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Victory never feels like it should.
It’s like chewing on metal—sharp, bitter, leaving a trace of something unresolved. Even when you survive, part of you stays behind in the fight, like an unhealed wound that aches at the mere memory of each blow.
And the truth is, nothing we build really holds. We rally, we rise, and for a while, we think we’ve won—only for the ground to shift again, eroding the work like rain on clay. The Timuaq were struck down, but we were left in their shadow, clutching fragments of what we thought was progress. It’s as if every struggle is a step forward and two steps back, as though the land itself resists, grinding us down into ruin.
And yet we’re here, standing in the wake of another fight, the ash still warm, the pain still raw. We beat the fire priest this time, but the question lingers: what comes next?
I sit on the cooling stone, my fingers brushing the haft of my glaive. Around me, the mountain settles with uneasy groans, as if the ground itself resents what we’ve done.
The others are scattered across the slope, catching their breath or nursing wounds. Or, more solemnly, mourning the dead. Walumaq stands a few paces away, her turquoise amulet still glowing faintly, like the last ember in a dying fire. Water pools at her feet, evaporating in the strenuous heat. Her hands tremble from the effort it took to wield it. She doesn’t say anything—doesn’t need to.
Saqatli’s ocelot, Nochtl, slinks through the mist, its golden eyes gleaming. It pads toward its companion, who stands exhausted and bruised, brushing ash from his arms. The strange mix of admiration and discomfort on his face tells me he’s still processing the animal form he took—something that surprised even him. The ocelot rubs against his leg, but he’s too distracted to notice.
And then there’s Paxilche.
He’s pacing like a caged animal, the storm inside him refusing to die down. I can feel the tension in his steps, the way his fists clench and unclench, lightning dancing along his fingertips. His anger hangs in the air, sharp and unpredictable. He glances at me—once, twice—but neither of us says a word.
This silence won’t last, I can assure him.
For now, however, I shift my gaze to the cart, where the llama stands. It chews lazily on a patch of singed grass as if it hadn’t just witnessed the near end of the world. Nearby, Upachu mutters to himself. I can’t tell if he’s praying to the gods or just trying to make sense of everything that’s happened.
It’s strange, the way battles linger. Even after the dust settles, the scars remain. You revisit every decision, every mistake, over and over until the lines between past and present blur. I should’ve been faster, should’ve anticipated the priest’s retreat. I try not to allow Paxilche’s protests persist, yet they remain, unwelcome. Maybe if I’d driven my glaive into his heart, instead of carving a path through the molten specters, things would’ve ended differently.
But battles aren’t made of “maybes.” They’re made of what happens, and what you live with afterward.
The obsidian amulet presses into my skin, settling in the narrow space between armor and flesh. It’s as if it’s found its rightful place there, nestled just above my heart. I glance at Walumaq again, noticing the turquoise stone hanging from her neck, the way it pulses quietly in rhythm with her breath. Though I’ve known her for only a short while, already I can see that she’s changed—more in control, more dangerous.
I close my eyes, feeling a thousand questions swirling inside my mind. Every step we’ve taken, every fight we’ve survived—it’s leading us somewhere. To Pichaqta. To the fire priest. To something worse waiting in the shadows.
Sualset. The Eleven. The Eye in the Flame.
We’re all tangled in the same web, but I can’t see the whole design yet. Just fragments—pieces of a shattered clay pot scattered across the battlefield. And the amulets… they’re part of it, somehow. Walumaq’s, mine. How many more are out there, waiting for someone to claim them? And what happens when they do?
Atoyaqtli and Pomacha sit together near the edge of the slope, sharpening their weapons in silence. Each drag of stone against metal sounds harsh and alone, a steady rhythm that seems almost too loud in the quiet. I didn’t know the fallen well enough to carry the same grief my companions do, but there’s still an ache, a strange awareness of absence—of something, someone, now missing. Only the soft rasp of metal remains, each mournful scrape a reminder of what’s been lost.
This is the problem with battles. They don’t end when the fighting stops. They fester in the pauses, in the spaces between words and the tension no one speaks of. You feel it like a shadow between you and your friends, turning familiar faces into strangers, a quiet, festering rift that grows before you even notice it’s there.
