Chapter 3: The Sanctuary of Ile-Ase
The world was muted, save for the high, frantic ringing in Omotara's ears and the guttural, sucking roar of the suspended water. She stood paralyzed, the sacred Igba a dead weight in her trembling hands, staring up at the colossal, trembling wall of seawater that blotted out the sky.
I did that.
The thought was ice in her veins. Below the curling, foaming crest, she saw the tiny, frozen figures of the festival crowd—a tapestry of terror about to be washed away.
Before the wave could complete its catastrophic descent, the three rotting figures—the Ajogun metas—shook off their shock. Their sickly yellow eyes fixed on her and the Igba with renewed, ravenous intent. They moved not with a run, but a terrifying, disjointed lope, their limbs cracking audibly as they closed the distance, ignoring the panicked humans stumbling in their path.
"The vessel! Seize it!" one hissed, its voice the sound of dry reeds scraping stone.
Suddenly, Iya Nla was there. Omotara's mother, the community's serene priestess, was gone. In her place stood a warrior-oracle, her eyes blazing with ancestral fire. She slammed her ornate staff—opa osun—into the sodden earth. The ground rippled outwards in a visible shockwave of pure, golden ase that made the advancing metas stumble.
"Eji ogbe, oyeku meji! Mo dúró sẹ́nu ọ̀nà!" Iya Nla chanted, her voice a thunderclap of command. The air around her began to warp and shimmer, heat haze giving way to a vertical tear of brilliant, white-gold light—an Ona Orun, a pathway between worlds.
"Through! NOW!" Iya Nla roared, one hand maintaining the complex sigil in the air, the other grabbing Omotara's arm with bone-crushing force.
But the metas were relentless. The lead figure, its flesh peeling like burnt bark, lunged the final ten feet, a clawed hand stretching for the Igba. Omotara screamed, throwing herself backward.
A searing, azure bolt of lightning struck the ground between them, exploding in a concussive blast of heat and deafening noise. The meta was thrown back, smoking and shrieking.
Tayo stood there, braced in a fighter's stance. Tendrils of raw electricity danced over his knuckles and up his arms. His usual casual charm was incinerated, replaced by a fierce, focused ferocity. His amber eyes glowed with an inner storm.
"They're drawn to the Igba's resonance! You have to go!" he shouted, his voice layered with a subterranean rumble.
The two other metas converged on him. One exhaled a cloud of that same putrid, metallic fire. Tayo didn't flinch. He crossed his arms and then flung them outward, a controlled dome of crackling lightning erupting from his body, meeting the foul flames in a sizzling, violent clash. The stench of ozone battled the scent of decay.
The second meta, faster, darted around the energy clash, its movements a blur, going for Iya Nla's undefended side. Tayo saw it. With a grunt of effort, he pivoted, sacrificing his defensive stance. He threw a whip-like coil of pure electrical energy that wrapped around the meta's ankle. He yanked, hard, sending the creature crashing to the mud just as it was about to strike.
The distraction cost him. The first meta recovered and slammed a fist wreathed in greenish flame into Tayo's side. He cried out, the lightning around him flickering, but he held his ground, planting his feet and unleashing a point-blank burst of concussive thunder that sent the meta skidding backwards.
"THE PORTAL!" Tayo gasped, pain etched on his face. "I can't hold them forever!"
Iya Nla didn't hesitate. She shoved Omotara through the shimmering, golden rift. The transition was a nauseating lurch through freezing, pressurized silence. Omotara tumbled out onto a bed of soft, luminous moss, the Igba rolling safely beside her. She had one last glimpse of the festival ground—of Tayo, surrounded, buying their escape with crackling fury—before the Ona Orun sealed with a sound like a sigh, leaving only the deep, primeval silence of an ancient forest.
---
She woke hours later in a room of smooth, dark stone. The air hummed with a deep, resonant energy. Iya Nla sat nearby, her robes now those of a high commander, her face a mask of grim triumph and profound anger.
