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The Great Forge of Pachil has been cold for several moon cycles. No smoke, no hammer strikes, no sparks catching in the dark. Only silence. How can such quiet be so jarring, so disturbingly loud?
I stand beneath the forge’s gaping maw, where the light of dying embers once pooled like molten gold. Now, it is just shadow and dust, the skeleton of something that used to breathe. The remnants stretch around me—scattered slag, rusting tools, massive bellows half-deflated like the lungs of a dying beast. The air is dry, cracked with the scent of old ore. A place meant for war, now left behind by a war it did not get to forge.
In the center of the wreckage, a slab of stone that’s blackened from generations of heat serves as our table. The scroll is laid bare upon it, its edges curling like something reluctant to be read. The glyphs crawl across the parchment, etched by a hurried hand. I have read them already, once with the young invaders—those strange, pale-faced things who speak in tongues that slant like broken reeds.
One of them, the short, stocky boy, had recognized a symbol. There was a flicker of recognition in his soft, foreign face. The same way a hunter knows the silhouette of a predator in the dark, even if he has never seen the beast before.
Upachu crouches over the scroll now, fingers following the markings as if he could feel the history beneath his fingertips. He mutters to himself, tracing the lines, piecing meaning together like pulling sinew from bone.
“They wrote this quickly,” he finally says, his voice rasping against the stillness. “Perhaps while in fear. The script is fairly difficult to discern because of how hastily it’s been written. Nothing like the markings we’ve seen elsewhere.”
Paxilche huffs from where he stands near the broken mouth of the forge. “Does it at least tell us something useful?” His arms are crossed, his fingers digging into his biceps, the way a man braces for a blow before it lands.
I keep my eyes on the parchment, on the markings that should have faded but haven’t. “The markings themselves haven’t yet, but the invader’s reaction to one of them has.”
Walumaq steps closer, curiosity gleaming behind her piercing blue eyes. She’s quick, I know. Picks things apart like a chasqui reading the knots in a quipu, untying the world thread by thread. “How did you read it?”
I exhale through my nose. “We spent moon cycles deciphering what little we could from the ruins in Wichanaqta. The glyphs were everywhere—carved into stone, hidden in murals, embedded in the very bones of the palace. When we returned to Hilaqta, Upachu studied them in every moment of stillness he could afford. But for me, well, I didn’t have that luxury.” I drag a hand down my face, memories of those trials resurfacing. “He did his best to teach me when he could, but after the incident with…” I struggle to find the words to explain the miserable assassin that sought us out multiple times during my trials. I shake away the horrific memory of Upachu’s near death. “I learned them the hard way. Part of retrieving the lumuli chest, and the journey to reach it, forced me to understand them—or die trying. The trial wasn’t just about proving my worth, it ended up being a lesson in understanding the ancient glyphs.”
Upachu nods, his fingers still ghosting over the parchment. “While he was away, I passed the time while I was recovering to learn as much as I could about the glyphs. The more I studied, the more I realized they weren’t just letters or symbols. They carried weight of significance. Intent. Some of them were warnings. Others, commands. It felt like the person creating these glyphs was trying to convey a message to us, to teach us something invaluable. But the thoughts and messages told in the scrolls were fragmented, incomplete. We have yet to determine what they mean in their entirety.”
The sound of movement jostles us alert. A creature? A foe? Following soon after, there’s an unmistakable sound that echoes through the still air—a lazy, contented… chewing. We all cautiously turn toward the broken archway at the forge’s entrance. There, standing like it had never been lost, is our llama, munching absently on the sparse tufts of dry grass growing between the cracked stone. Its ears twitch at our stares, but it doesn’t stop chewing.
I close my eyes, shaking my head. “Of course.”
Upachu folds his arms, staring at the creature bemusedly. “How…?”
Paxilche glares at the animal, but even he looks more bewildered than irritated. “Isn’t that…” Upachu, Síqalat, and I nod, staring at the llama as though seeing its spirit. “But that thing has been missing for days.”
I let out a breath of laughter, rubbing the bridge of my nose. “Not missing. Just being… what it has always been.”
The llama flicks an ear as if acknowledging my words, then turns away and resumes its slow, indifferent grazing. Paxilche looks unamused—I’d argue, just as much so as the llama. How it manages to survive and find its way back to us is something I’ll have to ask the fates one day.
The fragile scroll lies open between us. I flatten its brittle and reluctant fibers against the stone slab, pressing my fingertips to the edges, feeling the delicate crumbling. The faded markings linger in the deep grooves.
Beside me, Upachu leans closer to the papyrus, narrowing his eyes in deep focus. Walumaq crouches to my left, lightly tracing her fingers along the edge of the glyphs, as if touching it might coax some deeper meaning from it. Paxilche paces, the sharp slap of his sandals against damp stone the only sound for a long while.
