The Feather and the Flame
Yaotl, the eldest son of the supreme priest, cut a figure both regal and harrowing. His hair was midnight black and cascaded in warrior braids down his back. His copper skin gleamed with the sweat of countless battles fought under the Aztec sun, his ceremonial breastplate carved of jaguar bone and adorned with turquoise mosaics. Strapped to his muscled forearms were feathered gauntlets dyed in rich hues of crimson and indigo, and on his arms danced intricate tattoos depicting the sun god Huitzilopochtli’s wrathful glare. Even his sandals, woven tightly with golden threads, bespoke his stature. But his eyes—it was his eyes that unsettled men—like embers that refused to die, faintly glowing with the fury of dreams unspoken.
Hours earlier, Yaotl had been pacing the stone-carven terrace of his family's palace. He knew what the council had decided—he would lead the counterattack against the foreigners. Yet he also knew the gods had other plans. Laden with prophecy, an obsidian tablet had been unearthed in the Temple of the Feathered Serpent days prior, its inscription warning against defiance. It told of a cursed prince who must make a decision: one life lost to the gods, or the empire lost to men.
Then the dreams began. Flames licking the edges of Lake Texcoco. The mighty temples crumbling into rubble. And those horse-bound devils trampling everything sacred. But there was always a figure in the periphery, watching. A woman cloaked in unimaginable beauty, her face dappled with gold paint: Xochitl, the flower maiden he once loved. The one who was taken before her wedding rites to appease the same gods he now served.
Whispers Under the Temple
"You would offer yourself?" It was Etzli, his younger brother, as restless as he was stubborn. Slighter in build and lacking the storm of Yaotl's fury, Etzli often stood in his sibling's shadow. Tonight though, his brother’s voice cut sharper than the ceremonial knives.
"The gods will it," Yaotl said, gripping the talisman of Huitzilopochtli around his neck, its golden engraving groaning under his tightened grasp.
"Haven't we bled enough for their altars? First Father, then Xochitl, and now you?"
Yaotl’s jaw tightened, but he spared his younger brother a glance. "It is no longer about us, Etzli. It is about what remains."
Etzli laughed bitterly and gestured wildly to the city sprawling beneath them, iridescent in the glow of countless firelight. "And does it remain if you go to them? If they take you? They say these Spaniards do not bow before our gods. They kill them."
"Then perhaps I should ask if Huitzilopochtli will kill me faster than they do," Yaotl retorted grimly, stepping down the altar as the priests gathered below.
The Betrayal in the Night
Yaotl’s path to the sacrificial altar was a winding labyrinth of regrets. Every stone, every hieroglyph burned a forgotten memory into his already heavy mind. Yet, despite his solemn vow to meet his death, the night did not unfold as it was meant to.
As the chanting priests raised their obsidian blades high, a violent tremor shook the earth. Screams erupted from all corners of Tenochtitlan. Flashes of fire tore through the horizon like a scorned god. Without warning, the first Spanish cannonball breached the defenses of the imperial capital.
"They’ve come!" a warrior screamed, his red-plumed headdress slick with blood as he stumbled into the sacred square. "The lakes are aflame, their beasts are trampling the causeways. Mexica warriors are falling!"
The priests panicked. The unbroken rhythm of their guttural chants fragmented into chaos.
And Yaotl did what no man expected. He rose. Eyes blazing, jaw tight, the jaguar knight stormed down the sacrificial steps. "Let the gods take me later," he growled, seizing an obsidian-tipped spear from a frightened priest. "Tonight, the blood in their chalice shall be Castilian."
The Last Dance of the Ashen Prince
The clash that raged in Tenochtitlan that night was the stuff of legends. Against the steel-clad invaders, Yaotl fought like a man imbued with ancestral fury, his copper skin streaked with soot and blood. He was no longer just Yaotl, son of priests—he was lightning in human form, dancing between soldiers, his obsidian spear finding its mark as Spanish cannons roared in futility.
Amidst the chaos, he saw her—Xochitl. Or her ghost. Crowned in plumeria blossoms, her lithe figure glided toward him, untouched by fire or shadow.
"Is this what they asked of us?" her voice seemed to say, a shade of incomprehensible sorrow in her golden face. "Would you burn the world to keep it?"
He answered not with words, but with the thrust of his spear, piercing the throat of a Spaniard who lunged at her phantom form.
As dawn broke, Yaotl found himself atop Templo Mayor, the city below blackened with treachery and blood. He had survived—but at what cost? Betrayed by gods and men alike, he stood as the Ashen Prince, a man of prophecy refusing both fate and history. And though his empire burned, something within him said that Tenochtitlan, and his people, would endure. Perhaps not on these shores. Perhaps not under these gods.
But they would endure.
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The Source...check out the great article that inspired this amazing short story: Trump Tariffs Part 2: Impact on Canada and Mexico
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