The moment Leonotis and Low survived the bathhouse ordeal, the lower palace exhaled in temporary relief—but pressure in the royal wing only sharpened.
King Rega Liptus IV, just a young teenager yet already wearing centuries of duty in his shoulders, stood at the wide gilded window of his private solar. From this height, the central courtyard looked small, a flickering mosaic of torchlight and milling tournament staff.
Behind him, High Seer Jabara's wind-chime staff clicked once against the polished marble floor. The sound was soft, delicate… yet carried the weight of someone who did not wait.
Rega's bodyguards, Zuri and Kenya, stood on either side of the chamber, alert and unblinking—mirrors of discipline.
"You summoned me, Your Majesty," Jabara said. Her voice was dry, steady, but the tapestries behind her shifted faintly as her wind-àṣẹ betrayed her unease.
Rega didn't turn.
"I did. My tournament thrives, yet the palace fills with whispers of conspiracies and plots. Tell me, High Seer—what does your sight make of all this noise?"
Jabara bowed her head only slightly. "It is no noise, my King. There is a presence in your arena that should not be breathing the same air as your people. The fighter Silas—his àṣẹ is tainted."
Rega finally turned, crimson light flickering in his eyes. "Silas? Let him try whatever he wants. I'm the King of Liptus. Not a common boy with fancy swings."
Zuri and Kenya shifted subtly.
Jabara stepped forward.
"His threat is not of steel. It is of spirit. I have been watching him closely. His àṣẹ drains what it touches. The air tastes wrong when he fights. And the other night, I heard his name on the wind—spoken with another name."
She hesitated before saying it.
"Iku."
Rega's posture tightened.
"Explain," he snapped.
"I have had visions," Jabara said, lowering her staff. The bells stilled, as if listening. "Fragmented—but consistent. Iku walking among mortals. Oko's silhouette beside him. The land bleeding violet with blighted growth. This kingdom is being nudged toward a catastrophe we do not recognize yet."
Rega studied her carefully. He had always viewed Jabara as the quiet type—loyal, reclusive, more devoted to her Orisha than to any throne. He trusted her more than Zuberi, at least. Zuberi had been his father's shadow, whispering lies that justified madness.
Jabara, in contrast, had never asked for anything... At least not yet.
"You believe Silas is a servant of this… resurgence?" Rega asked.
"I believe he serves something that will unmake this kingdom," Jabara said. "The rot in the farmlands, the beast mutations, the attacks on your life, Silas' appearance—it is all connected."
Rega waited for her to continue.
When she did not, he clicked his tongue. "And to what do these signs point, Seer?"
Her jaw clenched. "I do not know. Not yet." Her frustration was raw, unpolished. "The visions are blurred—masked. Something is interfering."
Rega turned back toward the window, unimpressed. "And what do you expect me to do? Cancel the tournament? Hide in my room?"
"You must remove Silas from the competition," Jabara urged. "He spreads corruption in his wake."
Rega's lips curved slightly, almost amused.
"The competition will continue. If the person I suspect is competing truly is… then Silas' fate will be handled for me."
Jabara took a step forward. "Your Majesty—who do you believe is in the tournament?"
"You are dismissed, Seer."
Her breath caught, but this time she didn't leave.
Not yet.
"I have something more," Jabara said quietly.
Rega raised a brow.
She inhaled. "I have researched the blight. The slowdown of crops. I have compared them to records from a millennium ago."
At this, even Rega faltered and turned a fraction toward her.
"Go on."
"The blight today mirrors that of the Great Rot of the First Century," Jabara said. "The one caused by Oko's followers in preparation for Iku's cleansing. This is not… coincidence, my King. The patterns are matching."
Rega's expression hardened. The Great Rot was an event he remembered being taught as a child. But it had always been regarded as more of a lesson in the greatness of one of his ancestors so he paid it little attention.
"And you came to tell me this only now?"
"Because I needed proof," she said. "I don't have it yet but the events happening now are concerning."
Rega tapped a finger against the window frame. "Interesting. I've heard the complaints from farmers. Crops slowing. Fields dying. I believed it to be a seasonal sickness. Annoying, but manageable."
"It is not manageable."
Rega held up one hand. "Calm yourself, High Seer. I am not dismissing you."
Rega continued, "The blight and slow down has troubled me as well. But I already have a solution in the works."
Jabara blinked. "A solution?"
"Yes," Rega said flatly. "One without the Orisha, because the Orisha did not stop Iku or Oko a thousand years ago. Humans did. A king did. One man acting decisively succeeded where gods refused to intervene."