The forge, or what remains of it, is bloated with the scent of rot, with damp breaths puffing up from the cracks in the stone. How did it get this way so suddenly? It’s as if the life from this place has been drawn out from it. Could this be what the great blacksmith, Iachanisqa, had spoken of? Has the drought reached our shores?
I shake the thought from my mind and return my attention to deciphering the papyrus. The words come to me slowly, but I manage to determine the meaning behind the glyphs. There are some words I don’t recognize, some that I’ve never before seen. It takes me several attempts, but I read, and reread—and reread some more—until the meaning makes itself clear to me, like a morning fog lifting from the hills. I inhale, then begin reading aloud.
> There was always something wrong with him.
>
> He was the war-god incarnate. We needed that. Or we thought we did.
>
> Even before the first betrayals. Even before the horror at Mahuincha.
>
> I never spoke his name in reverence. Never in caution, either. I thought I understood him. I thought, if nothing else, that he was ours.
>
> I was wrong.
Paxilche stops pacing. A bead of sweat traces down his forge, though the air is cool and damp. Saqatli shifts from his place near the forge entrance, watching. He hasn’t spoken much. His eyes, too large for his thin face, glint in the weak light. I don’t think he blinks. Does he understand what I’ve read?
Síqalat asks the question likely on all of our minds, “Who’s the ‘he’ being referenced? This ‘war-god incarnate’?”
“It could be Aqxilapu,” Upachu ponders. “A god of thunder and the mountains.”
“A deity of Qiapu would never be one for betrayal, as this person claims through their glyphs,” Paxilche charges, offended.
Upachu doesn’t appear as convinced, frowning at Paxilche’s protest. But he humors the Qiapu man anyway. “Then perhaps Tlaloqa. Or Eztletiqa.”
I press on, my voice tightening as I translate the next passage, hoping for more clarification.
> If we had listened—if we had let him go before he could sink his teeth into us—perhaps it would have been different. But we mistook hunger for loyalty. Vigor for devotion.
>
> When Mahuincha fell, when we stood among its ruins, its people scattered, unmade—I turned to him, waiting for the fury, the regret, the explanation.
>
> He only smiled.
>
> A bright, terrible thing, the kind that turns a blade into a god’s hand.
>
> And that is when I knew.
>
> He was only built for destruction. As though Pachil was something for him to claim for him, and him alone.
>
> He did not walk among us. He did not stand beside us. He had never been ours.
Walumaq exhales through her nose. “So he was part of them.”
“Who?” Síqalat asks, visibly confused.
“The Eleven,” Upachu murmurs. He leans closer, eyes scanning the glyphs with a slow and practiced gaze.
“Obviously, the Eleven,” Síqalat says, annoyed. “Who is the ‘he’? I still don’t understand.”
“‘He was only built for destruction’,” Walumaq echoes. “‘As though Pachil was something for him to claim for him, and him alone.’ This must refer to the one who has brought the invaders to Pichaqta. This must refer to Xiatli.”
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I nod. It’s true—Xiatli was never sung of as protector, nor named among the revered. From what Upachu and I determined through our quest and reading these glyphs, his existence always felt like a hole in the narrative, a shape cut from the fabric of history. A presence known by its absence.
Síqalat still appears confused. “But… it mentions the Mahuincha. I thought the Timuaq were responsible. That’s what’s always been said.”
“They were wiped out by one of our own,” I say, the truth like a blade sliding slow beneath the ribs. “By one of the Eleven.”
By him. The one who is present in Pichaqta. Dangerously close to the rest of the factions. He has returned. To finish what he started then, when he was one of the Eleven?
Paxilche lets out a rough, bitter laugh. “Well, I guess there goes the possibility that he has some redeeming moment, some ancient excuse. That he might’ve fought for Pachil, even if it was for the wrong reasons.”
Síqalat exhales with a wry smile. “Oh, I don’t know,” she says. “I rather like this version. It’s much simpler. No heroism to argue over.” She turns toward us, her eyes half-lidded, her mouth curling like she might be tasting something. “You have to admire the purity of it.”
No one responds.
I press forward.
> We cast him out. The others, they had to be convinced, but they saw, in the end, what I saw.
>
> He would have razed everything in time, until nothing remained but him and the ruin he built.
>
> I wonder now if it was exile or a gift.
>
> Perhaps we did not remove him from Pachil.
>
> Perhaps we gave him what he had always wanted.
The words of the papyrus crawl in my skull, dig their roots deep.
We gave him what he had always wanted.
Paxilche slowly cracks his knuckles. “And what was that, exactly?”
I don’t answer. But I think I already know.
The forge is silent except for the mountain’s endless, creeping murmur beyond its broken boundaries. The damp stone beneath me is cold through the fabric of my tunic, but the weight pressing against my ribs, against my thoughts, burns hotter than ever.
