Training began the next morning, quietly, as if it had always been part of their lives.
Baba did not announce it with ceremony. He simply stepped into the inner room where Ifabola sat by Kike's mat and said, "Come with me."
She rose, smoothing her wrapper, heart thudding. Her marked palm tingled, as if it already knew what was coming.
He led her to the smallest courtyard of the compound, a space hardly bigger than a goat pen. It was where herbs were usually dried, but now the mats had been rolled away. The bare earth lay open, damp from last night's rain.
"Sit," he said, pointing to a spot in the middle.
She obeyed, crossing her legs the way she'd seen apprentices sit for long chants.
Baba sank down opposite her, his staff laid aside for once.
"First," he said, "you must learn how to sit in your own body."
"I already know," she muttered.
"Do you?" He arched an eyebrow. "Last night you were pulled out of it like a snail from its shell."
She flushed.
"That was not my fault," she protested.
"I did not say it was," he replied. "But if you are to walk river‑paths and spirit roads and still come back to this small house of flesh, you must know its corners better than anyone else."
He reached out and touched the center of her forehead with one finger.
"Close your eyes," he said. "Breathe with me."
She obeyed reluctantly.
"In," he murmured. "Out. Listen to your own chest. Feel how your ribs move. Feel how the air enters your nose, cool, and leaves warmer. Count ten breaths. Do not think of anything else."
At first her thoughts skittered like lizards—Kike's still face, Dupe's grave by the river, the sting of stones on the gate. But Baba's voice anchored her. Slowly, her breathing settled into a rhythm.
"Good," he said softly. "Now put your hand on the ground."
She did, palm flat against damp earth.
"Remember this feeling," he said. "This is here. No matter how far your spirit walks, there must be a line tying you back to this. Your body is not a prison. It is a stake in the ground."
He paused.
"Now show me your other hand."
Hesitation fluttered in her chest. She opened her right palm.
The twisted mark gleamed faintly, even in morning light.
Baba did not draw back.
"Do you feel it now?" he asked. "Or only when it burns?"
"It's…quiet," she said slowly. "Like embers that haven't been poked."
"Good." He nodded. "For now, do nothing with it. Just notice. When it grows hot, tell me. Do not follow its pull on your own."
She nodded, though some stubborn part of her bristled at the rule.
They sat for a long time as he guided her through simple exercises—listening to the sounds of the compound without chasing them, feeling where her body ended and the air began, learning how to breathe even when ugly memories tried to claw at the edges of her thoughts.
By the time they finished, the sun was high.
"You will do this every dawn and dusk," Baba said. "Even if I am not here. Especially if I am not here."
"Are you going somewhere?" she asked sharply.
"Not yet." His gaze slid briefly toward the direction of the palace. "But the river of this matter is wide. I may have to walk along its banks."
When they rose, she felt oddly heavy and light at once, more aware of the weight of her own bones.
As they walked back through the courtyard, one of the apprentices hurried past, nearly colliding with Baba.
"Forgive me, Baba!" the boy gasped. "There is a woman at the gate asking for charms. She says her baby has not slept since the king died."
"See to her," Baba said. "Tell her I will come after I wash."
His tone was gentle, but Ifabola caught the flash in his eyes.
Every frightened mother in Ayetoro would soon be knocking at their gate.
That night, Ajani dreamed.
He was back in the lane outside the Ifatedo compound, stones in his hands. He threw them, one after another, at the blank wall, shouting until his voice broke. Each stone left a bloody smear instead of a mark of mud.
He blinked.
The wall was no longer mud.
It was made of ribs—giant, curving, pale. Between them, darkness pulsed.
Throw harder, a voice purred in his ear. They cannot hear you yet.
He hurled another stone.
This time, when it struck, the rib itself shuddered. A low, pleased rumble vibrated through the air.
"Yes," the voice murmured. "Anger is a sharp stone. Keep throwing, Ajani. One day you will break through."
He spun, heart pounding.
No one stood behind him.
Only a shadow, deeper than the others, curved along the ground. It rose as he watched, unfolding into a shape that was almost man, almost smoke.
"Who are you?" Ajani whispered.
"Call me what you like," the presence said. "Enemy of your enemy. Friend of those the high ones ignore."
Its words slid into the sore places in his chest—the grave of his younger brother who had died of coughing eight years ago while priests mumbled useless charms; the memory of his father's hand crushed under a cart wheel while rich merchants kept walking; the fresh image of the apprentice boy's wrapped body.
"They do not listen," the presence said, echoing his own thoughts. "They sit under big trees and talk while your people bleed."
Ajani's fists clenched.
"What can you do?" he demanded.
"For now?" The shadow smiled without a mouth. "I can listen. Later, I can give your hands a little more weight when you throw your stones."
Ajani swallowed.
"And the cost?" he asked, though not as strongly as he might once have.
"There is always a cost," the presence agreed. "But you are already paying it—with their deaths, not yours. Would it not be better to spend what is already being taken?"
The dream shifted.
He saw himself standing on a hill above Ayetoro, arms raised. Beneath him, the houses of those who had mocked him, ignored him, dismissed him, burned with slow, beautiful flames. In the distance, the palace tower cracked like a rotten tooth.
He woke with his heart racing and a taste like iron on his tongue.
For a moment, the darkness of his small room hummed with presence.
Then it thinned.
He lay back, panting, the echo of the voice still in his skull.
When he finally fell asleep again, he did not remember the conversation clearly. Only the anger remained—hotter, sharper, now threaded with the intoxicating sense that somewhere, something immensely powerful was listening to it and nodding.
Days slid into one another.
Ifabola's lessons continued in snatches—between Baba's consultations with frightened villagers, between the queen‑mother's summons, between the small, necessary tasks of daily life.
She learned how to ground herself with a breath.
How to sense when something pressed against the edges of a room, even if no door opened.
How to visit Kike's in‑between river without slipping too far herself.
Her sister remained in that strange pause.
Each night, Ifabola whispered into her dreams, telling her stories Dupe used to tell, singing market songs, describing the taste of roasted plantain and the feel of warm sun on bare feet.
"Don't go wandering," she would say at the end of each visit. "Stay where you are. We're working on it."
Kike often nodded sleepily.
Once, she said, "Dupe is funny here too," before drifting further into the mist.
Ifabola woke each time with her chest aching and a resolve coiling tighter in her gut.
The mark on her palm no longer flared without warning.
It was there, a constant ember, sometimes pulsing in time with her heartbeat, sometimes lying still. When she focused on it, it hummed faintly, like a drum very far away.
"Do not feed it attention for too long," Baba warned. "Notice, then turn away. You are learning to hold a snake. Stare at its eyes too long and you forget it has fangs."
She listened.
Most of the time.
Whispers in the village did not quiet.
If anything, they grew.
"Did you hear? They say the king's killer sits now in our own market, drinking palm wine like a common man."
"Some say Baba Ifa admitted calling the name once."
"That little girl of his—have you seen her hand? My cousin's wife swears she saw it glow in the dark."
Fear, once loose, has many tongues.
The queen‑mother, desperate to show strength, ordered a cleansing procession—a great walk through the streets where shrines from the major clans would be carried side by side, drums beating in harmony, priests chanting for unity.
A festival of peace, she called it.
EJEH called it something else.
An opportunity.