Walumaq catches my gaze. There’s something in her eyes—something she’s holding back, something I can’t quite name. She seems burdened by something unseen, something we can’t quite understand, but I sense it’s somehow tied to those amulets. I wonder how much she knows, and how much she’s yet to tell. But this isn’t the moment. There will be time for questions later. Or maybe there won’t. That’s the problem with “later”—it’s never a guarantee.
The cold mountain winds shift, carrying with them the distant scent of smoke. I glance down at my glaive, tracing a finger along the edge. I reflect upon what we’ve overcome, and what’s about to come. Because the real fight hasn’t started yet. And I have the sinking feeling that, when it does, none of us will be ready.
Exhausted, I lean against my weapon. Every muscle in my body—even those I never knew existed—aches. The night is unnervingly still. The others linger nearby. They restlessly toss and turn on their bedrolls, if they make any effort to sleep at all. For me, my thoughts churn too wildly to rest. The fire priest’s escape needles at me. It’s an itch I can’t scratch. A mistake of which I can’t let go.
I pick up a chunk of volcanic rock, turning it over in my hand. Good enough. I set to work, grinding the blade against it, letting the rough stone bite into the astonishing weaponry. It no longer glows, appearing only as an intricately-carved glaive that could otherwise be from some noble or high-ranking military leader. I’m not confident that I’m worthy of being entrusted with it, but I can only hope to do justice to this gift that Inqil bestowed upon me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch movement: Saqatli and his ocelot, Nochtl. The boy crouches by a patch of cracked volcanic stone, while his ocelot companion circles him with an eerie quiet. Saqatli traces his fingers along the soot-covered stones, investigating them curiously. Noch flicks her tail lazily, but there’s something in her gaze that piques my interest. It’s as if the animal knows something the rest of us don’t.
Nah, couldn’t be. I shake the thought off and continue sharpening my blade. Just a child messing with his animal companion. It’s nothing worth focusing on, not with everything else on my mind.
“You’ll wear a hole in that blade if you keep grinding the stone into it like that,” Walumaq’s voice floats softly beside me, cutting through the mess of my thoughts.
I glance her way, not saying anything. The Sanqo princess is standing close with a relaxed posture, arms hanging loose at her sides. The turquoise amulet around her neck shimmers faintly in the low light. There’s a calm familiarity in her gaze, a steady patience, those piercing blue eyes that seem to see straight through to my spirit. It’s as though she already knows what’s tearing at me and is waiting for me to be the one to say it out loud.
“I can’t stop thinking about it,” I mutter, working the blade of the glaive with the volcanic stone more carefully this time. “He got away again. That damn priest… we were so close.”
Walumaq sighs and steps a little closer. “You did everything you could. We all did.”
“Not enough.” The bitterness flies from my scowling lips. I exhale slowly, trying to rein it in, but the frustration stays, clinging like smoke in my throat. “Paxilche is right. It’s the second time we’ve let him slip through our fingers. We might not get that lucky to stop him a third time.”
She tilts her head, calmly studying me. “We all wish we could have done more. But the truth is, we survived. And we saved the Qiapu people and these sacred lands.”
A harsh laugh escapes me. “Surviving isn’t the same as succeeding.”
“No,” she says softly. “But sometimes, it’s enough.”
The Sanqo princes sits upon the ground beside me. I notice her dainty, delicate features as she looks out onto the sparse volcanic landscape. The subtle breeze toys with the strands of her chestnut-colored hair, but she remains still, unfazed. For someone so young, she holds herself with a quiet composure. There’s a grace in her stature, the way she carries herself. It’s the kind of grace that belongs not to children, but to those who have seen the world shift beneath their feet and learned to stay standing.
She watches Saqatli and the ocelot rummaging through the pile of scattered stones that once constructed decorative columns and ritualistic structures. I return to sharpening my glaive when I begin to ask, “How did you…” The words fail me, ceasing to leave my throat. There is so much I wish to know and understand, yet where do I even start?
Her lips curl into a subtle smile. “My abilities?” She has read my thoughts. I can only nod. She shrugs. “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand that myself. It’s something I’ve always been able to do, tinkering with water. I thought I was the only one, until the day Paxilche exhibited his abilities. And when we met Saqatli in Auilqa.”
I’m confused. “Paxilche hasn’t always been able to conjure up storms?”
