The river had quieted, but it was not still.
Its surface gleamed like polished obsidian, catching the stars and moon in warped reflections that bent time itself. Beneath its luminous calm, something ancient stirred—currents that moved not just through water, but through story. Patterns older than gods whispered along the undertow, etching runes across reality. Obade was no longer simply a village. It had become a living hinge—where memory, myth, and dreaming bled into one another with no border, no rule, and no return.
And at the restless heart of it all stood Ola.
His eyes were hollowed by sleepless nights, rimmed with a fire that refused to flicker out. His skin had taken on the hue of river mist. His breath came in slow pulls, as though even air had begun resisting time's strange twists. Yet still, he stood vigil. He had not left the river's side since Echo crossed into the dreaming.
Her body lay in the salt vessel, still and luminous, like moonlight preserved in stone. Around her, the villagers formed a rotating circle of silent watchers, some praying, others simply breathing in rhythm with her—believing, hoping. But time in Obade no longer moved in one direction. The sun rose slantwise some days, chasing its own reflection. The moon blinked in and out of fullness like a dreamer stirring between memories. Even the birds had stopped migrating. Something ancient held its breath.
Yet Echo was not lost.
Each night, Ola heard her.
At first it had been fleeting—sounds in his dreams that mimicked water with no mouth, syllables like fog brushing against his cheek. Then came full thoughts. Phrases. Whispers layered with the cadence of the River Queen herself. Echo was still fighting, tethered to nothing but song, memory, and will.
And she was getting close to something dangerous.
That morning, when the dew still clung to the reeds like silver prayers, Ola entered the sacred hut.
Iyagbẹ́kọ́ was already waiting. She sat at her loom of ash-strands and salt runes, weaving silence into shape, her expression drawn and distant. Her body seemed smaller, her voice the hush of thunder long spent.
"She's showing me things," Ola began, urgency rasping through his words. "She's trying to anchor the silence with song, but—there's something pulling at her. Something… deep."
Iyagbẹ́kọ́ didn't look up. She simply moved one thread, and the entire loom shimmered. "She is close to the core."
"The core?" Ola frowned.
"The center of the dreaming. The place where the forgotten dwell," Iyagbẹ́kọ́ said quietly. "Not the dead. Not the sacred. The forgotten. The things our ancestors chose not to pass down. The truths no elder dares to speak. They sank there. Beneath all dreaming. And they wait."
Ola stepped forward. "If she finds them—"
"If she finds them too fast," Iyagbẹ́kọ́ said, looking at him now, her eyes sharp as obsidian, "she will shatter. Or never return. The realm may collapse under her. The silence must be handled like a child born too early."
He clenched his jaw. "Then I'll go after her."
"You cannot," Iyagbẹ́kọ́ snapped, rising. Her presence filled the hut. "You are of flesh. Two breath-bound souls cannot anchor the dreaming at once. It would collapse the realm and drown you both."
Ola did not blink. "Then give me another way."
Silence. Heavy and deliberate. Iyagbẹ́kọ́ reached into her robes and drew a curved blade. Its shape was unfamiliar—part crescent moon, part rib-bone. Its edge shimmered faintly as though cut from sky and fossil.
"Dreambone," she said. "Carved from the remains of an ancestral seer who once walked between death and story. This blade can sever a memory. A strong one. One powerful enough to walk alone."
She met his gaze, and for a heartbeat, her age seemed unbearable. "If it finds her, she may rise. But you will lose it forever. That memory will not return to you. It will be… unyoked."
Ola stepped closer. "I don't need it. I only need her."
That night, the stars blinked uneasily over Obade. Even the wind moved strangely, curling in spirals along the ground as though searching for a mouth to enter. The villagers gathered at the riverbank in absolute silence. Their breath became offerings. Salt was laid in concentric circles. Runes glowed faintly beneath their feet.
Dreamwalkers stood on the perimeter, draped in river-silk and moon-thread, holding vessels of flame. Each vessel flickered with memory—condensed light forged from generations of offering.
Ola lay in the center, beside the salt vessel. Echo's body remained unmoving, her skin luminescent like pearl lit from within.
