A Novel by
Sunmisola A.
Opening scene:
They say every village has a queen. But in Daramu, a wind-washed land between sea and dust, there was only her — the woman who crowns.
No one knew her name, only the weight of her footsteps, the hush of the elders when she passed. They say she could look into a man's eyes and know what he buried beneath his tongue. That her touch could lift grief like a veil. That she wore no crown, but made kings out of cowards and warriors from weavers.
She appeared on the first night of the red moon, walking barefoot through the sleeping village. In her hand: a carved horn, ancient and cracked, trailing a line of gold dust behind her. She knelt before a boy sick with fever and whispered into his brow. By morning, he walked.
That was the first crowning.
But what no one knew, what no one dared ask was this:
Who crowned her?
CHAPETER 1:THE RED MOON
The moon bled
Not in drops, but in a slow, silent spill that painted the night sky in crimson. It hung above the village of Daramu like a watchful eye, unblinking and swollen. Children were kept indoors. Mothers whispered old prayers. The elders sat around the sacred fire and said nothing, because they remembered what the red moon meant.
It meant a crowning.
The last time the sky had burned like this, a child had risen to power, not of royal blood, not born of fortune, but chosen. And that child had died in flames before his thirtieth season. Power, it seemed, was not meant for those who hadn't been prepared to hold it.
But she had returned.
She always did, under the red moon.
No one saw her arrive, but the signs were there. The village dogs howled and then fell silent. The wind changed direction. The river refused to reflect the stars.
And in the home of the healer woman, a boy lay dying.
His name was Kael. Twelve years old. Bones like reeds. Breathing in gasps. He had been sick for weeks, and nothing worked, not herbs, not chants, not even the sacrifices at the stone pillar. His mother wept beside him, her palms pressed to his chest as if she could will his heart to keep beating.
Then the fire dimmed.
And in the doorway, she stood.
She didn't knock. She didn't speak. She simply entered tall, robed in cloth the color of old storms, her bare feet clean despite the dust. Her face was calm, framed by a halo of soft black coils. Her eyes were strange and not glowing, but deep, like looking into the center of a quiet storm.
The healer started to rise, to speak, but the woman lifted one hand.
Not to silence but to bless.
She knelt beside Kael, one hand hovering above his heart, the other pressed gently to his forehead. Her lips moved. Not words but something older. A vibration. A hum. A memory from the bones of the earth.
And Kael's back arched. Once. His mouth opened. He inhaled.
Then he slept deeply, peacefully, fully for the first time in moons.
By morning, he woke with color in his cheeks and fire in his eyes.
The villagers spoke of it in awe.
"She didn't speak. She didn't ask. She just knew."
"She marked the boy. Did you see the ash on his chest? It looked like a crown."
"She was the one. The crowner. The woman of the red moon."
But by the time the sun climbed high enough to chase away the frost, she was gone.
Only a symbol remained and carved into the earth where she had stood. A spiral, intersected by a single vertical line. A crown, some said. Others said it was a door.
Kael stared at it in silence, the mark still glowing faintly on his chest.
And somewhere in the hills beyond the village, wrapped in her storm-colored robes, the woman walked on barefoot, bound by destiny, and fading just a little more with every soul she awakened.
CHAPTER 2:THE WISPHER ON THE WIND
Kael sat outside his mother's hut, watching the smoke curl from the morning fires. Everything felt louder now—the birds, the breeze, even the earth beneath his feet. Since the woman touched him, it was as if the world had exhaled and he was finally breathing it in.
Villagers passed by and stared. Some with awe, others with fear. He had been the dying boy. Now, he was something else. Something marked.
"She gave him her blessing," the healer whispered.
"She gave him something," replied another. "But what?"
Kael didn't understand it himself. He only knew that when she touched him, something ancient and warm had rushed into his chest. Not just healing—knowing. Since that night, he had dreams. Visions of mountains he'd never seen. People he'd never met. A throne of smoke. A voice that whispered, "Wake the worthy."
