The savanna had become a monochrome painting—grey sky bleeding into silver grass, everything dulled and washed out by the endless downpour. Rain hammered down with no rhythm, only relentless force, drenching the earth until every step sank ankle-deep into sucking mud. The wind was worse, a living hand that shoved, clawed, and tore at their cloaks, trying to pry them apart as if the storm itself resented their unity.

Their boots made a miserable chorus of squelches. Their cloaks, long since useless, clung to them like heavy sacks of wet cloth. Water stung their cheeks, ran down their spines, and plastered hair to their foreheads until each of them felt more like a drowned spirit than a living traveler.

“I told you,” Low muttered, her voice nearly lost to the gale. She held a fist-sized stone in one white-knuckled grip, as if sheer stubbornness could make it a weapon against both storm and predator alike. “We should’ve found shelter hours ago. Any old tree. Any old cave. But no. We had to keep walking.” Her head snapped toward Leonotis, her glare sharp despite the sheets of rain. “ ‘It’ll clear up,’ he said. ‘The rain will pass,’ he said.”

Leonotis tried to answer with a smile, though the wind slapped it from his face before it could settle. His root-sword weighed like a sodden log in his hand, the rain having slicked its grip until it nearly slipped from his fingers. Once or twice, he had tried coaxing a great leaf to grow overhead as a makeshift umbrella, but the wind had torn it apart in seconds, shredding his effort into green tatters.

“It was the direct route,” he shouted, his voice thin against the storm. “We had no choice!” The words rang hollow even to him. His cheerful tune, whistled minutes before to bolster the group, had been swallowed whole by the wind. Now only his grim mask of determination kept him moving forward.

Jacqueline walked with her chin tilted just above the rain. Her sharp eyes scanned the endless grey horizon, missing nothing even when the downpour blurred shapes and shadows. She did not trust the world around them, but she trusted the water. She could feel it—each raindrop, each puddle pooling beneath their boots—like an extension of her own breath. Energy hummed beneath her skin, steady, ready. The storm might batter the others, but to her it was a strange sort of comfort.

Zombiel trudged silently, as steady as a great ox. His silence was a wall the storm could not breach. Steam curled faintly from his skin as the salamander spirit within him kept his body warm, its ember-heart pulsing softly against the rhythm of the thunder. He glanced now and then at Leonotis’s too-bright smile, Jacqueline’s taut posture, Low’s growing frustration, and he knew—without words—that each of them was fraying.

And then—something cut through the roar of the storm.

A low growl, mechanical and unnatural. Not thunder. Not wind. An engine.

Two brilliant beams of light stabbed through the veil of rain, wobbling as they bounced over uneven ground.

The four stopped, their breath catching, their exhaustion momentarily forgotten.

“Is that… a car?” Low squinted, blinking the water from her eyes.

Leonotis’s head jerked up, hope lighting his face. “More like a van,” he said. “Maybe they can help—”

“Or maybe they’ll kill us,” Low muttered under her breath. Her grip on the stone tightened until her knuckles turned pale.

The van rattled closer, its roar clashing with the howls of the storm. Rust streaked its body, patches of red-brown against dull metal. Its tires tore mud into geysers as it slowed, then stopped just in front of them.

For a moment, no one moved. The engine purred low, the headlights blinding, the interior a box of darkness.

Then, with a squeal, the driver’s side window rolled down.

A face leaned out, half-lit by the weak glow of the dashboard. A man, bearded, with a jagged scar that carved from temple to jaw. The scar twisted the skin around his eye, leaving his expression both unreadable and unsettling. Rain pattered against his shoulders as he leaned into the night.

“You lot look lost,” he said, his voice a rasp. Despite its roughness, there was something surprisingly soft in its undertone. “Want a ride?”

The question lingered like bait in water.

Leonotis stared, his senses reaching out instinctively. He could feel no malice from the man. No rot in his words. No creeping wrongness in the plant-life around the van. Just a strange, neutral calm. He almost sagged with relief.

Jacqueline, however, felt her water react differently. The drops around her trembled, uneasy. The puddles rippled with no wind. Her instincts screamed a silent warning. She subtly shifted her stance, her fingers curling, ready to weave a shield from the storm itself.

Low’s lip curled, her suspicion written clear. The man smelled of old metal and diesel, a harsh scent that made her nose twitch. “Something’s off,” she whispered, but the storm nearly swallowed the words.

Zombiel did not speak. His gaze locked onto the scar across the man’s face. The salamander spirit flared in his chest, a sudden heat rushing to his limbs, instinct reacting before thought. The scar seemed almost alive, a pale lightning bolt etched across skin.

The van’s open door loomed like a black maw, waiting.