Jabara felt her stomach drop.
"That… that is not how the story is taught."
"It's how the story is," Rega said. "And I have no interest in waiting for Orisha prayers to solve mortal problems."
Jabara opened her mouth—
And found no argument, no scripture, no divine precedent she could cling to.
Oya had not protected the old kingdoms.
And even now, her visions were only warnings, not commands.
Rega saw the hesitation and pressed. "See? You have no answer."
Her wind-bells shivered faintly.
Rega stepped closer, his voice dropping.
"My father spent years chasing rumors of a Green Aseborn. I didn't know why."
He paused.
"But now I understand why he was so desperate."
Jabara stiffened.
"The ancient king ordered the extermination of Green Aseborns," Rega continued. "Believing them allies of Oko. My father must have thought a Green Aseborn was causing the current blight. He wanted to find them before anyone else did."
"And what about you?" Jabara whispered.
Rega's eyes gleamed with something sharp, something hungry.
"I am close to finding him. Very close."
Jabara's grip tightened around her staff. "Your Majesty, if the Green Aseborn is connected to Iku—"
"Enough." Rega cut her off. "Your task is research, not interference. Continue digging into the past. I will handle the solution."
"But—"
"You are dismissed."
This time the dismissal carried finality like a blade.
Jabara bowed slowly.
Reluctantly.
Her winds trembling with unsaid warnings.
As she backed out of the solar, Zuri and Kenya exchanged wary glances. They understood what Jabara saw… and what Rega did not.
But neither dared intervene.
Jabara's wind-chime staff fell silent as the doors shut behind her.
A storm, one of gods, rot, kings, and ancient sins, had begun to stir.
And Rega believed he alone could ride it.
Zuri and Kenya remained. The silence was thick.
"Your Majesty, if the Seer believes the threat is real, should we not detain Silas now?" Zuri asked, her face set in a mask of rigid duty.
Rega waved a hand dismissively. "Focus on what I asked you, Zuri. The bathhouse. What did you find?"
Zuri stiffened. "I checked Lia of the Greenwater as you requested, Your Majesty. She was a girl through and through. Modest, but female."
Rega's gaze was unsettlingly cold. "I don't doubt what you saw with your eyes, Zuri. But you are a warrior, not an àṣeseer. Could it have been an illusion?"
Zuri paused, considering the implications. "If it was an illusion, it would have to be potent, which means it would have to be an extremely rare and powerful illusion spell cast by an Aláàṣẹ—an Àṣe-wearer of the highest order. Such a person would not be using their magic to compete in a simple tournament."
Rega gave a slow, knowing smile. "But they might use it to enter a palace dungeon guarded by King's monsters and seek out their master, don't you think?"
The heavy oak doors of the royal chamber swung open without a sound, announcing the entrance of Njiru.
Njiru stopped a respectful distance from the King, his head bowing low. "Your Majesty, you summoned me."
Rega turned from the window, the crimson glow in his eyes focused and intense. He was still processing the raw fear he had seen in Jabara's face, comparing it to his own cold analysis. "I did. We were just discussing the warrior Silas. Have you noticed anything... unusual about him?"
"I have, my King." Njiru's voice was soft, barely a whisper that seemed to slither beneath the high ceilings. "A masterwork of technique. And a masterwork of corruption."
Rega's expression sharpened, recognizing the very word Jabara had used. "Explain that assessment, Njiru. Be precise."
Njiru raised his head, his twisted smile—a slow, unsettling movement that barely reached his eyes—appearing. "I have heard of such processes, Your Majesty. Creations capable of mastering and mirroring the techniques of a hundred fighters. But Silas is not merely skilled; he is a sponge. His àṣẹ does not belong to him. It is borrowed, or perhaps leased, from something far hungrier."
Rega took a slow step forward, circling the space where Jabara had just stood. "And what do you think of the High Seer's claims that this 'corruption' points to Iku? That he is a vanguard for a second Great Rot?"
Njiru didn't falter. "The High Seer sees patterns in the divine, Your Majesty. I see mechanics. Whether the source is Iku or simply a demon we haven't named, the result is the same: the entity is consuming life-force. It is a living insult to the pantheon's rule, yes—because the Orisha are intolerant of beings that manipulate àṣẹ in a way that bypasses their control. The Orisha will not allow such a being to exist and that stolen àṣẹ will destroy his body in time."
