The morning that followed the Gathering of Lanterns was not quiet, but it was calm.
A different kind of sound had returned to Odanjo neither the clash of swords nor the whisper of treason, but the murmur of rebuilding. The hum of voices, the rhythmic ring of chisels against stone, the low lullabies of mothers soothing children born after the shadow had lifted.
Ayọ̀kúnlé stood on the eastern watchtower of the palace, wrapped in a robe woven from indigo-dyed thread and gold embroidery. The horizon spread before him like a canvas of new intentions. There was dew on the edges of the stone rail, and mist still clung to the rooftops of the capital, but the sun was rising—and this time, it did not rise behind veils of war.
It rose for a king.
"My lord," came a voice from behind him.
He turned slightly. Móyèṣọlá stood in the doorway, her ceremonial staff in hand, adorned with beads of lapis and ivory. Her hair was wrapped high, crowned with silver feathers.
"The elders are assembled in the Great Hall. The accords await your signature."
Ayọ̀kúnlé nodded but did not move just yet. His fingers traced the ridge of the old stone. "How do you know when peace is real?"
Móyèṣọlá stepped closer. "When you stop watching your back, and start looking forward."
He smiled faintly. "Then I am almost ready."
They walked together through the palace halls, which had shed their scars over the past moon cycle. The tapestries were newly stitched, each thread telling stories from before the curse before the fall, before the exile, before the burning of truth.
On each step, people bowed. But their eyes held something greater than reverence.
They held hope.
In the Great Hall, councilors from across the Five Provinces were gathered. Chiefs, envoys, priests, and vision-bearers stood behind their banners. Some bore the marks of battle still cracked armor, healing cuts but their heads were high. In the center of the hall stood the Great Accord, inked on long scrolls of elephant-hide parchment, laid across a blackwood table.
This was not just a treaty of peace.
It was a map of the future.
Ayọ̀kúnlé approached, dipping the quill into the inkstone made from the ashes of the last cursed relic. His hand did not shake.
He signed.
One by one, the others followed. Even the emissaries from distant Eṣìn Nla and the mountain fortress of Ìbàdàn Ọ̀dá signed, their seals burning gently into the page like fire meeting truth.
When it was done, the hall was silent.
Then Móyèṣọlá lifted her staff, and the stones themselves seemed to hum.
"By earth, by sky, by spirit so it is sealed," she intoned.
Applause thundered across the chamber, not from obligation, but from hearts that had been waiting generations to believe again.
That night, the fires were lit again not in battle, but in celebration. The streets of the capital bloomed with light and music. Children ran with paper lanterns shaped like birds and beasts from legend. Drums echoed from every corner, and the old songs returned, their verses no longer drowned in mourning but rising in jubilation.
Ayọ̀kúnlé sat in the courtyard garden, beneath the ancient baobab tree where his mother once told him stories of kings long gone and kingdoms that could still rise. Adérónké joined him, her armor traded for robes of ochre and red. Her eyes shone with laughter, but there was still something behind them an awareness, a readiness.
"You've become quieter," she said, handing him a calabash of palm wine.
"I have more to think about now," he replied, taking a sip.
"And more to protect."
Ayọ̀kúnlé nodded. "The curse is gone. But that doesn't mean darkness won't return in other forms."
She leaned back against the tree trunk. "Let it come. This time, we'll be ready."
A hush fell between them. Not awkward just comfortable. The kind shared by those who had seen each other at their most broken and still stayed.
"Do you ever wonder," he asked, "what would've happened if we had met in another life?"
Adérónké chuckled. "I think we did. Many lives ago. You were probably a farmer and I stole your yams."
They laughed, and for a moment, the burdens of royalty faded. They were just two souls beneath a tree, in a city finally breathing again.
Meanwhile, deep within the archives beneath the palace, Móyèṣọlá was unlocking an ancient chamber with a key carved from meteorite and bone. The walls glowed faintly with runes that had not been lit in centuries.
Within lay scrolls older than kingdoms, maps of worlds long erased, and the last known tablet of the Whispering Seers a prophecy so dangerous, it had been hidden by the founders of Odanjo themselves.
She read the first line, and her breath caught.
"When the curse is lifted, and the king is crowned, beware the silence that follows, for in it walks the Forgotten One."
She swallowed and closed the tablet gently.
Not all shadows were slain. Some were simply waiting.
Móyèṣọlá stood motionless before the Whispering Tablet, its faint glow bathing her face in the cold hue of ancient truths. Her fingers trembled not from fear, but from reverence. The prophecy etched in forgotten tongues was no longer silent. It had waited through ages of dust and deceit, and now it had spoken.
"The Forgotten One shall rise not with armies, but with absence. Not with fire, but with silence. And the land shall tremble not in rebellion, but in remembrance."
She rolled the tablet back into its vault, sealing it with a murmur and a drop of her own blood. The lock snapped shut, and the air turned still once more, but the words did not leave her mind. They echoed in the corridors of her spirit.
