the one he wears on his sleeve.
—Tales of the Deos, Felipe Thomás San Justinio
The path is full of whispers and loose stones tumbling from the highest peaks. Our footsteps echo all the way to the top.
“Was that you?” Nova asks.
“Me what?” I say.
“Touching me.”
I scoff. “You wish.”
“It’s probably just a poisonous spider that’s evolved to kill you,” Rishi tells him.
“Just stop helping,” he mutters.
I’m so thirsty, but without another source of water, the water we carry is precious. I wonder…
“Nova, if I can conjure fire, would I be able to conjure water as well?”
He makes a hmmm noise. “Depends. I’ve heard the recoil for elemental magic is pretty bad. Fire burns your skin. Lightning makes your heart stop.”
“I conjured lightning at home to fight the maloscuro. I passed out. Would water just make you get wet? Like maybe a rain cloud following over your head?” My chuckle echoes to the top of the mountain and gets lost there.
“No,” Nova says, like it’s the silliest thing he’s ever heard. “Maybe your lungs would fill up with water. La Ola isn’t exactly known for being even tempered. I’d rather take my chances with El Fuego honestly.”
“You talk about these gods like they’re people,” Rishi says. “They’re not actually flesh-and-blood people are they?”
“You can field that one, Alto Brujo,” I tell Nova.
He gives me a side eye over his shoulder. “No one I know has ever seen them. We create our gods to look like us, don’t we? Only better. The god of the butterflies would look like a butterfly, right? So our gods have human qualities, but also the great power that makes them individuals.”
“But how do you know?”
Nova sounds frustrated as he says, “I can’t explain belief. I just have it. I know the power in me comes from somewhere. I know that the magic in my veins is real. No, I can’t tell you that if I speak to the Deos, they answer back with words, but there are other ways. When was the last time Zeus came down for Olympus and hung out just to prove his existence? Besides, the Deos didn’t create us to interact with us. We’re just pawns moving across the board. There’s a checkmate waiting at the end for all of us. At least, that’s what my grandma says.”
Rishi clears her throat. “The more you talk about her, the more charming she sounds.”
“I’m not exactly easy to love,” he says.
As he says that, stones clatter overhead.
“Watch out!” Nova turns and pushes Rishi and me against a wall.
“I might’ve been wrong about the spiders,” Rishi whispers.
“Whatever it is,” I say, “we’re not alone. Come on.”
I lead the way, our boots pounding down the narrow path. We’ve come too far to go back, and there’s no climbing up something so high.
“Alex!” Rishi trips and falls on something.
Nova helps her to her feet before I can reach her. He holds a ball of light over them.
“Oh my Deos,” I gasp. There’s a skull at Rishi’s feet. I hold up my hands and shoot flares of light down the path. For a moment, it lights up as bright as day. Bones litter the ground. Some are scattered. Some are entwined, as if they died together in an embrace.
I bend down and pick up the skull Rishi tripped on. I close my eyes as an imprint of memory latches onto me. I’ve seen it happen to Rose. When she touches an object at a garage sale or when we’re walking in the historic parts of the city. She relives the scene the way I’m doing now.
There’s a girl my age with dark skin and darker eyes. One minute, she’s running through the Forest of Lights with a beautiful boy. The next moment, the sky turns dark and he’s dead in her arms. The girl is filled with anger and hate, and she runs into battle with her people. The leader is a wild-haired woman with a crescent moon inked into her forehead and hands that spark like lightning. The girl is ready to fight the shadow creatures. The girl is ready to take back Los Lagos.
But when they reach the mountain pass, they are betrayed. The Shadow Bruja knows they are coming. She has red eyes and a face as white as the moon. Alta Bruja Kristiñe blasts the Shadow Bruja with lightning, but the Shadow Bruja keeps going, striking down everyone in her path. She rides a saberskin onto the path, the creature scaling the walls. She leaves a trail of death behind her. Her pack of beasts rips people apart with their claws.
The girl has one chance. She has a weapon of her own design—a glove with a palm covered in metal spikes. The girl’s fist hits the Shadow Bruja’s face. There is blood. A terrible laugh. The Shadow Bruja in turn, rips out the girl’s heart. The Shadow Bruja devours it. She devours every heart around her.
Kristiñe is wounded. She’s bleeding out. She’s lost everything. She uses the last of her power to punish her traitors. She gouges out their eyes and then curses them—for their outsides to reflect their monstrous hearts…
The Shadow Bruja resurrects the blind men. She gives them power. She binds them to the roots of the earth. She binds them to her.
I jump out of the memory and scream. I scream until I’m out of breath. I scream until Nova has to shake me.
“Alex, what did you see?” Rishi asks.
But I can’t answer her. Shadows move around us and stones fall to the ground as the mountain shakes.
“Go!” Nova shouts. We run down the path, but a hulking figure jumps from somewhere above and slams into the ground, rattling the earth.
We have to retreat. I grab Nova’s and Rishi’s hands and start to run back the way we came from, but a second figure appears. They now block our path in and out. One of them walks closer to us, and as it steps into the light, I can see it. The creatures Kristiñe punished and the Devourer saved.
His skin is the green of aging leaves, and his body is covered in thorny vines that move like extended limbs. He raises his hand, and a vine slithers out of the center of his palm. I can see the remnants of the man it once was. Its face is distorted and black veins are visible beneath its skin. In its open mouth are black gums and pieces of broken teeth. Gouged eyes are a mess of torn flesh. They don’t need eyes to see. The blind giants.
The giants charge at us from both sides, and the earth trembles under their feet. They shoot vines from their palms to trap us. I create a shield to stop them. I grit my teeth and reach for more power. My arms tremble; my blood rushes to my head. Their vines are laced with the Devourer’s dark power. It burns right through my shield. I direct all my magic into an arrow of lightning. I aim it at the nearest giant. It rips through its chest and electrocutes him.