Rega looked thoughtful, considering this insight. The words aligned perfectly with his own cynical view of the cosmos: that the Orisha were merely jealous gatekeepers of power. "So, he is only a temporary problem. A ticking clock."
Njiru's smile deepened. "Temporary, yes. But incredibly useful. When he dies, my King… the power he amassed will not simply vanish. It will be released."
Rega finished the thought for him, his own crimson eyes flashing with predatory insight. "...And you will ensure that latent power does not return to the soil, but to my purpose."
"Indeed," Njiru replied, bowing once more. "A husk of that power will make a fine addition to the ranks. I will secure it, contain it, and place it at the Aetherium Genesis Institute for… study."
Rega gave a sharp nod, satisfied. He was playing the Seer's game and the assassin's game simultaneously. "Enough said. You have your task. See that Silas is contained the moment the àṣẹ begins to fail, and ensure his body is delivered to the Institute untouched by others."
Njiru bowed deeply again, his robes swirling. He turned and retreated, melting into the shadows of the doorway with the same seamless silence with which he had arrived. The King stood alone, the urgency of the Iku threat now just another resource to be managed, another weapon to be claimed.
Njiru melted out of the royal solar, his shadow slipping along the gilded walls of the corridor. The smooth marble felt cool under the expensive soles of his boots. The King's confidence was an almost comical thing—a teenage boy convinced he could harness the dying screams of a cosmic force.
Silas.
The fighter was an anomaly. When Silas struck, the air tasted strangely of decay, a sharp, metallic sweetness. It was the same distinctive scent Njiru had learned to recognize when processing his own vital resources: the purple mushroom blight.
Njiru had been using the toxic fungi for months, using its unique properties—a swift consumption of natural àṣẹ followed by a burst of volatile power—to fuel his more complex undead troops. But he could only use the fungus in its raw, dried form. Silas, however, was a living, moving manifestation of that decay.
Who is skilled enough to create a living weapon from the rot I can only grind into paste?
The question snagged in his mind. The subtle, feminine source who supplied him with the mushrooms never revealed much, only that the blight was "plentiful" and "ready." He had been too focused on the utility of the material to question its origin.
A sharp, familiar tink interrupted his thoughts.
"Njiru."
Jabara stood near a massive tapestry, her posture tense. She had clearly been waiting for him. Her wind-chime staff was silent, but her severe expression spoke volumes.
Njiru halted, his shadow pooling around his feet. "High Seer. I was not aware your duties now extended to lurking in corridors."
"My duties extend to the safety of the kingdom," Jabara countered, stepping toward him. "I heard your conversation with the King. Tell me what you truly know of Silas and his corrupted àṣẹ."
Njiru offered a dry, dismissive shrug. "I told the King precisely what is relevant: the man is a temporary anomaly of power and corruption. He will burn out, and his residual energy will be useful."
"Temporary?" Jabara's voice rose, edged with frustration. "The King is too young, too arrogant! He thinks he can control this, turn a resurgence of Iku into a new fertilizer! He cannot harness the will of a forgotten Orisha, nor the blight of Oko."
Njiru's smile was thin, a professional detachment settling over his features. "The King is the King, High Seer. He can attempt to harness the wind, the sun, or a dying god if he so pleases. My loyalty is to the throne, not to the purity of the celestial sphere."
Jabara stared at him, recognition dawning in her eyes: Njiru was not merely loyal; he was aligned with Rega's dangerous, anti-Orisha philosophy. She backed away from the direct confrontation, adjusting her tack.
"The King is playing with fire he doesn't understand. I believe there is a resurgence of Iku's followers working actively within the Kingdom, spreading the blight."
Njiru's interest was piqued only slightly, purely out of self-preservation. "If I see anyone worshipping decay in the streets, I will certainly let you know, Seer. But I have more pressing duties than chasing ghosts."
Jabara knew she would get nothing more from the necromancer. He was a wall of cold, practical obedience. She gave a curt nod and let him pass.
Njiru continued down the corridor, the rich carpet muffling his footsteps. He was no fool; if the blight was being spread by a cult, it meant his supply was assured. But he frowned, a deeper line appearing between his eyes. He had assumed his source—that clever, timid-seeming young teenaged girl who delivered his fungal sacks by night—was merely a petty criminal.
A follower of Iku? Or Oko? Njiru mused, the thought unsettling him more than the High Seer's warnings. If that girl is an agent of Iku, then I am not simply using her supply; I am relying on a cosmic plot.