The silence of the royal chambers was a deceptive peace. Back in their respective rooms, the luxury felt like a mockery, the silk sheets cold and unwelcoming, the ornate carvings on the walls like the grinning teeth of a skull. The opulent prison was quiet, but the minds of its newest inmates were a raging storm.
Leonotis paced the length of his chamber, the thick rug swallowing the sound of his restless footsteps. He had peeled away the sweaty bindings and the hated disguise of Lia, but he felt more exposed now than he had in the bathhouse. The King's eyes were burned into his memory, the sharp, analytical curiosity a far more terrifying threat than any warrior's axe.
A soft, rhythmic tapping came from the thick stone wall separating their rooms. Three short taps, a pause, then two more. Their pre-arranged signal.
"Are you two alive over there?" Low's voice was a low, gruff whisper, muffled by the stone but carrying the unmistakable edge of frayed nerves.
Leonotis pressed his ear to the cool wall. "Barely," he whispered back, his own voice hoarse. "That was… a nightmare. I thought she had me. Zuri…"
"Tell me about it," Low retorted, a shudder of genuine disgust in her tone. "Naked king. Some things you can't unsee. But we're still in. Still breathing. That's what matters."
Jacqueline's calm, measured voice joined them, a thread of reason in the tapestry of their fear. "She's right. It was a close call—closer than I would have liked—but we survived his initial tests." There was a weariness in her words, a fatigue from how much that last-minute, life-saving illusion had cost her. "But we must not mistake survival for success. This changes things. He was trying to expose you in the baths tonight. If he had been certain, he would have done it publicly at the feast to make an example of you. No, this was a game to him. He was testing his hypothesis, confirming his suspicions. He is toying with us."
"He knows," Leonotis said, the certainty a cold stone in his gut. "He may not know *what* we are, but he knows we aren't Lia and Grom."
"Which means from now on we've got to be even more careful," Jacqueline concluded. "Every word, every action will be scrutinized. He will not be so playful next time. He will be looking for proof. We cannot give him anything."
The heavy silence that followed was a shared acknowledgment of their precarious position. They were trapped, their secrets fraying at the edges, with the most powerful man in the kingdom watching them.
Their hushed conference was abruptly shattered by the sound of voices from the corridor. They were not the soft, deferential tones of servants, but the hard, resonant voices of warriors. Leonotis, Low, and Jacqueline fell silent instantly, their ears pressed to the heavy doors of their room.
The voices were echoing slightly in the marble hall. One was deep, filled with a righteous, simmering anger that could only belong to one person.
"That was a desecration."
Adebayo.
He was standing not ten paces from their doors. The other voice, when it came, was soft, devoid of emotion.
"Victory is my destination," Silas replied. "The path I take to get there is irrelevant."
Leonotis could picture the scene perfectly: the towering, honorable Mgba champion confronting the pale, hollow-eyed enigma. It was a clash of two opposing realities.
"Irrelevant?" Adebayo's voice rose, cracking with disbelief and outrage. "You consumed that man's spirit! You left him a hollow shell! You call that a path? That is an abomination in the eyes of the Orisha and all who honor them. The power you wield is... It's filth that has no place on sacred ground."
There was a long pause. Leonotis imagined Silas just standing there, his unnerving calm a shield against Adebayo's righteous fury.
When Silas finally spoke, his voice was laced with a faint, almost pitying amusement. "You always speak of honor. It's not the shield you think it is but a cage, Adebayo. A set of rules designed by the fearful to restrain the powerful. You pray to your Orisha for strength, and they grant you a measure of it, always with conditions, always with limitations. You are a willing slave to their doctrines."
"It is a partnership, not slavery," Adebayo growled. "A sacred trust."
"Is it?" Silas countered, his tone silky smooth. "Your gods gave you rules. Mine gave me victory. We are not the same."
The finality of the statement was absolute, a declaration of a new and terrible creed. It left no room for debate. It was a truth as cold and as sharp as a shard of black glass. Leonotis heard Adebayo let out a frustrated, helpless sound, a growl of a lion who has found himself facing a creature he cannot comprehend, let alone defeat.
He heard the soft, almost soundless footsteps of Silas moving away down the corridor, followed by the heavy, angry tread of Adebayo stomping back toward his own chamber.
The corridor fell silent again, but the echoes of the confrontation remained, poisoning the air. Leonotis pulled away from the door, his heart hammering. Silas wasn't just a powerful fighter; he was a true believer in his own corrupting power. He represented a philosophy that could unravel the very fabric of their world.
"Did you hear that?" he whispered to the wall.
"Every word," came Low's grim reply. "He's not just a monster. He's a prophet for a new, rotten religion." She paused. "He needs to be a target. Sooner or later, he'll have to be dealt with."
"His words are a threat, but his power is the real problem," Jacqueline said. "He has a way to weaponize the mushrooms as a void. It's a fundamental shift in how `àṣẹ` is understood. It is… a terrifying innovation."
The night deepened, but sleep, when it finally came, was a shallow, restless thing, a dark ocean full of grasping nightmares.
