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My pulse stalls, and for a moment, I wonder if I’m even still alive. The look in his eyes—Achutli’s eyes—is something twisted, something wrong. The pitch black shadows lash and coil around him like frenzied serpents, binding his arms and torso. An unnatural yellow-green glow spills across the decimated grounds, casting grotesque shapes on every surface the hideous light touches.

“What has he done?” I think I hear the question escape my lips.

His eyes are endless and hollow pits of darkness, yet filled with a warped clarity that chills me to my core. I search his face for some trace of humanity, of the father he could have been to me. But all I find is a stranger. A monster cloaked in shadows, wielding a power that I cannot begin to comprehend.

Behind him, his warriors hang back, unsure of what to do in the face of this overwhelming force. Even the ones who had been brutal in their own right—people like Anqatil—are keeping their distance. They know something’s amiss, something even more dangerous than the battle raging around them.

And then, Achutli raises his bloodied hand, fingers slick with gore, and the air seems to ripple around him. The shadows at his feet surge upward, contorting into dark tendrils that snake through the air. They spread out, creeping toward the bodies strewn across the battlefield, latching onto the dead and dying like leeches. The unnatural light flickers and grows dimmer, as if what little life remains is being drained from everything it touches.

I stagger back, unable to tear my eyes away from the scene unfolding in front of me. My breath catches in my throat. A deep, primal fear claws its way up from the pit of my stomach.

The tendrils continue to writhe and pulse, wrapping themselves tighter around the fallen warriors. Slowly, agonizingly, they begin to drag the bodies toward Achutli. Some of them twitch, clinging to life, like their last moments of agony are being drawn out by the depraved force binding them.

Yachaman stands rigid, her hand clutching her blade tightly. “We can’t let him do this,” she breathes with a subtle tremor in her voice. “We have to stop him.”

Of course, we do. But I can only watch as the shadows coil tighter, the lifeless eyes of the fallen warriors seeming to stare up at Achutli in silent horror.

His lips twist into a smile—small, almost imperceptible. He’s enjoying this. Reveling in the power that’s coursing through him. The darkness around him pulses, growing thicker and more suffocating. I feel it closing in on me, too, like a vice around my chest.

I can feel my hands trembling. My breath is shallow and ragged, but beneath the fear, something else stirs—something that’s been buried for too long. Anger. Frustration. The sharp sting of betrayal that runs so deep, it cuts through this fog of terror.

I can’t say where the courage comes from. Maybe it’s rage, maybe it’s desperation. But I find myself stepping forward. The battlefield blurs around me, fading into nothing more than a hum in the back of my skull. The only thing I can see, the only thing that matters, is him. Achutli. The man who is determined raze this world to nothing.

“Achutli!” The name rips from my throat before I can stop it. It’s louder than I intended, carried by the fury burning in my chest.

He regards me with a hollow and twisted stare, and a cold smile tugs at the corner of his lips. There’s a chilling calm he exudes that feels more dangerous than any anger. “Haesan,” he says, his voice carrying across the battlefield like a taunt, smooth and mocking. “My darling daughter. So you finally step out of the shadows. I wondered how long you would stay in hiding.”

He looks to size me up as if I’m a mere distraction—an insect buzzing in his ear. I tremble under his gaze, but I don’t back down. I can’t. Not when the world is crumbling around us, and every nightmare I’ve ever had about this moment is coming true.

“You’ve sold this land and the people you swore to protect for the sake of power,” I shout back. “You’ve betrayed everything you once stood for, everything Pachil once was. You care more about your throne than you do your own people, than you do your own—“

“My own what?” Achutli cuts me off. “Go on, Haesan. Speak the words. My own blood? My own daughter?” His laugh is cold and empty, as his eyes narrow further. “Do you really think your existence matters in all this?”

The statement leaves me bewildered. He speaks as though he’s no longer beholden to the prophecy that drove him to this point. Did I misunderstand what Nuqasiq spoke to me of it? Was Anqatil mistaken, as well? Or has this newfound power he’s obtained undone the threads of fate that had brought him to the brink of insanity? He’s trying to make me feel insignificant, like I’m nothing but an inconvenience. A tool he no longer needs. But I know what Nuqasiq told me. Achutli fears me, fears what I represent. He has to. Why else would he have sent me off to Achope, or have sent Anqatil after me?