She shakes her head. “It wasn’t until we arrived in Auilqa when he suddenly was able to form lightning from a clear sky. And Saqatli tells me that he’s always been able to speak to animals, but the ability to transform into a jaguar is something he’s never before experienced, to my knowledge.”
“You can speak to the Auilqa boy?” I ask. “You know the language, like Síqalat?”
“Well…” she begins, searching the air around her for how to best respond. “You’re not going to believe me, but I believe he… speaks to me through… animals?” She sounds uncertain of this herself, but she attempts to explain. “There was a moment where I could hear his voice as though he was speaking inside my head. Paxilche hears him, too. My suspicion is, anyone with such abilities as his and myself can communicate through our thoughts to one another, so long as there’s an animal nearby. It’s what makes Noch—“
“…his ocelot,” I clarify, quickly apologizing for my interruption.
“Yes, the ocelot. She is important, since she has a special connection with him, and can help us communicate. That’s my understanding, anyway.”
I pause sharpening my blade, trying to take all she’s shared into consideration. “It’s odd. I don’t think I truly experienced any abilities until Auilqa, either. Maybe it has something to do with the Auilqa territory?”
Walumaq frowns. “But I’ve possessed my abilities for as long as I can remember.”
“Come to think of it,” I suddenly realize, “Upachu has claimed since our time in Wichanaqta that I have possessed abilities. I suffered life-threatening wounds, but I was able to heal, as though no harm ever came to me. I thought it was some special water from Atima, but…”
My voice trails off, as I try to make sense of it all. There doesn’t appear to be any direct connection, no correlation to, well, any of this. Is this the act of the gods? The Eleven? Perhaps there are more answers in the papyrus left behind by Sualset. Until we uncover them all, however, it’s unlikely we’ll ever have a clear answer.
“And what of these amulets?” I wonder aloud, retrieving the obsidian amulet given to me by Walumaq. I inspect it as the gemstone rests in my hand. “The ones you found were in the possession of Eye in the Flame sorcerers, and Paxilche mentioned you found one inside the palace in Pichaqta? You never had one since your time in Sanqo?”
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“I’m afraid I’ve only encountered these amulets on the mainland,” she answers. “There was never such an item spoken of on Sanqo.”
“And you never saw any papyrus during your travels?”
Walumaq only shakes her head and frowns. My heart sinks. Could we be too late, and the Eye in the Flame has been to the other two destinations marked on the clay pots? Have they found the papyrus and translated the words? Do they have more information about what this all means? Is Pachil doomed?
The sharpening stone slides along the glaive’s edge with a whispering scrape, but my thoughts are louder than the night around me. The deeper I dive into the quest we’ve undertaken, the more tangled it feels, like roots that twist and choke each other beneath the surface. No matter how many victories we claim, there’s always a new threat waiting, another riddle left unsolved.
I glance at the amulet around Walumaq’s neck, the one I exchanged with her, still faintly aglow even now. The others seem so sure of their gifts—Paxilche with his storms, Saqatli with his transformations. Walumaq wields her abilities with a grace I doubt I would ever possess. And here I am, sharpening a weapon I barely know how to use properly, questioning whether the healing I experienced in Wichanaqta was anything more than luck.
I trace the edge of the glaive with my thumb, feeling the intricate patterns carved along its shaft. Inqil must have seen something in me when she gave it to me. But what? What did she see that I can’t?
I pause what I was doing and lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees and exhaling slowly. Entilqan wouldn’t have questioned it. She always knew exactly who she was, what she was meant to do. If the gods had gifted her with these abilities, she would have accepted them without a second thought—because she belonged among legends. Me? I feel like I’m playing a part in someone else’s story.
In an effort to calm my nerves, I glance toward Saqatli again. The boy crouches by the stone ruins as his ocelot companion circles him. I dismiss it at first, thinking it’s just a child amusing himself by drawing on the old stones. But I watch as Saqatli’s fingers trace something—symbols etched into the volcanic rock, half-hidden beneath soot and ash.
It’s not play. They’ve found something.
Walumaq’s tunic rustles and her copper jewelry rattles as she shifts beside me, following my gaze toward Saqatli. Watching the boy and his ocelot, we see him brush more ash away from the symbols carved into the rock. Something inside me stirs as I start to recognize the symbols. They resemble those from the papyrus and the grounds of the palace in Wichanaqta. No, it couldn’t be… could it?
