He was born under the name Xóchitl-Miguel, a forced amalgamation his Spanish father, Don Álvaro de la Cruz, and his Nahua mother, Citlali, negotiated in an act of cultural survival. They would call him Miguel at church, Xóchitl at the hearth. He, in the privacy of his adult mind, clung to Alejandro as the last bastion of his former identity.
They lived in Tlatelolco, but not the Tlatelolco of the vibrant pre-Hispanic market he remembered from books. This was a wounded Tlatelolco in transition: a neighborhood on the outskirts of the nascent Mexico City, where stones from the ancient main temple had been reused to build the church of Santiago, and where the scent of copal mixed uneasily with Catholic incense, like two perfumes that repelled each other.
From his father's rickety carriage (a down-on-his-luck hidalgo who traded in fabrics), Alejandro, now nearly a year old with enough control to sit and observe, saw the world with eyes that shouldn't understand what they were seeing.
To the left: The straight, obsessive grid of the Spanish city. Men in shining armor patrolled cobblestone streets. Franciscan friars walked with measured steps, their rosaries gleaming with a light that was too white, unnatural. Alejandro could see it: a cold clarity that made the air vibrate slightly, like heat over asphalt in summer. It was the Magic of Order, of Imperial Faith. Clean, geometric, relentless.
To the right were the canals and chinampas that still survived. Indigenous men and women, backs curved under burdens, moving with silent grace. Some wore discreet amulets: a feather tied to an ankle, a small piece of obsidian hanging from the neck. And around them, Alejandro perceived something different: an earthy light, golden and green, that welled up from the very ground. It was a magic that didn't shine, but breathed. The Magic of the Earth, ancient, patient, wounded but alive.
The town itself was a schizophrenic organism:
· The din of stones being carved for more churches.
· Freshly baked bread, mixed with the aroma of blue corn tortillas; Spanish leather and native cotton; dried blood on the slaughterhouse floor and ground cacao.
· Adobe houses with Spanish tile roofs, but with interior courtyards that followed the design of the ancient patiyotl, open spaces to the sky.
Alejandro's baby face showed a look of perpetual astonishment. He wasn't faking it. Every detail was a blow of historical reality. Over there, a group of tlacuilos (indigenous scribes) were drawing a codex for a friar, but as their hands moved, they left trails of golden dust in the air that only Alejandro seemed to notice. A silent power, documenting its own extinction with magic the friar couldn't see.
Citlali, his mother, noticed her son's intense gaze. She stroked his head, her fingers calloused but soft.
"You look as if you remember something, Xóchitl," she whispered in Nahuatl, using his secret name, the one of the heart. "This world is old and new at the same time. You have its two bloods. Don't let them break you."
·
Market day.
Don Álvaro had taken them to the main plaza. The din was deafening. Among stalls selling iron tools and glazed ceramics, there was an old vendor of amatl (bark paper). A Nahua man, his face furrowed with wrinkles like a living codex.
A Spanish soldier, drunk and haughty, approached.
"You! Paper for my records. The best. And be quick."
The old man nodded, without words. He took some sheets, and as he did, his lips moved in an imperceptible murmur.
Alejandro saw it.
He saw how the amatl, when touched by the old man, acquired a subtle sheen, as if the moon had settled on its surface. It wasn't a physical shine; it was a magical impression. The old man was blessing the paper, imbuing it with an intention. Protection? Memory? Alejandro didn't know.
The soldier took the sheets, grunted, and threw a few coins on the ground. The instant he touched the blessed paper, an expression of confusion crossed his face. He brought his hand to his head, as if it hurt. Then he walked away, forgetting his arrogance for a moment.
That's when the System emerged.
Activation: Anáhuac System of Historical Reboot
It wasn't a voice. It was a silent explosion of color.
Before Alejandro's eyes (but not his physical eyes—in his mind), the world was overlaid with a layer of information. Aztec, Maya, Purépecha glyphs floated in his visual field. They were beautiful, complex, deadly. And chaotic. They weren't ordered. They moved, regrouped, as if someone had tossed the pages of a sacred book into the air.
