The carriage slammed over a rut, nearly throwing Sadia from her woven seat. Outside, the colossal rhinoceros strained against its harness, foam flying from its mouth as the driver whipped it toward the village boundary. But Sadia barely felt the violent jolts. Her focus was entirely inward, fixated on a terrifying silence in her blood: the protection spell she had woven for her husband, Leander, was unraveling.
The driver hauled on the reins the moment the boundary stones came into view. Even the war-beast balked, digging its hooves into the earth and refusing to cross into the unnatural hush radiating from the village.
Sadia didn't wait for the carriage to fully settle. She gathered her black skirts and leaped down, her boots hitting the dust with frantic purpose. The silence of the village pressed against her ears, amplifying the gnawing dread in her heart as she ran toward the largest hut.
Something was wrong.
She entered the hut. The main room was dimly lit, black masks decorated the walls. Usually, the house hummed with a chaotic warmth, Leonotis' half-finished experiments bubbling on the hearth, the air thick with the aroma of his questionable but enthusiastic spellwork, and Leander... Her husband, should have been underfoot, a whirlwind of questions and restless energy, ready to berate her (affectionately) for her absence. Tonight, there was only silence.
Sadia's hand instinctively moved to the skull staff concealed beneath her travel cloak. "Leander?" Her voice, roughened by days on the road and the constant rasp of dark magic, echoed in the stillness. No answer.
Then, a thin figure emerged from the gloom of the dining room. Leonotis. He sat alone at the heavy wooden table, a half-eaten plate of stew before him, his face pale in the candlelight. Relief that he was unharmed warred with a fresh spike of unease. He should have been in bed, asleep. The stew smelled faintly metallic, as though the herbs had curdled.
"Mother?" Leonotis's voice was small, hesitant. Too quiet. And yet the air around him thrummed faintly, the pressure of his àṣẹ muffling whatever effect had quieted the rest of the village.
Sadia knelt beside him, her cloak pooling on the cold stone floor. She reached out, her slender fingers gently brushing his dark orange hair. "Where's your father?"
He met her gaze, his eyes fixed on her black ones. "He went to the cellar."
The cellar. A shiver traced Sadia's spine, a coldness that had nothing to do with the damp earth below. Leander rarely went down there. It was her domain, the place where she stored her more volatile ingredients, the artifacts she preferred to keep away from prying eyes... and where the orb, the prison was kept.
"What is he doing in the cellar?" Sadia asked, her voice low, each word measured.
"He said he heard... a voice. Calling him. He's been going in there ever since you left."
Calm down, she told herself. There was no need to worry. The creature was under an imprisonment spell. There was no way it could escape its glass orb prison. Or could it?
Sadia went outside, to the side of the house, to the cellar door. The door, which she always kept locked with chains, was slightly ajar. The chains were sticky with sap, and faint ward-lines across the jamb had been scratched through and smeared with crude overmarks by someone. She noticed Leonotis was following her, but she stopped him with a sharp look. "Stay."
Sadia descended the cellar stairs, leaving Leonotis at the top. A knot of unease tightened in her stomach. She'd told her son to wait, but the scene unfolding below was beyond anything she could have imagined. Leander was in the creature's arms. Its bark-formed body twined around him like a lover, its face pressed to his. It had shaped itself into woman's image, crudely sculpted curves and features stretched from wood and vine, a mockery of human form.
The dryad was a creature cloaked in bark and vines. Though its fundamental structure remained woody, a disturbing veneer had been meticulously crafted upon it. Soft curves, a familiar hourglass waist, and even the swell of her breasts were crudely replicated in hardened wood and clinging vines. The monster had not simply assumed a woman's shape; it had painstakingly mirrored the most intimate contours of Sadia, perverting her form for some design.
"Leander," she choked, "what is this?"
Her husband tore his mouth away, his eyes wide, pleading, but no words came. Around his wrist a vine-thin bracelet pulsed.
The dryad's black eyes fixed on her. Oko Egan. The prison had failed. Cracks veined the glass orb behind them, weeping green light.
Her mind raced trying to piece together what she was seeing.
No, my protection spell was broken. The village is silent. Oko Egan must have done something to him. My husband would never willingly betray me.
Oko Egan shifted, its black eyes focusing on Sadia. It lumbered towards her, its movements heavy and menacing.
"Leonotis, run!" Sadia cried out, overriding her shock. Disobeying, the boy crept closer to the cellar doors.
The creature surged upward, smashing through the earthen ceiling and spilling into the night. Sadia stood against it, her cloak flaring in the sickly green glow of its power. What was once a clearing behind their hut was now a riot of unnatural growth. Twisted vines writhed from the warped remains of what was once a garden, coiling back into Oko Egan. Sadia's eyes narrowed as Oko Egan's once slender body grew, towering over her.