Page 36 of We Were Meant to Burn (Ashes and Ruin Saga #1)

My mind stirred before my body, instincts snapping awake before my eyes even opened. Something was wrong.

The warmth at my back, the steady rise and fall of Malakai’s chest, his arm slung over my waist—all of it was familiar, safe. But the presence standing over us was not.

I forced my eyes open, my breath catching in my throat as I registered who was in the room.

The queen.

Malakai’s mother stood over the bed, her violet eyes gleaming in the dim light.

My stomach lurched, panic surging through me.

She didn’t speak at first, didn’t even glance at Malakai where he lay curled around me, his breathing deep and slow with sleep. Her focus was entirely on me, sharp and unwavering.

I wanted to move. To sit up. To defend myself—though I wasn’t even sure why. But the queen made no comment on the situation, as if Malakai’s body wrapped around mine was irrelevant. As if she had already known.

“Nix, my child,”

she murmured, her voice smooth as silk.

"It is time.”

I frowned, still groggy, my pulse a sluggish drum in my ears.

"Time for what?”

Her dark skirts rustled as she took a step closer, the scent of night-blooming jasmine curling around her like mist.

"Come with me,”

she said, urgency threading through her tone.

"Don’t wake Malakai. We must go now.”

Every instinct in my body screamed at me to say ‘no.’

I should stay. Should press myself closer into Malakai’s warmth and pretend I hadn’t heard her.

But something in the way she looked at me—the weight of her gaze, the knowing in her eyes—made my skin prickle. And more than that . . . I didn’t trust her.

Still, I forced myself to move. Slowly, carefully, I slipped from beneath Malakai’s arm, my breath held tight in my chest as he stirred but didn’t wake. The moment I was free of him, I already regretted it, the loss of his warmth making me feel exposed, vulnerable.

But I had to know what the queen was up to. Anything involving her affected Malakai, and for that reason and that reason alone, I had to know what I was up against.

Padding barefoot across the room, I followed the queen outside, my heart hammering louder with each step.

The night air was cool against my skin, a stark contrast to the heat still lingering on my body from Malakai. We stepped onto the bridges that wove between the massive trees, connecting the cabins like veins in a living organism. El Valle had settled into an eerie quiet, the lanterns along the bridges dimmed, leaving only the faint glow of fireflies to guide our way.

Everything felt . . . too quiet.

The queen walked ahead, silent, unhurried, moving with the grace of someone who knew exactly where she was going—and knew I would follow.

I swallowed hard as I realized we were heading deeper into El Valle. Somewhere I hadn’t been before. Somewhere hidden.

The trees grew denser, their branches twining together overhead, blocking out the moonlight. My unease thickened.

Then we stopped.

Before us, nestled within the base of an enormous white tree, was a cabin unlike the others. No lanterns flickered at its door, no vines curled in welcome. It stood in shadow, waiting.

A chill crept down my spine.

The queen lifted her hand, and without a word, the door creaked open.

“Inside,” she said.

I hesitated.

"What is this place?”

No answer.

Every nerve in my body was screaming, trap.

I turned, stealing a glance back toward the bridges, toward my cabin. Toward Malakai. Toward safety. But the queen was watching me, expectant.

And I knew I had no choice.

Steeling myself, I stepped through the doorway.

Darkness swallowed me whole.

The moment I crossed the threshold, the door slammed shut behind me with a heavy thud.

I spun, reaching for a weapon I didn’t have.

The vines moved.

They twisted around the frame, thick and pulsing with life, sealing me inside.

My mouth went dry. My heartbeat thundered in my ears.

I was trapped.

I swallowed hard, forcing my eyes to adjust to the blackness. The air was thick, humid, charged with something old and powerful. Magic brushed against my skin like a whisper, like a warning.

Then, from somewhere in the dark, the queen’s voice curled around me like smoke.

“It is time you learned the truth.”

“What’s going on?”

I demanded, my voice steady despite the way my pulse roared beneath my skin.

The queen didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she withdrew a small glass vial from the billowing sleeves of her dress, holding it up so that the faint light caught the milky liquid inside.

“I had to show you,”

she murmured.

Before I could ask what the hell she meant, she smashed the vial against the floor.

The glass shattered into razor-sharp shards, and a thick red mist curled into the air like blood spilling from an open wound.

The scent hit me first.

Rot. Decay.

Durian fruit and something worse, something wrong—like a corpse left too long in the sun. The stench invaded my lungs, gagging me, coating my throat with the taste of something rancid.

I staggered back, trying to turn away, but invisible ropes snapped tight around my arms, my chest, my throat—binding me in place.

I gasped, but no air came.

The queen stood watching me, her expression unreadable, as if she hadn’t just stolen the air from my lungs, as if she wasn’t watching me struggle to move.

“My potion will wear off in a few minutes,”

she said, her tone maddeningly calm.

"But I knew you wouldn’t listen to me otherwise.”

Terror sank its claws into my spine, cold and unrelenting.

“Why are you doing this?”

I rasped, barely able to squeeze the words out past the unseen bonds constricting my ribs.

She exhaled, a slow, measured thing.

"Because I tried to prevent this.”

