When Ichtaca had told her of a newcomer with strange black teeth, Estrella had been expecting a decrepit old bat, teeth stained black from chewing herbs—not this razor-toothed demon who reminded her more of the prince than the priest. Even for a Vampyrum, she was tall and strong, towering over most, perhaps all, of the bats at the pyramid. Estrella had noticed her immediately, not by her teeth but by her sheer presence.

Estrella did not particularly want to stick around to gather more information, if indeed this bat was anything like the prince, but she'd survived in this pyramid all these years, and she hadn't joined the rebellion because she was a coward.

The Vampyrum newcomer and the prince had returned from a border patrol a few minutes ago and were speaking with one another in the royal chamber. Carefully, as to not draw attention to herself, Estrella fluttered inside after them and began to clean moss from a carving on the wall.

"What do you know about the Stone?" Goth asked, hovering over it. He had never paid much attention to it, mainly because Voxzaco was often studying it and he made a point to avoid the old bat. But in light of recent news, he realized he should understand more about it. Its carvings depicted bats, birds, beasts, constellations—but he couldn't make sense of any of them.

Phoenix was silent a moment before answering. "About as much as any bat," she said. "It foretells the future. One can speak with Zotz by spilling blood here." She frowned. "I can't read it, if that's what you're asking."

Goth only grunted in response. When Phoenix had arrived the night before, he had first thought that both she and Voxzaco were mad—to think, kill the sun! But his father had seemed to find it plausible, and his father had always been a wise king. And repellant as the old priest was, the king regarded him as a trustworthy adviser.

"Last night, you said the sun created a barrier between the two worlds," Goth said. "What do you mean by that?"

"There...was another god," Phoenix said haltingly. "Lord Zotz's twin sister, Nocturna. Thousands of years ago, she trapped him in the Underworld, afraid of his power."

"Impossible!" Goth snarled. The idea of a rival to Zotz, one that could create a barrier between worlds—it was unthinkable! "She cannot be more powerful than Zotz!"

"And she is not," Phoenix snapped. "She used the sun's power to trap him below, not her own. Zotz killed her in retribution but the sun's magic still holds. During the eclipse, the sun's power will wane, and if Zotz is given one hundred lives he shall rise and destroy it."

Goth bristled at her tone, though her words filled in many of the details that had been missing last night. "How do you know this?"

She smirked. "I learned a lot in the Underworld," she said, "but I think much of what I said can be found on the Stone." She nodded at the carvings below. "In the meantime, I need to hunt again tonight, so I'll be taking my leave now. Your Highness." With a shallow bow of her head, she left the temple.

Goth watched her leave. He didn't quite know what to make of her. She had returned to the pyramid after a supposed three hundred years of absence and showed the bare minimum of respect, acting as if she were only one step down from royalty. However, she did claim to be a warrior, and both Goth's father and Voxzaco seemed to accept her words as truth—the eclipse, her history.

And...well, she had risen from the dead. It was a given that that was the strangest thing of all.

A rapid flutter of movement at the staircase as the newcomer departed caught Estrella's attention. She spun to see a Chrotopterus sweeping out of sight.

He'd been listening from the stairwell. And from the glimpse she'd gotten of him, he was not someone she recognized as a member of Kratos's rebellion.

Quietly, she took to the air and followed him.

She stayed a reasonable distance behind him until he was perhaps a hundred feet into the jungle and she could tell that he was definitely trailing the newcomer. She quickened her wingstrokes until she flew beside him.

"What are you doing?" she whispered. "Following her? If a Vampyrum sees you you could be marked!" Every servant of the Vampyrum was scarred once, a long slash across the back, to brand their rank. After that, suspicious or disrespectful behavior was rewarded by another cut—and after three marks, a servant would be killed and eaten. In all her years at the pyramid, Estrella had earned one mark. She'd since learned to keep her head down.

The other Chrotopterus already had two marks.

He fixed her with a glare. "You heard what they said in there!" he snarled. "A hundred lives to destroy the sun! I am not going to let that happen. So if you're not going to help me, get out of my way."

Estrella gasped as she realized what he meant to do—he was going to try and kill Zotz's messenger. "No!" she hissed. "Alone? Haven't you seen her? You don't stand a chance!"

"Don't I? As I said before: either help me, or leave."

She took a deep breath. "There's a group of bats who want the same thing you do. Wait. If you act now you'll be killed. Join us and you'll have a chance. Not just against her, but every Vampyrum—"

He slammed into her, cutting her off and knocking her into a tree trunk. She cried out in surprise, then steeled herself and bared her teeth, snapping at the other bat.

But he didn't try to bite her. "I can't wait that long. There's no telling when that eclipse is—and if they kill the sun, they kill us all. I'll take my chances with that black-toothed demon. As for you—stay out of my way!"