He tilts his head slightly, almost pitying. “You have no idea of the burdens I carry. Of the sacrifices I’ve made for this land. For Pachil.”

“Sacrifices?” I spit the word out like venom. “You’ve only sacrificed the people you’re supposed to protect to feed your own obsessions with power. You were to be merely a caretaker of this throne. Yet you’d rather tear this land apart than see it fall into the hands of someone else! You’re so wrapped up in your delusions of grandeur that you’ve forgotten what it means to care about anything beyond your own ambition. You’d burn everything to the ground just to sit on a throne of ashes, wouldn’t you?”

He lets out a soft, derisive chuckle. “Ah, there it is. The self-righteousness. The sanctimony. The naïveté of a child who thinks she understands the world.”

He gestures as if swatting away a fly. “You talk about me being a tyrant, about power and control—what do you think ruling is? The world isn’t a tale told by the fire light where justice and virtue win the day. It’s chaos, it’s blood. And if you don’t wield power, you lose it to those who will.”

He begins to descend the stairs with methodical, menacing steps. “I’ve made the hard choices. The choices no one could make. Wouldn’t make. You would never make. Because you don’t have the stomach for it.”

“No,” I say, shaking with barely contained rage. “Because I care about the people you’ve forgotten.”

“Care?” His cruel smile widens. “You care about them? What have they ever done for you? What have they ever done for Pachil? They squabble. They fight. They tear each other apart over scraps, just like they’re doing now. And when the time comes, they’ll turn on you, too. I am the only one who can save this land. Without me, Pachil would fall into chaos. That’s the difference between us—you believe in them. I know they’re too weak to survive without someone like me leading them.”

I tremble with fury, but he doesn’t stop. “So yes, I’ve made sacrifices. I’ve done what needed to be done. I’ve tried to save this land, but you and the others—you stand in my way. But it ends now.”

His eyes flash, and for a brief moment, I catch a glimpse of something beyond the cold, calculated cruelty. It’s fear. Deep down, he’s afraid. He fears losing control, losing everything he’s fought so hard to build. He fears the prophecy because he knows it’s true.

I stand taller now, feeling the conviction flowing through my veins. “The prophecy doesn’t have to end with blood. We don’t have to keep feeding this endless cycle of violence and destruction. Pachil can be more than what you’ve turned it into.”

“So that’s what this is all about. The prophecy.” He lets out a small, contemptuous laugh. “You think I fear you?” he jeers. “You think I lose sleep over some words spoken by desperate mystics?”

Now, his face twists into a bitter scowl. “Let me tell you something, child. Your blood means nothing if you’re too weak to wield it. Your mother—” he stops himself, and a cruel smile contorts his lips as some idea just occurred to him, “—you really are your mother’s child. Always expecting more than what the world can give.”

My body moves on its own; I don’t even realize that I’ve stepped back. My hand reaches for something, anything to steady myself. His words sting more than I’d care to admit. The person I know nothing about, the person I’ve been wondering about since the day Nuqasiq told me of my true father, and he… he is weaponizing the identity of the mother I do not know against me.

“Who was she?” I choke out. “Tell me. Tell me who she was!”

But Achutli only laughs. “Why would I waste my breath on such trivialities?” he says with a dismissive wave of his hand. “You are not even worth her name.”

I’m trembling now, every word he says like a dagger twisting in my chest. I want to scream, to lash out, to tear that smug smile off his face, but I’m rooted to the spot, paralyzed by his contempt. He looks at me like I’m nothing. Like I’m less than nothing. And the worst part is, part of me believes him.

“Besides,” he sneers, “It doesn’t matter now. You’re irrelevant to what’s coming. To what I am going to do. For I am Pachil. I am its ruler. Its savior. And if it must burn to be reborn in my image, then so be it.”

My hands curl into fists, nails biting into my palms. Blood pounds in my ears. I know I have to say something, do something, but the words won’t come. They’re stuck in my throat, refusing to be released.