Deep grooves lined her mouth, as if she had spent centuries carrying a weight heavier than any crown. But I didn’t care.

She was talking in riddles, toying with me, controlling me.

I bared my teeth, fighting the restraints even as my limbs refused to obey.

"Prevent what? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you succeeded.”

I yanked against the invisible force pinning me down, my body straining against it.

"You caught me in a damn trap.”

The queen sighed, crossing the room with slow, deliberate steps, before lowering herself into a massive rosebud chair. The petals curled around her like armor, like a throne carved from thorns.

“No, you silly child.”

She waved a hand dismissively, her voice as sharp as the thorns wrapped around her wrists.

"Stop struggling. You’ll be free to move in a moment.”

I didn’t stop.

Not until she spoke again.

“I’m talking about the River of Time,”

she said, her voice shifting, something old and weary weaving between her words.

"How sometimes, no matter what you do to stop it, no matter how many stones you throw in its path, the river still finds its way to the ocean. To its destination. To destiny.”

I stilled, wariness prickling at the base of my neck.

I didn’t trust her. Not for a second.

But that didn’t mean I wasn’t listening.

“What are you talking about?”

I demanded. My voice was rough, hoarse.

Her violet eyes met mine, dark and knowing.

"Your friends are going to die.”

Ice stabbed through my veins.

She didn’t stop.

“My son will die.”

My lungs locked. My body stopped fighting.

The words rang in my skull like a bell tolling a death sentence.

The air in the cabin had been thick before. Now, it was suffocating.

“How do you know that?”

My voice was barely a whisper.

The queen studied me for a long moment, as if debating how much she should reveal.

Then, finally—

“The best answer I can give you—the only answer that will make sense to your human mind—is that I can call upon the powers of a Futuradora.”

My blood ran cold.

A Futuradora.

The hairs on my arms rose, my stomach coiling with unease.

Futuradoras practiced the Prohibidos. Their magic was forbidden for a reason.

I had fought people who dabbled in such things. I had seen what it did to them—how it twisted them, turned them into something monstrous.

And now Malakai’s mother was telling me she was one of them?

A sickness settled in my gut.

Of course, Malakai had left that part out.

I cursed him silently, then cursed myself for letting myself get cornered by her.

She was powerful. Too powerful.

I forced myself to breathe, to focus on the one thing that mattered.

“What exactly did you see?”

I asked, my voice low, dangerous. “Tell me.”

She watched me for a moment longer, something strange flickering in her gaze.

Then she leaned forward, her lips curling into something that wasn’t quite a smile.

“I saw a future where you fail.”

The words lodged themselves in my chest, a blade between my ribs.

Where I fail.

Where they die.

Where Malakai dies.

Despite how much those words terrified me. I knew better than to take her word at face value.

“Why would I ever believe a word that comes out of your mouth?”

The words left me like a blade unsheathed, sharp and deliberate, honed by the months I had spent questioning everything—every person, every promise, every moment of quiet that felt too good to be true.

The queen reeled back as if I had slapped her, her violet eyes flickering with something unreadable.

"Whatever my son has told you about me, I promise you—there are two sides to every story.”

I scoffed, like that alone could shield me from whatever game she was playing.

"I think I’ll stick to the side I know I can trust.”

Her lips parted slightly, then pressed into a firm line. “Fine.”

She lifted her chin, the crimson shade of her hair catching the candlelight.

"Think what you will about me. Think I’m some manipulative, controlling queen if it makes you feel better.”

Her voice sharpened, cutting through the thick air between us.

"At the very least, trust that I need Malakai alive. I still have use for him.”

Something twisted in my gut at the admission.

I had spent the last several weeks trying to understand Malakai, to know him in ways that went beyond duty and obligation. But his mother—his own mother—saw him as nothing more than a tool. A thing to be wielded.

“Now that’s the most honest thing you’ve probably ever said to me,”

I muttered, but my voice lacked its usual bite.

The queen exhaled sharply, the elegant mask of regality slipping ever so slightly.

"Then believe me when I say that I never wanted this to happen. That I was sure I would be able to stop it.”

A shadow crossed her face, something like resignation settling in the fine lines around her mouth.

"But some fates are sealed.”

Dread curled in my stomach, heavy and suffocating.

“I don’t understand.”

Liar.

I did understand. I understood exactly what she was saying, what she was implying.

This was my fear. My greatest fear. The one I had barely whispered to myself in the dead of night.

That something would happen to Malakai and his crew. That they would suffer, that they would die—and that it would be my fault.

I could still hear my own voice echoing off the walls of that cave, the raw confession I had given Malakai when it was just the two of us, surrounded by darkness.

“I am the danger, Malakai.”

And yet, somehow, it still hadn’t been enough to drive him away.

The queen covered her face with both hands, her shoulders rising and falling with a heavy breath.

"There’s only one way to prevent what will surely happen if you continue traveling with my son’s team.”

A chill seeped into my bones, a creeping, insidious thing that coiled around my ribs like a serpent.

The queen’s voice was hushed, almost mournful, but every word landed like a strike.

“It doesn’t matter where you go, how long you run, how far you push ahead. The result is always the same.”

