The sun was not meant to rise at midnight.
Yet, over the parched landscape of Extremadura, the sky pulsated with a crimson bloom, an impossible hue that throbbed like an open wound yearning to heal. Villagers from Trujillo and Guadalupe spoke of witnessing a second sun igniting beside the moon, shimmering like hot oil before blinking out, as if it couldn't bear the weight of its light.
But here at the dig site near Las Villuercas, where ancient Roman roads intertwined with Moorish mosaics, the echoes of forgotten empires whispered through the air, leaving no one—not even Mirella Zhang Edo—with a clear explanation.
She awoke, heart racing, with blood on her hands.
Her breath came in shallow gasps as sweat glistened on her skin, shimmering beneath the ghostly glow of perimeter lamps. Dust coated her face, and her thick black hair, laced with copper highlights, was a wild tangle of grass and fragments of shattered tiles.
And her hands—oh, gods, her hands.
They were stained crimson, wet, trembling as if they held secrets too dark to speak.
The muted scream that burst from her throat sliced through the stillness of the site, a haunting note that carried like a broken violin string in the night.
"Mirella?"
A man's voice pierced through the haze warm, accented, laced with panic.
She turned abruptly, slipping on the uneven gravel beneath her feet.
A shadow rushed toward her, clad in a dusty brown coat and boots that seemed far too fine for a mere field engineer. A long dreadlock was secured beneath a silver-and-ebony beaded hood, and an old orisha symbol—a stylised Ọ̀ṣun spiral—dangled around his neck.
Ayinla Okwudili dropped to the ground beside her, urgency radiating from him.
"What happened? Are you hurt?" His gaze scanned her for injuries. "Mirella, look at me."
Her lips trembled, struggling to form words that wouldn't come.
He gently clasped her wrists, turning her palms upwards.
"Blood," she finally whispered, her voice barely a breath.
"Not yours." Ayinla's eyes narrowed, scrutinising her. "Too thick. Too fresh."
He looked around, his gaze sweeping over the eerily silent dig. There were no screams, no sign of life, no bodies.
"Mirella… were you sleepwalking again?"
Flashes of gold flickered through her mind, whispers that danced like birdsong. There had been something in the dark—a presence, watching.
"I… don't know."
Hours before, the excavation team had stumbled upon a chamber that was a curious fusion of Roman architecture and something else entirely. Inside, they found a tablet carved from a shimmering black stone, etched with symbols that defied comprehension, a blend of Latin, Nsibidi, and Old Chinese seal script.
Ayinla alone had recognised fragments, a shiver of insight coursing through him.
"It's a warning," he had murmured, tracing the strange, looping characters with a reverent touch. "But… It's not meant for us."
Now, he pulled the cloth-wrapped tablet from his satchel. Its surface hummed faintly, vibrated as if alive, and resonated with the air around it.
"Mirella," he said, his voice low and tense. "What do you remember?"
She squeezed her eyes shut, drowning in the memories.
"I was in the chamber," she whispered, "but it transformed. It was larger. It was alive."
"Alive how?"
"There was a door, but not one made of wood or stone. It was encased in black fire, and a voice—calling me—without words."
Ayinla's expression wavered between fear and something deeper, a dawning recognition.
"We need to call Efua. Now."
From a distance far above the dig site, a figure stood motionless on a limestone outcrop.
They wore no visible gear. No clothes that made sense for the terrain. Just a cloak woven from something darker than night, the hem flickering like shadows caught in a mirror. Their eyes shifted colourssilver, then green, then blood red.
The Watcher turned their head.
They had seen the gate ripple. Seen Mirella awaken the stone.
The convergence was beginning
The satellite phone barely worked this deep into the valley, but Ayinla knew a trick: triangulate through the copper ore deposits, piggyback off the nearby monastery's solar array, and pray the spirits of transmission were kind.
Efua answered after three static-ridden rings.
"I told you not to touch the black stone."
Her voice was the same as ever cool, direct, and just shy of scolding.
"We didn't touch it," Ayinla said. "It… woke up on its own. Mirella collapsed. Blood on her hands. She spoke about a burning gate."
Silence.
Then:
"I'm coming. Do not let anyone else near the chamber. Don't speak to the press. Burn your field notes if you wrote anything new. I'll arrive before sunrise."
The line clicked off.
Mirella sat beside a rusted toolbox, knees tucked under her chin, watching him with distant eyes. Her voice was low when she finally spoke.
"Efua," she said. "The Ghanaian mythkeeper?"
Ayinla nodded. "And more than that."
"Why does she scare you?"
"She doesn't scare me."
Mirella didn't reply. Just kept watching.
A short silence stretched between them, heavy with the things they weren't yet ready to say. A shiver ran through the stones beneath them—subtle, like breath moving through sleeping lungs.