The morning after the king's burial rites broke bright and sharp.
Sunlight spilled over Ayetoro as if nothing terrible had happened. Goats nosed at dry leaves; women swept their courtyards; smoke rose in thin gray lines from cooking hearths. Yet beneath the ordinary sounds lay a weight, a kind of listening silence, as though the whole kingdom were waiting for something to crack.
In the Ifatedo compound, that waiting felt even heavier.
Baba Adégbáyí sat on a low stool in the outer courtyard, his staff across his knees. He had changed into a plain wrapper of deep blue, but his eyes held the same bruised shadows Fẹ́mi had seen in them at dawn. Apprentices moved quietly around him, bringing herbs, tying bundles, preparing charms.
On the far side of the compound, elders and witches of the clan sat in a half‑circle beneath the shade of a mango tree. Their voices were low and tense.
"They will ask whether this is our doing," one said.
"And we will answer that we are not mad," another replied sharply. "Who kills the king who listens to them?"
"Fear does not obey reason," an old woman murmured. "When a house burns, even the pots are suspected."
Baba heard them without seeming to; his fingers moved over the smooth length of his staff, tracing grooves worn by years of gripping. Fẹ́mi stood near the doorway, waiting for his father's call. Ifabola, forbidden to wander, sat a few paces away with a small calabash, drawing circles in the dust with a wet finger.
She had not told anyone about the place of darkness and light, or the faceless messenger. The memory sat inside her like a secret stone—heavy, cold, but somehow important. Whenever she thought of it, the faint chalk arc in her right palm tingled.
"Fẹ́mi," Baba said at last.
"Yes, Baba." He straightened.
"Go to the small shrine by the river. Tell them to prepare the white gourd and the chain of sixteen shells. We will need them for the council."
"Yes, Baba." He hurried off.
Baba turned then to Ifabola. "Omọ mi."
She looked up quickly. "Yes, Baba?"
He studied her for a moment, as if weighing something unseen. "You will stay close to your mother today. Do not leave the compound without her word, even if friends call you to play."
"I won't," she said. Guilt pinched her; she had already left the safety of sleep without permission.
He reached out and tugged gently at the strip of white cloth still tied around her wrist. "Good. The world outside our walls is restless now. Some hearts beat too fast and make foolish moves."
"Is the council going to fight?" she asked.
His mouth twitched in something that was not quite a smile. "Words will clash. I pray spears will not. That is why I must go."
"Can't I come with you?" She knew the answer but asked anyway.
"The place of the council is not for small feet," he said gently. "You will one day sit beneath that tree in your own right. For now, learn to watch from where you are."
He rose, staff in hand, as Fẹ́mi returned with the gourd and shell chain. With a last glance at his daughter, Baba stepped through the compound gate, Fẹ́mi following close behind.
Ifabola watched them until they disappeared between the houses.
Her mother appeared beside her, tying a wrapper tightly about her waist. "Come, Ifa‑mi. We will go to the river for water before the sun grows too hot. Your sisters will stay with Auntie Dupe. She will chase anyone who tries to gossip too loudly near them."
"Gossip about what?"
"About everything their tongues can find," her mother said dryly. "But mostly about who killed the king."
The council of Ayetoro met beneath a great baobab that rose in the palace's inner courtyard, its trunk thick as a house, its branches twisting toward the sky like the arms of an old storyteller.
Generations of kings had judged quarrels in its shade, weighed crimes, sealed treaties. The tree had watched men grow from princes to rulers, then fall into the earth. Its bark was carved with old symbols and names almost too faded to read.
This morning, its roots held a new gathering.
The queen‑mother sat on a carved stool at the trunk's base, wrapped in indigo, a narrow gold circlet at her brow. Beside her stood the late king's eldest son, Prince Adetunji, a boy of eleven with swollen eyes and clenched fists. Behind them, royal guards formed a half‑circle, spears grounded.
Facing them sat the council: chiefs of the great families, heads of powerful guilds, senior priests. Ogunremi of Koleoso sat prominent, a thick wooden bracelet of Sango—red with white streaks—on his right wrist. Baba Adégbáyí of Ifatedo took his place across from him, staff across his knees, Fẹ́mi kneeling slightly behind.
Between the two men lay a mat on which rested three objects: a gourd of river water plugged with leaves, the chain of sixteen brass‑rimmed shells, and a small carved figure of a man with no face.
