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Iachanisqa’s words replay in my mind, over and over, like a river carving its path through stone.
“This world, Pachil, is alive in ways you mortals sense only in fragments.”
It’s a truth that settles into me like a thorn. I’ve always felt the pull of the land, the way water bends to my will, the way the jungle seems to know my footsteps. But now, I wonder: is it me bending the land, or is the land allowing me to? Have I been drawing from something I can’t see, something I can’t feel, but something that feels me?
And if I have… what have I taken?
“Walumaq.” Teqosa’s low and steady voice disrupts my thoughts. I look up to find his unwavering eyes on me. “What do you make of this?”
I don’t know how to answer. What am I supposed to say? That this revelation feels like it’s stolen the ground from beneath me? That I’ve spent this journey believing I was meant for something greater, only to find that greatness might mean the destruction of the world?
“I don’t know,” I quietly admit. “I don’t know what to make of any of it.”
“That makes two of us,” Upachu mutters, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. “If the amulets were made to stop the Timuaq… what does it mean that they’re here again? What force is out there now, waiting for us?”
His words cut through me. My breath catches, and my hand instinctively drifts toward the amulet resting against my chest. Its weight feels different now, heavier, like it’s somehow grown since Iachanisqa’s revelation.
Teqosa frowns, his jaw tightening as he considers the question. “Maybe it’s not about a new force,” he says. “Maybe it’s about us—what we do with the amulets, how we wield them.”
“That’s a nice thought,” Upachu bitingly replies, “but I don’t buy it. Things like this don’t just appear without a reason. The Twelve didn’t sacrifice themselves for nothing, and I doubt we’re carrying these things around just for decoration. Something’s coming. I can sense it.”
Something cold coils in my stomach. I don’t want to admit it, but Upachu’s right. The amulets were forged for a purpose, bound to the life of Pachil itself. They were never meant to be wielded lightly. So why now? Why us?
The old crone’s prophecy drifts back to me, unbidden, her voice rasping in the darkened hut in Chalaqta. “You will unite them, or you will destroy them. The choice will be yours, and the cost will be theirs.”
I grip the amulet tightly, my fingers pressing into the cool surface of the stone. What did you mean? I want to ask her, even though I know I never will. Was this what you saw? These amulets, this burden? Or something worse?
Iachanisqa’s steady hammering continues in the background, a rhythmic reminder of the choices that led us here. Choices made by Sualset, by the Eleven—and now, by us.
Upachu shakes his head, pacing the chamber like he’s trying to outrun his thoughts. “We’re playing with something we don’t understand,” he mutters. “If these things drained the life out of Pachil before, what makes us think we can use them without making it worse? What if we’re the ones who end up breaking this world for good?”
“Then maybe we don’t use them,” I say softly.
The others turn to look at me, their expressions ranging from confusion to disbelief.
“What are you saying?” Síqalat asks, uncharacteristically cautious.
I swallow hard, the words sticking in my throat. “I’m saying… maybe we don’t have to follow the same path. Maybe we can find another way to fight, to protect Pachil, without taking from it.”
“And what happens if we can’t?” Teqosa asks. “What happens if this… force Upachu’s so sure is out there comes for us, and we’re not ready? What then?”
I find that, once again, I can’t answer. Because the truth is, I don’t know. I don’t have a plan, don’t have a solution that doesn’t involve using the very power of which I’m terrified.
Paxilche scoffs. “Great. So we sit around waiting to be overrun while we pat ourselves on the back for not making things worse. Brilliant strategy.”
“We don’t know what’s coming,” Teqosa charges, “and we don’t know what these amulets will demand of us. But standing here fighting about it won’t change anything.”
He turns to Iachanisqa, who has been watching us in silence, his hammer still resting against the anvil. “You’ve seen this before,” Teqosa says. “What would you do?”
The blacksmith’s gaze shifts to Teqosa, then to me. “I’m not the one who has to decide,” he says simply. “This burden isn’t mine to carry.”
“That’s not an answer,” Paxilche says with compounding frustration.
