They came at dawn.
Six Caxtilteca soldiers, armed and armored, cloaked in rusted mail and leather. At their side were eight native allies—Tlaxcalteca, Xochimilca, and a few others from Cortés' patchwork of vassals. These weren't scouts. They were reclaimers. Shackles in hand, lances in tow, and a command from their captain: "Bring back the escaped slaves. Kill any who resist."
But this wasn't the city they had once known. This was Ehecatl's zone.
And they had just walked into it.
Prey in the Web
Ehecatl had seen them before they crossed the first stone path. He crouched in a ruined home, silent, hands clasped in front of his mouth. Beneath him, his group of now forty-seven Mexica waited, hidden in the shadows of collapsed homes, behind broken pillars, beneath rotten docks.
"No one leaves," he said calmly to his second-in-command. "No heroics. You know the drills."
Teyalli, already tying her hair back, gave a quick nod. The others—bloodstained, tired, but honed from weeks of training—split off into squads. The chinampa reeds trembled under their controlled movement.
They had home advantage.
The Caxtilteca were walking into a trap.
The First Strike
As the patrol crossed into the zone's narrow canal, Ehecatl gave the signal—a low whistle followed by a single cough. The first ambush happened fast: one of the dogs was impaled from beneath, a sharpened stake shoved up through the throat. The second hound yelped and turned—a weighted sling cracked its skull mid-spin.
The mounted Spaniards panicked as their horses reared and whinnied. But before they could react, a blinding flash of white powder exploded in front of them—lime ash, hurled from a hidden basket.
Then came the real horror.
From the Mist, the Mexica
Men leapt from rooftops, emerged from the water, burst from the tall reeds with obsidian daggers, clubs, sharpened poles, and stolen Spanish steel. One Tlaxcalteca turned to shout a warning—a hardened elbow struck his throat. Another tried to run—he was tackled into the canal and drowned.
The Spaniards didn't stand a chance.
One was dragged screaming across the mud by four Mexica who battered his skull in with stone. Another was thrown from his horse and blinded by fingers gouging into his eyes. A third tried to flee—only to be clotheslined by a rope trap rigged across the canal path, snapping his neck.
By the time Ehecatl stepped out from the ruins, only one Spanish soldier remained.
He was on his knees.
Trembling. Bleeding. Staring up at the boy in front of him—not a noble, not a king, just a mud-smeared boy in a tilmatli, with blood on his hands and murder on his mind.
"Please…" the man whispered in Castilian.
Ehecatl knelt down beside him, tilted his head.
"You came here to take what isn't yours. Again."
He nodded to the others.
"You know the rule. No survivors. No forgiveness."
The group closed in.
And after the Caxtilteca screaming there were none.
…
…
…
The Aftermath
They stripped the dead clean.
Weapons, belts, rations, matchlock Arquebuses, armor plates, maps, crucifixes, coin pouches—everything of value was gathered and sorted. Horses were calmed and hidden deeper in the zone. Ehecatl had no use for glory—but iron was iron, food was food, and fear… fear was currency.
The patrol had brought more than shackles.
They'd brought evidence.
Ehecatl now had another sword, two arquebuses, a full map of the remaining Caxtilteca-held districts, and several valuable foreign trinkets he could repurpose, trade—or use to mock his enemies.
…
…
…
That night, Ehecatl called his people together.
He said nothing at first—just stared at the stacked weapons and gear.
Then:
"You see what happens when they send more?"
He gestured at the bodies.
"They lose more. No survivors. No mercy. No one leaves here alive unless I say so."
He turned to the newer recruits.
"This is what you came here for. To stop being hunted. To make them afraid to hunt you."
The crowd was silent.
But their eyes?
Burning.
The day after the raid
The sun hovered low above the shattered skyline of Tenochtitlan.
Word spread before the sound ever did.
The boy who had once shouted his defiance — the same one who claimed he would enter the "haunted zone" and came back to give another speech, and left — was back. And this time, he wasn't empty-handed.
They said he had come out of the mist like a shadow, like an omen. Wrapped in a tilmatli, barefoot, caked in city dust. He wore no armor, just the kind of garb a slave, or a macehualtin might scrounge. But in his hands was the weapon of the Caxtilteca — an arquebus, long, black, and foreign.
The crowd of enslaved Mexica stared from the shadows, gathered in alleyways and plazas and ruined walkways.
They knew nothing of his name. They didn't know where he'd been. Only that he returned from the zone they feared once more, and unlike others who still hesitat , he had not been punished. Not by the gods, not by the evil spirit of the Caxtilteca, not by ghosts, not by the Caxtilteca.
And now he stood here again — weapon in hand.
He gave another speech. Loud. Confident. The enslaved Mexica leaned forward, thirsty for meaning.
