It was why she'd never studied Mayan history. Her father had put that dislike into her to keep her away from anything that might alert her enemies to her whereabouts.
And her grandmother, knowing that one day the time stone would be hers, had taught her to love and collect rocks and minerals. Their combined strength kept the time stone shielded and off the grid of those who would have destroyed it.
In her mind, Kateri saw the stone that she needed perfectly clearly. How stupid of her to not have known it immediately.
Her grandmother had always referred to it as the Eye of the Sun, saying that it was the single most powerful stone she had in her collection. The same color orange as the official Cherokee flag that bore seven stars-one for each clan of the Cherokee nation, and the same number as the Pleiades stars-along with the one solitary black star in the upper corner that signified those who'd died tragically on the Trail of Tears ... the same darkness that they were to always guard against.
For that matter, even their peace flag held the Yonegwa constellation-seven red stars against a field of white....
And it was a stone that was only found in Mexico. All Mexican fire opals were rare, but seldom did they show the play of color that was common to the more familiar "black" and white opals found in the rest of the world.
As a child, Kateri used to believe that her grandmother's opal winked at her. That it was trying to tell her a secret.
Now she knew what its secret was.
Her grandmother's opal had actually come from the sun. Ironic really, given the fact that it was set into a necklace that had always reminded Kateri of a Mayan-styled sun from one of their glyphs....
Unbelievable.
She frowned at Cabeza. "What do I have to do with it?"
"On a cave wall that only a Guardian can see, there will be a mural of a thunderbird and hummingbird. You'll have to take the Kinichi-the sun's eye-and place it into one of their mouths ... whichever one has a spot of the thunderbird so that it can carry the eye into the heavens and drive the darkness back. Once done, the stone will be returned for your safekeeping."
"And this mural is located where?"
"The Valley of Fire."
Which was why they'd brought her to Las Vegas. The Valley of Fire was where her father had gone to rest after his battle with Ren. In the heart of the Valley was a cavern that was critical, as it formed an intersection between all the gates of this world and the realms no one wanted opened.
Honestly, she didn't want to believe in any of this.
But every time she had that thought, she heard her grandmother's voice. "You don't have to believe in something for it to be real."
God love her grandmother for that one single truth.
She looked up at Cabeza. "Have you ever felt so overwhelmed by responsibility that all you wanted to do was curl up in your bed and become a vegetable?"
"Si, but I was in the midst of battle at the time and couldn't dwell on that wish." He lifted his coffee mug in a silent salute. "Just like you, bonita. No time to dwell."
She nodded. "Can I ask you something?"
"I put the seat down. I swear it."
She laughed at his unexpected comment. "Seriously, why do you speak Spanish when you're actually Mayan?"
"Because when I speak my native language no one, other than Acheron and a small handful of other Dark-Hunters, can converse with me in it. And I learned Spanish long before I learned English. I spent two thousand years in Spain, Basque, and Portugal before I was allowed to come back to my homeland."
"Wow," she breathed. "That's incredible."
"I don't know about incredible. Long, si. Definitely ... It was hard to get used to at first. Things over there were very different from what I was used to here. It was a solid month before I could even secure my pants properly. Led to some rather embarrassing moments, especially when I'd have to explain to others why the Daimons got away and my pants were at my ankles. Unfortunately, we didn't have Google back then to look it up. Hard, hard times."
She laughed again. Once Cabeza lowered the thirty-foot-thick walls around himself, he was quite entertaining. "Since you're so talkative ... why do they call you Cabeza? I have to know."
He gave her a sardonic grin. "I always tell people it's from the heads I collected in battle."
"But that's not the truth, is it?"
He shook his head. A deep, dark sadness came over him. For several seconds, he didn't speak. "When I was a boy ... ten, my older brother was killed by Chacu's father. It was a bad time in Tikal back then. The Snake Kingdom was always attacking us. In one such attack, they went after a group of children and wounded several. My older brother stayed behind to draw their fire so that the boys could get away. They made it back, but the price of that safety was my brother's life. Barely fifteen, he didn't last long against an entire band of seasoned warriors. Those bastards took my brother's head and would play ball games with it. When my mother found out, it broke her heart all over again. She say it was like having him murdered every time they did it. She says she would never be able to sleep so long as they dishonored him so. I couldn't stand to see her so miserable so I snuck over to their capital city and found my brother's head, then I brought it home to my mother so that she could sleep again."