Nothing Dark Can Stay, Either

Chapter 2

A year into the prison world, and Beatrix was surprised that she hadn't killed Kai more than thirty six times.

Granted, they were still even, but it was nice to know that they weren't at each other's throats so often anymore.

The first few months were terrible. They'd hotwired a car and gone driving around Portland, Oregon for days on end, getting food, clothes, and other pretty trinkets, ignoring the eclipse, and seeing what else could be of interest.

Every time they had returned to the house, even in separate bedrooms, some conflict always happened. Either Kai got angry at Beatrix for not shutting up about her stupid theories and plans, or Beatrix got infuriated that Kai was still being too disrespectful to cooperate.

The second time Kai had killed her, he'd caught her off guard and siphoned until she was unconscious. Then, he'd staked her into the wall. That had been three days in, because she had made the eggs 'wrong.'

The third time they killed each other, they'd orchestrated it as a competition. Kai had staked her to test how fast she could kill him before her body turned gray. He had not been expecting her to tear out his throat entirely just mere seconds before her collapse.

The fourth time, they had also planned it, to see how badly they could wreck the car they were using. The crash had killed Kai instantly, and Bea had died slowly when she got a wooden sign through her abdomen, and the splinters gradually went to her heart.

After that, it was much more random. They made it fun, despite both being aggravated that the other wouldn't cease surprising them with a murder plot. Yet, even with the excitement that came with not knowing when or how they'd be killed this time (Kai was still trying to cut her head off, since he was getting tired of always staking her), it was revolting and they both ended up ignoring each other for days at a time, sometimes weeks. At one point, a month nearly passed where they didn't speak to each other even though they remained in the same house.

But after the sixth month mark, when they were angry and lonely and bored out of their minds, about to go insane, they decided to get off their asses and just talk. So they did.

They learned quite a bit about each other, too. At first, it was mostly Beatrix talking, since she had lived longer. She told Kai about her mother's journal, which she had snippets of memorized, and about why she specifically was born a siphon.

It had been 1665 when Ixazaluoh was born. Her family resided near the Yucatán Peninsula, and were very distantly descended from the Mayas, who had vanished in the ninth century. Ixazaluoh's grandmother had received a vision from the gods in 1650 revealing this to them, and asking them to sacrifice any child born with magical powers in order to restore the Mayan civilization. When Ixa, as she liked to be called, was born, the elders began to plan the sacrifice, abandoning the Spanish they had been using and returning to the ancient Yucatec Maya dialect of which they had barely any records. For seventeen years, they prepared and created the proper ritual, waiting for the girl to mature, and allowing her to hone into her magic prior to the sacrifice.

The day Ixa turned seventeen, however, she had already formulated a plan. She knew she was powerful, and she had practiced enough to understand that she had a fighting chance. She did not want to die. She did not care that the sacrifice would bring blessings to the land, she did not care that the Mayan civilization could rise once more. All she knew was that she did not want to die, she did not want to be the sacrifice.

Thus, she called upon the same gods who had sent her grandmother a vision. She prayed to Chamer, one of gods of death who controlled the frightening afterlife realm of Xilbalba. She asked them to give her darker magic to help her escape. In return, she stated that when she died, she would be a sacrifice for them alone, in order to fuel the realm. Chamer accepted, but unbeknownst to Ixa, told the elders that Ixa was practicing dark magic. Thus, the sacrificial ritual was cancelled, and Ixa was exiled, cursed to never return to Yucatán. She was told that any child she bore would have devastating abilities and wreak havoc on the other nations. Ignoring them, Ixa set off, planning to make her way North.