Sneak Peek: Goldblazer

COMING EARLY 2027. In the city of Resplandor, only the highborns can make gold with their touch—except Oriol, the lone member of the royal family who can't. Meanwhile, orphan street performer Alba has power she can't explain. When an attempted assassination brings the two together, they'll escape with a ragtag team on a mission to find a fabled golden pyramid, the hidden source of all goldblazing power.

A thin layer of gold melted onto the steel spear shaft. Oriol squinted and leaned in close, using his goldsmithing knife to trim and shape the edges of the gold before it set. He was deft and methodical, parcel-gilding the spear but leaving dark spots showing through, creating rosettes in the negative space.

Tear-shaped bulbs on the walls buzzed with a thin filament inside that gave off light, illuminating the studio within the Palacio Dorado, one of the few buildings in Deoro that had the means to stave off darkness this way.

Oriol glanced at the stack of banana leaves on the table, then picked one up, tore off a piece, and passed it to Rocío, who had been watching over his shoulder. “Polish up a bit more, would you?”

Rocío nodded as a golden glow filled the palm of her hand. The glow spread to the torn leaf, thickening and deepening until pure gold flooded and replaced the waxy green.

Such discipline she had, thought Oriol. He’d seen her turn an entire ceiba tree solid in seconds, the gold hard and cold to the touch, and yet she could so slowly and gracefully convert something delicate—like these leaves—and keep them soft, semiliquid even. He couldn’t think on it too long or he’d become insane with jealousy.

Using a pair of tweezers, Oriol took back the leaf. He laid it in place quickly, smoothed the edges into the rest of the gold, and made another series of marks with his knife.

“You really have a gift,” said Rocío, watching the way he worked with the tool. She sighed and went to the studio’s balcony, high on the palacio’s third floor overlooking Lake Izabal. 

A jaguar, known affectionately as Don Gatón who was currently curled up on the floor, raised his head briefly at her movement. She stroked his fur.

“Trust me,” Oriol told her, “Your gift is better. I’d give anything to be able to make gold, and not just shape it.”

So much of the palacio had touches of his work. He’d shaped many of the decorative, golden inlays, debossed designs into the sides of the building’s tiered platforms and onto the lintels, and added details to the corbel arches that connected the palacio’s wings. Everything from abstract flourishes to images of grand-scale battles and heroic figures. Jaguar Thunderbolt’s Address in Xelajú, The Battle at Dos Pilas, The Invasion of Machaquila. 

But each time, other goldblazers had had to aid him, to blaze the gold for him to mold to his artistic vision.

When Oriol was finished, he cradled the spear, admiring its solid-gold tip, surveying the pattern of dark rosettes along the shaft leafed in gold—resembling a jaguar’s coat—and went to Rocío at the balcony.

Rocío beamed as she took it from him. “Even better than I imagined it would be.” 

A useless weapon, Oriol thought, but perfect for the showy, choreographed fights Rocío would be performing in.

From the distant city streets of Resplandor came sounds of clamoring crowds, the woody echo of marimba bars struck under mallets, the muddled words of folk songs, the laughter of children. And of course the persistent thunder of the royal guard—the Manada—riding their giant brown wolves called lobones.

Rocío rolled her eyes. “Anyway—are you going out tonight?” She used the hem of her blouse to give the spear an extra polish in one spot. “We’ve been working on my torneo armor and weapons so much, we haven’t enjoyed any of the festivities. Semana de la Sol is almost over.”

Oriol shook his head. For many, the festivities were what the week was all about, but for most members of the Dorantes family (and all those who aspired to be like them) it was the Torneo de Oro—a tournament reenacting battles of old—that was the most important. The event that everything else led up to. Highborn competitors wowing an audience of other highborns with their skill and bravery, in their gilded armor with their gilded weapons.

In line with this, Rocío’s gilded armor rested on a mannequin. An elaborate, embossed pattern of monja blanca orchids and leaves covered both spaulders, while the corporal form of the Sun Goddess—dressed in the rays of Her own light, wearing a crown of heat waves—covered the breastplate from edge to edge.

“I think I’d rather stay here and finish up. If you want the same flowers on your greaves, I’ll need to keep at it while I’ve still got energy, otherwise it’ll take me all night.”