When all had settled, the queen‑mother spoke.
"People of Ayetoro," she began, her voice iron under silk. "Our king lies cold. We will grieve him for many days. But grief alone will not protect this kingdom. We must know how he died, and whether more deaths will follow."
A low murmur of agreement circled the gathering.
"We have heard what Baba Ifa saw in the shells last night," she continued. "A shadowy hand. A debt. A path split in two. These are heavy words, but they are not enough. So we sit here under the tree of our fathers to speak plain. Each clan will say what it knows. Each priest will tell what the spirits have whispered. Let no one hide knowledge, or his own blood may pay for that silence."
She nodded to an elder at her right, who held a staff capped with bronze. "Council is open."
The first to rise was an old man from the traders' guild, his wrapper striped with foreign patterns. He spoke of distant kingdoms where kings had died by poison, by jealous brothers, by foreign women with herbs in their hair. People listened, but his stories swam far from their own shore.
A woman from the earth‑priests' line rose next, saying the patterns in the soil near the palace showed no sign of a human intruder that night.
"Our mother earth holds footprints like secrets," she said. "But she whispers them to those who know her tongue. I read none that should not be there."
A priest of iron claimed that no weapon had pierced royal flesh. A healer swore there had been no sickness, no wasting. Each voice removed another ordinary cause, leaving only the impossible hanging like mist.
Finally, Ogunremi of Koleoso stood.
Where the others' words had floated, his fell like stones.
"We chase our tails," he said, looking around at them all. "No spear, no poison, no sickness. A name written in blood that does not wash away. The people are not fools; they know what this points to."
"And what is that?" the queen‑mother asked, though everyone knew.
"Witchcraft," he said. "Not the clear magic of festival and sacrifice, but something twisted. Some power that has fed on human fear until it thinks itself a god."
Eyes shifted, many of them toward Baba.
"You speak as if you have seen its face, Ogunremi," Baba said calmly. "Have the thunder gods whispered more to you than to the rest of us?"
"I have seen its work," Ogunremi snapped. "In villages where men woke to find their livestock dead with no wound. In a border town where the chief's wife bled from her eyes after bearing a stillborn child whose skin bore strange marks. The priests said a name had been spoken where it should not. After that, no child lived there a full year."
Murmurs stirred. Even the queen‑mother's face tightened.
"What name?" she asked.
Ogunremi hesitated. His gaze flicked to Baba, then to the faceless figure carved on the mat between them.
"I will not give it breath here," he said at last. "Words are paths. Some paths are better left overgrown."
"The name written on the king is no secret in the palace," one of the royal elders protested. "The attendants who washed him saw it. The women who wrapped him saw it. Shall we pretend letters are not letters?"
"Let the letters stay on the corpse," Ogunremi retorted. "Do not drag them into our mouths."
Baba's staff tapped once, lightly, against the ground. "You are right that words are paths," he said. "But turning our backs on a path does not make it vanish. The question is not whether we speak the name. The question is who wrote it, and why."
"Then answer." Ogunremi's eyes flashed. "You tell us the spirits are troubled. So are we. You read the shells, you walk with river and wind—what more have they said, that you have not told?"
All eyes swung to Baba.
He felt the weight of their gaze like a heavy cloth. For a heartbeat, he thought of the final pattern the shells had shown—a small figure between thunder and river marks. The sense that a child stood at the heart of this storm.
To speak it now would only make them look for a scapegoat rather than a solution.
"The shells refused to show a clear face," he answered. "That itself is a message. When the spirits hide something, it is because the time for revealing has not yet come. Or because we would shatter, seeing it too soon."
"So we do nothing?" another chief demanded. "Sit and wait while an unseen hand writes on more chests?"
"We do what can be done in the realm of men," Baba said. "Tighten our borders. Strengthen our shrines. Guard our children. We do not tear each other apart based on half‑seen shadows. If we fight ourselves, whoever or whatever did this will only laugh."
The prince, who had been silent, burst out, "I will not sit quiet while the one who killed my father walks free!"
"Adetunji," the queen‑mother warned softly.
He bowed his head, fists shaking on his knees.
Ogunremi looked at the boy, then back at Baba. His voice dropped.
"I do not accuse your house, Baba Ifa," he said. "But you must admit: when the king dies in a way only the greatest magicians can understand, the people will look to the greatest magicians with suspicion as well as hope. That is the way of fear."
