Seeds of the Storm | Bongiwe Maphosa

Sbane wakes with mud in her mouth on the forest floor.

The taste of wet soil and metal clings to her tongue. Her cheek presses against the little stones underneath, sharp and cold. For a moment she doesn’t move. The world tilts slightly, unsteady as her thoughts.

She does not remember coming here – only that it is the second time this week, and again, a strange woman wearing colourful ibhayi watches her from a distance.

The storm has already passed. Old rain drips through the branches above, landing on her face in patient drops. Only the smell lingers, sharp and electric, like the air right after lightning tears through the sky.

Sbane pushes herself upright. Her palms are coated in dark mud, packed thick beneath her nails, as though she has been digging for something the ground refuses to release. The trees around her form a small congregation, a patch of stubborn green fighting for a chance to loom over her while she is unconscious. She wipes the mud from her mouth with the back of her hand, smearing it on her damp pyjama pants.

Her eyes meet Mila’s – her charcoal dog, ears pinned, body tense. The dog doesn’t move, only stares at her and something a few paces away.

Mila hadn’t always been hers. The dog appeared the first night Sbane woke in the forest, like this, year ago, a shaking scrap of fur curled against her ribs in dawn’s cold mist. Sbane had taken her home because leaving her there felt wrong, not that she had a choice. The determined thing led a limping Sbane to her own home as if she’d lived there in a past life. For the first time in her life, something had chosen her willingly. It didn’t matter that the dog was an orphan as she was.

“Mila,” she murmurs. The dog doesn’t respond. Her white-tipped tail is tucked between her legs. Sbane exhales sharply. She must do something before she ends up in danger Mila cannot prevent.

She traces her steps to the nearest street. Rain-soaked asphalt gleams under dim streetlights. Her wrist watch chimes softly, cutting through the silence. Three hours. She has three hours to clean up, get to work, and act as though nothing happened, like she slept on a comfy mattress like a normal person and not one of moss and confusion.

The caseworker’s warning echoes in her mind:

“You’re a lovely girl. But this is your last job placement. I can’t help you after this.”

Sbane had only nodded, knowing nothing she could say about the constant nightmares or waking up in the forest could ever make sense.

Her thoughts drift, unbidden, to her parents. Maybe that’s why they gave her up and left her in an infant safety box with clothes and a yellowed letter. She remembers tracing the shaky handwriting on the letter: “You carry a gift. Protect it. Fear will find you if you forget.”

Perhaps she was too loud, too demanding, too… something.

The warm water of her shower does little to soothe the ache inside her chest. Her scar, faint and branching a miniature lightning tree across her collarbone – like the Lichtenburg mark one gets after being struck by lightning – itches. She presses a finger against it, as if feeling it might make sense of the unease crawling under her skin.

***

By morning, the city has swallowed the storm. Traffic returns. Buses sigh at corners, receiving the same people it carries daily. People scurry beneath damp skies with coffee cups warm in their hands. She spots the ibayi-wearing woman again, across the street this time. Her attire sways in the quiet draft. Sbane swears she sees the woman’s mouth curl to say her name. A damn bus passes between them and the woman disappears before Sbane can confront her. Her shoulders slump and she continues the commute to work.

“Morning, Omuhle,” Sbane greets the receptionist at the veterinary clinic where she works.

“Mila!” Omuhle chirps, crouching to scratch behind Mila’s ears. “And Sbane, I guess.” Omuhle sighs dramatically. Sbane has long stopped trying to coax Mila to stay home. The dog prefers watching over her. In the clinic’s small daycare space, Mila is content.

The day passes in quiet routine—injuries are patched, anxious pets soothed, and bills filed. Sbane moves through it like a shadow, occasionally joining in conversation, careful to appear normal. But even in the mundane, she dreads going home, the nighttime and the sunrise that will catch her digging in the forest again.

Mila’s growl gurgles in her throat. The bell over the clinic door chimes. Goosebumps rupture on Sbane’s skin, giving way for the hairs on the back of her neck to stand.

His aura enters first – enchanting, alluring, dangerous – obsidian locks complementing his skin. He is mesmerising, unsettling with an easy smile that somehow doesn’t reach his eyes.

