He arrived with iron. With horses. With language wrapped in conquest and a cross. His blade shone brighter than the sunstones. She stood among the ruins of gods, feathers draped over her shoulders like wind-stilled wings.
They should have been enemies. But in the jungle night, when drums ceased and maps were useless, she showed him the sky not as a thing to name, but to surrender to.
He gave her a mirror. She gave him a mask. Both gifts told lies. Both gifts told truths.
Beneath obsidian stars, they pressed palm to chest — a gesture older than language. He taught her a dance meant for royal halls. She taught him one meant for rain.
The war would not wait. Blood would not pause. But for three nights, in secret, they wove something sacred. Something forbidden. Something no empire could ever catalog.
When he left, he carried her feather in his boot. She kept the blade beneath a stone, rusting with the memory of his breath.