Xiuhcoatl returned just before dawn, the sky still bruised with night. The desert wind trailed behind him like smoke, whispering of what he had lost.
His warriors fell silent as he passed. No one dared approach—not even his generals. There was something feral in the set of his shoulders, something cold and brittle that warned them all: this was not a man returned in triumph, but a god scorned.
He walked straight through the heart of camp, dust streaking his arms, the scent of sunflowers and desert clinging to his skin like a second coat.
But it wasn’t enough to mask the truth.
She was gone.
He had never been denied. Not in battle. Not in life. Not like this.
Her absence scraped at something raw beneath the bone—not just want. Not even love.
A wound to the belief that he was infallib