He carries a Maine coon cat in a large carrier, its fur rivalling the hue of its owner’s hair. Something about the air around him shifts – just a flicker, like the way electricity hangs before a storm breaks.

Mila steps forward, growling deeper, pressing herself between Sbane and the man. Sbane crouches to restrain the dog.

“It’s fine, sisi,” she soothes. The man glances down at Mila and his lips curve into a faint, amused smile.

“She really doesn’t like me,” he says softly.

Sbane straightens, tucking her braid back into her bun.

“She likes everyone,” she replies. Mila huffs. “Usually.”

He glances around the clinic. His eyes, dark and sharp, flick briefly to her face then, lower. They linger just long enough to make her pulse quicken.

Sbane clears her throat. “How can we help?”

“This guy found my mother’s incense suddenly irresistible after ignoring it for years,” he says.

“Perhaps he suspects his affliction is more spiritual than physical,” Sbane adds with light laughter.

“Anyone around my mother for as long as he has would surely suspect the same.” He sighs. Sbane nods, curiosity sparking despite herself. She studies him, noticing the way he moves with casual confidence, yet there’s something restrained.

Omuhle takes the cat into the examination room while Sbane deals with the admin.

“He lives with you?” she asks,

“Not exactly,” he says. “He spends most of his time in my mother’s shop downtown.

“I can’t say I’ve heard of a shop downtown that sells incense,” she admits.

“It’s a hole in the wall that appears only to those it calls.” His tone darkens for a split second, so faintly Sbane thinks she misheard it.

She’s distracted when lightning flashes somewhere beyond the city, a distant rumble following seconds later. Sbane’s breath catches. A searing pain roots from her lower back folding her onto the counter. The fluorescent overhead lights flicker and stop suddenly.

“Are you alright?” The man steadies her, a gush of warmth from his hands dulls the stabbing pain.

Sbane nods, and when she catches her breath replies, “I’m fine.”

His cat is brought out and Doctor Uyazi updates the man on the diagnosis. Sbane is so focused on hiding her pain that their voices sound distant and muddled, until his cuts through the noise.

“You should come visit sometime, Sbane.” He doesn’t look back, only leaves a command disguised as an invitation.

***

Sbane soldiers on until just after lunch. She leaves work early, unable to stand the sharp pain across her back any longer.

The afternoon sun slants through wet city streets, golden and sharp, but Sbane barely notices. Her thoughts linger on the man from the clinic. The glint in his eye, how he knew her name even though she never told him, how she didn’t know his, and the subtle current of energy she felt around him.

She shakes her head when she realises she was smiling alone like a madman.

“Wenzani Sbanesihle?” she asks, reprimanding herself.

A narrow street she’s never walked before catches her attention. At its end is a shop that looks older than the city itself. A sign lures the curious girl into its fold.

IMBEWU YE SBANI

The Seed of Lightning

The letters are carved with care, Ndebele patterns cutting the edges. Something in her chest tightens. She doesn’t know why she feels drawn here, only that she does. Mila growls before she steps onto the cracked pavement. Sbane kneels, brushing her hand over the dog’s head.

“We’re just looking.” She negotiates, but Mila whines and pulls at her leash. She sits at the door refusing to enter the shop and rounds her eyes begging Sbane not to either, but she relents, hopelessly powerless to the treats she’s bribed with.

Sbane’s back pain hikes then disappears as soon as she steps in. She sighs audibly in relief, prepackaged for her alone.

The shop smells of dust, cedar, and something even imphepho cannot mask. Shelves are packed with hand-carved masks, beaded cowrie necklaces, wooden figurines, and glass jars filled with colourful grains and coarse salts she can’t identify. Each item breathes faintly, charging the air with mystery and a dare.

A middle-aged woman emerges from behind a curtain draped in dark, layered cloth, dreadlocks heavy with beads and shells, her presence carrying the quiet menace of something ancient. Her breath smells of something metallic that makes Sbane’s stomach tighten.

“Welcome, Sbanesihle,” she says, voice smooth as river stone. “I’ve been expecting you.”

Sbane freezes. Expecting her?

“I—” she begins, but Mila growls again, a low warning rumble that shakes Sbane’s chest. The dog refuses to move forward.

The woman’s eyes flick down to Mila, disgusted almost, and then back to Sbane. A thin smile curves her lips.

