Chapter 14: Seeds of Fire
1455 Words
The night crept in quiet and slow, draping the house in a blanket of shadow. Candles flickered in corners like watchful eyes, their soft flames casting dancing shapes across the old walls. The scent of burning sage and cedarwood clung to the air—strong, grounding, ancestral.
Waiya sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by her sisters. Lily was carefully layering herbs—sweetgrass, yarrow, and crushed juniper—into a bowl beside her. Nyla traced protective symbols around the windows with a smudge stick, her mouth moving in low prayers between breaths.
Justin stood in the doorway of the living room, leaning against the frame, his presence quiet but steady. His eyes weren’t on the candles, or the sigils, or the flame-flickered shadows. They were on Waiya.
“You remember when Auntie used to talk about pressure points in the house?” Lily asked, tying a knot in a black thread charm.
“She said houses breathe like people,” Waiya murmured. “And that sometimes, they cry.”
Nyla nodded. “Well, this one’s holding its breath. Like it’s waiting.”
Waiya’s gaze shifted to the floor. There was a hum there—a pull beneath the old rug. She stood slowly, ignoring the sudden pang in her side. The scar had flared up twice that day already, and each time it felt more… alive. But this was different. This was something else.
She pushed the rug aside and knelt near the corner of the altar shelf Auntie had left behind. A loose board stuck out slightly, warped and stubborn. With a careful tug, it gave.
There, tucked in the hollow beneath the floorboard, lay a worn leather pouch.
The room fell silent.
Waiya opened it carefully, hands trembling. Inside was a hawk feather dyed at the tip with red clay, a smooth red stone pendant etched with the curves of protection runes… and a folded scrap of parchment.
She unfolded it.
Her father’s handwriting.
“For when the scar burns, and the shadows whisper. Keep this close. It knows your blood.”
Her breath hitched.
Lily crossed the room, crouching beside her. “That his writing?”
Waiya nodded.
Nyla reached for the pendant, fingers brushing the carved markings. “This isn’t just a charm. This is a binding. Protective, ancestral… rare.”
Justin stepped forward then, crouching on the other side of her. “You think it still works?”
Waiya looked down at the stone, then back at the note. “I think it was meant to.”
⸻
They sat together in a circle just after midnight, the candlelight soft around them. Justin helped Waiya attach the pendant to a thin leather cord and gently tied it around her neck, fingers brushing the back of her neck with quiet care.
She didn’t pull away.
He stayed close, eyes never leaving hers.
“You good?” he asked.
“No,” she said honestly. “But I’m better when you’re near.”
Something shifted in his gaze—gentler now, even through the hard edges. “You don’t gotta be tough all the time, you know. Not with me.”
The silence stretched, not awkward—soft.
“I keep thinking about what happens after,” Waiya whispered. “If we survive all this. If we win.”
Justin’s mouth quirked into a soft, almost-sad smile. “If we win, I’m takin’ you somewhere green. Real green. Where the only thing we gotta fight is mosquitos.”
Waiya chuckled quietly. “You ever think about home?”
He looked at her then, something heavy in his chest. “You feel like home.”
Her breath caught, but she didn’t speak. She didn’t need to.
⸻
That night, Waiya dreamt again.
But this time, it wasn’t firelight or the Grove. It was a cold, empty field. The stars above twisted in unnatural spirals, and standing in the middle was Donquavious.
His chest was bare, marked in blood and ash. A circle of bones burned around him, rising in thick black smoke.
He was binding something. A creature. A shadow with too many limbs and no eyes. It hissed, screaming in a language older than language itself.
And then—he turned.
Right to her.
His eyes found her like a blade sliding through flesh. Pitch black. Smiling.
“See you soon, little wolf.”
She gasped awake.
Sweat clung to her skin. Her scar burned red hot, pulsing like a second heartbeat.
Justin stirred on the couch nearby, half-awake. “You okay?”
She didn’t answer right away, just touched the pendant at her throat.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “I think I just saw our enemy make his next move.”
Justin rubbed at his eyes, sitting up fully now. “Nightmare?”
Waiya nodded faintly, still clutching the pendant. “It was him. Donquavious. He was doing something… binding a creature. It felt ancient. Wrong. And he knew I was watching.”
Justin’s jaw tensed. “Dreams like that ain’t just dreams, especially not for someone like you.”
“I know,” she whispered, her voice unsteady. “I just—I hate how it feels. Like he’s ahead. Like I’m still… behind.”
Justin stood and moved toward her slowly, cautious not to spook her in the dark. He knelt by the edge of the bed. “You’re not behind. You’re just not runnin’ the same race as him. That’s why he’s scared.”
She looked at him then, eyes glassy in the moonlight. “Why does he want me?”
Justin hesitated. Then, softly: “Because you come from power. And because your blood… it carries something his don’t. You were born into a line he can’t mimic. So he’ll try to break it instead.”
Waiya swallowed hard. “But why me? Why now?”
Justin reached up, brushed her hair from her face gently. “Sometimes, the ancestors save the last card for the final hand. You it.”
His words sat heavy on her chest—reassuring, but also terrifying.
There was a pause.
Then her voice came smaller. “Why’d you run from home, Justin?”
He blinked.
That caught him.
Waiya met his gaze. “You said earlier I don’t have to be tough with you. But you always tough, too. And I wanna know what you’re runnin’ from.”
Justin sat back on his heels, arms resting on his knees. His gaze dropped to the rug.
“I ain’t been asked that in a long time,” he said after a beat. “Truth is… I ain’t never had no real home. Not the kind people talk about in songs and dreams.”
He glanced up, then away again.
“My moms died when I was twelve. OD’d while I was sittin’ in the next room. I ain’t even know till I went in there and found her cold.” He exhaled hard, like it still lived in his lungs. “Foster care got me after that. Bounced from one house to the next. Some good, some… real f*ckin’ bad.”
Waiya’s hand slid across the blanket and rested near his.
He didn’t look at it yet.
“I learned quick how to move silent. Stay dangerous. Trust nobody. And even when I got older, started diggin’ into spiritual work, finding truth… that anger stayed with me. Like a ghost with claws.”
Now his eyes met hers. “I came to Detroit not to find peace, but to escape that version of me. The one that was always waitin’ to snap.”
Waiya’s fingers found his. Warm. Present.
“You don’t seem angry now,” she said softly.
“That’s ‘cause you calm the part of me I didn’t think could ever shut up.”
Her heart stuttered.
Justin continued, his voice lower. “I ain’t never had no one ask me that and look at me like you are right now. Like I’m not just a survivor but a person worth keepin’ around.”
“You are,” she whispered.
The silence that followed wasn’t empty—it buzzed with something soft, fragile, sacred.
“I wish I could take your pain,” he added. “Take the scar. The nightmares. All of it.”
Waiya shook her head, shifting to face him fully. “You already help just by stayin’. I don’t need you to fix me. I just need you close.”
He nodded.
And without thinking, without fear, he leaned forward and pressed his forehead against hers.
No kiss.
Just stillness. Breath. Connection.
Waiya let her eyes close.
And for the first time in a long time, she felt safe inside her vulnerability.
- Writer