And then, the voice comes.
At first, I think it’s a trick of the mind—an echo, a half-formed thought that doesn’t belong to me. But the words are clear, sharp as a blade drawn in silence:
Over here! Look!
I freeze, and the glaive slips from my grasp, clattering softly against the rocky ground. I blink, staring at Saqatli in disbelief. It wasn’t just any sound. The boy didn’t speak aloud, and yet I heard him as clearly as if he’d spoken the words into my ear.
I glance at Walumaq, expecting her to share my confusion, but her expression is calm—knowing. “You heard him, didn’t you?” she asks quietly, tilting her head toward the boy.
I swallow hard. “That… that can’t be possible.”
She shrugs, that subtle, serene smile playing at the edges of her lips. “It starts like that. You think it’s impossible—until it isn’t.”
The significance of the moment crashes over me like a wave. It’s real. All of it. Upachu was right. Síqalat was right. If I have abilities like the others…
Saqatli looks up from his work, his amber eyes glinting in the dim volcanic light. He offers me a small, mischievous grin, as if he knows exactly what I’ve just realized. Nochtl pads closer to him, her turquoise-tipped tail casually waving about. They can both sense it, sense my confusion.
Come on, Saqatli urges, though his lips never move. The words pulse through my mind again, insistent and clear. You both need to see this.
I retrieve the glaive, requiring it to aid me in pushing myself to my feet. My mind races as I stand there in stunned silence. There are too many revelations occurring at once for me to comprehend.
I feel a hand clutch my forearm. Looking down, a concerned Walumaq stares into my eyes. “Are you okay, Teqosa?” I don’t know how to respond. Am I okay? What does this all mean?
Perhaps the symbols have the answers. I shake my head to clear the fogginess. “Let us see what the boy found.” I call to Upachu, startling him awake as he rests his back among the wheel of the cart. Curious, the others look my way, though they remain where they are, for now.
The wind shifts as we approach the cluster of volcanic stones Saqatli uncovered, stirring ash into lazy spirals. Nochtl’s turquoise-tipped tail flicks through the dust, as if marking the spot. The symbols carved into the stones seem older than anything I’ve encountered, worn down by time, but somehow still holding their meaning.
I kneel beside Saqatli, running my fingers along the etched lines. They feel familiar, like the ones Upachu and I studied in Wichanaqta—similar, but not identical. They pulse with subtle energy, as if each line is a thread connected to something vast and powerful.
Upachu shuffles beside me, peering at the markings with his usual muttering. His old eyes widen with recognition, starting to glow that ominous, opaque white I’ve seen before. “These are not Qiapu,” he whispers, mostly to himself. “Atima, perhaps. And these are… older. Much older.”
I glance at Walumaq. She calmly nods, trying to absorb this new revelation. Saqatli looks at us eagerly, hoping we’ve been able to uncover the meaning of these mysterious markings.
Upachu and I piece together fragments of the script aloud, murmuring to each other. “Fire, iron, and shadow,” I mutter. “The path forged in silence…”
Síqalat has been lingering at the edge of the group for the duration of this exchange, and has finally had enough. She steps forward, squinting at the symbols, trying to decipher them herself. “So then what’s this one?” She taps a particular section. “It looks like it’s something like ‘shadow’, but without shape. What could that mean?”
Upachu stares at it, studying it carefully. “Hmm… It must resemble ‘shadow’, but something darker. Yet, no… that’s not a thing of darkness,” he murmurs thoughtfully. “That’s… absence. Like something that’s been hidden by choice, waiting to be revealed.”
“What could be hidden?” Atoyaqtli asks.
“Treasure?” Síqalat says, suddenly—and unsurprisingly—growing more interested, more excited at the prospect.
Upachu is quick to dismiss her theory. “Judging by the other glyphs that surround it, I believe it would be akin to something far more valuable than gold. Something they intended to keep out of reach.”
Walumaq crouches beside us. “Yet it doesn’t look like such a tangible item like a treasure. Perhaps… a door hidden in plain sight,” she says softly, brushing a hand along the symbols. “Look, here. See how the lines curve inward, almost like a guide? And this pattern here,” she points to a series of interlocking lines, “it’s as though it resembles something like a pathway. It’s as if they meant for it to be followed, but only by those who could read it.”