“Well, I want to see the processions and I won’t be back until late. The work’s going to go slower without me ‘polishing up’ materials for you.”

“Blaze the rest of the leaves before you go and I’ll heat them by fire as I need them. It’s no trouble.” He nodded at the fireplace, although it would need to be lit. The evening was still warm and did not otherwise require additional heat.

Rocío shrugged and smoothed the sides of her dark hair all the way down to where it was tied at the back of her head—as though a single strand would ever be out of place—and then ran her fingers through the length that spilled down her back. “Suit yourself. But I think you could use a break. Principes aren’t supposed to work so hard.”

“Working helps me think, and I want to prepare mentally for the torneo. My parents aren’t letting me host it for my own amusement; it’s a test of my public presence.”

“You’re taking it too seriously. Most people are there for the events, not for the person giving speeches from the balcony. Besides, it’s not like it’s going to make or break the public’s perception of you.”

“Maybe not.” He got quiet for a moment, then sighed slowly. “The rumors about me are getting worse, though.”

Rocío held the spear vertically like a staff and lifted her chin. “So what? It’s only talk. The few of us close to you who know the truth will take that information to our graves—and die before anyone else finds out with any certainty. They’d never want the general population to think any of us is powerless, least of all Deoro’s heir.”

“I guess.”

She was right; most goldblazers would rather die than admit they were dwindling. The rebels called them inbred monsters. It was the goldblazers’ own fault, they said. Keeping the gold—and the genetically passed power to create it—amongst themselves had finally begun to catch up with them. It was meant to be shared, they said. Oriol wondered how many other potential heirs to Deoro there might have been, had his mother and his aunt not both suffered the loss of multiple inviable pregnancies prior to his and Rocío’s births. 

“I still say to give it a couple more years.”

“Sure,” Oriol said. “A couple more years.”

That’s what the family had been saying since he was a child. Trying to comfort him with stories of people throughout history who hadn’t come to power until they were older. “Jorge the Grand couldn’t blaze until he was fifteen,” his great aunt Crésida had said. When Oriol had turned sixteen with no sign of power, it had required much more research to find any examples of latent abilities taking longer than that to manifest, and at that point, Oriol was sure they were either baseless myths or blatant lies.

“Assuming my father can wait that long,” he added.

Rocío frowned. “He’s in a difficult position, but he loves you ... in his way.”

In his way. Platitudes like that about Oriol’s father always evoked specific kinds of memories.

Harsh moonlight. The emperador, standing behind Oriol in a stone temple. Oriol’s limbs bound to a stone-carved chair. “Again,” the emperador would say, as Chief Priest Fedele squeezed Oriol’s jaw, forcing his mouth open. Blood oozing from a vial onto his unwilling tongue—goldblazer blood, taken forcibly from some poor indigno.

Oriol cleared his throat. “Well he’d trade me for you in a second. You’re the real golden child of the family. He’s very much looking forward to your torneo performance.”

“That’s more than I can say for my own father. He’s too busy overseeing Jalapa’s new exports to come back in time. Not that I expected him to.”

“If it’s any consolation, last week I heard my father bragging to the Lustrian ambassador about you like you were his own daughter.”

Rocío said, “Well, your mother does always say she expected to have a girl.”

Oriol laughed hollowly. Maybe if there hadn’t been a fertility crisis among the goldblazers, his mother could have had one. More than one.

 “See?” he said. “From the moment of my birth, I’ve been a disappointment.”

“You say things like that lightheartedly,” Rocío replied, “But I know you really mean it. That’s the kind of spiritual discord you should talk to Marón about—like your mother keeps insisting you do.”

“Marón?” said Oriol. “I’d rather let one of the jaguars lick meat drippings from my face.” Don Gatón turned to look at him, as though he’d understood. “Don’t get excited,” Oriol told the jaguar.

Marón was always so stale, Oriol thought, with a rigidity that kept others on edge in his presence. And besides, Oriol had no idea what this man was capable of—and he didn’t want to know, either.

“Not all chief priests are as”—Rocío cleared her throat—“devoted … as Fedele was.”