She looked at me then, gaze heavy with certainty.

"You’ll never be happy, Nightshade. You will always be running. Always looking over your shoulder.”

She took a slow, measured step closer.

"And in the end, they always die.”

I swayed slightly, my balance tilting, the ground beneath me shifting like sand.

“No.”

The word was small, brittle.

Her lips pressed into a scowl.

"Who do you think does it, girl?”

I went still.

My breath came sharp and shallow, my lungs unable to pull in enough air.

“You already know the answer,”

she murmured, head tilting slightly, like she was watching the realization settle over me.

"You just don’t want to say it.”

I forced my voice to work, forced the word through numb lips. “Who?”

The queen leaned in, her violet eyes glittering in the candlelight.

“You do, of course.”

The room tilted.

Something cold and sharp plunged into my chest, and for a moment, I thought I had been stabbed.

She was lying.

She had to be lying.

But her words—her words slid into the cracks of my mind like poison, latching onto something I had already feared for so long, something that had festered in the darkest corners of my soul.

I felt sick.

I felt cursed.

No. No. I would never—

I opened my mouth to say as much, to hurl the words back at her, to deny what she was suggesting, but my voice failed me.

Because what if—

What if she was right?

What if my magic did slip?

What if I did lose control?

I had done it before.

I had killed before.

Both with and without purpose.

And most recently, in order to protect those I cared about.

But did intent even matter when bodies were left behind?

The queen watched the war unfold on my face, a slow, cruel smile tugging at her lips.

“Don’t believe me?”

she asked, her tone suddenly sharp, edged with something almost like mockery. She lifted a hand and motioned toward the wash basin tucked in the corner of the room.

"Look into the water.”

The flickering candlelight cast strange shadows along the smooth surface of the basin, the water shimmering like glass.

A deep, gnawing fear curled around my ribs, pulling tight.

I didn’t want to look.

I didn’t want to see.

But the sensation of paralysis ebbed from my limbs, like an invisible boa constrictor unwinding from my chest. My fingers twitched, then curled into fists. I could move now, I should move—straight for the door, straight out—but my feet betrayed me.

I eyed the queen warily, suspicion curling around my ribs like a vice.

“What will I see?”

I asked, my voice steadier than I felt.

The queen’s violet gaze turned distant, the edges of her lips curling as if she already knew the answer and was merely waiting for me to catch up.

"Not what, but whom.”

A fresh wave of unease rippled through me.

“I will show you two truths,”

she continued, her voice slipping into something almost hypnotic.

"Whether you choose to believe them is up to you. But they will be truths all the same.”

A gust of wind slithered through the hollow, rattling the vines of the ceiling, sweeping dry leaves across the floor in a whispering hush. The hair along my arms rose as if charged with static, my marca tingling beneath my skin.

I couldn’t tell if it was the magic in the air or my own rising dread.

My instincts screamed that I shouldn’t listen to her. That I shouldn’t play into whatever twisted game she was spinning.

But another voice whispered louder.

What if she’s telling the truth?

The queen had been right about one thing—fear had taken root inside me long before this moment. Fear of what I was, of what I could become. Fear of my own hands, my own power.

And she was playing me like a finely tuned instrument, plucking every note of dread, pressing every raw nerve.

My stomach churned as I took a cautious step toward the basin.

The water lay still, undisturbed. A perfect, glass-like surface reflecting the dim candlelight.

I hesitated.

“What is this?”

I asked, my voice edged with distrust.

“A glimpse,”

she murmured, “at what you refuse to see.”

I didn’t trust her. I couldn’t trust her.

But still, I moved forward.

One step. Then another.

I hovered over the bowl, staring down at my reflection—my dark eyes wide, wary, the tension in my shoulders visible even in the wavering light.

At first, the water remained clear.

Then—

A ripple.

A disturbance that hadn’t come from me.

Pearly mist curled from the depths, swirling like a restless storm trapped beneath the surface.

The air around me turned thick, heavy with the scent of damp earth and something cloying, like decayed flowers left too long in stagnant water.

My breath hitched.

I should step back.

I should.

But the mist pulled me in, my body tipping forward of its own accord.

My nose hovered an inch from the surface when the ground beneath me seemed to disappear.

And suddenly—

I fell.

Through mist, through shadows, through something vast and endless—

Straight into the vision.

The scent of sandalwood and burning copal filled my lungs as I stood before the grand archway of the Rojano Palace. The air shimmered with the heat of the torches lining the golden columns, their flickering flames casting shadows that stretched and slithered along the walls, twisting into jaguars, serpents, and things with too many eyes.

I shouldn’t be here.

But my feet carried me forward, passing beneath the golden arches of the entryway, through corridors so familiar they might as well have been etched into my bones. The ceilings soared above me, vast and endless, their frescoed surfaces painted with the stories of Las Madres. Mosaics lined the walls, an opulent tapestry of multicolored stones inlaid with sapphires and rubies. Diamonds and emeralds sparkled from the eyes of the goddesses, their unblinking gazes following me, watching.

Always watching.