"These lands are still ours. The blood spilled here belongs to us. The tears cried here were ours. The gods are not dead. The Caxtilteca have always bled like we do. And now — they die like how we did during the war."
Gasps followed his words.
Then came the noise.
BOOM.
The arquebus fired.
The smoke cloud exploded from the barrel and swallowed the street.
The shot rang across the district, echoing between broken temples and fallen aqueducts. A Spanish soldier in the distance clutched his side and collapsed — whether dead or wounded, it didn't matter. The act had been done.
A Mexica had fired a Spanish gun.
Not just wielded it. Not just stolen it. But used it — aimed it — and survived.
The silence after the blast was heavier than the smoke.
Ehecatl turned without a word and disappeared once more into the ruins, like a spirit come to judge the living.
…
…
…
By nightfall, the story had already twisted and grown.
Among the enslaved Mexica:
"Did you see him? He came back from the cursed zone with fire."
"He didn't even flinch when it fired."
"He is no longer afraid of their god, nor them. Maybe… neither should we be."
Among the native allies:
"He walked into death and came back. The Caxtilteca can't kill him."
"They say he wears the dust of the dead… but speaks like one of us."
"And he used their thunder against them."
Among the Spanish:
Rumors became reports. Reports turned to panic.
One interpreter trembled before Cortés himself.
"He stood before hundreds, Señor… and used one of your weapons. They say he gave a speech."
"One of the priests said he called thunder down like Huitzilopochtli."
"And then he fired at our men."
Cortés narrowed his eyes.
"And who is he?"
"No one knows his name. Only that he came out of the haunted quarter with fire."
Cortés exhaled sharply.
"Then find someone who does. Or start digging graves until you do."
…
…
…
3 days after "The Shot Heard Around the Valley"
The Breaking Circle
The Caxtilteca war council gathers before dawn. The humid gloom hangs thick over the ruined stone floor of what used to be a Mexica palace, now desecrated with wooden furniture, stolen maps, and greasy meat bones discarded by Spanish boots. Hernán Cortés stands at the head of the circle. But for the first time, he doesn't speak.
He watches.
Watches as his men bicker. Watches as the native allies mutter and side-eye one another. Watches as his priest clutches a crucifix as if it were a weapon, not a symbol of God.
"What does it mean?" asks Andrés de Tapia, his voice cracking. "The Indio who fired the gun. He shot it like he was born to it. No trial, no misfire, no hesitation. That's not natural."
A Totonac captain replies in hushed Nahuatl to Marina to which she then translated via Spanish:
"We shouldn't have helped. You desecrated their temples. You mocked their gods. Now even your weapons serve them."
The whisper spreads like rot:
The Mexica gods are reclaiming what's theirs.
Reports of Madness
A soldier stationed near the haunted zone recounts what he saw the day before: Mexica captives walking toward the cursed ruins. "Like they weren't afraid. Like they belonged there," he says, trembling. "And the boy—the same one who made the first speech, and then the second—he raised our weapon and fired it at us."
The Tlaxcalan nobles grow quiet. One of them finally speaks, cautiously in barely understandable Spanish:
"Our warriors have refused to enter the cursed zone. Some say the dead call to them. Some say… the Caxtilteca opened a door to Mictlan itself. And the boy who walked through that door now speaks for the gods."
A Spanish officer shouts, "He's just an Indio! A savage child with stolen tools!"
The Tlaxcalan stares back coldly.
"Then why haven't you gone after him?"
Cortés slams the table. "We do not give in to ghosts and whispers! The zone is no more haunted than this ruined city is sacred!"
But no one nods. No one echoes the order.
Another soldier speaks up — one who had survived the patrol ambushed days ago. His face pale. His uniform still bloodstained.
"It's not ghosts, Captain. It's a rebellion. Organized, hidden, growing inside our walls. That cursed zone? That's their city now. Not ours."
"Then we burn it!" a captain snaps.
"We torch it to the lake!"
"Then you go first," someone replies.
The table falls silent.
…
…
…
Later, alone with Father Olmedo, Cortés drinks. His armor is off. His eyes are sunken.
"Do you believe what they say?" Cortés asks.
The priest hesitates.
"Captain… you once said the hand of God guided us to this land. But perhaps we mistook which god laid his hand on your shoulder."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning… maybe the devil isn't rising here. Maybe he came with us."
Cortés sets down the cup. Stares into the dark.
And says nothing.
Unbeknownst to him, Ehecatl's next raid is already underway. The arquebus has been cleaned. His band of 47 now trains with the ever increasing stolen Spanish weapons and their own brutal ruthlessness. The haunted zone becomes less haunted, more home.
No banners, no sigils, no horns.
But every native ally that vanishes at night, every soldier who wakes screaming, every patrol that returns without a tongue or without a head…
Each is another crack.
And eventually, cracks break things open.
…
…
…
CUAUHTÉMOC'S CONFINEMENT — LATE AFTERNOON
The light through the slats is weak — dust dances on still air.