A sharp, discordant noise rips through the air—shouts, war cries. I whirl around to see a swarm of turquoise and magenta surge from the shadows. The ground trembles at the stampede of Qente Waila charging into the fray. For a heartbeat, I think I see hope glimmer in their eyes.

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I don’t even have time to scream a warning.

Achutli’s head snaps to the side, and his eyes narrow. The cruel smirk that distorts his face widens into something more sinister. “Ah, how considerate of them to join us,” he says, his voice laced with amusement. “The brave little rebellion. Come to meet their fate.”

He turns to face the charging warriors, the dark tendrils coiling tighter around his arms, feeding off his fury. The grotesque shapes of the shadows writhe with a life of their own, as if they’re eager to devour anything that dares to approach. He raises his hands in a slow, deliberate gesture, and that yellow-green glow intensifies around him.

“Let them come,” he snarls, his eyes glinting with malevolent glee. “Let them see what true power looks like.”

The ground beneath us shudders violently as tendrils of darkness explode outward from Achutli’s form. They malevolently slash through the air like braided leather whips. The vine-like forms lash at the Jade Hummingbird, wrapping around arms and legs, dragging warriors to the ground. Cries of pain and horror echo across the battlefield as the tendrils constrict, squeezing the life out of them, twisting their wrecked bodies.

Suddenly, his hand grips my shoulder. “Get back!” Xelhua’s voice roars from behind me. He yanks me away from the encroaching darkness, cleaving through the shadowy tendrils that reach for us with his blade. Beside him, the Qantua warriors fight with a ferocity that matches the storm Achutli has unleashed—cutting, blocking, throwing themselves into the fray to protect me.

But I can’t look away from the mayhem. Yachaman’s figure blurs in my vision as she charges forward with the Jade Hummingbird, disappearing into the maelstrom of violence. My throat burns as I call out for her, but my voice is swallowed by the din of war, by the relentless noise of metal on metal and the cries of the dying.

Achutli’s triumphant laughter chillingly cuts through the battle. He stands at the center of the storm, eyes alight with that eerie glow. His arms are spread wide as if welcoming the destruction he’s wrought. Warriors fall before him like leaves in a hurricane, their bodies gnarled and broken by the dark force he commands.

“Do you see now?” he bellows, his voice echoing across the battlefield. “Do you see what happens to those who defy me? This is the price of your insolence!”

Xelhua cuts down another attacker—a man in Achutli’s orange-and-red colors—before twisting his blade to parry a strike from a Qente Waila warrior who’s turned on him, eyes wild with hatred. “Haesan!” he shouts, not looking at me. “Get back! There’s nothing you can do here!”

But he’s wrong. There has to be something. Anything.

I stagger forward, ignoring the chaos around me, ignoring the way my heart feels like it’s shattering in my chest as I watch Yachaman vanish into the haze of combat. My eyes lock onto Achutli, this monster who wears my father’s face, and I feel something inside me snap.

“You’re killing them!” I scream, my voice raw and desperate. “These are your people! Do you even see what you’re doing?”

Achutli’s gaze swings toward me, and for a moment, I see it—that tiny bit of something almost resembling doubt. But then it’s gone, swallowed up by the darkness twirling around him. His smile returns, sharper, crueler. “If they will not bow to me, they are nothing,” he says coldly. “Just like you. Nothing.”

The shadows surge once more, tearing through the ranks of the Jade Hummingbird. Warriors are lifted into the air, limbs flailing as they’re crushed by the force of Achutli’s power. The ground splits open, seeming to rise against them, spitting fire and ash, consuming those who stand in its path.

Despite my throat hoarse, I desperately scream Yachaman’s name again. But the battlefield is too loud, too chaotic. I can’t see her. I can’t see anything but the blood and the darkness and the man who’s turned everything I love into a sick nightmare.

Xelhua fights his way to my side, breathing hard, his face streaked with blood and grime. “Child, now,” he says, his voice rough but urgent. “There’s nothing left for you here. We have to pull back.”

I shake my head, wild and defiant. “No! I can’t! Yachaman—”

“She made her choice,” Xelhua snaps, tightening his grip on my arm to where it’s almost painful. “And you need to make yours. This battle is lost.”

