Night fell like a shroud over the village of Ugbene.
Wind carried the scent of burning leaves, but there was something else beneath it—acrid, like scorched hair and blood. Children whimpered in their sleep. Dogs refused to bark. And in the shadows, eyes that did not blink watched from the trees.
Far away, beneath the earth, in the lair of Ogwugwu Iyi, the witches had gathered once more.
Their circle pulsed with power—shadows twisting, whispering secrets in tongues that had died with forgotten empires.
In the center, Ezuma sat like a spider in her web, her cracked obsidian skin glistening. She was furious.
Before her, the creature grovelled—its flesh blistered from its failed attempt to cross into the sacred waters. It whimpered with no mouth, shuddered though it could not cry.
"You could not cross," Ezuma said coldly. "The river spoke your name and spat it out."
The creature bowed lower, trembling.
"You were my eyes," she hissed. "And you closed them."
She rose, and the chamber darkened with her movement. One of the witches, older and cloaked in smoke, stepped forward holding a bowl filled with writhing maggots soaked in dark fluid.
Ezuma dipped her hand into the bowl, pulling out a thick worm—alive, glowing faintly red.
She shoved it into the creature's eye socket.
The scream that followed tore through the cavern walls.
"Now," she whispered, "you will remember what pain feels like… and why you serve."
The creature crawled away, broken and silent once more.
Ezuma turned to the others. "Amarachi has found the first flame. The Codex wakes. If we are to take it, we must weaken her bond to the land… and to the boy."
A younger witch hissed. "Let us kill him."
"No," Ezuma said. "We kill someone else."
Her hand waved in the air, revealing a pool of smoke. In it: a young man with warm brown eyes, bare chest, thick dreadlocks, and a tribal necklace bearing the Umu-Ihe crest.
"Chima," Ezuma purred. "The boy who loved her before the gods chose her."
Ubochi – Dawn
Chima stood near the edge of the village square, sharpening his machete against a stone. The tool was worn—just like his heart.
He hadn't seen Amarachi since the day her mother died. Not truly. Not the real her. She had returned with the staff and the power, with the fire that made even elders bow.
But he remembered before the fire.
He remembered the girl who used to run through the cassava fields barefoot, who beat the talking drum with laughter, whose lips had once brushed his under the baobab tree at the edge of the market.
Now she belonged to things he couldn't see.
And worse—she was with him. The white man. The scientist.
Chima's grip tightened on the blade his biceps bulging.
Still, when he heard she was back from the shrine, he walked to her hut long powerful strides.
He waited outside for a long time before calling her name. "Amara."
She emerged a moment later, radiant and tired. Her hair was loose. Her eyes still held the smoke of visions. Behind her, Alaric lingered in the shadows, shirtless, scrolls tucked under his arm.
"Chima?" she blinked.
He managed a crooked smile. "You say my name like you're trying to remember who I am."
"I haven't forgotten," she said softly. "I never could."
Their eyes locked.
And for a heartbeat, Alaric felt the weight of something unspoken—old bonds, old promises. Roots that went deeper than memory.
But before anything more could be said, a scream shattered the morning calm.
A woman rushed into the square, her wrapper soaked in blood.
"They've taken my son!" she cried. "The witches took him—there were marks on the ground! Burnt signs! Fire sigils!"
Amarachi went pale. Chima stepped forward. Alaric ran to her side.
The air thickened.