"The world saw," Iya Nla stated, no preamble, no comfort. "You nearly drowned a city block. The lie they tell is of a freak tidal surge. The truth is known where it matters. You lit a beacon, daughter. And every hunter in the spiritual wilds now sees its glow."
Omotara's voice was raw. "I couldn't stop it! Who were they? Why me?"
Iya Nla's gaze was unyielding. "Ajogun. Anti-gods. They seek to break the Orisha lineages. And they came for you, Omotara, because you are not the apprentice. You are the Demigod of Yemoja. Her true successor."
The words should have been madness. Yet, they resonated with the terrifying power that had answered her rage. A memory surfaced: childhood fevers where her sweat smelled of saltwater, dreams of singing whales, the way fish in the market stalls would sometimes go still and face her as she passed.
"What?! No, I can't be! That's just… it's just stories! You're being delusional!" The denial was a last, desperate grasp at a normal world that was already gone.
"Shut up, child, and open your eyes!" Iya Nla roared, the force in her voice making the stone walls vibrate. "How do you think you got here? What was that water if not your screaming soul? You think any devotee could command the Lagoon's heart? You are divinity manifest, and your tantrum almost killed thousands!"
"You lied to me! All my life!"
"I shielded you!" Iya Nla shot back, rising to her full, imposing height. "Your power is a tempest tied to your emotions. To tell you was to paint a target on your back. Your disobedience, your recklessness, has torn that shield away. Now, you must be hidden. You must be forged. This is Ile-Ase. Your home until you learn control."
She led a stunned Omotara through vast halls alive with carvings that seemed to shift in the torchlight. They entered a circular chamber where a pool of liquid obsidian swirled slowly. An ancient woman, the Awise, stood by it, her eyes holding the pale, cold light of captured moons.
"The chaos was foreseen," the Oracle's voice echoed, ancient and dry. "Your awakening confirms the final prophecy. The Ajogun gather their army. Only the Iṣọkan Ase—the Unification of Power—can break them."
"What unification?" Omotara whispered, dread coiling in her stomach.
"The successor of Yemoja must unite with the successor of Shango," the Oracle intoned. "Water and Thunder. Creation and Judgment. Together, their balanced ase can lock the doors the Ajogun seek to open. But the path is… complicated."
As if summoned by the words, the chamber doors hissed open.
Tayo stood there, leaning against the frame. He was bruised, his shirt torn and scorched from the fight, a fresh burn visible on his side. He looked exhausted, but his eyes found Omotara's instantly, blazing with a worry that seemed far too real for a simple guardian.
Omotara's shock crystallized into a bitter, piercing betrayal. "You. You're one of them."
He straightened, wincing slightly. "I am Tayo, son of Shango. Sent to Lagos to monitor your spiritual signature, to guard you until you were ready."
"Monitor me?" she spat, the memory of ice cream cones and casual walks now a sickening joke. "You lied to my face every day!"
"I was trying to give you peace!" he insisted, stepping into the room, his voice desperate. "I knew what was coming! I knew the moment your power broke free, your life would become this!" He gestured at the stone walls, the Oracle, the weight of destiny.
The Oracle's moonlit eyes settled on Tayo, then back to Omotara, her expression pitying. "Tayo is indeed Shango's heir. However, the alliance between the Orisha Houses was sealed years ago. He is already promised to another—to jumoke, daughter of Oya, Goddess of Winds and Storms. She has been trained for this role since childhood. She is the expected partner. You, child of Yemoja, are an unforeseen variable.
The final blow landed. Omotara looked at Tayo—the boy who was both her protector and her betrayer, now promised to another. She looked at her mother, her jailer-seer. She looked at the towering, immutable walls of Ile-Ase.
She was not a girl. She was a weapon. She was a complication.
And she was trapped in a gilded cage of prophecy, with a storm she could not control raging inside her.