Calavera did not rise.
She did not need to.
Instead, she extended one hand, and the shadows answered. The floor beneath her throne rippled as if alive, and she glided forward without walking, her gown trailing like smoke behind her.
She circled Annie slowly.
Not like a predator.
Like a scholar.
A curator admiring a forbidden artifact in a gallery of the damned.
Malvor shifted beside her, tense, but Annie didn't move. Her chin stayed high, her shoulders square.
"You walk in strength," Calavera murmured, voice a melodic hum. "But do you know what you wear, girl?"
Annie did not answer.
Not yet.
Calavera reached up, not touching, just hovering her hand near Annie's arm where the Luxor rune faintly glowed, and continued in a language Annie didn't recognize, but felt. The words rolled over her like silk laced with iron.
"These are not simple runes… not mere offerings of power. They are Glyphs of the First Breath. Stolen from the foundation of the world. Etched in pain. Anchored in soul."
Annie narrowed her eyes. "I know what they cost."
"I doubt it," Calavera said, calm and cold. "Because if you did, you would weep."
Malvor stepped forward.
His coat flared slightly with the motion, shadows curling around his boots.
"Say what you want, reina de huesos," he snapped, the foreign phrase crackling like lightning between them, "but don't talk down to her."
Calavera stopped circling.
She turned to face him fully.
And smiled.
It was not cruel.
It was not kind.
It was the smile of someone who had buried kings and kissed the foreheads of beggars, who had been weeping with mothers and laughing with ghosts.
She gave him a slight incline of her head, just enough to acknowledge the weight behind his words.
"Very well," she said, stepping back with silent grace. "I will offer you truth. The kind that cannot be unspoken."
"But truth here has a price."
Annie crossed her arms. "Of course it does."
Calavera nodded. "A favor. From each of you. One I may call upon, once, at a time of my choosing."
Malvor's jaw clenched. "You would bind us?"
"I would remind you," she said softly, "that death binds everything."
Annie looked at Malvor, then back at the goddess.
Her voice was low, firm.
"What kind of favor?"
Calavera smiled.
"The kind you don't regret… until it's too late."
And the candles flared.
Annie and Malvor exchanged a look.
He did not speak.
She did.
"Fine," Annie said, voice unwavering. "You will have your favor."
Malvor sighed, deep and theatrical, like someone resigning to sell a piece of his soul for a sandwich, but he nodded. "One favor. One truth. That's the deal."
Calavera's eyes shimmered like wet obsidian.
"So be it."
She moved again, slow and reverent, returning her attention to Annie's glowing skin. Her fingers hovered near each glyph as she spoke, the flicker of the candles catching the gold in her marigold crown.
"These…" she whispered, "are not of your gods."
Her hand floated over the Navir rune, the thin strokes like lightning frozen in time.
"They are older than time's rhythm. Older than gods. Older than death. These are fragments of the First Language, the tongue the world spoke before anything else learned to listen."
Annie stood still. Not frozen, just… still.
Listening.
Breathing.
Accepting.
Calavera traced the air just above her ribs, where Malvor's chaotic glyph curled like poetry made of storm.
"They were never meant to be carved into flesh. Not by pain. Not by force. And yet, here they are. Each one a door. Each one… a lockpick."
Malvor's brow furrowed. "To what?"
She didn't look at him.
"Power."
Her gaze lifted to Annie's face. "Each glyph, once activated, opens more of it. Strength. Will. Control. Divinity. It grows. With every spark."
Calavera took a step back and folded her hands. "There are two paths to activation. One is choice. The other is connection. A willing gift. Or an act of sacred vulnerability."
Malvor stared. "You mean—"
"Yes," Calavera said, with no shame. "Sex. Or something deeper. Each time you connected with one of them, willingly or otherwise, it unlocked another piece."
Annie's mouth was a hard line, but she did not flinch.
"And when they are all lit?" Malvor asked, already dreading the answer.
"Full activation," Calavera said, "grants immortality."
Silence fell like snowfall.
"You mean she becomes a god?" he asked, voice quieter now.
"No," Calavera said. "Something older than gods."
She stepped around them again, hands brushing the air like she was sketching threads only she could see.
"The glyphs bind them to her. And her… to them. Their life force flows through her now. A tether. A circuit."
Annie's jaw clenched. "So I'm trapped."
"You are connected," Calavera corrected. "If you kill one…" she paused, turning back to face her fully, "you might just slit your own throat."
Malvor swore under his breath. "Of course. Of course it's blood magic. Stupid ancient binding curses, why can't anything ever just be straightforward?"
Annie remained still, her voice low. "Can it be undone?"
Calavera smiled faintly.
"Everything can be undone," she said. "Even life."
But she didn't offer an answer.
Not yet.
Not without more cost.
Malvor's brow furrowed deeper as Calavera's words settled into the air like dust.
Something wasn't adding up.
"These glyphs… the First Language..." he muttered, gaze drifting over the glowing runes on Annie's skin, "That is not common knowledge. That is not in books. It's not even in forgotten temples. No one speaks it anymore. Not even you, Calavera. You recognize it, but you do not speak it."
She did not answer immediately.
Which only made him angrier.
He stepped forward, voice sharper now. "So how the hell did a handful of priests know how to carve it? How did they know what it was? How to activate it? How to tie it to gods? That isn't ritual magic. That's foundational language. That is world-making magic!"
Calavera watched him with eyes like still water, deep, reflective, but refusing to ripple.
"I am not the one who gave them that knowledge," she said softly.
"That is not an answer," he snapped.
"No," she agreed. "It is not."
Annie's eyes narrowed, her body quiet but coiled. "But someone did."
Calavera tilted her head. "There are old powers that linger in the cracks between realms. Whispers in forgotten bloodlines. Magic older than faith. Some truths do not want to be buried."
Malvor's voice dropped low. "That sounds like prophecy. And I hate prophecy."
Calavera's smile was faint. "Then you will really hate what's coming."
Annie did not blink.
She just said, "So you don't know."
Calavera's expression did not change.
Which was confirmation enough.
"I know enough," the goddess of death murmured. "Enough to warn you. Enough to watch. But this?" She gestured to Annie's glowing runes with a slow, reverent hand. "This is older than even my memories. And that should terrify you."
Malvor's fists clenched at his sides.
Because it did.
Not just for what it meant.
But for the fact that someone out there, something, had carved into Annie not with brute force, but with knowledge they should never have possessed.
And that meant this was bigger than any of them.