“Well, it’s the only answer you’ll get,” Iachanisqa replies with finality. “You’re the ones holding the amulets now. For some reason, they have revealed themselves to you. Because of this, you’re the ones who have to live with the choices you make.”
I look at the others, at their faces lined with doubt and fear, and I feel the amulet pressing against my chest again, colder than before. Is this what it means to lead? I wonder. To stand here, surrounded by questions you can’t answer, and still have to find a way forward?
----------------------------------------
The climate outside is sharper, cooler than I remembered. The heat of Iachanisqa’s forge has baked itself into my skin, leaving the chill of Xutuina’s highlands feeling alien. But before I can fully adjust, a deep, resonant groan cuts through the air behind us. With its towering obsidian arches and intricate runes, the volcanic entryway begins to shift. The symbols carved into the rock pulse one final time, their glow flickering erratically like a dying heartbeat.
The rumble grows louder, a low vibration that rattles my teeth and sends loose gravel skittering down the slope. The ground beneath us trembles as if the mountain itself is waking from some ancient slumber. Then comes the sound—a grinding, scraping roar that feels impossibly large.
The entrance starts to collapse inward, not violently but deliberately, like a stone giant folding its limbs. Chunks of obsidian shift and slide, their edges catching the light of the waning sun before settling into place with ominous finality. The intricate runes etched into the surface dim, their once-brilliant glow fading to a lifeless gray.
And then, with a sharp, almost deafening crack, the gateway seals completely. The fiery glow that had illuminated its depths is snuffed out, leaving nothing but solid rock in its place. For a moment, the air feels unnaturally still. I await more seismic shifts, more otherworldly tremors, yet none arrive.
I take a step back, my gaze locked on the now-sealed entrance. The jagged seams where the rocks had shifted are almost invisible. The surface is smooth and featureless, as if the passage had never existed. At one time vibrant and humming with energy, the runes are now dull and cold.
A faint, acrid smell lingers—burnt stone, molten metal, and something sharper, almost like sulfur. It clings to my senses, a ghost of the forge we’ve left behind.
“What now?” Paxilche mutters, unusually subdued.
I don’t answer. My eyes remain fixed on the sealed gateway, on the faint impressions of runes half-hidden in the stone. Saqatli and Nochtl had discovered them by happenstance, tracing them with their curious fingers. Their patterns once lit up like stars in the volcanic glow. Now, they are barely discernible, the faintest traces of an ancient language buried beneath layers of rock.
For a moment, none of us move. The enormity of what we’ve learned—and what we carry—presses down like the ash-heavy clouds above.
“Our place is out there,” Teqosa replies. He gestures toward the vast, rugged expanse stretching out before us, its peaks and valleys swallowed by the dim light of a sun struggling to break through the haze.
“And what exactly are we going to do out there?” Paxilche snaps. “Wander around until this ‘force’ Upachu’s so sure exists finds us? Hope we trip over some grand revelation about how to save the world?”
Teqosa doesn’t rise to the bait, remaining impassive. Instead, he simply says, “We go to Pichaqta.”
The name lands like a stone in the silence.
“Pichaqta,” Síqalat echoes faintly. She exchanges a glance with Upachu, who nods grimly.
“The Eye in the Flame,” Upachu says, as if the name itself explains everything. “If we’re going to find answers anywhere, it’s there, in Pichaqta.”
Paxilche throws up his hands. “Because walking into the heart of enemy territory sounds like such a brilliant plan. Let’s just deliver ourselves to them, why don’t we?”
“Nobody’s forcing you to come,” Teqosa says cuttingly.
Paxilche opens his mouth to retort, then closes it again, scowling as he folds his arms.
“Teqosa’s right,” I say. The words taste bitter, but I speak them anyway, knowing there’s no room for hesitation now. “We have to go to Pichaqta. If the Eye in the Flame is still operating, they’ll have answers—or at least the closest thing to answers we can hope for.”
“And if they don’t?” Paxilche asks somewhat confrontationally.
“Then we’ll deal with that when we get there,” I reply, meeting his glare with what I hope is a semblance of confidence.
