The dawn in Obade did not come with light. It came with silence. A silence so thick it pressed into the breath, into the bones, into the hearts of those who stirred beneath the long shadow of what had been broken the night before. The river's lullaby had turned to a whisper of grief, and the village cradled it like a child who would not wake.
Iyagbẹ́kọ had not slept. She stood at the threshold of the shrine, her back straight despite the aching in her knees. Her hands were smeared with ashes, her eyes dry, yet far from empty. Before her, the mourning fires still burned low, red coals swallowing the last of the night's offerings. Beside her sat a cracked gourd of oil, and the remnants of the sacred cloth she had torn to summon the ancestral rite of stillness. That rite had not brought peace.
It had brought memory.
Ola approached from the side path, her footsteps light, though each step seemed to bear the weight of stone. She had spent the last hours walking the edges of the village, seeking echoes in places where the past had once murmured. But the echoes had turned to screams.
"She is not here," Ola said, her voice hoarse.
Iyagbẹ́kọ did not turn to face her. "She is never truly gone. Only forgotten. And you," she added, finally shifting her gaze, "have not yet forgotten. That is why your heart hurts like this."
Ola lowered her head. The dream still lingered in her chest. Ẹ̀nítàn standing at the river, holding the bleeding sky in her hands. A song without melody. A scream wrapped in prayer.
Behind them, the villagers had begun to stir. Small movements. Children clinging to their mothers. Men brushing ash from their brows, eyes hard and distant. Grief had no language that morning, only ritual.
The hollow in the center of Obade—the place where the sacred tree had once stood—was now a mound of smoldering soil. They had buried her there. Ẹ̀nítàn. Or what was left of her. Not her body, but her voice, her blood, her echo. The women had gathered at dusk and sang the nine farewell hymns, though no one knew if the songs had reached her. No one knew if she was listening.
Èkóyé sat alone near the ashes, the hood of her wrapper pulled over her head, her fingers wrapped tightly around the stone she had taken from beneath Ẹ̀nítàn's resting place. It pulsed faintly, like a heart still trying to believe in life. She had not spoken since the fire.
"The others are coming," Ola said suddenly. "Dreamwalkers. From the north, from the coast."
Iyagbẹ́kọ's mouth thinned. "They will come to look. To ask. To judge."
"Or to help."
"They are not like us. They do not remember the shape of mourning. They will speak of battles and ghosts and magic. But what we carry here—" she touched her chest, then her temple, "—is deeper than that."
Ola stepped closer. "Then let us teach them. Let us show them what grief looks like when it breathes. When it refuses to fade."
A sudden movement drew their attention. From the east road, a figure emerged, cloaked in the soft gray of early morning. A staff in one hand, a bundle across his back. His hair was knotted with cowries, and the scar across his cheek marked him as one of the Hollowed.
Iyagbẹ́kọ stiffened.
Ola whispered, "He carries no mask."
"He carries a story. That is more dangerous."
The man stopped before them. He did not bow, nor speak right away. Instead, he reached into the folds of his cloak and withdrew a folded piece of bark, marked with red ochre and ink.
"For the Keeper of the Shrine," he said.
Iyagbẹ́kọ took the offering but did not open it. "What name do you bear, Hollowed one?"
He tilted his head. "None that would matter here. The name I had was eaten by your river."
Ola stepped forward. "Then why come back to it?"
"Because its song remains in my blood. Because the silence calls me more than the noise ever did."
He looked past them, toward the heart of the village, where Èkóyé still sat unmoving. A flicker crossed his face. Recognition. Or longing. Or guilt.
Iyagbẹ́kọ finally opened the bark scroll. Her eyes moved slowly across the symbols.
"He is not alone," she murmured. "They are gathering in the south. Whispering of a door that was never meant to be opened."
Ola met her gaze. "Another sealed place? Like beneath the shrine?"
"No," said the Hollowed man. "Worse. A memory that was buried alive."
The wind shifted, and with it came the scent of salt. Not the soft salt of river breeze, but the sharp, stinging tang of sea storms. Something beyond Obade had begun to stir.
Iyagbẹ́kọ turned back toward the shrine. "We must prepare the rites again. Not for death, but for remembrance. If they are coming to dig, then we must know what they'll find before they do."
Ola nodded, but her eyes were drawn once more to the mound at the village's center. To Èkóyé, and to the stone that pulsed in her hands. A heartbeat, or a warning.
At dusk, a council was called—not in the great house, but in the open, beneath the naked sky. No masks. No chants. Only truth.
The fire crackled between them. Iyagbẹ́kọ sat at the circle's edge, Ola beside her, the Hollowed stranger across. Èkóyé had finally risen, and now stood behind Ola, silent but alert. Her eyes shimmered faintly, like the stone she carried had leaked its grief into her veins.
"We are not alone anymore," Iyagbẹ́kọ began. "The world has begun to remember us. Or at least, the pieces it tried to forget. But memory does not return gently."
The Hollowed man nodded. "The ones you call Hollowed have felt the shifts in dream. Some are waking to their pain. Others are becoming what the pain made them."
Ola asked, "And which are you?"
He met her eyes. "I am what remains when the song is silenced too long."
A murmur passed through the gathered villagers. The fire hissed.
"We must open the vault," Iyagbẹ́kọ said.
Gasps.
"You said it must never be opened," one of the elders protested.
"That was before she sang. Before she died to bring it back. Now we must see what lies beneath, before others come to claim it."
Ola reached into her satchel and placed the carved horn on the ground. It had belonged to Ẹ̀nítàn. A piece of her voice.
"This," Ola said, "will guide us. She left it behind for a reason. I believe it can open what was locked."
Èkóyé finally spoke. "And what if what lies beneath was buried for a reason? What if it is not a treasure, but a wound?"
"Then we will tend it," Iyagbẹ́kọ answered. "Or bleed with it. But we will not run."
The decision was made.
Before the moon reached its zenith, the council moved to the shrine's deepest chamber, where a stone door rested beneath layers of prayer cloth and forgotten dust. Ola placed the horn in the notch. A breathless silence. Then, a rumble.
Stone shifted.
The door opened.
Beyond it: a staircase. Winding down into the earth, into a memory sealed in shadow.
Iyagbẹ́kọ took the first step.
And the others followed.