The silence was thick, heavy, pressing in around me like a second skin. My footsteps echoed against the polished floors—gold and jade slats carved with intricate scenes of dragons and jaguars locked in eternal battle. I moved as though submerged in honey, my body slow, weightless, like the air itself was trying to keep me suspended in this moment.

This isn’t real.

And yet, the obsidian jaguars standing guard along the great hall seemed to breathe, their gemstone eyes glinting with something alive, something waiting. Gold and jade encased their limbs—elegant, pristine—but beneath that, I could see it. The cracks. The fractures.

Like something had tried to break free from beneath their gilded shells.

I swallowed hard and kept walking.

The palace twisted around me, shifting with each step, grand hallways unfurling like vines, leading me deeper into its heart. Each corridor was more opulent than the last, the murals growing darker, more violent—scenes of war, of goddesses with burning hands smiting the weak, of bodies thrown onto pyres as smoke twisted into the heavens.

I tried to turn back.

But the hall stretched forward, endless and yawning, pulling me with it.

I knew where it would take me before I arrived.

The throne room.

A cavernous space with dragon-sized windows that bled molten gold light over the city below. The walls were draped in crimson and obsidian tapestries, their woven images shifting as I approached, telling a story that I had memorized long ago.

Mother’s victories.

Her conquests.

The battles she had fought, the cities she had burned, the empires she had crushed beneath her heel. The threads shimmered as if still slick with the blood that had been spilled to weave them.

I inhaled sharply, my pulse hammering against my ribs.

There was something wrong with the air here. It pulsed with energy, thick and cloying, alive in a way that set my teeth on edge. It filled my lungs, curled around my skin, and slithered through my veins like a whisper of something ancient, something hungry.

I turned toward the throne.

The dais rose before me, carved from bone and inlaid with jade, the woven crimson carpet leading to it soaked in shadow.

A memory—not mine, but something deeper, something older—pressed against the edges of my mind.

I had knelt here before.

Had bowed before her.

I stepped forward, and suddenly I was moving without meaning to, my body carrying me down the aisle, each step reverberating through the floor like the strike of a war drum.

I should stop. I should.

But I didn’t.

The throne loomed above me, vast and unyielding, an altar to power, to blood.

I dropped to my knees before it, my fingers digging into the soft fibers of the rug beneath me. The scent of incense thickened, smoke curling around me like a caress, wrapping over my shoulders, my throat.

Whispers slithered through the air, curling around me like smoke—familiar and strange all at once. Some sounded like voices I knew. Others, I hoped I’d never hear again. They layered over the distant roar of flames, the clash of steel, a wail that wasn’t mine but still lodged itself deep in my bones like it belonged there.

The voices coiled tighter, seeping beneath my skin.

Dig. Unearth. Remember.

My fingers twitched.

The rug beneath my knees felt wrong now—too thick, too intentional. Like it was hiding something.

The whispers sharpened, rising in a low, urgent chant that pressed against the inside of my skull.

Beneath. Beneath. Beneath.

I didn’t think. I just acted.

My hands slid under the heavy weave, expecting cool marble or maybe the polished jade of the throne room. But instead, I found metal.

Cold. Old. A handle.

My breath caught.

My heart thundered against my ribs, warning me, begging me, but I closed my fingers around it anyway.

I pulled.

The rug bunched and twisted as a hidden door groaned open beneath it—hinges shrieking, air thick with dust and memory.

Darkness gaped at me. A staircase, narrow and spiraling, disappeared into the void below.

My stomach twisted so hard it hurt.

How had I never seen this? Never felt it? I’d stood in this room more times than I could count—under Mother’s eyes, beneath her blade of a voice—and never once sensed what lay beneath my feet.

Had it always been here? Buried beneath gold and silence and blood?

Or had it just been waiting for me to be ready to see it?

The whispers didn’t stop.

They urged.

They pulled.

And—Las Madres help me—I listened.

I swallowed hard and stepped onto the first stone stair.

The light from the throne room shrank behind me, dimming with every step until the torches above flickered like dying stars, then vanished altogether.

Darkness swallowed me whole.

The air changed as I descended, thickening, clinging to my skin like sweat and smoke. It pressed against my lungs with each breath, too still. Too silent. Too wrong.

Something about it felt ancient. Undisturbed.

Dead.

With every step, the scent of rot rose around me—damp earth, mildew, something sour and spoiled curling through the air like it had been waiting for someone to disturb it.

The stairwell twisted downward in a tight, unnatural spiral, like a serpent coiling deeper into the earth. And the further I went, the less the walls felt like stone.

They felt . . . aware.

Waiting.

A rat skittered over my foot, shrieking as it vanished into the dark. I nearly jumped, my hand shooting out to steady myself against the wall—only to recoil at the cold slickness beneath my palm.

Don’t turn back.

I’d come this far.

At last, my feet touched level ground. The passage spilled out into a narrow chamber, ending at a heavy stone door.

Its surface pulsed faintly, carved with unfamiliar runes that seemed to shimmer when I looked too long, like they were breathing.

The whispers stopped.

The silence that followed was worse.

I stared at the door, my hand hovering inches from the handle.

I didn’t want to open it. Every part of me screamed not to open it.

But I had to.

Because something was waiting.

And I was done running from the truth.

