25. Florencia

25

Florencia

I squeezed my fist, the sting of the cut burning, reminding me that regardless of it all, I was still alive. Somehow.

A breeze swept through the forest, the chill biting at my nipples, raking against my flesh. I was still very much… naked. I injured my hand along the edge of the pool; there was no time to think, no time to dress, only time to run from the monster gnashing at my heels.

Crawling through the forest mud, I made my way to my husband. He'd returned to his human-like body, but there was still no sign of life.

I gazed at the ground once more. Everywhere my blood had been, little flowers and moss grew.

That wasn't a coincidence.

Their blood couldn't do this.

I squeezed my fist once more, drawing the blood to the surface of the wound once more until it was enough to spread over my husband's torn throat. With my fingers, I painted my blood over his wounds delicately, making sure to cover each with a generous amount before moving on to the next. I held my breath, almost wishing what I knew deep inside could happen.

In the same order I'd applied my blood over them, each wound began to close, the skin fusing back together, no scar forming where they had once been. Hope sprung in my chest, and suddenly, I was panting his entire body with the palm of my hand.

Once his injuries seemed healed, I waited, but there was still no sign of life. I looked down at my hand. There was something I was missing, but I couldn't know what. Squeezing my fist once again, I urged a few more drops to the surface, dripping them over his lips, letting them fall over his tongue.

He moaned in discomfort, writhing in pain as he curled into the fetal position, shivering and shaking.

"Elio!" I gasped, the look of shock on his face a startling, concerning thing. "Where did you go?"

He shook his head, his teeth chattering loudly as he hugged himself, still laying on his side. "Where no god belongs."

My stomach sank, my head turning to Camazotz. "Is he?"

I couldn't say the words, but I could feel everything in this forest—every nightmare, every fear, every branch shaking in the wind. I felt Elio when he was a wolf breaking through the veil, and I felt him just now as he awoke from the grips of totality.

I could no longer feel Camazotz.

Kame was nearby, as if sensing my need, he approached. His heavy paws stamped through the forest ground until he was behind me, a feline growl pushing past his mouth when he nudged me with his head. I turned to the cat, watching him anxiously slap at an unresponsive Camazotz.

I didn't understand it. He had the upper hand, he had practically won, and–

"He's dead," Elio confirmed.

A sob broke loose before I could stop it, my hands clamping over my mouth as if to somehow silence me. But the forest carried my sorrow through trees, my song filling the nightmare sky with something far worse than monsters.

Loneliness.

Heartache.

Grief.

"He can't be," I cried, no longer afraid to speak my truth.

I was allowed to love them both. I had to be.

Elio's expression softened. It wasn't hurt or jealousy or anger that I saw in them, but understanding. He scooped me up into his arms, wrapping me tight in his embrace as I mourned for Camazotz. Just as the pain felt unbearable, I pushed away from Elio, realizing I was just a stupid witch who hadn't exhausted all her resources.

"What are you doing?" he asked with a curious look on his face.

"It worked for you, so it has to work for him too, right?" I smiled, hope bubbling at my chest again as I padded around the fresh soil in search for the perfect rock.

The wound on my hand would no longer work, all tapped out and no longer producing enough juice for the job needed.

Elio nodded, not fighting, not attempting to dissuade me or convince me that this might not work.

We both needed it to work.

I found exactly what I needed after just a few seconds, as if the forest could somehow sense my need and provide exactly what I desired: a beautifully smooth, circular rock, flat like a disc, yet on one of its sides, there was just the right edge on it.

I ran it along my wrist, pushing hard enough to sever the skin and cut through a vein or two so I wouldn't have to wring myself dry. The blood pooled fast, my fingers losing sensation as I rushed to move my wrist over Camazotz's lips.

The bleeding was more than I'd expected, and as it filled his mouth, overflowing with ease while I grew more and more lightheaded, I wondered if it was too late to heal him.

I closed my eyes, but just as I did, I felt lips wrapping around my wrist, hands gripping at my arms and bringing me closer. I blinked, my body over his as he drank from me, that hunger in his eyes we both knew he couldn't satiate.

He'd said it so many times: he was starving.

Yet he controlled himself, never daring to risk it. Elio lost full control at just the sight and smell of it. Would Camazotz shift into some even more terrifying creature?

My thoughts began to swim, an ocean of incoherent inner babbling I could no longer decipher, the forest growing blurry in my peripheral.

He pulled his mouth from the wound, not bothering to look at my face or speak a single word before sinking his teeth into my wrist again, creating new punctures to drink from, as if the cut wasn't emptying my veins quickly enough.

I melted into his chest, the pull of gravity too strong for how rapidly I was fading.

Would I die like this?

So peaceful and quiet.

Not such a terrible fate. Plus, we had some really, really good sex.

I closed my eyes, the smile covering my face as I remembered every time these gods made me come.

Too bad I never got to take that double cock on a test drive.

A laugh bubbled at my chest, but I was too weak to let it slip. Instead, I opened my eyes one final time, letting my gaze wander, searching for Elio. As if he could feel my need for him, he moved quickly to Camazotz's side, one hand gripping mine while the other watched his brother with giant, round eyes.

Would he stop him? Could he tell I was dying?

"Elio." My voice cracked, his grip on my hand growing tighter.

