The rest of the field passed in a blur. I was numb to it now, barely lifting my gaze from Tochtli's back as she trotted onwards. My mind turned over an endless stream of images, snippets of words, and half-formed thoughts that dropped before they got to finish. Something about seeing my fears beginning to materialize blunted their edges. Or maybe that was my doing. We had already suffered losses. We were going to suffer more. The more times Xochi's body-less grave passed through my mind's eye, the more I turned to a grim tally of wins and losses. We would not save everything, or everyone, in this war. We would save as much as we could, and brace for the rest.

It occurred to me that this may not be the healthiest way to think about things, but the alternative—all that fear, all that uncertainty—was unbearable. I took a deep breath and pushed it all aside. We would get through this. If the gods died, I would save Emma. If Grillo Negro died, I would save Tepepia. If all were lost, I would at least save myself and my friends, and if they died... no, that wasn't an option. I tore down the faces surfacing over my thoughts of Grillo Negro, threatening to remove my removal from that fear. We would not lose it all. I would reach the gods and support them, and they would win.

My fingers bore a near-constant tingle now. How many times could I use this magic before Fuego did more than just scorch my hands? And what could I do with it? It was close enough to regular magic to allow summoning, which meant I could probably teleport objects, too. Maybe even myself. Chal said that making, disappearing, and moving things was the most a god could do without spellcasting, small exceptions like shapeshifting and spirit forms aside. Each god had specialties, too, to go with their particular magic. Moving wind or water. Abolishing light to create darkness. Summoning energy in the form of lightning or fire.

The tingle in my hands intensified. Fuego didn't like to act like a normal magic. It didn't like to make or move things. It wanted one thing: to find what it was told to find, and burn it.

What if I was to let it do that?

I plucked a strand of the wind-cropped grass and held it in my palm as I walked. I could feel my magic straining towards it, eager and hungry. Didn't Fuego avoid plants? Or was this me and my toxic grounding again? The grass crumpled into ash at the slightest thought. No blisters on my palm, no unbearable heat. I ripped up a larger clump and tried again. Compared to summoning, burning was easy. Fuego might only want one thing, but it did that one thing frighteningly well.

If burning was easy, maybe I could use more of it before I reached my limit. I had already broken my vow not to use my magic at all, but that vow had been made under very different circumstances. If letting Fuego burn things in a more or less controlled manner got me to the gods faster, I could let it burn. Once I reached them, after all, I would be able stop using it again. Then I could shelve it until I had a grounding that would give me control without the risk of it finishing what it had started, eating my own body from the inside out.

It was only as a sickly sweet, iron tang seeped into my senses that I realized we had reached the end of the field. I lifted my eyes, then had to blink twice and rub them to confirm what I was seeing. Ahead was a river, if it could even be called it that. Sluggish, carmine waters more oozed than flowed between banks caked with brown. The smell left no room for speculation.

It was blood. Completely blood. I had killed and drained large game before—deer, antelope, coywolves—but this was on a whole other level.

Tochtli stopped some ways up the riverbank, and I stopped with her. I kept my breaths shallow, trying to breathe through my mouth only to block out the sheer magnitude of the stench. In the middle of the current, a foot and the curves of a chest and head peeked above the surface. It was a dead soul, dressed in the long-stained clothing of the world before. How long had that person been floating? I retched as it moved. It floundered slowly, trying to move towards the opposite bank. It slowed back to stillness as it drifted out of sight.

Was it trying to get across?

Gods, did I have to swim?

I had never considered myself a squeamish person, but this got to me. The dried blood on the banks flaked under my boots as I stepped through it like a cat in a puddle. I poked my walking stick in the water. The deceptively gentle slope of the banks ended the moment the river touched them. I sank my stick as far as I could without wetting my hand. I couldn't find the bottom.

Tochtli had not come closer than the edge of the dried blood. She moved back further as I walked down the bank, trailing my stick in search of a shallower entry. A wave sloshed close to my feet. What should have been the panic center of my brain registered a ripple of alarm, then quailed under the weight of my suppression and settled back to disgust. If there was something here, I wanted it to reveal itself. The faster I knew what it was, the faster I could get this over with. I smacked my stick on the river's surface.

The dogs whined frantically as the "water" bulged. The river's surface broke across smooth, red scales as something huge circled near the bank. A small whirlpool formed. I tried to get a handle on its size as my mind offered up Xochi's painting: two giant snakes swimming through the clouds. But those had been green and white, not red.

My body was betraying my mind's attempts at stifling my fear. I kept my feet rooted, ready to use my fire magic if needed as the beast continued to circle. Compared to Coyol, this was nothing but a snake. Nothing but a snake in an underworld river of bloody water.

Another body drifted in from upstream. As it bobbed in the waves, it too moved, arms windmilling in slow motion. The water surged. Before I could blink, the soul was whipped out of sight. A vee-shaped trough in the water marked the snake's passage as it whizzed away.

Please don't puke.

Please don't puke.

I moved back, up the bank to safety and solid ground, away from the slime beneath my feet. I ran into a dog instead. Tochtli sprinted past me, leaped in the river and swam like the monster would come for her. Grifo followed. I was not going to be separated from my dog again. I ran after them and jumped. The warm, thick water didn't splash. It swallowed me up to my neck, squeezed my body, slid down my jacket and soaked my shirt. It wrapped around my throat like sweaty hands. Every piece of clothing I wore dragged me down. I should probably have dropped my walking stick, but I didn't want to let it go.

I paddled like a mad dog. At any moment, the snake would return. It would sense these vibrations and decide we were more interesting prey. The bank seemed a hundred kilometers away. I wasn't sure I could flounder much farther when my foot slipped down and jammed against the river bottom. I stood up to find it up to my chest. I lunged for the bank. Blood-laden clothing tried to drag me back as I clawed my way onto dry land. I crawled up the bank, found my feet, and broke into a proper run. I collapsed well away from the river, where the grass gave way to a dense thicket of bushes.

Both dogs snarled.

My knife moved on its own. It went hot in my hands as I struck, and the jaguar behind me fell dead at the touch. Another appeared at my side. I swung my walking stick and let Fuego loose; another blow dropped the animal. My magic seeped into the ground like a live, crackling poison. Other lurking jaguars slunk back into the shadows as the grass within the stick's length of the body crisped and crumbled into ash.

I sat panting on the bank. Burning. I could burn things. I nudged my magic like I would a feral dog, turning it to a new target. It set in eagerly. My clothing grew lighter as the blood-water sizzled itself away. Then the stains began to heat up. I gasped and seized the magic again, trying to put a caveat on my instructions. Fuego was slippery as a wet eel, like it wanted to get away as much as I did. My sleeve began to smoke. I choked on a sob and struggled out of my jacket, wrestling with the fire to stop the burning. I said blood only. Blood only! Stop!

My hands scrambled over the coywolf leather, stopping nothing. A hole appeared in the sleeve as more patches began smoking. I couldn't lose my jacket. I didn't have another one. Fuego was like a live thing. What would I do if it was alive?

Blood! Over there! Go burn the blood!

The magic perked up just like a dog thrown a fresher bone than the one it was chewing. I used all my willpower to point it towards the river, then pushed it hard. Burnt-black lines chewed through the grass, thinning as they went, until they hit the river with a barely audible hiss. I dropped back and hugged myself as the smoke from my jacket stopped.