He released her and pushed himself away to continue after the messenger from the Underworld. Estrella caught the air and hovered in place, shaken. This bat...there was no reasoning with him. Estrella was surprised that he'd lasted in the pyramid for any time at all, rash and heedless as he was.

She grimaced. Even if he wasn't part of the rebellion proper, if he attacked that Vampyrum newcomer, bats would be suspicious. Camaxtli could grow suspicious. If that happened...she wasn't sure many would have the courage to incite a rebellion the king was expecting.

She turned to fly back to the pyramid. She wasn't going to be caught anywhere near whatever chaos the attack on Zotz's messenger would bring.

Phoenix roosted in a kapok tree to wait for prey. In the past few hours, she'd noticed that many of her senses had been dulled, chief among them smell. A dead bat couldn't smell, and the Underworld's sonic illusions had no scent.

This proved to make hunting more difficult than it should be. A nearby clump of flowers and something rotting on the ground kept drawing her attention. Useless. Silent as she was, she couldn't pick up any rodents or birds nearby, and the only bats she could scent were Vampyrum and Chrotopterus. She wondered if anyone would miss a single servant.

A weight struck her from behind and claws dug into her shoulders, jarring her from her roost. Phoenix and her attacker crashed into a branch below. She twisted around as far as she could, striking the bat full in the face and causing his grip to loosen. He lunged at her again, but she punched out with a furled wing and caught him in the throat. His teeth snapped on empty air and he was left gasping on the bough, but was still able to roll out of the way when Phoenix slashed at him. He hissed and leapt at her, apparently not expecting her to lash out as he did. She thrust his wings aside with her own, then quickly knocked his head away and sank her teeth into his throat, clamping down for a few seconds before releasing him.

He choked on blood and fell dead in seconds.

As Phoenix stood up, she became aware of several Vampyrum roosting on nearby trees as they erupted into shocked chatter.

"¡Asesina!" one cried.

"She—she just killed him!"

"No! Isn't she the royal guest?"

"¿Quién está muerto?"

"What just happened?"

"Cálmate, it's just a servant."

"Didn't you see him attack her? She's well within her rights to kill him."

Without a word in response, Phoenix looked at her attacker more closely. He wasn't a Vampyrum, as she had first thought, but a Chrotopterus—slightly smaller, with a shorter snout and thicker fur. A servant's scar slashed across his back. She didn't recognize him. A bat—and a Chrotopterus servant at that!—she'd never met, daring to attack her….

She grasped the dead bat's shoulders and heaved the body into the air. It was heavy, but not that much heavier than prey. She whirled to fly towards the pyramid.

Someone was trying to kill her.

Piles of leaves, seeds, bark, and mushrooms littered Voxzaco's chamber. The strong but familiar taste of jícaro and mushroom coated his mouth as he chewed the plants, the carrion stench of jícaro filling his nostrils. He'd long since become desensitized to it.

He grunted and braced himself against a cold stone wall as his heart began to beat frantically. His lungs seared as his breath quickened, but he had no cause to worry. Despite his age, the vision-inducing potions he took had no adverse effects on his health that he was aware of.

He had fasted since Phoenix had arrived the night before to help loosen his soul from his living body, and this potion would finish the job so that he could speak with Zotz. The farther one was from life, the better they could speak with the lord of the dead.

The colony's chatter and the sounds of the outside jungle grew muffled, then faded into silence. Voxzaco's vision flared black before paling to gray.

Blazing black slits of eyes opened in the darkness. Voxzaco's body was paralyzed; only his mind could move.

"Voxzaco," said the god. "You want to speak with me a single night after I send a messenger to you. What could be so urgent?"

"My Lord." Voxzaco would have knelt if he could. "She is the very reason I sought to speak to you. She claims that you have sent her from the Underworld itself and that soon there shall be a total eclipse of the sun."

"She speaks the truth."

"M-my Lord, if it would not be impudent, I would ask—why send a messenger when you could simply inform me of this news?"

The very air vibrated with laughter. "Voxzaco...my voice cannot remain in the Upper World long enough to guide you every wingbeat of the way. Phoenix has served me faithfully for centuries and is knowledgeable about the ritual. Listen to her."

"Yes, Lord Zotz," said Voxzaco after a heartbeat of hesitation. He knew that Phoenix's obsidian teeth signified that she was a valuable servant of Zotz's, but as the high priest, being ignored in her favor stung.

"And remember…you are not my only servant."

Voxzaco woke gasping and drenched in sweat. He'd fallen to the floor during his vision. Shaking from the potion's after-effects, he crawled over to a water-filled hollow in the corner of his chamber and drank, washing the thick, choking mixture from his mouth.

