The severed head of the Queen stared up at them, mouth agape, eyes wide as if the last thing she saw was too cruel to be understood. The crimson satchel soaked the steps of the throne dais, and for a long time, no one dared to speak. The torches lining the hall flickered under the weight of silence. It was not just death they were looking at it was war, declared without words.
Ayomide's knuckles turned white around the hilt of the Blade of Burdens. His mind churned with images of his mother her laughter in the garden when he was a child, the lullabies she used to hum when she thought he was asleep, the way she used to clasp his hand when she feared the royal court would swallow him whole. All of that, ended with a swing of the Bone King's blade. And now her head was a message.
The messenger stood still, expression vacant, hands behind his back like a courtier waiting for applause. The firelight gleamed off the gold scar across his cheek, and there was something far too calm in his stance, as if beheadings and threats were just routine.
Ayomide stepped forward. No rage. No shout. Just purpose. He bent and gently closed his mother's eyes with trembling fingers, wrapping the cloth over her face like a final veil. Then he rose, turning to the messenger with the kind of quiet that made the air itself hold its breath.
"Who are you?" Ayomide asked.
The man smirked. "His name is not for mortal tongues. I am his Echo. His breath, his will, his shade in the day and his fire in the night."
"You're a servant," Tayo snapped. "A coward with a script."
The Echo turned slightly. "I am a herald, young knight. One of many. The Bone King doesn't need armies to start a war. He only needs to remind you of what's coming."
Ayomide's voice cut through the tension like a blade. "You forgot something."
The man blinked. "What?"
Ayomide's fist collided with his face. The Echo staggered back, blood spraying from his nose. But Ayomide didn't stop there. He slammed him into the broken pillar beside the dais, pinning him by the throat. His blade pressed against the man's ribs.
"You forgot to bring your own head."
Gasps rippled through the throne room. The Reaper drew closer, but said nothing. Adesewa took a cautious step forward, concern creasing her brow.
The Echo coughed. "Kill me, and the King will burn ten more villages."
Ayomide's blade did not move. "He already burned them. The difference is that now I know what I'm fighting."
"Then we've both delivered our message," the Echo rasped.
Ayomide released him and stepped back. "Leave. Crawl back to him. Tell him the Cursed Prince is coming. Tell him I'll return what he sent me—but not in a bag."
The Echo spat blood and smiled. "I will tell him. And he will wait. He always does."
He walked out of the hall without looking back. Ayomide watched him go, the silence around them swelling like a tide. The fire behind his eyes had not dimmed. If anything, it had found fuel.
That night, the throne room became a war room.
Adesewa placed maps across the long table, marking the Bone King's movements with inked stones. Orunfelu brought intelligence gathered by the surviving hawk messengers. The Reaper offered names of the mountain tribes who might still owe her favors. Tayo polished his sword, the sound as steady as his resolve.
"We can't fight him head-on," Orunfelu said. "His forces are cursed, untouchable by normal steel."
"We need the old ways," the Reaper said. "The True Fire. The Ember Mages of Efondu. They were exiled for using forbidden flames, but they can burn the undead."
Adesewa hesitated. "They're unpredictable. Dangerous. The last time they came near Odanjo, they nearly set the entire west wing of the city on fire."
"Good," Ayomide replied. "It means they still know how."
Tayo leaned forward. "If we divide our forces, we risk being picked off. But if we stay here, he'll surround us."
Ayomide studied the map. His fingers traced the edge of the Bone King's sigil burned into the parchment. His thoughts swirled like a storm.
"He wants me to react," Ayomide said. "To charge blindly. That's why he sent her head. But we won't give him what he wants."
"So what's the plan?" Adesewa asked.
Ayomide's eyes burned brighter. "We give him something he doesn't expect."
At dawn, Ayomide led a small unit southward, cloaked in ash and silence. With him were the Reaper, Orunfelu, and a scout named Yemisi swift as wind, and twice as quiet. Their destination: the Ember Caves of Efondu.
The road was dangerous, and not just because of enemies. The forest that bordered the south had changed since the Bone King's awakening. The trees whispered too loudly. The shadows moved in ways that defied the sun.
On the third night, Yemisi disappeared during her watch. They found her at dawn, face frozen in fear, no wounds on her body. Just a mark carved on her forehead an ancient curse from the Eastern Sands. Ayomide clenched his fists, the guilt heavy in his chest.
"We bury her here," he said.
The Reaper's face was unreadable. "We're being watched."
"I know," Ayomide murmured. "Let them watch. Let them fear what's coming."
When they reached the Ember Caves, the air was thick with smoke, the sky stained orange like a permanent sunset. Flames licked the rocks, forming shapes that resembled faces screaming in silence. And at the entrance stood a man wrapped in robes of molten cloth. His eyes were fire.
"You bring the blade," he said without preamble. "And the blood."
"I bring a kingdom's last hope," Ayomide replied.
The mage's mouth twisted into a grin. "Then step inside, Prince. And be reborn in the fire, or perish in it."
The others moved to follow, but Ayomide held up a hand. "I go alone."
The Reaper started to object. "That's suicide."
Ayomide looked at her, calm but firm. "If I can't face their flame, I can't face his."
He stepped into the cave. The door closed behind him with a sound like a thunderclap.
Inside, it was not heat that greeted him but memory. The flames curled around his feet and whispered his name. Images from his childhood burned on the walls his first fall, his first lie, his first heartbreak. The fire showed him his sins, his doubts, his deepest fears.
But he didn't flinch.
He walked through fire and came out the other side—not unscathed, but unchanged in purpose.
The mages waited.
The leader stepped forward, his hands glowing. "You are not who I expected. You are… less cruel. But more dangerous."
"Will you help us?" Ayomide asked.
The mage nodded. "We will burn what needs to be burned. But when this war is over, you will owe us."
"I already owe too much," Ayomide said.
He returned to his camp that night with twenty ember mages behind him. Flames danced in their eyes, and the stars above trembled.
The war was no longer a shadow.
It was real.
And it had begun.