Omolara pov
The silence in the refectory was a physical weight, pressing against my chest until I could hardly breathe. I stared at the empty stone bench where Chioma usually sat, her laughter and the scent of honey-mint now replaced by a cold, hollow ache. A few feet away, the anvil in the forge remained silent, the absence of Beni's rhythmic pounding feeling like a skipped heartbeat in the mountain's chest.
I looked down at the honey-coated pebble Chioma had pressed into my hand just yesterday. It was cold now, a dead thing. My blood felt thick with salt, a rising tide of restless anger that the elders' "strategic regrouping" only made worse.
In the High Council chamber, I stood in the shadows of the back wall, my fingernails digging into my palms. I could feel the water thrumming in the mountain's ancient pipes, vibrating with my frustration. Instructor Oba's voice was like grinding stones—slow, measured, and maddeningly cautious.
"The risk of a counter-strike is too great," Oba stated, his eyes fixed on a shimmering map of Lagos. "We must fortify. We must wait."
Wait for what? I thought, my jaw aching. Wait until they're dead?
I felt a presence beside me, a shift in the air that tasted like ozone and burnt sugar. Tayo didn't look at me. He stood with his arms crossed, his gaze fixed on the map where the Ajogun corruption was spreading like a black ink stain over the harbor.
"They won't go," he whispered, his voice so low it was almost lost to the stone. "They'll wait until the trail is cold. Until Chioma and Beni are just memories used to fuel a gate."
I looked at him—really looked at him. The boy who had bought me ice cream was buried under layers of duty and guilt, but the fire in his amber eyes was the same one burning in my gut.
"I'm not waiting," I said.
He finally turned his head, his gaze meeting mine with a sharp, desperate intensity. "Neither am I."
Leaving was a dance of shadows. I moved through the tunnels with my heart in my throat, my small obsidian knife heavy at my belt and my water skins clattering softly. I met Tayo near the service rift, the very spot where the shadows had swallowed our friends.
We were halfway through the dark when the air suddenly snapped. A cold, violent gust of wind whistled through the corridor, snuffing out our lanterns.
"Going somewhere?"
Omolara stepped from the darkness. Her scarlet leather armor looked like dried blood in the gloom, and her copper-braided hair seemed to vibrate with a restless, predatory energy.
Tayo stepped in front of me, his hand instinctively going to his wrist. "Stay out of this, Omolara. This isn't a sparring match."
"I know what it is," she countered, her voice a jagged blade. She stepped into the center of the path, her eyes finding mine and finding me wanting, as always. "It's a suicide mission. You two alone? You'll be dead before you hit the city limits. Omotara can't even hold a sphere under pressure, and you, Tayo, are too blinded by guilt to see the traps."
I felt the salt in my veins surge. "Then go tell Oba. Be the perfect student."
Omolara's lip curled into a mirthless smirk. She didn't reach for a bell; she reached for her belt, pulling out a brass tracking compass that hummed with a captured wind-spirit. "I'm not calling anyone. If the Shango heir dies because he followed a chaotic tide-maker into the dark, my lineage is disgraced. I'm coming to ensure you don't fail. And because I won't let those shadows have a son of Ogun."
The descent through the "Vein" was a brutal, bone-jarring climb down the mountain's jagged spine. The heat of the Nigerian night hit me like a physical blow when we finally emerged. It was home, but it felt wrong. The air was thick with the spiritual rot I'd first sensed in the lagoon.
We reached the industrial district near the harbor—a wasteland of rusted shipping containers and crumbling warehouses. The ley lines here were choked, the energy sour and stagnant.
The first "Hollow" emerged from beneath a collapsed crane. It was a human shell, its eyes glowing with a terminal, sickly yellow light. It moved with a jerky, unnatural speed that made my skin crawl.
Tayo was a blur of motion. He didn't use lightning—it was too bright. He used the raw, terrifying strength of his father, catching the creature's throat with a sickening crack before it could even hiss.
But then there were dozens. They poured from the containers, their movements synchronized by a single, malevolent will.
"Omotara, the perimeter!" Tayo growled.
I didn't hesitate. I reached out to the stagnant, oil-slicked water in the drainage ditches. It was filthy, heavy with chemicals and filth, but I felt its weight in my soul. I pulled it upward, shaping it into three rotating rings that circled us. It wasn't the "Shield of Calm" Tayo had taught me in the Grove; it was a jagged, dirty barrier of high-pressure sludge that tore at anything that tried to cross.
Above me, Omolara was a streak of red and gold. She didn't touch the ground. She became a vacuum, sucking the air from the lungs of the approaching Hollows. I watched, horrified and impressed, as they collapsed, clawing at their throats in silence.
A Shadow Weaver materialized atop a container, its form shifting like black smoke. It unleashed a wave of soul-chilling darkness that threatened to drown my focus.
Tayo finally let the lightning go. He didn't throw it; he slammed his palms into the earth. A web of white-hot electricity raced through the damp soil, finding the Shadow Weaver's perch and detonating the metal container in a spray of sparks and molten iron.
In the flash of that explosion, I saw it.
Deep inside the largest warehouse, I heard it—a rhythmic, metallic ping-ping-ping. Beni's hammer. And above it, a faint, rhythmic pulsing of blue light that made my heart ache. Chioma's life-force, being drained to power something massive and dark in the center of the building.
"They're inside," I said, my voice steady even though my hands were shaking.
Omolara landed beside me, her daggers drawn, her eyes burning with a singular, terrible purpose. "Then let's stop the construction."
We moved toward the warehouse, three rogue currents flowing into the heart of the storm. We weren't students anymore. We were the only thing standing between our friends and the end of the world.