Chapter Three
By morning, the village felt... off.
The air was too still. The birds had not sung. Even the river moved quietly, as though listening for something that hadn't arrived yet—or something that had arrived too soon.
Word of the stranger's awakening spread quickly. The elders summoned Amira to the Circle House, where clay pots of bitterroot smoke curled upward in threads of warning.
"He carries the sigil of the Rootbind," said Elder Nnenna, her blind eyes turned toward the window. "That mark has not been seen in over two centuries."
"Because it was buried," muttered Elder Babajide, his fingers trembling around his prayer beads. "Locked away beneath the Place of Forgetting, sealed in clay and salt and silence."
"But if it's awakened," Nnenna said, voice low and brittle, "then something else has stirred with it. Something darker."
Amira stood her ground. "He doesn't remember. He doesn't know who he is."
"That is exactly why he is dangerous," snapped another voice—Elder Kure. "Amnesia is the weapon of the cursed. What better vessel for an old spirit to return in than a man without memory?"
Amira clenched her fists. "He hasn't harmed anyone."
"Yet," Kure replied. "But the Lantern Tree sang when he came. And now it weeps sap in the color of dusk. Don't pretend that's coincidence."
Elias stepped beside Amira. "Then we find out the truth. Not by exile, but by journey."
The room quieted.
Elder Nnenna nodded slowly. "You want to enter the Place of Forgetting again?"
Amira hesitated.
"I have to."
Outside, the skies darkened again—not with rain, but with something heavier. The clouds curled like smoke, and from the distant forest came the low moan of wind moving through trees that had not swayed in years.
That evening, Amira and Elias returned to the stranger.
He sat near the Lantern Tree now, his back against the glowing trunk, the mark on his chest now a faint burn. Villagers kept their distance, offering cautious glances, muttered prayers.
Amira approached with purpose. "There's a place. Beneath the tree. Where names and spirits sleep. I believe something of you is buried there."
The stranger's golden eyes met hers. "Then take me."
She turned to Elias. "We go tonight. Before the dreams return."
Later that night...
The three of them stood beneath the Lantern Tree.
Its roots shifted at Amira's touch, revealing the secret spiral path downward—into the cave of memory. The place that had once demanded sacrifice. The place where the covenant had been born, and where so many truths had bled into the soil.
Their lanterns cast strange shadows along the walls. The glowing symbols still pulsed, though dimmer than before. The air was thick with incense and earth.
They reached the sacred pool at the center—still as glass.
The moment the stranger stepped near it, the waters began to ripple.
Then boil.
Then rise.
A vision exploded from the pool's surface—lashing out like flame:
A man, tied to the roots of a great tree, screaming as clay seals were pressed into his skin.
Seven masked figures chanting, "Let the fire forget, let the soil remember."
A tear in the sky.
A child with gold eyes watching from behind the veil.
A promise made.
A betrayal hidden.
The pool went still.
Amira gasped.
Elias whispered, "It was him. He was sealed. He was the prison."
The stranger collapsed to his knees. "No… no… I—was trying to save her."
The mark on his chest began to glow again.
Behind them, the cavern rumbled.
Cracks split the walls.
And from the ancient clay slabs, long buried, came the sound of cries—hundreds of them—long-dead voices waking up.
Amira turned, heart pounding.
"The seals are breaking."