Salt wind swept the deck of the freighter La Paloma Gris as it knifed westward through Atlantic swells. Three weeks had passed since Giza flared like a second dawn, and the world still whispered about the "miracle sunrise" that tourists swore but cameras somehow missed. Commander Tzeker's disinformation machine churned, blaming atmospheric lensing and mass hysteria, yet memes of a golden pyramid spread faster than official denials. Hushed hope traveled in their wake.
Below deck, Charlie crouched on a crate of Veracruz coffee beans, palms upturned, Nexus Medallion resting warm in one hand. Two runes—Ogham and Demotic—burned steady gold, marking Tara and Giza. The third, Maya glyph of k'in (sun-day), glimmered faintly, as though Teotihuacan's heartbeat were a distant drum just starting to keep time.
Angus drilled him daily in focus. "Awakening nodes is half courage, half craft," he said, circling with staff in hand while Charlie balanced blindfolded atop a swaying barrel. "The lattice uses your body as conduit—if your mind wobbles, the current fractures."
Kelan taught myths: Quetzalcoatl the Feathered Serpent, Tezcatlipoca the Obsidian Mirror, Huitzilopochtli whose hummingbird heart beat every sunrise. "Aztec, Toltec, and Teotihuacano stories aren't separate," he explained under the flicker of ship lanterns. "They're layers—codes upon codes. Expect the node to answer in double meanings."
Sarah, now proud quartermaster, inventoried Sun-Shard fragments for alchemical reuse. Aoife sparred with Richard on the foredeck, quartz arrowheads glinting moonlight. Leyla translated papyrus spells into Nahuatl equivalents while Maeve inked new sigils onto Angus's staff—jaguar spots nested inside Celtic knots, bridging continents in wood.
At night Charlie lay in a hammock listening to the hull creak and the distant heartbeat of Mexico rising through water, a syncopation of drums and flutes weaving into Tara's bass and Giza's snare. Sleep became a school where dream-gods whispered riddles about mirrored suns and serpents who eat their own tails.
Far overhead, the Kezrat-Vos orbited south of the usual satellite lanes. Commander Tzeker studied a topographic holo of the Valley of Mexico. Beneath Teotihuacan's grid, violet nodes pulsed—old psion wells expanded since the Giza debacle.
A liaison flickered onscreen: Don Aurelio "El Humo" Barreto, cartel magnate and proud descendant of colonial viceroys—the newest Hushkin partner. "My men control every road from Veracruz," Barreto boasted, cigar smoke curling like serpents. "The foreigners won't reach the pyramids without my blessing—or my bullets."
Tzeker's crest twitched. "See that they reach—and that they bleed within sight of the Moon Pyramid. Pain drives energy; the psion wells will harvest whatever fear the Eventborn sheds."
Barreto smiled—a gold-capped grin. "Fear is my export, señor lagarto."
La Paloma Gris dropped anchor before dawn in a fog-shrouded slip outside Veracruz harbor. Aoife disembarked first, presenting a single Fianna arrow to the dockmaster like a passport. He accepted with awe, waving their party through empty customs sheds into waiting vans disguised as produce haulers.
Their driver was a lean woman in a faded lucha libre T-shirt. "Call me Ana Cuauhtli," she said, eyes the color of highland agave. "My clan kept Eagle-Knight rites when the empire fell. We've watched the pyramids sleep and dreamed of their waking."
She steered inland on back roads lined by sugarcane and silent checkpoints manned by cartel lookouts. Twice Ana flashed a jade medallion; guards waved them through with nervous respect. "Barreto thinks he owns the valley," she muttered. "But even vipers fear the shadow of an eagle."
By nightfall the vans climbed into cool plateau air. Ahead, the silhouettes of the Sun and Moon pyramids loomed—darker than dusk, larger than memory. A silver ribbon of moonlight traced Avenue of the Dead between them like a silent invitation.
They made camp inside a half-collapsed talud-tablero platform on the city's northern fringe. Charlie felt the node immediately—stronger than Giza had been before activation, but restless, fractured, as if two hearts beat out of sync beneath Sun and Moon pyramids.