“That must be what this is,” Upachu says, beaming. “Somewhere here, among these sacred grounds, lies a passageway. Well done, princess!”
“A passageway to what?” Atoyaqtli wonders aloud.
Síqalat smirks. “No, the question is… how do we open it?”
The symbols seem to rearrange themselves under our touch, like pieces of a forgotten map coming back together. Yet there’s something of a riddle embedded in the lines—cryptic, poetic, impossible to solve at first glance.
Upachu whispers the words aloud, slowly, as though saying them might make their meaning clearer:
”Three lie beneath, waiting to rise.
One is molten, one is bound,
One is forged in iron, but must be found.
Bring the silent to speak;
The gate will break.”
Paxilche scoffs from the back of the group. “Sounds simple enough,” he says, crossing his arms. “The molten one? That’s clearly the volcano. So… we just need fire to get things started.”
Upachu gives him a dry, unimpressed look, as if waiting for the rest of his logic to catch up.
Paxilche shrugs, waving a hand in dismissal. “Look, heat opens things. Everyone knows that. Just a little fire, and—bam! The passageway opens. Basic stuff.”
Síqalat smirks. “That’s such a warrior’s answer—break things until they open.”
Paxilche shrugs, unbothered. “It’s worked so far.”
As the others trade ideas, I stare at the lines again, feeling the pieces click together somewhere deep in my mind. One particular phrase has grabbed my attention. I recount it over and over again until, finally, the words slip from my lips.
“The silent must speak,” I recite the words slowly, quietly.
Walumaq looks at my curiously. “What do you think that means?”
I look toward Saqatli. The boy’s amber eyes look about our faces nervously, questioning what is going on.
“The silent…” I murmur, and then it hits me. Nochtl—the ocelot. She’s been circling the symbols the whole time, as if attempting to direct our attention to them.
Before I can stop myself, my hand reaches out, resting on the ocelot’s sleek, spotted fur. Its warmth seeps into my skin, some extraordinary warmth that feels like it’s coming from the very bones of this sacred volcano. The sensation travels up my arm—a quiet rhythm, a hum that resonates in my chest, weaving through muscle and marrow, grounding me.
It’s there, in that moment, that the words come. They spill from my mouth, not mine, yet deeply mine, as though they’d been waiting inside me all along, waiting to be spoken.
“Iron calls to iron. Shadow calls to light. Speak the name that has been forgotten, and the gate will be opened.”
The words taste like iron and smoke, like the echo of something vast and distant. The spoken language feels both foreign and familiar as it flows through me.
The others look upon me with nervous curiosity, wondering what just occurred. Walumaq, however, doesn’t flinch. Her gaze snaps to mine as she focuses on deciphering what I spoke. “A name,” she murmurs with a quiet tremor in her voice. “That’s the key. We need to speak the name.”
“What name?” Paxilche asks. It’s a fair question. All that I was instructed to do was speak some forgotten name. But whose name am I being summoned to say?
I stare at the symbols again, the realization dawning slowly, like the first light of dawn breaking through a foggy horizon. The words from moments ago—Iron calls to iron, shadow calls to light—echo in my mind, circling like an eagle above its prey. I can feel it—an answer, crouching somewhere just beyond my grasp, waiting to be unearthed. My thoughts turn to the tales of my youth, the stories my father told us under the stars, of gods and men, of those who bridged the worlds between, their names etched into time itself.
The name that has been forgotten. The words are foreign, yet they carry a strange familiarity, like a song you’ve heard only in a dream. I feel something shift within me, an urgency blooming from a place I can’t quite reach, as if something ancient is moving in my blood, urging me forward.
The symbols carved into the stone glow faintly, catching the light of Walumaq’s amulet as it pulses. They form a pattern I recognize, yet one that seems to shift under my gaze, like iron caught in flame, melting, changing. Iron calls to iron—the phrase drums in my mind, rhythmic, insistent. I try to focus, grounding myself in what I know, though each breath feels heavier, weighted by something vast and waiting.
My mind searches for any name I’ve ever come across. I go through friends, family, acquaintances—anyone I’ve ever encountered. Soon, I cast them all aside, fixed on my sister, Entilqan. The Eleven. People, demigods, with more importance than mere mortals.
