The weight of Ligaya’s story settled between them, a shared history that was both a bond and a burden. Maruz remained on the edge of her bed, a figure of contained power, the heat from his body a tangible comfort in the sun-drenched room. Lina felt a question forming on her lips, a desire to know more, to understand the centuries of his existence that lay between Ligaya’s desperate bargain and her own. But the question was stillborn, shattered by a sound that had no place in this perfect, isolated world.
A sharp, insistent knock echoed from the massive narra wood door at the front of the house.
Lina froze, her blood turning to ice water in her veins. It was impossible. No one knew of this place. The villagers had come once, a week ago, and had not returned. The house was a secret, a pocket dimension woven from her desires, shielded from the outside world. She looked at Maruz, a panicked question in her eyes. His expression had changed. The weary reverence was gone, replaced by a guarded, stony stillness. He knew who was at the door.
He rose in a single, fluid motion, his presence a sudden, intimidating shield between her and the sound. He did not speak, but his message was clear. He would handle this. But Lina was no longer the woman who hid behind others. This was her house. Her sanctuary.
“No,” she said, her voice quiet but firm. She slid from the bed, pulling a silk robe over her slip. “I will answer it.”
She walked past him, her head held high, and felt his gaze on her back, a silent, assessing weight. She crossed the vast, sunlit living room,each step on the polished floor a small, deliberate beat of defiance against the intrusion. She pulled the heavy door inward.
Nanay Rosita stood on the threshold, a crooked knot of a woman framed against the impossible blue of the sky and sea. She looked smaller here, more ancient, her frail, hunched form a stark contrast to the clean, modern lines of the sanctuary. She leaned heavily on a gnarled wooden staff, her faded daster flapping in the sea breeze. But her eyes, two chips of obsidian buried in a face like a dried riverbed, were as sharp and penetrating as ever. They were not looking at Lina. They were fixed on a point over Lina’s shoulder, on the magnificent, shadowy form of the demon standing in the center of the room.
Maruz and the oldmangkukulamstared at each other down the length of the house. No words were exchanged, but a current of something ancient and complex passed between them. It was not the greeting of allies, nor the challenge of enemies. It was the tense, weary acknowledgment of old adversaries, of two opposing forces in a game that had been played for centuries, bound by rules only they understood. In Rosita’s presence, Maruz’s form seemed to solidify, the elemental shimmering at his edges ceasing completely. He became more man-like, more contained, his power pulled inward like a star collapsing on itself.
“Nanay Rosita,” Lina said, her voice catching in her throat. “How did you find me?”
The old woman finally turned her unnervingly sharp gaze on Lina. A dry, rasping sound that might have been a chuckle escaped her lips. “The bond between amangkukulamand her charge is not so easily broken by distance,anak. And this one,” she said, jerking her chin toward Maruz, “leaves a trail a blind man could follow.”
She hobbled over the threshold without waiting for an invitation, her staff making a dry, tapping sound on the hardwood floor. Her eyesswept the cavernous space, taking in the floor-to-ceiling windows, the elegant furniture, the effortless luxury. She was not impressed. Her wrinkled lips curled in something that looked like disdain. She moved through the room, her gnarled fingers trailing over the smooth, clean surfaces, leaving faint, dusty smudges on the perfect polish. It was an act of subtle violation, a reminder of the messy, organic world of rot and soil from which her power came.
“A pretty cage,” she rasped, stopping to peer at the single, perfect bird of paradise that had bloomed in its vase that morning. She poked it with a bony finger. “But a cage nonetheless.”
She made her way to the gleaming white kitchen and clicked her tongue in disapproval. “I need tea. Not your ghost tea. Real tea.” She shrugged a grimy woven pouch from her shoulder and placed it on the pristine marble countertop. From within, she produced a handful of dried, twisted leaves and dark, gnarled roots that looked like skeletal fingers. The bitter, earthy scent of them immediately began to fight against the jasmine and ozone of Maruz’s presence. She summoned a small, blackened kettle from her pouch and began her preparations, a silent, clear declaration that her magic, not his, would hold sway here.
Lina and Maruz watched from the living area, an unspoken truce holding them in place. A few minutes later, Rosita returned with three mismatched, chipped ceramic cups filled with a steaming, nearly black liquid. She handed one to Lina, then held one out to Maruz. He took it, his large, perfect hand dwarfing the small cup. The old woman sat, her bones creaking, in one of Lina’s cream-colored armchairs, looking profoundly out of place and completely in charge.