Kelan unrolled bark-paper maps inked with ancient pathways. "Teotihuacan's lattice differs," he warned. "Two capstones, two keys. The primary pulse sits under the Pyramid of the Sun, but it will not wake unless the Mirror-Heart beneath the smaller Moon Pyramid is first aligned."
Leyla frowned. "Why smaller first?"
"Because mirrors must see light before they can reflect it," Maeve answered, voice like turning pages. "Moon catches Sun, then Sun floods world."
Angus assigned teams:
Strike Alpha – Kelan, Charlie, Sarah, Ana: infiltrate Moon Pyramid tunnels, locate Mirror-Heart.
Guard Bravo – Angus, Richard, Aoife, Maeve, Leyla, Sharifa: secure Sun Pyramid's western face and sabotage psion machinery rumored under the plaza.
"If something smells foul," Angus added, "fire a Sun-Shard skyward. The flash will blind every camera from here to Mexico City."
Midnight. Strike Alpha skirted the pyramid's shadow, hugging palimpsests of stone murals where jaguar warriors still stalked in ocher. Ana led them to a ventilator grate hidden by nopales. Down a steep ladder they descended into tunnels lined with mica flecks that caught torch-glow like trapped starlight.
Deeper, the air cooled; the hum sharpened, splitting into two notes like a detuned guitar string. At last the tunnel widened into a circular chamber floored with limestone dust. In its center hovered a disk of polished obsidian one meter across, spinning a hair's breadth above a jade pedestal. No guards, no conduits—only silence dense enough to weigh on lungs.
Kelan's eyes widened. "Tezcatlipoca's mirror. The node's first key."
Charlie approached. The obsidian reflected not his face but a whirl of constellations—Orion becoming feathered serpent, Pleiades flowering into hummingbird wings. A voice, smoke-soft, spread inside his skull:
See yourself, see another, see the road between.
He reached, expecting cool stone. Instead the mirror inhaled his fingers like liquid glass. Cold shot up his arm into chest. Vision inverted:
He stood on Avenue of the Dead in broad daylight, crowds cheering as a priest in turquoise leads him toward the Sun Pyramid's summit. Yet the priest's shadow unfurled into Tzeker's silhouette; the crowd's cheers slurred to screams; the pyramid cracked, disgorging violet flame.
Charlie jerked free, gasping. The mirror disk now glowed faintly from within—ink swirling with ember flickers. Kelan steadied him. "What did it show?"
"Possibility," Charlie whispered. "A warning."
Sarah handed her quartz arrowhead to Charlie. "Maybe the mirror's lonely," she said solemnly. "Maybe it needs light to feel brave."
Light. Of course. He removed the Nexus Medallion. Its two runes pulsed gold; the third flickered. He pressed the disc against the obsidian. Gold veins shot through black glass; a third rune locked solid. The mirror rose higher, emitting a soft bell-tone that vibrated dust off the walls.
Ana grinned. "Key aligned. Sun Pyramid awaits."
Bravo team never reached the western face. A cartel convoy blocked the north plaza—pickups bristling with machine guns, headlights bleaching murals into ghosts. Don Barreto lounged in the back of a matte-black truck, cigar ember glowing.
Beside him, Commander Tzeker emerged from a mobile psion array, armor patched but eyes incandescent. "Hold perimeter," he ordered. "The Eventborn is underground. When he surfaces, seize him alive."
Angus, hidden atop a weathered talud, whispered into Maeve's scry-stone: "We're pinned. Command lizard's here in person."
Maeve's reply crackled up from tunnels below. "Mirror-Heart awakened. Sun-Key next." Her voice tightened. "Stall them."
Richard loosened the strap on a bulging satchel. "Time for Irish fireworks, then." Aoife nocked an arrow. Leyla mumbled Lux sillus orm, fingers sparking.
Angus hefted his last intact Sun-Shard. "Let's give the valley a new constellation."
