The drums began before sunset.
Low, slow, like the echo of a heartbeat beneath the earth. The sound filtered through the cane fields, through the bones of the house, into the very core of Elias's chest. The plantation pretended not to hear them. But everyone heard.
Marise stood at the edge of the village clearing, veiled in indigo and ash. Smoke clung to her like a serpent. She nodded to Elias once, beckoning him wordlessly. He followed, heart thudding in rhythm with the beat that seemed to rise not from drums, but from inside the soil itself.
She led him into the forest.
There, beneath a canopy of twisted trees and hanging moss, the others were already gathered. Their faces painted in sacred whites and reds, eyes glinting with secrets. Elias could feel something ancient watching from behind the bark, within the wind, under his skin.
The ceremony had begun.
He recognized the veves drawn on the dirt, spirals and stars and crosses. He recognized some of the words chanted. But they sounded different now. Not like incantations.
Like commands.
Marise motioned for him to kneel beside her. She smeared ash across his face, then leaned close. "Tonight, the dead speak. Do not lie to them."
The drummers began a new rhythm. Faster. Urgent.
A woman collapsed into a trance, mouth agape, limbs contorting. A man beside her began to weep and laugh at once. The fire blazed suddenly brighter. The veves shimmered. Elias felt the air crack open.
And then he wasn't in the forest anymore.
He was in a white space.
Not blank, bright. So bright it hurt.
Figures surrounded him. Not fully visible. Shadows with eyes.
Then one stepped forward. It wore the face of Papa Louvier, but melted and shifting, as if made of smoke. Its eyes were symbols, each blink revealing another glyph. It reached for Elias's hand, and when it touched him, the pain was immediate and deep.
Burning.
The symbol of the cipher seared itself onto his skin, right along the scar from the last time he touched the relic. Another letter emerged. This time:
A
It glowed red, then sank into his skin like ink into parchment.
The spirit's voice wasn't sound. It was pressure. Meaning. A sentence burned into Elias's mind:
"The mirror is not the first. The mirror is the last."
And then, something else:
"You are not alone in the leap."
The figure stepped back, and another took its place. This one had no face at all. Just a wide, grinning mouth.
The Watcher.
For the first time, Elias saw it clearly.
Its presence was wrong, like a sound out of tune with time. It didn't speak, but Elias felt its whisper.
"What will you trade, traveler?"
"I don't know what you mean," Elias said.
The Watcher tilted its head. "You will."
And it vanished.
Elias jolted awake in the clearing.
Smoke clung to him. His skin ached. His hand was marked with a new burn, the shape of the cipher's letter. Marise looked at him with no surprise.
"The loa have marked you," she said softly. "You crossed."
Elias sat up. "What did I give them?"
Marise stared into the fire. "Something you won't realize you lost until you need it."
Then she turned to him fully. "The dead have plans for you. As do others. That Watcher, you saw it, didn't you?"
He nodded.
"Be careful with it," she warned. "It doesn't serve any god. Only time."
The drums faded, replaced by the howling of distant dogs. The forest grew still.
Elias stood, shaken. The cipher on his hand throbbed with warmth.
A. R.
Two letters now.
The code was growing.
And the fire within the relic pulsed in answer, like it was watching too.