Jimena rested against Kauyumari’s broad back, her cheek pressed into the giant blue deer’s soft pelage. At her request, he walked slowly—uncharacteristically so. Each step was measured, gentle, as though he feared disturbing the fragile silence that clung to her.

  There was no urgent destination.

  Or perhaps she simply wasn’t ready to move forward.

  Jimena couldn’t quite tell anymore.

  Her goddess had guided her faithfully. She still did. There was no force, no coercion, no suppression of thought. Only answers. Only truth.

  And yet—

  Something felt wrong.

  The world seemed strange and distant, as though she had only now begun seeing it clearly—and wished she hadn’t.

  Jaime and her father had both tried to reach her, sitting with her for hours, coaxing words from her silence. They thought she was troubled.

  She was.

  But not in any way she could explain.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t want to speak. It was that there was nothing inside her that felt worth saying. Emotions skimmed across her mind like faint shadows, never sinking deep enough to grasp. Only the gem within her pulsed vividly—dense with energies she barely understood.

  Sometimes she wondered if any of this was real.

  The trees. The sky. Her divinity.

  Even herself.

  Everything felt hollow. As if she were not a person, but a function—an extension of some vast, broken mechanism whose shape she could not yet perceive.

  She buried her face deeper into Kauyumari’s fur and exhaled slowly. The revelations she had been given weighed upon her like an invisible mantle.

  Balance.

  That was what the Eternal had always sought.

  From within her consciousness, Mictecacihuatl began to speak once more—her voice neither cold nor warm, but steady.

  The Eternal, she explained, had raised infant gods with one unyielding lesson: ascension meant balance. Alebrijes and rebujos were not aberrations, but essential spirits—manifestations of equilibrium. Everything could become one. Beast or wind. Flame or thought. All things filtered divinity and corruption alike, shaping them into small miracles or quiet misfortunes.

  In the beginning, the world had been paradise.

  An endless cycle of nature spirits turning beneath the watchful dance of moon and sun. Earth sculpted. Wind breathed. Rain nourished. Fire transformed. Nascent forces cradled existence in harmonious motion.

  Then humanity was formed—blessed by the Eternal Moon and Sun.

  Caretakers.

  “We were designed to be caretakers of this world,” Mictecacihuatl whispered.

  Divinity coiled around Jimena in a phantasmal embrace. The goddess’ silhouette softened, shifting into the familiar outline of her mother. Arms that did not exist held her all the same.

  The comfort dulled the sharpest edges of her unrest.

  But it did not erase them.

  “It did not remain so,” the goddess continued gently.

  Humanity, forged to maintain balance, bore a duality within its heart. A fracture.

  Two paths emerged.

  One sought to cull the wilderness—to reshape paradise into settlements, to tame land and beast, to create comfort and permanence. It was not born of malice. It was born of ambition. Of desire.

  The other wished to dwell within nature—to nurture its growth, to let the cycle expand unbroken into eternity. They chose harmony over dominion.

  At first, neither path threatened the Eternal. They were simply differing philosophies beneath the same sky.

  But ideas do not remain pure.

  They mingle.

  They distort.

  They hunger.

  Over time, philosophies blended and fractured into countless variations. Direction blurred. Purpose diluted.

  Then came the discovery.

  Power could be taken.

  Spirits once culled and returned to the cycle were instead consumed. Devoured to feed something festering within the human heart.

  The first time it happened, nothing seemed to change. The sun rose. The cycle continued.

  But something subtle shifted.

  Divinity and corruption began to evolve in new, unstable ways.

  Mischievous imps were hunted and absorbed, granting shapeshifting. Flame spirits were devoured, bestowing fire-breath. Air spirits were inhaled, granting flight.

  At first, it appeared miraculous.

  Humanity grew stronger.

  More wondrous.

  More terrible.

  And with each spirit consumed, less returned to the ocean of faith.

  The cycle thinned.

  Jimena’s fingers tightened in Kauyumari’s fur.

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  “So it was never about good and evil,” she murmured faintly.

  “No,” Mictecacihuatl replied.

  “It was about imbalance.”

  The gem within Jimena pulsed.

  She could feel it now—the great machinery beneath existence. Divinity flowing. Corruption festering. Humanity standing at the fulcrum.

