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“Odd,” Noelle noted, storing that one bit of information.
“Come, there is a hidden entrance in the back,” Lucero said, leaving her to the back.
The structure was absolutely immense. If it had been under any other circumstances, Noelle would have found it breathtaking—so much so she would have loved to visit and admire it with her Blue. They’d talked about visiting Aztec ruins together, and the memory of those conversations stabbed at her heart.
Triangular in shape, it looked like one of those pyramids she’d only seen in pictures. The temple was made entirely of stone and measured more than a hundred feet.
So close to the construction, Noelle realized the effort it must have taken to build such a thing. It must have been incredibly costly to buildonebut more?
“The people you saw with the torches usually enter through the main steps. But there is another way in—we used this during the construction stage and Sergio didn’t want it covered.”
Noelle nodded as she followed closely.
They didn’t have any light source since they didn’t want to attract any attention, but Lucero seemed to be doing just fine without one.
“What’s inside?”
“There are a few chambers and a main room in the middle. I only know how they looked before, when we were working on them. I can’t say they are the same now,” Lucero added pensively.
Finding the hidden door, Lucero pushed it open and they were immediately met with darkness.
“Are you sure you know where we’re going?” Noelle asked as they entered the temple, their hands on the wall as they felt their way forward.
“I remember the layout. The chambers I told you? All of them feed into the main room in the center. And it’s the only safe way to sneak in without bumping into anyone.”
“You really took notes,” Noelle joked lightly.
“I had to,” Lucero said, but didn’t elaborate.
Given her tone, Noelle imagined it had something to do with the man she’d helped escape, so she didn’t pry further.
Without the guidance of light, it felt as though they were walking for miles, but they were only taking a few tentative steps forward. Yet after a while, a light appeared at the end of the tunnel. Slowly, it became more and more pronounced until they came to the other end of the chamber. At the same time, a choir-like sound permeated the air, echoing into the entire temple.
Lucero suddenly put a hand up to stop Noelle.
Carefully coming to Lucero’s side, Noelle sank to her knees right at the mouth of the chamber.
Peeking her head forward, her eyes widened when she took in the shocking image before her.
There were panes of black glass all around the main chamber, the effect immediate as it drowned the room into darkness even as the room teemed with sources of light.
In the center of the room was a golden throne, right in front of a large jaguar painting.
The more Noelle looked, the more she noticed the same motifs carved into stone or painted all over the walls.
Yet that was not the oddest thing about the room.
There was a hole in the middle of the room that diverged into smaller viaducts that covered the entire surface of the room.
Around the hole, eight men were gathered in a circle, their mouths moving in slow, precise movements as a foreign chant vibrated in the entire pyramid.
The sounds went on for moments on end before a booming voice ordered them to stop. All at once, the eight figures dispersed, bowing in a small gesture of reverence as Sergio appeared at the top, right in front of the golden chair.
Everyone was wearing strange, colorful garments that reminded Noelle of the traditional clothing she’d seen people around the village wear. But even stranger was the fact that all were wearing masks in the form of wild animals.
Sergio, of course, was the one wearing a jaguar mask.
Noelle could vaguely remember that Tezcatlipoca was associated with a jaguar.
