The heavens do not bleed; they burn.
When the King of the Skies lost his heart to the earth, his grief shattered the mortal realm. He did not seek a replacement; he sought a vessel. With a roar of thunder, he reached down and pressed a silver brand into the skin of a newborn babe, a mark that would pulse with a fevered heat as she grew, a constant, aching reminder that her body was never truly her own.
For twenty years, Adadiogo lived as a ghost. She was an untouchable prize for a God who had not yet come to collect. But as the years ripened her body, the mark on her waist began to change. It no longer just hummed, it throbbed.
Years later,
It was in the dead of the Harmattan night, when the air was dry enough to catch fire, that she heard him for the first time, not as a roar in the sky, but as a breath against her ear.
She was dreaming, or perhaps she was finally awake. The shadows of her room felt thick, like velvet pressing against her bare skin. A hand, calloused and humming with a terrifying vibration, slid around her waist, his palm covering the silver mark.
"My little bird," a voice rasped a sound like grinding stone and silk.
Adadiogo gasped, her back arching against a chest that felt like heated marble. She couldn't turn, the air was too heavy, pinned down by his sheer presence. "Who are you?"
"You know who I am," he whispered. His lips brushed the sensitive curve of her neck, sending a jolt of violet electricity through her veins that made her toes curl into the mat. "I have watched you bleed. I have watched you heal. I have watched you grow into a woman who thinks she can belong to herself."
His grip tightened, his thumb grazing the edge of her hip with a possessive, agonizing slowness.
"I did not mark you so you could hide in a garden," he growled, his voice dropping an octave, vibrating through her spine. "I marked you so I would know where to sink my claws when the time came. You smell of crushed herbs and defiance... it makes my blood sing with the need to break you."
Adadiogo's breath hitched, a traitorous heat blooming in her core. Fear and desire fought a war in her blood. "I am a healer, I am not yours to break."
A low, dark chuckle vibrated against her skin. "We shall see, little bride. We shall see if your roots can hold when I finally bring the storm. For now, sleep. But remember the heat of my hand... because when I come for you in the flesh, I will not be so gentle."
The pressure vanished. The static died. Adadiogo bolted upright in the dark, her skin slick with sweat and the mark on her waist glowing a faint, violent purple.
She was born to be a sacrifice. She was raised to be a bride.
But as the world outside her doors begins to rot, she realizes the King doesn't just want her soul.
He wants to consume her.
The King is watching. His patience is frayed.
And the lightning is coming.