As Tollan’s festival roared toward its fevered crescendo—drums pounding, bodies flinging themselves into the frenzy, feet hammering the earth, sweat gleaming in the firelight—one mask alone commanded the night. It was old, its birdlike contours carved from blackened heartwood, its surface polished smooth by the touch of a hundred hands. In the shifting glow of the torches, the thing almost seemed to move, as if the wood still breathed. Those who wore it did not dance like the others. They swayed, staggered, spun too fast, then stopped too suddenly, caught between ecstasy and madness. The crowd’s cheers faltered, laughter thinning into an uneasy hush before rising again, each reveler aware—if only in some primal corner of their mind—that they stood on the edge of something unknowable. The mask did not belong to any one asturian. It chose its wearer. And once chosen, the dance was no longer his own. Some whispered that Mizimu himself was watching. Others claimed the dancers had lost themselves in the mask, that if they pulled it from their faces, they would find nothing beneath. The faithful spoke of past dancers who, upon removing it, were never quite the same—some losing all sense of time, others claiming to hear echoes of a song that did not end with the festival. And still, they lined up, eager for their turn. For in Tollan, there was no true revelry without risk. No joy without the shadow of decay. And no festival that did not court the gods themselves.