The Priest's Whisper
The Chief Priest's final, sacrificial chant was a whisper of ash on the wind. He had bought Queen Nkemesit three days, but his wards failed precisely as the small, coast-bound vessel—a fishing boat loaded with dried sea-kelp—cleared the southern cape.
Queen Nkemesit, wrapped in coarse fisherman's linen, sat huddled against the railing, her gaze fixed on the churning water. She knew the moment the shield failed: a cold, mental pressure that hit her like a deep-sea wave. It was a massive hand, made of solidified winter, attempting to close over her mind. The sensation was not pain, but a terrifying void—the sheer absence of life, which was Nkema's presence.
Her pregnancy, once a source of quiet hope and strength, was now a loud, terrible target. She pressed her hands to her abdomen, trying to suppress the bright, vulnerable energy radiating from the true heir. The effort made her skin clammy and pale.
The fishing vessel, captained by a grizzled old man named Essien, was agonizingly slow. "We are heading for the open sea, lady," Essien grumbled, watching the sky where the clouds had suddenly stopped moving. "Nothing out there but salt and wind, and that's better than whatever is chasing you."
"We are heading for Aziza," Nkemesit whispered, forcing herself to project a fragile sense of calm that she did not possess. "We seek the healers of Elara."
Essien scoffed, adjusting the single, tattered sail. "Elara? That's days of good wind away. If you're running from the Queen of Kings, you'd be better off diving into the waves now. The sea is acting strange—too quiet."
The Vision of the Immortal
Back in the Stone Court of Oloran, Queen Nkema sat upon the lion-throne, its cold, basalt surface radiating the immense, terrifying power she had consumed. The air in the vast chamber smelled perpetually of ozone and dried blood. Servants moved like automatons, their eyes dead and blank, performing silent tasks under her pervasive thrall.
She focused her will on the faint, residual scent of her sister's bloodline. The vast map of the known world, etched into the floor of the throne room, shimmered and pulsed, a living psychic connection. She saw every city, every forest, every mountain—and then, with the clarity of a predator, she saw the oceans.
A cold smile touched her lips, a predator's final expression. She saw the iridescent smear of the Priest's failed spell—a tiny distortion near the southern cape. She saw the fishing vessel, slow and vulnerable, a small, irritating pinprick of light that needed to be extinguished.
So be it, little sister, Nkema's thoughts echoed, the speed and scope of her mind now too vast for words. You run to the healers? I will reach them first. The power you carry is mine. I will tear the true lineage from your belly.
She did not need a ship. Rising from the throne, she walked toward the open air of the balcony. The air around her began to crackle and distort, pulling the humidity from the air until it felt like a vacuum. The stone beneath her feet fractured. With a soundless roar that only the very foundations of the palace could register, she vanished, leaving only a faint trace of freezing ozone and cold blood in the Stone Court.
The Spear Turns
Far away, off the coast of the southern mainland, the royal galley, the Spear of Aziza, cut through the water like a bronze knife. Prince Odion was studying the horizon, his face grim. His war-sense was screaming—a physical ache that ran from his teeth down his spine. The news of the King of Oloran's death and the swift, silent coronation had unsettled him deeply; he sensed a vast, unseen horror at work.
"Captain," he ordered. "Take us to full sail. We must reach Aziza before this new King Oran consolidates her power. Something is fundamentally wrong with the wind."
Just as the sailors braced the mainsail, Princess Adanna, the healer, rushed onto the deck, her eyes wide with a luminous, protective panic. Her hair seemed to ripple with a faint, uncontrollable emerald light. "Odion! Nnamdi! Stop the ship! I sense a massive, chaotic wave of power—a death-spell, old and enormous. It smells of consumed life-force and absolute cold. It is moving with impossible velocity, and it is chasing something very small."
Prince Nnamdi gripped the railing, his breath frosting in the suddenly chilled air. "A death-spell? Can you place it, Adanna? What does it want?"
Adanna closed her eyes, placing her hands on the damp, cold wood of the ship. "Yes. It's the scent of the River Witches—Isalena's lineage. And… another scent. A deep, cold, eternal hunger. It's heading right for us, following the smaller light. It is death itself."
Odion immediately drew his ancestral blade. The steel felt like ice in his hand, but the weight and familiarity of the weapon steadied him. "Ready the soldiers! We are not running. If this power is coming, we meet it at sea."
"I am not leaving you," Nnamdi said, his voice quiet but absolute. "I fight with strategy, brother. Tell me the target."
A moment later, Essien's small, frantic fishing vessel appeared around the last cape. Essien was screaming, pointing not at the Spear of Aziza, but at the unnatural sky behind them.
