The cracked terrain still pulsed with dying embers of Ajogun corruption, and the air—once alive with spectral screams—now hung heavy, like a breath held too long.
The portal had collapsed behind Afolabi, sealing shut with a low thunderclap that left silence in its wake. The divine light had deposited him back in the same clearing near the scrapyard marketplace—only now it was changed. The scorched ground shimmered faintly with the residue of the realm he'd left behind. Familiar rooftops loomed nearby, scorched in patches. A half-collapsed satellite dish trembled faintly, as though the divine light had passed through it on its way out. He recognized the skeletal frame of an old market sign not far off—he was near the scrapyard, where it had all begun.
For a breathless moment, Afolabi stood alone—his boots half-buried in soot, his heart still tangled in the trial he had just survived. Then the light behind him shimmered one last time, and four figures stepped through the thinning veil of energy.
He exhaled shakily, chest heaving. Smoke curled from the earth, wrapping around his ankles like forgotten prayers. The air trembled with aftershock, but he barely registered it.
The silence screamed louder than the battle.
His lungs still burned with corrupted breath. His legs ached with fatigue. But deeper still was the ache of something intangible—something broken open inside him and left to echo.
The golems emerged, stepping from the dissipating shimmer like divine echoes brought into form.
They had stepped through the collapsing light beside him—not as summoned guardians, but as echoes of ancestral will, drawn to the one who could awaken their memory. They were silent now, watching. Their forms were the same—but the air around them felt different. Denser. Charged.
Afolabi turned to face them.
He didn’t speak. Words felt too small. He walked slowly to the first figure—the wind-forged sentinel whose presence had stilled the Ajogun's blades. He raised his hand and paused, just above her shoulder.
Heat and static kissed his skin.
"Can you hear me?"
No voice answered.
But something stirred.
His à?? rippled inward—not in light, but in memory. His spirit brushed against hers. And in that moment, her name rose in his chest like a breath he'd been holding since birth:
Ayanfe-Oya.
Ayanfe-Oya had not been born. She had been called, during the Rites of Thunder in Oya’s shrine, when the skies split and warned the world.
Her form coalesced in the sacred grove of Oke-Meta—crafted from hurricane-twisted bark, bound by nine iron rings etched with proverbs from the Ifá Oracle.
Her first bearer, Erelu N'koya, had spoken in verses sharper than spears.
"You are my storm when my voice is not enough."
Together they shattered silence. Toppled shadows. But truth invites betrayal.
Lightning devoured the rebel camp. Ayanfe-Oya held her dying bearer and vanished into the wind.
Now, she stood again.
And the boy before her did not command.
He carried the scent of storm.
Afolabi blinked.
A whisper trembled in his ribs. Not words. Recognition.
He turned to the next.
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A massive iron golem, his armor dark with soot and history.
Afolabi reached out.
The air warmed.
His palm tingled. His spirit hummed.
Ina-Ogun.
Forged beneath òkè-Akà by priest-smiths sworn to Ogun's silence, Ina-Ogun was cast from Emberstone—a fallen meteorite that split the mountain.
Layered iron. Etched prayers. A furnace heart.
His first bearer, Adekomi the Reforger, broke chains and raised cities.
His last—a tyrant—used him for genocide.
He rebelled.
It ended a war.
And then he buried himself beneath Mount Irin, waiting for one who would use fire not to destroy, but to transform.
Now, his core glowed faintly.
The boy did not flinch at the heat.
Afolabi turned again.
The thunder-forged one stood tall. Bronze. Silent.
He reached.
A jolt sparked from metal to skin.
Not rejection.
A test.
Ara-Sango.
Cast from storm-bronze beneath òkè-Ibàdàn.
Awakened by temple-drummers in Shaki.
Axes etched into his chest. Law in every strike.
He had walked beside Bashorun Ekundayo—who used him to silence a civil war.
But justice became blood.
Ara-Sango refused to obey.
The thunder fell silent.
Now, Afolabi stood before him.
He stared at the twin axes etched into the golem’s chest—symbols of law, once wielded for justice, then twisted.
“You disobeyed when judgment turned to cruelty,” he said softly. “You remembered what your wielder forgot.”
He lowered his head.
"If I misuse your power... stop me."
The bronze chest glowed.
A spark leapt.
Last stood the tide-born golem, serene and unmoving.
Mist curled at her feet.
Afolabi stepped forward, slower this time.
His feet grew wet.
Not from water, but memory.
Omi-Yemoja.
Formed where Osun kissed the Atlantic.
Pearl, coral, brine-soaked grief.
She was rage-forged mercy.
Born of widows and priestesses after raiders came.
Her bearer, Temidayo, was a healer.
When the elders stalled, Omi-Yemoja moved.
She drowned the fleet.
Temidayo, weeping, walked into the tide.
Now, she stood again.
Still. Watching.
Not threat.
Legacy.
The golems did not bow.
They didn’t need to.
Afolabi lowered his head. His bones hummed.
"Why me?" he whispered.
Wind tousled his curls.
Bronze sparked.
Water shimmered.
Iron hissed.
His à?? rose again.
Not a surge.
A harmony.
A song inside his ribs.
"I am not ready."
He dropped to one knee.
"But I will walk. And I will not walk alone."
Silence held.
Then, like thunder in his spine:
"You do not command," said Ayanfe-Oya.
"You carry legacy."
His eyes widened.
It hadn't been imagined. Her voice had spoken—real, resonant, alive.
His breath caught as the truth of it sank in.
Only she had answered him.
The others watched in solemn silence, their presence heavy with judgment and potential.
Trust, he realized, would not come all at once.
It would be earned.
Voice by voice. Spirit by spirit.
A tremor whispered beneath the ground.
Ara-Sango turned first.
Then Ina-Ogun.
The others followed, forming a perimeter.
The earth groaned.
The air dimmed.
Afolabi’s breath caught.
His body tensed.
"Something’s coming."
A crack in the soil.
A flicker in the shadows.
But the rumble faded.
The ground exhaled.
Whatever it was... it was gone.
A test?
A warning?
Or just the world remembering him?
Some time later...
Afolabi had not moved far.
The tremor had passed, but his legs remained heavy, and his spirit even more so. The sacred baobab had not been there before—but it rose from the earth like it had always belonged, bark carved with ancestral chants, leaves rustling with silent remembrance. It wasn’t shelter. It was a message.
Still, doubt gnawed at him. He should be running. The twins—Taiwo and Kehinde—they had seen him fall. What were they thinking now? Were they searching? Waiting? Panicking?
But he needed a breath before returning. Not to hide. To hold what had happened. To carry it properly.
The golems stood watch.
Not as guards.
As sentinels of something just beginning.
Not as guards.
As sentinels of something just beginning.
Afolabi sat with his back to the tree.
The stars shimmered above.
A sudden pang struck his chest.
Taiwo. Kehinde.
They had seen him fall into that rift. Had they waited? Had they tried to reopen it?
Were they still out there, searching this very ground?
Taiwo, probably pacing and pretending not to worry, cracking half-hearted jokes.
Kehinde, sharp-eyed and furious at herself for not stopping it.
They were the only ones who'd witnessed it.
The only ones he could tell the truth to.
The only ones who might even believe him.
Had they seen him vanish?
Would they even believe what he’d become?
He lay back, arms folded beneath his head.
"Do you dream?" he asked the golems.
No answer.
But in his dreams, he saw them walking beside him.
Of fire tempered.
Of thunder judging.
Of oceans weeping.
Of wind singing through iron leaves.
And of a boy
who no longer felt small.
When he stirred again, Ara-Sango stood closer.
And in his chest,
the silence no longer felt empty.