Sofia hadn’t moved.
Xiuhcoatl’s words still hung in the air—sharp, bitter—but underneath the fire, she heard something else.
Not hatred.
Not rage.
Hurt.
Old and deep. The kind that turns grief into bone.
He stood still, carved from shadow and sunlight, the edge of the rising sun gilding his jaw.
He expected her to recoil. To rage. To tell him he was too far gone.
She didn’t.
Her face was unreadable. But her eyes… they softened.
“What I heard,” she said quietly, “wasn’t the voice of a king.”
His jaw tightened. But he didn’t speak.
“It was a boy,” she continued, “taught to vanish. Taught that softness was dangerous and being seen was a death sentence.”
Still silence.
“You think that pain makes you monstrous,” she said. “It doesn’t. It makes you just like all the rest of us.”
T
