Mort had enjoyed the strength and power brimming in every muscle of his body. He had burst with ecstasy at every crushing blow he delivered against the chosen’s form. The whispers—once constant, gnawing—had faded, dulled by Renata’s careful aid as she eased the collar his god kept wrapped around his neck.

  It was a thrilling experience, one that had to end eventually.

  The god squirmed and writhed within Mort’s skull. He felt it stir—then jolt—as the sweet nectar he had licked from the chosen’s face made its way through his body. Wherever it traveled, it sent shivers racing beneath his skin, nourishing him with immense power. His greed swelled as the single drop slowly diffused its divinity.

  Euphoria bloomed—then shattered.

  Pain, sudden and overwhelming, tore him from his waking dream. Mort screamed and thrashed like a wounded worm, kicking and flailing, slamming himself into tree after tree without care or aim.

  The worm inside his head rejected the venom he had ingested.

  It convulsed in agony within his brain as the chosen’s blood was digested. The divinity of a Major god burned through the parasite, divine motes bursting from the worm’s long, wrinkled black body. Each escaping spark purged fetid corruption as it fled.

  A greater corrupt god’s wretched little worm was nothing before the power contained in that blood.

  Mort’s mind felt as though it were being pulled apart the harder the worm writhed.

  He clawed at his long hair, ripping it free in bloody handfuls. The pain, the blood, did nothing to stop him—until Renata stepped in. She exhaled a cloud of crimson mist onto his face. The vapor slid into his nostrils like living thread, wrapping around the worm as it died, cradling it through its final spasms and easing its torment.

  The agony ended.

  But Mort’s mind did not recover.

  It remained fractured.

  Nonsensical ideas now burst into his thoughts without warning—flashing like ironic innovations, brilliant and meaningless all at once. The whispers shifted, becoming surreal divinations of past, present, and future.

  He saw himself as a small bat perched upon a heroic woman’s shoulder.

  He saw himself as a grotesque abomination of flesh and hunger.

  Then he saw a child—crooked, weak, and afraid.

  Mort laughed, sharp and unhinged, as Renata watched him. Her usually cold expression flickered with concern—only to curdle into disgust as Mort dropped to the forest floor and began shoving any bug he could catch into his mouth.

  She struck his hands away, batting the filthy creatures from his grasp. It slowed him for only a moment.

  Refusing to chase the large man through the woods, the little girl instead scooped up mud and hurled it at him each time he reached for another crawling thing.

  Every insect wore the same face.

  Itzcamazotz.

  His mocking, twisted visage seemed carved into each squirming body—their ugliness a perfect echo of the corrupt god himself.

  -

  Marisol meditated with Jaime before their cuauhxicalli. They had remained there for an entire day, unmoving, unattended by food or water. The villagers kept their distance, never crossing the intricate patterns drawn across the floor of the large hut. Still, they stayed close—watching with anxious, hollow gazes.

  Small children stood among them, clutching clay dolls that flailed loosely in their hands. Parents lingered nearby with elders, many struggling to remain upright. Fishers, farmers, and hunters had abandoned their work for the day. Fires from hastily built clay ovens dotted the clearing, villagers huddling around them to eat and whisper, while others prayed—eyes shut tight, palms pressed together.

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  If one were unaware of the truth, it might have seemed like a festival.

  If the fear etched into every face were ignored.

  Copal and other incenses burned in separate containers, their smoke drifting in opposing directions, guided by an unseen will.

  To one side, Chia chanted steadily, tending a pot that boiled atop a small clay oven. She wafted its vapors toward the chosen, whose bodies twitched and strained as if locked in combat with something invisible.

  At the center stood the cuauhxicalli.

  A massive statue of Xolo, once pristine and adorned with colorful beads, now bore terrible cracks running through its dense stone. It exuded a distorted aura, heavy with death. The flame within its bowl burned a dark, ominous purple, a blood-red core pulsing at its heart. It no longer gave warmth. Instead, it radiated waves of cold, uncaring, murderous intent.

  That was why Marisol and Jaime were here.

  They absorbed the pain-laden energy spilling from the cuauhxicalli, purifying it within themselves—using what remained to grow stronger, to push back the distortion pressing outward. Their bonded cuauhxicalli allowed them to understand fragments of what was happening to Jimena. But fragments were all they had.

  They would not truly know until they saw her again.

  Marisol prayed she was not injured. Without Marisol there to anchor her, Jimena might have pushed herself too far—especially if she had been forced to fight. The thought gnawed at her, relentless. She could not rest until her friend was safe, yet all she could do was help from afar.

  Jaime’s cuauhxicalli and her own worked in tandem, mending what damage they could. Still, it was never enough. No matter how long they remained, no matter how deeply they drew on themselves, the fractures refused to fully heal.

  Whatever Jimena was facing had caused immense harm.

  The sight dragged Marisol’s thoughts—against her will—to the half-dead Sol the villagers of Chantico had brought only days earlier.

  The blind elder had spoken to her for hours as she healed his grandson, recounting the moment their own cuauhxicalli had cracked. The fear in his voice had driven them to search desperately for Sol. That same elder—normally so calm, so detached from worldly suffering—had wept openly before her.

  The mangled remains of his last living relative had been too much for the frail old man to endure. Marisol still shuddered at the memory of his sudden chest pain, the way his strength had given out beneath the weight of grief and exhaustion. She feared what might have happened had she not been there.

  In the end, both had survived—but only because she had given up the majority of her power.

  Power that had come from Jimena’s cuauhxicalli.

  It had been power infused with joy.

  Power that saved lives.

  Marisol marveled at her friend’s growth. She wanted to tell Jimena how incredible she was—to reassure her that they would be all right, to beg her not to shoulder everything alone, not to push herself beyond her limits again and again.

  Tears streamed silently down Marisol’s face as she continued to guide the violent waves pulsing from Jimena’s cuauhxicalli—catching them, purifying them, containing the rising mania before it could spill out into the world.