Chapter Three: The Eye Beneath the Crown
514 Words
Scene 1 – Return of the Oba
The air was thick with smoke and honey when the Oba entered the chamber.
He came without guards.
No fanfare.
Just silence, and the sudden weight of a presence that seemed to push back the walls themselves.
Ehia straightened immediately. The loom stood tall beside her, the new pattern she’d begun glimmering faintly behind her like a spirit trying to take form.
“You have begun,” the Oba said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes, my king,” she replied, voice low but clear. “The threads… they respond.”
He circled her slowly. Eyes never leaving the veil.
“And did it speak to you?”
A pause.
Ehia didn’t lie.
“Yes.”
The Oba stopped beside her. His expression unreadable.
“What did it say?”
Ehia hesitated. Her instincts screamed to protect the words. To keep the whispers buried.
But something told her this man already knew.
“One thread begins. One life ends,” she quoted.
The Oba’s eyes flickered.
Just for a moment.
“That is… older than you think,” he said, almost softly. “It is a line from the Leopard Song. The original one. The one the griots no longer sing.”
Ehia tilted her head. “Why not?”
He smiled, but it was thin. Dry.
“Because it tells the truth. And truth, child, is dangerous.”
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Scene 2 – The King’s Secret
He walked toward the veil. Studied it like a judge examines a criminal.
Then he said, without turning:
“The last weaver said she saw things. Eyes. Faces. Secrets. Do you?”
Ehia swallowed.
“Only glimpses. So far.”
“And yet… it has marked you.”
She blinked. “Marked?”
He turned then, lifting her hand gently—palm up—where the thread had cut her.
The blood had dried.
But a thin red line remained. Not just a cut.
> A symbol.
A faint spiral burned into her skin. Almost like a brand.
The Oba didn’t seem surprised.
He let her hand fall.
Then stepped away.
“When you finish this veil,” he said slowly, “the bride will wear it on her wedding night. She will walk beneath it into my chambers.”
Ehia’s throat tightened.
“She is not from here,” she said. “Not of this land.”
“No,” he agreed. “She is from across the sea. A gift. Or a warning.”
> His voice darkened.
“She dreams of fire. And she laughs in her sleep.”
Silence hung heavy.
He looked at Ehia one last time.
Then said something that chilled her more than all the ghost whispers and bloodied threads combined:
> “The veil is not just for the bride.”
“It is for the kingdom.”
“And if it is not finished before the new moon… the kingdom will burn.”
He turned and left.
The door closed behind him with a thud that echoed like a war drum.
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- Writer
