The stone steps of the Great Library were cool beneath Low's worn boots, a faint echo of the day's heat giving way to the evening chill. Dusk painted the sky in hues of bruised purple and fading orange as she scanned the street, her posture a tight coil of readiness. Beside her, Zombiel had ceased his fidgeting, his usual quietness now a focused, weighty presence. A moment later, Jacqueline rounded the corner with a determined purpose in her stride. Leonotis arrived last, emerging from the shadows of a nearby alley like a whisper, the new warrior's toga worn over his simple clothes giving him a strange, somber gravitas.
"Everyone's here," Leonotis stated, his voice low.
"Yeah," Low confirmed, pulling her own threadbare cloak tighter. Her eyes fell on new the wooden practice sword in his hand. "Looks like you found more than just information."
Leonotis gripped the sword's hilt. "I met an armorer— she said Gethii left this for me before he went to the palace. That was weeks ago, before he disappeared." He touched the sturdy fabric of the toga. "This, too. It must have meant he wanted me to be ready." His eyes held a quiet fire that had little to do with sentiment and everything to do with resolve.
Zombiel looked at the items, then back toward the library. "Runes," he said, his voice a flat, meaningful whisper. "To break things."
"We also listened," Low cut in, stepping closer. "We overheard scholars, Leonotis. Important things. About the King."
"I learned things at the docks as well," Jacqueline added, her face grim in the twilight.
Leonotis nodded, his gaze sweeping over each of them. "Then let's hear it. Low, Zombiel—you first."
"The scholars were talking openly," Low said, her voice hushed with anger. "Like it was just another academic project. The King is furious about the Dryad we freed. He's organizing an expedition to the Dark Forest to capture another one for his 'bio-alchemist'."
A cold dread settled over the group.
"Alright," Leonotis said, his jaw tight. "He wants another Dryad. We can't let that happen. Jacqueline?"
"I found passage south," she began. "A boat captain named Thabile. She leaves the day after the King's tournament. But…" she hesitated, "that's not the important part. The King is planning to travel to the Dark Forest *himself*. Soon. And I heard the dockhands talking about special transport being prepared." Her eyes met theirs, wide with the sheer audacity of it. "He's taking a wyvern."
Zombiel's head snapped up. "Wyvern?" he breathed, the name itself a legend. "Giant flying lizard? He will fly there?"
"The King is going to the Dark Forest with a wyvern," Low repeated, the implications crashing down on her. The cost of a wyvern was great… the prize at the end of that journey must be of unimaginable value to him.
Leonotis was silent, his mind a whirlwind, connecting the threads. He finally spoke, his voice even and dangerously quiet. "Weeks ago… both Chinakah and Gethii were here, in Ọ̀yọ́-Ìlú. I confirmed it. They were both seen heading to the palace to have an audience with the King. No one has seen or heard from them since."
The silence that followed was absolute, thick with a shared, unspoken dread. The pieces of the puzzle—the King's obsession, his ruthlessness, the expedition, the sudden, complete disappearance of two powerful individuals loyal to Leonotis—clicked into place with a sickening finality.
Low's breath hitched. "They went to see the King… and vanished?"
Jacqueline's face paled. "The King… Leonotis, you think he…?"
"I didn't know them for even one year," Leonotis admitted, his voice thick with a sorrow that was quickly hardening into certainty. "But Chinakah and Gethii would never abandon me. Not willingly. They would never just disappear. Not unless someone made them."
Zombiel looked up, his quiet demeanor replaced by a flash of the salamander's fire. "Made them?" he whispered. "Locked up?"
The realization struck them like a physical blow.
"The royal dungeon," Low breathed, the words tasting like ash.
Leonotis nodded, the simple movement a confirmation of their terrible, shared conclusion. His eyes held a steely resolve that burned away his grief. "He has them. And if he's planning to leave for the Dark Forest on a wyvern next week…"
"He'll take his best guards with him," Low finished, a fierce, strategic glint sparking in her eyes. "The palace will be… less secure."
