Chapter Six
The dreams no longer waited for sleep.
They came to Asha while she was wide awake—sitting, walking, blinking.
She would be pounding yam one moment, and in the next, she'd be knee-deep in water, surrounded by faceless spirits whispering a single name: Zuberi.
Each time she asked, Who is Zuberi? the whispers scattered like birds startled by thunder.
But the name lingered—haunting her breath, hiding beneath her tongue.
It was no name she had heard in the village.
Yet it stirred something deep and old in her bones, like a drumbeat her body recognized even if her mind could not.
Mama Tani listened carefully as Asha recounted everything—the visions, the voice of her father, the coin, and now, the name.
When Asha finished, the old priestess lit seven small fires in a circle and placed a stone in the center.
"It has begun," she murmured. "The Second Gate is calling."
Asha stared at her. "Where is it?"
"Not where," Mama Tani said gravely. "Who. The second gate is a person."
Asha felt her chest tighten. "Zuberi."
Mama Tani nodded. "He was born during the flood season, in a village swallowed by the river. His mother died birthing him. His father vanished in the storm. The elders say he speaks to trees… and dreams of places he has never been."
Asha's heart thudded. "Where is he now?"
"The edge of the Mangrove Lands. Far east. Beyond the whispering dunes."
"Then I have to find him."
Mama Tani held her wrist. "Asha, listen to me. The Second Gate is not like you. His power sleeps. It is untrained. Untouched. If the tidebound reach him first—"
"They won't," Asha said, her voice suddenly steady. "Because I'll get there before they do."
Her journey began before sunrise.
She wrapped her grandmother's amulet around her neck, slipped the silver-marked coin into a pouch at her hip, and painted protective sigils onto her arms—ones Mama Tani had etched from memory.
With every step eastward, the wind changed.
The trees grew quieter.
And the world began to feel less solid.
Sometimes the path twisted unexpectedly, doubling back on itself like a snake biting its own tail.
Sometimes her shadow didn't follow her — it led.
Once, while walking through a thicket of bamboo, a voice called out from behind her — in her own voice.
She didn't turn.
Mama Tani had warned her: "If you ever hear yourself from behind, keep walking. It's not you."
After two days of walking, she reached the Mangrove Lands.
The trees stood like sentinels, their roots clawing the wet earth, their branches tangled with spirits too shy to speak.
She moved slowly, lantern in hand, guided by a rhythm more ancient than light.
At the edge of a tide-fed clearing, she saw a boy sitting atop a twisted root — no older than sixteen, his skin glowing with salt and dusk, his eyes wide, far too knowing.
He didn't look surprised to see her.
"You're late," he said softly.
Asha blinked. "Zuberi?"
He nodded. "You've been calling me for days."
"I have?"
He touched his chest. "I felt it. In here. Like someone knocking on a locked door."
Asha stepped closer. "Do you know what you are?"
"No," he said. "But I know what I see."
"What do you see?"
He pointed behind her.
She turned slowly.
There, rising from the mist, was a great doorway — black stone, etched with the same spiral that had burned into her skin. It stood taller than the tallest palm, yet flickered like smoke. It wasn't real, and yet it was.
The Second Gate.
Zuberi's breath quickened. "It's… beautiful. But also terrible."
"It's both," Asha said. "Because it's not just a door. It's a choice."
He looked at her then — fear dancing behind his eyes. "I don't want to open it."
"You may not have a choice."
And just as she said it—
The sky above them shivered.
A crack rang through the air.
The mangroves wailed.
And from beneath the earth, from roots long buried, a whisper rose—
"Too late…"
Dark figures began to rise — six of them, robed in kelp and fog, their faces stitched with riverweed.
The tidebound had come.
In the moment between breath and battle,
Asha stood between the gates and the boy who bore the second key.
Not just a guardian now—
but a protector of fate.