The air hung heavy with moisture and unspoken tension as night fell once more over Obade.
It was not the restful hush of a village winding down. No, this night pressed down like a lid—thick, damp, and strange. A storm, not of rain but of reckoning, loomed on the horizon, and the earth knew it. In the quiet, even the insects sang differently: softer, more rhythmic, as though obeying a signal far older than sound.
Fires burned in doorways, casting flickering light onto the earthen walls of homes. Long shadows danced like spirits—curved, wavering, human but not quite. Smoke curled upward into the deep blue sky, where the stars flickered nervously behind clouds too high to be stormborn, yet too low to be innocent.
By the water's edge, Ola stood alone.
The pendant pressed cold against his chest, its carved spiral warmed now only by his own heartbeat. The river moved before him, dark and restless, its whispers thicker than they had been the night before—more insistent. Secrets slid through the current like eels, brushing against thought and memory alike.
The river had become a mouth.
And it was no longer content to murmur.
Ola exhaled through his nose. He hadn't slept since the shadows were faced beneath the baobab tree. Not truly. Whenever his eyes shut, the river surged into his dreams, dragging him into places half-seen and half-known—visions not entirely his own.
He sensed Iyagbẹ́kọ́ before he heard her.
She stepped out of the gloom like a piece of the land itself, wrapped in a dark shawl speckled with ash. Her footsteps made no sound on the wet soil. Her hair was tied back, exposing the thick lines of her neck and the deep-set eyes that had watched over generations.
She did not greet him. She rarely did when the river spoke too loudly.
"The water is warning us," she said. "But whether it warns us of something or for something… I cannot say."
Ola's fingers brushed the surface of the river, letting the cold bite his skin. "There's unrest," he said. "The shadows last night—what they carried was only part of what lingers here. Something stirs behind the echoes now. Something vast. Hungry."
Iyagbẹ́kọ́ gave a single, solemn nod. "We've cracked the veil between what is and what was. But the river doesn't distinguish. To it, time is all the same. When we remember, we invite everything that's ever been."
She looked toward the horizon. "And some of it… should have stayed forgotten."
From the heart of the village came a low hum—chanting, layered with drumbeats too slow to be celebratory. It was preparation. The dreamwalkers, once fragmented by fear and forgetting, had begun to move as one—reborn, marked by threadlight and fire, grief and resolve. They walked through the alleys with purpose now, gathering salt, mixing oils, painting protective sigils at the doors of sleeping children.
For the first time in a generation, Obade was preparing not to survive—but to stand.
"We must gather the people again," Ola said. "Tonight."
Iyagbẹ́kọ́'s lips pressed thin. "The Guardian has been roused."
At her words, a silence pressed down between them. Even the river paused.
Ola turned sharply. "You've seen it?"
"Echo has."
Within the sacred hut, where the air buzzed with threadlight and woven incantation, Echo knelt alone, her back straight, her breath measured. She was surrounded by delicate floating strands—woven symbols suspended in air, glowing gently, their movements synchronized to the beat of her heart.
In her hands, she held a bowl of dark water—river water, blessed and stirred. In its depths, images formed and dissolved: faces of elders long gone, crumbling villages, a storm with no thunder.
And then—him.
From the shadows emerged a figure tall as a tree, cloaked in vines and bone, his face hidden behind a mask of interlocked branches and teeth. His eyes blazed gold—not with fire, but with memory.
The Guardian of the Threshold.
She whispered the name without meaning to, the weight of it cracking in her voice.
He was not evil.
But he was not merciful.
Iyagbẹ́kọ́ entered then, ducking low beneath the frame. She said nothing at first, letting her eyes adjust to the shimmering symbols in the air.
"The Guardian comes," Echo said. "Drawn by imbalance. He does not destroy without purpose, but if we cannot face him… he will erase us to restore the boundary."
