Chapter Eight
They buried the seed at dawn, beneath the soft roots of the Lantern Tree. The villagers formed a circle around it, not in mourning—but in awe. Children placed flower petals into the soil, and elders sang the Song of Open Doors, a lullaby once forbidden, now returned to their tongues.
Amira knelt as the first light of morning struck the seed. It pulsed faintly, not unlike a heartbeat, as if Aruwé still lingered inside it, dreaming.
Elias stood behind her, one hand resting lightly on her shoulder. "It's not just a tree anymore," he said. "It's a beacon."
Amira nodded. "For the others… for those who are still hidden. Still silenced."
Nnenna approached, staff in hand, eyes wide with what she called the Knowing. "The seed doesn't belong only to this world," she whispered. "It listens to two skies. One we see… and one we remember only in dreams."
That evening, Amira dreamed of the Otherworld.
She stood on a vast, red plain where fire fell like snow. The wind hummed with distant voices, and strange lanterns floated through the air—each one bearing the face of a lost child, flickering between pain and peace.
A figure walked toward her through the flame-mist.
It was Aruwé—but not as a child. She was tall now, robed in starlight and crowned with burning feathers. Her voice came from everywhere and nowhere.
"They will come to you. The broken, the marked, the wanderers. You must plant what you cannot see. And trust that it will grow where your sight ends."
Amira reached out. "But how do I guide them?"
Aruwé touched her hand.
"With memory. With mercy. With names."
Amira awoke with tears on her face and the taste of ashes on her tongue.
The next day, the first wanderer arrived.
A boy, no more than ten, emerged from the misty borderlands, his eyes blank with forgetting. He carried nothing except a small bone flute and a burn mark shaped like a spiral on his chest.
The villagers welcomed him without question.
They fed him, bathed him, and wrapped him in warm cloth. Amira sat with him by the lantern tree, speaking softly until his eyes focused.
He did not remember his name.
So they gave him one.
Taru.
Light returning to flame.
And with that, the seed pulsed again—stronger this time.
More came. A girl with white eyes who spoke only in riddles. An old man whose body flickered between solid and smoke. A twin who had lost her other half in a storm of bone and blood and now whispered to shadows.
Each bore a different mark.
Each was welcomed.
Each added a thread to the ever-growing tapestry of the village.
And each time a new soul arrived, the seed beneath the Lantern Tree glowed brighter.
By moonrise on the thirtieth night, the sap no longer flowed only in rivulets.
It began to sing.
The villagers gathered once again, watching as golden light rose from the ground and formed a spiral in the air.
Amira stood at the center, holding the boy Taru's hand.
She raised her voice into the lantern-lit night.
"We are not afraid of what returns. We are not afraid of what remembers. This is the village of light and flame, of fire and forgiveness. We will carry the forgotten until they remember themselves."
The wind answered.
And so did the earth.
The flame in the seed flared open.
Not a flower.
Not a tree.
But a doorway.
And through it… came a voice not heard since the first covenant was born.