"I know it," Baba replied. "And I will answer for my house with my life if it comes to that. But I tell you this: whoever truly did this is counting on exactly what you speak of. On our fear. On our suspicion. If we let that master us, we will serve the very thing we hate."
Silence stretched under the baobab, filled with the creak of branches and the hiss of the hot wind.
At last, the queen‑mother spoke.
"We will do both," she said. "We will not sit idle, and we will not go mad. Ogunremi, you will send trusted warriors to watch our borders and listen in the markets of neighboring towns. Quietly. No open threat of war—not yet."
Ogunremi nodded, jaw tight.
"Baba Ifa," she continued, "you will prepare a great consultation of oracles. Call on the priests of earth, sky, iron, even those stubborn ones who serve only their household shrines. Let every god who will answer speak. If there is an old hunger moving in our midst, we must know its true name, not this riddle written in blood."
"I will begin at once," Baba said.
"As for the people," she added, voice hardening, "they will be told this: the king is dead by a strange hand. The spirits are being questioned. Any who accuse a neighbor without proof will face this council's wrath. We will not let fear turn Ayetoro against itself."
There were murmurs—some relieved, some displeased—but no one openly objected. To defy the queen‑mother now would be to risk looking like a traitor while the kingdom trembled.
The bronze‑capped staff struck the ground three times. "Council is closed," the elder announced.
The gathering began to dissolve.
As Baba rose, he felt Ogunremi's gaze on him. The war‑chief stepped close enough that his words did not carry.
"Old friend," Ogunremi said quietly, "we have stood together in many battles. I have watched you call rain and turn aside plague. I do not want to suspect your people."
"Then don't," Baba answered. "Suspect the shadow, not the torch."
Ogunremi's mouth twitched. "Easy words, when you are the torch."
His eyes slid briefly toward the chain of shells, then to the faceless carved figure still lying on the mat.
"There are old stories in my clan," he said. "Stories my grandfather told by firelight when we returned from war. Of a name that ate names. Of a spirit that was not a spirit, used long ago by kings who wanted to live forever."
"Those are only stories," Baba said, though his heart beat faster.
"Perhaps." Ogunremi's hand tightened on the hilt of his sword. "But we both know: stories are how truths survive when no one dares speak them plain."
He turned and strode away, red and white beads flashing on his ankles.
While elders argued under the baobab, life at the riverbank carried its own council.
Women clustered along the water's edge, skirts hitched high, calabashes bobbing beside them. The river moved slow and brown, its surface dappled with light. Children splashed in the shallows under sharp warnings not to go too deep.
Ifabola stood beside her mother, dipping her gourd, the cool water licking at her ankles.
Fragments of adult talk drifted around her.
"…I heard they found no mark on him…"
"…they say the word would not wash away…"
"…it must be those white witches; they know too much…"
Her mother's back stiffened at that last comment, but she said nothing.
One woman, younger and sharper‑tongued, lowered her voice only a little. "Ever since that great priest rose, our world has been too full of strange powers. Now look—our king is dead in his own bed. Ifa's wisdom, hm?"
Another woman nudged her. "Be careful, Kehinde. Walls have ears, and so does water."
"I am not afraid," Kehinde said loudly. "If telling truth invites trouble, let it come. We common folk are always the ones to suffer while priests and chiefs talk big talks."
Ifabola's cheeks burned. She wanted to shout that her Baba was not like that, that he walked until his feet bled to help sick strangers. But her mother's earlier words about gossip held her tongue.
Instead, she moved a little further down, away from their barbed words.
A girl from the next compound, Sade, waved to her. "Ifabola! Come, let us see whose gourd fills fastest."
They knelt side by side, submerging their calabashes. Water gurgled pleasantly around their hands.
As Ifabola watched the river swirl into her gourd, a familiar prickle ran up her arm. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck stirred, as if a wind had breathed only on her skin.
Ifabola…
The voice was a feather this time, barely disturbing the surface of her thoughts, but she recognized its shape.
She glanced up sharply. No one was near enough to have spoken her name; Sade hummed a market song under her breath, focused on balancing her half‑full gourd.
Ifabola looked back at the water.