And then—
”They call him the dawn of a new era.”
The words do not come from my mouth, nor from anyone else’s. They are inside my head, crawling through my skull like fingers pressing against the bone. The voice is small. Trembling.
Saqatli.
I turn, but he’s already staring at me—at Walumaq, at Paxilche—his dark eyes wide, rimmed with an anxious sheen. Noch looks uncomfortable beside him, or as uncomfortable as an ocelot can appear. His thin arms are wrapped tight around his knees where he crouches at the edge of the weak torchlight, as if trying to make himself smaller, as if hoping the words he speaks in silence will shrink with him.
”They gather resources for him. Gemstones. Gold. Silver. Iron. Powder.”
Paxilche’s breath comes sharp through his nose. “Powder?”
A pause. He sees the perplexed look on my face after he mentions the last resource. There’s a shallow inhale that I feel more than hear.
”They call it ‘the fire of gods.’ Their leaders plan to take Pachil, as if it was always theirs.”
I repeat the words aloud, for Síqalat, Atoyaqtli, and Upachu. Walumaq’s expression hardens. Saqatli shudders. His tiny shoulders tremble beneath the tattered cloak draped over them, but he presses on.
”And they kneel before him. The Lehito, they are called. They worship Xiatli. But they do not know what he truly is.”
Paxilche scowls, his hands gripping his belt so tight his knuckles pale. “Of course they do,” he mutters. “Why not? A god of war. A god of slaughter. Of course they’d want to worship that.” He turns, looks at me, at Walumaq, as his fury is barely contained.
I swallow down the sharp taste rising in the back of my throat and turn back to Saqatli, whose small fingers nervously dig into the fabric of his tunic.
”There was more,” he says, reluctant to continue.
”What more?” I ask, barely realizing I’m speaking back to him with my thoughts.
His gaze flickers between the three of us, his lips pressing into a thin, bloodless line.
”They were speaking of the fire priest. Of the sorcerers.”
His voice shakes.
”They laughed at the defeat of those who conjured fire. They mocked them. They questioned if that was the only power our land contained. They said our people do not know. That we will not know until it is too late.”
Paxilche curses under his breath. Walumaq’s fingers press to her temples, absorbing, thinking. I close my eyes, and the weight of it all—the iron that releases fire like arrows, the invaders, this deity that was once of the Eleven—settles into my bones like rot creeping through wood.
Xiatli has been gathering his forces since his exile. He has been waiting. And now, the Lehito are merely another branch in his ever-sprawling shadow.
I inform the others of Saqatli’s words. A movement to my right—Saqatli is shifting back, shrinking, pulling his knees tighter against his chest, as if the knowledge inside him is something he no longer wants to carry.
Still lounging against a fallen pillar, Síqalat lets out a long, thoughtful hum. “Well,” she says, “I can’t say I find this particularly shocking. I mean, think about it. Those savages have no gods of their own, so why not take one of ours? Especially one who seems determined to claim Pachil for himself, now out of spite.”
Upachu nods grimly. “And the moment they believe Pachil is already theirs, the fight changes. There’s no conquering when you think you’re just taking back what belongs to you.”
Atoyaqtli exhales. “So. What now?”
I release a slow breath and stand. “We have to tell the others. We have to warn the other factions of what’s reached our shores.”
Upachu straightens. “And we need to find the last scroll.”
Walumaq glances at him. “You think there’s more?”
Upachu nods. “There has to be. The records weren’t written in a single scroll. Sualset wrote this, but Teqosa and I believe that one last papyrus remains.”
Atoyaqtli frowns. “And where would it be?”
“Sanqo.”
The others are still speaking, voices bouncing off the forge’s broken stone walls, but I’m already moving. Away from the damp, the closeness, too many words pressing into the same space.
I step out into the night. The mountain exhales around me, its breath cool and thick with mist. I climb until the already sparse vegetation thins further, until the ruined forge and the voices inside it become a murmur beneath me. A broken terrace, half-swallowed by vines, juts out over the cliffs. I settle there, hands bracing against the cool stone, my lungs drinking in the high, thin air.
Above, the sky is swollen with clouds, moonlight bleeding through their tattered edges. Below, the valleys rolling deep into the bones of Qiapu.
I close my eyes.
Breathe.
And listen.
The mountain doesn’t speak, not like Saqatli does. Not in words. But in the shifting of the wind through the canopies, in the distant groan of the bushes and trees, in the hollow hush through the cliffs, there is a voice here. One that does not care for gods or wars or history pressing into my skull. And yet, history is here, too. Clawing at me, sinking its teeth in deep.
We gave him what he had always wanted.
Sualset’s words, markings in a trembling, steady hand.