"But there's something else," Jacqueline said, her voice gaining a strange, urgent intensity. "A rumor. Among the sailors. They said the City Watch captured a merman near the coast. They said it was taken to the palace."
Low threw her hands up in exasperation. "A merman? Jacqueline, we have enough real problems without chasing sailors' fantasies. No one's seen a merfolk in these waters for centuries."
But Jacqueline's expression was unwavering, her gaze locked on Leonotis. "Real or not, it's what they said. And if… if there is one of my people down there, held by that man…" Her voice trembled with a cold fury. "I cannot leave them to suffer the same fate as the Dryad. I *will not*."
Leonotis met her determined gaze and made the decision that sealed their pact. "If we find a merman in that dungeon," he said, his tone absolute, "we will get them out, too."
"The palace will still be heavily guarded," Low pointed out, ever the pragmatist.
"We can try the sewers," Leonotis countered instantly, his mind already mapping the city's underbelly. "We'll watch the patrols, find the blind spots."
"Dangerous," Zombiel whispered, but it was a statement of fact, not a protest. He stood straighter, a small, resolute shadow against the grand library.
Leonotis looked at each of them, a silent confirmation passing between them. "They would do it for us."
There was no argument. No dissent. Just a quiet, unbreakable resolve that solidified in the fading light.
"Then it's settled," Leonotis said, his voice barely a breath, yet holding the weight of a solemn vow. "The King leaves for his expedition next week. And then we go to the royal dungeon. We rescue Chinakah and Gethii." He looked directly at Jacqueline, sealing the promise. "And the merman, if he's there."
The library steps, moments before just a meeting point, now felt like the launching pad for an impossible war. As the last of the daylight died, the four of them stood united, their fear burned away by a fierce, unwavering purpose.
By the evening, the city had transformed. The streets of Ọ̀yọ́-Ìlú burned with festivities overflowing with color, noise, and heat. The air shimmered with the scent of roasted maize, perfume, and sweat as the festival torches flared to life. From balconies and banners alike, the emblem of the Sunstone Tournament burned bright — a golden disk surrounded by carved rays.
Low hated it instantly. She kicked at a loose pebble as they passed a row of cheering men gambling with bone dice. "Every corner smells like sweat and greed," she muttered as they passed yet another cluster of shouting merchants hawking carved trinkets and tournament charms. "You'd think they were selling pieces of the sun itself."
Jacqueline's eyes darted from stall to stall, wary. "Don't underestimate them. Half of these charms are real—Orisha-work twisted for profit."
"Fitting," Leonotis said under his breath. "A king who cages magic and a city that sells it."
They reached the first inn—a bright building with painted tiles and lanterns in the shape of suns. The crowd spilling from its doors made Low groan. Inside, the air was a stew of heat, laughter, and spilled ale. The innkeeper, a round man with a red scarf and a perpetually sweating face, looked up only briefly as they approached.
"Rooms?" Leonotis asked.
The man grinned, his eyes twinkling with amusement. "Ah! You're serious. That's rich." He let out a booming laugh that turned a few heads nearby. "You'll find no room here, friends. Not for coin, not for prayer, not for all the àṣẹ in the world. Tournament week! Even the broom closets are full."
Low crossed her arms. "We'll take the broom closet."
"Taken," the man said cheerfully. "By a family of seven. Lovely folks."
Jacqueline sighed. "We could pay extra—"
He shook his head, already moving on to the next customer. "Try the next quarter if you want a roof. Though by the looks of you, you'd best hurry before the rats rent out the gutters."
They tried two more inns and a tavern by the city wall. Each time, they were met with laughter, pity, or slammed doors. By the time they reached the city's edge, the festival lights had faded into a warm, distant glow. The laughter and music were carried off by the wind, replaced by the quiet hum of crickets.
They walked until the road turned from cobblestone to packed dirt, then to grass. A faint path, half-swallowed by wild growth, curved away from the main road — and there, beneath a leaning banyan tree, they saw it.
An old shrine.
