In the center of the room, a patch of darkness began to form. It was not a shadow, but a hole in the world, an utter absence of light, sound, and substance. It was a void that did not expand violently, but simply grew, inexorably. It touched Mateo’s foot, and his foot vanished without a trace. He let out one last, choked shriek of pure terror as the nothingness crept up his body, erasing him from existence. The silence that followed was more profound than any she had ever known. When the void receded, the floor was bare. Not a drop of blood, not a thread from his clothes. Nothing. He was simply gone.
The tension left Ligaya in a single, shuddering exhalation. The strength that had held her rigid drained away, and she began to tremble uncontrollably, reaction setting in.
Maruz turned to her. The infernal light in his eyes softened. The terrifying aura of judgment receded, replaced by an unnerving calm. He crossed the room in two silent strides and knelt before her. He gently tilted her chin up, his cool fingers a stark contrast to the memory of Mateo’s brutal grip.
His gaze fell on her split lip, which had started to bleed again. “He marked you,” he murmured, his voice a soft caress. He brought his thumb to her mouth and gently wiped away the droplet of blood. A faint, cool tingling spread across her skin, and when he pulled his hand away, the pain was gone. The cut was sealed, leaving no trace it had ever been there.
The gentleness of the act, coming after such a terrifying display of power, undid her. A single tear escaped and traced a path through thegrime on her cheek. Maruz caught it with his fingertip, his expression unreadable. In that moment, surrounded by the shadows of her former life, Ligaya felt a strange and dangerous connection to the entity before her, a bond forged in blood and sealed in an unholy salvation.
In the weeks that followed, the small hut transformed. The air, once thick with the stench of fear and stale tuba, now carried the clean, earthy scent of drying herbs and the faint, ever-present aroma of incense and sea salt that clung to Maruz. The oppressive silence of dread was replaced by the low murmur of his voice as he taught her things no priest or village elder could ever imagine. Ligaya herself was remade. The haunted, downcast gaze was gone, replaced by a steady, watchful intelligence. She moved with a newfound purpose, her hands, once raw from menial labor, now learning a darker, more intricate craft.
They sat on the floor, the silvery light of the waning moon filtering through the open window. Spread between them on a clean woven mat were the elements of their new work: smooth, dark river stones, bone fragments bleached by the sun, pieces of driftwood worn into strange shapes by the sea.
“Every vessel must be unique,” Maruz said, his voice a low vibration that seemed to settle in her bones. He picked up a flat, black stone, his large hand making it look like a pebble. “It must resonate with the woman who will wield it. It must be a piece of her story, her pain.”
He placed the stone in her hand and guided her fingers to hold a sharp shard of flint. “The power is not in the object itself, but in thewill behind it. It is unlocked by the blood freely given - a deliberate act of sacrifice, not of victimhood. There is a universe of difference.”
His hand covered hers, guiding the flint as she began to scratch a symbol into the stone’s surface. His touch was cool and firm, his proximity an enveloping presence that was both comforting and dangerously intoxicating. Under his tutelage, she learned to feel the latent power in the objects, to channel her intent into the carvings, to understand the grammar of this terrible, liberating magic. Their lessons were intimate, their bodies often close, their hands entwined as they worked. It was a courtship conducted in a language of symbols and blood.
“The women still suffer,” she said softly. “I hear them at the well. I see the bruises they try to hide. They pray to the nailed god, but he does not answer them.”
Maruz turned from the window, his volcanic eyes locking with hers. “Their god offers salvation after death. I offer justice in life. It is a different kind of faith.”
The first winds of the monsoon began to stir in the nights that followed, carrying the scent of rain from the sea. A restlessness grew in Maruz. He would stand for hours facing the ocean, as if listening for a call she could not hear.
“The season turns,” he said one night, his voice devoid of its usual undertones. “My time grows short.”
A cold knot of panic formed in her stomach. The thought of being without him, without his power, his presence, was now unthinkable. But she was not the same woman who had stumbled bleeding into the forest. She would not beg. She would build.
“Then your work is not finished,” she stated, her voice clear and strong. She gestured to the half-dozen talismans they had crafted,each one unique, each one humming with a dormant power. “This knowledge cannot die with me. Your justice cannot be mine alone.”
His expression was unreadable, but she saw a flicker of something in his eyes - pride, perhaps. Or respect.
“This path is a lonely one,” he warned. “They will call youmangkukulam.Witch. They will fear you.”
“They already fear women who are not afraid,” she countered. “Let them have a reason.”
In the final days, they worked with a new urgency. He taught her the rituals of initiation, the words of binding and release, the signs by which she would recognize true desperation in another. They established the foundations of a creed built not on piety, but on shared suffering and the promise of retribution. It would be a whisper network, a covenant of shadows passed from one woman to another. The Sisterhood.
The night the first rain fell, he stood by the door of the hut, the air cool and heavy with moisture. His form was already beginning to shimmer, to lose its solid definition.
“They will call,” Ligaya said. It was not a question.
“I will answer,” he promised. His voice was beginning to echo, to sound as it had in the clearing, a sound from everywhere and nowhere at once. “And those who bear your talismans will find justice, as you have.”
He reached out, not to touch her, but to gently caress the original blood-dark talisman that now hung on a cord around her neck. His fingers passed through it like smoke. His form dissolved into the rainy dark, the scent of incense and sea salt swept away by the coming storm.
Ligaya did not weep. She stood in the doorway of her hut, her home, her temple, and watched the rain wash the world clean. She clutched the talisman to her chest, its faint, familiar warmth a comfortagainst her skin. Her mind was already at work, cataloging the faces of the women in her village, searching for the first flicker of defiance in their eyes, the first sister of her new, dark faith.
The Edge of Endurance
Manila City, Present Day
Lina bent over the peeling laminate of her kitchen counter, letter opener poised above crisp red-bordered stationery, so tense her hands buzzed with blood. The return address in the corner - International Maritime Solutions, Inc. - was a cold needle under her skin. She eased the blade under the fold, careful not to rip. Inside, two sentences: “Mr. Ramon Delos Santos will disembark on the 3rd. Kindly make preparations for histransition home.”
Her throat cinched tight. The envelope slipped to the floor. She’d known it would be soon, but evidence on paper was a trapdoor swinging open under her feet. Four days. 96 hours to reassign her face into some careful, pleasant mask.
She looked out the window, past the cracked balcony tiles and down three floors to the muddled street, where tricycles weaved through knots of jeeps and children screamed their own territorial wars. Beyond that, Manila Bay smoldered under the bruise of approaching dusk, ships lining the horizon like patient executioners. Any of them might carry Ramon back, their hulks fat with iron and men, salt-stained and loud. The thought sickened and thrilled her in equal measure.