He was only built for destruction. As though Pachil was something for him to claim for him, and him alone.
I open my eyes and press my palm to the stone, the spiral carving warm against my skin.
Every ending feeds a beginning.
Entilqan’s voice, a whisper against memory. The stone she placed in my hand, smooth as river-worn bone. I clutch it now, feel its shape, its heft. It is light, but it anchors me, pulls me from the jagged, spinning edge of thought.
What followed the day the gods died, the day the Eleven sought to sacrifice themselves and destroy the Timuaq, to liberate us once and for all, were countless stories of their feats. Not as myth, but as truth. And in every version, Xiatli was an absence, a shadow between the lines. An unspoken silence, thick as smoke.
I had never questioned that silence before. But now, that silence is broken. Now, I know what was hidden.
We were raised to believe that the Eleven stood together. That they chose their sacrifice with clear minds, that they stood shoulder to shoulder against annihilation. That the day of the breaking was one of valor, of martyrdom, of finality.
But Sualset’s words have put an end to that long held belief. And still, there is more.
Another scroll. Another buried truth.
I exhale, long and slow. The mountain carries it away. I turn back toward the forge. And I descend.
The forge is quiet when I return, though not silent. The others have shifted, some resting against the stone, some crouched near the embers of a dying fire, eyes flickering in the low light.
Paxilche stands apart, shoulders tense, fingers twitching at his side, as if resisting the urge to lash out at something. Saqatli is curled into himself near the wall, his small frame swallowed in his too-large cloak, his gaze distant. Walumaq watches me from the other side of the forge, arms folded, expression unreadable. Upachu sits beside the scroll, one hand resting on his knee, the other tracing absent-minded patterns in the dust. He looks up as I approach.
“Did the air give you the clarity you sought?” he questions.
I nod. He knows me well.
Upachu taps his finger once against the papyrus. “The pots we found. The ones with the maps.”
Walumaq straightens, now joining our discussion. “The burial sites of the papyrus.”
“Indeed,” Upachu says. “Places where Sualset left her words before everything…” He flits his hand in the air, which indeed says it all, about what they did, and what came of their efforts. How futile it all feels, to drive one’s head into the mountainside, hoping that, one day, it will cause it to crumble into the sea.
I sigh, knowing that this may be yet another thud of our collective heads against stone. “So, the last scroll is in Sanqo,” I say. “I think we know what we have to do.”
Walumaq’s gaze darkens, calculating. “If it’s there, it won’t be easy to reach. But at least we’ll have my family there to assist us. Whatever resources we need, we should be able to attain.”
"Nothing about this has been easy," Atoyaqtli says.
Paxilche scoffs. “And we’re going to leave this place behind while these invaders pick Qiapu apart?”
Upachu frowns gravely, saying, “I’m afraid we have no choice.”
“If this scroll holds more of the truth,” I add, “if it can tell us what remains of Sualset’s guiding words, then we need it. Our efforts to stop Xiatli are futile, especially as he possesses our amulets. If there’s any hope of stopping the Lehito from destroying our land, we need to find out how we can, and the last scroll may contain the solution.”
“So Qiapu gets left to feed these scavengers,” Paxilche remarks, almost incensed. “We just allow my homeland to suffer, my people to be enslaved, so yours can survive?”
I rest a hand on his shoulder. He flinches at the touch, but I don’t pull away. I meet his gaze and speak softly, but firmly, knowing that anything less will be lost to his fury.
“I understand your anger—I truly do. And I do not ask you to set it aside. What is happening to Qiapu should never happen to any land, to any people. But if we stay here, fighting skirmishes while the enemy gathers its true strength elsewhere, and without the knowledge of how to defeat this invader, then we are not protecting Qiapu—we are condemning it.”
I pause, expecting him to push back, to refuse. To my surprise, he doesn’t. Not yet, anyway.
“If we leave now,” I continue, “it isn’t to abandon your homeland. It’s to ensure it has a future at all. And if we do not find the full truth, if we do not find the means to truly stop Xiatli, then what happens to Qiapu today will happen to all of Pachil tomorrow.”
His jaw tightens. His fists clench at his sides. I can see it, the war inside him—the need to act now, to strike at the enemy he can see, even if it means losing the war against the one he cannot.
“We are running out of time, Paxilche,” I say, gentler now. “And no faction, no land, no people, will be safe if we fail.”
I think of the mountains stretching far beyond this forge, its cliffs rolling down to the rivers, the lands that scatter outward like veins from a heart. Pachil is vast. Our world is vast. And yet it can be stolen in an instant if no one fights to keep it.
I feel the spiral stone warm against my palm.
Every ending feeds a beginning.
We are running out of time.
But we are not yet out of chances.
I turn to the others. “We go to Sanqo in the morning.”