Renata woke to the feeling of sunlight.

  She did not see it—not at first—but she sensed the change within the gem. The pressure that had weighed upon Mort’s inner world had lifted. The air, once thick with strain and corruption, now felt open and clean.

  It was a beautiful day.

  And today, she could grow.

  The great flower shrine that had blazed like a beacon in the endless dark of Mort’s inner world dimmed as Renata gently disconnected from it. The radiant petals folded inward. The roots loosened their hold.

  The moment the burden lifted, the small doll-like spirit slumped forward as though she had been carrying something immense. The responsibility she bore was invisible but heavy—an anchor stabilizing Mort’s world. One she could not abandon for long.

  But a short outing would not hurt him.

  Especially now.

  Xochiquetzal felt distant and occupied, her presence solemn and sacred in a way Renata instinctively chose not to examine too closely. Their connection hummed faintly—deeper than before.

  Renata avoided tugging on it.

  Instead, she giggled.

  With a shimmer of darker pink motes, she began to materialize outside the gem. At first she was mist—soft and drifting like the goddess herself—but her essence quickly condensed into shape.

  A long, flowing dress formed around her.

  Xochiquetzal immediately attempted to alter the color.

  Renata resisted.

  The two engaged in a brief, silent tug-of-war over hue and style—Renata stubbornly insisting on a deeper shade, with lighter accents at the hem. In the end, the goddess relented. She had more pressing matters than fashion.

  Still, Xochiquetzal left a gentle kiss of divinity against Renata’s forehead before withdrawing fully.

  The extra spark tingled pleasantly.

  Once fully formed, Renata glanced toward Mort.

  He was resting where he had collapsed, pale and utterly spent. The villagers had left him undisturbed, reverence and uncertainty keeping them at bay.

  Renata hovered closer.

  She examined him carefully—tilting her head, staring intently at his face, waiting for some visible sign of injury. She studied his breathing. His posture. His skin tone.

  She stared long enough that, eventually, Mort groaned faintly and shifted.

  Satisfied that he was not in immediate agony, she continued staring for a while longer just to be certain.

  Only when Xochiquetzal gently nudged her mind did she finally pull back.

  Go play, the goddess encouraged softly.

  Renata hesitated.

  She did not truly understand how to detect sickness or injury. But her connection to Mort felt stronger than ever—like a golden thread stretched between them. Divinity flowed through it freely now. Even at a distance, she could locate him instantly.

  If something went wrong, she would know.

  That assurance filled her with quiet pride.

  Mort was safer than he had ever been.

  She had helped make that happen.

  The realization swelled warmly inside her chest—a muted but genuine joy. She might not feel passion as Mort did. Even love, which she understood best, was gentler in her. Softer.

  But it was enough.

  Using a small portion of excess faith Mort had accumulated during his rest, Renata added a few inches to her height. Just enough so she would not be the shortest among the village girls.

  The teasing had been mild—but persistent.

  She still did not fully understand how to respond when older girls pinched her cheeks or spoke to her like a child. She was not human. Not really.

  Yet she wanted to fit.

  She smoothed her dress, pleased with the final result, and twirled once to test the balance of her new proportions.

  Perfect.

  With a delighted hum, she darted toward the center of the village.

  Today, she would show her friends the small miracles she could perform. Little blossoms coaxed from dry soil. Gentle warmth drawn into cold hands. Perhaps even floating petals shaped from nothing but will.

  They would be surprised.

  And Renata could not wait to share her joy.

  -

  Within Mort’s mind, Xochiquetzal divided her attention with careful precision.

  Half remained upon Renata, whose bright curiosity she monitored like a gardener watching a lively sapling. The other half turned fully toward Todloc.

  Once he had rested and steadied himself, she began guiding him through the sacred foundations of a shrine.

  As Mort’s newly chosen priest, Todloc would need to gather offerings—real, tangible anchors through which Xochiquetzal could manifest properly. In her current state, she possessed only a pitiful reservoir of divinity. Enough to bless. Enough to whisper.

  Not enough to build.

  Flowers, she instructed gently within Todloc’s mind. As many as you can gather. Living ones. Fragrant ones. Thorned ones. Wild ones.

  A proper cuauhxicalli required resonance with her nature—beauty, love, growth, vitality. Faith-rich herbs would also help, though she was uncertain what varieties this region offered. She would adapt.

  The idol she had once left behind in another land had been crude by comparison. It lacked refinement—no true mechanism to draw out and purify faith. It had sufficed.

  This time, she intended to do better.

  A sacred pyre would sit at the shrine’s heart. Flame would extract the intangible essence from offerings—their devotion, gratitude, longing. Even abstract sentiments could be drawn out and refined through properly consecrated fire.

  Purified faith would return blessings in kind.

  Protection for the lost.

  Fertility for barren soil.

  Stability where life faltered.

  Such shrines formed the spiritual center of every powerful village. The Ancients had taught mortals the Path of the Eternal long ago: without refinement, without structured worship, no major god could ever rise.

  Divinity without anchor dissipated.

  Xochiquetzal had been perilously close to dissipation if not for Mort.

  She suppressed a sigh.

  Her thoughts briefly drifted to the swarm beyond the village—bees and ants that had followed her across distances, guided by winged queens and tireless instinct. Faithful creatures. Industrious. Their devotion uncomplicated and pure.

  She considered summoning them to assist with preparations.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  Then dismissed the idea.

