The sun had dipped below the horizon, painting the vast savanna in streaks of fiery orange and deep indigo.
Yet an unsettling stillness clung to the air.
A colossal rhinoceros, its thick hide the color of sun-baked earth, strained against the harness. Its powerful legs churned as it plowed through the tall grasses, dragging a sturdy wooden carriage.
The driver, perched precariously at the front, cracked his whip with increasing urgency, urging the beast to greater speed. He would go no farther once the boundary stones of the village came into sight.
Even the rhino balked at the unnatural hush radiating beyond them.
Inside, a lone woman sat rigid on the woven seat, her gaze fixed on the blurring landscape outside.
Her dark skin absorbed the last vestiges of the fading light, and her simple black dress mirrored the raven hue of her loosely coiled hair. Each curl vibrated with the carriage's violent jolts across the uneven terrain.
Sadia had abandoned her work in the capital to go home. But it wasn't the allure of home alone that propelled her onto this breakneck journey.
Days ago, she had felt the protection spell she had woven for Leander, her husband, faltering.
The ride back had taken too long.
The rhinoceros finally lumbered into a small village, a cluster of round huts nestled beneath the sprawling canopy of acacia trees.
Dust swirled around the carriage as it shuddered to a halt.
Sadia stepped out, her heavy black cloak swaying around her, and strode with purposeful steps along the worn path leading to the largest hut. Its thatched roof stood as a dark silhouette against the twilight sky.
She paused at the intricately carved wooden door, her hand hovering over the smooth surface.
The unnatural silence of the village pressed in on her, amplifying the gnawing dread in her heart.
Something was wrong.
She entered the hut.
The main room was dimly lit, black masks decorating the walls.
Usually, the house hummed with chaotic warmth—Leonotis' half-finished experiments bubbling on the hearth, the air thick with the aroma of his questionable but enthusiastic spellwork.
And Leander… her husband, should have been underfoot. A whirlwind of questions and restless energy, ready to berate her (affectionately) for her absence.
Tonight, there was only silence.
Sadia's hand instinctively moved to the skull staff concealed beneath her travel cloak.
"Leander?" Her voice, roughened by days on the road and the constant rasp of dark magic, echoed in the stillness.
No answer.
Then, a thin figure emerged from the gloom of the dining room.
Leonotis.
He sat alone at the heavy wooden table, a half-eaten plate of stew before him, his face pale in the candlelight.
Relief that he was unharmed warred with a fresh spike of unease. He should have been in bed, asleep.
The stew smelled faintly metallic, as though the herbs had curdled.
"Mother?" Leonotis's voice was small, hesitant. Too quiet.
And yet the air around him thrummed faintly, the pressure of his ase muffling whatever quieted the rest of the village.
Sadia knelt beside him, her cloak pooling on the cold stone floor. She reached out, her slender fingers gently brushing his dark orange hair.
"Where's your father?"
He met her gaze, his eyes fixed on her black ones.
"He went to the cellar."
The cellar.
A shiver traced Sadia's spine, a coldness that had nothing to do with the damp earth below.
Leander rarely went down there. It was her domain—the place where she stored her more volatile ingredients, the artifacts she preferred to keep away from prying eyes… and where the orb, the prison, was kept.
"What is he doing in the cellar?" she asked, her voice low, each word measured.
"He said he heard… a voice. Calling him. He's been going in there ever since you left."
Calm down, she told herself. There was no need to worry.
The creature was under an imprisonment spell.
There was no way it could escape its glass orb prison.
Or could it?
Sadia went outside, to the side of the house, to the cellar door.
The door, which she always kept locked with chains, was slightly ajar.
The chains were sticky with sap, and faint ward-lines across the jamb had been scratched through—smeared with crude overmarks by someone.
She noticed Leonotis was following her, but she stopped him with a sharp look.
"Stay."
Sadia descended the cellar stairs, leaving Leonotis at the top.
A knot of unease tightened in her stomach.
She'd told her son to wait, but the scene unfolding below was beyond anything she could have imagined.
Leander was in the creature's arms.
Its bark-formed body twined around him like a lover, its face pressed to his.
It had shaped itself into a woman's image, crudely sculpted curves and features stretched from wood and vine—a mockery of human form.
The dryad was a creature cloaked in bark and vines.
Though its fundamental structure remained woody, a disturbing veneer had been meticulously crafted upon it. Soft curves, a familiar hourglass waist, even the swell of her breasts—crudely replicated in hardened wood and clinging vines.
The monster had not simply assumed a woman's shape.
It had painstakingly mirrored the most intimate contours of Sadia, perverting her form for some design.
"Leander," she choked. "What is this?"
Her husband tore his mouth away, his eyes wide, pleading, but no words came.
Around his wrist a vine-thin bracelet pulsed.
The dryad's black eyes fixed on her.
Oko Egan.
The prison had failed.
Cracks veined the glass orb behind them, weeping green light.
You… you traitor! After all I have done… all the sacrifices… you defile our house with this… this abomination.
Her mind raced.
No. My protection spell was broken. The village is silent. Oko Egan must have done something to them.
Oko Egan shifted, its black eyes focusing on Sadia.
It lumbered towards her, its movements heavy and menacing.
"Leonotis, run!" Sadia cried out, overriding her shock.
Disobeying, the boy crept closer to the cellar doors.
The creature surged upward, smashing through the earthen ceiling and spilling into the night.
Sadia stood against it, her cloak flaring in the sickly green glow of its power.
What was once a clearing behind their hut was now a riot of unnatural growth.
Twisted vines writhed from the warped remains of what was once a garden, coiling back into Oko Egan.
Sadia's eyes narrowed as Oko Egan's once slender body grew, towering over her.