Then, I consider the name must be something more than a human. For some reason, my father regales me with tales of the gods of Pachil in my mind’s ear. The stories resurface, each detail vivid, sharp. I can almost hear his voice now, telling me and Entilqan this one tale with reverence. His favorite tale, one he would recite over and over. I can almost see the memory, where the fire casts shadows that danced over his face. A name buried by time itself—kept hidden for only the bold or the desperate. I remember his words, how he’d described the blacksmith as a spirit who was more than mortal, one who tempered the might of gods into blades that could reshape fate. His name… his name… I almost have it. The word forms just beyond my reach, like something I’d once known but lost.
And then, like the first light of dawn breaking through fog, the realization dawns. There’s only one name that fits. The name that has been forgotten, the one we need to speak, the one that will open the way—it’s his.
“Iachanisqa,” I whisper, barely daring to breathe.
The moment the name leaves my lips, the symbols carved into the stone blaze with blinding light. Each line flares as if it were carved not into rock, but into the fabric of the world itself. A low growl rises from deep within the mountain, and we all stand to brace ourselves for what’s about to come.
Nochtl arches her back, hissing, her turquoise-tipped tail bristling. Saqatli grips her fur, desperately seeking to comfort his growing fear.
The mountain seems to take a breath—a deep, shuddering exhale of ancient air, trapped for centuries beneath stone and fire. Heat rises from the ground, curling in tendrils that glow faintly red against the night, like veins of molten blood spreading through the ground.
“Step back,” I warn, gripping my glaive with both hands, though the weapon feels absurdly inadequate. The stone beneath us shifts, cracking like the shell of an egg ready to hatch. There’s a low and terrible noise—the sound of the world groaning, as if something immense is stirring under the surface.
Atoyaqtli curses under his breath, and even Upachu, usually calm and measured, scrambles back from the glowing symbols.
“We should cover it back up!” Atoyaqtli shouts, his voice pitched with panic. “Now, before—”
It’s too late. The symbols rearrange themselves, spiraling inward, each line feeding into the next with a dizzying fluidity. The ground cracks wide open, and a burst of scalding steam erupts from the stone, hissing like a serpent’s breath. The ground bucks, throwing several of us off balance. A jagged fissure splits the stone open, yawning wide like a gaping, expectant mouth seeking to be fed.
Saqatli and Nochtl are the first to recover, standing at the edge of the fissure. They peer into the void, cautiously stepping forward. There’s a tunnel beneath us—dark and endless, its walls glowing faintly with ancient glyphs that pulse like the heartbeat of a sleeping beast. The smell of iron and smoke drifts upward, piercing my nose.
For a moment, none of us speak. There’s a silent question that no one dares ask aloud: What have we just unlocked?
Upachu leans closer, eyes growing wide as he inspects the edge of the fissure. “This must be… Ninaxu.”
“It can’t be,” Walumaq says, frowning as she studies the fissure, the symbols, the faint heat radiating from the depths. “We’ve already faced it, didn’t we?” She pauses, searching for the words. “No… whatever’s here is something else entirely. A passageway to something deeper, something the gods attempted to conceal.”
“We should leave,” Síqalat says, his hand tightening around his spear. “This was fun and all, but whatever this is, we probably shouldn’t be standing here when it wakes up.”
Walumaq hesitates, her gaze lingering on the fissure. The light from her amulet pulses faster now, matching the rhythm of the tremors beneath us, as if it’s calling to something below.
“We can’t just walk away,” she murmurs. “What if this is the only way forward?”
Atoyaqtli scowls, his grip on his sword tightening. “Or what if we’ve just opened a gate that was never meant to be opened?”
And then, from the depths of the fissure, a sound rises—a deep, resonant rumble. It’s not quite metal, not quite stone, but something in between. It’s a grinding, scraping roar that echoes up the tunnel and fills the night air. The glyphs flare one final time, their light pulsing like a heartbeat. The mountain itself seems to exhale, sending a tremor through the ground that threatens to split it open further.
Then, with a sudden lurch, the fissure widens, and a rush of heat and shadow spills out like a breath held for generations upon generations. It wraps around us, heavy and suffocating. Whatever lies below is awake.
“Teqosa,” Walumaq whispers, her voice tight with fear. “What did we just do?”