Leonotis’s heart hammered. Exhaustion begged him to step inside, to accept warmth and safety. Yet something in Jacqueline’s eyes, in the sudden heat radiating off Zombiel, rooted him in place.

The man leaned forward, scar catching in the light. His eyes narrowed, his rasp curling darker now. “Well? Do you want in… or not?”

The van’s interior was a cramped, rattling sanctuary from the storm. Rain drummed endlessly against the metal roof, a constant reminder of the chaos outside. The smell inside was no kinder—stale cigarette smoke, damp cloth, and a faint tang of oil that clung to the walls.

Joram, the driver, was a thick-shouldered man with a handlebar mustache and a leather vest stretched taut over his chest. His face looked carved from stone, every line deepened by years of scowling. His hands gripped the steering wheel with grim precision, eyes locked on the treacherous mud path ahead.

Beside him sat the second man, Gamba. He was leaner, sharper, his features cut into something foxlike. He twisted in his seat now and then, throwing glances at the four soaked travelers crammed onto the grimy bench seat in the back—Leonotis, Low, Jacqueline, and Zombiel. Their dripping cloaks pooled onto the floor, leaving trails of muddy water that rocked with every bump of the van.

“Glad we found you,” Gamba rasped, his voice roughened by smoke and years of dust. “Storm like this could swallow a man whole. We’re headed to the outskirts of Piegep. Closest shelter you’ll find for miles.”

Joram grunted without looking back. “Wouldn’t want to be caught out when the Impundulu comes hunting for supper.”

The name fell like a stone into the van’s air. Cold. Heavy. It lingered, darkening the warmth of their escape.

Jacqueline’s head jerked up. She knew the name. She had grown up with stories of the Impundulu—the lightning bird, sacred guardian of the heavens, revered and feared in equal measure. But the humans’ version of the tale was always different. To them, the bird was no guardian but a witch’s familiar, a monster that carried plague on its wings, a soul-stealer that struck with blinding light.

Her skin prickled with unease. This wasn’t just superstition; it was twisted reverence turned to fear.

Low’s nose twitched. She knew the smell of greed, and it curled sharp and metallic in her nostrils now. The same stink she’d scented on hunters who once came for Leonotis and Jacqueline. She narrowed her eyes, her hand tightening over the stone she always carried.

Joram chuckled without humor. “Truth is, we’re not just going to Piegep. We’re on a job. Hunting.” He tapped the long silver-tipped spear resting across the dashboard, its gleaming head catching flashes of lightning from outside. “The headman of Piegep put out a bounty. The bird’s been circling, they say, bringing sickness in its shadow. It’s only a matter of time before the whole village falls.”

Leonotis’s ears perked up despite himself. He leaned forward, water dripping from his bangs, his expression lit with cautious hope. “So you’re protecting them? You’re like… guardians?”

Gamba flashed him a quick smile, all teeth and no warmth. “Something like that. Protectors. Doing what must be done. That Impundulu is a menace, boy. A plague on two wings. Better to end it now before it ends them.”

The words were painted noble, but Leonotis heard the cracks. He felt it—something sour in Gamba’s voice, not courage but hunger. His root-sword rested across his lap, its quiet magic dull in the presence of men whose purpose was cold and hard as iron. He wanted to believe them, to believe that they acted out of duty. But the seed of doubt gnawed at him.

Still, his heart ached for the image they painted. A suffering village. Helpless people. The chance to be the protector he longed to be.

Zombiel had been silent, but his gaze never left the silver spear. The salamander spirit in his chest pulsed hotter, a flicker of warning. It wasn’t fear. It was resistance—the recognition of something beautiful in danger of being destroyed. The Impundulu wasn’t a plague. It was untamed, wild, necessary. And these men wanted to chain it, gut it, and sell its feathers. His fingers twitched with restrained fire.

Jacqueline caught Leonotis’s eager expression and felt a chill crawl up her spine. She knew what was spinning in his mind—heroics, helping, doing good. She knew the dream of it, because she once dreamed the same. But she also saw what he didn’t. The cracks in their words, the greed in their eyes.

Her voice cut through the hum of the van, steady and small but sharp enough to bite. “If the Impundulu is part of the natural order, a sacred creature… what right do you have to hunt it?”

Gamba’s smile vanished. His tone hardened, clipped like the snap of a trap. “The right of necessity. The right of survival. The people are sick, girl. You’d value a bird’s life over a hundred human ones?”

The question was a snare, and Leonotis fell into it without hesitation. “No,” he said quickly, his chest swelling with the need to prove himself. His grip tightened on his root-sword, resolve sparking in his eyes. “If the village is in danger… then we’ll help.”

For a heartbeat, silence reigned.

Then—

BAM.

Low’s fist slammed into the grimy seat, rattling the van’s frame. Her voice was a growl, her eyes blazing. “Don’t you dare.”