Chapter 3: I Will Not Die Tonight
Isle of Immortals Book One · Filipino Mythology Romantasy
by Ayin Quijano
Stealing from a dragon was always a terrible idea.
Liya is doing it anyway.
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I will not die tonight.
Liya chanted the words like a prayer as she inched down the edge of the cliff, anchored by a single rope, double-knotted at her waist.
Below her, the sea roared.
Above, the moon hung swollen and pale, nearly full—watching. Waiting. A clock in the sky counting down whether she was ready or not.
One more night until the full moon. One more night until the Halad. One more night to steal what Inang Tala needed to forge Puksa—the weapon that would finally end the Bakunawa.
The rope creaked as she shifted her weight.
“I will not die tonight,” she whispered. “I am the First Daughter of the Moon. Hunting champion. Trained warrior of Tribu Mayari. Gifted mortal, protected by the goddess herself.”
The words steadied her hands even as her muscles screamed.
She released her grip on a jutting rock and let herself slide several feet down until her bare toes found the next knot. A gust of wind slammed into her without warning, snapping the ends of her braid loose. She slapped a palm against the cliff face to steady herself and hissed as pain flared.
Blood soaked into the torn cloth wrapped around her hand.
“Moon take it,” she muttered as she paused and braced her feet against stone, chest heaving, and retightened the bandage with her teeth.
Then she made the mistake of looking down.
If death had a face, it would be the sheer drop yawning beyond the cave mouth—jagged rocks spearing up from the surf, waves smashing themselves to foam as if eager to finish what gravity would start. A fall would end her faster than any engkanto ever could.
She swallowed hard and forced her gaze back to the stone.
The prospect of death didn’t usually faze her. She had survived a quarter-century in a land crawling with immortals. She understood too well how frail and fleeting human life was.
Compared to immortals, she was nothing but a blink, a breath.
Death walked beside her every day—sometimes whispering, sometimes screaming. Always waiting. Both a blessing and a curse.
But dying before completing this mission? Before finally freeing herself and her sisters from Inang Tala’s iron grip?
That was unacceptable.
If you die, they win, the voice in her head whispered—her own, but carrying the sharp edge of Inang Tala’s teachings. Death is not an option.
Liya’s jaw set. Yes, she knew she would die soon—sooner if she continued as a hunter of immortals. But not tonight. Not scaling a cliff. Not stealing from a dragon. Not before she saw this through.
She forced herself to keep moving, hand over bleeding hand, counting knots and breaths in equal measure. The Bakunawa’s cave was just below her now, dark and unassuming. A thief’s dream.
A child’s nightmare.
Liya wouldn’t admit it to her sisters, but the Bakunawa had haunted her dreams since she was seven.
The first time Inang Tala told her, with terrifying calm, that it was her destiny to kill the Bakunawa as the first Daughter of the Moon, she had thrown up behind the training huts and cried until her throat hurt.
The first time she ever saw it—just a glimpse of coils against moonlight—she’d fled, falling to her knees, scrambling backward in the dirt, sobbing too hard to breathe. And the few times after that? The same.
It took years before she learned how to stand her ground without retching. She was ten the first time she didn’t run. Ten years old, shaking so badly she thought her bones might rattle apart.
Inang Tala had watched without sympathy. She didn’t suffer the weak or the useless.
So Liya learned to be strong—her and her sisters’ survival depended on it.
Fear was beaten out of her. Doubt starved. Strength sharpened until it cut.
And she learned. To face the thing that had once filled the sky and swallowed moons whole. To hunt immortals. To exploit their tells, their arrogance, the way they always underestimated humans.
Now, fifteen years later, she was scaling a cliff alone to steal from the most dangerous immortal in existence.
She almost laughed.
Almost welcomed the thought of seeing the damned beast again.
Almost.
Not because she wasn’t afraid, but because she was tired. Bone-deep tired of fighting, of hunting immortals, of waking every morning knowing it might be her last.
She wanted this done.
She wanted out.
Not from her sisters—never that. But from Inang Tala. From a life built on blood and obedience.
Liya dropped the final distance and landed in a crouch by the cave mouth, knees bending to absorb the impact. The stone beneath her feet thrummed faintly, like a living thing aware of her presence.
She stilled, listening.
Water dripped from the ceiling. The air smelled of salt and stone and something faintly metallic—magic, old and coiled tight. No growl. No shifting of massive weight. No fire.
Good.
She untied herself quickly, coiling the rope and securing it to a rock. She reached for Tagam at her hip. The blade’s weight was reassuring—death in her hand, blessed by the moon, capable of ending immortal lives.
Her other hand went to the anting-anting at her throat, fingers curling around the carved charm. She wanted to believe it would be enough. That it could mute a dragon’s power the way it did lesser immortals.
But no Daughter had ever fought the Bakunawa directly. No one truly knew what worked against a dragon that once lived among the stars.
Her stomach twisted.
She wasn’t here to kill it. Not yet. Just to take what Inang Tala had ordered.
A scale, she’d said, maddeningly vague. Any will do.
