Night fell quietly.
It came not as a warning, not as a storm, but as a memory—gentle, dark, and inevitable.
The stars blinked overhead like the silent witnesses of old truths, and the wind that had once carried drums across the hills now softened, curling around Obade like a shawl of rhythm. The trees did not rustle. Even the insects, known for their nocturnal hymns, seemed to have been hushed by something unseen.
Beneath the Talking Tree—older than memory, older than any name etched into bark—Iyagbẹ́kọ sat cross-legged on the red earth, facing the child.
Ayọ̀bùkúnmí.
The one chosen not just by fate, but by rhythm itself.
The young girl rested her hand on her drum. She did not speak. Her eyes, wide and unblinking, watched the old priestess as if she could already sense what was coming. As if her spirit had prepared long before her body was old enough to understand.
There was no fire.
Only the silver shimmer of moonlight cascading through the branches, casting broken patterns on their faces like ancestral markings—wounds from long ago made beautiful by time.
And there, in the sacred quiet, what needed to be said began.
The Silence Before Story
Iyagbẹ́kọ did not speak right away.
She closed her eyes slowly, as if gathering the very first drumbeat in her soul. When she breathed in, the air trembled. Not from fear—but from memory. From a truth that had waited decades to be released.
Her lips parted.
Her voice was softer than Ayọ̀bùkúnmí had ever heard it.
"I was there," she whispered, "the night Ẹ̀nítàn was betrayed."
The child did not flinch.
She knew, somehow, this night would change everything.
Even the wind held its breath.
A Younger Iyagbẹ́kọ
"I was not yet a priestess then," Iyagbẹ́kọ said, her gaze drifting to a place only she could see. "Just a girl. Wild with wonder. Angry. Curious. Too loud to be polite. Too honest to be wise."
Her voice dipped into nostalgia, like a drum dipped in river water.
"Ẹ̀nítàn… she had already begun her ascent. She was not just the river's daughter. She was its voice. Its echo. Its thunder and its hush. The Queen of Rhythm. Crowned in coral. Guardian of sacred drums that only answered to the blood of the first mothers."
Ayọ̀bùkúnmí's eyes widened.
"Everyone adored her," the elder continued, "but no one knew her. Not truly. Except him."
The Forbidden Bond
"He was a scholar. Ọlábánjí. Keeper of words. Keeper of logic. Keeper of ink."
There was no hatred in her tone. Only grief.
"He believed stories should be written—locked in books, sealed in pages. He said if a thing wasn't written, it could be twisted, forgotten, changed."
She chuckled, a sad, brittle sound.
"But Ẹ̀nítàn… oh, she didn't twist stories. She danced them. Lived them. Her body was memory. Her breath, myth. She didn't speak in past tense—she became what had been and what was to come."
She paused.
"And he loved her for it."
A single tear slid down her cheek, tracing the ridges of age like a river finding its home.
"And she… she loved him too."
The Great Decision
"But love…" Iyagbẹ́kọ's voice cracked, "is not always sacred. Not when it threatens power."
She drew a long breath. "The elders—they saw something in her. A freedom they could not control. A rhythm that didn't need their approval. She was changing too much. Unpredictable. Strong."
A beat.
"They approached Ọlábánjí."
Her voice lowered. It was almost a confession.
"They told him she was dangerous. That she needed to be… remembered, yes, but contained. That her rhythm needed to be turned into doctrine. Measured. Defined. Held."
Ayọ̀bùkúnmí leaned forward, her small hands tightening on her drum.
"And he—" Iyagbẹ́kọ's voice faltered. "He agreed."
Betrayal in Disguise
"He told her it was a ceremony. A tribute to her rise. She trusted him. With her heart. With her rhythm."
Iyagbẹ́kọ clenched her fists in her lap.
"She walked into the river willingly. Into their arms. Into the circle of drums. Smiling."
She swallowed hard.
"I watched from the shadows. I saw her look back. She searched for his face as the drums closed around her. As they chanted."
Her voice broke.
"She reached for him. And he… he turned away."
The silence between the two was deeper than any drumbeat.
Iyagbẹ́kọ's Shame
"I did nothing."
The confession was so quiet it almost vanished in the breeze.
"I hid. Behind trees. Behind duty. Behind fear."
Ayọ̀bùkúnmí whispered, "Why?"
Iyagbẹ́kọ looked up.
The moonlight caught her tears.
"Because I thought silence was safer than truth. I thought if I said nothing, I would stay whole."
Her hands trembled.
"But silence does not protect. It festers."
The Wound That Stayed
Iyagbẹ́kọ slowly reached into the folds of her robe and placed her staff on the ground. She unwrapped the long cloth bound around her left wrist. The gesture was deliberate. Ceremonial.
Ayọ̀bùkúnmí's breath caught.
Beneath the wrapping was a burn scar—in the shape of a spiral, raw and faded, yet unmistakably etched into her skin like an ancient sigil.
"She marked me," Iyagbẹ́kọ said softly. "That night. When they drowned her voice. Not in anger. In remembrance. She reached for someone, and found me."
The spiral shimmered in the moonlight like the river's eye.
"It burned. Not from pain. From truth. From everything I had refused to carry. She gave me the burden of memory. And I buried it."
Ayọ̀bùkúnmí's Response
For a long moment, the child said nothing.
Then, slowly, Ayọ̀bùkúnmí stood.
Her small frame cast a long shadow over the ground, reaching toward the roots of the Talking Tree.
She lifted her drum.
Her eyes met the elder's.
"Then let this be the last night you carry it alone."
She struck the drum once.
A soft, delicate sound.
Then again.
Stronger.
And again.
Faster. Firmer.
The rhythm spread.
Iyagbẹ́kọ watched her. Watched the girl become not a vessel—but a voice.
And then, with tears streaking her cheeks, she reached for her own drum.
She joined her.
Their rhythms met like twin currents—one old, one new—braiding together in perfect resonance.
Echoes in the Square
Echo appeared first.
Drawn not by invitation, but by instinct.
She stepped into the moonlight with quiet certainty, her feet already tapping the earth in time.
Then Ola.
Then the orphans of the Archive.
Then the drummers who had once hidden their hands.
One by one, they emerged, pulled by a sound deeper than memory, older than tradition.
They gathered beneath the Talking Tree, drums in hand, hearts bared, wounds humming.
Together, they played.
And the silence that had begun with betrayal—
Was swallowed by rhythm.
Final Lines
Truth, when buried, does not die.
It lingers.
In wounds. In water. In elders and children and all who stand between.
And when spoken—
Even late—
It does not return with vengeance.
It returns with song.
And the river remembers.