The journey to the River of Echoes began before sunrise, when the light was still tentative and the shadows unsure of their place. The Hollow Basin lay behind them like a sealed mouth, closed but still hungry. Each of them carried the imprint of its whisper—whether in mind, body, or rhythm.
Rotimi's steps were slow but purposeful. He spoke little, though his eyes no longer searched the sky for what could not be brought back. Instead, they watched the path ahead, as if daring it to change beneath his feet.
Zuberi walked with eyes cast downward, lips murmuring old harmonics, many of which no longer resonated with the land. Their staff no longer pulsed with the certainty of before—it shimmered instead with unpredictability, its glow fragmenting like broken glass reflecting too many stars.
And Ayanwale... he moved like someone wearing memory as armor. Not because it protected him, but because it weighed enough to keep him from floating back toward the Codex's promise.
Yẹ̀yẹ̀ Adùn led.
She needed no map.
She had once danced upon the River of Echoes when it still sang names into the wind. When memory was not a battleground.
Now they approached it again—not for dance, not for glory, but for warning.
The river remembered.
But memory was a fragile thing these days.
They arrived at the edge of the River on the third evening, just as the moon cracked into view, its face veined with thin scars of forgotten constellations. The river wound through the valley like a vein of liquid onyx, reflective but not shimmering. It was not water in the truest sense—it was memory made manifest.
"Don't speak until she permits you," Yẹ̀yẹ̀ Adùn said quietly. "The River listens. If it hears dishonor, it might rewrite your past into something unrecognizable."
Ayanwale nodded, adjusting the Royalty Drum at his side. Even it pulsed irregularly near the River, like a heartbeat thrown off rhythm by grief.
They waited at the edge of the black water until the light dimmed to near-dark.
Then, from within the river itself, a shape rose.
First, mist.
Then limbs.
And then a woman stepped forth, her robe woven from reeds and echoes. Her eyes shimmered with text—not letters, but flickers of memory.
She was the Riverkeeper.
"Who seeks memory?" she asked, voice like water striking stone.
Yẹ̀yẹ̀ Adùn bowed low. "Those who carry warning. And questions."
The Riverkeeper stepped forward, her gaze flicking between each of them. When her eyes landed on Ayanwale, they lingered.
"You carry a heavy drum," she said.
"It carries me," he replied.
A pause.
Then she nodded. "You may enter."
They followed her into a structure formed by arching trees whose roots twisted together above and below, creating a hollow of living wood. The River flowed through it, a slow, pulsing current at the chamber's center. Around them, memory fragments danced in the water—fleeting images of lives long passed. A child's laughter. A drumbeat at dawn. A kiss never finished. A betrayal never forgiven.
"Speak," the Riverkeeper said, taking her place atop a low stone throne. "Before the river forgets you're real."
Zuberi stepped forward first. "The Codex has stirred."
The Riverkeeper's face tightened. "It was bound."
"It woke."
"And did it see you?"
"It saw everything," Ayanwale said.
Rotimi added, "And something worse is rising now. A Splinter Order. They feed on what the Codex leaves behind—fragments of erased memory, slivers of unanchored names."
The Riverkeeper closed her eyes.
For a moment, the room grew unbearably silent.
Then she opened them again—and the River surged behind her.
"You are too late," she whispered.
Zuberi's voice dropped. "What do you mean?"
"Three days ago, one of the River's twin sources—the Spring of First Memory—was corrupted. Something touched it from beneath. Not just unmaking—but rewriting. We sealed it, but not before a portion of the River forgot its beginning."
Rotimi blinked. "The River doesn't forget."
"It does now," the Keeper replied. "And when rivers forget their sources, they begin to die."
Ayanwale moved closer to the current. He watched as an image surfaced—a girl dancing beneath a fig tree—and then the image unraveled mid-motion, collapsing into a smear of soundless static.
"I've seen that before," he whispered. "In the Codex."
The Riverkeeper nodded. "Then the Codex is not just stirring. It is leaking."
Outside, the wind picked up. But it was not wind.
It was unwind.
A thread of song lost its tone.
A nearby drum, carved into the bark of a tree centuries ago, split in half without sound.
Yẹ̀yẹ̀ Adùn stood, suddenly alert. "Something's entered the valley."
The Riverkeeper extended both arms. The river's current began to slow, congealing into a still mirror.
From within it, she drew forth a blade—not of metal, but of woven syllables. A Nameblade.
It glowed with the power of memory held firm.
"We are not alone," she said.
The attack came not as a battle.
But as a forgetting.
A shadow stepped through the roots—a man whose face was smoke, whose name had been offered to the Codex willingly.
He held nothing in his hands.
But every step he took made the memories of those nearby flicker.
Zuberi gasped, falling to one knee.
Their childhood slipped away.
Rotimi staggered. "I—who—?"
Ayanwale tightened his grip on the Royalty Drum.
BOOM.
The rhythm struck the air like a lightning bolt of remembrance.
It pushed the shadow back.
But the figure only grinned.
"You cling to names like they're armor," he said, voice warped. "But they're just paper in fire."
He reached out.
And the Riverkeeper vanished.
Not in death.
But in non-mention.
Ayanwale turned and found himself staring at empty space where she had stood.
"Who were we talking to?" Rotimi asked, voice trembling.
"No," Zuberi whispered. "No—this is how it starts."
Ayanwale beat the drum again.
BOOM. BOOM.
A counter-rhythm. A drumbeat of re-anchoring.
The River pulsed in reply—but without the Keeper, it faltered.
Then—
From deep within the roots—
A whisper.
Her name.
Just once.
Softly.
And it was Yẹ̀yẹ̀ Adùn who spoke it.
"Onírìn."
The River surged upward in answer. It re-formed the woman in a halo of liquid light, her eyes burning now with the fury of near-erasure.
She screamed—not in fear.
But in name-song.
The shadow staggered.
Cracked.
And then scattered—unraveled into nothing.
Not even ash.
Silence fell once more.
But it was full now. Dense with survival.
Ayanwale turned to Yẹ̀yẹ̀ Adùn. "You remembered her name."
She nodded. "I made it part of my own when I left the River all those years ago. She gave it to me. I never forgot."
Zuberi shivered. "If the Splinter Order learns how to erase names like that..."
"They already have," said Onírìn, her voice returned to calm. "This was only a fragment. A sent word. They're reaching far now. Testing waters. Seeking the next fracture."
Ayanwale stepped closer to the River, laying his hand on its surface. "Then we need to reach first."
"To where?" Rotimi asked.
"To the Springs of First Memory," Ayanwale said. "If they're corrupted, we must reclaim them. Anchor them."
"And if they can't be reclaimed?" Zuberi asked.
"Then we learn to drum without origin," Yẹ̀yẹ̀ Adùn replied quietly. "And that is a rhythm not yet written."