I look back at Achutli, at the devastation he’s unleashed, at the faces of the Jade Hummingbird warriors contorted in agony. And I know, deep down, that Xelhua’s right. There’s no reaching him. No reasoning with him. The prophecy doesn’t matter to him anymore, if it ever did. All that matters to him is power. And he’s willing to destroy everything to keep it.

My chest feels like it’s caving in from the failure that crushes me from the inside out. But I force myself to turn away. To follow Xelhua as he carves a path through the calamity of combat. Achutli’s laughter follows me, echoing in my ears, cruelly reminding me that I was never enough to stop him. Never anything to him.

The last thing I see before the dust swallows us whole is Achutli’s eyes—dark, pitiless, and triumphant. And in that moment, I know: whatever hope I had of saving him is gone.

The battlefield is an inferno of chaos and destruction. The very heart of Qapauma is swallowed by a darkness that seems to seep from the soil itself. The once proud city, with its majestic stone structures and vibrant terraces, is nothing more than ash and ruin. The colors that once defined this place—its warm ochres, its deep indigos—are smeared with soot, broken underfoot, drowned beneath a tide of blood. Every pillar that once reached toward the sky now crumbles into dust, swallowed by a storm of shadows and fire that devours everything in its path.

Each drumming heartbeat in my ears drowns out the world’s noise—the clash of metal against bone, the screams that rise and choke on the thick air, the sickening crunch of bodies trampled into the dirt.

My eyes scour the devastation, but all I can see is Yachaman. Or rather, I can’t see her—just the memory of her silhouette swallowed by the smoke, lost in the whirlwind of violence that Achutli has unleashed upon this place. How I had found her, by a miracle of the gods, of the Eleven, only to lose her once again.

She’s out there. I know she is. Somewhere in that churning maelstrom of shadows and shrieks, Yachaman is fighting for her life. But it’s like looking for a single leaf in a wildfire, knowing that even if you find it, it might already be burning. The thought alone turns my veins to ice.

I have to find her. I have to. The need to see her—to know that she’s still alive, still fighting.

“Yachaman!” I scream, my voice raw, cracking as it tears from my throat. The name feels like it's being ripped out of me, a desperate plea that vanishes into the bedlam. My feet move on their own—I’m running toward the chaos, toward the writhing mass of warriors and the darkness that surrounds Achutli like a cloak.

I’m yanked back with a strength that feels like hitting a wall. It’s Xelhua. His unyielding grip is iron, his eyes blazing with a fury that almost matches my own. “Haesan, no!” he growls. “You can’t go out there! It’s suicide!”

“Let me go!” I struggle against him, twisting, kicking, doing anything I can to break free. The thought of Yachaman out there, alone and vulnerable, makes my chest tighten until I can barely breathe. “I have to get to her! I have to—”

“Look at me, child!” Xelhua shakes me, not gently. I can feel his breath on my cheeks, his face is that close. And for the first time, I see something almost like fear in his eyes. “You’re no use to her dead! If you go out there now, Achutli or one of his minions will cut you down like the rest!”

The words hit me like a slap. My body goes still. I stop fighting, but my heart feels like it’s breaking in half. I turn my head just in time to see Achutli unleash another wave of dark energy that rips through the ranks of the Jade Hummingbird, tearing warriors from the ground, flinging them into the air like rag dolls. The sight makes me sick to my stomach.

“Haesan, listen to me,” Xelhua says, his voice softer now, but no less intense. He pulls me somehow closer, holding my gaze. “Achutli’s power is demented, yes, but his words—those lies he spit at you. Don’t let him win like that. You’re stronger than this.”

I can see the worry etched into the lines of his face. I cannot describe it, other than it grounds me. My breathing steadies, just a little. And the fog of fear begins to lift, even if just a bit. I look back to the battlefield, to the bodies sprawled across the ground, to the Qente Waila being torn apart by Achutli’s merciless onslaught, and I feel my resolve waver.

“He’s going to kill them all,” I say, the despair seeping into my voice. “He’s going to destroy everything.”

“And we’ll make him pay for it,” Xelhua replies, his grip tightening on my shoulder, almost shaking me out of my hopelessness. “But not like this. We have to be smart about it. We have to survive.”