“Animals sense what humans cannot. The artefacts in here hold history that might be confusing your dog.”

“I was… invited.” She offers weakly after an awkward silence.

“Yes.” the woman nods slowly.

Sbane swallows. She is aware of every nerve, every flicker of electricity in the air.

A long glass vitrine standing beneath a narrow beam of light near the back wall calls to her. Inside, someone had arranged a careful nest of twigs, half-charred feathers, and blackened grass. At its centre sits a smooth, deliberate hollow. The expectant nest could have cradled an egg the size of a small melon, something heavy enough to demand its own shrine. For a moment Sbane has the strange feeling that the nest wasn’t empty at all. It was…waiting.

She glances around uncomfortably and notices a small amulet hanging on a carved wooden stand. The amulet has a bird etched into it, wings spread mid-flight, lightning streaking across its body, the head like an elongated hammerhead.

Compelled, she reaches toward it, and the shop seems to pulse in response. The lights falter, and somewhere above the city, distant thunder answers. Her fingers brush the carving. The instant she does, a jolt ripples through her chest, warm and sharp, as though the storm itself has followed her inside.

The woman watches, expression unreadable. “I see you’ve been drawn to the uThekwane amulet,” she says softly.“uThekwane?” Sbane questions.

“The nest behind you once held an egg of the lightning bird. It was taken before it could hatch.” Her smile thinned. “But storms have a way of returning what belongs to them.”

“I’ve never heard of this.” She answers, intrigued.

“In Nguni mythology lives a bird called uThekwane, a lightning bird, born of storm and ancestral presence. A human-sized bird of immense power that has the authority to cause thunder and command lightning and great disasters. Depending on which version you hear, of course. It can even shapeshift. Blood thirsty, misunderstood, shunned. A gift to some and a curse to others.”

Sbane pulls her hand back, heart racing. She looks at Mila, who is pressed against her legs, teeth bared.

A shadow moves behind a shelf, and the man from the vet shop steps forward, carrying a bundle of items for the shop. His eyes meet hers, dark and unreadable, yet in them flickers something familiar – something that makes the hair on her arms stand on end.

“You made it.” His sentence sounds like it should continue. Thunder cracks above the roof and Sbane jumps. This time, Mila goes haywire, torn between dragging her stubborn owner out and barking at the strange people in front of her. If only she could speak.

The woman laughs, slowly. “It’s only thunder, child.”

“MaNgozi, you’re scaring her.” the man whispers. She waves him off.

“She’ll find out sooner than later, Mpiyezulu.”

Sbane wants to ask what she means, but the words die in her throat. Mila growls again, louder now, warning her against something she cannot name.

Sbane’s pulse races. She looks at the amulet again. The bird seems alive somehow, wings spread, lightning frozen mid-strike. She feels it in her chest—the same tremor she has carried since the first forest. She turns to leave, hand gripping Mila’s leash tightly. She needs to get out of here.

Mpiyezulu catches up to her as she crosses the street. “I’m sorry. I should have warned you about my mother.” He confesses.

“She’s certainly… eccentric.” It’s the kindest word she can muster.

“Please let me take you out for coffee. My treat,” he says abruptly, as if his words caught him off guard.

“You don’t have to—” she says.

“I want to. If that’s okay with you, and Mila of course,” Sbane laughs lightly.

Say no. Say no. She thinks.

“Sure. Tomorrow though.” She says instead. He smiles triumphantly and walks back to the shop.

Sbane’s smile still lingers until she catches sight of his mother watching from the shop window. The old woman waves eerily. The storm humming faintly between them feels almost like recognition – like the world itself is aware of something Sbane is not.

That night, Sbane sleeps – or tries to. Rain drums lightly against her apartment window, a soft staccato that is almost comforting. But her dreams reject peace and drag her down along with them.

They condemn her to the forest again, though the trees here are taller, darker, their branches clawing at the sky. The air smells of fire and wet soil. She cannot remember how she arrived, only that the storm waits. Above her, two birds circle in the low-hanging clouds. One gleams amber, the colour of sunset, its wings crackling with soft, warm lightning. The other is dark as storm clouds, feathers jagged, and streaks of white fire flare along its wings. They scream at each other, talons bared, beaks snapping, wings slicing through the rain-soaked air.

