Teozcal’s solar fire, once a beacon, now merely outlined the unnatural void of her gaze. The black blade at his throat pulsed with frigid anti-light. Her voice, a chorus of despair, still echoed, demanding, “Who is Itzelia?” He felt the void-glass on his skin, a sharp, unyielding edge biting against his pulse. The sun-magic in his chest smoldered like an ember smothered in wet ash. There was a faint sting, then a single bead of his blood welled against the dark metal. He didn’t flinch. He couldn't. “She is… the woman I wronged,” Teozcal choked out, his own voice raw with a grief that tore at his throat. He slowly lifted his hands, showing them empty, then deliberately let them fall to his sides. He dropped to his knees, his knees scraping against the broken stone floor of the Cenote. “The woman I loved.” The blade did not withdraw. Instead, it pressed harder, a cold burn spreading across his skin. He saw the black pupils dilate further, consuming what little light remained in the cavern. A low growl rumbled from her chest, a sound not quite human, resonating with the anguish of a thousand lost echoes. “You lie,” the layered voice hissed, each syllable like a shard of ice. The blade moved, not away, but down, tearing a shallow gash across the leather trim at his collarbone. Teozcal gasped, not from the pain, but from the sudden, chilling cold that invaded the wound, stealing the warmth from his blood. “You brought me here. You cast me down.” “I did,” Teozcal confessed, tears streaming freely down his face, mixing with the sweat on his brow. The blood from his collarbone ran warm for an instant, then turned frigid as frost seeped into the cut. “I thought… I thought I was avenging my sister. I thought you had hurt her.” The blade moved again, a swift, brutal arc. It sliced through the thick, woven jade of his chest plate, a sound like grinding stone. The impact staggered him, driving him back onto his heels. He cried out as the void-glass cut deep, carving a mangled furrow across his ribs. Tenable darkness writhed within the glass, seeking to devour his failing sun-magic. He felt his power flicker, threatening to extinguish entirely, but he held it, clinging to the last vestiges of warmth. He refused to fight back. “The Gala,” she snarled, the voice rising in a terrible crescendo, a scream of pure, unadulterated heartbreak. “You stood there! You watched! You smiled as the chains took me!” “I didn’t,” Teozcal sobbed, clutching at his bleeding chest, his fingers coming away slick with cold blood. “By the gods, I swear I didn’t. I froze. I watched in horror. I ruined your life. I ruined everything.” He squeezed his eyes shut, bowing his head, offering his throat to the blade again. “I didn’t know, I swear. I didn’t read the contract. I didn’t understand the ritual.” Another strike, a vicious, downward chop that shattered the rest of his chest plate. Fragments of jade and leather scattered around him. The edge gouged a fresh, deep wound just above his sternum, a twin to the mark on his collarbone. The chill burrowed into his bones, and Teozcal felt a profound, aching weakness spread through his limbs. His sun-magic dimmed further, struggling against the encroaching dark. He knew he was dying, slowly, painfully. “I was manipulated,” he continued, his voice barely a rasp. “My mentor, Yaotl, he forged a letter. He made me think Coaxoch was dead, that you were responsible. He wanted you gone. He used my rage, my foolishness, to put you here.” Teozcal coughed, a wet, rattling sound in his chest. “I was a pawn. A blind, arrogant fool. I thought I was strong, I thought I was clever. But I was just a weapon in his hands, pointed directly at you.” He fumbled with the clasps of his remaining armor, the intricate fastenings of his breastplate. With a desperate grunt, he tore it away, letting it clatter to the ground. His chest was bared, crisscrossed with bleeding gashes. His heart, a frantic drum, beat visibly beneath his ribs. He cupped her wrist and drew the flat of the dark blade against his sternum. The cold permeated his flesh, threatening to stop its rhythm. He looked up, directly into the swirling void of her eyes. “This is my heart,” Teozcal whispered, his voice cracking. “The one that beat for you, even when I was trying to destroy you. The one that died the moment you fell into this abyss.” He leaned into the blade, pressing it harder against his skin. “I lied. I betrayed you. I destroyed you over a lie. Take it. Take my life. Take my sun-magic. Take everything, if it means you can return. If it means Itzelia can live.” A guttural sound escaped her, a choked sob that tore through the chorus of drowned voices. The murk swirling in her eyes faltered, fluttering like soot in a draft. A sliver of warm, dark brown returned to the depths of her left eye, then her right. The viscous, liquid night receded from her cheeks, pulling back into the pupils, leaving tear tracks. The void-glass in her grip wavered, its serrations softening until it melted into gray vapor. Her knees buckled. Teozcal caught her, his own strength failing, and they collapsed together onto the rough stone. Her head fell against his bloodied chest, and her knuckles came to rest against his uninjured shoulder. He knew, with a certainty that burned brighter than any sun, that she was back. Then, the cavern shuddered. A deep, guttural rumble vibrated through the stone, shaking them violently. Above, the already unstable ceiling cracked, fissures of blinding solar light appearing as chunks of rock began to plummet around them. The solar eclipse had arrived, finally, begun. The Cenote was collapsing.

The Groveling