Cuauhtémoc, bound only by honor, not chains, sits on a mat of woven reed. A bowl of untouched maize gruel rests beside him.
Footsteps. Spanish boots.
Cortés enters — flanked by two guards — with Marina at his side.
He doesn't speak at first. He lets the silence weigh.
CORTÉS (to Marina, in Spanish)
"Tell him I come as a friend."
Marina translates softly. Cuauhtémoc does not rise.
CORTÉS (cont.)
"Tell him… his people are frightened. There are whispers of devils in the hills. Soldiers deserting. Allies fleeing. One of his own — a boy — is stirring rebellion with Castilian guns."
A pause. Marina relays this, her voice neutral but tight.
Cuauhtémoc blinks slowly.
CORTÉS
"I've kept him alive when others would not. Out of respect. Because I know the people still look to him. He can stop this madness."
He steps closer.
CORTÉS
"Tell him… I need him to speak. To calm the streets. If he tells them to ignore the boy, they will. If he tells them the war has been over… it will be."
Marina glances at Cuauhtémoc as she translates, but her eyes dart down. She already knows the answer.
Cuauhtémoc, voice low, finally replies.
CUAUHTÉMOC
"Why now?"
Marina translates.
CORTÉS (smiling tightly)
"Because I do not want to bury him."
Silence. The wind groans outside. Cuauhtémoc's fingers clench on his knees.
CORTÉS
"If he won't speak now… he may never get the chance again."
Then he nods to Marina and exits — his cloak trailing behind him like a shadow.
…
…
…
CUAUHTÉMOC'S CONFINEMENT — NIGHT
The hut is quiet again. Cortés is gone. The guards outside are laughing over salted meat and gossip, unaware of the fire starting to smolder in their prisoner's silence.
Cuauhtémoc remains seated on the same mat. He hasn't touched the food.
His fingers, calloused from years of bowstring and obsidian grip, brush across the worn reed floor as if trying to trace a pattern in the silence. But there's no pattern. Not yet.
He begins to think.
Cortés came not to taunt him, but to ask him for help. That alone disturbed him. Not because of the gesture — but because of the timing.
The captain was desperate.
The Caxtilteca never begged unless their backs were to the wall.
He closes his eyes.
He remembers Marina's voice, the careful way she translated, trying to hide the tension. But the message was clear enough:
"There are whispers of gods, devils."
"A boy has returned from the forbidden zone with Caxtilteca weapons."
"Your people are stirred. Speak. Calm them."
Cuauhtémoc exhales sharply through his nose.
"So the captain wants me to play mask like my uncle did," he mutters.
But then… the reports from the Tlaxcalteca come back to him.
Even their priests have begun to speak nervously. About shadows.
About ghosts walking in the ruins. About the gods of the Mexica stirring in the earth.
The Totonac messengers refuse to go near a section of the city now.
The haunted zone, they call it.
The place where the air freezes, where dogs vanish, and no birds sing.
One Tlaxcalan captain, boasting of bravery, entered the area with a squad of twenty.
Only four came back. They were mute. Blood on their faces. Eyes wide with terror.
They told of a dark shape that walked like a man but moved like wind.
They said he tore their ears, not with hands, but with sound.
They said he walked with the eyes of a jaguar, silent, unblinking.
A Mexica boy, they say. Or perhaps a god.
But always: he returned from the cursed ground.
And now… the Caxtilteca themselves speak of a gun — a Caxtilteca arquebus — fired not by one of their own… but by an Indio.
That makes Cuauhtémoc sit upright.
That is impossible.
They had captured many arquebuses during the war.
They tried — time and again — to replicate the sound, the force, the fire.
But they never could.
The trick of fire was always hidden.
The powder. The primer. The flint.
A delicate timing known only to Caxtilteca gunners.
Cuauhtémoc had once assumed it was a secret born of their dark god — the one nailed to wood, pale-skinned and crowned in thorns.
He remembers the image: the bloodied figure on the crosses they carried.
Their prayers. Their thirst for control.
Their belief that this… distant, broken man gave them divine right to enslave the world.
To him, that was their devil. And now… they claim he's punishing them.
So even their own god has turned on them?
He almost scoffs — but then the next thought lands like stone:
What if it isn't their god?
What if it's ours?
Because the boy — whoever he is — didn't just return with a Caxtilteca weapon.
He used it.
Correctly.
Cleanly.
Not like a child playing with fire… but like someone who knows it. Feels it. Commands it.
And that… that is not something Cuauhtémoc has ever seen — not even among his most loyal warriors.
He leans back now.
The bowl of gruel is forgotten.
The wind howls lightly against the thatched wall. Outside, the Caxtilteca guards laugh drunkenly, shouting in slurred Spanish.
But inside, Cuauhtémoc is quiet. Thoughtful.
