Night settled over the palace like a veil of cooling ash, muting the sounds of revelry from the lower courtyards where Sunstone Tournament celebrations still flickered. Moonlight spilled through the arched windows of Jabara's temporary chambers, painting faint silver lines across the marble floor.
She sat cross-legged, spine tall, palms pressed together before her chest. Around her, dozens of wind-bells fashioned from jade, bone, and folded paper chimed softly with even the slightest movement of air—her small homage to Oya, Orisha of winds, change, storms, and the restless spirits of transition.
But even their familiar harmony did little to calm her mind.
Everything felt wrong.
Everything.
The kingdom she'd left for her year-long spiritual pilgrimage was gone—its heart ripped out, replaced by a careful, silent rhythm directed by a king she barely knew. A king she feared she understood all too well.
The old king's madness.
The prince's sudden ascension.
The vanished witnesses.
The silence every time she asked for details.
Jabara inhaled deeply, letting her breath rise into her chest and out past her lips. The wind-bells answered, their notes whispering through the empty room.
"Oya," she murmured, "Mother of Winds. Clearer of paths, opener of roads… hear me."
The bells tinkled, a swirl of soft notes dancing around her.
"I ask not for glory," she said. "Only clarity. I returned to a kingdom unrecognizable. Shadows move in the halls where truth once walked openly. And now…" Her eyes tightened. "Now I see corruption in the àṣẹ of a fighter. The touch of a dead Orisha."
Her heartbeat thumped once, heavy.
"Iku," she whispered. "And the stain that follows him."
The air shifted.
Cold.
Sudden.
As though the room itself inhaled and held its breath.
Jabara's eyes closed.
She let herself fall—not physically, but inward, the way only an Aláàṣẹ could, slipping past the conscious mind into the domain where Orisha spoke not in words but storms.
The bells went silent.
The wind died.
Then—
A crack of thunder split the quiet.
Her meditation chamber vanished, replaced by a field of blackened trees stretching to a horizon choked with smoke. The sky howled with a storm without rain. Purple spores drifted on the wind.
Jabara's breath caught.
She stood at the edge of a dying world.
"Oya?" she called.
Wind tore past her, carrying voices that belonged to no human throat.
And then she saw him.
A shadow walking upright among mortals.
A figure of pure blackness, not as absence but as presence, wearing a mask shaped like a skull as long as a horse's, trailing tendrils of dying greenery wherever he stepped.
Iku?
But not alone.
Another silhouette walked beside him—taller, thinner, adorned with a crown of branching horns. Her long dress rippled like vines in a storm, though its edges crumbled into ash.
Oko?
An Orisha whose worship had died a millennium ago.
An Orisha whose wrath had not.
His steps turned green fields gray…
Flowers collapsed into dust…
Trees shriveled, leaving only their skeletal outlines…
In her steps purple fungi blossomed like spreading wounds across the earth.
The blight pulsed in perfect rhythm with Iku's stride.
Jabara stumbled back, though her dream-body made no sound. She felt the rot creeping, felt the smell of fungal decay sting the back of her throat.
A whisper curled through the wind:
"They return."
And another, layered beneath the first:
"The gates open again."
The storm intensified, sweeping upward in a spiraling column of violet spores.
Jabara screamed—
—and the vision snapped.
She gasped, collapsing forward, palms hitting the cold marble floor of her chamber. Sweat dripped from her brow. Her wind-bells clattered frantically, spinning from a wind she had not conjured.
"Oya…" she whispered, shaking. "What are you warning me of?"
But she already knew.
Iku.
Oko.
Corruption.
Fungal blight.
And a kingdom blind to its own unraveling.
The new king's curiosity for the corrupted fighter suddenly felt far more dangerous than political intrigue.
It felt like prophecy.
Or doom.
Jabara swallowed hard. "Then I must know more."
And when she stood, the decision was already made.
Tonight, she would go somewhere she had once sworn never to return.
The Forbidden Archives under the library.
The palace at night was a breathing thing—stone lungs expanding and contracting with the march of guards and the sputter of torches. Jabara wrapped her ceremonial cloak tight around her slender frame and moved like a whisper between pillars, careful to avoid the wandering patrols.
As a Herald of the Tournament, she was technically allowed anywhere.
But the archives she sought were not marked on any map.
They lived beneath the old palace, below even the old burial tunnels built during the reign of the First Dynasty.
Few knew how to reach them.
Fewer still survived doing so.
At a recessed alcove near the Hall of Ancestors, Jabara pressed her palm against an unassuming stone tile carved with a swirl of wind. The tile glowed faintly in response.
Good. The old locks still recognized her àṣẹ.
The stone slid inward.
Dusty air whooshed upward, carrying the scent of old papyrus, mold, and secrets best left forgotten.
Jabara descended.
The staircase spiraled deep underground, its walls marked with murals long since faded. She walked down a long tunnel with small sunstones lighting the path, but their power was fading making the tunnel only barely visible. She passed frescoes depicting Orisha interceding in human affairs.
She saw Oko's ancient visage painted here, revered and terrible.
The end of the tunnel opened into a wide chamber lit by orbs of preserved sunstone. Stacks of scrolls and tablets lay piled in towering wooden shelves carved with talismans to keep insects away.
Her footsteps echoed faintly.
She moved to the restricted section, brushing her fingers over the shelf labels carved in old Yoruba-script:
Pre-Ascension Dynasties…
Orisha Schisms…
Divine Punishments…
Forbidden Cults…
She stopped.
There.
Millennial Cataclysm Records.