Even she, with a vast knowledge of all that her cousin Oriol had experienced, would not dare to openly insult the office of chief priest. Besides, the Dorantes family didn’t need more divine wrath upon their heads. A chief priest was a mouthpiece for the gods, and a steward over all who wished to remain holy. One who held such a position, no matter how cruel, could not be spoken ill of. Fedele’s dismissal in favor of bringing back Marón was done under the guise of “spiritually inspired clergical reassignment” on the part of Oriol’s mother, whose authority as emperatriz would not be questioned, so long as she issued the decree with sufficient respect.

Oriol felt sick to his stomach. He could almost taste the blood right again. He could practically feel the restraints cutting into his arms and legs. And he would never forget the smell of burnt sage, or not know the ritual chant by heart. Kunaj, ya’ chuq’ab, chuplinik jumul chik je jas Nantat! “To heal, to empower, to be resplendent once again like unto the ancestors.” Ancient words, grammar all but lost and left up to guesswork as modern-day Deoran’s grappled to connect with supernatural forces long-ago tainted by foreigners. 

Usually Oriol hadn’t been allowed to see the ritual victims captured at his expense; they’d been locked away and their cries kept private. But once, he’d had to sit face to face with what the goldblazers called an indigno—an “unworthy one”—and watch as the scalpel pierced the boy’s skin, as crimson slid down the boy’s arm. A boy younger than Oriol, who did not seem to sense that the principe may have been a victim too. Kowinem köq kiq, q’aq’ puaq pulinik! “Power in blood, gold overflowing.” But no amount of gold-powered blood had ever made Oriol’s own powers manifest. Even if it had, the cost wasn’t something he wanted anything to do with. 

“Marón can help you,” Rocío insisted. “If you let him.”

Still, Oriol resisted the idea. “Better to write my feelings in a Solar Script.”

Rocío scoffed. “I can’t believe you still put stock in those outdated traditions.”

It was an outdated tradition, he thought, but there was something freeing about putting the bitter, blatant truth to paper and setting it aflame. Not for the old belief that the fire—an extension of the Sun—would carry the message to Her on high, but for the way the fire could cleanse those words and destroy them as though they’d never existed. Oriol could write whatever he wanted, no matter how ridiculous or cruel or embarrassing, and then he could make it disappear. It was out of his system, but with no evidence to cause him any shame.

“Anyway.” Rocío gripped her spear one last time before she set it against the mannequin and prepared to leave. “When you’re finished feeling sorry for yourself, consider coming down to the plaza for the final procession. The last float is supposed to be incredible this year.”

“I’ll think about it.”

After Rocío was gone, Oriol took a moment to look over the balcony too. The afternoon rain had dried now, but a lingering scent of wet stone hit him as he inhaled.

In one direction, the glassy water stretched wide into the distance, with colorfully painted wooden boats docked along Lake Izabal’s winding, rocky shores. Oriol could see the reflection of the palacio and all the palm trees that surrounded it as the sun eased toward the horizon. Fading daylight kissed the water’s surface.

On the grounds below him, a team of engineers worked on the hull of what would soon, hopefully, be an operable airship. Its elongated balloon envelope was empty and limp in a heap beside the hundred-foot-long ship itself, while the team worked to install the airscrew that would propel the ship at the incredible speed of 30 miles per hour. It was said to be a vast improvement on an older design from overseas. The emperador was furious that it hadn’t been ready to debut at the opening ceremonies for Semana de la Sol, although the team had promised it would only be a few more days before it was airborne. Just one of multiple efforts to improve transportation throughout the empire, along with the beginnings of a railway modeled after that of the northern lands.

In the other direction, Oriol gazed at the palacio’s gardens, the topiary maze leading through the outdoor museum of golden statue tombs.

Oriol settled his gaze on the blazed form of Itxaro Kämel, a historical goldblazer and forgesmith.

He’d debossed her many times now, on inlays or chalices. Usually he’d depicted her with her famous sword, Rayo de Luz, raising it as she urged the goldblazers to call upon their powers to fight the conquistadors so many centuries ago. Oriol had tried to call upon his own powers many times, but of course, they never answered. Sometimes he prayed to Itxaro for strength, hoping that somewhere her soul would hear him and take pity, maybe intercede on his behalf to the Sun.