She moved carefully into the cave. The darkness swallowed her whole.
“BOO!”
Liya screamed.
She spun, blade flashing, nearly slicing through a floating ball of fire.
“Hey! Watch it!” a high, indignant voice yelped.
Two lights bobbed in front of her, dancing just out of reach, crackling with amusement.
“Kayu,” said one cheerfully.
“And Kaya,” chimed the other. “You’re welcome.”
“Oh, she does scream,” Kaya sang.
“Not very Daughter of the Moon,” Kayu added smugly.
Liya clutched her chest. “Moon take you both,” she hissed. “Do you want me dead?”
“Not particularly,” Kayu said, circling her head. “But you did look funny.”
“You nearly stabbed me,” Kaya added, offended.
“You nearly gave me a heart attack!”
“Same thing,” Kayu shrugged.
Liya scrubbed a hand down her face, forcing her breathing to steady. “What are you doing here?”
“Following you, obviously,” Kayu—or was it Kaya? She could never tell with them—snickered. Their voices were identical, mischievous, layered with the sound of crackling flames.
“You snuck out,” the other added. “Without your sisters. Very suspicious.”
“Very heroic,” the first corrected.
“Very stupid,” they sang in unison.
Liya pressed her fingers to her temples. “I don’t have time for this.”
“Oh, but you do.” One santelmo—Kaya, she thought—zipped closer, illuminating the cave entrance in flickering orange light. “You need us. It’s dark in there. Dangerous. Full of—”
“Treasure,” Kayu finished reverently.
“I can manage alone.”
“Can you?” Kaya’s flame dimmed skeptically. “Can you see in the dark? Do you know which tunnels lead deeper and which lead to cave-ins? Do you have any idea where a dragon would hide its most precious—”
“Fine.” Liya cut her off before the lecture could continue. She didn’t have time to argue, and the santelmos were annoyingly right—she needed light, and these two were notorious gossips. Better to bring them along than have them alert half the forest. “But you stay quiet. No commentary. No touching anything. Just light.”
“We can do that,” they chimed.
“Can you?”
“Probably not,” they admitted cheerfully, already floating deeper into the cave.
Liya followed, one hand trailing the cave wall, the other resting on Tagam’s hilt. The santelmos’ glow painted everything in shifting amber—stalactites dripping like teeth, shadows dancing in corners, the glitter of…
She stopped.
Gold.
Everywhere.
Coins spilled across the floor in rivers of wealth. Jeweled weapons hung from natural hooks in the stone. Pearls the size of her fist were scattered like common pebbles. Ancient artifacts she couldn’t name gleamed in alcoves, some pulsing with their own light, their own magic.
A dragon’s hoard.
“Don’t touch anything,” Liya warned, though her fingers itched to reach for a blade that seemed to hum with celestial fire.
“We’re not touching,” Kayu said, hovering dangerously close to a crown encrusted with rubies.
“We’re just looking,” Kaya added, circling a jade statue.
“Very closely.”
Liya moved deeper, turned a corner, and there, scattered on the floor, were dragon scales. She bent and picked one up. It was almost as big as her hand.
Then she felt it.
A pull.
Not like gravity. Not like magic she’d known. This was quieter. Heavier. It settled low in her chest, beneath bone and breath.
Heart racing, her eyes swept the room.
She gasped when she saw it.
A single scale nestled in a cradle of stone carved with ancient wards.
Black as obsidian. Shot through with veins of pure gold. Even larger than the others.
Her blood hummed.
Liya approached slowly, reverently, like approaching a sleeping predator. Her anting-anting warmed against her chest but didn’t burn. Didn’t warn her away.
Strange.
“Is that it?” Kaya whispered, actually quiet for once.
“It’s beautiful,” Kayu breathed.
It was.
Liya reached out, hesitated—what if touching it triggered some alarm? Some trap?—then closed her fingers around it.
The moment her skin made contact, light exploded through the cave.
Not the santelmos’ flickering orange. Not the cold gleam of gold and gems.
This was pure white, blazing like captured moonlight, radiating from the scale itself—or from her hand—she couldn’t tell which. Heat rushed through her blood, sweet and foreign and utterly right, like something locked inside her recognized something locked inside the scale.
Mine, her blood sang.
Yours, the scale seemed to answer.
Liya gasped, nearly dropping it, but her fingers refused to open. The light pulsed once more, brilliant and blinding, then faded to a soft glow cupped in her palm.
Kayu whistled. “Well. That’s new.”
Kaya leaned closer. “It likes you.”
“What kind of magic was that?” Kayu demanded.
“I don’t know,” Liya whispered.
“Did you feel it?” Kaya pressed closer. “That magic?”
She had. She had felt it—in her bones, her blood, her very soul. Like something ancient had just opened one eye.
“We need to go,” Liya said, tucking the scale into the leather pouch at her hip. “Now.”
They didn’t argue.
The climb back up was harder—her hands were ruined, her muscles exhausted, and the scale in her pouch seemed to pulse against her hip like a second heartbeat. But she made it, hand over bloodied hand, until she crested the cliff’s edge and collapsed onto solid ground.