Lina took a tentative sip of the tea. It was brutally bitter, tasting of dirt and roots and something vaguely metallic. But as the warmth spread through her, she felt a strange clarity, a grounding force that cut through the magical haze of the sanctuary.
“You have done well,anak,” Rosita said, her black eyes fixed on Lina. “You called him. You claimed your freedom. But the first act is always the easiest.” She took a noisy slurp of her own tea. “I called him myself, you know. Fifty years ago. My husband was a man who liked the feel of his own knuckles against my jaw.” A flicker of ancient pain crossed her face before being buried again. “This one,” she nodded at Maruz, who stood silent and still as a statue, “was just as beautiful then. Just as powerful. He gave me my freedom.”
“And what was the price?” Lina asked, the words leaving her lips before she could stop them.
Rosita’s eyes glittered. “Ah, the child is learning to ask the right questions.” She leaned forward, the chair groaning in protest. “The bargain requires maintenance, Lina. A pact this powerful leaves a tear in the veil between worlds. It creates an imbalance. Ligaya’s cleverness created a covenant of protection, but it also bound a primal force to the whims of human pain. A debt is created. And the debt must be paid.” Her gaze flicked from Lina to Maruz and back again, a silent, pointed accusation. “Freedom always has a price. My price was to become a gatekeeper. To watch. To guide the Sisterhood. To maintain the balance he would so easily shatter for the sake of one woman’s tears.”
The air crackled with unspoken history. Lina looked at Maruz, whose face was a mask of cold fury, the knuckles of the hand holding his teacup white. He said nothing. He did not deny the old woman’s words.
After she had finished her tea, Rosita rose, her joints popping. She hobbled toward the door, then paused and turned back to Lina. She reached out a hand, her skin as dry and cool as old paper, and cupped Lina’s cheek. “You are strong, child. Stronger than you know. Remember that.” She leaned in and pressed herdry lips to Lina’s forehead. The touch was not a kiss; it was a brand, a seal of an office Lina hadn’t known she’d been elected to. Then, the old woman was gone, leaving only the bitter scent of her herbs and a new, heavy silence in her wake.
Lina turned to Maruz the moment the door clicked shut. The sanctuary no longer felt safe. It felt conditional. “What did she mean? A tear in the veil? A debt? What price, Maruz?”
The cold fury on his face dissolved, replaced by a deep, profound weariness that seemed to age his immortal features by a thousand years. He avoided her gaze, turning to stare out the window at the serene, turquoise sea.
“All power has a cost,” he murmured, his voice losing its resonant power, becoming something quieter, more human. “Rosita is… cautious. She sees only the danger.”
“That’s not an answer,” Lina pressed, stepping in front of him, forcing him to look at her. “She was talking about you. About us. What is the debt? What is the price I have not yet paid?”
He looked at her, and in his fiery eyes she saw a flicker of something she had never seen there before: sorrow. The edges of his form wavered, the perfect illusion of the man blurring for a moment, the air around him shimmering with instability. He was avoiding her question. He was hiding something. “It is not a concern for now, Linang,” he said, his voice a low, evasive caress. “You are safe here. That is all that matters.”
But it wasn’t. For the first time, a sliver of ice-cold doubt pierced the warm certainty of her trust in him. He had built her a sanctuary, but Nanay Rosita had just shown her that the walls were not as solid as they appeared. And the most dangerous thing in the world might not be the monster you summon, but the secrets he keeps.
Night fell, but it brought no peace. The moon rose, a perfect, sterile pearl in the black sky, casting a path of shattered silver across the restless sea. Lina stood before the great glass wall of the bedroom, her arms wrapped around herself, watching the waves crash against the cliffs below. Each explosion of white foam was a visual echo of the turmoil in her own soul. Rosita’s words, a handful of bitter seeds, had taken root in the fertile ground of her newfound peace, and now they were sprouting into tendrils of doubt and fear.
*The bargain requires maintenance. Freedom always has a price.*
The talisman was a steady, constant warmth against her skin, a silent reassurance that felt hollow in the face of the secrets Maruz was keeping.
She did not hear him approach. There was no footfall, no whisper of displaced air. There was only a gradual, rising heat at her back, a familiar, supernatural warmth that was as unique to him as a fingerprint. It radiated across the small space between them, a comforting presence that did nothing to soothe the cold knot of anxiety in her stomach. He stopped just behind her, so close that she could feel the heat of his body through the thin silk of her robe, yet he did not touch her.