  An army of insects pouring into the village would inspire fear before reverence. Mort needed trust, not panic. She needed worshipers—not refugees fleeing from divine misunderstanding.

  A pity.

  The bees were such diligent devotees.

  She would make use of them in time.

  Her attention flickered again to Renata just as the girl materialized her clothing. Xochiquetzal attempted to intervene—puff the sleeves, brighten the colors, add a floral motif more befitting a living emblem of blossoming divinity.

  Renata stubbornly rejected every suggestion.

  The goddess relented with theatrical exasperation.

  Very well. Let the child have her aesthetic rebellion.

  Still, the idea lingered: Renata could become something like a mascot for the growing faith. A charming presence. Like flowers drawing bees, she might draw devotion effortlessly.

  Unfortunately, the girl’s current ambitions extended only to playing with village children.

  Xochiquetzal returned to larger concerns.

  She traced possible futures—projecting outcomes, adjusting for mortal temperament, rival divinities, environmental strain. Many paths ended poorly. Some ended catastrophically.

  If she unleashed the swarm prematurely and conflict arose, she would be the one to lose. Her resources were too thin. Mort’s power still too young.

  She needed numbers.

  She needed patience.

  “I do not mind the poor,” she muttered to herself. “Nor the dirty. Nor the skeptical.”

  She only needed them to look her way.

  For a fleeting moment, memory tempted her—reclining upon silk cushions in a flourishing era long past. Incense heavy in the air. Devotees singing beneath gilded arches. A time far in the past, even before the meadow where she found the last of her devotion.

  The vision dissolved almost immediately.

  Nostalgia was indulgence she could not afford.

  She refocused on Todloc, who had begun discreetly organizing villagers into small groups—gatherers, builders, messengers. He moved with renewed clarity, Mort’s divinity sharpening his thoughts into clean lines of purpose.

  Beyond the village perimeter, the swarm continued its quiet labor—ants shaping soil, bees scouting floral growth. They waited for instruction with tireless discipline.

  Xochiquetzal exhaled softly.

  Stability first.

  Expansion later.

  The game would be played carefully this time.

  -

  Far from the quiet dawn settling over the village.

  Camazotz watched as a handful of threads connecting him to the bloated toad god had gone dark.

  Insignificant.

  Of the many villages infected in a single, decisive wave, the loss of one was barely worth notice. A trimmed claw, nothing more.

  Within the lake, the true work continued.

  The adult parasites that had matured inside the toad god burst free in the night. Pus-filled pustules split open along its swollen back, and slick, writhing forms spilled into the dark waters below. They scattered immediately—seeking new domains, new vessels, new faith to corrupt.

  Toward the territories of the fire monkey.

  Toward the lands of the water fowl.

  The larval brood still inside the toad pressed impatiently against their translucent egg sacs. Thin membranes stretched under the force of their wriggling bodies. They could sense their progenitors feasting beyond the flesh that confined them.

  They would not be contained for long.

  The once-proud toad god—who had dared humiliate Itzcamazotz—was now nothing more than a hollow incubator.

  Consumed from within.

  Itzcamazotz had chosen patience.

  He had not immediately struck at the neighboring divinities. Instead, he watched. Observed the alliances between the three lake gods. Measured their temperaments.

  He studied the fire monkey that bathed in the lake’s shallows, steam rising from its divine hide. Memorized its routines. Its indulgences.

  He tracked the water bird’s patrols across the sky.

  And he waited to see how they would respond to the toad’s decline.

  When the monkey god and bird god finally met above the lake to discuss the toad’s request for aid, Itzcamazotz listened from the shadows between worlds.

  What he heard delighted him.

  Three separate ritual circles, miles apart, pulsed in unison as fragments of Itzcamazotz shared the same triumphant thought.

  They cackled together.

  The first wore an obsidian necklace and bore the towering form of a man-bat—wings vast, claws curved like sacrificial blades. This fragment directed strategy, its voice thick with ancient malice.

  The second was thin and unstable, composed entirely of sacrificed blood. Its shape flickered and ran like liquid, cohesion maintained only through will and rot.

  The third was the most terrible—an aberration of multifaceted eyes and angular limbs. Each shifting facet reflected a soul under observation. Every brood spawned across the land was cataloged within its endless gaze.

  None escaped its accounting.

  The obsidian-wreathed Itzcamazotz had begun constructing a greater ritual. The remaining Tliltic—shadow-bound hunters—had been dispatched into the mountains. They harvested beasts, blood, bone, and fear.

  Materials.

  Ingredients for reckoning.

  The blood-formed fragment continued spreading parasites, making use of the lake’s customs. The villagers had long given their dead to the water in quiet burials—an offering learned from their now-hollow god.

  Itzcamazotz repurposed the practice.

  The corpses became nests.

  Within bloated lungs and empty stomachs, larvae matured in comfort, cradled by ritual and grief alike. Faith, once meant to sanctify passing, now fed corruption.

  It was almost poetic.

  When the parasites fully matured, those infected would lose themselves entirely. Identity would erode. Memory would rot. As with the toad god, nothing would remain but a vessel for hunger.

  And then—

  The lake would belong to him. Soon after, the expansive world outside would follow.

  Itzcamazotz’s many eyes narrowed in satisfaction.

  Let Mort cleanse a village.

  Let the small goddess scramble for offerings.

  The reckoning he prepared would not be undone by a single night’s effort.