Iyagbẹ́kọ́ stood over him and placed the dreambone blade to his chest. "What memory will you offer?" she asked, voice almost a whisper.
Ola exhaled.
"The first time I met her," he said. "The moment I knew her name meant more than just a sound."
The blade cut—not with pain, but with release.
There was no blood. Only light.
A shimmer burst from Ola's chest—golden and glowing. It danced with scent and laughter, the touch of rain against skin, the rhythm of footsteps drawn toward fate. The memory lifted, swirling above him, before folding into a shape: a faceless being of pure emotion, light woven from a single name.
And then it drifted up, into the air, carried by breath and belief.
Inside the dreaming, Echo was drowning.
Not in water—but in voices.
They circled her like vultures made of ash, whispering contradictions, weaving shame.
"You are the silence."
"You are the end."
"You are not enough."
"You were never meant to return."
"You must forget."
"You must forget."
She gripped the threadlight, but it was unraveling. Its strands broke like spider silk soaked in grief. Around her, the dreaming river had turned black—viscous, sticky with betrayal. Forgotten truths clung to her like oil, dragging her into depths she couldn't name.
Then—warmth.
A hand on her shoulder.
She turned.
And there he was.
Not Ola—not in flesh. But her memory of him. The way she remembered him when she first let herself believe she could be loved. His eyes shone with sunrise. His hands bore no calluses, only care. His voice had no weight of time—only truth.
"You don't have to carry it all alone," he said.
She broke.
Not with weakness—but release.
She collapsed into his arms, and the black river shrieked and recoiled. The sky above them cracked—not shattered, but peeled open—revealing light.
And from that light, it rose.
Not the River Queen.
Not a drowned ancestor.
But the First Memory.
A figure formed from time's first utterance. It stood tall and without face. Ribbons of story wrapped its limbs. Its skin was made of ancient echoes. Its breath smelled of fire, sea, and soil.
Echo stepped back, eyes wide.
It didn't speak. It was speech.
The First Memory reached toward her, and instead of fear, she offered her hands.
The dreaming shuddered.
Back in Obade, lightning split the sky—though no clouds stirred. The salt vessel trembled like it might crack. The villagers recoiled. Iyagbẹ́kọ́ stepped forward, alarmed.
But the dreamwalkers raised their arms.
"Do not interfere," one whispered. "Something is coming through."
Then—
Echo sat up.
Her breath came as a gasp that sounded like thunder.
Her eyes opened.
And the stars in them were new.
They shimmered with constellations no map had ever named. Her skin pulsed with threadlight, and something older—origin-light.
When she spoke, her voice carried the cadence of the first drumbeat the world had ever heard.
"I have seen the beginning," she said, each word falling like a bell tolling across generations. "And I have held the silence in my hands."
Ola broke the circle. He ran to her, fell to his knees. "Echo—?"
She looked at him. And smiled.
It was the smile of a girl. A seer. A voice. A witness. A memory that had become more.
"Yes," she said. "And more."
The salt vessel dissolved into vapor.
The threadlight lifted, rising like ribbons before weaving around the villagers. Each strand brushed a person's chest, whispering their forgotten truths.
Names.
Stories.
Buried shame.
Ancient vows.
Things passed down through silence and inherited as fear.
And then—they remembered.
Who they were before forgetting.
Who they loved before loss.
What the river had taken—and what it now returned.
What the dreaming demanded of them all.
Echo stepped out of the vessel.
The ground beneath her feet hummed with recognition. Trees bowed. The river coiled closer.
"It's not over," she said, her voice steady. "The First Memory wants to speak. And its words will shake more than Obade. They will shake the world that forgot itself."
The dreamwalkers fell to their knees, heads bowed.
"The dreaming has chosen its voice," one whispered.
Iyagbẹ́kọ́ wept.
And so Echo, bearer of threadlight, walker of silence, chosen by the First Memory, began to speak.
Her words braided wind and river, flame and sky. They reached across the village, across time, across the fabric of the realm.
And in the breath between each sentence…
…the world leaned closer to listen.