Above, on the upper levels of the palace, the celebration carried on. Laughter echoed through tiled halls, dancers twirled in spirals of fabric, and scholars from the newly reformed Guild of the Wise debated philosophy beneath glowing lanterns. Ayọ̀kúnlé moved among them like sunlight breaking through storm clouds. He spoke little, but where he passed, spirits lifted.
But peace has its own kind of blindness.
In the third courtyard, a traveler knelt by the ancestral fountain. Cloaked in charcoal grey, his face shadowed by a hood. His hands were wrapped in linen, though no wound showed. He dipped a finger into the waters of remembrance and whispered something too ancient for common ears, too soft to echo.
The water darkened around his finger.
No one noticed.
Yet the baobab tree in the courtyard shifted, its branches curling ever so slightly, its leaves whispering warnings in a forgotten dialect.
Ayọ̀kúnlé felt it too. A pulse in his chest, not painful, but off-rhythm. He excused himself quietly from a group of young architects, leaving behind diagrams of towers and public baths, and made his way through the palace's southern colonnade.
He passed servants singing, guards dozing with content smiles, and nobles arguing about the color of their house banners.
And yet, somewhere beneath it all, something tugged.
He paused at the Hall of Bones once a prison, now a museum. Inside, relics of the old wars were on display: broken chains, rusted helmets, cursed mirrors whose reflections never quite aligned with reality.
He stepped inside.
The torches on the wall flared to life as he entered. Shadows danced, long and uncertain. He walked slowly past each exhibit, remembering how far they had come.
At the far end of the hall, a new addition stood in a glass case: the blade of light forged from the relics of unity the sword he had summoned in the final battle. Its glow was dormant now, but the air around it was warm.
He reached for the hilt but stopped short.
A reflection flickered in the glass not his own.
A face, pale and featureless, watched him for the briefest moment before vanishing like smoke.
Ayọ̀kúnlé turned sharply, but the hall was empty.
The silence behind him felt too deep. Too expectant.
Back in the archives, Móyèṣọlá penned a message onto bark parchment. Her hand moved quickly, the strokes decisive. She addressed it to the Circle of the Six—guardians of the deeper truths, mystics and dream-seers who lived scattered across the lands.
The message was brief:
"He walks again. Prepare the wards. Remember the silent one."
She sealed it with the sigil of the blue eye and dispatched the fastest messenger hawk in the aviary. As it soared into the darkening sky, she whispered, "May it not be too late."
The following days in Odanjo were filled with quiet preparations beneath the celebrations.
Scholars cross-referenced prophecies.
Blacksmiths reforged old weapons, just in case.
Druids marked the stones with new protective glyphs.
All the while, Ayọ̀kúnlé found himself dreaming strange dreams. Dreams of cities underwater, of stars falling like rain, of a mirror that swallowed sound. In each vision, a voice spoke not cruel, not kind, just present.
"Your throne is not the end."
"You have woken too much."
"I am the echo that always returns."
He woke each time with sweat on his brow and a name on his tongue but when he tried to speak it, it vanished like mist at sunrise.
One night, he walked alone to the edge of the city, where the ruins of the old temple still stood. There, beneath the skeletal arches and vines reclaiming stone, he found a child drawing on the ground with charcoal.
The child looked up.
"You're the king," she said plainly.
He nodded. "And you're an artist."
She smiled. "I dream in pictures."
He sat beside her, and looked at what she had drawn.
It was a figure tall, thin, without a face. Behind it, the sky was black, the stars scratched out.
"What's his name?" Ayọ̀kúnlé asked.
She frowned. "I don't know. But I dream of him walking. Always walking. He doesn't blink."
Ayọ̀kúnlé stared at the image, the pulse in his chest quickening. "What does he want?"
She shrugged. "He wants to remember something. Or maybe he wants us to forget."
He looked at the horizon. The city lights flickered in the distance, a thousand fires of hope.
"We won't let him," he said quietly.
The girl tilted her head. "What if he already did?"
The words lingered.
When he returned to the palace that night, he summoned the council.
"This peace," he said, standing before them in the war room once stained with blood but now washed in candlelight, "is precious. But it is not unbreakable."
He told them of the dreams. Of the presence in the Hall of Bones. Of the drawing in the dust.
Some looked doubtful. Others afraid.
But Móyèṣọlá stepped forward, her face firm.
"The Forgotten One is not a myth. He is older than the gods. Older than memory. We locked him beyond the veil when the world was still raw."
"Then why is he stirring now?" Adérónké asked.
Ayọ̀kúnlé's voice was low, certain. "Because we remembered ourselves. Because we healed. And healing has a sound."
The warlord from the north, Kàré, stepped forward. "Then let us be ready. We've built peace. Now let us protect it."
And for the first time, the council of provinces swore not just to guard their borders but their dreams. Their memories. Their unity.
The Forgotten One would not rise unchallenged.
Not while Ayọ̀kúnlé lived.
Not while Odanjo remembered.
Not while the firelight still danced on faces unafraid.
And as the wind howled across the plains beyond the city, a single drumbeat echoed from an unseen place.
It did not come from joy or war.
It came from history stirring.
Waiting.
Calling.