,🌹The Leopard’s Veil🌹

Chapter One: Threads of Omen (scene 1) The drums had not stopped beating for three days. Ehia sat cross-legged before her loom, the morning sun barely stretching across the red earth outside. Her hands moved as they always had—fluid, sure, pulling dyed silk through the taut warp threads, one heartbeat at a time. But this morning, her fingers hesitated. Not because she didn’t know the rhythm. Weaving had been her language since she was five—long before she could read the Oba’s edicts or recite the chants at the market shrine. No, it was the drums. Low. Unending. Like distant thunder that never cracked open. She could feel them vibrating in her collarbones. > Du-du-du… du-du-du… > Du-du-du… du-du-du… Not the festival beat. Not the mourning rhythm. Something older. Ominous. Aunt Nembe shuffled past the doorway, head wrapped in orange linen, a bowl of smoked pepper yam in her hands. “Still weaving, my child?” she asked, her voice rough with age but warm. Ehia didn’t look up. “The veil won’t weave itself.” “Even the gods take breaks,” Aunt Nembe said, sliding the bowl onto a stool. “You’ve heard the drums, haven’t you?” Ehia nodded. Aunt Nembe stepped inside, her bare feet silent against the clay floor. She lowered her voice. “They say it’s an omen. Three nights of drums means a spirit walks among the living. Palace people say the Oba has chosen a bride, but no one has seen her.” “Then maybe the bride is the spirit,” Ehia murmured, tying off a knot. “Or the bride is in danger.” Aunt Nembe paused. “You dreamt again, didn’t you?” Ehia’s hands froze mid-knot. She didn’t answer. Instead, she let her eyes drift to the bundle of silk lying to the side of the loom—deep midnight blue with streaks of gold, dyed from the barks of iroko trees and the skin of crushed snails. The colors moved strangely when the light hit them. She had dreamt, yes. But it wasn’t a dream she could explain. Not to someone who’d lost a child to the gods. Not to someone who still left food by the shrine hoping one of them would forgive her. > In the dream, she saw a veil—floating in water. Blood swirled through the cloth like dye. And a woman’s face, veiled but smiling. A smile sharp enough to bleed. Aunt Nembe placed a gentle hand on Ehia’s shoulder. “You don’t have to carry the world in your cloth, my child. Just finish the order. Get paid. And forget what the drums say.” Ehia tried to believe her. She reached for the next thread— —when the floor outside thundered with heavy feet. Three palace guards stood at the threshold, tall and armored in brass-studded vests. They wore carved wooden masks, faces of snarling leopards and horned spirits. Their leader raised his staff. > “Ehia of the Third Quarter. Weaver of Spirit Thread. By order of the Oba himself… you are summoned.” Scene 2: The Palace Path The guards didn’t wait for her to pack. The Oba’s summons wasn’t a request—it was an order. Ehia tied her scarf around her shoulders, snatched a folded cloth to cover her hair, and stepped outside, heart pounding so hard it made her ears ring louder than the drums. Aunt Nembe tried to speak, but the eldest guard raised a hand. > “She’ll be returned unharmed. The Oba only wishes her hands.” “Her hands,” Nembe muttered, clutching her wrapper. “But it’s her soul that pays.” The sun was rising fast, casting long shadows on the ochre walls. Ehia had never been beyond the third gate of the city. Now, she was being led to the palace of brass, where even whispers echoed like war cries. --- They took the long road, past the traders and shrine keepers, past the bronze casters hammering heads of kings and spirits. People stared. Some bowed to the guards. Others just stared at her, barefoot and robe-wrapped, as though she were being taken for sacrifice. One old woman spat near Ehia’s feet. > “Weaver of omens,” she hissed. “She who threads death.” Ehia kept her gaze ahead. She’d heard that before. People feared what they didn’t understand. They feared a girl who saw patterns that weren’t there. A girl who wove cloths that made women dream and made children cry. > “My cloth only tells the truth,” she had once said. But truth, she’d learned, was often more dangerous than lies. --- By midday, the gates of the palace rose before her like a sleeping god. Huge, carved wooden panels towered over the pathway, each one etched with stories—panthers leaping, warriors crowned in flame, a woman carrying a moon on her back. The scent of camwood, oil, and burnt kola nuts filled the air. The guards signaled. The brass doors opened. She stepped into the kingdom of kings. --- Inside, everything gleamed. The walkways were lined with red earth smoothed so fine it shone like polished wood. Courtiers moved like dancers, robes sweeping, hands lifted in graceful signs of greeting. Bells chimed softly from the wrists of servants. Ivory tusks decorated every hall. The guards led her past the Hall of Ancestors, past the courtyard of dancers, through three more archways, until they stopped at a chamber guarded by two silent women in white. > “The Oba will see her now,” one said, not looking at Ehia. Her heart kicked. She hadn’t eaten since dawn. She felt the hunger sharp in her ribs, but fear pushed it aside. Her hands trembled. Not from weakness. From knowing—deep in her blood—that this moment would change everything. The doors opened. And for the first time in her life, Ehia stepped into the eye of the leopard. --- Scene 3): The Oba’s Eyes The throne room was quieter than she expected. Not silent — the air still pulsed with drumbeats from a distant hall — but hushed, like a forest just before the first crack of lightning. Pillars lined the long chamber, carved with twisting leopards and flaming swords. The floor was layered in thick, handwoven mats so fine they muffled even the guards’ steps. At the far end, under a domed roof where sunlight spilled through slanted openings, sat the Oba. He was not as old as she had imagined. No gray in his beard. No stoop in his shoulders. He sat tall, regal, his skin bronze-dark and smooth, wrapped in layers of coral beads that clinked softly as he shifted. His crown was shaped like the rising sun, and on his right wrist rested a sheathed dagger. > But it was his eyes that struck her. Not with anger. Not with hunger. But with something else — something sharper than a blade, quieter than breath. Curiosity. He studied her like a hunter watching a creature he didn’t yet know how to kill. “Ehia,” he said at last. His voice was low, smooth, yet unshakably firm. “Daughter of Nembe. Weaver of patterns unseen.” She bent into a low bow, head touching the mat. “My Oba,” she murmured. “I come as called.” A moment passed. Then: “Raise your head.” She did. Slowly. Every inch a battle. He gestured slightly with two fingers. A servant approached, holding a bundle of deep indigo cloth. “This,” the Oba said, “is the bride veil. It is to be completed before the new moon. You are to finish it. No one else.” Ehia blinked. “But… my king, this veil… it’s already started.” The Oba’s expression did not change. “The last weaver went mad before she finished the border.” Ehia’s chest tightened. “Mad?” “She claimed the cloth whispered to her. That it bled when she pricked her finger. That the bride… was not what she seemed.” Silence fell like a blade. Ehia didn’t move. > What do you say to a king who speaks of madness so calmly? “You still wish me to weave it?” she asked, voice steadier than she felt. “I don’t wish,” the Oba said. “I command.” Then, he leaned forward, just enough for the sunlight to catch the scar above his left eyebrow. A thin white line, like a memory trying to fade. “Tell me, girl… have you ever dreamed something before it came true?” Ehia hesitated. “Yes.” He nodded once. “Then perhaps you are strong enough to finish what the mad one could not.” ---