Jaime and Cimi flared with divine light.

  Their eyes were closed—animal and human alike—analyzing the fractured emotions spilling from the cuauhxicalli before them. Jaime searched through the growing storm of pain for his sister, reaching past the distortion threatening to turn this land and its people into monsters.

  The powerful aura of slaughter that had begun to condense into a dense, bloody mist at the base of Jimena’s cuauhxicalli was halted by Chia’s strange rituals. At the same time, she sustained them with nourishing vapors. The boiling pot of herbs and spices sharpened thought and steadied the mind, cutting through madness like cool air through smoke.

  Jaime had yet to understand the intricacies of his power.

  He did not know why things were the way they were—only that they were.

  Yet the more he helped his home and its people, the more he learned. Each time he chose to create instead of destroy, discovery followed. Insight bloomed. Innovation took shape.

  Now, the black gas he once could only purify through Cimi’s light began to respond to him directly. It swirled, spiraling inward, wrapping around the golden radiance encasing his body instead of fleeing from it.

  Cimikora drew the gas into herself, attempting to dissipate what remained of the bloody mist, which had begun to pool thickly on the ground. She shrieked as the energy tore through her—and through Jaime by extension.

  He clenched his jaw, enduring the visions forced into his mind.

  Fire consumed him whole.

  His skin blistered and charred.

  His blood boiled.

  And beneath it all, a gnawing hunger grew—vast and sickening.

  Then relief came.

  A cool pink mist washed over both of them, diluting the corruption seething inside their shared being. It steadied Jaime just enough for him to attempt something new—something instinctive.

  A new cycle.

  The world within his gem, a realm he had barely dared to explore, shuddered as it absorbed the corruption he fed into it. Light filled that inner space, clashing endlessly with the dark gas invading it. The two refused to merge.

  Jaime was grateful for that.

  He inhaled deeply and pushed his power further, forcibly activating the pictogram of death etched into his forehead. It flickered—then ignited fully, its presence laughing at the devastation unfolding before it.

  The symbol devoured the corruption at twice the previous pace.

  Chaos surged inside Jaime’s gem.

  His body felt swollen, bloated with impossible energy, stretched to the brink. But after a day—or more—of relentless concentration and strain, the cuauhxicalli finally began to clear.

  Most of the festering corruption surrounding Jimena’s cuauhxicalli was gone.

  Marisol sensed the shift immediately.

  She eased her efforts, turning instead to support, allowing Jaime to take the lead in searching for his sister’s heart—something far easier now that the rot and madness smothering Jimena’s presence had been stripped away.

  ---

  Jimena felt herself being carried somewhere after something happened to her. The memories were jumbled, half-submerged, her mind aching each time she tried to grasp the events of only hours before.

  Then it came back.

  Pain speared through the back of her skull, searing and merciless. Like lightning, it raced through her mind, burning every thought it touched. The carnage she had wrought—the devastation unleashed when her power surged unchecked—replayed itself again and again. Each image tore fresh agony through her psyche.

  She screamed.

  She thrashed against unseen hands, fists swinging wildly, legs kicking, her voice breaking into raw, animalistic wails. Her ailing mind, frayed far beyond endurance, fought wicked restraints that left trails of corruption wherever they touched.

  Fear hollowed her body, leaving her weak. The shadows closing in met little resistance as they reached for her. Terror of what she might do next froze her in place, paralyzing her as the darkness crept higher. Knowing she could do nothing—would do nothing—against the invisible bonds that held her, she let herself sink.

  Jimena refused to unleash the monster inside her.

  She had believed herself a protector.

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  If not for her flame knowing the difference between friend and foe—or perhaps only because her enemies had been easy targets, isolated and alone—she feared she might have annihilated her own people. The thought made her shudder as inky hands dragged her beneath black, suffocating waters of corruption.

  She was nothing more than a weapon to her god.

  She wept and cursed at the unseen, at everything hiding in the smothering dark.

  Mictecacihuatl watched.

  She reveled in the offerings Jimena had supplied, feeding upon the wounded, vengeful divinity she had carefully guided into obedience. Jimena’s thoughts twisted into hatred, her sense of helplessness redirected outward. Blame settled on everything and everyone. Fear and rage grew without limit, spiraling tighter and tighter.

  The power swelled.

  It became grotesque—thick with corruption that drowned her once-vivid inner world. A suffocating tar coated everything. Purple flame with a crimson core burned through it, belching plumes of acrid smoke that carried wrath and malice into every corner of her being.

  What she had created turned furious, then monstrous.

  Malformed abominations of flesh and blood lurched through her world, putrid corruption rotting them from within. Their wails echoed endlessly—until Xolo answered.

  Cleansing flame poured from him as he judged without mercy.

  No longer a silent guardian, the dog became a furious executioner, delivering punishment without regard for the world’s stability. Corruption clung to his fur, reshaping him into a living embodiment of fire. The pyre consumed him like a candle—yet instead of weakening him, it fed his rage.

  It burned brighter.

  Jimena felt all was lost as she drowned in the black waters of corruption, allowing herself to be dragged deeper and deeper into the depths. The thick, suffocating tar left no room for breath—no space for escape.

  It was there, in the darkest and deepest part of that abyss, that she saw light.

  Her brother.

  Jaime’s presence shimmered faintly within the corruption, his voice calling out to her, urging her forward. Yet she felt incapable of answering. She watched him with hollow, apathetic eyes, as though the distance between them were infinite.

  Despair tightened its grip.

  Then another light joined his.

  Marisol.

  Her mist tore through the mire like an unstoppable army, purging the tar that clung to Jimena’s form and carving a path where none had existed before. It loosened the corruption’s hold just enough for Jimena to struggle, to writhe her way toward Jaime’s light.

  But the effort was too much.

  Her consciousness began to falter after only a short distance. Her body grew impossibly heavy, and the corruption surged back, dragging at her limbs, pulling her deeper than before.

  Apathy curdled into anxiety.

  Anxiety into fear.

  Fear into anger that gnawed at her very core.

  She slipped further back than she had ever moved forward.

  Would she become a monster?

  The thought—and the storm of emotions surrounding it—abruptly stilled as a new light appeared.

  It was closer.

  Stronger.

  Its presence radiated in powerful waves that cut through the tar, pushing it aside like a thin veil before the sun. Relief flooded her as clarity washed over her mind, soothing the psychosis that had consumed her.

  Jimena breathed.

  She opened her eyes.

  She lay atop thick fabrics, her body slick with sweat and foul-smelling slime. Looming before her stood a tall statue of a masked man with bared fangs, rattles clutched in his hands.

  Atloc knelt before it in prayer, summoning clouds of blue vapor that filled the space, drifting and curling like living breath. The sight eased her heart.

  And then came the whispers.

  Mictecacihuatl’s voice filled Jimena’s mind—but without distortion, without cruelty. There was only concern. Support. Steadfast presence for her chosen.

  She felt Marisol and Jaime as well—their thoughts brushing against her own in quiet reassurance.

  Tears streamed down Jimena’s face as her body finally relaxed. Surrounded by the support of friend, family, god, and ally, she allowed the last traces of corruption to dissolve.

  The pictogram on her forehead gave a small, satisfied burp—

  And vanished.