The sky over Obade had darkened strangely, not with rain, but with a silence too thick to breathe. Ola stood in the courtyard of the old temple, her feet bare, skin marked with the dust of sleep, the chant of old songs still humming beneath her breath. The villagers had gathered again, drawn by the strange wind that whispered like voices returning from exile.
But it wasn't the river speaking this time.
It was something older.
Echo stood beside her, her expression unreadable, like she was holding in a scream that had lasted centuries. The Swallowed Songs still pulsed behind her ribs, waiting for a time to be set free. She glanced toward the elders, and then toward the boy — Ọmọjolá — whose dreams had led them to this moment.
"I think it's starting," Echo whispered, and Ola didn't ask what it was. She already knew.
From the forest line beyond the hill, figures began to emerge. They weren't Hollowed — not exactly. Their steps were careful, uncertain, as if every footfall risked being swallowed whole by memory. They wore patchwork robes made from torn tradition, and on their necks, strange carved pendants pulsed with dull light.
Ola's breath caught.
"They're Dreamwalkers," Iyagbẹ́kọ said from behind her, voice low. "But not like us."
The leader of the group stepped forward. A woman — skin like weathered copper, hair wrapped in dyed cloth and feathers, eyes lined with soot and age. She held no weapon, but power bled from her presence like smoke from burning wood.
"My name is N'jeri," she said. "We come from the city beneath the broken continent — where the myths were stolen before they were even born."
Echo flinched. "The Buried Dream?"
N'jeri nodded. "You've felt its tremors, child. The dreaming world has been ruptured. What happened here in Obade... it was only the beginning. The resurrection of Ẹ̀nítàn woke more than the river."
Ola stepped forward. "Then why come now? Why not before, when the Hollowed dragged souls into silence? Why not when the first mother drowned?"
N'jeri looked at her, and for a moment her eyes shimmered with something between grief and awe.
"Because now, someone finally answered."
The villagers murmured behind them. The elders whispered with the priests. Ọmọjolá clutched the pendant Echo had given him, the one carved from stone and riverbone. He seemed to hear something none of them could.
Iyagbẹ́kọ touched Ola's shoulder. "Listen. Do you feel that? The ones who spoke before... they're near."
And then they heard it — not a sound, but a presence.
A song without a mouth.
A memory without a speaker.
The wind shifted.
Across the village, the shrine drums began to rattle — untouched. The palm trees bowed slightly, though there was no breeze. From beneath the earth, a hum began to rise. It vibrated through their bones, ancient and yearning.
Ola dropped to one knee.
She wasn't fainting. She wasn't afraid.
She was answering.
Echo stepped forward and placed her hands to the red earth. Beside her, N'jeri and her Dreamwalkers did the same. Iyagbẹ́kọ followed suit. Then Ọmọjolá, trembling, but unafraid.
Ola's voice was the first to rise.
Not a scream. Not a song.
A naming.
"I am Ọlọrun's granddaughter. I carry the voice of the river. I carry the silence it swallowed."
Her voice was joined by Echo's:
"I am the Echo that was never erased. I remember those who were erased before me."
Then N'jeri:
"I am the mouth of the unspoken cities. The tongue of myth stolen by chains."
Iyagbẹ́kọ's voice came like thunder cracking stone:
"I am the memory keeper. The voice that hides beneath names."
Then, unexpectedly, from the crowd, others began to speak.
One by one.
"I am the child of the drowned."
"I am the one who found her sister's name in the ash."
"I am the father who buried his song because the world would not listen."
Their voices blended, braided into something thick, heavy, true.
And from beneath their feet, the earth answered.
A crack split through the center of the courtyard, glowing with a pale green light. It wasn't fire. It wasn't magic.
It was memory — surfacing like a river coming home.
From the crack, smoke rose. No stench, no flame. Only whispers. Countless whispers. Thousands of them.
They were not dangerous. They were waiting.
Ọmọjolá stood now, his small fingers trembling. His lips moved, and then he looked up.
"She's here," he said.
Ola's body went still. "Who?"
He pointed.
"Ẹ̀nítàn's mother."
The crack widened, not violently, but reverently. And out from it, a shape began to form. Not flesh. Not spirit.
A myth in its purest shape — a woman carved of light and salt, woven from prayer and riverroot.
She did not speak.
She sang.
And the song was not for the living.
It was for those who had spoken before and were buried beneath forgetting.
The villagers dropped to their knees.
Even Echo wept.
The woman walked to the center of the crowd, and where her feet touched, the ground shimmered like heat. She raised one hand. Not in command.
In invitation.
And behind her, one by one, other spirits emerged.
Mothers. Daughters. Fathers. Elders. Children. Wounds.
Names upon names.
Every ancestor who had died voiceless.
Every memory that had begged to be remembered.
Ola sobbed openly now, falling forward, arms wrapped around herself.
"I don't know what to do with all of this," she whispered.
And Echo said, softly, "We carry them. That's all we can do."
From the crack in the earth, the river's voice rose again — but this time, it was braided with others. Male and female. Young and ancient. Laughter and weeping. War cries and lullabies.
The village pulsed.
The myth anchored itself again.
Obade had become a gate.
And the ones who spoke before had returned — not to possess, but to witness.
N'jeri stepped beside Ola.
"This is happening everywhere," she said. "In the ruins beneath the Dreaming Cities. In the mountains where the archives were burned. In the drowned cathedrals."
"What do we do?"
"We make ready," N'jeri said. "We gather those who remember. We walk into the dreaming — not as prey, but as prophets."
Iyagbẹ́kọ stood, steady despite her age.
"We call it a Convergence," she said.
"Of the living and the dead?" Ola asked.
"No," Echo replied.
"Of the remembered and the forgotten."