Sbane feels her chest tighten as the pulse of the storm merges with her heartbeat. She raises her arms instinctively, as though she could catch them, hold them, and make them still. But the storm does not obey. She opens her mouth to call, and instead a low, miserable sound slips out – it is neither her voice nor entirely the birds’ voices. Electricity ripples along her skin, along the scar across her collarbone. The indigo bird flinches, and the amber one glows brighter.

A whisper threads through the wind, familiar yet alien: “You’re in danger, mntanami.”

Sbane wakes in her bed, drenched in sweat. The hum in her chest lingers, insistent, as if the storm followed her into the room. Mila is at the foot of her bed staring at something in the open window, alert, ears raised. The dog barks, more wolf-like as if speaking to the thing, warning. Whatever it is, it takes off, leaving black feathers, streaked with blood.

***

Over the next few weeks, Mpiyezulu appears everywhere – outside the clinic, in quiet cafés, at street corners where the air smelled faintly of rain. Sbane feels at ease with him. But Mila is never too far from her, occasionally huffing should the man touch Sbane. She tells him her story: how she was abandoned with nothing but a bundle of clothes, a branching scar, and a hollow place inside her no relationship has ever managed to fill. In return, he listens carefully, asking questions that feel thoughtful… and sometimes a little too precise. One afternoon he presses the uThekwane amulet into her palm, saying his mother insisted she should have it.

For a while, it almost feels easy. Until the night he asks her to walk with him.

The forest greets them with the smell of rain. Mila paces restlessly beside Sbane, ears pinned, stance wide, hackles raised. Mpiyezulu leads her deeper between the trees than she remembers the path going.

Only then does she realise something is wrong.

He stops in the clearing.

“I wish things didn’t have to happen this way, Sbane.” he confesses with her hands tucked safely in his. She frowns, perplexed. Before she can ask what he means, white lightning cracks the pewter cotton cloud and strikes the man in front of her.

She freezes. Her heart thunders against her ribcage. Something akin to terror and anguish grips her in its arms. But instead of rushing to comfort him, her belly gets hot with anger and anticipation.

Mpiyezulu doesn’t fall or stiffen like a person struck by lightning would. He transforms. Two colossal wings stretch out from his back. When he flaps, whirlwinds form. His eyes, luminous and malicious.  He trudges toward her like a man possessed intending to take flight.

Mpiyezulu is blindsided, knocked on his back before he can react.

A beast, raven-black and resembling a dire wolf belts a deep resounding howl.

“You stupid hound! You have been a thorn in my side for too long,” he shudders.

Those eyes. Those burnt amber eyes. She remembers saving them one stormy night.

“Mila?” Sbane’s voice trembles. It’s her. But that growl is deeper, emitting ancient power. Something tells her to run, and when she doesn’t, the woman wearing ibhayi emerges out of the shadows to pull her away.

“Who are you? What—what’s going on?” Sbane questions desperately while they dodge trees and low hanging branches. But the woman doesn’t answer. She mutters to herself instead.  For the first time tonight, Sbane acts of her own accord. She pulls her hand away. Demanding answers through her panting and the tears beginning to gather in her eyelids.

“I’m your mother, Sbanesihle.” the woman answers before Sbane can ask again. The confession lands in the pit of Sbane’s stomach first, then makes its way down her legs. She almost stumbles over the thicket of the forest floor.

Sbane laughs once, a broken sound she doesn’t recognise as her own. “No.”

“I thought I could protect you this way, but you aren’t safe anymore. Please. I will explain, just let me get you out of this forest.” Her voice is soothing, persuasive. Sbane hesitates, but only for a moment. She relents and they run to her apartment. Like Mila, this woman doesn’t need directions.

When they arrive, she doesn’t bother with hospitalities or changing out of her soaked clothing. She watches the woman expectantly.

“I never wanted to leave you,” her mother whispered, voice trembling, “but the night the lightning struck me, something ancient chose you before you were even born. uThekwane – the lightning bird – entrusted its egg to me. It told me where to bury it, where it would be safe, and I knew… one day, it would call you. It’s yours to nurse, to protect, until the next one hatches.”