  Not as victims.

  Not as villains.

  But as arbiters who had forgotten what they were meant to arbitrate.

  Her chest felt empty.

  If humanity had been designed to protect the cycle…

  Then what were they now?

  And more terrifying still—

  What was she meant to do about it?

  Mictecacihuatl chuckled at the circling thoughts of her protégé. Continuing her lecture of past events.

  In the beginning, there had been no clear distinction between corruption and divinity.

  Only paradise.

  The land teemed with impossible wildlife. The skies shimmered with living clouds that drifted like dreaming leviathans. The seas rolled in slow, thoughtful tides, their depths filled with luminous beings that sang without sound. Every corner of existence pulsed with faith—not worship, not doctrine, but a simple, shared yearning for continuation.

  Hope for a long existence.

  Everything was saturated with it.

  And everything was exploited.

  “Neither side is absolved,” Mictecacihuatl whispered softly within Jimena’s mind. “The corrupt and the divine alike unbalanced what they were meant to protect.”

  The words carried no anger. Only sorrow.

  “Those were the ancient gods. Children of the Eternal.”

  Cruel, brilliant beings who carved miracles and catastrophes in equal measure. They stripped paradise piece by piece, reshaping it according to vision, hunger, pride. What remained became the world as it now stood—less radiant, less whole.

  Mictecacihuatl’s voice grew lighter, as though each word required effort.

  “They were not monsters at first,” she murmured. “They were caretakers who forgot mercy.”

  Jimena’s brow furrowed.

  Her fingers idly combed through Kauyumari’s luminous blue fur.

  Was he different from the other deer?

  His size was unnatural. His color impossible. His presence vast.

  But he felt real.

  As real as any animal grazing in a meadow.

  As real as she was.

  If Kauyumari was not merely an animal, and not truly a god… then what separated him from her? From the countless spirits that had once filled the world? What made nature spirits so special that consuming them fractured the balance?

  She did not feel like an aberration.

  The energy within her gem did not feel invasive. It felt… innate. As though it had always belonged in her chest. As natural as breath. As natural as blood.

  Wasn’t she also part of nature?

  If so, how could eating a spirit—something also born of nature—be an act of desecration?

  Her thoughts knotted tighter.

  Mictecacihuatl remained silent for a long moment, allowing the confusion to breathe.

  Jimena turned the questions over and over, searching for something solid.

  Finally, the goddess spoke again.

  “Difference lies not in substance,” she said quietly, “but in function.”

  The words settled heavily.

  “Nature spirits are not merely beings within the cycle. They are conduits of it. They do not simply live in balance—they sustain it. When one is consumed for power, the energy does not return cleanly to the ocean of faith. It is redirected. Claimed.”

  Jimena swallowed.

  “So when humans began eating them…”

  “The cycle thinned,” Mictecacihuatl replied. “Not immediately. Not catastrophically. But steadily.”

  A pause.

  “Some among humanity recognized this.”

  Jimena’s fingers stilled.

  “Recognized… and stopped?” she asked faintly.

  “Not entirely.”

  The goddess’ tone carried a complicated sadness.

  “Some chose reverence over consumption. They worshipped certain spirits. Anchored them with devotion. Gave of their own power to preserve those spirits’ eternity.”

  Jimena’s heart tightened.

  “But they still consumed others,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  The whisper came like falling ash.

  “They spared what they loved. They exploited what they did not.”

  Silence followed.

  The forest around them seemed louder somehow—wind brushing leaves, distant birds calling, the steady rhythm of Kauyumari’s steps.

  Jimena stared at the ground passing slowly beneath them.

  Mercy.

  Selective mercy.

  Was that truly mercy at all?

  If she chose to protect some spirits while allowing others to be devoured… was she any different from the ancient gods?

  The gem in her chest pulsed again—steady, powerful, patient.

  She did not feel monstrous.

  But she no longer felt innocent either.

  And somewhere deep within her, beneath the confusion and hollowness, a quiet question formed:

  If balance demanded sacrifice—

  Who decided what was worthy of being spared?

  Jimena wasn't sure what she would do with the information she'd been granted. Questions popped into her mind and quickly dissolved, her mind lost in contemplation.