I drew in a breath that didn’t steady me and pushed against the stone. It groaned like it resented being touched, the grinding echo scraping down my spine as the door swung open and revealed—

A tomb.

The air inside hit me like a slap—cold, too cold, despite the heavy scent of dust and age. It smelled like memory. Like something the world had tried to forget.

The chamber was small, carved with unnerving precision. The walls shimmered faintly with runes etched in delicate, ancient script. They pulsed like they knew I was there. Like they recognized me.

At the center, two caskets sat side by side.

But they weren’t sarcophagi.

They were small.

Urn-sized.

My stomach twisted, bile rising in my throat.

Two towering obelisks stood guard, carved into the likeness of a man and woman, their gazes cast downward in eternal vigil. Silent. Watching.

The male figure was impossibly detailed. Striking. Deep-set emerald eyes glinted in the dimness, as if the stone itself was alive. His long hair flowed over his shoulders, framing a face built of sharp lines and silent strength. Power radiated from him—broad shoulders, sinewed arms, the kind of presence that demanded you kneel before you even knew why.

He wore a quetzal headdress, every feather captured mid-motion. So lifelike, I thought they might shift with my breath.

Carved into the stone across his chest was an ouroboros—a dragon devouring its own tail.

Eternal. Unyielding.

My pulse thundered in my ears.

I knew him.

Not by name. Not by history. But in the marrow of my bones.

Like I’d seen his face in dreams I didn’t remember having.

Like he was the echo I’d been chasing my entire life.

I stepped closer, my breath catching on the weight of the room. The truth pressed against me, cold and undeniable.

And suddenly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know who lay inside those caskets.

Because somewhere deep down—in that dark, instinctual part of me that always knew what I wasn’t supposed to—

I feared I already did.

My fingers traced the lines of the carved tattoo, my breath catching in my throat.

I knew this symbol.

The dragon eating its own tail.

Danixtl’s totem.

I used to play with a small, delicate replica of it when I was a child, tracing its endless cycle as Mother tucked me into bed. A soothing motion, a lullaby made of stone. But here, now, seeing it branded over this man’s heart, carved into the cold, unyielding obelisk that stood sentinel over his grave—it wasn’t soothing at all.

It was something else entirely.

I dragged my fingers lower, ghosting over the sunburst etched into his chest. A marca. The sigil of the Sun Goddess, Tochlin.

My stomach dropped.

This man had been of the Mondragón family.

Like me.

A sudden, icy chill swept through me, crawling under my skin and seeping into my bones. I rubbed my arms, trying to shake the feeling, but the cold remained, as if something unseen had settled over my shoulders, breathing down my neck.

The man’s casket loomed before me, carved with symbols of the sun, radiating outward in a brilliant golden blaze. But between the flames, nestled in the spaces where the light should have touched, were sigils I knew all too well.

Runes of damnation.

Symbols of entrapment.

Curses.

I exhaled sharply, the weight of understanding pressing down on me. Whoever he had been, whatever he had done—it hadn’t been enough for them to simply bury him. They had condemned him. Cursed him even in the afterlife, ensuring that his sins, whatever they were, would never be forgiven.

I swallowed, forcing my gaze away.

And then I saw her.

The woman standing beside him.

Breathtaking. Otherworldly. The kind of beauty that didn’t feel real, as if it had been carved by the goddesses themselves. Her hair cascaded down in thick waves, spilling over her shoulders, pooling at her feet like an obsidian river. High cheekbones framed full lips set with rubies, gleaming darkly in the dim light. Her eyes, inlaid with polished obsidian, reflected nothing, revealing nothing.

She was magnificent. Regal. A queen in her own right.

And yet, what drew me in—what unraveled me—was the marca on her forehead.

A hummingbird.

The sigil of Quiacatl, the Goddess of Death.

My goddess.

My hand trembled as I pressed it against my chest, fingers tracing the same symbol burned into my own skin. The marca that had defined me, that had marked me as something other. Something feared.

Was she Mondragón as well?

And if so, why had her marca been placed on her forehead instead of over her heart?

A thousand questions swarmed my mind, each one colliding into the next. Who were they? What had they done to be hidden beneath Danixtl’s throne, their existence erased, their names cursed for eternity?

I stepped closer, drawn to the woman’s casket like a moth to flame. My fingers hesitated, then brushed against the stone, tracing the stories carved into its surface.

A parade of hummingbirds stretched across the panel, their tiny forms harnessed to a celestial chariot. Quiacatl, the death goddess, sat atop it, her skeletal hands outstretched as she guided them across the sky, leading the souls of the dead into the Underworld.

Beautiful.

Terrifying.

Lining the edges of the casket were more runes, their meanings pressing into my mind like whispered secrets.

Confinement.

Containment.

A prison, even in death.

I wrenched my hand back as if burned, my pulse roaring in my ears.

Whatever these two had done—whatever crimes they had committed—it had been enough for the goddesses themselves to curse them beyond the grave.

A sick, twisting feeling settled deep in my gut.

“Who are you?”

I whispered, my voice barely more than a breath against the thick silence of the tomb.

The words weren’t meant for anyone. They were an offering to the dead, to the cursed, to the wretched figures entombed beneath Danixtl’s throne.