“You left me for an egg? You owed a creature more than you owed a child you gave birth to?” Sbane’s voice is icy, her face vacant. Was that all she was worth?

“No, Sbane. That is why I had to let you go, why I left you where no one could find you easily. You were always meant to be its guardian. I saw what would follow you if you stayed with me – the storms, the things that hunt what they cannot control. I thought if I left you somewhere safe, somewhere ordinary, you might grow up untouched by it. Letting you go was the only way I knew how to keep you alive.”

Sbane stays silent for a while. She’d spent her whole life wondering why she wasn’t enough reason for her mother to stay. Sbane whispered, “You should have trusted me with the truth.”

“I know. I was afraid, Sbanesihle. Elders in the village warned me that because I had nursed uThekwane of fortune, the other uThekwane had marked you. I didn’t want you to be as ostracized as I was. uThekwane of the light sent a guardian, Mila. And though it killed me to watch you grow from an arm’s length, knowing you were alive eased that wound.”

“So, what now?” Sbane asks, teary-eyed but determined. This is no time to mourn.

“You choose. Stay with the light or become a child of darkness. Your blood does not agree with evil. That is your gift—and your curse. If you embrace it, if you fight… you will shape the storm.”

“And if I choose—” Sbane doesn’t get a chance to finish her question. Mpiyezulu part bird form crashes through her window, shielding his body from the shards. He rips Sbane from the safety of the land, flying her into the raging sky.

Lightning illuminates the ground and Sbane sees Mila tracking them. She has decided. Here, in the arms of a man she once trusted, as he drags her back to his master. No one will be choosing for her anymore. She bites his arm, drawing an animalistic screech from him, he instinctively loosens his grip on her, sending her falling towards the earth.

As she tumbles through the sky, Sbane closes her eyes, drawing a shaky breath. The storm hums faintly in her chest, a vibration like distant thunder. Mpiyezulu descends immediately, screaming over the thunder.

“We don’t have to fight! But MaNgozi wants you and I am blood-bound to deliver you and the egg that holds the next lightning bird.” His eyes flick to the lightning mark on her chest.

“She believes the storm buried it inside you.”

Sbane opens her eyes. They catch his gaze, a mix of warning and understanding. She realizes, for the first time, the magnitude of the path she must walk. She is not merely a girl with a strange birthmark. She is the storm-born, child of lightning, bound to forces older and more dangerous than she has ever known.

“No,” she says softly, more to herself than anyone else, “I will face whatever comes.”

“There is no escaping this. You will be MaNgozi’s familiar, as I have been for decades! She is powerful and evil does not negotiate.” Mpiyezulu yells, but his voice hides misery. He really did start to love her. Sbane felt it. At first, he was sent to lure and seduce her, but her spirit lulled the evil in him.

“She cannot have me, Mpiyezulu. I am a child of lightning, and I will do what my blood tells me. The battle between storm and shadow has begun.”

The sky fractures and lightning strikes her for the second time in her life, but this time she is in control. The storm answers her. Wind spirals upward, carrying her like invisible wings. Her hair lifts around her face, the rain bending toward her in trembling arcs.

The branching scar across her skin flares bright amber. When she opens her eyes, there is no colour left in them, only pale light, like lightning trapped behind glass.

Mila looms over her when Sbane eases onto the ground, teeth bared, eyes glowing with an otherworldly vigilance.

MaNgozi emerges from the shadows, robes flaring in the wind, eyes alight with a cruel anticipation. Behind her, Mpiyezulu’s expression is unreadable, but the faint buzz in the air tells Sbane he still carries the darkness within him like a coiled cobra.

“You’ve come,” the witch says, voice sharp as a lightning bolt, “It is time to accept your fate. Use it, or I use you.”

Sbane’s chest throbs with energy. The mark across her collarbone pulses, small arcs of light rippling beneath her skin. She swallows, calling on the spirit to fight with her. The storm within her responds immediately, thrumming like a drum.

The witch raises her hands, shadows peeling from her clothing, curling into the shape of the chaos lightning bird. Mpiyezulu’s eyes meet hers briefly, tension flaring like the storm above them.

Mila growls, lunging forward. Sbane steps in front of her fierce guardian. This is a battle she must face with the storm.

