Marisol's face scrunched as her power surged. A soft pink mist radiated from her skin, spilling outward in protective waves. She planted herself firmly between Sol and the frail man collapsed on the ground.
The look on Sol's face—sharp, disgusted—pricked something tender inside her. And the crowd gathering behind him, icy-eyed and silent, only made it worse. Their cold disdain mirrored the looks her own village had once given her. The whispers. The names. The cruelty.
She and her grandmother had chosen to move beyond that pain. The villagers had eventually accepted their guidance—accepted her. But those old memories still dug deep.
"Give me whatever food you have on you, and we can leave."
Marisol extended her hand, obsidian creeping up her arms as her power coiled tighter.
Sol hesitated, jaw working as he realized she would not back down. Not with all these people watching. Finally, with a reluctant exhale, he unhooked a small pouch from his hip—his personal jerky—and placed it in her hand.
Marisol turned back to the man. His hair had fallen over his face, hiding his sunken features. The fruit she'd given him was long gone. His whole body trembled, breath coming in small, ragged bursts as if his lungs had forgotten how to work.
It took everything in her not to pull him into an embrace. Instead, she let the pink mist flow from her chest and arms, enveloping him. She set the jerky beside him and let her sacred water seep into his body.
The mist sank into his skin. His starved frame filled out by the pound—tens at a time—until her energy began to wane. She gathered herself to give more, to push until the man was fully healed.
But Sol's hand clamped onto her arm.
"That's more than enough," he said tightly.
Marisol tried to yank free, but Sol's own divinity flared to life. Brilliant light consumed him, blinding the onlookers as he dragged her backward. Her power, still tethered to the starving man, kept flowing into him without her command. Devoured. Pulled. Something about it felt wrong.
But she had no time to focus on that.
The world blurred. The ground flashed past in streaks of red earth and shadow as Sol's light carried them in a single breath back to the hunters' camp. Everything was packed. Everyone was waiting.
Marisol ripped her arm from his grip.
She didn't shout. She didn't speak. She only glared—sharp, burning—while the hunters watched from the corners of their eyes.
But inside her chest, her thoughts churned with the same wildfire Jimena was made of.
-
Mort had been ravaged by hunger, even after devouring everything his mother had stored away. The surprising hoard had first filled him with bitterness—why had she kept so much from him?—and then with a burst of savage liberation when he consumed every last speck.
His hands had moved without his command. The way he looked at his mother afterward terrified him. He could feel himself on the verge of committing something unforgivable—of killing the newborn life growing inside her. A sin the being that had chosen him would never pardon. He felt its displeasure pulsing behind his eyes, the squirming mass pressing against his thoughts.
So Mort allowed the change to take him. Allowed his flesh to twist and reshape, to feed on his own body as he staggered out of the house. But he collapsed after only a few steps—weak, trembling, still starving.
Then fate revealed its godly face.
The girl had looked at him with such kindness. Such sweet, heartfelt concern. Mort felt his heart thump in a way Rose had never inspired in him.
Adoration.
A deep, swelling infatuation.
An unbearable worship.
A primal urge to possess, to protect, to belong.
His face twisted in pain as the god within him writhed violently, punishing him just as it had punished his mother. He curled, clutching his skull as bitterness clawed through him. But then the flesh inside his head whispered again—sweet poison—filling his fragile mind with new hunger, new devotion.
The girl had given it enough power to continue molding him. Enough fuel for the transformation it had planned. It would refine this mortal vessel. And with careful steps, it would swallow everything.
Mort fought himself—fought the thing inside his skull—in the same spot Marisol had left him. Though he had regained some fat, his body still shriveled in on itself, collapsing into the dust before the gathering crowd. Most had already forgotten him, speaking animatedly about the two chosen who had just left.
"Hey, you. Waste of space."
A man crouched beside him, voice low and cruel. Spittle flecked Mort's cheek as the villager leaned close.
"Those nice people keep a lot of us fed. Keep this whole shitty village alive."
Warm breath tickled Mort's ear.
"You and your mom should just disappear."
Mort barely heard him. Voices blurred. The ground shifted. His mind spun, clawing for reality as loud, wet crunches erupted from his back—like his own bones were feeding on themselves.
