The war did not announce itself.
It spread.
---
It began far from Chukwudi, in places that had forgotten the old names.
Rivers in the north turned dark and sluggish, carrying bones instead of fish. In the west, forests uprooted themselves and walked at night, crushing villages beneath wandering roots. In the delta, the water whispered secrets so terrible that fishermen drowned themselves rather than listen.
People said it was coincidence.
Then they said it was punishment.
Then they said it was witchcraft.
The truth was older.
The gods were moving.
Where the Snake Mother's power touched the land, the earth rose in defense—swallowing the guilty, sparing the innocent, restoring balance with brutal fairness.
Where Idemili Ọbara passed, nothing balanced.
Only blood.
She did not guard.
She fed.
Entire regions became offerings.
---
Chukwudi felt each death like a nail driven into his spine.
He would wake screaming, earth-memories flooding his skull—children buried alive by collapsing huts, rivers choking on corpses, snakes forced to eat one another until they split open.
"I can't stop hearing it," he whispered one night, rocking back and forth.
The cursed children gathered around him in the ruined stone circle they had claimed as shelter. The air there was wrong—too still, too heavy—as if the world itself was holding its breath.
"You are not meant to carry it alone," said Adaeze, the girl whose tears turned to ash. Her cheeks were scarred from years of burning grief.
The twins nodded in unison.
"Make it binding," they whispered.
"Make it forbidden."
The Snake Mother watched from the shadows, silent.
Chukwudi understood.
And feared it.
---
A covenant among the cursed was not meant to exist.
Covenants were for gods and priests. For bloodlines and spirits. For laws written into stone and soil.
But these children were mistakes.
Loose ends.
Weapons left unfinished.
Chukwudi stood at the center of the circle, heart pounding.
"If we do this," he said, "we will never be normal."
The shadowless boy laughed softly.
"We were never normal."
Chukwudi pressed his palm to the earth.
The others followed.
Adaeze cried—and ash fell like black snow. The twins whispered names of the dead. The boy whose reflection aged screamed as his mirror-self shattered.
The ground split.
Something ancient noticed.
"I bind my breath to your pain," Chukwudi said, voice trembling but steady.
"I bind my blood to your survival."
The earth listened.
The covenant sealed itself with a sound like a bone snapping.
Each child screamed as marks burned into their skin—different symbols, same source.
They were no longer alone.
They were linked.
Far away, Idemili Ọbara hissed in delight.
"So," she whispered, "you are building an army."
---
Humans noticed the war next.
They always did—late, and wrongly.
Priests, scholars, hunters, and kings gathered. They argued about demons and heresy, about science and superstition.
Then someone brought a dead alụsị fragment—scale, fang, bone—torn from a lesser spirit during one of Idemili's reckless feedings.
And discovered something terrifying.
The bones could be forged.
They burned hot.
They cut through spirit-flesh.
They drank power.
Men who feared gods decided they would no longer kneel.
They built weapons.
---
In hidden forges, they melted sacred bones into blades. They carved runes backward. They used blood—not animal, but human—to temper steel.
The first weapon screamed when it was born.
They named it Ọkụ-ala—Fire of the Earth.
They tested it on a minor spirit bound to a shrine.
The blade pierced divine flesh.
The spirit died.
Word spread faster than prayer.
"Gods can bleed."
"Gods can be hunted."
Chukwudi felt it instantly.
A sharp, tearing pain in his chest.
The Snake Mother staggered for the first time since he had known her.
"They have crossed a line," she said hoarsely.
"And they will not stop," Chukwudi replied.
From the horizon, smoke rose—not from villages burning, but from forges.
Men preparing for war.
Against gods.
Against children.
Against the earth itself.
---
That night, Idemili Ọbara appeared in Chukwudi's dream again.
This time, she clapped.
"Look at them," she purred. "They fear us so beautifully."
"You want this," Chukwudi said. "You want them to kill us."
"I want the world to choose," she smiled. "And when it breaks, I will rule what remains."
She leaned close, her breath like rot and river-water.
"You are standing between extinction and evolution, little god."
Chukwudi woke shaking.
Outside, the cursed children stood awake, staring at the red glow on the horizon.
The Snake Mother spoke softly, terribly:
"The war has spread beyond gods."
"And now," she said, "everyone will pay."