The indigo bird shrieks and darts at her. Sbane closes her eyes, reaching deep into the storm simmering in her chest. The amber bird answers, wings crackling with warmth, light slicing through shadow. She feels its power merge with hers, trembling at first, but then surging, intoxicating, chaotic. Her body shifts, liminal. Fingers sparkle with arcs of electricity. The wind bends around her, rain stinging her face like needles. She embraces it; not fully, not yet, but enough to taste its raw power.

Mpiyezulu’s chaos bird form shrieks again, colliding with her light. Sparks of energy explode around them, sending trees swaying, debris flying, rain lashing sideways. Sbane staggers, Mila grounding her with a nudge, refusing to let her falter. Mpiyezulu moves at the same time, wings of terror rippling from his back as he strikes at her.

“MaNgozi, you cannot win!” he shouts, voice carrying over the storm. “We cannot take what is bound to her blood! You cannot steal what was given to her by her ancestors.”

“Shut up, you useless bird!” the witch spits at Mpiyezulu before turning to Sbane, “Ah, little storm-born… you think you understand your power? It’s ravenous. I gave your mother no choice, and soon I will own you. Embrace me, or watch everything you love burn.”

Sbane opens her eyes, white lightning searing through them. She lets the amber thekwane’s defensive wrath filll her, guiding it, bending it with the rhythm of her heartbeat. The dark bird inside Mpiyezulu shrieks, struggling against the purity of the storm that Sbane wields.

“The only thing that will burn is you. You will die by the sword you lived with.” Sbane commands a lightning bolt to strike the witch.

MaNgozi screams, a high, piercing sound, as a sinister shadow tears from her body. It darts for Sbane, intent on claiming her power. Sbane meets it, the amber bird surging to collide mid-air, and for a heartbeat, chaos reigns – wind, rain, electricity, shadows all twisting together.

Then it breaks.

A surge of light, pure and blinding, erupts from Sbane’s chest. The dark bird screeches, battered, and collapses into the mud. The witch falls to her knees, body drained, eyes wide in disbelief. She ages decades in a span of seconds. Mpiyezulu collapses as his master does, wings fading, breathing heavily. He looks at her, eyes no longer guarded, the darkness within restrained but alive. “You tamed it,” he said quietly. Sbane’s body quivers, the storm inside her quieting into a steady pulse. Light has triumphed over darkness – for now. Such evil does not simply disappear when bested in a battle. Traces of its thirst for vengeance still linger, suppressed but not gone—a reminder that the chaos would always be near, waiting.

Slowly the sky begins to clear, storm clouds tearing open into thin slivers of pale light. Mud clings to her knees as she kneels beside Mila, brushing trembling fingers through the wolf’s soaked fur.

“Thank you.” she whispers.

Mila rests her head against Sbane’s shoulder.

Behind them, Mpiyezulu struggles to his feet. The dark wings that had once stretched from his back are gone now, but something restless still flickers behind his eyes, like the last embers of a dying fire.

For a moment neither of them speak.

“I thought the storm would break you,” he said quietly. Sbane looks up at him, rain still sliding down her face.

“Not the one that chose me.”

Mpiyezulu watches her carefully, as though seeing her for the first time.

“What happens now?”

Sbane stands slowly. The wind stirs around her, lifting the loose edges of her clothes.

“I don’t think the storm belongs to anyone,” she said at last. “But it knows who it chose.”

Her scar tingles beneath her collarbone. When she presses her fingers to it, warmth spreads through her chest, the same steady pulse she had felt during the battle.

Mila howls suddenly, staring upward.

Sbane follows the wolf’s gaze. High above the broken clouds, something moves. At first, she thinks it is only the wind. But then she sees the shape of it – a great bird gliding through the thinning storm light, its wings vast and amber, lightning threading between its feathers like living veins. It circles once.

Just once.

Far above the city, lightning flickers once more across the clouds. Thunder follows.

And this time, it sounds a little like maniacal laughter.

The amulet at Sbane’s throat grows suddenly warm. She presses a hand against her chest and feels it – beneath the quiet storm, beneath her own heartbeat. Another rhythm. Slow. Waiting.

High above, the lightning bird screams once into the clearing sky.

Sbane understands then. The nest in MaNgozi’s shop had never been empty.

It had been waiting for her.