For days, the air refused to rest.
The clouds hovered low, thick and heavy, as if the heavens themselves were holding their breath.
The river had returned to its calm, but something in the land had shifted.
Birds no longer sang.
Even the wind had grown strange — whispering words Shango almost understood.
He could feel the storm inside him growing restless. Every time he touched water, it rippled without cause. Sparks leapt from his skin when he was angry. And sometimes, when he closed his eyes, he could hear other voices murmuring his name — deep, ancient, endless.
Ejiro watched him with tired eyes.
> "It's starting," the old man said.
> "What is?"
> "The unbinding. The Grove marked you to keep balance, not to destroy it. But the Veiled Flame has stirred the core of the storm. It's beginning to wake."
> "Then we stop them."
Ejiro looked at him, hesitant.
> "There's something I must tell you first."
He leaned closer, voice low.
> "You weren't the first to bear that mark."
---
Shango froze.
> "What?"
> "Long before you were born, the Grove chose another — a warrior called Arinze, born of thunder and flame. He too believed he could master the storm. But power, once claimed, refuses to be mastered. He became the first Shango."
Ejiro's eyes darkened.
> "He was your ancestor — and his spirit is what now stirs inside you."
Shango's chest tightened. "Then the visions—"
> "They're not just dreams," Ejiro said. "They're memories."
---
That night, Shango didn't sleep.
He sat outside, staring at the clouds.
Flashes of memory pulsed through him — battlefields, lightning falling like rain, and a man with eyes like fire shouting into the storm:
> "If the gods will not defend man, then man shall wield the gods!"
The sky cracked open.
For the first time, Shango felt the heavens bleed.
---
By morning, the Veiled Flame had returned.
They came silently — torches unlit this time, masks glinting in the dim light. They moved like shadows through the trees, heading straight toward the Grove.
Ejiro woke Shango before dawn.
> "It's time," he said simply.
They walked together — mentor and pupil — through a land that felt on the edge of something colossal.
The Grove greeted them with silence. No birds. No insects. Only the faint hum of power vibrating through the earth.
And there, at its center, stood the cult — the Veiled Flame — circling a new altar carved from black stone, veins of fire glowing beneath its surface.
The leader stepped forward. His mask was gone.
His face was painted in ash, his eyes fever-bright.
> "Welcome, Child of Thunder," he said. "You have come to complete what your ancestor began."
> "You think I'll help you destroy the sky?" Shango spat.
The man smiled faintly.
> "Destroy? No. Free. The sky has been chained too long by balance and mercy. We will return it to its true rage — through you."
He raised his hands.
The cult began chanting. The fire beneath the altar turned white.
Ejiro gripped his staff.
> "They're trying to merge your spirit with the storm itself," he warned.
Lightning tore across the Grove.
Shango screamed as the mark on his arm flared, brighter than ever.
He felt his mind slipping — like a door forced open from both sides.
Voices flooded in — thousands, maybe millions. Each one calling the same name:
> Shango.
Thunder boomed overhead.
The trees split. The sky turned red.
Ejiro shouted something — a prayer, a plea — and thrust his staff into the ground. The Grove erupted in blinding light.
---
When the light faded, the forest was gone.
The trees lay flattened for miles. The river smoked where lightning had kissed it.
And at the center stood Shango — eyes glowing faintly gold, hair lifting in invisible wind.
The mark had spread, now running across his chest and shoulders like veins of fire.
Ejiro stumbled toward him.
> "Shango," he whispered.
But the boy turned slowly — and when he spoke, his voice carried two tones at once.
> "The sky remembers."
A single bolt fell from the heavens, striking the earth beside him.
Ejiro fell to his knees, tears mixing with ash.
The storm had broken — and it would not be silent again.