The air inside the ruined temple was colder now. The torches that had flared when Sefu opened the Kitabu cha Mauti were long extinguished, leaving only a faint green shimmer from the runes etched across the stone floor. The smell of dust and death hung thick in the air.
Sefu woke to silence. His body ached, his arms still burned where the black markings had seared into his flesh. The whispers had faded, but they lingered like echoes beneath his skin.
For a long moment, he simply breathed. Then the memories returned.
The screams. The fire. Neema's eyes.
He pressed his palms to his face, but the images wouldn't leave. The world above still spun in peace while the ashes of his home lay cold in the dirt.
Something shifted behind him.
A faint sound like the brush of bare feet against stone.
He turned.
There, standing at the edge of the altar's dim light, was a small figure. Her dress was torn. Her hair clung to her face. Her voice trembled.
"Brother…"
Sefu's breath caught. "Neema?"
She stepped forward, and his heart nearly broke. It was her exactly as she had been, save for the hollow glow in her eyes. The faint scar across her neck shimmered faintly, a thin line of light.
"Neema," he whispered, stumbling toward her. "You're alive"
Her voice cut through his. "Are we?"
He froze.
Her expression didn't change, but her words carried something else beneath them something older, colder, heavier than any human tone.
"We screamed for help. The light turned away. The Guardians watched. Did you see them smile, brother?"
Sefu fell to his knees. "I tried"
"You lived," she said softly, her eyes reflecting the pale green glow of the runes. "We died. And yet you still breathe."
He reached for her hand, but when his fingers touched hers, his skin met nothing but air. She flickered first Neema, then something else. Shadows stretched from her form, twisting her voice into a dozen overlapping whispers.
"Life," the whispers murmured, "is nothing but ones and zeros. Alive. Dead. Nothing in between."
Sefu's breath trembled. "You said that…"
"Did I?" The figure smiled a cruel echo of his sister's warmth. "Or did you always know it?"
The shadows behind her writhed like smoke. When he blinked, she was gone. Only the faint echo of her voice lingered: Make them feel what we felt.
He knelt there for a long time, trembling. The temple was silent again, but something inside him had shifted.
By the time he stumbled from the ruins, dawn was breaking. The horizon burned red over Kivuli.
In the far distance, the towers of the nobles' quarter glimmered like teeth. The world looked almost peaceful from here.
Sefu's steps carried him back toward the outskirts of the slums. His old street was unrecognizable nothing but blackened timber and caved-in roofs.
He found what was left of his home. The forge was cold. The anvil cracked in half. His father's hammer lay half-buried in ash. He picked it up, brushing the soot from its surface.
The weight felt the same. But his hands were not the same hands that once swung it.
Behind him came the sound of a cough.
He turned sharply, raising the hammer. A hunched figure stood near the ruins of the next hut, wrapped in rags, his gray beard streaked with soot.
"Sefu," the man rasped. "Child… you live."
Sefu's grip faltered. "Mzee Dogo?"
The old man smiled faintly. "By the grace of the gods, yes. I thought I saw your ghost." He hobbled forward, his eyes wet with relief. "I looked for you after the fires. They said all were gone."
Sefu stared, unsure whether to embrace him or run. "All are gone," he said quietly.
Dogo's gaze drifted to the hammer, then to the marks scorched along Sefu's arms. "What have you done?"
Sefu looked down. The black symbols seemed to pulse faintly under his skin. "What I had to."
"No," Dogo said softly. "You've touched something that doesn't belong in this world."
Sefu's voice broke. "This world took everything from me."
Dogo shook his head. "Revenge won't bring them back."
Something inside Sefu snapped. The words were the same ones he had heard from priests, from Guardians, from anyone who had never watched their blood spill.
He stepped closer. "And mercy won't bring them justice."
The old man backed away, fear dawning in his eyes. "Sefu… what did you call from that temple?"
A sound rose behind Sefu, a faint rattling, like bones dragged across stone. The ground trembled. The air turned cold.
Figures began to emerge from the ruins: twisted silhouettes of the dead, their hollow eyes glowing green, their movements slow but sure.
Dogo stumbled backward, clutching his chest. "No. No, child, you can't"
"I didn't," Sefu whispered. "They came to me."
The first of the corpses knelt before him. The others followed, one by one, bowing in silence. Their presence filled the air with a weight that pressed against the lungs.
Sefu turned toward Dogo. The old man's tears cut lines through the ash on his face. "You can still stop this," he said. "You can still come back."
Sefu's voice was low. "Back to what?"
He raised his hand slightly, almost without meaning to. The nearest corpse moved, grabbing Dogo's shoulder. The old man screamed, struggling as the creature's fingers tightened.
"Stop!" Sefu cried but the thing didn't. It crushed him against the wall, its strength unnatural. When Sefu tried to pull it away, another shadowy form obeyed his gesture, and then another.
In seconds, the ruins went silent again.
Dogo lay still.
Sefu fell to his knees beside him, shaking. The corpses stood motionless, waiting. The green light of their eyes reflected in his own.
"I didn't mean to," he whispered. His hands were shaking, bloodless. "I didn't mean—"
The Whisperer's voice coiled through his thoughts like smoke. You command death, yet you mourn the living. Which do you think loves you more?
Sefu clenched his fists. "They were my family."
Then let the dead be your family.
He looked around at the silent figures their faces blank, but obedient. In their stillness, there was no judgment. No fear. Only loyalty.
He rose slowly, his grief a shadow behind his eyes.
"Then rise, my family," he said. "Rise and follow me."
The corpses stirred, the earth shifting under their feet. The black runes on Sefu's arms glowed brighter, pulsing in rhythm with his heart.
He turned toward the distant glow of the capital.
House Nyoka would pay. The Walinzi wa Nuru would burn. The kingdom of light would drown in its own reflection.
He looked up at the pale morning sky and whispered, "Life is nothing but ones and zeros. Alive. Dead. And soon, none in between."
The dead moved as one behind him.
Kivuli was about to learn what happens when hope dies and vengeance wakes.