuhtli’s shadow thickened until a blanket of blackness obscured everything: his queen, Huehuecoyotl, the map, the very ground beneath my feet. I could hardly see my own arms.

I should have begged for mercy… but I did not. My heart-fire remained resolute, and no fear clouded my mind. In fact, the knowledge that I would be smote to dust freed me in a way I couldn’t properly explain.

I was done begging arrogant gods for mercy.

I felt the same way back atop the Blood Pyramid, I remembered. I no longer care if I die, so long as I do not submit.

I rose to my feet and held Mictlantecuhtli’s gaze.

“Even if I had the power to kill all life on the surface and fill your realm with their blood, oh great king of the dead, I would have denied your wish,” I said with a steady voice and an unflinching back. “No god who demands that I kill in his name is worthy of my devotion. ”

Mictantecuhtli’s silence was infinitely more threatening than his words. But I did not back down.

“I came to you to save my soul and those of my people,” I said. “You asked me to do an impossible task and I tried to carry it through to the best of my ability. If that is not enough for you, if you would rather delight in our suffering, then too bad. My blood is the only one you will ever get.”

The darkness thickened further. Only the god’s starry eyes and my own Teyolia heart-fire pierced this nightly veil, and the latter brought me little protection from the chilling cold of my incoming death.

“There are fates far worse than being stuck in a pillar, little bird.”

“Then go ahead,” I replied defiantly. “Lock me up in a fire pit, return me to the dust from which I came, eat my soul, and spit it out. My answer will be the same.”

I would not betray my vow.

“I refuse.”

My promise echoed in the darkness.

No other sound followed in its wake. Neither the great lord of the dead nor I said a word. How much time did we spend like this, mute and still? Minutes? Hours? It felt like forever to me.

All I knew was that I didn’t break the silence.

“This is new.” The ghostly light inMictlantecuhtli’s eyes increased until it rivaled the northern star. “I have witnessed the first dawn and shall bury the last. But in all these centuries, no bird has ever been mad enough to challenge me.”

Perhaps I was mad indeed, and doubly so for doubling down. “There is a beginning for all things.”

“On that we agree, Iztac Ce Ehecatl.”

I blinked in surprise. Mictantecuhtli never bothered to use my name before, for the fleeting lives of mortals were not worth remembering.

“I will grant you access to the fourth sun’s ashes and to my Gate of Tears.” I heard Mictlantecuhtli’s words, but struggled to understand them. “Know, however, that once your Teyolia tastes a god’s embers, no other sustenance will satisfy its pyre.”

The news should have come as a relief, but the tension in the air sucked all joy out of my heart. “You… you are not slaying me?”

“Not today.” Mictlantecuhtli did not bother to elaborate on the reason behind his whim. “Gods are greater than men. When we stumble, the earth splits open and the stars fall down from the sky. Our power will magnify everything within you. Look upon thy heart and see what lies within.”

I gazed at the purple fire burning within my chest. The Parliament of Skulls called it an accursed flame that brought chaos and disorder. Its baleful, unnatural embers glowed even in the Mictlantecuhtli’s shadow.

“Darkness cannot create light, Iztac Ce Ehecatl,” Mictlantecuhtli warned me. “Spite feeds your heart’s fire and pride fuels it. A sun born from your chest will spread chaos and torment rather than comfort.”

I recovered enough from my shock to answer. “Good,” I muttered. “May my heartfire wreak havoc on the false gods above.”

“Your impatience blinds you to the price you will pay for this power,” Mictlantecuhtli whispered, each of his words heavier than stone. “This has happened before.”

I struggled to understand the god’s words for a moment. “This… this has happened before?”

“You tread on a path many others walked before you. One travels further ahead, and another reached the end long ago.” Mictlantecuhtli let out a terrible rattle that shook my very bones. “The power you seek ruined every single one of them.”

“I…” I cleared my throat and tried to put my thoughts in order. “I understand the risks involved, but I have no choice but to try anyway.”

“The wise would turn away from this madness. You will find only pain beneath my gray city. Whatever darkness you hope to purge from the living world will pale before what you will find underground…” Mictlantecuhtli marked a short pause, as if hesitating to say more. “And what you will bring back with you.”

I knew, deep within my bones, that this was my last opportunity to turn back. That I stood on some invisible threshold. Whatever bridge led me to this moment would collapse behind me once I took a step forward.

I had been warned of what awaited me underground: ancient terrors buried by the gods, secrets best left forgotten, stillborn worlds, forsaken creations of the heavens… and my mother, whom all seemed to dread. Whatever deity sired the vampire curse crawled out of the depths. Perhaps another warlock brought it back after a poorly-thought dive into the dark.