» EVENT REGISTERED: INDIGENOUS MAGIC IN ACTION (Class: Silent Enchantment).
» INTENTION DETECTED: 'Protection of the Written Word'.
» ANÁHUAC ENERGY ABSORBED: +0.1% (Insufficient to power a feather! Keep trying, Reborn One).
A progress bar appeared, titled "HISTORICAL-MAGICAL ASSIMILATION". It was at a minuscule 0.1%. Next to it, a blinking icon: "AVAILABLE MISSIONS: 1 (Chaotic)".
Alejandro, in his mind, tried to focus on the mission. Information flowed, but in a disorderly way, as if the system itself was learning to communicate:
» CHAOTIC MISSION #001:
OBJECTIVE: Touch three sources of conflicting magic before your first year of life.
PROGRESS: 1/3 (Earth Magic - Silent Enchantment).
REMAINING SOURCES: Order Magic (Imperial Faith), Chaos Magic (optional), Pain Magic (?).
REWARD: Minor Ability: 'Eyes of the Fifth Sun' (Allows seeing latent magical intentions).
SYSTEM WARNING: Rewards may alter your perception of reality in irreversible ways. History is a weave: pulling one thread can unravel a nation. Shall we play?
The message ended with an animated glyph of a laughing serpent, which faded into digital copal smoke.
Alejandro went still. His baby heart beat fast. This wasn't just a video game system. It was an entity with personality, mocking, dangerous. And it was asking him to expose himself to potentially harmful magics.
This is problematic, he thought to himself.
Citlali noticed the tension in his body. She held him tight against her chest.
"Are you cold, my flower?" she murmured. Though he wanted to, he couldn't respond. He just looked over his mother's shoulder to where the old amatl vendor was now watching him intently.
The old man's eyes were clouded with age, but in that moment, he seemed to see through him. As if he recognized not the baby, but the stranger from another time dwelling within. The old man made an almost imperceptible gesture with his hand: the symbol of Ollin, movement, change, earthquake.
And he smiled.
Could it be? I don't doubt it much.
---
That night, back at home, Alejandro processed what he had experienced.
His home was a physical reflection of his soul: an adobe construction trying to be Spanish, with a wooden door carved with the De la Cruz family crest. But inside, the soul was Nahua:
· The hearth at the center, not a European fireplace.
· Walls adorned with feather tapestries that Citlali wove in secret, showing stories of Quetzalcóatl as Christian allegories to deceive the Inquisition.
· In one corner, a small Christian altar with a crucifix. In another, discreetly hidden behind a pot, a clay figurine of Tláloc, the rain god, with an offering of dried corn.
Don Álvaro arrived tired, smelling of horse and documents. He kissed Citlali's forehead with a tenderness that contrasted with his rigid Spanish posture. Then he looked at his son.
"Miguel is growing strong," he said in rough Spanish, but with pride.
"Yes," replied Citlali, wiping away a tear Alejandro didn't understand. "He has my grandmother's eyes. Eyes that see… too much."
That night, as Alejandro fought against infant sleep, the System whispered again:
» ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS COMPLETE.
» LOCATION: Tlatelolco, Mexico City, Viceroyalty of New Spain (Year of Our Lord 1535).
» HISTORICAL STATUS: Unstable. The Conquest is 'over,' but the spiritual war has just begun.
» CONFLICTING MAGICS DETECTED: 4+ (More data required. Survive to discover them!).
» NEXT MILESTONE: Your first year of life. Objective: Complete Chaotic Mission #001.
» UNSOLICITED ADVICE: Your mother knows more than she says. Your father fears more than he shows. Trust the first. Watch the second. History isn't written with ink; it's written with choices.
Alejandro closed his eyes, not to sleep, but to think.
Well, I guess I shouldn't worry yet about what happens, after all I'm still a baby, he told himself, and then closed his eyes as he was lulled to sleep in his mother's arms.
He was one year old, had a chaotic system, and a world on the brink of a magical change only he could see.
And in the gloom, the mocking smile of the carefree goddess seemed to float in the air, alongside the scent of copal and the promise of a future that could still be different.
End of Chapter