The marsh still clung to him.
Its cold seeped beneath his skin, colder than the night air, colder than death itself. It settled deep in his bones, an unwelcome weight that pulled at him even when he stood on solid ground. He could still taste it on his tongue — bitter, metallic, and sharp as broken glass.
Its weight pressed on his chest, a heavy stone wrapped in wet reeds, dragging at the fragile threads of his resolve. And then there was its whisper — a low, susurrating voice that slithered beneath his thoughts like a venomous serpent coiling ever tighter.
Ola sat on the reed-lined bank, hunched against the night. The air itself was warm, soaked with the thick humidity of a summer night, but his body betrayed him, shivering despite it all. His dark hair clung to his damp shoulders, each droplet falling one by one — a metronome for the endless ticking of his fractured mind.
Echo crouched beside him, her eyes sharp and searching, scanning the complex map of pain, fear, and something unspoken that flickered in his face. Her hand was steady on his back — grounding, steadying — and when she spoke, her voice was soft but firm.
"Breathe," she said. "Slowly. Let it come back to you in order."
Ola tried.
God, he tried.
But there was no order in the memories clawing at his mind. No sequence to the visions that had torn through him like a storm when he sank beneath the water and touched the drowned city's heart.
There was only the name.
His name.
It sat in his chest like a hot coal — bright, pulsing, and unbearably heavy. Every breath fanned it, stoking the flame, sending a fierce heat coursing through his ribs. It was no warmth of life. It was a burning — cruel, unforgiving, and relentless.
"I have it," he murmured again. The words felt hollow, a fragile incantation tossed into the dark. He wasn't sure who he was trying to convince — Echo, Iyagbẹ́kọ, or the fractured pieces of himself barely held together.
Iyagbẹ́kọ knelt on the other side of him, setting down the salt-fed lantern she had carried faithfully since he'd disappeared beneath the reeds. Its flickering flame cast wild shadows across Ola's face, painting him with streaks of pale light and darkness.
Her eyes narrowed as she studied him, the sharp lines of her face tightening. "You have more than you went for," she said quietly.
Ola said nothing.
She reached out then, her fingers brushing the side of his neck with a gentleness that was both comforting and unsettling. The skin there felt wrong — hot, as if an ember had been pressed beneath the surface and left to smolder.
Ola flinched, a sharp pulse of pain jolting through him.
Iyagbẹ́kọ drew her hand back abruptly and stared at her palm in disbelief. Faint scorch marks traced the pads of her fingers, tiny blackened patterns like ancient script burnt into flesh.
"The name burns," she whispered, voice low and grave.
Echo's eyes flicked between them, confusion creasing her brow. "What does that mean?"
Iyagbẹ́kọ's gaze darkened with a shadow Ola had learned to recognize — the weight of terrible knowledge. "It means it isn't settled. His spirit isn't carrying it. It's carrying him."
The words twisted in his stomach, making bile rise to his throat. He forced himself to breathe through it.
"I went down there to take it back," he said, voice rough and cracked. "To be myself again."
"And you did," Iyagbẹ́kọ said firmly. "But when you rip a thing from the deep, it doesn't forget where it came from. It remembers the water. It remembers the dark."
Her eyes drifted to the marsh, where the reeds shivered though the wind was still. "…And sometimes, it wants to go back."
The three of them rose unsteadily to their feet. The marsh seemed to close around them — the reeds whispering secrets they could no longer understand, the dark pressing in with a thousand unseen eyes.
Together, they walked the narrow path away from the marsh, the lantern swinging between Iyagbẹ́kọ's steady hands, its trembling flame fighting to hold the shadows at bay.
Ola's gaze was restless, darting toward the reeds again and again, convinced he would catch sight of that thin, rippling face rising once more from the black water. The name-thief had not released him fully, and the chill of its presence lingered like a stain.
When they reached the village edge, the fires were still burning, flickering weakly against the encroaching dawn. The elders had gathered, clustered in tight groups but keeping their distance. Their faces were carved with suspicion, awe, and deep, raw fear.
Children clung to their mothers' wrappers, wide-eyed and silent, and even the dogs kept low, tails tucked, ears flat.
"He has returned," one elder muttered, voice trembling with something like dread.
"But is it truly him?" another asked, eyes scanning Ola as if searching for the thief's shadow hidden beneath his skin.
Iyagbẹ́kọ's glare cut through the whispers like a blade. "It is him. And what he brought with him is ours to carry, not yours to whisper about in the dark."
The villagers fell silent under her command.
They continued to the shrine, where Iyagbẹ́kọ guided him inside, seating him before the low altar. The air was thick with incense and the quiet hum of ancient prayers. A shallow clay bowl sat on the altar, glowing faintly with white ash.
"Place your hands in it," Iyagbẹ́kọ instructed.
Ola hesitated, eyes fixed on the bowl as if it were a wound.
"Why?" he asked softly.
"Because," she said, "if the ash accepts you, it will cool the fire. If it doesn't…" Her voice faltered, the unspoken horror hanging between them.
