Esperanza hummed to herself as she strolled through the bustling promenade, the scent of roasted peppers and candied tamarind clinging to the afternoon heat. Beneath the awnings of silk and banana leaf, vendors called out their wares, bright flags snapping in the breeze. Marisiana glittered in the light- warm, alive, full of color and noise.
She loved these rare moments, stolen from duty and expectation, where she could pretend she was no one special. Just a girl in a white sundress with a woven basket and a few coins tucked in her sash. No prophecy in her blood. No goddess watching from the corners of her soul.
Just Esperanza.
But even now, as she walked with a practiced casualness, she could feel the stares. Hear the whispers that buzzed behind the clatter of trade.
That's the girl. The daughter of the storm and the lion.
Be careful when she walks by…
She leveled a district once with a scream, didn't she?
She held her head high.
Her mother had taught her that. early, and often.
"When they stare," Elena had said, brushing out her daughter's hair beneath a sky streaked with summer lightning, "you hold your chin up, and square your shoulders. Let them stare. You don't blink. We are not only our magic, mija."
A low rumble of thunder had echoed that day, far off and rolling.
"We don't fear the storm, because we are the storm. Never forget that."
So she didn't.
Not when she passed the old women with protective charms clutched in their fists. Not when younger boys tried and failed to hide their awe. And not now, as she approached her favorite fruit vendor and ordered her and Phineus's favorite snack- mangoes, sliced thick and dusted with chile and lime.
She was reaching for her coin purse when she saw him.
Leaning against a pillar draped in flowering vines, watching her.
He was beautiful.
Sun-dark skin, sharp jaw, silky raven-black hair falling just past his chin. Eyes as deep and dark as stormwater at night. He looked older- maybe thirteen, fourteen- but not by much. There was something strange about his stillness. Like a predator who hadn't decided if it would pounce or pass you by.
Their eyes met.
For the first time in her life, Esperanza blushed at being stared at.
The vendor handed her the fruit. She turned her head, embarrassed and half-smiling, to thank them. When she looked back-
He was gone.
As if he'd never stood there.
She blinked. "A vision?" she murmured, brows furrowed as she clutched the basket to her chest.
But no. She hadn't felt the presence of the goddess. This was something else.
From behind a tapestry of herbs and incense, the boy watched her, lips pressed together. Then, with a single, silent nod to himself, he disappeared into the crowd.
The wind shifted.
A breeze picked up around Esperanza's shoulders, brushing her hair from her face, and she realized too late that her heart was racing. Her magic always responded to her emotions, it had since she was a toddler.
Calm down, she thought. You're just imagining things-
Someone bumped her shoulder.
Just a nudge, nothing aggressive.
But it startled her.
And her body, so finely attuned, so cursed with power, reacted.
A jagged bolt of lightning cracked down from the clear sky, slamming into the boardwalk with explosive force. Timber snapped, splintered, and smoke rose. The scent of scorched cedar and ozone filled the air.
Screams.
People fell. Some into the swampy waters below, others crashing down onto gondolas or jagged roots. A woman clung to the edge of the broken planks, her hand bloodied. A child sobbed beside her, ankle twisted grotesquely.
Esperanza stood frozen, mangoes crushed in her trembling hands, horror blooming in her chest.
I didn't mean to… I didn't mean to…
She moved quickly, trying to help, hands outstretched, voice quivering.
But they flinched from her. Backed away like she was fire. Someone shouted for help-
not to her, from her.
The stares now weren't curious or reverent. They were afraid. Accusatory.
Monster.
Witch.
Like her mother.
Like the goddess.
Her throat tightened. She couldn't breathe.
She bowed her head and ran.
At that same moment, at the Matteo family bungalow nestled in a grove of banyan and salt cedar, Elena and Niegal leaned against each other in the sitting room.
Niegal traced diagrams on parchment with the slow ease of a man well-trained in his craft.
"…concentration of mana is vital for mortal injuries," he was saying, "but for spiritual sickness, you'll need the serpent's help too. Your magic doesn't want to heal- it wants to consume pain, burn it out. You'll have to train it to soothe instead."
Elena furrowed her brow, biting the inside of her cheek as she studied the diagrams. "I still feel like I'm going to set someone on fire if I heal anything more than a graze." She had studied healing magic years ago, before becoming a vessel, when she was studying forbidden text at the old Matteo estate, Windswept Manor. But this was something else entirely.
"You probably will," Niegal said, smiling faintly. "It's how I started."
She gave him a sideways glance, swatting him gently. "You're the worst teacher."
"Better than the Council," he teased, kissing her shoulder. "They tried to kill me for healing someone the wrong way, remember?"
Elena laughed softly, resting her head against his.
And then-
CRACK.
A thunderclap rolled across the sky, unnatural and close.
Then came the cries. Shouting. Screaming.
They both went still.
They knew that kind of scream.
They were out the door before the parchment could flutter to the ground.
They reached the promenade just in time to see chaos.
Vendors scattering, civilians bleeding, debris still smoking. A chunk of boardwalk had collapsed entirely. Some were still in the water. Niegal ran to the wounded without hesitation. Elena raised her arms, commanding water and debris to part so she could pull the injured to safety.
But something else caught her attention-
A streak of white fabric and brown curls.
Esperanza.
Tears streamed down her face, one hand clapped over her mouth. Her eyes met Elena's for just a heartbeat, and then she turned and fled into the fog.
Elena's breath caught. "Mijita-"
But she was gone.
Niegal pressed a glowing palm to a woman's bleeding side, face etched in concentration. "We'll find her after," he said gently. "Right now, these people need us."
And though every part of her ached to run after her daughter, Elena nodded.
They moved into the wreckage, gods in mortal form, trying desperately to clean up a mess made not by malice, but by magic too wild to be contained.