Chapter Twenty
The passage widened as they moved deeper, the girl's light flickering ahead like a lantern swaying in a breeze. The silence was complete—no sound of insects, no wind, just the rhythmic pulse of the symbols that lit their way. The further they went, the more the air tasted like memory—metallic, sweet, and sorrowful.
Amira felt as though her breath was not her own. The deeper she descended, the more her body vibrated with a knowing she could not name. Her grandmother's lullabies returned to her in pieces—not as melodies, but as chants. Incantations.
"Omo rere, ma fò… Ẹ̀mí yó padà…"
She whispered the words, and the walls responded. The carvings lit brighter. The spirit child turned and smiled with approval.
"She's showing us the place of the covenant," Amira said.
Elias nodded, though his face was pale. The mark on his chest now spiraled down his arm. "This was never just your inheritance. It's mine too, somehow. I think… I was always meant to come here."
At last, the tunnel ended in a cavern so vast it seemed to breathe. At its center was a pool of still, glowing water. Around it stood seven statues—weathered, solemn figures with outstretched hands, eyes carved shut.
One by one, the eyes of the statues opened.
It wasn't mechanical. It wasn't magic.
It was recognition.
The pool shimmered and parted, revealing beneath its surface a swirling image—a time long past. A village in flames. A girl running through the smoke. And a figure cloaked in shadow offering her sanctuary in exchange for silence.
Amira's voice trembled. "That's her. Adetutu. She made the pact."
"She traded something sacred," Elias added. "To save the village… or to hide a truth."
The spirit child walked onto the water without sinking. She knelt and pressed her hand to its surface, and from her back unfurled two translucent wings made of stardust and memory.
"She's the spirit daughter," Amira whispered. "She's the one they erased."
The pool surged upward like a column of light, and inside it appeared a vision of a tree—the Lantern Tree—split down the middle, with roots stretching into darkness and branches reaching into flame. From it flowed rivers of light, and then… shadows.
And a voice filled the space again, older than time, female and thunderous.
"Two shall enter. Only one shall return. The balance must be paid."
Elias stiffened. "They want one of us. For the covenant to be restored."
Amira reached for his hand. "We didn't come this far to choose between us."
The spirit child turned, her wings folding. She extended a hand to both of them, and suddenly—
—they were no longer in the cavern.
They stood at the base of the Lantern Tree once more, but everything was changed. The sky burned orange and violet, the ground trembled, and the village in the distance was engulfed in swirling mists. Spirits walked openly now—some glowing, some shadowed—moving among the living, some comforting, others haunting.
They had been transported to a threshold—between the past and the now. Between what was and what could still be.
Elias turned to Amira. "This is our moment. If we heal the covenant, we might restore the balance."
"But if we fail…" Amira said slowly, looking back toward the village, "they will all vanish. Everyone. The land, the people, the river, the sky."
Elias stepped forward, his voice soft but resolute. "Then we don't fail."
Together, they turned toward the mist and walked forward—toward the heart of the unraveling.