Where her sisters were waiting.
All six of them.
Amaya stepped forward first, arms crossed but eyes soft with concern. “Did you really think we’d let you do this alone?”
“How did you—”
“We knew you would do something like this,” Luningning said. “We saw you sneak out.”
“We followed,” Hana added.
“Obviously,” Sora finished.
Liya wanted to argue, to scold them for the risk—but exhaustion and relief tangled in her throat. She simply nodded, accepting Amaya’s hand to help her stand.
“Did you get it?” Elena asked quietly.
Liya pulled the scale from her pouch.
Even in the moonlight, even without touching it, the thing seemed to glow—faint, but unmistakable. Her sisters crowded closer, studying it with a mixture of awe and wariness.
“That’s a dragon scale?” Yumi breathed.
“It’s huge,” Hana murmured.
“It’s beautiful,” Amaya said, reaching out—then stopping, fingers hovering just above it. “Why isn’t it doing anything?”
“What do you mean?” Liya asked.
“I mean…” Amaya frowned. “When you held it, didn’t it glow?”
“How did you—”
“The light,” Luningning interrupted. “We saw it from up here. Like lightning in the cave.”
The sisters exchanged glances.
“Let me try,” Sora said, holding out her hand.
Liya hesitated, then placed the scale in her sister’s palm.
Nothing.
No light. No heat. Just a beautiful, inert piece of dragon magic.
Sora frowned, turning it over. “I don’t feel anything.”
“Let me,” Hana said, taking it. Still nothing.
They passed it around—Elena, Yumi, Luningning, and even Amaya tried again. Each time, the scale remained dark, dormant, and ordinary.
Until Liya took it back.
The moment it touched her skin, light bloomed—softer than before, but undeniable. White-gold, warm, alive.
The forest went silent.
Her sisters stared.
“What does that mean?” Elena whispered.
Liya’s hand closed around the scale, feeling its pulse match her own heartbeat. “I don’t know.”
In the distance, from somewhere across the mountains, a roar split the night—ancient, furious, and searching.
“We should go.”
The Bakunawa had discovered his treasure was missing. And he was coming.
AUTHOR’S NOTE🌙
Hello, I’m Ayin — your storyteller.
If you lived or grew up spending summers in the province, you’ve probably seen or heard stories about the santelmo. Especially if you’re fond of overstaying in the fields or forest after dark.
You’d see it – a light in the distance.
Bouncing. Moving wrong. Too fast.
Then someone would whisper urgently: Run! Don’t let the Santelmo catch you.
I grew up hearing those warnings, and my lola made sure all her grandkids were home before sunset. But I remember once, in a sugarcane field at night, seeing lights that floated where lights had no business floating.
Alright, they were probably just torches from passing villagers. Probably.
But here’s the thing: I still choose to believe they were santelmos. Because honestly… how cool would that be to actually see one?
Santelmo—you might see it spelled with an I or an E. Both are correct. Santelmo is short for Apoy ni San Elmo, or St. Elmo’s Fire. In Filipino folklore, it appears as a glowing, bouncing orb of fire, most often spotted in forests, fields, or near bodies of water. Some say it’s the restless soul of someone who drowned, or a spirit with unfinished business. Others say it leads travelers astray — luring them deeper into the dark before vanishing without a trace.
Science calls it a luminous plasma discharge — a natural electrical phenomenon. Folklore calls it something far more interesting.
And if you ever find yourself being chased by one? The old folks say turn your clothes inside out. Apparently, that breaks the enchantment. I’ve never tested this personally… and I don’t plan to.
Now – I love reading romantasy novels and my favorite sidekicks have always been the little fiery beings – the sprites, pixies, or brownies. They’re fun and they help out as much as they create havoc in the main characters’ lives.
So when I created Liya, I always knew her sidekick would be a santelmo. And later on I decided that having two of them would be more fun.
That’s how Kayu and Kaya were born. Kayu means fire. Kaya means can — as in, I can, you can, we can do this — which felt right for two creatures who are always, always convinced they can handle more than they should.
Here’s something I’ll admit: I’ve finished writing Book One, and I still haven’t decided what Kayu and Kaya are to each other. Twins? Lovers? Ancient friends who’ve been bickering for centuries?
I genuinely don’t know.
So I’m leaving it to you.
Tell me in the comments — what’s the vibe you get from them? What relationship feels right? Because whoever gets the most compelling answer just might get a short story written for them.
Up next — Chapter 4: Secrets of the Moon.
Seven moons once lit the sky.
Now only one remains.
And she holds the answers…
to a curse,
a bond,
and a destiny no one can escape.
If you’d like to experience the story in a different way, Bakunawa’s Curse is also streaming at Ayinisms Story Podcast on Spotify, and you can watch it at the Ayinisms Story Channel on YouTube.
Till the next story!
❤️Ayin
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🌙 Thank you for reading. The moon is watching.
© Ayin Quijano. All rights reserved.
Ayin Quijano 
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