Iyagbẹ́kọ́ nodded grimly. "We have trespassed. Stirred too much. Now we must show him that we understand the song we've begun to sing."
A moment later, Ola entered, breathless, a line of threadlight still trailing from his right hand—evidence of his recent vision.
"We meet him tonight," he said. "Together."
By the time the village gathered again beneath the baobab tree, the sky had grown strange.
It was too still. Too silent.
Not even the frogs dared sing.
A wide ring had been traced around the tree—salt mixed with ash, threadlight with crushed emberroot. Small fires burned at the cardinal points, their smoke rising in perfect columns. Children sat close to their elders, their faces tight with awe and confusion.
This was no ritual they recognized.
This was older.
A calling.
Ola, Iyagbẹ́kọ́, and Echo stood at the center, their hands clasped, their eyes closed.
The threadlight spread out from them in concentric circles, pulsing with each beat of their joined hearts. Above them, the branches of the baobab twisted as though listening.
And then—
The forest exhaled.
The trees shifted.
And from the darkness, something stepped out.
First came the sound: like stones cracking under pressure, like dry branches breaking beneath the weight of truth. Then came the shape—massive, deliberate. Vines writhed across its form, coiling like serpents. Bones clung to its shoulders, not trophies but burdens. Its arms moved like the limbs of a marionette caught between dance and judgment.
Its eyes blazed gold.
The Guardian of the Threshold had arrived.
Gasps rippled through the crowd. A few people stumbled backward. One man collapsed entirely, sobbing.
But Ola did not move.
He stepped forward, palms open.
"We know who you are," he said. "And why you come. We ask only for a chance—to show that we carry the river's song with purpose, not arrogance."
The Guardian made no sound, but the air bent around it. The flames flickered sideways. The river surged once, high and furious, before settling into stillness.
It raised one arm.
And Echo moved.
Her voice rang out—not as words, but as tone. A single note, low and full, built from memory and marrow. It was not music. It was invocation. It reached into the soil, into the bones of the village, into the roots of the baobab.
The Guardian moved in response—a slow, circling turn. Not an attack. A dance.
A challenge.
Iyagbẹ́kọ́ joined next, her voice cracked and rasping but strong. Her tone braided with Echo's, forming a line of sound that shimmered like smoke.
Then Ola.
His note was deep, grounding, rich with the pain of responsibility.
Together, their song spiraled outward.
The Guardian began to shift.
Its steps echoed the rhythm.
It was speaking—through movement, through silence. A language older than the river. A question.
The village watched, breath held. Some began to hum—tentatively at first, then with growing confidence. The circle of sound expanded, layers upon layers, a tapestry of joy, fear, confession, and defiance.
The river shimmered. Its surface became a mirror—and in it, visions danced: the founding of Obade, the day the river first sang, the night the silencing began, the moments stolen by shame and swallowed by time.
All of it played out in threadlight and water.
The Guardian raised both arms.
And then stilled.
One final note sounded—soft and low, like the closing of a door.
The Guardian's form began to unravel—not violently, but with grace. The vines released. The bones fell softly to the earth, like leaves. Its chest opened, revealing not a heart, but a single glowing seed suspended in air.
Then it was gone.
The mist reclaimed it.
Only the seed remained.
Iyagbẹ́kọ́ stepped forward and caught it with both hands. It pulsed once, gently.
"This," she said, voice trembling, "is not a weapon. It is a promise."
"A promise," Ola echoed, turning to the people. "That even the oldest powers will yield to purpose. That remembering is not destruction, but growth."
He looked down at the seed.
"Balance demands sacrifice. But it also offers renewal."
The people remained silent for a long time. Not from fear. From reverence.
Then, slowly, one by one, they began to sing again—not a ritual song, not a mourning song. A new melody. Unnamed. Half-formed. A seed of its own.
The night deepened around them.
And somewhere beyond the village, the storm that had loomed held its breath.
Not in retreat.
But in awe.