Chapter Seventeen: The Blood and the Eye

The silence after a storm always felt wrong. Not peaceful — just… waiting.

Kael's legs were still shaky under him, his breath catching like his lungs hadn't yet decided whether they belonged to him or something older. Nyeredzi stood with her back to them all, her head tilted slightly as if she was still listening to voices only she could hear.

The others weren't sure if they should approach her.

Tafara, ever the loudest, took the first step. "Nye…" He was careful now, his usual mocking tone stripped away, voice softer than anyone had ever heard from him. "What the hell just happened?"

Nyeredzi turned, her left eye still milky, the right one glowing faint silver in the dawn light. Her face was drawn and pale, but her back was straighter than before — like she was carrying something, but not bending under its weight.

"I saw them," she said simply. "All of them."

Dendera's brow furrowed. "You mean the Bvuri?"

Nyeredzi shook her head, the beads in her cornrows clicking softly. "The Bvuri are just the surface. Something even deeper… watches them. And they fear it." She turned to Kael. "It's been waiting for you."

Kael's fists clenched at his sides, but the fire that usually followed was missing. The Lion Totem within him stirred, but weakly, like it too had been shaken by what had happened. "I don't want to be anyone's pawn," he muttered. "Not the Bvuri's. Not this… thing's."

Nyeredzi's gaze softened, just for a moment. "It doesn't want to control you." Her voice grew quieter. "It wants you to choose."

Liora stood near the edge of the group, fingers tight around her pendant. "Choose what?"

Nyeredzi's glowing eye flickered, like the answer was too large to hold in words. "Whether you become the key that locks them out forever…" She looked at Kael again, her gaze locking with his. "…or the door they've been trying to open since before your bloodline was even born."

Kael's jaw clenched. "And if I don't choose?"

"They'll choose for you."

The wind stirred again, a whisper in the trees, but not of leaves. It was the remnant echo of the Maposito — their forms dissolved, but their purpose fulfilled. They had never needed to win that fight. They only needed to wake up the thing beneath Kael's skin.

The Bvuri had touched him. And they'd left a mark.

Ranga, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, stepped up beside Kael. His twin spears, still faintly smoking from spirit-fire, were planted firmly in the earth. "So what's the move, lion-man?"

Kael exhaled sharply, fighting the tremble in his limbs. "We keep moving."

"Toward Murenga?" Dendera's voice was even, but his hands tightened on his shield.

Kael's eyes lifted toward the distant ridgeline. The capital was still far — past the forests, past the shattered villages, and past the northern wall where the warriors of Vhuramu waited like carrion birds over a dying beast. Everything between here and there was infected — with whispers, with fear, with something that had no name until Nyeredzi saw it.

"We don't have a choice," Kael said. "If we don't make it to Murenga, none of this matters."

"Even if Murenga's already lost?" Tafara muttered, but there was no real fight in his voice.

Kael turned to Liora. "That thing you carry — the pendant. Does it feel… different?"

Liora didn't answer right away. She held the small bone spiral up to the light, watching how the edges pulsed faintly — not with ordinary light, but with the same silver glow now flickering in Nyeredzi's eye.

"It feels awake," she said softly. "Like it knows her."

Nyeredzi's head tilted slightly, that distant smile ghosting her lips. "It does."

The others exchanged uneasy glances.

Ranga broke the silence first. "So the map's changed, the sky's broken, and our seer's half god now. Great. Sounds like a typical week for us."

Tafara snorted, the briefest hint of normalcy flickering back into place. "At least she's our god."

Nyeredzi's expression turned unreadable. "Not a god. A witness." She touched her right eye. "And I can't close it again. Not ever."

Kael stepped closer, his hand briefly brushing her shoulder. "Whatever happens — we stand with you."

The circle gathered, silent for once, the weight of prophecy and choice pressing down on them all. They weren't just warriors anymore. They were the only ones left who could stand between what was and what would be.

And somewhere beneath their feet, the Bvuri stirred — seen for the first time in eons, their ancient anonymity stripped away by a girl with an owl spirit who had dared to open her eyes.

They would not forgive it.

But neither would she.

The Bloodbound Circle moved again, toward Murenga — toward fate — with Nyeredzi at their center, her eye open, her voice a whisper on the wind.

"I see you."

And from the earth below, something whispered back.

"Then we will show you everything."