He hurled. The grenade arced over headlights, cracked on adobe, and exploded in a dome of white-blue brilliance. Cameras shattered; cartel gunners clutched seared eyes. In that snow-bright chaos Leyla opened a gravity fold, whisking Aoife and Richard to flank positions while Maeve hacked the psion array with a sigil-engraved copper spike.
Tzeker roared, crest flared, talons shredding truck steel. He gestured; violet drones lifted, scanning for the Eventborn's signature—but the mirror surge cloaked it, scattering false echoes across the whole complex.
Strike Alpha surfaced through a moonlit vent near the Sun Pyramid's east base. Dust still glowed faintly on their clothes. Above, the pyramid's bulk lay dark, but Charlie sensed a smolder beneath every stone—hot metal waiting for hammer.
Gunfire popped on the plaza; white flashes stained night sky. Angus was buying them minutes at most.
Kelan unrolled a final bark map. "Capstone cavity's halfway up inner staircase. We insert Mirror-Heart—Sun heart answers. But the staircase is walled since the 1930s dig."
Ana tapped her wrist. "Eagle Kites hid an access in the drainage gallery." She smiled. "We go bird-way."
She led them to a slit in the masonry, down a cramped ramp smelling of brittle incense, then up a helical stair that narrowed until backpacks scraped stone. The hum here was deafening—Tara, Giza, and now Moon beat together, urging completion.
They broke into a cramped chamber barely large enough to kneel. In the ceiling yawned a hexagonal socket lined with jade. Charlie raised the glowing obsidian disk; it floated, slid upward, clicked into place.
Silence—then a soft ka-thoom like the planet's deepest drum. Gold light seeped from seams; steps beneath their feet vibrated.
Outside, the Sun Pyramid ignited. A golden line slithered from apex to base, racing along Avenue of the Dead toward the Moon Pyramid, then branching like lightning across every temple. Tourists miles away in Mexico City gasped at an aurora blooming where none should be.
On the plaza, psion drones fried mid-air; Tzeker's armor sparked. He screamed—not pain but fury—slamming both palms onto a control core. A subterranean rumble answered: backup wells draining terror-energy straight into him. His eyes flared violet. He leapt, claws gouging pyramid stone, scaling toward the Heart chamber.
Ana cursed. "Lizard's coming!"
Kelan pushed Sarah behind a protruding block. "Charlie, the node isn't done—it needs your breath."
Charlie felt it: the rhythm still stuttered, two hearts nearly aligned but not locked. He pressed both palms to the stone floor, shut eyes, and inhaled. Within, Tara's bass, Giza's snare, Moon's high chant spun like gears almost meshed. He exhaled a spiral of intent—one rhythm. The gears slammed into place.
A roar of sunlight erupted down the stairwell. Stone turned translucent; shadow fled every corridor. On the plaza, cartel engines died; Tzeker lost footing, armor sizzling under a halo of gold that refused reptilian skin. He plummeted, hit stone, disappeared in a cloud of fracturing tiles.
Charlie sagged, heartbeat hammering his ribs. The Nexus Medallion now blazed with three steady runes.
Below, Maeve's voice crackled in the scry-stone. "Plaza clear. Commander vanished under debris—status unknown. We see the glow. Is it done?"
"Moon and Sun are singing," Charlie answered, throat raw. "Teotihuacan's awake."
Kelan exhaled a prayer. Ana wiped tears. Sarah slipped her small hand into Charlie's.
But in the hush that followed, a shiver ran through the floor—an after-pulse deep and distant, not gold but ice-blue. Charlie's mind caught a flicker of wind howling across endless snow, and an obsidian mirror showed a white pyramid clawing at storm clouds.
Maeve heard it too. "Antarctica," she whispered. "The Frozen One just blinked."
Angus's voice crackled: "Then our road turns south—past oceans and beyond maps. Rest fast. The next heartbeat may be the coldest yet."
Charlie gazed out a slit toward the valley, where golden veins still glowed in ancient avenues. Three nodes down, two to go. Above, the Feathered Serpent constellation unfurled in the night sky, its stars brighter than he had ever seen, as if the heavens themselves tilted to watch the long-buried city breathe again.