"Almost there, it's almost done," he said, reassuring me.

Or maybe, he was reassuring his brother.

Then, darkness took me.

Pitch-black. Somewhere I'd never been before.

At least there were no fucking plantains burning.

I could feel my body, and that was enough to avoid panic. So, instead of contemplating, I walked, moving through the dark abyss as if it would somehow get me closer to a light. It came, brighter than I expected, but the more I walked, the whiter it got, and it became clear that each step was likely a millennia in time.

I watched saplings emerge from the ground and turn into giant oaks before my foot had fully lifted. Then, the Earth was far, and I was tossed into the vast cold of space.

With my next step, I was in this realm once more, but it wasn't now. It was lifetimes ago, long before the concept of humanity had been birthed. Thick moss covered the ground and luscious trees towered the sky, the realm alive, full of energy and vibrance.

I lifted my foot, and suddenly, there was Camazotz.

But when my foot met the ground, it was easy to see that the man wasn't him at all, not quite. No scar marred his face, and the eternity of anguish that plagued his soul was gone.

"Zotz?" I called out, but the man only gazed my way briefly.

It was their father.

The difference was so slight, something in his features looking like both brothers.

I feared my next step, but I knew I was witnessing the truth of it all, the start of all existence, a deity emerging. I took the step anyway, pushing aside what little fear resided in me and reminding myself that I was likely dead or dying anyway, that this was probably just some hallucinatory pre-death trip my brain was sending me off on before the big END.

The father of the twins sat there, at the edge of his kingdom, watching over an empty cliffside, the same one I stood at when I first entered this place. Could he see what I would one day see? Did he know all of this would happen?

And still, he left?

"Come, Haxia. It's time for you to learn the truth now." He beckoned me with a wave of his hand.

I was afraid to move toward him, afraid to take a step and lose time and miss out on this chance to learn what I was so desperate to figure out. But time stood still, as if waiting for me to get to him.

Just as my hand touched his, a loud burst of memories flooded my mind, a shock so painful, I dropped to my knees, holding my head to alleviate the aching. A rush of nightmares overwhelmed me, thoughts so vile and depraved, even my most disturbed couldn't compare.

It was humanity. They were tainting this realm, poisoning the land and the deity who watched over it with their own subconscious.

The man who looked like Camazotz stared over the empty cliffside, an exhaustion settling over his expression that inspired defeat. "You'll explain to them why I had to do this? You will fix it, yes, Haxia?" The deity's voice cracked as he burned his gaze into mine. "They can't do this without you."

I shook my head. "I don't know what I'm doing."

"You do." He nodded, a knife materializing into his hand, the blade longer than my arm. "That is why you've already let both monsters mark you."

The scar on my chest burned, the bite mark in my thigh feeling like a bullet.

He lifted the weapon into the air, but I was frozen in place, too afraid to move, too uncertain I was even free to do so. The deity plunged the knife into his chest, colorful purple sparks flying from the blade as he dragged it down his middle, pushing past his stomach and splitting himself into two.

The two halves laid there, collapsed on the ground, naked, no longer one man, but two.

"Elio? Camazotz?" I called out, unable to reach them.

I was only a witness now, my next step maybe minutes or days or thousand of years. It did not matter; I knew what would come.

Just as Camazotz began to wake, Elio's body turned into the wolf, his claws tearing at Camazotz's face in a single strike. He hissed, his wings beating quickly, lifting him into the air. With my next step, the forest grew, the shadowed divide taking over the land and the lush greenery dying throughout the realm.

I awoke without a single pain in my body.

No discomfort, no tiredness, not even a negative thought in my head.

Damn, I was definitely dead.

I blinked my eyes open, a little blurry the first time, but with the second or third blink, their images became clearer. Camazotz and Elio crouched above me, Elio's hand still tightly holding mine, my blood staining Zotz's mouth.

"You were in my dream, Haxia." Zotz's tone was not pleased; it reminded me of my sister Elisa and how betrayed she felt the first time I walked into her dream.

"Mine as well," Elio admitted with nowhere near the same hostility I found in Camazotz's voice.

"Good. Then at least I don't have to repeat myself." I wouldn't apologize for my power.

Especially to two clueless gods who were probably trying to somehow convince themselves they didn't see what we all know they saw.

"What you saw…" Elio began. "Our father, he–"

I shook my head, interrupting. "That wasn't your father."

Camazotz broke his silence. "I drank all of your blood."

I swallowed, realizing I had no need to do so. "You did."

"And now?" Camazotz asked, always the one with the least amount of information.

"Now, I truly am the Haxia." I cupped his face, the knowledge of the universe and its entire existence filling every part of me, coursing through my empty veins like sustenance. "And I am here to fix this." I slapped his face playfully before standing, but before I could come to my feet, he had swiped my legs out from under me.

With a low growl, he wrapped his arms around me once more. "I don't know what this means, Haxia, but I can smell the desire dripping from between your legs now, and it makes me more wild than your blood ever did."

"Goddess," Elio proclaimed, forcing his brother to turn his attention to him.

We were all there together.

In that long-forgotten dream of how it all came to be.

Except then, they were still one.

For once, it wasn't hatred I saw in Camazotz's eyes. He was searching for something in his twin.

For himself.