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."