I watch Paxilche as he mutters something under his breath, his arms still folded tightly across his chest like a barrier against the world. His stance is stiff, almost combative. There’s always been something prickly about him, a sharpness to his words that feels deliberate, almost practiced. But lately, that sharpness has turned jagged. Where before there was wit, there’s now something angrier, something rawer, and I can’t tell if it’s born of desperation or fear—or both.
He’s been more confrontational than usual, picking arguments where there aren’t any, throwing barbs even when they land nowhere. His gaze—when he bothers to meet mine—feels almost defiant and resentful.
And yet, beneath all of that—beneath the tension in his shoulders, the set of his jaw, the fire in his eyes—I see something else. Hesitation. The way his gaze darts toward the horizon when he thinks no one’s looking, as if he’s searching for something. Or running from it.
I don’t know what’s eating at him, at the core of the man he used to be. I only know that it’s getting worse. And it worries me. Not just because we can’t afford division now, when every step forward feels like teetering on the edge. But because whatever it is that’s driving Paxilche to lash out, it’s not just a threat to our plans—it’s a threat to him.
We’ll need him in Pichaqta. We’ll need all of us, sharp and focused, if we’re to make it through what waits for us there. But Paxilche? I’m not sure he’ll make it through himself.
We begin our descent from the treacherous terrain of the volcanic plateau, stepping cautiously along a path that feels more like a scar carved into the ground. The jagged rocks jut up at cruel angles, their edges sharp and splintered, as though the land itself had been shattered and left to harden in the sun’s relentless glare. Loose stones scatter underfoot with every step, the sound scraping through the unsettling stillness. The slopes fall steep and unforgiving, and the ground shifts beneath us with a kind of malicious indifference to our passage.
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The thin and dry air grows colder as we descend, stinging the back of my throat with every breath. The wind howls through the crags, slicing at our exposed skin like tiny blades. I involuntarily shiver, pulling my ocean blue cloak tighter around my shoulders. This land feels hostile, as though it resents my presence—a landscape of brittle defiance, so unlike the soft, rain-soaked forests of Sanqo.
There, the air was thick with the scent of wet soil and cedar. Here, everything feels raw and stripped bare. The ground is cracked and scorched, veins of blackened stone slicing through the pale terrain like old wounds. Even the colors seem wrong—the muted reds, ochres, and ashen grays, so far removed from the lush greens and deep blues of home.
I find myself falling into step beside Upachu. The steady rhythm of his movements are a small comfort in the chaos of my thoughts, grounding me and putting my mind into a somewhat peaceful, meditative state. Yet despite this, my concerns remain.
“Do you think this is what it meant?” I ask quietly, glancing at him from the corner of my eye.
“What what meant?” he replies without looking at me, his nervous gaze fixed on the precarious path ahead.
“The prophecy,” I say, the word tasting strange on my tongue. “There was a crone in Chalaqta… she told me I would unite them or destroy them. Do you think this–“ I gesture broadly with a sweeping arm, “is what she saw?”
Upachu is silent for a long moment, stroking the silver stubble on his chin as he considers his response. “Prophecies are tricky things,” he says finally. “They never mean exactly what you think they do. But if there’s one thing I know, it’s that they don’t happen on their own. They’re shaped by the choices we make, no matter what that jaded Iachanisqa says.”
His words settle uneasily in my mind, their truth undeniable but no less suffocating for it. I let out a frustrated breath, kicking a loose stone off the path and watching as it tumbles down the slope, vanishing into the shadows below. “It’s just… a lot,” I admit. “All of this. What if I don’t know the right choice? What if every path I take is the wrong one?”
Upachu glances at me. “You’re asking the wrong question, princess. It’s not about which path is right or wrong. It’s about where it leads. The prophecy doesn’t care about your intentions—only the outcome.”
“That’s not comforting,” I mutter bitterly.
He chuckles softly, his gaze returning to the rocky trail ahead. “It wasn’t meant to be. Truth rarely is.”
I chew on his words, the silence between not unwelcome. Eventually, I say, “When Iachanisqa spoke about the amulets… and what they could do… I felt like I was holding something I didn’t want. Like it was too much. Too big. Too dangerous.”