Leonotis was back at the feast. The hall was silent, every eye on him. King Rega sat on his throne, his face a youthful mask of cruel amusement. "Show us what you are, Lia of Greenwater," the King commanded.
He tried to speak, to lie, but the bindings around his chest tightened, crushing him. They weren't linen anymore; they were thick, thorny vines, digging into his skin. He looked down and saw his hands were not his own; they were gnarled branches, green and dripping with sap. The crowd gasped, then pointed, their faces twisting in horror. "Monster!" they screamed, the word echoing, growing, until it was the only sound in the universe.
The sound shattered the opulent hall. The marble floor dissolved into mud, the gilded ceiling vanished into a twisting canopy of moss and ancient wood. The suffocating pressure was gone, replaced by the damp air of the place he knew, the place where his heart settled.
He woke with a strangled gasp, drenched in a cold sweat. He was standing, barefoot, on soft, dark earth. He was in the Dark Forest—the specific patch where the Woman of his dreams, his silent guide, always waited. The air smelled of wet leaves and rich, loamy soil.
The dream's panic still hammered in his chest, but the familiar sanctuary of the forest called him forward. He walked toward the ancient, gnarled oak that marked their meeting spot, expecting to find the serene, silent Woman.
Instead, a small, still figure sat huddled at the base of the oak. It was a boy, unnervingly small and naked, sitting with his knees drawn up.
"Hello? Are you okay?" Leonotis asked, his voice shaking slightly from the recent terror.
The boy turned slowly, deliberately. Leonotis took an involuntary step back, the raw terror of the banquet hall flooding back tenfold. The boy had no skin. Instead, his entire body was covered in rough, knotty bark, the color of dry moss and dead leaves. And where his eyes and mouth should have been, the bark simply twisted into empty, shadowed hollows.
"You!" the boy hissed, the word a rasp of splitting wood. A palpable wave of cold fury emanated from the small form.
Leonotis's mind screamed Run, but his feet were frozen to the earth.
"Give it back!" the boy yelled out, his voice splitting like a dry log snapping in a fire. "Give it back. Give it back!"
He woke with a gasp, drenched in sweat, the boy's splintering cry ringing in his ears. The opulent chamber was dark, the only light the soft glow of the twin moons filtering through the balcony doors. He sat up, his breath coming in ragged, shallow bursts. The dream had felt too real.
He swung his legs off the bed, the cool floor a shock against his feverish skin. He couldn't stay here, in this suffocating room. He moved silently to the small table by the window where the attendants had placed their few belongings. There, in a simple clay pot, sat the small oak sapling.
He hadn't realized until that moment that Jacqueline and Zombiel must have brought it with them. Leonotis smiled at the thoughtfulness of his friends to make sure it was here with him.
In the moonlight, its tender leaves were etched in silver. He reached out a trembling hand and gently touched one.
The moment his skin made contact, he felt it. A faint, honest pulse of life, a clean, green àṣẹ, the opposite of Silas's consuming àṣẹ. It was the energy of growth, of patience, of a strength that did not consume, but endured. He closed his eyes, focusing on that small, pure connection, letting it wash over him, cleansing the lingering taint of the nightmare.
This was his purpose. Not the glory of the arena, not the fear of the King, but this to be a conduit for life. No, to save lives.
His thoughts went to Gethii and Chinakah. He rekindled his determination to save them from the dungeon.
In another wing of the palace, in the sterile, herb-scented quiet of the infirmary, another champion was also awake. The healers had insisted Zola rest, that she not put any strain on her miraculously mended leg. But Zola was a dancer, and stillness was a cage she could not abide.
Under the watchful light of a single oil lamp, she stood, her weight resting on her good leg. Slowly, tentatively, she extended the other, testing the knee. A sharp, searing pain shot up her thigh, and she hissed, her hands flying to the nearby cot to steady herself. Sweat beaded on her brow. Jacqueline's magic had been a miracle, mending bone and sinew that should have been lost forever. But as the healer had warned, the memory of the injury remained, a ghost of agony that haunted the joint.
She gritted her teeth against the pain and tried again. This time, she didn't just extend it. She bent it. The movement was stiff, protesting, every degree of motion a fresh wave of fire. But it bent. She could stand on it, however shakily. A fierce, triumphant smile broke through her mask of pain. They had not taken her dance from her. She would have to learn a new rhythm, one that accommodated this new, persistent pain, but she would dance again. She would fight again. The thought was a promise, a vow made to the quiet, haunted girl who had risked everything to give her this chance.
The first hint of dawn was beginning to paint the eastern sky a pale, pearlescent grey. In his chambers, Adebayo knelt on a prayer mat facing east, his powerful form a dark silhouette, his head bowed in quiet meditation, reinforcing his spiritual armor for the day to come. In another room, Silas stood motionless by his window, not sleeping, not meditating, just watching the stars fade, his stillness as profound and as inhuman as that of a stone idol.
The new day was coming. The Quarter-Finals awaited.