All that to be told he wasn't important enough to be contacted directly and should defer to arrogant Phoenix.

Phoenix dropped the would-be assassin's body on the steps of the pyramid with a thud. She landed beside it and looked up the vine-covered steps at King Camaxtli.

"I hope you have a good reason for killing one of my servants," said the king.

She prodded the corpse with a clawed foot to gesture to his scars. "It's his third offense," she said. "And more than that, he attempted to kill me."

Again, bats' alarmed jabber filled the air. Phoenix ignored them and held the king's gaze. The captain of the guard, Xocama, swooped in to stand a few steps below King Camaxtli.

"Did he now," muttered the king. He narrowed his eyes to study the body. "Then I suppose his death is lawful," he said to Phoenix. "If you hadn't killed him, one of the guards would have."

Xocama spoke up. "You didn't think to keep him alive?" he asked Phoenix. "To figure out why he attacked you?"

She frowned. That would have been prudent, but she didn't appreciate Xocama's tone. "I was focused on not dying a second time, thank you," she said tightly.

"At least we know he was acting alone."

Phoenix and Xocama looked up to see Prince Goth flying from the royal chamber. Phoenix sketched out a bow as he landed near them, as did Xocama.

King Camaxtli glanced at him. "Do we?"

"He had no chance alone, yet he took it," said Prince Goth. "He was desperate. Were he in league with others, I imagine Phoenix would have been attacked by a group."

The prince was right. At a glance, it was clear that the scrawny Chrotopterus was no match for a warrior of the likes of Phoenix.

"However, it has been only a night since your arrival," King Camaxtli said to Phoenix. "His motives were likely linked to the message you brought, and when other bats hear of it, some may be of a like mind. For now, all bats present should be more vigilant. If there are others like this traitor, we may all be targets. Xocama! Alert the guards. See what they can do to find those that may be involved."

"He what?" Ichtaca dug his claws deep into the wood of the tree he stood on and clenched his teeth. "What could he have been thinking? Did he even understand the risk he was putting all of us at? Now Camaxtli's expecting something—and you said he's searching for suspected rebels?"

Estrella nodded. "Almost. He doesn't know that we're organized on this level, that there's a rebel force. But he's ordered his guards to find possible...traitors." Her face twisted into a disdainful sneer. "As if we could be traitors when we've never given him our loyalty in the first place." She glanced at the sky, now a pale gray. "It's getting late. I'll tell Kratos tomorrow night."

"Kratos?" Ichtaca's heart sank. "You're still…" He shook his head. "You're not going to return to the pyramid, are you?"

Estrella's expression hardened. "I am. Whatever else has happened, Camaxtli's reign has to end, and I will help the rebellion however I can. I've known for the past six years the risk I've been putting myself at spying at the pyramid."

"But now Vampyrum are searching for you! This isn't just because of the bat from tonight—don't you remember Kalán? What happened to him?"

Estrella frowned. "Everyone remembers Kalán. I think he was a good bat. Strange, certainly, for a Vampyrum, but good."

"And Camaxtli had him killed!" hissed Ichtaca. "He was the queen's brother and they had him killed! And that bat from tonight—you said that Phoenix killed him in seconds. They'll slaughter us, Estrella. You know that."

She shook her head. "Yes, I know the risks. But you've been to Kratos's gatherings. We'll only attack groups of Vampyrum we outnumber. Phantom is trying to raise an army. And tonight—that bat was reckless, desperate. I couldn't reason with him. The rest of us will be more careful." She peered more closely at him, concern softening her eyes. "Are you all right? You've always been as ready as any of us. What happened?"

Ichtaca grimaced. "It's all well and good in theory—overthrowing the Vampyrum, claiming our freedom. But now that the fight is at hand…." He sighed. "Tell me, what will happen to Iktal if we die?"

Their son wasn't quite a year old and still lived with them. Ichtaca knew he was a brave young bat but couldn't help but worry for him. He couldn't leave his son without parents.

Estrella fell silent, staring at her claws. "We're not going to die," she said after a long while. "We're going to make this jungle a safer place for him."

Harpy roosted deep in the jungle, far from the pyramid. She turned the information over in her mind.

A servant tried to assassinate a Vampyrum named Phoenix, a messenger of Zotz, her informant had said. It's my belief that he was acting to prevent a plot of hers that it's possible the king is involved in. I'm not sure what this plot is, milady, but from what happened tonight, the servants are gaining courage. With any luck, other Vampyrum will recognize their lord's tyranny as well.

And best of all—Camaxtli also said that he and his son may be targets as well.

Attacking a messenger of Zotz….

Harpy smiled. Bats of a similar mind might be persuaded to fight against King Camaxtli himself.

Huh, that turned into a bunch of short scenes. Oh well. I hope it makes sense.