“That’s because it is,” Upachu says simply.
I blink at him, taken aback by his bluntness. “And you’re not going to try to convince me otherwise?”
“Why would I?” he calmly replies. “Fear is a reasonable reaction to power. The real question is whether you let that fear guide you or freeze you.”
I hesitate, peering at the uneven ground beneath my feet. “What if it’s both?” I ask softly. “What if I’m too afraid to do anything, but too afraid not to?”
“Then you’ll learn,” he says gently. “You’ll learn because you have to. And you’ll fail—probably more than once. But that’s what power does. It forces you to decide who you are, even if you don’t like the answer.”
“You speak like someone who’s been here before,” I say.
He chuckles again, the sound tinged with something that might be regret. “I’ve been somewhere like it. Long ago. And I’ll tell you this much, princess: there’s no shame in leaning on those who walk beside you. No shame in doubting yourself. But there’s no going back either.”
The trail dips sharply ahead, and he slows his pace, turning his full attention to the descent. I follow in silence, his words echoing in my mind. There’s no going back.There’s a part of me that wants to argue, to say that it’s not that simple, that this prophecy feels too great to bear. But another part—the part that remembers the crone’s voice, her warning—finds something in his words that feels like hope.
Behind us, the crunch of boots on gravel signals the presence of the others. Teqosa and Síqalat walk a few paces back, their voices low as they exchange muted observations about the terrain. Paxilche lingers farther behind, his silence uncharacteristic, but not unwelcome.
The remnants of the volcanic eruption linger here, blanketed in a thin layer of ash. Charred vegetation desperately juts out, and the air carries the faint tang of sulfur. It feels like we’re walking through the bones of a world that has already begun to die. And I can’t help but wonder if that’s from my choices, from what we’ve done to protect Pachil from evil, only to scar it further.
Breaking the silence, Atoyaqtli asks, “Do you think they’ll even let us into Pichaqta?”
“Let us in?” Paxilche scoffs. “We’ll be lucky if they don’t kill us on sight.”
“We’ll find a way,” Teqosa says, leaving no room for argument.
I nod, though my chest tightens at the thought. The Eye in the Flame may have been dealt a blow, but their influence runs deep, their reach stretching across Pachil like a shadow. If they’re still operating in Pichaqta, still holding their influence over Saxina, then entering their territory will be like walking into a den of jaguars.
But what choice do we have?
Ahead, the path levels out as we descend further. Sparse vegetation clings stubbornly to life—gnarled bushes with brittle leaves, their roots gripping the soil like desperate fingers. Rocky outcroppings thrust upward toward the sky. Their sharp slopes cascade downward in steep, unforgiving angles, as if tracing the arc of a stone hurled high into the air before plummeting back to the ground. The others spread out along the path, each lost in their own thoughts. I glance at Teqosa, his broad shoulders hunched slightly as he moves with ease over the rough terrain.
“Teqosa,” I call softly, quickening my pace to fall in step beside him.
He looks at me, with patience and moderate curiosity. “What is it?”
“I need your thoughts. About what’s waiting for us in Pichaqta.”
Teqosa’s gaze shifts to the horizon. “What makes you think I know any more than you?”
“You’ve seen more than I have,” I reply. “You’ve fought more battles, faced more… impossible things. I don’t know how to make sense of what we’re walking into, and you—” I pause, searching for the right words. “You’ve always seemed certain. Even when you may believe you’re not.”
Teqosa huffs a dry laugh, shaking his head. “Certainty is a luxury I gave up a long time ago, dear princess. Out there, on the battlefield, there’s no such thing as certainty. There’s only survival. You act, you react, and if you’re lucky, you live long enough to regret half the choices you made.”
I frown, noting that his words are not the comfort I was hoping for. I glance at the amulet resting against my collarbone, a constant reminder of the power I carry—and the responsibility. “But do you think we’ll succeed?” I ask, almost afraid of his answer.
Teqosa exhales slowly, his breath visible in the cooling air. “That depends on what you mean by success.”