He curled tighter, letting the murmurs warp into strange chanting. Faces distorted, hovering over him—faces that mocked him, laughed at his existence.
And then those faces turned to horror.
Turned to screaming.
As Mort finally began to change.
-
Sol kept pace beside Marisol, though she had stubbornly taken the lead. To her credit, she guided them toward Chantico with near-perfect accuracy. Behind them, the hunters whispered—speculating, questioning—but none dared ask outright. Thankfully. Sol already had enough to manage without indulging a child's tantrum.
Besides, he didn't know how to explain the feeling he'd gotten. The moment that frail man had looked at Marisol, something had gone wrong. Deeply wrong.
His divine light drifted around him in faint motes—barely visible specks that let him sense the world without relying on sight. It was one of the many reasons he accompanied the hunters so often. His gifts weren't as overwhelming as those of the younger chosen, but they were steady, reliable. Hard-earned.
Unlike theirs.
Those children had been handed strength with no guidance, no discipline. Their patron gods were fools for choosing them so carelessly.
A thin veil of pink mist brushed his senses as if in answer. Marisol's power. Of course she felt his irritation. Sol scoffed and pushed ahead, letting his own fire surge. Golden motes scattered from him in all directions, sinking into the hunters they brushed against.
The north point of the four-point star on each hunter's forehead glowed—flaring with a tiny flame. Their eyes brightened to gold.
Then, with a collective breath, they lifted off the ground as if gravity had loosened its grip. One by one, they sped forward, gliding past Marisol with ease. Sol followed, taking the lead once more.
"It's best we return quickly after being away for so long," he said, offering Marisol a final sidelong glance. There was no point fighting with a child. It would only strain their already fraying relationship.
Sol had no desire to endure his grandfather's nagging upon their return—lectures about Jimena needing more presence in the village, about duty and unity. It was the only reason Marisol had been allowed to travel with them in the first place.
But that man… that thing… had filled Sol's divinity with alarm. If not for that instinctive warning, he wouldn't have dragged Marisol away so aggressively.
It wasn't just the frail man. The entire village felt wrong—sick in a way he couldn't describe. His light had recoiled from every home, every passerby, as if a dense shadow clung to them all. A darkness that even his divinity couldn't pierce.
And the man Marisol had tried to feed…
He had been the coldest of them. A pit of darkness so deep it made Sol's spine prickle. When the man's hollow eyes had focused on the girl, Sol felt something he had never felt before.
A shiver of warning and certainty.
That whatever was clawing its way into that man's soul had noticed Marisol. Its evil claws already reaching for her.
-
Marisol was glad to leave the dusty village behind, though she wished it hadn't been under such an infuriating circumstance. She had felt no malice from the man—only a need.
A need so familiar it had unsettled her.
Life was never alone. It tangled and grew in every direction, chaotic and inseparable, like loose threads knotted together by chance. All living things were rooted to existence by nothing more than ethereal roots—burrowed deep in the plane that birthed them. The man's desperate hunger, the fragile spark within him… it had resonated with her.
Her anger gave her silence. Even surrounded by hunters who kept a protective formation, she was left to her thoughts within the boundary of her pink mist. It shimmered faintly around her as she walked, helping her feel the land beneath their feet, the faint pulse of trees, the quiet rise and fall of distant life.
Halfway through their return journey, Sol's blessing finally faded from the hunters. Their light dimmed, and they slowed, walking as ordinary people once more. Marisol walked with them, her steps steady, her anger cooling into something more reflective.
She still didn't understand why Sol had acted the way he had. She trusted the chosen—most of them, at least—to act with reason, but the look he had given the starving man… and then at her…
It lingered in the back of her mind.
Sol behaved so aloof she wondered, not for the first time, how their villages were considered allies at all. A little trust—just a little—would have gone a long way toward explaining whatever he had sensed.
Instead, he had treated her like a helpless child.
The thought tightened her fists.
She was not some fragile thing to be dragged away. She carried her goddess's blessing—weak though it might still be—she would grow into it. Her future was not one of fear or submission.
She would not let anyone treat her as less than what she was. Chosen.