Its walls were crumbling, its roof caved in. Moss clung to every surface like a second skin, and vines had swallowed the entrance whole. Yet there was a strange stillness to it, not the emptiness of abandonment, but the quiet of something asleep. Few dared come this far. Locals said the grove was cursed — crops failed for anyone who lingered here.
Zombiel ran his fingers along the stone gate, tracing old carvings now obscured by time. "It once held power," he murmured. "You can still feel it."
Leonotis pushed aside a curtain of vines and stepped inside. The air was cooler, thicker — alive. Moonlight spilled through the broken roof in pale shafts, illuminating what had once been a temple floor. At the far end stood a toppled statue, shattered from the waist down. Only the upper half remained, half-buried in dust and roots.
They approached slowly. The figure was female, her hands once outstretched, now broken at the wrists. The stone face was worn smooth except for one serene eye and the curve of a faint smile. Around her shoulders clung remnants of carved grain and fruit.
An engraving on the square slab at the base of a statue caught the moonlight: "Oko — Lady of the Fields, She Who Brings the Green."
Jacqueline exhaled softly. "She must have been the Orisha of this shrine. A goddess of harvest and renewal."
Low knelt, brushing away the dirt around the engraving. "Oko," she repeated quietly. "Strange. I thought Oko was a… he."
"Or perhaps this place remembers differently," Jacqueline mused, her voice carrying an ancient wisdom. "The Orishas exist beyond such simple constraints as 'male' or 'female'; they are the essence, unconfined by our language. The Orisha change as people remember them."
Leonotis stared at the broken face. The name echoed in his mind, heavy with memory — Oko Egan.
The Dryad's name that fell his mother and stolen his father.
"Oko Egan," he whispered. "The Dryad who killed my mother… and took my father."
Low glanced up from where she was sweeping debris into a pile. "You think this shrine has something to do with it?"
"Maybe nothing," Leonotis said softly. "Maybe everything. The Dryad might have been named after her — the green Orisha, bringer of life. Or maybe…" He looked up at the faintly smiling stone face, the missing half lost to time. "Maybe she wasn't what the stories said."
The world shattered and narrowed to that one face—so gentle, so profoundly calm beneath the weathered lines. In a rush of irrational memory, he saw her—the woman from his dreams, nameless but unforgettable. She had always looked at him with that same, quiet sorrow.
A shock ran through him, a deep, strange thump in his chest, as if an old, dormant heart had suddenly started to beat again.
"Leonotis," Jacqueline's voice cut through the haze, grounding him.
He blinked. The others were watching him expectantly.
Low crossed her arms, a smirk tugging at her lips. "You going to stare at that statue all night, or are you going to make yourself useful?"
"Useful?" he echoed.
"Yeah," she said, kicking a few dry leaves into a pile. "Since you're the tree-hugger now, how about you make us a nice bed of leaves with that fancy plant magic of yours?"
Zombiel chuckled quietly, and even Jacqueline smiled, shaking her head.
Leonotis gave an exaggerated sigh. "Fine. I'll make you a bed of leaves…" His lips curved into a mischievous grin. "But I'll make sure there are thorns in yours, Low."
Low snorted. "You wouldn't dare."
"Try me."
Their laughter filled the ruin, soft and fleeting, but real. For a moment, the weight of kings and dungeons and dark forests lifted, replaced by something simple and human.
They built their makeshift camp among the roots and stones, spreading their cloaks for warmth. Leonotis placed the oak sapling near the fallen statue, where a hole in the roof allowed a beam of moonlight to fall.
The leaves caught the silver glow, trembling faintly as if stirred by invisible breath.
"Life in the ruins," Zombiel murmured. "Maybe the Orisha of the Green still watches."
Leonotis looked once more at the face of the broken goddess — Oko, Lady of the Fields — and felt a flicker of something between memory and longing.
"Then may she watch kindly," he whispered.
Outside, the wind carried distant laughter from the city — the hollow cheer of celebration. Inside the shrine, the four of them settled beneath the half-light, guarded by a forgotten Orisha and the slow heartbeat of the earth.
And as the night deepened, the little sapling swayed in the moonbeam, roots reaching into the soil that had not felt worship in a hundred years.