But someone answered.

“It’s a punishment.”

I whirled around, my heart lurching into my throat. My hands shot out instinctively, searching for a weapon, anything solid to wield, but there was nothing. No blade, no jagged stone. Just the caskets and the quiet hum of something far older, far more powerful than me.

A woman stepped forward, the shadows peeling away as if the very darkness itself yielded to her presence. Her black hair cascaded down in thick waves, catching the light like liquid obsidian. A robe of gold, embroidered with intricate turquoise thread, draped over her shoulders, shimmering as she moved.

She smiled softly, her eyes dark as the void itself.

"My, how you’ve grown.”

A chill slid down my spine.

I took a step back, my body coiled tight, ready to run if I needed to.

"Do I know you?”

My voice was steady, but something inside me cracked wide open, warning me that I wasn’t prepared for the answer.

The woman sighed, a soft, weary sound. Not of disappointment, but of inevitability.

"I suppose not.”

Her shoulders slumped, as if she had been carrying a weight for a very, very long time.

"Though, I hear your prayers when you think no one is listening.”

My stomach flipped.

I didn’t pray. Not to anyone—except Quiacatl.

My breath hitched. I spun on my heel, my eyes darting toward the casket, toward the carved image of the woman entombed within, toward the marca of the hummingbird branded into her forehead.

No.

No.

I turned back sharply, my pulse roaring in my ears.

The woman stood before me, her expression unreadable.

Dark waves of hair. Lips carved from rubies. Eyes of endless night.

Quiacatl.

My goddess.

The Goddess of Death herself.

I stared, my breath frozen in my lungs, unable to move, unable to comprehend.

Impossible.

How?

A sandstorm of questions battered against my ribs, but only one made it past my lips.

"How is this possible?”

Quiacatl’s smile deepened, but it was sad, aching. A goddess should not know sorrow, and yet, there was something deeply human in her gaze.

She stepped forward, closing the distance between us, but not touching.

"I asked a favor of my sisters, Xiomara and Yolozoc, to bring you here tonight so I could tell you the truth.”

“Xiomara? Yolozoc?”

Their names left my lips in a whisper, as if saying them too loudly would shatter the world around me. The Goddess of Dreams. The Goddess of Time.

The realization hit like a blow to the chest.

This was why Malakai’s mother had come to me.

This was why she had drugged me, why she had led me into this vision.

She was doing this at the behest of my goddess.

A heavy weight pressed against my chest, my knees nearly buckling under the enormity of it all.

“I don’t have much time,”

Quiacatl said, her voice dipping lower, her dark eyes filled with something akin to urgency.

"Your father is distracting the guardians. He wanted to be here, but sent me ahead so we could talk.”

The ground beneath me tilted.

My father.

But—Danixtl had said—

I cut off the thought before it could unravel completely.

Danixtl had lied. About everything.

Why would I ever believe her about my father?

My mouth opened, but I had no words.

Quiacatl took another step forward, her golden robes whispering against the stone.

"I’ve tried to reach you for so long, so many years,”

she murmured, pain bleeding into her voice.

"But Danixtl had her talons in you.”

Her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

"I heard your prayers, saw your spirit, even though I could do nothing to comfort you. I have been watching over you.”

A lump rose in my throat, thick and suffocating.

Too much.

This was too much.

It was enough to shatter someone, these truths long hidden and buried, welling to the surface like something rotten breaking through.

I took a step back.

"What do you want with me?”

My voice trembled, my hands shaking.

"Why did you call me here?”

Quiacatl’s expression shifted, sorrow shadowing her features.

“Everything Danixtl has ever told you is a lie,”

she said solemnly.

"I am here to tell you the truth.”

Dread pooled in my stomach.

No.

I wasn’t ready.

I thought I was ready, but some things are too much for one person to handle. Too much for them to bear.

But Quiacatl continued.

“The truth about your family.”

She met my gaze, unwavering.

"Your real family.”

My breath came shallow, unsteady.

“I don’t understand,”

I whispered, but the weight pressing against my ribs told me I did.

Somewhere deep inside me, in the places I refused to look, in the corners of my soul I had long since shut away, I already knew.

The death goddess sighed, the weight of ages pressing into the curve of her shoulders. Her dark eyes shimmered with something sorrowful, something that made my stomach twist.

“I will start at the beginning.”

Her voice had changed. It was no longer just speech but something older, something woven with the cadence of prophecy, a lullaby laced with grief.

“The Mondragón family once had a prophet. A seer who gazed into the River of Time and saw only ruin reflected back at her.”

The air in the tomb thickened, pressing against my skin, against my ribs, against my lungs. The breath I tried to take came shallow, strained.

“She foresaw the end of her line—the death of her entire family. The Mondragón Empress, terrified, did what all rulers do when faced with an unchangeable fate.”

Quiacatl’s golden robes whispered against the stone as she began to pace, her gaze far away, as if she were watching the past unravel before her.

“She sought to change it. She sought the help of forbidden magic by scouring the earth for anything that could change the River’s course, anything that could twist fate in her favor.”

A chill slid through me, sinking into my bones.