"The wind, lady! It's gone! Something is coming! It's like the world is collapsing!"
Odion looked up. There was no wind, yet the sea was building into massive, unnatural swells. And then, he saw it: a shimmering distortion high above the water, moving with an impossible, silent speed toward the fishing boat.
The Confrontation and the Light Counter
Nkemesit, seeing the Aziza galley—a huge, beautiful beacon of hope—leapt to the railing of her fishing boat and screamed the name she barely knew: "Nnamdi! Save the heir!"
The Spear of Aziza turned sharply to meet the smaller boat. But just as Nnamdi ordered the ropes thrown, Nkema materialized.
She appeared not as a woman, but as a pillar of shivering, heatless white fire, standing directly on the water between the two ships. Her shadow was a massive, hungry distortion that fell across the deck of the Aziza galley, causing men to recoil in visceral terror. The water around her instantly flash-froze solid, forming a bizarre, unstable walkway that extended for hundreds of feet. The cold was absolute, stealing the breath from the sailors' lungs and settling into their very bones.
"You cannot save a soul that is already mine, little Queen," Nkema's voice thundered, no longer merely echoing, but seemingly tearing itself from the very fabric of reality itself.
Odion stood on the prow of the Spear of Aziza, blade raised, his warrior instinct screaming futilely against the impossible made manifest. Nnamdi stood beside him, his arm instinctively tightening around Adanna, pulling her behind his protective shadow.
Nkema's power surged, coalescing into sharp, obsidian shards of frozen darkness aimed at the fishing boat. She aimed to vaporize the vessel and seize the heir.
Before Odion could charge, or Nnamdi could organize the archers, Adanna surged forward, her gentle, healing light blazing into fierce, emerald resistance. She was the healer of Elara, the keeper of pure life, and her power was the perfect, terrifying counter to Nkema's consumed energy.
Adanna raised her hands. A dome of soft, blinding emerald light erupted from the Spear of Aziza, slamming into the cold, sharp white fire radiating from Nkema. The collision was not a crash of thunder, but a high-pitched, maddening scream of magic tearing itself apart, vibrating in the teeth of every person on board.
Nkema hissed, her shadow faltering as the raw purity of Adanna's light fought back. "A simple healer? You dare stand against eternal power? I will consume your light and leave you as ash!"
But the dome held, fueled by Adanna's absolute conviction to protect the heir. Her eyes glowed with fierce, painful concentration, channeling the very essence of life against the force of endless death.
The Retrieval and the Diverted Course
The collision bought the few precious seconds that Prince Odion needed. He ignored Nkema and roared, "Grappling hooks! Now! Secure the Queen!"
His men expertly secured Nkemesit and the terrified Captain Essien, pulling them aboard the Spear. Nkemesit, though exhausted and shaking, immediately sought out Adanna, recognizing a fellow practitioner of pure magic.
Nkema, enraged by the delay, focused her power. The ice beneath her cracked, and the shimmering fire around her compressed into a single, deadly black spear of energy. She hurled it at the Aziza galley.
Adanna held the shield, but the impact sent a shudder through the ship, making every timber groan and wrenching a silent cry of agony from Adanna. The shield held, but Adanna collapsed, drained and gasping, into Nnamdi's arms.
Seeing Nkemesit and his sister-in-law safe, Prince Odion knew they could not win this fight. "Full sail! South-East! We run!"
Nkema, temporarily weakened by the repulsion of Adanna's light, let them go. Her mission was accomplished: the Aziza princes had chosen war. She vanished from the sea, but not before her magnified voice echoed across the waves, reaching every man on the ship:
"You have stolen the King's death, Prince Odion. You sail to war, and Aziza will pay the ultimate price for sheltering the true heir! I will burn your kingdom to ash!"
The Spear of Aziza sailed for two days before the crew felt safe enough to rest. King Oba's fragile condition and the dire warning from Nkema required an immediate change of plans.
"We cannot go home," Nkemesit concluded, her voice now steel. "If you sail straight to Aziza, she will follow and take everything. The heir—my child—must be born in secret. You must divert and secure an alliance first."
Odion, the warrior, slowly nodded, looking at the distant, cold sea. "We divert to the Free City of Makeni. We will warn the Free Kingdoms and buy time. I swear it, Queen Nkemesit: we will protect the heir. We will use Makeni as the base of a new alliance against the Immortal Queen."
The compass, which had been pointing directly toward Aziza, was turned east. The Spear of Aziza was no longer sailing home; it was sailing into the coming war.