[Reminder: This story contains explicit sensual content, violence, mature themes, and references to trauma/abuse. Reader discretion is advised.]
Salīa woke instantly at the sound of Hawking's screeching mixed with a wolf's baying.
The darkness of midnight engulfed her, save for the glow of the full moon and stars. Yet light poured through her eyes.
A nauseating flow of vertiginous memories surged through her. All flashes of the looming chaos Salazā went through and would reveal in later pages, allowing Salīa to see it as if she were going through it herself.
She grabbed her head, unable to take the splintering pain as each memory passed, then gasped as the last memory brought her face-to-face with a demon.
She shut her eyes, then heard crunching that shot them back open. Only to see she was actually face-to-face with a demon.
"Mkango?" she whispered.
The boy crouching in front of her was no doubt Mkango, but his dark, blood-red eyes did not belong to him.
She squeezed her eyes, hoping it was just a dream she was trapped in, something caused by being around that drug.
Yet when she opened it, the demon was indeed staring at her, licking his bloodied hands.
"No," she felt tears rim her eyes when she saw the horses had been split apart. "Why?"
Shadows scattered around in the distance, wilting the trees, closing in.
Her eyes drew to the lingering silhouettes. She already sensed it was the zazi renegades. But it was her third eye that detected the smoky incorporeal bodies imbued with swirls of malicious crimson that exposed their binding to the netherworld.
They were all possessed by demons.
A dark thought took over, and she swung to Bazil in a panic. Fortunately, he was still breathing, his body sweating in slumber.
How did none of this wake him?
She flinched as a hand reached for her. It was Mkango crawling over.
"Stay back," Salīa pulled out her dulled blade.
Mkango stopped.
"Ha!" a voice burst out laughing.
On a boulder stood Phiri. Or was it?
Salīa could see hints of demonic possession, but it was almost as if Phiri's being was trading moments to oscillate between them.
She didn't dare turn her back to them but squeezed and pinched Bazil relentlessly.
"What's wrong, sister?" asked Phiri. "Is my fellow zaza not happy to see us? Not even my brother?"
"What did you do to him?!" she jumped up, kicking her ankle at Bazil.
"What do you mean? Weren't you the one saying how worried you were? I just gave him all the medicine as you asked."
"You mean the drugs?! Look at him! Look what you did to him!"
"Now, now, it's not so ladylike for a woman to yell. A zazi maybe…but a princess?"
Salīa glared.
"Oh, sorry," he bowed, stepping to the edge of the boulder. "You're the Queen now, since your mother died or something, yes?"
"Shut up!"
Phiri snickered and jumped off the boulder, a sign for the rest of the zazi renegades to step closer.
Salīa was nervous before, but then she saw another layer of zazi renegades step up behind them. And then a third.
How many of them are there?!
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