Chapter One
The first splash was always the worst.
Teo stepped off the stone stairs into the black water and his body seized. Shockingly cold, smelling of silt and something faintly metallic…
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Three young Aztec acolytes — a diviner, a scholar, and an empath — must master ancient techniques to hold reality together as two gods war over the fate of existence and an unknown empire arrives on their shores.
In the waning days of the Aztec empire, three young acolytes discover that reality itself is fracturing. Counts don't add up. Priests appear in two places at once. The gods are at war over the nature of existence, and the cracks are spreading.
Teo's intuitive gift may be the key to stabilizing the fractures—or the first sign he's losing his mind. Anaca's obsessive intellect can decode the ancient texts that describe what's happening, but the answers resist the certainty she craves. And Lali's radical empathy lets her feel what others feel—a power that threatens to drown her before she learns to swim.
As they learn ancient techniques to hold the world together, the trio must navigate temple politics, imperial ambition, and their own tangled desires—all while rumours grow of pale strangers approaching from the east, carrying thunder that sounds like the end of everything.
The first splash was always the worst.
Teo stepped off the stone stairs into the black water and his body seized. Shockingly cold, smelling of silt and something faintly metallic. It hit like a fist. His breath slammed shut and his spine locked and every rational thought he'd ever had was replaced by the single burning conviction that the gods could not possibly require this. He cupped water in both hands and poured it over his head. He made a noise. He wasn't proud of it.
Anaca went next. She always treated it like something to defeat rather than endure. She stepped in without hesitating, poured water over her head, jaw clenched. No sound. A small, daily victory.
“Every morning,” she said, watching him with the calm superiority of someone who had suffered in silence. “Every single morning you act surprised.”
“Every single morning it's terrible.”
“You could let me go first. Learn by example.”
“Then I wouldn't get to soften the water for you.”
“More mockery,” she said with a forced sigh, but she was smiling. She wrung water from her hair, teeth clicking in the chill.
Purification, the elders said. A cleansing of the body before cleansing the gods' house. Teo was fairly sure the gods didn't care how clean his skin was before sunrise. But you didn't say that out loud.
They climbed back up the lake stairs—stone steps worn smooth by a hundred years of bare feet before theirs, slick with algae at the waterline—and dressed quickly on the platform above. Loincloths, cotton tilmas against the chill, hair tied back from their faces. Their sandals dangled from their belts; you didn't wear them for temple chores unless you wanted a scolding about softness.
“I heard Elder Xochipilli needs assistants for tonight's ceremony,” Anaca said, casual but with intense intrigue behind it. She was tying her hair with practiced efficiency. “The ololiuqui preparation. I've been studying the seven variations.”
Teo's stomach tightened with interest. He'd been studying too, memorizing which varieties would bring truths about illnesses, and which of the weightier preparations would bring visions from the gods. “Did he say how many assistants?”
“No.” She glanced at him sideways, a competitive gleam in her eye that he knew well. “But I memorized the southern preparation with honey yesterday. The one from the old codex.”
“The one that gets the proportions wrong?” Teo said, unable to resist. “The corrected version uses half the amount.”
“Shows what you know,” she said smartly. This was their way—pushing each other, testing.
The temple loomed above them, stepped terraces catching the thin wash of starlight. Even in the half-dark it was alive: priests moving like shadows, the faint thud of drums marking the hours, incense smoke curling from the upper shrines in lazy threads. Somewhere high above, a conch sounded—a note so low and long it seemed to vibrate in Teo's bones. The east was just beginning to pale.
The Diviner
His intuition draws him toward the right path without effort—but he's never had to choose when the path splits. His gift may be the key to holding reality together, or the first crack in his own mind.
The Pattern-Reader
Common-born and fiercely brilliant, she hoards knowledge like armour. She can decode what the ancient texts describe—but the answers resist the certainty she craves, and wisdom begins where possession ends.
The Empath
Grief sharpened her into a blade aimed at the empire that destroyed her family. She feels what others feel—a power that threatens to drown her, and a gift that may be the key to carrying a civilization's memory forward.
What do you do when the gods you serve are losing?
The Spanish can burn codices, but can they destroy knowledge hidden in lullabies?
Three people whose desire for each other could stabilize the world—or shatter it.
The empire wants weapons. The acolytes are building something else entirely.
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