The cave stank of blood and burning leaves.
Hours had passed since the battle in the valley. Lukas, Amihan, and Kalem had taken refuge deep in a limestone cave lit only by the flickering flame of Lukas's palm. Outside, the jungle howled with distant creatures—hungry, searching.
Lukas sat cross-legged near the fire, the light playing off the walls. His breath was steady, but inside, he was a storm. The memory of the Aswang—their smell, their twisted limbs, the fear—had sunk into his bones. He tried to shake it off, but even now, in the quiet, his skin crawled.
"You held your ground well," Kalem said, seated across from him, sharpening his golden blade with a bone whetstone. "Most new heirs don't survive their first Aswang hunt."
"I wasn't ready," Lukas muttered.
"No one ever is."
Amihan sat nearby, her back against a rock, eyes half-closed. "They knew where I was. They were waiting. It's like something's guiding them."
Kalem paused his sharpening. "Something is. A darker will has awakened. Something ancient enough to remember Bathala… and hate him."
Lukas looked into the fire. "I need to understand. I can't keep reacting—I need to know what this power is."
Kalem stood. "Then it's time we speak to Apo Lakay."
---
By sunrise, they had trekked into the heart of the jungle where a staircase of stone, overgrown with moss and vines, led up the side of a mountain. The air grew cooler with each step, and the trees bowed low, as if in reverence.
At the summit stood a bamboo shrine built on twisted roots. Smoke curled from its chimney, and wind chimes of bone and coral clattered in the wind. Lukas felt something shift in the air—like the mountain itself was holding its breath.
An old man stood waiting at the entrance.
He was hunched but tall, with skin like driftwood and eyes that glowed faintly white. Tattoos marked every inch of his arms—runes and sigils in Baybayin and languages older than words.
"Lukas Alon," he said. "I have waited a long time."
"You know me?"
"I knew your great-grandmother, Luningning. She was a vessel once—chosen, like you."
Lukas blinked. "Lola Rosa never told me that."
"She protected you the only way she could. But the time for secrets is over."
Apo Lakay led them inside. The shrine was filled with relics—skulls of tikbalang, dried herbs, and jars filled with what Lukas hoped were just roots. In the center stood a basin of still water.
"Look into it," the old man instructed.
Lukas leaned in—and the surface rippled.
He saw a storm. A great fire falling from the heavens. A war between sky beings and shadow beasts. In the center stood a man cloaked in stars—Bathala himself—holding a staff of flame, facing a serpent with eyes like suns.
Then Lukas saw himself, holding that same staff, standing at the edge of a crumbling world.
He stumbled back.
"What does it mean?"
"It means you are not just chosen," Apo Lakay said. "You are the last anchor of Bathala's essence. The line ends with you."
Silence.
Then Kalem spoke. "Then we must prepare. The next shard is in Bicol. But we won't be alone. The Aswang have awakened their own."
Lukas swallowed. "What do you mean?"
"There are others like us," Kalem said. "But not all chosen are pure. Some bear agimat tainted by shadow."
Lukas stared at the water, watching his reflection shimmer.
He didn't feel like a god.
He barely felt like himself.
But he nodded anyway. "Then we find them. Before they find us."