The stars above Ibanji were not born of light—but of wounds. Great, bleeding gashes across the sky, carved when gods tore open the heavens in a war no mortal remembers. Tonight, those stars blinked in terror, as something ancient stirred in the dust of forgotten prayers.
The land did not sleep.
The kingdom of Wagala, once prosperous and proud, choked on its own silence. Where taverns once roared with drum songs and palm wine, now hung corpses in the wind. From the ports of Gume Bay to the frostbitten peaks of Mount Bakara, whispers traveled:
> "The blood curse has returned…"
And deep in the accursed wilds, a man stood at the edge of an old battlefield. His breath fogged the air. Around him lay bones—thousands—stacked in spirals, cursed to never rot. Swords still clutched in skeletal fingers. Shields fused to forearms by dried flesh.
A monument of death.
At its center: Nzagi Obasi.
The cursed one.
He did not look like a god-killer, nor a savior. He was lean, brutal, with ragged dreadlocks and a left eye mangled beyond healing—white, blind, and ringed by runes carved into his own flesh. His armor was mismatched: scavenged from the dead, darkened by blood. The obsidian blade on his back was forged from the spine of a fallen titan.
He had not spoken in three days. Not since the river turned to blood.
Nzagi knelt beside a dead priest. The body was twisted into a spiral, mouth sewn shut with bone needles. The ground beneath him pulsed—a heartbeat. The gods were watching.
His voice was a gravelled whisper. "Ezradamus."
That cursed city. That throne of ruin. That birthplace of his nightmare.
Nzagi stood, and the blood around his boots rose like vapor. It swirled, shimmered, then hardened into jagged crimson shards. He opened his hand—and the shards obeyed.
He walked on. Toward the south. Toward the buried horrors.
---
Elsewhere, far across the continent, beyond the Ashika Sea, the spires of Tambe rose like spears from the desert. Queen's banners flew above its obsidian gates, and slave markets hummed with songs of chains. It was a kingdom of gold, gods, and knives in the dark.
Inside a tavern carved into the bones of a sea monster, a woman sat alone.
Cloaked in black. Hood drawn low. Blades resting across her lap. No one approached.
Asha N'Dari.
Assassin. Shadow. Death in female form.
A group of mercenaries nearby laughed too loudly, tossing dice, drinking fermented kora-sap. One of them looked at her, nudged his friend, and grinned.
"Who's the ghost?"
The second man spat. "No ghost. Just a whore with weapons."
They stood.
Bad choice.
Before either could unsheathe steel, Asha was already on her feet. Her twin sickle blades blurred. Blood flew across the tavern walls. One head fell. Then another. The last mercenary pissed himself before collapsing without a wound—his veins had burst from within.
The bar went dead quiet.
She didn't speak. Just stepped over the corpses, took her cloak, and vanished into the night.
---
Asha rode a stolen horse across the Ashika Dunes, the moon casting skeletal shadows across the sand. Her left hand bled freely—a ritual self-cut—and in her blood were sigils.
She was following the same pull as Nzagi.
She didn't know his name yet. But she dreamed of him.
The cursed man. The same night the gods marked her, she saw him standing in the void, drenched in blood that wasn't his. He didn't scream. He didn't beg. He simply looked back at her.
And fate whispered: "You'll find him. But not until the blood tide swallows the moon."
---
Back in the north, Nzagi stood at the gates of a fallen city.
Tembaka. Once home to a great human king who defied the gods.
Now a graveyard.
He passed shattered statues of deities with their faces gouged out. The skies above churned with dark clouds, and vultures circled ruins. At the city center stood an altar. Upon it, a child's corpse. Still fresh. Blood still dripping.
Nzagi clenched his fists.
"They're baiting you," said a voice.
He turned.
From the shadows stepped a being cloaked in ivory feathers. A godspawn—half mortal, half divine. Horns curved from its skull like twin tusks. Its eyes glowed pale green.
"You are walking into the trap they built for you," it said. "The god-killers, the blood priests, the Keepers of Ezradamus… they wait."
Nzagi's voice rasped, "Good."
He raised his hand—and the child's blood rose into the air, formed into a spinning spear, and hurled itself toward the godspawn.
The creature dodged, barely. "You will need more than blood to kill what sleeps beneath Ezradamus."
"I'll take their hearts, too."
---
Atop the Skyspine Mountains, where no mortals tread, a great storm gathered. Within it, gods argued. Their thrones were not golden—they were made of skulls, bones, rivers of light.
"Nzagi Obasi has broken the tether," growled one.
"He bleeds like the firstborn," whispered another. "He must not reach the gates."
"And the girl?" asked a third.
"Asha N'Dari walks the path of murder. She is cursed. Touched by our enemy."
"They must be stopped. Separately. Before their bloodlines meet."
---
And in the drowned halls of Ezradamus, far beneath the crust of Ibanji, a great drum began to beat. Not heard by ears, but by bones. Souls. The rhythm of war.
A creature stirred in its prison. Huge. Divine. Broken. A general of the old gods.
Its jaw cracked open and a voice leaked out.
> "The cursed child comes. The daughter of knives walks. Let them taste what the gods buried."
---
End of Chapter One