He hadn't told anyone.
That night, Kael sat by the edge of the village, where the grass grew tall and the elders rarely went. The moon was fading back to silver, but the wind still carried the memory of her voice. And in the hush between breezes, he heard it again:
"Find me."
He stood.
He didn't pack anything. Didn't say goodbye. He just followed the sound that no one else could hear — into the trees, toward the forgotten paths where only stories dared to wander.
CHAPTER 3: THE PATH OF THE UNNAMED
The forest was older than Daramu, older than any map. Trees towered like sleeping giants, their bark darkened by centuries of wind and silence. Kael stepped carefully, guided by instinct more than direction. His bare feet made no sound on the mossy floor. The air felt thick with something invisible—like the hush before a storm, or a prayer held just below a whisper.
He didn't know where he was going.
He only knew she had passed this way.
Symbols began to appear—small, nearly hidden: a twist of branches shaped like the spiral mark from the village, a stone balanced perfectly on another, never touched by hands. Each time he saw one, he felt a hum in his chest. The same pulse he felt when she healed him.
As night began to fall, Kael came upon a clearing lit by moonlight and fireflies. In the center stood an ancient, broken statue: a woman, robed and faceless, her arms raised as if crowning the sky.
Beneath it, someone sat.
Not her.
An old man, eyes white with blindness, skin like bark. He held a wooden bowl in his lap and didn't flinch as Kael approached.
"She led you here," the man said, before Kael could speak. "You carry her spark."
Kael blinked. "Who are you?"
"Keeper of the Path. I wait. For the marked. For the next."
"Next what?"
The man smiled, revealing only one tooth. "The next who crowns."
The wind stirred. The fireflies lifted. And Kael suddenly understood—this wasn't a journey to find her.
It was a journey to become her.
CHAPTER 3:BEFORE THE CROWN
Before she became myth, she was called Nyah.
She was born under a silent sky, in a village that no longer exists—burned away by greed and remembered only in ash and story. Her mother was a dreamweaver. Her father, a gatherer of silence. That's what they called him, because he always knew when someone was about to lie, or die.
Nyah grew up surrounded by whispers, songs without words, and stories folded into smoke.
But she was different.
She heard things others couldn't. The trees spoke to her. Stones hummed under her touch. She didn't just listen to stories—she stepped into them. And when she reached her twelfth season, the village elders took her into the sacred grove, where the air tasted like fire and forgetting.
There, they placed a crown in her hands.
Not of gold. Not even metal.
It was made of ash, woven from the names of the forgotten.
They said:
"You will not rule. You will remind. You will walk the world and name the worthy, until the last name is spoken."
Nyah didn't understand.
Not then.
But as the years passed, and the crown began to consume her slowly—first her name, then her age, then her home—she realized: her purpose was not to be seen, but to see. Not to lead, but to lift.
Now, centuries later, she walks in silence. Crowning quietly. Fading with each gift.
And soon, very soon, she knows the crown will pass.
And her name her real name will return to the earth.
CHAPETER 5: ECHOES AND EMBERS
Nyah stood at the edge of a high cliff, robes dancing with the wind, her eyes fixed on the horizon.
Something stirred.
She felt it in the soles of her feet, in the quiet ache behind her ribs. Not pain but presence. A thread had been pulled. A new light had flickered to life in the tapestry she carried within her.
She had crowned many.
But this boy this particular one was different.
"He follows," she whispered to the wind. "Not because he wants power. But because he hears the call."
She touched the spiral etched into her wrist. It glowed faintly, the way it always did when a soul awakened. His mark burned far from her, yet close enough that she could feel his confusion, his courage.
Kael, meanwhile, had reached the river.
It was wider than any he had crossed, its current strong and impatient. On the other side, the forest thickened, darker and more ancient. As he dipped his toes into the water, he felt her.
Not in sight.
