Evening bled across the sky like an old wound reopening.
The wind carried a strange heaviness — a silence too thick for a village that once sang to the setting sun.
Shango sat by the edge of the Grove, the air alive with that restless hum again.
It was faint, almost imagined — a whisper behind the trees, a rhythm buried in the earth.
He shut his eyes.
The world seemed to sway with the wind.
Then he heard it — soft at first, deep as the heartbeat of something ancient.
Dum… dum… dum…
Drums.
They didn't sound like any from the village — these carried no celebration, no festival joy. They were slower. Heavier.
Each beat sank into the soil, making the very ground tremble beneath him.
> "You hear it too, don't you?"
Ejiro's voice came from behind. The old man's steps were light, but his staff struck the earth with purpose.
Shango turned.
> "The drums. They're from the forest."
> "Not from," Ejiro murmured. "Within."
He came closer, his face shadowed by the fading light.
> "When the Grove stirs, it is never without reason. Long ago, these drums warned of storms — not of rain, but of men."
Shango frowned.
> "Men?"
Ejiro nodded.
> "Those who defied the balance. The Veiled Flame was born from such arrogance — those who tried to command thunder instead of respect it."
The name clung to the air like ash.
The drums grew louder now, as if the forest itself had heard its name and shivered in response.
The villagers down the hill began lighting their evening fires, unaware that the rhythm overhead was not made by human hands.
Shango rose slowly.
> "What if they're calling for me?"
Ejiro gave him a long, unreadable look.
> "Then the Grove is testing its son."
---
Night came swiftly, dragging the mist with it.
Shango lay awake in his hut, the drums still echoing in his mind — steady, patient, eternal.
Each beat matched his heartbeat until he could no longer tell which belonged to him.
And then, for a brief moment before sleep claimed him, a flash of light flickered beneath his skin — faint and silver, like lightning caged under flesh.
The drums stopped.
The wind went still.
And in that silence, a single whisper crossed his dreams:
> "The Grove has chosen."