Smoke rolled across the valley like a dying god's breath.
Elias stumbled through the sugarcane rows, his clothes soaked in sweat and soot. The fire wasn't natural, he knew that now. It hadn't started from the sun or a careless torch. This was ritual fire. Cleansing fire. Punishment, maybe. Or sacrifice.
Each stalk of cane snapped like bone in the heat. The field hissed like it was alive.
Behind him, the village of Cour Noire was breaking apart, people screaming, fleeing, some standing frozen as flames encircled homes and shrines alike. The painted vevé on the huts glowed faintly, deflecting the worst of the blaze, but Elias could feel something else pushing the fire forward. Not heat. Will.
Someone had summoned this.
He ducked low under a crumbling arch of green and ash, coughing hard. His body ached from the choice he'd made at the crossroads. The chains he'd seen in that vision, he hadn't worn them yet, but they were waiting. Somewhere in the choices he hadn't yet made.
A blur of motion ahead, Marise.
She darted between the fires with supernatural grace, her eyes wide with fury and fear. "Elias!" she shouted, beckoning him. "The relic, it's calling to them! The ones from the swamp!"
He froze. "You mean the Watchers?"
"No. Worse."
Before he could ask, a deep, vibrating drone rumbled up from the earth. The ground trembled beneath his feet. In the distance, the burning stalks fell away to reveal a black silhouette, tall, thin, draped in vines. Its limbs bent wrong. Its face was a hollow circle of bone and bark.
A Moko Jumbie.
But not like the ones in Carnival parades. This was twisted by the relic's touch, made hungry and aware.
"Run," Marise said, grabbing his arm. "We can't fight this."
But Elias didn't move.
The mirror inside his satchel glowed again. The same light from the crossroads, soft, pulsing, steady.
You're already interfering.
He stepped forward, past Marise's reach. The Moko Jumbie tilted its head, curious.
Elias closed his eyes.
"Baron," he whispered. "You said I already made a choice. Then let this be part of it."
He reached into the satchel and pulled out the mirror.
The moment it left the bag, the flames bent away from him. The fire cleared a path. The creature stepped back, cautious.
Then Elias did something he hadn't dared before.
He looked into the mirror.
And he didn't see himself.
He saw Elias Vale the Betrayer, standing atop a pile of broken relics, face soaked in blood.He saw Elias the Healer, holding the hands of the dying.He saw Elias the Slave, chained to a stone, whispering prayers into the earth.
He saw all his futures and something deeper behind them.
The Watcher.
"Your path is your own," the Watcher said, voice like a storm at sea. "But every step echoes."
Then the mirror cracked, but didn't break.
Elias dropped to one knee, clutching it.
When he looked up again, the Moko Jumbie was gone. So was the fire.
The fields were blackened. Quiet.
Marise knelt beside him. "What… what did you do?"
"I didn't do anything," Elias said. "I just stopped pretending I was a bystander."
From behind them, the villagers began to emerge. Ash-covered. Tired. Alive.
The healing would have to begin now.
And Elias knew, deep in his marrow, that this was only the beginning.