"No, we need to go too!"
Phineus's voice cracked like a drawn bowstring. A sword nearly twice his size hung at his side, silver eyes flaring. Beside him, Vera's dagger glinted like frost in moonlight.
Most of the crew had already vanished over the rails, swimming toward the jungle's black-green mouth. Rescue efforts. War. Blood in the air. His family was in trouble. He couldn't just stand here.
Aurora dropped to one knee before the children, both far too serious, far too powerful for their years. "If Elena and Niegal are in trouble, that means the fight is worse than you can imagine. That makes you the last line of defense."
Alejandro buckled the last strap of his armor and crouched beside her. His hand rested on Phineus's shoulder. Solid, not patronizing.
"She's right. I'm not going to pretend this isn't deadly serious, léoncito. But if something happens to us, you two are the only ones who can keep the ship standing."
Phineus bit his lip, his mother's nervous tell, fingers tightening on his hilt.
Vera's small, sure hand found his, and something wordless passed between them.
Phineus straightened, chin up. Vera's voice broke the silence, proud and certain:
"Then go, Papi. Titi and Tío need you. I can feel it."
Alejandro's mouth softened. He rose, helping Aurora up, and together they slipped over the port side into the warm black waters, leaving the children framed by the dim lantern glow.
Too young to be guardians. Too serious to be anything else.
It was the vision. The one that had plagued Niegal's sleep for months.
He woke inside it.
The Lion still prowled beneath his skin, but his body was heavy, dulled. Mana cuffs pinned his wrists behind him, chains bit into his ankles, and a muzzle, gods above, a blasted muzzle, gagged him. The air was sweet with a cloying incense, opium-thick, winding its fingers into his head.
His chest heaved. The link inside roared. Outside, only a muffled grunt.
Hooded figures circled the chamber, shadow and candlelight licking across stone.
At the center, Esperanza swayed like a sleepwalker.
It hit him at once: she didn't know. This wasn't her malice. This was compulsion.
Elena lay bound to a stone slab, wrists shackled above her head, ankles locked tight. Her scars shone, her branded arm blazing so bright it hurt to look. Gagged. Violet serpent eyes finding his. Fear. Rage. Sorrow.
The memory knifed through him- Phineus's birth, the pyre. The same stillness. The same danger.
A sacrifice.
He strained until the cuffs tore his skin, blood slick on steel.
Esperanza murmured in a voice not her own, and sigils flared into the air around her mother. Elena's tears spilled freely, Guabancex's voice crashing in her head: Fight. Fight.
This was not divine will.
The blade rose. An anthame, its edge white-hot. Esperanza's hand wavered over her mother's chest-
A shout: "NO!"
Juan slammed into her, the blade clattering to the stone. The sigils shivered and broke apart. The incense thinned.
But the victory was only a breath long.
Steel punched through Juan's shoulder, the point bursting crimson from his chest. His mother, the High Priestess, wrenched the sword back with a curse. Niegal saw the shock in the boy's face, the stubborn smile before he fell.
The Lion bellowed in his skull. Elena screamed into her gag, the serpent's hiss rattling the stone.
Esperanza bent again to her work, heedless of Juan bleeding beside her. The sigils flared back to life. The blade fell.
It struck Elena's chest.
Niegal vanished.
The Lion came forward.
Chains snapped. The muzzle flew. Shadows and flesh were torn apart in a storm of teeth and claw. Blood hit the walls in wet arcs. Someone screamed- maybe it was him. Esperanza crumpled under a single blow, her head striking stone. A pool of blood fanned out beneath her hair.
And then silence… except for Elena's breathing, ragged and thin, light pouring from her wound.
Aurora and Alejandro burst in. They halted at the carnage. Niegal dropped to his knees, tearing away her gag and chains, his shaking hand pressed to her chest, green magic spilling from his palm.
Behind him, Esperanza stirred, seeing Juan gasping on the floor. Her father, begging her mother to stay.
Aurora caught the girl's head in her lap, saw the blood. "Niegal, I've got her!" She poured healing magic into the wound. Alejandro knelt to join Niegal, their hands working in tandem.
The anthame slid free of Elena's chest with a wet sound.
Her back arched. She gasped, and then Guabancex's voice tore through her:
YOU DARE TELL A GODDESS WHO HER TRUE VESSEL IS?
She rose, bleeding, every scar she had ever earned blazing like suns. The light from her chest seared the air.
LET ME SHOW YOU THE POWER OF THE GODDESS OF WRATH AND DISASTER.
The temple shuddered. Stone cracked. Thunder rattled the teeth in their skulls.
"Move!" Alejandro barked.
They ran- Niegal carrying Juan, Alejandro dragging Aurora and Esperanza. Behind them, the world fell in on itself. Elena burst upward through wards and ceilings, lightning chasing her ascent.
Above the jungle canopy, the temple collapsed into a maelstrom of wind and water. Rain sheeted down, lightning striking in blinding succession.
Niegal set Juan on the sodden ground, Alejandro bent to heal him. Niegal stepped forward just as Elena descended, glowing like a falling star.
He caught her. She wept.
The serpent and the lion grieved together.
They ran for La Sirena, Guabancex's tether holding her soul to her body by threads. Niegal prayed they'd make it in time.
Behind them, the High Priestess laughed from the ruins, low and cold.
They had no idea what was coming. And her traitorous son would pay.