“I mean… stopping them,” I say. “The Eye in the Flame. The fire priest. Whatever they’re planning.”
He looks at me, his dark eyes steady. “Stopping them is one thing. But at what cost? And what comes after?”
The question catches me off guard. “What do you mean?”
Teqosa hesitates, his gaze dropping to the ground as he steps over a jagged rock. “Every battle leaves scars, Walumaq. On the people who fight it. On the ones who survive it. You can destroy an enemy, but you don’t destroy the hatred, the grief, the cracks they’ve left behind. Sometimes, all you’ve done is scatter the pieces, only for someone else to put them back together into something worse.”
At this, my heart sinks. “You think we’ll fail.”
“I think success and failure are bigger than one fight,” he replies. “You can’t stop a fire by stamping out a single flame. You have to figure out what’s feeding it. And sometimes”—he exhales, as if speaking the words makes them real—"the fire only ends when there’s nothing left to burn.”
The imagery unsettles me, and I glance at the charred landscape around us. “You sound like Upachu,” I say softly. “When I expressed my concern about making the right or wrong choice, he said that it’s not about which path is right or wrong, but rather, it’s about where it leads. I’m starting to believe that the Qantua aren’t the most comforting people in Pachil.”
Teqosa snorts, a wry smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Smart man, Upachu. He’s always provided me and my family sound advice, whether I’ve wanted to hear it or not. Just don’t let him know I complimented him. It’ll get to his head.”
We walk in silence for a few moments, his words pressing down on me. I think of the crone in Chalaqta, her prophecy echoing endlessly in my mind: You can save them, or you can destroy them. The choice will be yours, and the cost will be theirs.
“I don’t want to destroy anything,” I whisper, more to myself than to Teqosa.
He hears me anyway. “No one does. Not at first.”
The trees draw closer, their skeletal branches reaching skyward like the hands of the dead. The path grows narrower, forcing us to walk single file. I can feel Teqosa’s presence just behind me, a steadying force in the oppressive quiet.
“Do you think there’s still time?” I ask, hearing my meek voice crack as I speak the question.
“Time for what?” he replies.
“To stop it. To keep Pachil from breaking under the strain of all this.”
Teqosa doesn’t answer right away. When he does, his voice is low, almost reverent. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that time is never on our side. But it’s not about how much time you have. It’s about what you do with it.”
Teqosa’s words settle over me like the dry ash clinging to our boots. In what appears to be the typical Qantua manner, they offer no comfort, no reassurance. But maybe that’s what makes them feel true.
Ahead, the jagged peaks of the Qiapu landscape flatten into a barren expanse of valleys, dotted with what remains of abandoned terraces and half-collapsed stone buildings. The closer we get to the city, the more the air changes. It’s subtle at first—a faint pressure, like a storm waiting to break. Then it deepens, a thrumming tension that settles into my bones.
“Do you feel that?” I ask quietly, more to myself than to anyone else.
Teqosa simply nods beside me, his hand instinctively resting on the hilt of his weapon. So, too, do the others—Síqalat, Atoyaqtli, and Pomacha.
We crest a rise, and Pichaqta comes into view, sprawling and defiant against the arid land. Its appearance is nothing like that of my memory when I was last present here. The city’s walls are high and jagged, built from blackened stone that gleams faintly in the dimming light. Even from this distance, I can see the scars of battle etched into its surface—cracks, scorch marks, places where the stone has crumbled away entirely. But there’s something else, something I can’t quite place.
“It’s too quiet,” Paxilche mutters, his voice breaking the uneasy silence. He stops, staring at the city with a frown. “Where are the guards? The patrols? The robes?”
He’s right. In every other place we’ve encountered the Eye in the Flame, their presence was impossible to ignore—ashen gray and crimson robes patrolling the streets, their symbols scrawled across every surface. But here, there’s an absence so stark it feels deliberate. The gates are closed, the walls imposing, but there’s no movement, no sign of the cult’s usual dominance.
“It feels wrong,” Síqalat says, stepping up beside me. “Like we’re walking into a trap.”
