Winter gave way to an early spring, but in the De la Cruz home, the chill of the "Echo of Order" still clung to the rafters. Alejandro, now nearing eleven months, wrestled with the strange duality within himself: the glacial gleam of the friar's blessing, like a crystal embedded in his spirit, and the torrid heat of Earth Magic flowing in his mother's blood. Between both, his newly unlocked Eyes of the Fifth Sun flickered like a poorly extinguished ember.
The first signs were subtle. Unconscious.
Alejandro, frustrated by his inability to move or communicate, often activated his new vision unintentionally. One afternoon, as Citlali ground corn on the metate, Alejandro watched her, longing to tell her something, anything, to thank her for her care. He concentrated his frustration, and for an instant, his Eyes of the Fifth Sun fully activated.
He didn't see just his mother. He saw an aura of silent resistance. Golden and green lines, like roots of an ancient tree, stretched from her heart to the earthen floor of the house, connecting her to the deep Tlatelolco. And he saw something else: in her hands, as she rubbed the corn, a faint, almost imperceptible glow transferred to the grains. It wasn't powerful magic. It was a domestic enchantment, an act of love and protection as ancient as agriculture itself.
A solar flash, fleeting as the blink of a star, shone in the baby's dark eyes.
Citlali stopped grinding. She looked at him. Not with surprise, but with a deep, moist recognition. A slow smile, laden with pride and ancestral pain, lit up her face.
"Do you see it, flower of the earth?" she whispered in Nahuatl, approaching. "The old blood does not forget. It speaks to you, and you listen."
Alejandro, thrilled to be understood, tried to respond. He babbled, and in his clumsy effort, another golden flash lit his irises. It was stronger this time. A speck of dust, illuminated by that internal glow, shone like a spark for a second before fading.
Citlali laughed softly, a laugh that sounded like contained, joyous weeping. "My Xóchitl! My little tlamatini! You carry the sight!"
---
The problem arrived when Don Álvaro witnessed one of these episodes.
It was at dusk. Álvaro returned tired, the smell of parchment and frustration clinging to his clothes. Upon entering, he saw Citlali playing with Alejandro. The baby, fascinated by the flame of a tallow candle, reached out his little hands. Citlali, in an act of instinctive complicity, whispered a few words in Nahuatl, inviting subtle magic, connection.
Alejandro, excited, fixed his gaze on the flame. He wanted to understand it, not with the physics he vaguely remembered, but with this new magical perception. His Eyes of the Fifth Sun activated, not as a flash, but as a sustained glow. For a second, his pupils seemed to turn into two tiny suns, and the candle flame leaned towards him, dancing to the rhythm of his heartbeat, taking on a golden tint.
"By all the saints!" Álvaro yelled, dropping his bag.
The scene froze. Citlali paled, not from fear, but from contained rage. She quickly stepped between her husband and her son, like a lioness.
"What... what witchcraft is this?" stammered Álvaro, pointing at Alejandro, whose eyes had already returned to normal, filled with tears of confusion and effort.
"It's not witchcraft," said Citlali, her voice low but firm, like the edge of obsidian. "It's his gift. The gift of my people. The one your friar tried to freeze with his icy blessing."
"Don't say that! It's dangerous!" Álvaro lowered his voice, creeping towards them. "If anyone sees... if Fray Bernardo finds out... Do you think they'll call it a 'gift'? They'll call it possession! Or heresy! You could be...!" He didn't finish the sentence, but the terror in his eyes said it all: inquisition, pyre, banishment.
"And what do you want me to do?" retorted Citlali, straightening up. "Teach him to turn it off? To hide it like I hide my tapestries? To pretend he's just 'Miguel,' the good Spanish boy?"
"His name is Miguel! For the world and for God!" Álvaro struck his thigh with his fist.
"His name is Xóchitl!" she shouted, for the first time raising her voice in Spanish, breaking her usual linguistic submission. "In this house, in my heart, in the earth he treads, he is Xóchitl! He is a flower! He is not a soldier of the archangel!"
"This is no longer just your people's land, Citlali!" Álvaro's voice trembled, not just with anger, but with brutal impotence. "Look outside! The temples are churches, the tlatoani serve the Viceroy, and your people, our people, are oppressed! By Spaniards like me! Yes, I know! I'm not blind! But I also know that if that child shows a hint of what he just did, the high command won't come to discuss roots. They'll come with iron crosses and a thirst for orthodoxy. And they'll take him! And you too! Is that what you want?"