Oriol’s father, however, had lost patience with prayer long ago. Hence the rituals. The cleansings. The fruitless expeditions in search of magical artifacts. But as Oriol’s eighteenth birthday drew close, his hands were as dim as a lowborn’s on the streets, and his hope—along with the emperador’s—had begun to fade.

He turned his palms toward the golden, evening Sun and let the light fall on them, imagining it was the same glow he’d seen so many times radiating from other hands—hands that flowed with the Sun’s divinity.

Beneath the external light, Oriol’s palms were callused from his work. The only real gold on them was the residue of the leafing in tiny flecks that had broken off and stuck to his skin. He wasn’t sure he could accept the fact that he might never be able to produce that precious metal himself. Not that he really had a choice.

The few people who knew he was powerless always had the burden of keeping his secret from the public, and he felt it was the least he could do to offer nice gifts and beautify their treasures. But Oriol couldn’t stand the pity in their eyes. No one even bothered to question his paternity—an issue in plenty of courts—because even if his mother had bedded a completely powerless man, Oriol would still have been born with some ability to create gold. Goldblazing was a trait that manifested in division of the sum. And yet, Oriol remained at zero.

He sighed, eyeing a pair of earrings back on the work table, something he’d been designing for his mother to wear to the torneo. Each one had a flat semicircle that dangled above a disc, which Oriol had cut, and into which he’d hammered a pattern and a texture. He was proud of them—but of course Rocío had been the one to blaze all the pieces, the shapes, and even the wires that strung them together.

Helpless, he thought.

He snatched up a piece of paper and a pen and began to scribble several words onto it. 

______________________

Solar Script by Principe Oriol Topacio Crisanto Dorantes, Age 17

Confession By Fire

Mother Sun,

I feel like you’ve cursed me … and I will never understand why.

May the flames reach you.

______________________

He detested the custom of using one’s full name, title, and age, as though the Mother Sun would not know the specificity of each of her creations—the major gods were supposed to be all-knowing, weren’t they?—but he complied. When he had read it over once and was satisfied, he folded up the paper and tossed it on the fire. Then scrubbed his hands over his face, stood, and strode out of the studio.

The corridors were mostly empty, with everyone out enjoying the processions and performances. Except the occasional attendant and the other domesticated jaguars—one meandering lazily between rooms and another curled up in an alcove—Oriol was alone, and grateful for the relative silence. With everything that awaited him in the coming weeks, he didn’t feel much like talking to anyone. And yet, there was one person he found himself on his way to talk to.

This particular corridor was lined with gold-flecked wallpaper featuring a pattern of sunflowers, chrysanthemums, and yellow Lady Slipper orchids. Every few yards, the crown molding was decorated with the likeness of a bee, while the hexagonal tiles on the floor formed a honeycomb. As he moved on to the next wing, he passed oil paintings that featured warrior kings of old adorned in jade piercings and necklaces and feathers, posing with ocelots and jaguars; a little girl holding a yellow-backed oriole bird on her outstretched finger; ancient harvesters carrying baskets of maize and bananas and jars of honey—the “edible gold.”

Finally, he reached the Hallowed Hall, whose upper half was lined with stained glass windows showing scenes of ruling goldblazers all the way back to the days of the Seis. The ceiling was leafed entirely in gold, making the golden light of the late afternoon more golden still.

Beyond that, Oriol approached the altar room, a wide space that led up to a platform on two short sets of stairs, with a gold Sun emblem on the far wall behind the altar itself—the place where members of the Dorantes household could place offerings to Her. 

In the corner, a small, round table of standing height, made of stone, remained aglow with an ever-burning flame at its center—lit always by paraffin oil from a chamber below and a braided cord for a wick. Ashes had accumulated on the surface, the remnants of Solar Scripts. The scripts could be burned anywhere, although most people came here to write them, thinking the altar room would bring them closer to the gods.

The ceilings were twenty feet high, decorated with inlays that Oriol had contributed to just last year. It was here where he’d always been called to counsel with the former Chief Priest Fedele, as though meticulously re-reading the Celestial Text and its sacred words might cure him. As though a vigorous display of devotion to the gods would make them favor him with the power with which he should have already been born.

