The morning sun in Kinamis rose heavy, like it, too, was burdened by the unrest. A haze hung low over the village, as if the earth exhaled something it couldn't hold any longer. Dogs barked at nothing, and women fetching water paused at the streams, glancing back toward their homes as if unsure they would return to find them whole.
Word had spread: another child had fallen ill. Another mother had collapsed near the sacred fig grove, eyes wide open but seeing nothing. And the king had not slept.
By mid-morning, the courtyard buzzed with unease. The sun hung heavy above, casting warped shadows across the stone floor. Servants moved briskly along the walls, avoiding eye contact. The breeze carried not relief but questions, and the once-proud banners overhead now fluttered like weak hands in protest.
Molly stood by the gates, fists tightened at her sides, staring down two of the uniformed guards. Her voice cut through the morning air, sharp and unwavering.
"We can't keep pretending it's nothing!" she shouted. "You think silence will make this go away? People are packing, leaving, my own uncle is halfway to Azurae! People now think it's safer on the other side!"
Beside her, Rost Joks shifted his weight, arms crossed, his brow furrowed. He hadn't spoken yet, but his presence lent weight to Molly's words. Everyone knew Rost didn't show up unless it mattered.
The guards said nothing at first, but their expressions flickered with unease. The taller of the two avoided her gaze, jaw tightening as if to trap words he dared not speak. The other glanced back toward the inner gate, as though expecting someone, anyone to intervene.
"It's spreading," Molly continued, her voice lower now, but no less fierce. "The animals are gone, the wells smell strange, mothers are waking in the night screaming and they don't know why. And you still want to talk about protocol?"
One of the guards finally spoke, his voice flat but not unkind. "We have orders."
"From who?" Rost asked sharply, stepping forward. "No one's come out of those rooms for hours. Not even the king. You expect us to stand here while the ground opens beneath our feet?"
The silence that followed was thick. It was not that the guards lacked courage, they had stood through storms and uprisings before, but this was different. This wasn't a fight they could prepare for. This was dread with no name.
Far behind them, a child cried, high-pitched and trembling. Someone slammed a shutter. The courtyard, once the heart of order, now pulsed with the quiet panic of a town unraveling.
Still, Molly didn't move. "Tell them," she said at last. "If they won't come out, we'll come in."
Rost gave a single nod. The message was clear. Kinamis was no longer waiting. It was bracing.
Inside, the king sat at the long table of redwood in the council hall. The air inside was dense, held together by a dozen unspoken worries. One after the other, council members filed in.
Harlem, the spiritual guide, stepped forward first. His staff of dark iroko wood clacked softly against the tiled floor. The runes carved into it seemed dull, as if whatever power they once held was also uncertain now.
The king cleared his throat. "We are gathered here not only because fear is spreading, but because we are beginning to lose control."
"It's not just fear," Pa George said, his voice sharp. "It's flight. I passed fifteen homes this morning empty. The people have left for Azurae."
"Azurae will not be their refuge," Harlem said darkly. "Whatever has awakened here has already begun to follow them."
One of the council members rose slightly, resting both hands on his walking stick. "The land speaks in symbols. The cracked trees, the dryness of wells, the fevered children. Even the silence in the air, it is all connected."
Another council member nodded. "The memory of the earth is long. And when it cries, we must listen. But we are running out of ways to answer."
Gafan, the king's adviser, stepped into the room silently. He carried no staff, wore no beads today. Just a simple black outfit, and a frown deep as thunderclouds.
"Your Majesty," he said, bowing slightly. "May I speak plainly?"
"Always," Marcus replied.
"We've been too slow. Too quiet. Something ancient was disturbed the moment Andar Holdings drove their machines into the heart of our sacred land. Kristen's death was the first trumpet. His silence was not peaceful it was ripped from him. We all know this."
There was a stillness. Even the birds outside seemed to pause.
"And yet," Gafan continued, "we did not heal the land. We did not perform cleansing. We let foreigners with no ties to our soil return to their machines the next day."
"It's too late for cleansing," Pa George whispered.
Gafan turned to him. "Then what do you suggest? That we fold our arms and die with our mouths shut?"
