The climb from the Bone Oracle's chamber felt longer than the descent.
Each step was heavier than the last, as though the weight of memory clung to them now—dense, unrelenting. The silence between them wasn't born of fear, but reverence. Something had shifted. The Oracle had given them a truth too old to ignore, and the gravity of it gnawed at them with every breath they took.
Ola's lantern flickered, casting long, uneasy shadows against the stone walls. The carvings etched into the rock seemed more animated now, as if they breathed with the pulse of memory—the faces in the stone no longer just symbols, but watchers.
When they finally emerged into the shrine's lowest antechamber, the stale air shifted, subtly fresher, as if exhaling after holding its breath for centuries.
Ola stopped short.
The space was cavernous, and unlike anything they had encountered in the tunnels above. Towering at the far end of the chamber was a vast, ancient door carved entirely of black stone veined with red quartz, its surface inscribed with spiraling patterns of water and flame, sun and bone. A symbol of balance—and war.
Hundreds of shallow depressions decorated the door's face. Each held a small, flat disc of stone, identical in size and texture. But what set them apart were the markings.
Every disc bore a name, etched not by hand or tool, but by something older, more violent. The letters were blackened, burnt into the stone, as though seared by lightning or cursed fire. They smoldered faintly, as if still cooling from a heat long past.
Iyagbẹ́kọ stepped forward, leaning more heavily on her cane than usual. Her breath was even, but her eyes glimmered—sharp, remembering.
"The Vault of Unspoken Names," she said, voice barely above a whisper.
Echo approached one of the discs. Her fingers hovered before making contact. The stone radiated warmth, strangely alive.
Ola frowned, taking a step closer. "Why are they warm?"
Iyagbẹ́kọ didn't hesitate. "Because these are not the names we buried. These are the names that refused burial. The ones who still call out. The ones no grave could hold."
Ọmọjolá narrowed her eyes. "You mean… the ones who died without justice."
"Yes." Iyagbẹ́kọ's voice was quiet but unwavering. "And those who were denied the right to speak before they were silenced."
Echo's expression hardened. "Then we open it."
The moment the words left her lips, the chamber reacted.
The air turned viscous, clinging to their skin like oil. The temperature dropped, and a slow hum began to rise—not mechanical, but organic. The discs vibrated, a chorus of quiet unrest.
Ola stepped back instinctively. "Something's waking."
A resonant pulse echoed from within the door—slow, deep, ancient. Not a heartbeat. Not a drum. Something in between.
Then the spirals on the door lit, veins of blue and red flame dancing outward like bloodlines reawakened. The carvings pulsed with light, illuminating the chamber in an otherworldly glow.
And then, the names began to whisper.
Thousands of voices. Some low and guttural, others high and keening. All speaking at once—overlapping, weaving together into a terrifying tapestry of language and loss. The room filled with the weight of a thousand untold stories.
Iyagbẹ́kọ's hands trembled on her cane, but she stood firm. "They know we're here. And they won't allow their names to be taken lightly."
Ọmọjolá stepped forward, voice clear. "How do we open it?"
Iyagbẹ́kọ turned slowly to Echo. "With song."
Ola blinked. "The kind of song you sing to the living?"
"No," Iyagbẹ́kọ said. "The kind you sing to those still listening in death."
There was no hesitation in Echo. She stepped forward and closed her eyes. For a breath, she was completely still—gathering something from deep within herself.
Then she sang.
The first note wasn't sung but hummed, vibrating in her throat like it came from her bones rather than her lungs. The sound was haunting, low and aching. It didn't compete with the whispers—it mingled with them. The voices responded. They shifted, attuned to her, like water drawn to the moon.
The hum deepened into melody. A lament—no language, just grief turned into sound.
One by one, the discs on the door began to glow.
The whispers grew louder, but now they carried meaning.
"…they locked me away for dreaming…"
"…I drowned in the yam pit…"
"…they made me a monster…"
"…I saw the truth, and they cut out my tongue…"
Ola clenched his fists. The words pierced like knives. In the dancing light beyond the door, pale forms flickered—silhouettes with eyes burning in the dark. Not ghosts, not quite. They were memories given shape, given need.
Echo's voice rose. The lament became almost unbearable in its beauty and sorrow. The spirals on the door pulsed faster, faster, until—
A sound like stone splitting filled the chamber.
The door opened.
It didn't creak or groan. It slid inward smoothly, as if eager. A blast of hot air poured out, thick with the scent of old blood, salt, and ash. A darkness loomed beyond—not empty, but alive.
The shadows moved like slow smoke, and in the depths of that smoke… eyes. Dozens. Hundreds. Staring. Unblinking.
Ola felt his pulse hammer in his throat. "What is this place?"
Iyagbẹ́kọ's voice was solemn. "The mouth of the stories. Once you step inside, the stories will not let you leave until they are told."
Echo looked back to Ola, then Ọmọjolá. "We go together."
They crossed the threshold.
The heat was immediate, clinging to them like sweat made of ash and memory. The air was heavy with whispers—curling into their ears, winding through their thoughts.
Shapes materialized in the gloom. Not spirits, but the essence of moments. Living echoes.
A man draped in riverweed, water pooling at his feet with every step.
A woman whose lips were sewn shut, her arms cradling a child who would never have a name.
A boy with no eyes, arms outstretched, grasping for something he had never seen.
They didn't speak. They didn't need to.
They watched.
The companions walked as if through a crowd that had been waiting centuries for this moment.
At the chamber's center lay a wide stone pit, filled with still black water. It reflected nothing. It absorbed everything. The spiral motif repeated here, etched into the stone rim and filled with a slurry of ash, red clay, and bone dust.
Echo knelt beside it. Her breath trembled. "This is where they kept the names."
Iyagbẹ́kọ stepped forward. "Where they drowned what they feared. Where they believed silence was power."
Ola stared at the water. "And we're here to bring them back."
Iyagbẹ́kọ shook her head slowly. "No. You're here to ask if they want to return. To give them the choice."
The water stirred.
A figure began to rise—formed not from flesh, but from words. Names written across every inch of its shifting body, constantly moving. Names in a dozen languages, etched in flame and ink and shadow.
It spoke, and the vault echoed with the weight of it.
"We will speak—but only if you vow to carry the burden of our truth. Do you understand?"
Ola took a shaky step forward. His voice was small, but steady. "We understand. And we promise."
The being raised a hand. Hovering above its palm was a shard of obsidian, shaped like a fang, glowing faintly red at the edges.
"This will open the way between worlds—memory and flesh, silence and song. But know this: once opened, it will never close. You cannot unknow what we show you. You cannot un-carry it."
Ola reached out. His fingers brushed the shard.
It pulsed—once, twice—then leapt into his hand like it belonged there.
The moment his skin closed around it, the vault exploded in sound.
Voices screamed. Sang. Sobbed. Laughed.
The walls vibrated. The ground buckled beneath their feet. Ola cried out, nearly dropping the shard, but it held fast, embedding itself against his skin like a second heartbeat.
"Run!" Echo yelled, grabbing his arm.
They fled back toward the threshold, the tidal wave of voices chasing them—thousands of stories unleashed at once, like a dam broken after centuries.
Iyagbẹ́kọ was the last to cross the threshold. The moment she passed through, the great door slammed shut behind them with a finality that echoed like a tomb sealing.
Silence fell.
But Ola's hand still burned.
The shard in his palm glowed faintly, and it whispered to him—not in words, but in hunger.
The voices would not sleep again.