“And she found it.”

The room darkened, shadows pooling in the corners like ink spreading across parchment.

“She found me.”

My mouth went dry.

Quiacatl turned to me, her obsidian eyes gleaming.

"She found the cage my sisters had locked me inside.”

I flinched at the words, at the quiet venom beneath them.

I knew this part of the histories. How the Goddesses of Beasts, Death, Time, and Future had been imprisoned by their own sisters for daring to bestow greater magic upon their daughters than the rest.

“The Mondragón Empress came to me with a bargain.”

Quiacatl’s voice softened, but there was no kindness in it. Only the quiet acceptance of something unchangeable.

"She offered me my freedom. In return, she asked me to create a weapon powerful enough to defy fate, to protect her bloodline from destruction.”

My heart pounded so hard it hurt.

“I agreed.”

I felt sick.

“But magic cannot be created from nothing.”

I knew what was coming. Goddess help me, I knew.

“A sacrifice had to be made.”

The torches flickered violently, their flames hissing. The carvings on the caskets seemed to twist, the hummingbirds frozen mid-flight, their tiny stone wings trembling.

“And not just any sacrifice. Something worthy. Something powerful enough to bind the spell in blood and soul.”

The death goddess turned to face me fully now, and there was something new in her expression. A quiet sorrow. A resignation.

A tear slid down her cheek.

“Since love is the most powerful magic of all,”

she murmured, “the sacrifice had to be made out of love.”

Something clawed at my ribs, at my throat, at my very being.

“Your mother, the Mondragón Empress,”

Quiacatl whispered, “offered her own life in exchange.”

My breath turned to ice.

“And on the night of your birth, you were born dead.”

The words slammed into me like a physical blow. I staggered back, my hands trembling at my sides, my body recoiling from the truth before I even understood it.

“To complete the ritual, she asked her husband, the Queen Consort, to help her make the sacrifice.”

My father.

“But he was heartsick. And he loved her too much. So, he refused.”

No.

No, no, no.

My pulse roared in my ears, my knees threatening to buckle beneath me.

“Your mother was a powerful Mentedor, much like her sister,”

Quiacatl continued, her voice quiet, deliberate.

"She seized your father’s mind and forced him to complete the ritual.”

I gasped.

The room tilted.

The ground beneath me was gone, free-falling beneath the weight of this revelation.

“And as her life faded from her body . . .”

Quiacatl’s voice was no more than a whisper now.

“Your own heart began to beat.”

My stomach twisted violently, nausea clawing up my throat.

I shook my head, stumbling back, hands clenching at the fabric over my ribs, as if I could reach inside and rip out the thing that had been created from my own mother’s death.

“No.”

The word barely scraped out, hoarse and raw.

But the truth was already sinking in, black and venomous, tainting everything I thought I knew.

I was never meant to be a child.

I was never meant to be loved.

I was a bargain.

A sacrifice.

A weapon.

Terror wrapped its cold fingers around my throat, and I knew, with bone-deep certainty—

There was no fate more cursed than the one I had been born into.

I stumbled back, my breath a jagged rasp in my throat. My shoulder slammed into the stone statue behind me—into him.

Not just a statue.

Not just a man.

My father.

The realization hit like a blade driven between my ribs. The world spun, the floor tilting beneath me as though it might swallow me whole.

My vision blurred as the walls of the tomb seemed to close in, as if the weight of the past had suddenly grown so immense it would crush me beneath it. The air turned thick, choking, pressing against my lungs like iron bands.

Quiacatl moved quickly, catching my arm before I could collapse completely. Her grip was firm, but not unkind.

"The story isn’t finished yet,”

she murmured, her voice low, insistent.

"You must hear the rest.”

I shook my head, trying to clear the ringing in my ears. “I—”

My tongue felt heavy, unwieldy in my mouth. The words wouldn’t come.

She waited until I managed to nod, then continued.

“All would have been well had the queen’s own sister not refused to believe the truth.”

Quiacatl’s gaze darkened, her sorrow twisting into something sharper, edged with fury.

"Danixtl would not accept that her sister had willingly given her life for you.”

My stomach turned violently.

“She refused to believe that such a sacrifice was made out of love.”

Quiacatl exhaled through her nose, slow and controlled, but there was an old, simmering rage beneath it.

"Instead, she twisted the story in her mind, convinced herself that your father had murdered her sister out of greed, out of lust for power.”

A bitter, disbelieving laugh scraped its way up my throat.

Of course she did.

I could picture it too clearly—the way Danixtl must have sat there, her mind spinning webs of betrayal, her heart so hollowed out by her refusal to accept the truth that she built a new one entirely.

A throne built on vengeance.

A throne built on me.

“She vowed to avenge her sister,”

Quiacatl continued, her voice growing colder, heavier.

"And did so by calling upon the powers of Sangruje to bind the Malditas to her will.”

A chill ran through me.

Sangruje. Blood magic.

The oldest, darkest kind.

“And with the Malditas at her command,”

Quiacatl said, “Danixtl murdered your father.”

A sharp, strangled sound clawed out of my throat.

The casket behind me—his casket. The stone was warm beneath my palms, as though the ghost of him still lingered there.

