The fire was dying.
Tayo fed it the last of the dry twigs they'd gathered from the edge of Ilẹkùn-Aiye. His hands shook as he worked, eyes darting to every shadow the flames cast.
Ayomide hadn't spoken in hours. He sat opposite the fire, legs folded, the scroll bearing the First Mark still clenched in his fist. The faint symbol of an eye pierced by a blade shimmered under the moonlight.
"I saw him," he finally said, voice hoarse. "My brother. He betrayed me in that life. He smiled when he took my throne."
Tayo didn't respond immediately. He stirred the fire again, buying time to process the impossible.
"Can we trust what you saw?" he asked quietly. "Memories from another life… visions from a dead priest. Maybe your brother, whoever he is, wasn't even real."
"He was real," Ayomide said. "I felt the dagger go through my ribs."
Tayo shivered. "Still feels crazy."
"Maybe it is," Ayomide whispered, "but the mark is real. The pendant is real. And if the others are hidden like this one, we'll need to move quickly."
He looked up, suddenly alert.
"Someone's watching."
Tayo leapt to his feet and spun around. "Where?"
Ayomide didn't answer.
The air had shifted.
The stillness of Ilẹkùn-Aiye was gone. In its place came a strange hum, like bones rattling in a jar, soft at first, then rising in pitch.
From the fog behind them, glowing eyes began to appear red, unblinking, low to the ground.
Then came the sound.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
The unmistakable sound of hooves striking stone.
Enter: The Bone Riders
Five skeletal horses stepped into the clearing, each mounted by a dark figure wrapped in black rags and golden chains. Their faces were masked horned skulls forged of polished iron. Where their eyes should have been, two red coals burned.
One rider stepped forward.
His voice was wind and ash.
"Prince of Odanjo… the Crown does not belong to you."
Ayomide stood, scroll in one hand, pendant in the other.
"You're late. The First Mark is mine."
"You hold one memory. That is all. The rest are sealed. And your life… ends here."
Tayo pulled Ayomide's sleeve. "Ayo, we're not fighting those things. We run."
Ayomide hesitated.
Every instinct in his body screamed to stand and fight, but one look at the growing number of glowing eyes behind the first five riders told him the truth:
They were surrounded.
"Go!" he yelled, grabbing Tayo's wrist.
They ran.
A Desperate Escape
Branches slapped their faces. Roots clawed at their feet. The fog was dense, and the cold made breathing difficult.
Behind them, the Bone Riders gave chase.
But they didn't shout.
They didn't scream.
Their hooves didn't thunder.
They glided across the ground silent, deadly, and tireless.
Ayomide felt the pendant heat up against his chest. It pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat. Each time it glowed, it illuminated a path, a direction.
"Left!" he shouted, dragging Tayo toward an overgrown trail.
"This better not lead to death!"
"It might," Ayomide panted, "but slower than staying where we were."
They burst through a wall of vines and fell.
Into the River of Night
The ground disappeared beneath their feet.
They plummeted through the dark, water crashing around them. The cold river swallowed them whole, pulling them under.
Ayomide fought to surface, gasping as he broke through, only to be shoved under again by the current. Tayo thrashed beside him.
Something brushed his leg slimy and long.
"Don't stop swimming!" he shouted, barely above water.
The current flung them into the shallows minutes later. Coughing, freezing, and soaked, they dragged themselves to shore.
Ayomide collapsed on the muddy bank, chest heaving.
Tayo stared at the pendant around Ayomide's neck. "That thing… it saved us."
Ayomide nodded weakly. "It's showing us the path. And the danger."
He glanced upriver.
Far away, on the cliff they had jumped from, the Bone Riders stood still.
Watching.
Waiting.
They would not forget.
Shelter in the Forgotten Shrine
Hours passed.
The forest thickened, and the river forked.
Eventually, they stumbled upon a ruin an old shrine, covered in moss and half-swallowed by vines. The walls bore ancient markings similar to the ones in Ilẹkùn-Aiye.
As they stepped inside, the pendant glowed again.
This time, not with warning but with warmth.
"A resting place," Ayomide muttered. "Someone built this for us… a long time ago."
Tayo dropped beside a broken statue of a woman holding a torch.
"We need real help, Ayo. You're not trained. I'm just a village boy. And we're being hunted by glowing-eyed skeletons on undead horses."
Ayomide smiled faintly.
"I don't think we're supposed to fight them yet. Not until I find the second mark."
Tayo blinked. "You already know where it is?"
Ayomide reached into his cloak and pulled out the scroll. The first mark when exposed to moonlight—revealed part of a map.
A path through the Valley of Forgotten Tongues.
And in its heart The Temple of Echoes.
A New Ally
Just before dawn, as they rested in the shrine, a sound broke the silence.
The tap-tap of a staff against stone.
Ayomide sat up fast.
A cloaked figure entered the shrine, his face hidden, but his aura… familiar.
"I've been tracking you for two days," the man said, lowering his hood. He was older than both boys combined, yet his eyes were clear and piercing.
"You carry the curse," he said to Ayomide. "But also the key."
"Who are you?"
"I am Orunfelu," the man replied. "Last Guardian of the Temple of Echoes. And I will train you… if you do not die first."
Tayo groaned. "Why is that always the condition?"