In all this, Mr. Francis, one of the council members, sat quietly without a word. The wiry man with the skeptical face who had once questioned every tale of old now found none to offer. His fingers tapped slowly on the armrest of his seat, but he said nothing, watching the room with eyes that flicked from face to face like a man measuring the weight of crumbling walls.
Harlem finally stood. His voice trembled but held power. "We must send for the boy."
Everyone turned.
"You mean Iboro?" asked the king. "The child who vanished?"
"He was no ordinary boy," Harlem said. "His return was not accident. He saw what none of us could. The gods mark their vessels in strange ways. He survived the awakening of the evil god Osungho when others perished or ran mad."
"Where is he now?" Gafan asked
"With Mrs. Adian," Harlem replied. "Hidden. Protected. But the curse is no longer waiting. It has begun to spread like a breath into the lungs of everything."
King Marcus stood. "Then summon him."
A guard nodded and rushed out.
Gafan sighed deeply. "Still, the people don't trust us anymore. They think we've lost power."
Molly burst into the hall without waiting to be announced. Her face was red from running.
"Your Majesty! The villagers they're forming groups. Fleeing in trucks, carts, even on foot. They say Azurae is untouched and safer."
The king turned to Gafan. "Is it?"
"No," Gafan said. "The curse does not know boundaries. It follows the wound in the earth. It follows the memory of what we unburied."
Stephen Brandt, the site manager, entered the room then, looking grim. Our machines have stopped working, even those with full fuel tanks. Something strange is happening on the grounds. Something no one can explain.
The room grew quiet again.
"Call everyone back from the site," the king said. "No one steps foot near the old pit."
Pa George shuffled in slowly, holding his cap to his chest. The old man's eyes were heavy with sorrow.
"Forgive me, Your Majesty, for coming uninvited. But I have seen times like this. Not exactly the same, but close. Times when the land called for silence, and we shouted. Times when death moved like a breeze and we thought it was just bad weather." He paused.
"This is not the time to divide. Not to run. The boy Iboro may be a whisper of hope. But if we scatter, if we turn against each other, there will be no Kinamis left for him to save."
The king looked at him with gratitude. "Your words carry weight, Pa George. Stay. Help us think."
Just then, Damitz, the camp cook, entered carrying a small cloth bag.
"I found this behind the kitchen tent," he said. "It wasn't there before. I swear it. No one put it there."
He opened the cloth slowly. Inside were stones dark red, warm to the touch and a piece of bone that pulsed faintly, as if alive.
Harlem recoiled. "That's a piece of Osungho's mark."
"How did it get there?" the king asked.
Gafan answered, "The curse has begun to plant itself in quiet corners. We're no longer waiting for danger, danger is waiting for us."
The council was shaken.
Gafan clutched the edge of the table. "Do we still have time?"
Harlem looked down at the bone in the cloth. "Maybe. If the boy arrives. If the earth accepts his hand. If the gods still listen."
Moments later, a breathless messenger entered.
"Iboro is coming. Mrs. Adian walks with him. But something is different. The air around him. The way animals stop to watch him pass. Even the wind bends his path."
"Prepare the chamber," Harlem the spiritual guide said quickly, urgency threaded into his voice.
"What if the boy cannot carry this alone?" someone asked from among the gathered.
"Then we walk beside him," said the king. "All of us."
Outside, the distant creak of carts and the high-pitched wails of children clung to the air. Kinamis groaned under invisible weight. Tensions pressed down from every corner, as if the very soil had begun to shift beneath their feet. But inside that dim, smoky hall, lit only by flickering flames and the steady eyes of those still standing, a fragile resolve began to take root. Shoulders squared. Backs straightened.
"If Kinamis must fall," the king said, his voice no longer trembling, "let it not be because her people turned away. Let us meet whatever comes. Together. And fight, not with blades, but with our hearts, and with unity."
No one challenged him. No one needed to. Even the shadows on the walls seemed to lean forward in agreement.
A slow wind moved beyond the wooden frames, not cold, not warm, just knowing. Then came the soft thud of feet on dry earth. Two shapes approached in silence, one small, one bent with age. The air shifted slightly, as if the town itself held its breath. It was time. The boy had returned.