I pressed my fingers against the carving, against the stone that had been carved into his likeness.

Murdered.

Murdered for something he never even did.

“And when that was not enough,”

Quiacatl whispered, her voice nearly lost to the silence, “she bound me to this tomb. Trapped me here so I could never speak the truth.”

She lifted her hand and pointed toward the casket that stood beside my father’s.

A goddess’s tomb.

Cold dread crawled up my spine, my pulse pounding so hard I could feel it in my skull.

“To punish me further,”

Quiacatl said, her lips twisting with grief, “she stole the goddess-child. Knowing that doing so would torment me for eternity.”

My pulse stuttered.

Goddess-child.

Goddess-child.

The words echoed through my skull like a war drum.

“And in the end,”

Quiacatl murmured, her voice raw, “the prophecy came true. The Mondragón family fell. The bloodline was severed. And the goddess-child—”

Her obsidian eyes found mine.

“Was taken.”

Something inside me cracked.

I stumbled back, my knees giving out, the stone floor rushing up to meet me. Dust swirled in the air, curling around me like ghosts, like all the pieces of myself that had just shattered and scattered across the room.

This was it.

The truth.

The thing Danixtl had buried so deep, I had never even thought to search for it.

I wasn’t just a prisoner of her making.

I wasn’t just a tool she had sharpened for her own use.

I wasn’t just her weapon.

I was her lie.

I had spent my entire life living in the remnants of a war I never even knew existed. A war that had been waged before I had even taken my first breath.

And now, as I knelt before the ruins of my past, before the broken remains of the people who should have raised me, the people who had loved me before I ever had the chance to love them back—

I realized I had never truly been free.

Not once.

Not ever.

A cold hand pressed against my shoulder, grounding me before I could shatter completely.

I blinked, and Quiacatl was kneeling before me, her obsidian eyes heavy with sorrow. The weight of something ancient and unspoken settled between us, pressing into my ribs, curling around my lungs.

“You are the goddess-child, Nix,”

she said softly. The words fell like stones into the stillness, their weight sinking deep into my chest.

"The lost Mondragón princess. And the true Empress of Rojas.”

I shook my head, unable to breathe past the truth she had just placed in my hands.

No.

No, that couldn’t be right.

I wasn’t—

A shriek ripped through the silence, sharp and unnatural, echoing off the stone walls.

Quiacatl’s head snapped up, her expression darkening as her gaze fixed on something I couldn’t see. The ground beneath us trembled, as if the palace itself could feel what was coming.

A guttural snarl followed.

Then another.

Then—chaos.

The sounds of battle erupted from somewhere beyond the tomb. Clashing steel. The wet, sickening crunch of bone. The snap of jaws closing around flesh.

My heart lurched into my throat.

“No—”

Quiacatl hissed under her breath, her fingers tightening on my arm. She turned back to me, her face now drawn with fear.

"I can’t stay any longer. The guardians are coming.”

I didn’t understand.

Guardians?

A violent shudder ripped through the walls, sending dust and stone crumbling from the ceiling. The snarls grew closer, their reverberations pressing into my bones.

Whatever was coming—it was coming for me. I did not belong here.

“Wait—”

I clung to Quiacatl’s hand, desperate.

"I have so many questions—”

“There’s no time!”

she said sharply.

The shadows shifted behind her, stretching into monstrous shapes, moving in unnatural ways. The air thickened, turned sharp and heavy, and the scent of blood filled my nose.

Quiacatl’s grip on me tightened. Then she shoved something into my palm.

"To protect you.”

I barely had time to look down before her fingers curled over mine, forcing them closed around whatever she had given me.

Jade. Cold and smooth against my skin.

I pried my fingers open just enough to see—a jade amulet.

A hummingbird.

The same sigil I bore on my skin.

A chill that had nothing to do with the tomb’s damp air snaked down my spine.

Quiacatl looked over her shoulder. Whatever she saw made her expression twist with urgency.

“Run!”

she commanded, shoving me back, her strength inhuman. The air around us howled as something massive descended upon the tomb.

"Don’t look back!”

The air crackled with power. The temperature plummeted.

Then—

The shadows surged forward.

I didn’t wait to see what happened next.

I turned and ran.

The stone beneath my feet shifted, and the walls groaned as I sprinted up the spiral staircase, taking the steps two at a time. My pulse roared in my ears, drowning out the chaos behind me.

I reached the top and burst back into the throne room, skidding to my knees as I reached for the hidden panel in the floor.

With shaking hands, I shoved the secret door shut, sealing the tomb once more.

The moment it clicked into place, the weight of everything hit me all at once.

My breath came in sharp, gasping heaves. The jade amulet was still clutched tight in my fist, the edges digging into my palm.

I stared down at it, my mind racing, my heart pounding.

I had entered that tomb as Nix—an assassin, Danixtl’s weapon, a girl with a cursed past and cursed future.

And I had emerged as something else entirely.

The goddess-child.

The lost Mondragón princess.

The true Empress of Rojas.

The words echoed through my skull, but I wasn’t sure if I could believe them.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to believe them.

Because if they were true—

Then everything I thought I knew about myself had been a lie.