For a moment—just a moment—the ripples on the surface flattened. Light slid over them like a hand. Letters shimmered there, pale and wavery, as if traced by sunlight:
E J—
She jerked her gourd up, scattering droplets.
The letters broke apart, swallowed by the current.
"What are you doing?" Sade laughed. "You will spill all of it!"
"Nothing," Ifabola said quickly. Her heart thumped so loudly she wondered if the other girl could hear it. "My fingers slipped."
Her mother, a little further upstream, glanced over, eyes briefly searching. Ifabola forced her expression into something calm and ordinary. After a heartbeat, her mother turned back to her own task.
Ifabola's pulse slowed—somewhat.
It is reaching, she thought. Even here.
The white cloth around her wrist felt suddenly heavy.
As they lifted their full calabashes to their heads and began the walk back, she looked once more at the river. Its surface moved innocently, catching sky and tree in its brown mirror. Yet beneath that, something else watched.
By mid‑afternoon, heat pressed down on Ayetoro like a hand.
Baba returned from the council with lines carved deep into his face. He stepped through the Ifatedo gate and paused, inhaling the familiar smell of river mud, herbs, and cooking yam. For a moment, the ordinary sounds of his compound—women calling to one another, a pestle thudding into a mortar—rested over him like cool cloth.
Then responsibility settled again.
"Fẹ́mi," he called. "Gather the senior apprentices. We begin preparations tonight."
"For the great consultation?" Fẹ́mi asked.
"Yes. The queen‑mother wants answers; we must call on every spirit willing to speak. I fear which ones will answer most loudly."
As the boy hurried off, Baba's gaze found Ifabola across the courtyard. She carried a small bundle of firewood, her steps careful, face set in concentration. When she saw him, she brightened, then sobered quickly, as if remembering something.
He beckoned her over.
"How was the river?" he asked.
"Wet," she said, then bit her lip at her own foolish answer.
His mouth twitched. "Good. It would worry me if it suddenly turned dry."
She hesitated. "Baba… do rivers see?"
"Of course." He settled onto a stool. "They have seen more kings rise and fall than this baobab has. Why do you ask?"
"I just wondered…" Her fingers tugged at the edge of her wrapper. "If they see everything, do they ever get tired of carrying secrets?"
Baba's gaze sharpened. "Secrets are a kind of weight," he said slowly. "Some sink. Some float. Why are you thinking about secrets, ọmọ mi?"
Words crowded behind her teeth: about the doorway of light, the faceless messenger, the letters on the water. His question wrapped around them, ready to pull them out.
Then the messenger's warning whispered again in her mind: Not yet… His ears are full of many voices already.
She swallowed.
"I just hear many people whispering lately," she said instead. "At the market. At the river. They talk small when they see me. It sounds like they are hiding things from their own tongues."
Baba's shoulders eased a little. "Fear makes people whisper. It is not your burden to untangle all their talk."
He cupped her chin, lifting her face so her eyes met his.
"But hear this truth," he said quietly. "Whatever storm walks toward Ayetoro, you are not alone in it. This house, this family—we stand together. No shadow will take you while I still draw breath."
Warmth spread through her chest at his words, pushing back some of the cold.
"I know, Baba," she whispered.
He pressed a kiss to her forehead, right where the chalk mark had faded. For an instant, a faint warmth blossomed there, echoing the sensation she had felt when the messenger first spoke to her.
Baba frowned slightly, as if sensing something just beyond the reach of understanding. Then his attention was pulled away by an apprentice calling his name.
As he turned, thunder rumbled distantly.
Every head in the compound lifted.
The sky above was mostly clear, a thin veil of high cloud not thick enough to hide the sun. Yet from the direction of the Koleoso compound came the low growl of storm drums, answered by a real boom of thunder, far though no dark clouds could yet be seen.
"Thunder without storm," one of the witches muttered. "Sango's temper wakes."
Baba's jaw tightened. "Ogunremi has begun his own consultations," he said. "May he not call down more than he can drive away."
Ifabola listened to the thunder echo over the roofs, her small hand unconsciously pressing against the faint chalk arc in her palm.
High above Ayetoro, where the clear blue of the sky looked harmless, something old turned its attention fully toward the kingdom.
And in the heart of that gaze, it paused—curious, almost amused—when it brushed against the small, stubborn light that was a priest's daughter rinsing leaves, fetching water, and trying very hard to keep her secrets from those she loved most.