Renata did everything she could to stop Mort from ingesting the spawn of Itzcamazotz.

  The mad god refused to relinquish his grip on the chosen. His plan had been laid long ago—carefully, patiently. This was not chance but a game brought to its intended end. He would not simply release his prize.

  Renata loathed the corrupt god, yet she was powerless against the growing tide of black shells. Crawling, buzzing, hopping—an endless mass of insects moved as one, a mindless swarm driven by divine malice.

  She wanted to seize Mort and drag him away. But her small body made the act impossible. She would have been hauling half his weight across the forest floor, exposed and slow.

  It had not been long since she had been reborn into this world.

  At first, she truly had been new.

  But something endured.

  Memories lay locked within her soul—images and emotions surfacing more clearly with each passing day. Visions of a life already lived.

  She hated what she saw.

  The woman she had been—cruel, selfish, hollow. Especially after the loss of her husband. Though she suspected the mad god had orchestrated that loss, it did nothing to soften the revulsion she felt toward herself.

  There would be no forgiveness for what she had done to her son.

  The blood of the light-chosen that Mort had consumed granted her a chance—small, fleeting—to repay part of that debt.

  The emotions burned through her restraint.

  Love flooded her being—the love of a mother long denied, suppressed, buried beneath fear and survival. It bloomed into a brilliant red flower, rooting itself deep within her soul, impossible to ignore. It forced her to look upon Mort’s wretched state and act.

  And with it came a glimpse of power.

  Not boundless—but enough.

  Whatever came next, Renata chose her own path.

  With the little power she possessed, she would no longer allow Itzcamazotz to shape their lives.

  A bloody aura enveloped her. Her small body softened, then dissolved into a viscous red liquid—a living sphere of blood. Tendrils burst outward, smashing and whipping through the approaching swarm, crushing bodies and scattering shells.

  Then she struck Mort.

  The blood forced itself into every orifice of the manic chosen, even as he clutched another spawn of the corrupt god—its scaled body etched with pictograms of cunning hunger.

  Renata entered his mind first.

  Her liquid form surged into his skull, sealing wounds, settling into the hollow left behind by the vile worm Itzcamazotz had planted there. She cleansed and mended what she could, shaping herself into a bead within Mort—a vessel to anchor his fractured soul.

  With what remained of her blood, she flowed into his gem.

  She rushed toward the cracked cuauhxicalli at its center and entered it without hesitation.

  She did not know if it would work.

  But surrendering most of her new body to free her son was worth any cost.

  Now only one task remained.

  To purge the evil god’s divinity from their shared bond.

  With a single mote of intent, the flame within the cuauhxicalli shifted—turning red. It began to pop and rupture as thick black tar was forced from the stone’s fractures, squeezed out in writhing streams.

  In this life, I will do better, Renata thought.

  Her mind faded with each milliliter of sacred liquid spent.

  Mind and spirit merged as memory and emotion guided her faith, shaping hope into something divine—into miracle.

  Her essence flowed through every inch of Mort’s body, nourishing him, changing him. A slime seeped from his skin and hardened into a thin membrane. Fragile in appearance, it proved unbreakable. Mandibles snapped. Pincers failed. Stingers bent uselessly against her final defense.

  Renata pressed her will upon the world.

  She demanded balance.

  She demanded retribution for injustice endured.

  The world answered.

  Corrupt chains shattered.

  Miasma was purged.

  And her son awoke—free.

  As her consciousness finally faded.

  ---

  Sol felt as though the world were collapsing in on his head.

  With his newfound understanding, he had believed anything would be possible. Life had answered that belief with cruelty.

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  He had suffered not only pain, but humiliation. His village had found him not as a hero returning from triumph, but as a pitiful victim—dragged back from death by others.

  He wanted to blame everyone but himself.

  His grandfather, for not teaching him enough.

  The villagers, for not believing in him.

  His god, for withheld opportunity, for cryptic guidance and distant silence.

  But Sol knew the truth.

  The fault lay with him alone.

  With his overconfidence.

  With his stubbornness.

  He had known the god watched from the shadows, and yet he had chosen to challenge fate regardless.

  He had been given chances—moments to leave, to seek help. He ignored them all, convinced that only he could stop the miasma creeping toward the village.

  How laughable that belief seemed now, when the miasma had retreated the moment they neared home.

  How deluded he had been.

  He had never been a fire meant to destroy. The signs had been there—warnings, words, quiet insights meant to guide him elsewhere.

  Why had he ignored them?

  Sol buried his face into the rough fabric of his bed and cried.

  A grown man, weeping like a helpless child.

  He mocked himself for it, bitterness twisting through his grief.

  He had believed that suppressing everything—emotion, doubt, fear—and training without rest in what he deemed most productive would grant him the power he had seen in the chosen of Bahía Oscura.

  Marisol.

  The one who had healed him.

  She had shown a maturity he himself had never possessed. Their past disagreements had not weighed on her decision. She had offered no judgment—only her hand when he had fallen.

  Still, a part of him was relieved the fire-chosen had not been present.

  His sense of inadequacy had only grown since his defeat—a gnawing weight he tried to drown with pulque, though it never truly faded.

  He was grateful his grandfather had given him space.

  Even so, Sol resolved to visit the old man every day. Though others cared for the blind elder, Sol set aside the forge to spend time with him. He had stopped working metal altogether, choosing instead quiet companionship.

  It gave him time to think.

  Thoughts not of gods or power.

  Not of the forge or destiny.

  Mundane thoughts.

  Of daily life.

  Of his apprentice.

  Of a beautiful lady—whom he had ignored for far too long out of foolish pride.

  ---

  Mort pushed hard against the strange, wet fabric encasing him.

  He could see nothing in the dark, suffocating enclosure. Panic rose as he flailed against whatever bound him, striking with fists, feet, even his head, desperate to pierce the thick, moist membrane. His nails dug in again and again until, at last, something tore.

  A hole opened.

  He fought to widen it, straining for what felt like an eternity before the opening stretched just enough for him to force his way through. His body slid free with a sickening squelch, the tight seal resisting him until the very end.

  The ordeal only worsened when he landed in a heap of decay.

  Insects—dead and rotting—crunched beneath his weight, bursting and smearing foul juices across his bare skin. He was naked; whatever clothing he had once worn had dissolved inside the thing that birthed him.

  His head throbbed.

  The pain pulsed in time with his heartbeat—a rhythm steady and unfamiliar, as though his body no longer moved to the same cadence it once had.

  His thoughts felt… clear.

  Unsettlingly so.

  The sudden absence of noise inside his mind left him disoriented. No whispers. No pressure. Nothing but himself. The silence was vast—and lonely.

  Mort searched for Renata.

  She was nowhere to be seen.

  Yet panic did not come. Instead, he sensed her within him, deep and quiet—sleeping. The awareness settled into him with unexpected gentleness.

  He lifted his gaze to the morning sky.

  The dawn was still, deceptively peaceful despite the grotesque remnants surrounding him. Somehow, the sight steadied him. The light felt reassuring. Real.

  The changes that had remade him once again, Renata’s slumber within his gem, the silence both within his mind and across the waking world—

  All of it whispered of a tempestuous future.