Oriol clenched his fists just thinking of it. Of the hours he’d wasted reciting the passages of those texts, praying and crying out for forgiveness on behalf of whatever his ancestors might have done to bring about such a curse. And who had heard him? Who had called back in response? It had been a shout into the void. But Fedele had been relentless, determined to prove himself an exceptional chief priest, bent on performing whatever rites and rituals necessary to draw on divine power. Even now that Fedele was gone, Oriol’s scars still burned, and his blood still curdled at the sight of this room. 

Those were only memories, Oriol told himself. Now, in Fedele’s former position of employment was a sullen man of few words and even fewer facial expressions, but he was likely harmless. Marón was quiet, withdrawn. Oriol doubted the man could force anything upon anyone.

Marón wasn’t here, but the doors to the adjacent archives were closed, and a silhouette was visible through the panels of frosted glass.

No. Two silhouettes.

Oriol furrowed his brow. Who else would be in audience with Marón at this time of evening—and during Semana de la Sol?

Inching closer, he strained his eyes and ears, trying to make sense of the shapes standing a few feet apart and the sounds that passed between them.

“You won’t even take an hour to honor the Sun at the festivities?” said a woman’s voice, muffled and faint—but unmistakable. A voice Oriol knew better than any other.

Oriol gently pressed the latch and pushed the doors apart a crack, peering through.

His mother stood draped in a purple gown, hair long and black and soft, staring at Chief Priest Ponce Marón, who was organizing a row of codices.

“I honor Her with my work, Solena,” Marón said.

“Solena”? So informal?

“You haven’t changed at all,” the emperatriz told him. “I can’t say I’d be surprised to hear you say that the last time you participated in any kind of celebration was Beja’s wedding.”

Marón tensed noticeably at that, seeming even more intent on his organizing.

“Have you had any luck with Oriol?” Solena asked, changing the subject.

“I’m always available to anyone in the palacio,” Marón reminded her. “But I cannot force him to come to me. He must do it on his own.”

“Yes, but he’s afraid. Fedele was so …” Solena shook her head. “Oriol hasn’t learned to trust you yet. He needs your encouragement, to know that you care for him. That’s why I sent Fedele away. That’s why I demanded you come back and replace him. The emperador would have let Fedele drive Oriol to madness and despair—whatever it might have taken, no matter what dark methods to force power—” She choked a little on her words.

Finally, Marón stopped what he was doing, his thick brows pinched, his peppery hair a mess as though he’d been pulling at it in frustration. He approached the emperatriz and cautiously took her hands in his own. “Preciosa …”

Oriol flinched at the term of endearment. His stomach twisted itself into knots. Marón shouldn’t be speaking to her like this, touching her, even standing so close.

“I know that you worry for the boy,” Marón continued. “I can’t imagine what he must think of any man in my position, after the things you’ve told me about your former chief priest. But I fear that my return to you might only make things worse.”

Her eyes glistened, searching him. “How could you say that? How could you possibly believe that your presence here could do anything but good?” Her face was ashen, and her fingers looked so thin curled around Marón's dark wrist.

The emperatriz had been frail since before Oriol was born—her pregnancy had nearly cost her her life, he’d been told—but this was different. This wasn’t her usual frailty. There was something else.

“You don’t know the things I’ve done, Solena. You don’t know all the forces at play here.”

“I am not blameless either. But whatever you fear of our past, I fear more for Oriol’s future. The longer he goes without power, the more danger he’s in. Rocío can only help him pretend in so many scenarios. The rebel numbers are growing, and Abejandra is certain they’ve begun to suspect he’s different. I fear what they will try to do to him, that they might use his powerlessness as reason to target all of us. The Manada is keeping them at bay, but they’re biding their time.” She pulled away and wrung her hands.

“Perhaps,” he said. “But what am I to do? I am only a chief priest. I have no influence in political matters.”

“I believe that Oriol needs you, that maybe his struggle has to do with your absence. It’s possible that only you can help him access the power that has evaded him all this time.”

“Why?”

She looked at him darkly. “You know why.” When he didn’t respond, she added, “A storm is coming. I can feel it. A threat to our entire household. I need you to do everything you can”—she lowered her voice—“to protect our child.”