Temiminatecuhtli stood motionless, hollow eyes scanning the battlefield. For a moment, he waited—for the sky to strike, for the flames to swallow him whole. For death to leave his bones. When nothing came, he exhaled, a hollow sigh escaping his ribs.
The children still lived.
Annoyance rattled through his bones. These insolent mortals had defied him, desecrated his temple, and still dared to breathe. Yet he dare not kill. His gaze fell on the weeping one beside their broken bodies. So small. So fragile. A flickering light, easy to snuff out.
He turned away, disgust curling his spirit. "Pathetic," he muttered, straightening to his full, terrible height. The air around him shifted as his form mended itself—bones whitening, joints reforming, his temple rising once again in ancient grandeur. Shadow coiled back around him like a mantle, the illusion of control returning.
But the wind changed.
Dark clouds gathered in the sunless sky, heavy and purple, casting an eerie glow over the desert. The world turned cold, the wind carried with it a sound of distant weeping.
Temiminatecuhtli turned.
The girl stood with tears falling. Her armor had changed—no longer black obsidian, but shimmering violet like the storm above. A great round helm crowned her, from which soft axolotl gills swayed and glimmered. Streams of water poured from her jade-lit eyes, spiraling downward until they encircled her in a whirling pool of light and sorrow.
A pillar of water rose around her, luminous and alive, reaching toward the heavens. It shimmered with divine energy, a bridge between worlds.
Temiminatecuhtli froze. The realization struck him like a blade.
Life.
The child carried life into his dominion. Into death.
The old fear crawled back into his marrow. She was of the goddess of the Fourth Sun. The one whose tears had drowned worlds and reborn them.
He raised his skeletal hand, fury masking the tremor in his spirit. He could not kill her, but he could break her—drain her until her life dimmed, leave her gasping at the edge of his realm.
The hand descended, closing around the growing whirlpool—
—and in that instant, he understood his mistake.
The gods had not forgiven. Not this time.
The power of the Fourth Sun coursed through the pillar, and his hand began to change. Bone became sinew, sinew became flesh. Veins bulged, muscles coiled, blood pulsed hot through the vessels of a god long dead.
Within his chest, a heart began to beat.
"Please…" The word slipped out, raw and human, torn from the remnants of his pride. He stared into the jade eyes at the heart of the storm. There was no anger there—only sorrow.
The pillar's light consumed him.
And Temiminatecuhtli fell screaming into the void, his reborn flesh torn from his bones by his own eternal hunger. His howls were swallowed by the dark, echoing through the abyss that had once obeyed him.
The desert was silent once more.
Only the faint sound of falling water remained—Marisol's tears, still falling along with the rain. Giving life where death had ruled.
---
Marisol felt an endless sorrow well up inside her. Through the jade glow of her eyes, the world blurred into a sea of water and light. The warmth of her goddess wrapped around her — not as fire, but as the heavy, sacred weight of rain.
She saw the world of the Fourth Sun once more — a world drowned beneath divine tears, reborn through endless rain.
Somewhere within the deluge, she heard a final cry. The Lord of Archers — no longer proud, no longer wrathful — gave a single, human wail before the light took him.
Then, silence.
When Marisol awoke, the storm was gone. Her body felt heavy, her heart hollow but calm.
She blinked — and gasped.
The desert had changed.
Where there had been cracked sand and ruin, soft grass now swayed in a gentle breeze. The air smelled sweet, full of life. Roots gripped the ground where before there had been only dust. Flowers of every color reached toward a cloudless sky, painting it with their reflection.
Beside her, two figures stirred.
Jimena and Jaime leaned against a pair of young saplings, their bodies whole again. They sat close together, quiet, watching the horizon with tired smiles.
"Hey," Jimena greeted softly, noticing Marisol looking around in wonder.
"Hey," Marisol echoed, her voice small but full of relief. She scooted closer to them, the cool mist drifting from her armor trailing tiny rainbows as it caught the light. The once-black obsidian now shimmered with a pale blue sheen — a gift of the goddess.
Axochi emerged from her chestplate, golden tears still falling from his eyes.
"I'm sorry…" he whispered, his voice trembling.
Marisol shook her head, pulling the small axolotl close. "No. You did well."
She could still feel the goddess's warmth — gentle, forgiving. The greening desert was proof enough. They had not been abandoned.
Marisol smiled faintly and leaned into her friends. Jimena wrapped her in a hug, Xolo pressing his head against her arm.
From the side, Jaime watched them, quiet and content. Cimi perched atop his head, still asleep, her feathers rising and falling with each peaceful breath.
They could all feel it — the shift inside them. A sense of completion. Another trial passed. Another weight lifted.
For the first time since they entered Mictlan, the air didn't feel heavy.
They shared a look — the kind that needed no words. There was clarity now, a steady flame of purpose behind their eyes.
But for now, they simply let themselves rest, wrapped in the soft cradle of new life.
---
Back at the village, deep beneath the ceiba roots, the ruined shrine of Saint Rafael smoldered in noxious smoke. The air tasted of iron and rot. Somewhere in that choking haze a creature writhed and screamed—its cries raw, animal, too human for comfort.
There were no wounds to show. Scales scraped and flashed against the stone, yet the skin held, unbroken. Still the thing thrashed as if caught in a fire that burned from within.
Venemaris lay twisted on the cave floor. He had failed.
He had let himself be drawn into simple, mortal revenge; he had forgotten the majesty of the god that had raised him. Instead of channeling devotion, he had strayed into fury. The being that had once been priest—Tomás—had been consumed by the god he served and, in that union, gained power. Now that union demanded his success.
The smoke coiled like a living serpent around Venemaris. Through it, whispers crawled—cold, distant, and inexorable. His master could not strike him with flesh and flame the way a living god might, but humiliation and torment were instruments enough. This thrashing was both chastisement and reminder: do not betray your purpose.
Venemaris spat, lungs burning. The smoke tasted of salt and old promises; it carried the god's will. Salutaris, the name threaded through the whispers, rose in the haze—a black, sinuous presence that did not so much walk as unfold.
You failed, the voice breathed into bone and smoke. You remembered yourself before you remembered me.
Choking, the twisted priest pulled the message in. Orders coalesced, sharp and cold. There would be retribution. There would be drowning.
If the chosen were allowed to stand—if Marisol and her bloodline were permitted to awaken and remake the land—then the old balances would topple. Salutaris would not only bleed pride; he would be erased by indifference.
So Venemaris was flung like a shadowed husk from cave wall to cave wall, by the serpent's will. Pain and fear it's only known tools. Finally letting the tormented creature rest, once it was done with its wrath.
The acrid smoke sank into the stone, and from the blackness a plan uncoiled.
"The village must fall," the smoke hissed, shaping into a vague serpent-form above the altar. "They will be drowned as I was. Their roots will rot. Their waters will turn to sludge."
Avisserpentis Salutaris rose in the dark—a serpent of smoke and hate, old as salt and hungry as tide. Its shape writhed, and where it passed the air grew thin and acrid.
Venemaris crawled to his feet, every motion a bargain. Pain and shame had been hammered into him, and now necessity would be forged from them. He would strike back. He would make the village pay. He would drown them in the same slow, holy way his god demanded.
The serpent's hiss braided through his bones: go. Corrupt their hearts. Poison the wells. Turn breath into rot. Bring them death.