“We don’t know that,” Teqosa replies, though his tone suggests he doesn’t fully believe his own words. “But we’ll find out soon enough.”
As we descend toward the city, the feeling of unease grows. The air carries a faint metallic tang that sticks to the back of my throat. Shadows lengthen across the ground, twisting into strange shapes that seem to shift with each step. My grip tightens on the amulet against my chest, and I feel its unusually cold pulse of energy in my palm.
“You think it’s abandoned?” Paxilche asks, his usual bravado tempered by the silence.
“No,” I answer. “They’re here. I can feel it.”
He glances at me, questioningly. “Then why aren’t they showing themselves?”
I’m not sure. None of us are. I catch a glimpse of Teqosa ahead, watching the gates attentively, his hand never straying far from his glaive.
When we’re close enough to see the faint carvings etched into the stone of the gates—symbols that once belonged to the Qiapu, now defaced and overwritten with something crude and violent in red and gold—Paxilche stops abruptly. His head snaps to the side.
“Did you see that?” he whispers.
“See what?” Síqalat asks, cautiously retrieving her weapon and clutching it tightly after it assembles.
Paxilche shakes his head as if clearing it of dust. “I thought… Never mind. It’s nothing.”
But his unease is infectious. I feel it in the pit of my stomach, a sense that we’re being watched, even though there’s no one to see. Then, all at once, something changes in the amulet. The pulsing is no longer steady but erratic, like a heartbeat struggling to find its rhythm.
“Walumaq…” Teqosa wonders aloud. Suddenly, his attention fixes on Saqatli, who has stopped dead in his tracks, his body rigid. His eyes are wide, unfocused, and his chest rises and falls in shallow, rapid breaths. His hands clutch at his amulet, his fingers trembling.
“What’s happening to him?” Paxilche asks, alarmed.
I step closer to Saqatli, reaching out. But before I can touch him, the world seems to tilt. A wave of dizziness washes over me, accompanied by a sound I can’t quite place—a low hum, distant yet deafening, vibrating through my skull. Then, Saqatli’s voice cuts through, not aloud but directly into my mind, like a scream in the dark.
“Burning… it’s burning me!”
I stumble back, clutching my head as the connection jolts through me. The others flinch, their eyes darting between Saqatli and me, though it’s clear the others have heard it too. His thoughts flood into my mind—images of fire and ash, of something vast and suffocating pressing down on him. It’s not just pain; it’s terror, an overwhelming sense of something wrong, something out of place.
Noch circles him, her movements restless and uneasy. Her ears flatten against her head, and a low, uncertain growl hums in her throat, as though she’s trying to ward off the pain she can’t understand. She presses close, her wide amber eyes fixed on him with an intensity that feels almost human.
“Saqatli!” Teqosa moves to steady him, his strong hands gripping the younger man’s shoulders. “What is it? What do you see?”
Saqatli doesn’t answer, not with words. Instead, the connection deepens, and I feel it—an encroaching presence, cold and vast, brushing against the edges of my consciousness. It’s something close, something ancient.
I grip my amulet, noting how the stone feels unnaturally cold against my skin. The pulsing has stopped entirely, replaced by a deep, resonant vibration that seems to echo through my chest. I look at Saqatli again, his face pale and slick with sweat, and I realize with a jolt that it’s not just him. The amulet around my neck is reacting too—not in pain, but in warning.
“Whatever’s in there,” I whisper, barely able to get the words out, “it’s waiting for us.”
Paxilche glances at me nervously and in disbelief. “You’re saying the city knows we’re here?”
“I don’t know,” I admit, my voice trembling. “It’s… something in the city.”
The dark gates of Pichaqta loom before us. The carvings etched into the stone seem to shift in the fading light, and the defaced symbols of the Qiapu twist into something unrecognizable, something ominous.
Saqatli’s breathing steadies slightly, though his hand remains clamped around his amulet. Noch no longer tenses, though she continues to gently rub up against her human companion to comfort him. Still, his voice brushes against my mind again, quieter now, but no less urgent. “It’s watching.”