Watching shadows move across the ceiling.
"If he can master the weapons of our enemy…"
His heart beats faster — not with fear, but with something else.
Caution. Intrigue. Hope.
The walls of the room are old. Carved long before the Caxtilteca ever set foot in Tenochtitlan.
The faint scent of blood and lime still lingers in the cracks, from battles and cleansings long past. The Spaniards have done little to honor or understand the space they've given him.
Cuauhtémoc still sitting alone again.
he's staring at a carved panel of Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin (montezuma II), his uncle.
Once revered as divine. Once feared across Anahuac.
Now remembered for his final hours — dying under the stones of his own people.
"He stood here. Just like I do now."
He remembers it clearly.
The balcony.
The shouts from below.
The clenched fists of warriors who had once bowed in loyalty, now full of disgust.
He remembers Motecuhzoma's voice — calm, pleading, tired.
"He told us to listen to the Caxtilteca."
And Cuauhtémoc had clenched his own jaw then, a young prince full of fury.
"I did nothing to stop the stone."
"I may not have thrown it… but I did nothing."
He exhales through his nose, sharp.
The irony is bitter in his mouth.
"Now the people murmur in fear. And Cortés wants me to speak to them."
"To calm them."
Just like Motecuhzoma.
And yet… they are not the same.
Motecuhzoma had believed in omens. Had seen the Spanish as gods.
Had tried to bend the Mexica to a future of quiet obedience.
Cuauhtémoc… did not.
He fought, until the very end.
But now… here he is. In chains.
Powerless.
Caged like a war dog.
And the boy…
"The one they whisper about."
"He walks freely."
"He fights — where I cannot."
"He defies — where I must stay silent."
Cuauhtémoc's brow furrows.
The people speak of a Mexica who roams the haunted quarter, armed with Caxtilteca weapons, but untouched by fear.
Some call him mad. Others say he's a god.
But most simply say he fights. That alone gives the people hope.
And that… is dangerous.
Because hope can become fire.
He rises to his feet.
He walks to the carved panel of Motecuhzoma and places his hand upon it.
The stone is cold. Unforgiving.
"I never forgave you," he whispers.
"But I understand you now."
He closes his eyes.
He's not sure what he'll tell Cortés when he returns.
He's not sure what he'll tell the people — or if he'll speak at all.
But one thing he knows: the world is shifting again.
And this time, it is not because of him.
It's because someone else has picked up the fire.
Someone nameless.
Young.
Fearless.
Mexica.
…
…
…
Cuauhtémoc does not rise when the Caxtilteca enter.
He remains seated, arms folded, back straight, gaze indifferent.
Cortés storms in like a bull.
Behind him, Doña Marina walks swiftly, head lowered, already dreading the task ahead.
"¡Levántate!" (Get up!) Cortés shouts, rage boiling over.
Cuauhtémoc does not move.
Marina clears her throat, stepping between them.
"He says: get up. He demands you stand and listen."
Cuauhtémoc raises a brow.
"Let him speak like a man if he wants me to listen like one."
Marina hesitates. Then, without translating, turns to Cortés and speaks rapidly in Spanish.
Cortés snarls.
"I'm not here to play games with this savage emperor. He's going to give a speech to the people. Now."
"He says you will speak to the people tonight."
Still, Cuauhtémoc does not rise.
"Why now? What has changed?" he asks in Nahuatl.
Cortés slams a fist against a wooden post. The entire wall rattles.
"You want to know what's changed?! You want to know?!"
Marina struggles to keep pace with the fury, translating line by line:
"The boy. The one with the gun."
"Since he fired it—more of your people have defected."
"They raid us. They steal supplies. They kill my soldiers."
"Not just yours. Even the allies. Tlaxcalteca. Totonac. Huexotzinca. They whisper about him now."
"They think your gods fight with him."
"They think we're cursed."
Cortés steps closer, finger jabbing the air like a dagger.
"You will speak. You will tell them to stop. Or I will burn this city again."
The silence that follows is thick.
Cuauhtémoc finally rises.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
He walks until he stands face to face with Cortés. No chains, no whip marks, no bowed head.
Only fire in his eyes.
"You are afraid."
Cortés tenses. Marina barely manages to translate.
"You are afraid… of a boy. Of your own guns. Of gods you do not understand. And you think a speech will save you."
Cuauhtémoc tilts his head slightly.
"Tell me, Captain…"
"Did my uncle sound convincing… when you made him say the same words?"
Cortés stiffens.
Then, with gritted teeth, he turns and storms out, shouting for his men to prepare the square.
Cuauhtémoc is left in the shadows, unmoving.
The emperor does not laugh. He does not gloat.
He simply looks out the window, where torches flicker across the ruins of the plaza.
"They think the fire is new," he murmurs, more to himself than to Marina.
"But we were always burning."