The clang of steel pierced through the chanting voices, the shrill sound carrying over the crowded plaza of Cholula. Xochitl knelt, her obsidian blade tracing intricate patterns into the compacted dirt as the crowd surged around her. The smoke of burning copal twisted through the air, mingling with the coppery smell of blood from the ceremony's earlier offerings. Her embroidered huipil, resplendent in shades of deep azure and crimson, clung tight against her slender frame, woven with threads the color of dawn. A jaguar's tooth pendant dangled from her neck, embedded in the hollow at her collarbone. She had once believed it would protect her. Now it seemed to weigh her down like a curse.
High Priest Tlacaelel hadn’t yet uttered the words of finality, but she knew her moment was near. The festival demanded a willing sacrifice. That much, she accepted. Her people believed the sun god Huitzilopochtli required mortal blood to fuel his eternal battle against darkness. She should be honored for the offering, and yet—her hands trembled. Images snapped in and out of her memory, like flashes of quicksilver: her brother Ehuan’s dying smile as he pushed her into the last hole of the ball court, stealing their victory to save her life; the consuming fire in her father’s eyes when he had offered her name to the priests as a “volunteer.” Betrayal tasted bitter on her tongue. The pendant thread snapped as her jaguar's tooth hit the dirt.
Blood and Ice
The journey to this day had been brutal, an odyssey through the tangled jungles at the empire’s borders where shadows and whispers marked her family's downfall. Xochitl had moved between horror and numbness as she learned of her father’s plan. Her beauty had been their family’s ticket to status—long auburn hair kept braided and adorned with jade beads, sun-kissed brown skin unmarred and radiant. As the empire faltered under the pressure of ominous solar eclipses, hunger followed. Only the pleasing and the pious were offered mercy from the wrath of the gods.
She had tried to run. Her bare feet had pounded over dry riverbeds and crumbled temple stones. She remembered the moonlight spilling over her arms as mercenaries caught her, tying her wrists with maguey rope. A jaguar’s growl sliced through the trees that night, but no beast came to her rescue, only sheared cries sinking into the night. She had shut her eyes and swallowed hot tears until the dawn rose.
Now here she knelt in the eye of history—not as a daughter, not as a free spirit, but as an entity reduced to a single utility: sacrifice. She tugged on her resolve; she'd made her quiet peace with this moment, or so she'd thought. The priest’s shadow loomed taller, his feathered headdress swaying as he turned to her.
Threads of Defiance
“Look to the east!” Tlacaelel’s voice rumbled, booming with centuries of tradition as he held his hands toward the horizon, where the sun's first rays would soon kiss the earth. “The child of Huitzilopochtli has come to drink beneath his eternal flames. Let her rise to meet her destiny!”
Xochitl lifted her head as gasps swept the plaza like a harvest wind. Not for her bravery, but at the sight behind the high priest. A streak of pale light, like a scar, opened in the early morning’s sky. From it came thunder—not from the heavens, but from the mechanical bestial roar of something man-made.
The crowd took a collective step backward as the machine descended, sleek as a serpent and forged of glimmering obsidian-like metal. It crunched the temple stone beneath its weight as curious whorls of smoke hissed around it. It was unlike anything the priests had summoned in visions or tales, and yet it settled with an air that demanded reverence.
From within stepped a figure shrouded by a translucent, glistening armor that reflected the broken sunlight. Removing her helmet, the stranger revealed another woman—angular jaw, ebony hair cropped short, and markings carved into her cheekbones like lightning bolts. Her eyes, luminescent and crimson, locked on Xochitl as if seeing through time.
“Xochitl. You are not meant to die,” she spoke in Nahuatl, her voice mechanical yet tethered by humanity. “Rise, now.”
Xochitl staggered as she stood, the jaguar pendant still swinging loosely. “Who… what trickery is this?” she managed to whisper, her throat dry.
The stranger said nothing as charred dirt rose around her boots. Instead, she extended a gloved hand and pressed it against Xochitl’s chest. A searing sensation ripped through her veins as memories surged within her mind: cold, digitized fragments of futures yet to come. Cities beyond imagining stood under veiled suns. Machines walked beside men as gods once had, yet shadows fell heavy over the faces she saw. Something was breaking the order of cosmic justice, and Xochitl glimpsed its consequence—the vast unfolding tide of ruin.
The woman in armor looked beyond her, to the priests and gathered masses. “Huitzilopochtli does not crave blood today. Your gods have sent me to tell you this: Your world hangs on the knife’s edge, but her survival is mine to protect.” Her voice bore finality as she swept Xochitl off her feet.
The crowd erupted in cries of outrage and confusion as the machine’s shadows stretched outward. A tumult roared through the plaza as Xochitl clung to the futuristic soldier. The last she saw before darkness swallowed space was the marbled feathers of her huipil spread like wings, carrying her into the unknown.
Echoes Across Eras
In that fathomless elsewhere, Xochitl awoke disoriented as visions of thatched roofs and burning fires dissolved. The ancient jungle trails were replaced by smooth platforms and star-specked voids beyond her comprehension. They landed silently in orbit of her world. The woman—her savior or tormentor—spoke quietly as she unveiled a vast view of their realm, now reframed as a distant azure pearl.
“What purpose could I serve?” Xochitl finally dared ask, her voice filled with equal parts awe and despair.
“You were never meant to serve,” the stranger said, her crimson eyes unwavering and distant. “You were meant to remember. You are the last to carry the myth forward.”
What was myth? And what was destiny? Xochitl clutched her pendant and breathed deeply as the panorama rippled, rewriting her old fate.
Human hands, she realized, did not solely serve gods, nor do they obey their machines. They strike balance—when restless, they break cycles. Xochitl would learn to wield hers again, in smoke and echoes, for times far removed beyond her age's sunrises.
Genre: Historical Speculative Fiction / Sci-Fi
The Source...check out the great article that inspired this amazing short story: Impact of Jimmy Carter's Consequential 4 Years
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