With trembling hands, Ola pressed his palms into the ash. At first, it was cool, almost soothing, like a soft breath against his skin. But then, a sudden flare surged through him — sharp and scorching like a match struck in the dark.
He hissed, pulling away, but Iyagbẹ́kọ's hands closed over his wrists, steady and unyielding.
"Let it know you," she urged.
The heat climbed like wildfire, licking up his arms, burning through his shoulders, searing into the coal that pulsed in his chest. It was agony — but familiar agony — as if the fire inside him was awakening, answering to some older, deeper call.
When Iyagbẹ́kọ finally released him, the ash was blackened, thin tendrils of smoke curling upward like spectral fingers. Ola's hands looked unscathed, but when he turned his palms upward, faint markings had been etched into the skin — curving lines like ancient script, glowing faintly with their own dark light.
"They'll fade," Iyagbẹ́kọ said, voice grave. "Or they won't. Either way, the name will settle. For now."
Ola slumped back, exhaustion pulling at him like a tide. His chest ached, the coal burning low but still alive.
"I feel like it's watching me," he said, voice barely above a whisper.
Echo's hand found his arm, warm and steady. "That's because it is. You saw the drowned city. You touched its heart. It won't forget you. And it won't stop testing you."
The silence that followed was thick, heavy as the darkness pressing against the shrine's thin walls.
They thought the worst had passed.
But it hadn't.
It was just before dawn when the first scream shattered the fragile quiet.
Ola was still seated when the cry tore through the village like a blade, raw and desperate.
Echo was the first to respond, sprinting toward the sound with fierce urgency. Ola followed, heart pounding, a cold dread settling over him.
They reached a small hut on the edge of the village, where a woman crouched in the doorway, clutching her child tightly against her chest.
The boy's skin was wet — not with sweat but with beads of cold, brackish water that glistened in the dim light. His wide eyes were black as midnight, his mouth moving in silent, frantic motion.
"He woke like this!" the woman sobbed. "I tried to wipe it away, but it keeps coming back — this water, this smell…"
Ola stepped closer, drawn despite the chill that seeped through him.
The smell was unmistakable.
Marsh water.
Cold. Metallic. Like the water beneath the drowned city's depths.
The boy's lips moved faster now, whispering names — names Ola had heard in the drowned city's silent streets.
Iyagbẹ́kọ appeared behind him, staff striking the ground sharply, her voice no longer calm but edged with command.
"Take him to the shrine. Now."
The woman obeyed without hesitation, cradling the child as if he were breaking beneath her touch.
Ola's chest ached. The coal inside flared hot, and for a breathless moment, the rhythm of the boy's whispered names matched the beating of his own heart.
Echo's hand gripped his arm firmly. "Ola, this isn't just about you anymore."
He met her gaze, shadowed and tired. "I know."
That night, more came.
Not all were children.
An elder, confined to her mat for years, was found standing in the center of the village square, her hair dripping wet with marsh water, chanting a litany of names no one recognized.
A hunter returned from the forest, reeds knotted in his hair, eyes glazed and distant, mouthing the drowned city's silent names as if possessed.
By the third day, the sickness had a name whispered in hushed, fearful tones among the villagers: The Marsh-Calling.
And the whispers spread.
Those afflicted gathered in the night — drawn like moths to a flame neither saw nor understood. Ola followed them once, moving like a shadow through the reeds, heart pounding like a drum.
He watched as they waded waist-deep into the black water, faces turned toward the horizon, waiting for a voice to speak from the abyss.
No one spoke aloud.
But Ola could feel it — the pressure in the air, the slow, steady heartbeat in the water, pulsing like a dark drum beneath the surface.
The drowned city was calling them.
Calling him.
On the fifth night, Echo found him standing at the marsh's edge, alone and silent.
"You're thinking of answering it," she said flatly, eyes wary.
He didn't turn.
"If I don't," he said quietly, "more will come. More will walk into the water and never come back."
Echo's gaze was fierce. "You barely came back yourself."
"Exactly," Ola said, voice heavy. "That's why I have to go again. I brought something back with me. Something that doesn't belong here."
He glanced at her, eyes shadowed by exhaustion and determination.
"I don't know if it's the thief, or the city itself, but it's reaching through me. If I can find the thread — and cut it — then maybe…"
"Maybe you can cut a city loose from your soul?" Echo interrupted, skepticism sharp in her voice.
"I have to try."
Her silence was answer enough.
He stepped forward into the reeds, swallowed by the marsh's cold embrace.
Hours later, he returned to the shrine.
His hands trembled uncontrollably.
In his palm lay something small, black, and wet.
Not a stone.
Not wood.
A tooth.
He dropped it on the altar with a hollow clatter.
Iyagbẹ́kọ stared at the tooth as if it carried the weight of a thousand curses.
"You took this from the water?"
"It was waiting for me," Ola said, voice barely audible.
Iyagbẹ́kọ's eyes darkened, shadows gathering in their depths.
"It's a key," she murmured, "and not to any place you want to open."
Even as she said it, Ola knew.
The city was already opening.
And this time, it wasn't waiting for permission.