As Xelhua pulls me back toward a semblance of shelter, the battle continues to rage around us. All I can do is pray to the Eleven that Yachaman survives long enough for us to find her. We need to gather our strength, rethink our next move, live to see another—

A low and thunderous horn blares in the distance. I turn toward the sound as I watch an army crests the horizon. Out of the swirling dust, I see them. It’s a sea of warriors stretching as far as my eyes can see. And at the head of this army strides a warrior regaled in lavish, polished armor that shines brighter than any star. His movements are fluid, almost casual, as if the chaos around him is nothing more than an inconvenience.

He walks with a predator’s grace, taking in the destruction like he’s savoring it, like he’s appraising it. His lips curl into a smirk on his way toward the destroyed palace. Yet he doesn’t march; he strolls through the wreckage of Qapauma, as if he owns it, as if the ruins are a stage set for his arrival.

My mind scrambles to make sense of this new presence. He doesn’t wear the colors of Achutli’s loyalists, nor the sigils of the Eye in the Flame. But he’s not Qente Waila either. Who is he? Who are these warriors who appear as if summoned by the gods themselves, striding into the shattered remains of my city? Reinforcements? Or another threat entirely?

The figures gradually come closer as they follow behind this overly confident leader of their. The setting sun gleams off their black-and-gold armor. They march in perfect, deadly rhythm, descending upon the city like a storm ready to break. Slowly, it becomes more and more clear what must be taking place.

Xelhua stiffens beside me, his grip on his weapon tightening as his eyes narrow at the sight. There’s something in his expression—recognition, maybe? Or is it dread?

“Who—?” I begin to ask, but my voice is swallowed by the terrible quiet that falls over the battlefield. Even Achutli’s dark magic seems to hesitate. The tendrils waver in the air, as if the darkness itself is taken aback by this newcomer.

The young man stops just at the edge of the arena of devastation, where Achutli and his loyalists stand nearly a field’s distance away. His smirk widens into a grin that’s all sharp teeth and malice. He spreads his arms wide, like a king greeting his subjects, like a god welcoming his domain.

“What do we do?” I whisper, my voice barely audible over the thundering in my chest.

Xelhua doesn’t answer right away. His eyes are fixed on the new arrivals. “I don’t know,” he finally says. “But whatever comes next, it won’t be good.”

The ground seems to tremble beneath us as the warriors in black and gold approach Achutli. I can’t hear what they’re saying due to their armor clinking softly, but I don’t need to. I know, for certain, these are no friends. Whoever this man is, he isn’t here for diplomacy.

The hundreds upon hundreds of warriors finally halt. Confirming our suspicions, the figure in the lead—the one with the smug smile and the cruel eyes—speaks.

“Well, well,” he says. “Is this what passes for a rebellion these days? I expected more.”

The newcomer at the forefront bravely—or naïvely—continues striding forward, and I begin to see him more clearly. He’s young, too young to have that kind of confidence, that kind of arrogance. Yet he walks as though he’s already conquered this ruined world. Etched with a stoic face encased in a twelve-pointed sun, his armor gleams in the sickly light cast by Achutli’s dark powers.

He tilts his head slightly, as the sardonic smile never once leaves his face. “So, you must be the great Achutli,” he says. His eyes quickly inspect the foe standing before him, before his expression turns into one of disappointment. “Hmm… I expected more, to be honest.”

Achutli’s eyes flare with something primal, his jaw setting in a hard line. For a heartbeat, I think he might just tear this man apart where he stands. But to my surprise, he doesn’t move. Instead, he lets out a low, dangerous chuckle, a sound that vibrates through the rubble. “You should be careful what you expect, boy,” he remarks. “I’ve broken men far greater than you.”

The young warrior’s ominous grin only grows wider. “You know, I’ll enjoy watching you fall. Just like the others.”

Before I can even grasp what’s happening, the warriors in black and gold surge forward, blades gleaming in the fading light. Guards donning the orange and red of the Tapeu charge in response, weapons held aloft. Achutli’s shadows burst outward to meet them, and the tense silence shatters into a storm of violence.

Xelhua pulls me back, away from the carnage, his voice urgent. “We have to go—now!”