What is sacrifice?
Something that you value so deeply.
Given in exchange for the greater good.
The only thing holding you back is your own greed.
Let yourself free of inhibitions.
And feel your soul be free.
The owls screamed behind him — wings of cactus thorns slicing air, talons scratching wind. Cenotlatlacatl ran, breath heavy, heart calm. Xarátenga's blessing kept his mind sharp, his thoughts clear. But even so, he knew the odds were shifting.
He needed something more.
He shut his eyes mid-run, nearly colliding into a thicket of thorns.
And he prayed:
"Mictēcacihuatl… help me see."
In the darkness of his mind, a single owl appeared.
Not of flesh or feather — but woven from bone dust and dried cempoalxochitl petals.
Its wings didn't flap — they opened like scrolls of skin, glowing faintly with orange veins.
It perched before him, silent.
Then came the pulse.
The cempoalxochitl pattern on his face ignited, golden-orange and red, spreading out from the crescent on his chest.
Ashlight.
The desert flashed.
The cactus owls faltered mid-flight — not from pain, but from recognition.
They saw it.
The mark.
The Queen's chosen.
They shrieked and vanished into the maze of cacti.
Cenotlatlacatl collapsed to his knees, then to his side, gasping.
The last glow of ashlight faded from his skin.
A breeze whispered across the desert, carrying marigold and earth.
"Thank you… my lady of the dead."
---
His body trembled, spent.
And then — he moved with intention.
He extended his left arm — torn, bloodied from the owl attacks, mangled and near-useless.
Not to shield.
Not to crawl.
But to offer.
He extended his claws and sank it into his arms, a sickening sound echoed into the night. Flesh being torn. Blood dripped. And his scream carried out into the silence.
He pressed it into the dirt.
"This is yours."
An offering of gratitude.
Not to gain power. Not to bargain.
But to say thank you.
The desert responded.
The dirt cracked gently beneath his arm — not in violence, but in acceptance.
From the wound, his flesh shifted.
It didn't bleed.
It didn't heal.
It transformed.
The skin darkened, shimmered — turning to obsidian, sleek and polished like ancient blades.
Bone structure defined itself beneath the black glass — not fragile, but elegant and eternal.
From elbow to wrist, cempoalxochitl petals bloomed, wrapping around the arm like scales or feathers.
Bright gold. Deep orange. Living fire on stone.
But at the hand — the petals stopped.
The fingers were bare obsidian bone, sculpted, divine.
Etched just beneath the knuckles was a glyph — the tonali for Miquitzli, the sacred sign of death.
It pulsed once.
Not with pain.
But belonging.
Somewhere far beneath him, Mictecacihuatl smiled.
And Cenotlatlacatl slept.
---
Not restlessly, but deep, as if wrapped in a mother's arms.
There were no dreams.
Only silence.
When he awoke, the world was exactly the same — the sun still blazed, the desert still burned.
Only one thing reminded him that he still belonged to the living—
His thirst.
He chuckled dryly.
"Back to it then…"
---
Stumbling toward the nearest nopal, he moved not with desperation, but with intent.
He placed his hand over his crescent.
"Clear me," he whispered.
Xarátenga answered.
A cool pulse washed through his chest, settling his thoughts.
And in its wake, Xolotl's Ayōxōchitl stirred.
The red roots lit softly under his skin.
Crimson shimmered through his chest, shoulders, arms — casting a rosy hue over him.
From his palms, the roots extended outward, delicate and hairlike.
He touched the nopal.
This time, it didn't collapse.
He absorbed just enough.
A communion, not consumption.
The roots also absorbed the heat, releasing a thin, sacred film from the Ayōxōchitl bloom — cooling him, shielding him.
He smiled, palm open to the sun.
"Finally."
---
He turned toward a towering Tetecho, its bark scorched, its thorns wicked.
He was done crawling through the desert.
"It's time to try this once again."
He began the climb.
Each handhold tested him.
Each step burned.
The sun no longer hurt him, but his body still ached — every muscle stretched, every breath tight.
He climbed for what felt like hours, petals fluttering from his arm, obsidian fingers gripping tight.
At the top, he stood.
Wavering.
Alive.
What he saw froze him.
The desert was not wilderness.
It was a maze.
Vast, coiled. Formed by cactus walls — spiraling out in sacred geometry.
Near the center: a clearing.
And off-center?
Smoke.
A column drifting upward. Quiet. Defiant.
He narrowed his eyes, a grin cracking his dry lips.
"Finally found you cualani (bastards)."
The petals on his arm danced in the wind.
The Ayōxōchitl in his chest pulsed like a second heart.
He began his descent, obsidian fingers sliding along the spine of the Tetecho.
But halfway down, he paused.
Movement.
Between the distant cactus walls — shadows.
Thin. Darting. Watching.
He narrowed his eyes, trying to track them—
and in that single blink—
Night fell.
Instant. Absolute.
As if the sun had been swallowed whole.
The desert transformed.
All around him, spiderwebs gleamed silver in the moonlight, stretching from cactus to cactus.
Some thick as ropes, others like silk threads catching starlight.
The air turned still.
Even the wind obeyed the silence.
Above, the sky pulsed with stars — bright, endless — but as he stared longer, he saw their true shapes:
Dismembered gods.
Scattered limbs. Broken torsos.
Hearts torn out, still glowing like meteors.
Faces half-remembered from temple walls and ancient memory, all now fragments of divinity, shining in agony.
And then— The moons appeared.
Not one.
Five.
Closest to him hovered Coyolxauhqui.
Her body glowed with silver defiance, her limbs suspended mid-shatter — frozen in the moment of her downfall.
She cast jagged light across the sky, and from her, silver threads spilled out, linking her to the gods scattered in the stars.
Just behind her: Mama Killa.
Golden. Full. Heavy.
She radiated warmth, not light — like a sacred vessel filled with ancient knowing.
Her gaze held no judgment — only memory.
Further along, he spotted Ix Chel, a waning crescent, curved like a blade of shadow, veined with soft lightning, her light cool and distant.
She felt like endings, wisdom, and storms unspoken.
To her opposite rose Yaa Ndicui, a waxing crescent, smaller but pulsing — alive like a story half-told, a child not yet born.
Her light flickered like a candle in deep stone.
And then…
At the edge of it all…
Xarátenga.
The fifth moon.
New. Barely visible.
Wreathed in violet mist, too far to touch,
but too present to ignore.
She didn't shine.
She hummed.
A silence that moved.
From each moon stretched shimmering threads — spider-silk lines crisscrossing the sky.
They danced and glistened, weaving between stars, gods, and time.
And every thread—
Every single one— converged at a single point.
The center of the cactus maze.
From his perch on the Tetecho, Cenotlatlacatl saw it — a pulsing core wrapped in green threads, like the heart of a web too vast to belong to any mortal thing.
The threads weren't just above him.
They passed through him.
Some brushed his skin.
Others tugged faintly at the crescent on his chest.
One seemed to whisper across his obsidian arm, causing the cempoalxochitl petals to twitch.
"It's beautiful," he whispered.
He had no words for it.
He didn't need any.
It was the most majestic thing he had ever seen.
Moons, threads, stars… all suspended in silence.
And then—
The screech.
Sharp. Familiar.
It tore through the silence like a bone knife splitting flesh.
Cenotlatlacatl froze.
It didn't come from above.
It came from the maze.
From the darkness between the cacti.
A shadow shifted.
Another screech.
Then stillness.
He turned his head slowly, obsidian fingers curling into a fist.
"You again…"
The sky remained unchanged.
But something in the maze had awoken.
And now, it was moving.