  “Sacrifice was never the path we should have taken.”

  Mictecacihuatl drifted around Jimena in a slow orbit, her form woven from pale divinity and memory. Phantasmal palms brushed across Jimena’s shoulders and hair—not to guide her thoughts, but to steady them.

  “You must come to your own conclusions,” the goddess murmured. “Even if they are flawed.”

  Kauyumari continued forward at an unhurried pace, hooves whispering against soil and stone.

  “The corrupted,” Mictecacihuatl resumed, “were not always called so. That name came after the ancients sought further ascension.”

  To become Eternal, one had to understand balance—not as theory, but as identity. To internalize it fully. To embody equilibrium without contradiction.

  “But when balance is disrupted,” she continued, “when too many conflicting concepts are forcibly fused within a single being…”

  Her voice thinned.

  “The self fractures.”

  Jimena’s fingers tightened unconsciously in Kauyumari’s fur.

  “The corrupted, upon attempting ascension, would split into three.”

  Their bodies often separated from their souls. Their minds, chaotic and overburdened, struggled to maintain cohesion. One fragment would pursue its own distorted path to eternity. The other two—bereft of harmony—would lash out blindly.

  Devastation followed.

  “No corrupt has ever ascended after this fracture,” Mictecacihuatl said quietly. “The laws of this world reject them. Their path is blocked.”

  For a fleeting moment, unease rippled through the goddess’ divine silhouette.

  “I do not wish to imagine what would occur if one ever overcame that barrier.”

  An Eternal, corrupted.

  Even the thought made her form tremble.

  Jimena swallowed, her voice small but steady.

  “Then what are the divine? What are gods?”

  Mictecacihuatl smiled—not with pride, but with remembrance.

  “They are beings of faith,” she answered. “Empowered by the sacrifices of companions long ago.”

  When corruption grew capable of devouring entire pantheons, some chose unity over isolation. They fused—not chaotically, but intentionally. They selected a singular concept and refined themselves around it.

  “They are amalgamations,” the goddess explained, “but of faith rather than greed.”

  The divine anchored themselves to a chosen principle—death, rain, flame, harvest—and surrendered all other excess back into the ocean of faith. Their shrines were not monuments of vanity, but regulators.

  Attempts to restore fragments of the balance that had been lost.

  Mictecacihuatl’s voice softened.

  “We refined ourselves so the world might endure.”

  Her form flickered, slightly worn by the weight of memory. Slowly, she dissolved into a fine mist of divinity and flowed gently into Jimena’s forehead.

  The story lingered.

  The wars her generation had fought.

  The careless consumption.

  The beauty that had never fully returned.

  Mictlan itself had been crafted as both refuge and mirror—a parallel reflection of reality. A sanctuary where allied gods could observe the cycles of catastrophe that ravaged the world era after era.

  Cataclysms born from corruption they had tried—and failed—to fully suppress.

  Even now, seated upon her throne in distant Mictlan, Mictecacihuatl could feel it.

  The deaths brought by conquerors upon her land. The festering corruption that had crept quietly into the currents of faith while she had slumbered and recovered.

  She had not noticed in time.

  And now something was building.

  A wave.

  It gathered in the deepest trenches of the ocean of faith—a darkness so dense that even she trembled.

  If it rose unchecked, it would swallow everything again.

  She had done all she could. Prepared her chosen. Guided them. Armed them with truth.

  If all else failed, the three would join the gods in Mictlan through death.

  It was not a threat.

  It was a contingency.

  Corruption, once seeded, infected relentlessly. It fed first upon negative emotion—fear, grief, resentment. It twisted organisms, pushing them into grotesque reflections of their fractured inner worlds.

  Monstrosities were not born from nowhere.

  They were grown.

  If caught early and cleansed with divinity, many could return to themselves. The foul mantle would slough away like rot from healed flesh.

  But what was coming…

  Mictecacihuatl did not know if cleansing would be enough.

  Back upon her throne of bone and memory, she felt the swelling tide approach.

  Corruption would not show mercy.

  The question that lingered in Jimena’s quiet heart was not whether the world could be saved—

  But whether she could save it without becoming what the ancients once were.