But none of the dead horrors below could match what I had seen among the living: an empire built on rivers of blood and towers of skulls, that slowly swallowed the world piece by piece, that forced mothers to whore out their own daughters as breeding slaves and turned their sons into tools of war; a curse that corrupted the living and denied the dead their rest; a cruel system that spread war to the innocents and the guilty alike; a world that saw me only as a piece of meat bound to die on an altar of lies and falsehood.

Whatever price I had to pay, Yohuachanca needed to go.

“I cannot turn back now, Your Majesty,” I whispered with determination. “For my sake, and that of many others.”

Necahual, Eztli, Ingrid… so many would suffer a gruesome fate if I failed now. I could not let the chain of pain gain another link.

Mictlantecuhtli, great king of the Underworld and god of the dead, accepted my answer. “So be it.”

“But why?” I dared to ask. “Why let me try?”

“Curiosity.”

Huehuecoyotl taught me that I should try to understand what others truly wanted to better cast them under a Veil. When I tried to understand the reason behind Mictlantecuhtli’s change of heart, the answer appeared obvious to me. The old god had witnessed the birth of the current universe and those who preceded it. By defying him openly, I had gained his interest; and now he wished to see if I would succeed where so many other warlocks had failed.

The gods created mortals in their image. The lord of the dead wasn’t so different from his subjects. They both sought an escape from their boredom.

A purple pillar of sunlight fell upon Mictlantecuhtli’s obsidian crown and illuminated the darkness. I recognized the dim radiance of Chalchiuhtlicue’s sun.

One of her tears spilled from above; not a drop of purple rain, but a small flame no larger than my fist. While its outer layer was as purple as Mictlan’s rain clouds, its core shone with the color of bright jade. Watching it filled me with a vague sense of anguish and comfort; a strange sensation that though the world was full of dread, someone, somewhere, shared my pain.

I slowly seized the flame within my hands and sheltered it within my palms. The fire did not burn me. A single breeze could snuff it away. These were fragile embers, the flickering tears of a dead sun.

And yet… and yet I felt the subtle power radiating from the fire. A magic greater than any spell, more subtle than the Veil, and stronger than the Doll. A miracle that, if cultivated, would burn away all my enemies.

I did not hesitate.

I slipped Chalchiuhtlicue’s embers through my skeletal ribcage. My Teyolia feasted on the goddess’ fire. The divine spark fiercely ignited my Teyolia until its purple flames turned green.

Visions flashed into my eyes and anguished screams echoed into my skull. I saw a wall of water taller than monsters swallow cities of gold under the waves. A flood of despair swept away battlefields, and carried away screaming warriors and begging slaves alike. I cried tears of anguish that drowned the world in desolation as I shared in a goddess’ pain and grief.

But then came the power.

A pulse of magic coursed through my veins, filling me with both terrible pain and indescribable pleasure. My bones were set ablaze from within. The accursed flame consumed the goddess’ jade and turned it purple. Her sorrow burned like oil to fuel the fire of my soul. The same thrill that possessed me once I took my first flight returned, stronger, sharper, and more focused.

My vision changed from a flooded, doomed world to a pyramid of bloodsoaked corpses. I flew on jet-black wings and heralded the coming of a night from which the very stars recoiled. Screeching bats announced my arrival. Skulls whispered my name, though I could no longer understand it. I was the hungry death, the devourer of dawn.

I can do anything, I thought, no, I knew. I could lift mountains and boil oceans. I could lift the sky and cast the stars down to earth. I… I…

I was a god a moment, and a mortal the next.

The blissful thrill came crashing down like a receding wave. The surge of divine power swiftly weakened, and its sudden absence returned me to reality. I knelt on ashen ground, my trembling hands grasping at nothing. Mictlantecuhtli’s shadow had receded, returning the world to normal. The visions and memories I experienced vanished like fleeting dust in the wind.

My chest felt warmer though.

I glanced at my ribs. The purple brazier within it had grown and brightened enough to spill from my chest. Searing heat coursed through my bones. The Underworld’s cold no longer troubled me. The flame within my heart burned too strongly for death to dim it.

I felt Mictecacihuatl’s astonished gaze upon my back, and that of Huehuecoyotl too. But I paid them no mind. Not even King Mictlantecuhtli’s overwhelming aura could disturb me. A single thought occupied my mind at the exclusion of everything else.

More.

More fire.