Exactly what she needed.
She pulled out a bound leather tome so old its spine cracked as it opened. Dust plumed into the air. Candlelight shimmered across diagrams of fungal growths, sketches of ancient warriors burning fields overtaken by purple rot, and written testimonies of seers who witnessed the first attacks.
Jabara's brows furrowed as she read.
"The blight began in the far western orchards. Purple fungus spreading in nights, turning fruit to poison."
"Some believed it was a curse placed by Oko."
"The king decreed all Green Aseborn suspect. Many fled north beyond human borders. Others perished."
She turned the page.
And froze.
A full-page illustration showed Oko—her crown of vines tall and sharp—whispering to Iku. The artist had drawn their shadows stretching like claws across a map of the continent.
Oko's command:
"Let life slow. Let rot grow."
Iku's promise:
"Let mortals remember their fragility."
Jabara's stomach tightened.
Another passage read:
"Oko's disciples planted growth-halt curses in sacred groves, shrines, and farmland. Their goal was not to aid Iku, but to weaken the continent's natural defences so Iku's blight could take root."
Another line:
"The King's solution: exile or execute all Green Aseborn. If any worshipped Oko, their existence could doom humanity."
Jabara closed the book sharply.
"No wonder the Green Orisha withdrew," she whispered. "Their children were killed."
Her pulse hammered.
If Iku and Oko walked again—even in influence, even in whisper—this kingdom was not prepared.
Not with a king who distrusted seers.
Not with a king chasing a Green Aseborn like the old kings once did.
Not with corruption pulsing through a fighter's veins in the arena.
She needed more information. Something direct. Something actionable.
Jabara moved to a second shelf—scrolls bound in green thread.
Records of Exiled Aseborn.
Survivors.
Flight to the Dark Forest.
She reached for the topmost scroll—but just before her fingers touched it, she stopped.She sensed another presence in the room.
Before she could turn, a voice drifted from behind a pillar.
"Working late, High Seer?"
Jabara spun.
A figure stepped from the shadows.
Her breath caught.
The girl looked harmless—young, maybe fourteen, slender, wearing a dark cloak over a blue shirt and white skirt. But her eyes glinted with sharp intelligence.
"Who are you? What are you doing down here? How did you find this place?" Jabara demanded.
The girl tilted her head. "There was a hidden lever in the library. I'm just looking for answers. Just like you."
Her lips curved—too knowing.
Jabara hesitated. She knew there was a lever connecting the library to this place, but it was heavily warded. Even the most powerful Aseweavers would struggle to breach its barriers. Whoever this girl was, she had to be powerful—especially for someone so young.
A prodigy.
Jabara steadied her thoughts. She needed to probe carefully, to learn exactly who this girl was.
"You're interested in answers to what?" she asked.
"I saw your face during the tournament. I know you saw it too. The corrupted fighter—Silas."
"Yes, Silas. I believe he may be a problem. I can't stop him without proof. The king's—"
"I know." The girl nodded. "Kings love permissions. Especially kings who pretend they don't know what's happening in their own kingdom."
Jabara stiffened. "You speak boldly."
"Because sometimes boldness is required. And I have some experience with kings who won't listen," the girl replied. "Rot is spreading in the northern fields. Villagers whisper of plants slowing their growth. And the blight? I've seen it. It's real."
Jabara's heart lurched. "You've seen the purple mushrooms?"
The girl nodded grimly.
"We burned the field. But if it appeared once, it'll appear again."
"You—burned it?" Jabara whispered. She thought of the blackened sand she had been unable to destroy. This girl had destroyed the mushrooms of Iku? "Just who are you?"
The girl shrugged. "Someone who can read the signs."
"Then you know these are the signs of Iku's return."
At that, the girl's brows knitted. "Iku? Who?"
Jabara froze. She had said too much.
Her silence was answer enough.
The girl sighed. "Look, you seem like you actually want to do something about this, so I'm going to tell you. The king won't fix it. He's using something at the Atherium Genesis Institute—a Dryad. They were experimenting on it. Torturing it."
Jabara recoiled, hand flying to her mouth. "A Dryad—tortured?"
"And I've heard rumors he has a merman now, too."
Jabara's shock deepened.
"What does he want with—?"
"Power," the girl said simply. "Maybe to fix the agriculture problem."
The pieces locked together in Jabara's mind.
His dismissal of divine intervention.His fascination with corrupted àṣẹ.His impatience with seers.
He was not looking to pray to the Orisha for solutions.
He was looking to replace them.
Jabara stepped back, breath shaking. "You must come with me and speak to the king."
The girl laughed bitterly. "He'd execute me before listening."
"Execute you?" Jabara demanded. "Just who are you? Never mind—then meet me here tomorrow night. We'll find a path together."
A long pause.
"…We'll see," the girl said at last, reluctantly.
She left without another word, disappearing into the staircase shadows.
Jabara watched after her. She could have followed—overpowered her, forced the truth from her—but the girl felt… aligned. If Jabara had sensed even a hint of ill intent, she would have acted. For now, she needed answers the archives alone could provide.
Jabara stayed long after the girl was gone, reading about the near-extinction of Green Aseborn, about Oko's cult, and about the blight that once nearly devoured the continent.
She read until her candles burned to stubs.
And when she finally left the archives, one truth weighed heavier than all the others.
Iku and Oko were stirring.
And King Rega was walking the same path as the king of a thousand years ago.
Jabara inhaled deeply, feeling the cold night wind brush her cheeks.
"Oya…" she whispered. "Guide me. Before history repeats itself."