CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: The River Remembers

The ground was damp underfoot, soil dark with the memory of rain — but no one heard thunder. The Bloodbound Circle moved in silence, cutting through the thinning trees, the air too still, like something held its breath just out of reach.

Kael was at the front, every step measured, the weight of the Elder Lion coiled just beneath his skin. He wasn't fully healed from the last fight, but there was no time for recovery. Not with Vhuramu's shadow hunters on their scent. Not with Murenga's Chidawo executioners closing from behind.

"We should've stayed near the cliffs," Dendera muttered, his shield held close, eyes scanning the trees. "Too much open ground here."

Tafara snorted softly. "The cliffs are death. This is just dying with a better view."

Ranga walked near the back, spears lazily balanced across his shoulders, but his eyes never left Liora. She walked slightly apart from the group, fingers trailing along the surface of a thin stream running beside their path. The spirals on her skin shifted constantly, changing shape with the water's flow, never the same twice.

He opened his mouth to say something — maybe a joke, maybe a compliment he hadn't thought through yet — but before the words could come, the stream froze.

Not into ice. Into stillness.

Water didn't do that. Not here. Not in land this close to Vhuramu's border, where the air itself pulsed with restless totem spirits.

Liora's hand hovered over the water, her face tense. "They're here."

Kael didn't ask who. He knew.

The Hunters.

Vhuramu's elite — spirit-trackers born in blood, trained to silence totem energy and sever spirit bonds mid-battle. They didn't fight fair. They fought to erase you from memory itself.

Nyeredzi's silver eye flared, the glow brighter than usual. "They're circling us."

"Good," Tafara grinned, knives sliding into his hands. "Saves me the trouble of finding them."

Kael's voice was low, steady. "No one breaks formation. We move to the riverbank. Tight circle."

The forest shuddered — not from wind, but from shifting reality.

The first hunter stepped into view, bare-chested, skin covered in paint made from ground totem bones, his breath fogging the air like a spirit half-loose from its body. His eyes were blank, but his hands were steady — one gripping a bone spear, the other a chain woven from hair and teeth.

A second emerged further down the path. Then a third.

Six in total. One for each of them.

Except the Bloodbound weren't the same six they used to be.

Ranga spun his spears once, stepping closer to Liora. "Stay behind me."

Liora didn't move. Her eyes stayed locked on the water, the spirals on her skin glowing faintly, shifting from random curves into something older. A shape no one could name, but everyone feared.

Kael's knuckles cracked. The Elder Lion stirred, golden light bleeding from his fingertips. "We take them fast. No games."

But the hunters weren't alone.

From the far ridge, where the trees broke into open sky, six figures stood watching. The Chidawo.

Murenga's executioners. Each one a living totem god, bound to hunt their own kin. They didn't need to fight yet. Not while Vhuramu's hunters softened the Bloodbound first.

One of the Chidawo stepped forward — the Falcon of the Eastern Winds, feathers coiled around his arms, eyes burning with skyfire. His voice was distant thunder.

"Run, rogues," he called down. "Run into the river. We'll see if your spirits can swim."

Kael's lips curled back, half a snarl. "We're not running."

The hunters lunged.

—

The Fight by the RiverIt wasn't a battle. It was a spiritual execution.

The hunters didn't aim to kill bodies — they aimed for spirit anchors, trying to sever totem connections mid-strike. Blades made of carved bone slashed the air, leaving trails that shimmered with anti-spirit energy.

Dendera's shield clashed with one, but the impact left a crack across its surface — a crack that didn't belong to the shield, but to the connection between Dendera and his Totem Spirit.

"Shit—"

Ranga met his attacker head-on, spears spinning so fast they blurred, but his heart wasn't fully in it — not with Liora standing so close, her hand still hovering over the frozen stream.

"Liora, move!"

But Liora wasn't listening.

The spirals on her skin glowed brighter, then melted off her arm, slithering down into the water like living ink. The water rippled, and from beneath the surface, something looked back.

Not a totem. Not a spirit.

Something older.

Something that had watched the first totems rise — and laughed.

Manjuzu.

The Spirit of Forgotten Waters, the shape-shifter between rivers, oceans, and rain itself. Neither totem nor god — something the totems themselves feared to name.

The water exploded upward, a serpent's body coiling from the stream, its scales made of liquid, its eyes twin spirals that matched Liora's skin.

The nearest hunter didn't even scream — the water-serpent engulfed him whole, body dissolving into nothing, his spirit-anchor shredded into strands of mist.

Ranga's mouth fell open. "Holy shit."

Liora's eyes were distant, her voice both hers and not-hers. "They can't touch me in the water."

Kael knocked his opponent flat, Lion claws ripping through spirit-armor, his voice sharp. "Liora—control it!"

Liora's face twisted — her body caught between human and something fluid, her skin rippling like water trying to remember it had bones.

"I'm trying."

The hunters faltered. Even they didn't know how to fight something older than the totem cycle itself.

From the ridge, the Chidawo Falcon's eyes narrowed.

"She's not a totem warrior," he murmured. "She's a living gate."

Another Chidawo — the Serpent of the Roots — leaned forward, his voice like grinding stone. "If she opens fully, none of us leave this forest."

"Then we kill her before she does."

The river surged, swallowing another hunter whole, the water-spirit's coils stretching into the trees, snapping branches like bones.

Liora's body shook, her fingers curling into her palms, the spirals fading slightly — but not disappearing.

Kael grabbed her wrist, his voice cutting through the storm. "Stay with us!"

She gasped — the river shuddered — and the Manjuzu retreated, leaving only silence and wet earth.

The hunters were gone. Swallowed. Erased.

The Bloodbound stood, soaked, shaking, but alive.

Nyeredzi's silver eye dimmed, her voice flat. "The Chidawo are still watching."

Kael turned toward the ridge, locking eyes with the Falcon.

"You want us?" Kael's voice was ragged, but loud enough to carry. "Come get us."

The Falcon smiled faintly. "Soon."

The Chidawo vanished into the trees, leaving only the smell of storm air and spirit blood.

Liora's legs buckled, but Ranga caught her — for once, too stunned to brag.

"You're… you're not just a totem user," he whispered.

Liora's voice was soft, but firm. "I'm not. I never was."

The Bloodbound moved again, the river running beside them — and somewhere beneath the water, the Manjuzu smiled.