Jimena led the way, her feet light, her breath steady. The path was no longer stumbling or desperate—each movement carried purpose. They ran along jagged shelves, climbed when the mountains rose too high to leap, and descended when the peaks opened to wide valleys. The rhythm became almost ritual, as though their bodies had remembered something older than themselves.
Even the near misses—the cliffs that crumbled beneath their hands, the monstrous peaks that groaned as if to swallow them whole—did not break their pace. They pressed forward, their limbs tired but their spirits alight.
When at last the mountains thinned and the ground leveled, a faint glow shimmered across their skin. Not bright, but steady. The ember of faith had been lit, carried within them now.
Back in the village, days had passed.
At the very edge of the settlement, in a shack patched together with reed mats and weathered wood, an old woman rocked slowly in her chair. Marisol's grandmother held a clay cup of herbal tea close to her lips, steam curling into the dim light. Weariness clung to her face, carved deeper by every wrinkle.
Across from her sat Don Esteban, her long-time neighbor and companion in age. His stick leaned between his knees as he bent forward, ears twitching with attention.
"So," he rasped, "you talked to them?"
The old woman nodded, took another sip. Her hands trembled, but not enough to spill. "Yes. I did."
"You sure you don't want some hierba dulce?" she asked, gesturing to the bundle of herbs hanging from the rafters. "It'll calm that cough of yours."
"No, mujer, I'm fine," Esteban waved the suggestion away with a gnarled hand, though his throat rattled in protest. He leaned closer. "Tell me what they said."
The old woman sighed. Her shoulders sagged as though the weight of the gods' words still pressed down on them. The ritual had drained her more than she admitted—the trek to the hidden temples, the chants, the offerings of copal and blood. She had felt her years then. And the ruins around those temples, bones of stone swallowed by vines, whispered of wars long past.
"The gods spoke of the beginning," she murmured, eyes fixed on the glowing coals in her hearth. "The beginning of a new war of faith."
Esteban's brows drew low. "War? With who?"
"The children are being tested," she said, voice slow, as if shaping the words gave them more power than she wanted. "The gods watch them."
Esteban frowned, shifting his stick against the floorboards. "¿Pero por qué? Why them?"
The old woman's eyes flicked to him, sharp despite her fatigue. "Do you question the will of the gods now, viejo? They need the children. As long as that is true, they will be kept safe."
Her words hung like smoke between them. Then her gaze softened, and she asked quietly, "¿Y Javier?"
Esteban sucked his teeth, clearly dissatisfied with her evasions, but he answered. "The fool and his men went poking around the trench again. You know, where the sea pulled back? The water still hasn't returned—it just stands like a wall, circling it."
The old woman closed her eyes, picturing the wound in the earth, gaping and raw.
"They say the closer you get, the worse you feel. Like your stomach wants to crawl out of you." Esteban chuckled, and his bony shoulders shook. "Javier himself fainted. Pa! Flat on his face like a dropped sack of maize."
He slapped his knee, wheezing laughter, and mimed the man's collapse with his hands. "I thought his brothers would never let him live it down."
But the old woman did not laugh. She rocked slower, tea cooling in her hands, and her gaze drifted past the hut's open door toward the horizon where the sea once rolled.
Far from the village, in the husk of the ruined shrine of San Rafael, the air writhed with hunger.
The creature that had once been Father Tomás no longer remembered prayers, sermons, or the sound of his own voice. His body—scaled, feathered, warped—was nothing but a vessel for gnawing emptiness. Marisol's scent, once a beacon, was gone from this world, and without it he rampaged mindlessly. Birds, deer, even jaguars—anything that crossed his path was torn apart and swallowed whole.
Only the gods' sanctuary kept the village safe. Without that invisible wall, Tomás would have feasted on his former flock.
Then the air itself whispered.
Avisserpentis Salutaris.
The name slithered through the ruins, echoing in the broken arches and crumbled stones. It lingered too long, vibrating against the skin, worming into the mind. At the sound, something stirred inside Tomás's warped chest. His frenzy slowed. Hunger receded. In its place—a glimmer of thought returned to his serpent eyes. A glimmer of purpose.
The ruined shrine trembled. Dust fell like rain. A tempest of unseen power coiled within the broken altar. Tomás felt it before he saw it: a presence that demanded surrender. Instinctively, he curled into himself, feathers fanning wide, scaled arms wrapped tight, forehead pressed to the dirt. The thing inside him bowed.
The storm shaped itself. Dust rose and twisted, given weight by raw divinity. Power rippled outward, bending light and coloring the air. A figure stood where no figure should stand—half dust, half energy, fully god.
A snake.
Its head triangular, eyes golden and slitted, brow ridged in permanent fury. Twin scales jutted from its crown, softened at their ends with crimson feathers. A crest of greenish-blue plumes ran the length of its neck, tips dipped in red. Its back was armored in rough, earthen scales that gave way to softer, shimmering feathers. When it opened its vast mouth, two hooked fangs gleamed, dripping power instead of venom.
Tomás—or whatever husk remained of him—gawked. His throat rumbled with reverence.
"Majessstic," he hissed.
The god leaned close. Its words were a whisper carried on scales and storm:
"You are now my priest… my avatar in this world."
It coiled around him, enfolding him in dust and tempest. A shell formed—thin, shimmering, engraved with shifting Latin script. Letters crawled like ants, rearranging endlessly, too fluid to read. The shell hardened, scales fusing with stone, sealing him inside.
"You are…" the whisper deepened, "…Aviserra Venemaris."
The name cracked the air like thunder.
The storm collapsed inward. Dust, feathers, and energy vanished into the shell, leaving only a strange egg of rock, covered in etched scales and inscriptions that pulsed faintly with power. Some letters drew in stray light like magnets, feeding it back into the creature sealed within.
The whisper returned one last time, barely carried by the wind through shattered stained glass:
"Aviserra Venemaris."
A sharp crack rang out. The egg trembled. Scales split. Latin letters fractured like glass. A greenish-blue scaled hand clawed through, dripping with venom and power.
The shrine of San Rafael shook with rattling echoes as something new, and terrible, was born.