Citlali fell silent, but her eyes burned. "I don't want him to forget who he is. I don't want him to think his mother's blood is a stain, a sin. You can walk around with your surname and your lighter skin. He cannot. He carries mestizaje on his face, in his soul... and now in his eyes. And you want him to hide it?"
"I'm not happy about this either!" Álvaro exploded, his face twisted by anguish. "I hate having to be afraid in my own home! I hate that my son's name is a secret! I hate that the love I have for you is looked upon with pity by my own people! But this... this... is New Spain. And those in power don't care about your pride, or your pain, or your ancient magic. They care about order. And what our son just did... is pure chaos to them."
The argument spiraled into a vicious circle of fear, love, and guilt. Álvaro, trapped between his loyalty to his family and his terror of an oppressive system that, ironically, half-benefited him. Citlali, torn between protecting her son's gift and protecting him physically from a world that longed to extinguish that very gift.
I feel a bit like an observer, watching this, having never seen them argue before, huddled in my cloth cradle. Every word was a knife. I felt guilty. It was my power, my clumsy display, that had opened this rift. I wanted to shout at them to stop, that I didn't want trouble, that I could control it. I wanted to explain the System, the goddess, the mission. I wanted to tell my father I understood his fear, and my mother that I honored her pride.
But I was only eleven months old.
The frustration boiled inside me, mixing with the cold "Echo of Order" and the heat of Earth Magic. Damn it, if only I could say something. An unbearable pressure built up in my small chest. I opened my mouth, wanting to form words, but only a guttural sound, a stifled cry, came out.
» WARNING! EMOTIONAL OVERLOAD DETECTED!
» CONFLICTING ENERGIES: 'Sacred Geometry' (Echo) vs. 'Living Earth' (Heritage) vs. 'Own Frustration'.
» POSSIBLE OUTCOME: UNCONTROLLED DISCHARGE. SUPPRESS? (INSUFFICIENT RESOURCE).
Suppress it? That will only make them keep fighting. Besides, I couldn't suppress it even if I wanted to. I didn't know how.
With all my might, with all the pain of seeing my parents tear each other apart because of me, I pushed my limit. It wasn't a conscious act of magic. It was a sob of the soul.
A pulse of silent energy emanated from him.
It wasn't golden light. It wasn't white geometry. It was something grey, a sound that wasn't sound, a wave of pure, raw emotion that filled the room.
The candle snuffed out abruptly.
The fire in the hearth flattened, then leapt up in a high, silent tongue for an instant.
A clay plate on the table emitted a fine crack, as if an internal tension had been released.
And, most importantly, all visible magic in the room – Citlali's weak golden lines, the white residues of the "Echo" – dissipated sharply, as if swept away by an invisible wind.
The effect was instant. Álvaro and Citlali fell silent mid-word, turning towards their son in unison.
Alejandro hadn't produced a flash. He had produced a magical silence.
Then, exhausted, overwhelmed, and overcome by the powerlessness and the reaction he had caused, the only thing he could do was what every baby does when the world is too much: he broke into tears. A loud, inconsolable cry, coming from the depths of his being, mixing the rage of the trapped adult with the vulnerability of the child.
The heartrending sound broke the last remnant of their dispute.
"Oh, my sky…" whispered Citlali, and in an instant she was at his side, picking him up, rocking him against her chest. Tears streamed down her cheeks, washing away the anger, leaving only worry.
Álvaro approached, his anger dissolved into paternal concern. He placed a trembling hand on his son's head. "Shhh… Miguel… Xóchitl… I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He didn't know which name to apologize to, so he used both.
Alejandro, through tears, looked at them both. He couldn't speak, but in his mind, the System showed a new, simple message:
» UNCONSCIOUS ABILITY MANIFESTED: 'Weariness of the Gods' (Embryonic Degree).
» EFFECT: Low-scale magical suppression through extreme emotional emanation.
» CONSEQUENCE: The conflicting magical energies within the bearer have found a temporary outlet. Danger of backlash.
» RECOMMENDATION: STABILIZE EMOTIONAL ENVIRONMENT. MAGIC RESPONDS TO THE HEART.
Alejandro clung to his mother's tunic, his crying subsiding into hiccups. He had stopped the fight, but at a cost. He had revealed that his magic wasn't just about seeing, but affecting. And most dangerously: he had shown that his powers responded to the chaos of his own emotions.
Citlali and Álvaro looked at each other over his head. The argument about names and magic wasn't resolved, but in that moment, only the child crying in their arms mattered, a child who was a mystery and a danger, their son, trapped between two worlds and three magics.
Winter had ended, but the storm within the adobe walls had just begun.