But in the air. In the movement of the leaves. In the way the wind called his name in a voice that was not his own.
He whispered, "Are you real?"
The trees answered in silence.
And far above, Nyah closed her eyes.
"I will wait one more night," she said to the wind. "If he finds the flame, I will name him."
She turned from the cliff and began her descent slow, steady, fading a little more with each step.
CHAPTER 6:THE TRIAL OF THE BROKEN ONES
Kael crossed the river by morning.
The cold had numbed his legs, but not his will. Every breath felt heavier now, like the forest beyond was pressing down on him, watching. The deeper he went, the quieter the world became. Even the birds refused to sing.
Then he saw them.
Figures, hunched and still, standing between the trees. At first, he thought they were statues—but as he stepped closer, he realized they were people. Or had been. Their eyes were empty, their bodies wrapped in old vines, their skin the color of stone.
Frozen in pain. In silence. In time.
A voice came, not from the forest, but within:
"These are the broken ones."
Kael spun around, but no one was there.
"Those who were almost crowned… but were not ready. They chose fear. They clung to ego. And they could not bear the weight of awakening."
One of the stone people turned its head just barely. A low groan escaped its lips. It was alive.
Kael stepped forward, instinct pulling him toward the figure. His fingers brushed its shoulder.
Suddenly, the forest shimmered and Kael was inside a memory that was not his.
A warrior, kneeling before Nyah. Begging to be chosen. Behind his eyes, rage. Beneath his voice, pride. When she denied him, he had attacked. And she had spared him with mercy that felt like punishment. The crown refused him. And he became this.
Kael snapped back.
The stone man wept now, unable to move, haunted by what he had been.
"You may pass," the voice said. "But only if you leave no part of yourself behind."
Kael closed his eyes. I
He felt his own pride but his hope that maybe, maybe this journey would end with glory. A crown. A purpose to show others. He let it burn. Not away but through him.
"I'm not here to be crowned," he whispered. "I'm here to learn why she carries it."
The trees sighed.
The path cleared.
And the frozen ones bowed their heads—not in shame, but in peace.
Kael walked on.
And in the distance, Nyah smiled.
CHAPTER 7: WHAT THE CROWN TAKES
Nyah stood beneath the shade of an ancient baobab, fingers grazing the bark as if it could remind her of who she once was.
She had not always been alone.
There had been a time before the crown, before the fading when laughter lived in her throat and her name was spoken in joy, not reverence.
His name was Soro.
He was not a chosen one. Not a seeker. Just a man with soil beneath his nails and stories in his smile. He had followed her once, not to be crowned, but to be close. He had seen her, not as myth, but as woman.
They had carved a life between the silences. For a brief season, she believed the crown could rest. That she could simply be Nyah.
But the spiral never sleeps.
One day, a village burned. Another child awakened. And Nyah felt it again that pull, that whisper. The calling that never truly ends.
Soro had begged her not to go.
She had kissed his forehead and promised to return.
She never did.
When she passed through that village again, years later, his name was etched in stone. Another soul who had died without being seen. A life sacrificed to the crown's endless hunger.
Nyah exhaled, the memory heavy in her lungs.
Each crowning had kept the world from falling. But each one had taken a piece of her: her name, her laughter, her love.
Now, she felt the last ember of her soul flickering.
The boy was close. Kael.
But what she hadn't told anyone what the stars themselves didn't dare speak was that this next crowning would be her last.
And with it, she would vanish completely.
"No more memories," she whispered. "Only the crown."
The wind answered in hushes, carrying the scent of wild river and fire.
And far below, Kael climbed the final hill.
CHAPTER 8: THE MEETING FLAME
Kael reached the summit just as the last light of day melted into dusk. The sky stretched wide above him, stained in violet and gold, while the wind held its breath.
She stood at the center of the hilltop, facing away from him.
Still.
Silent.
Her silhouette was wrapped in those familiar storm-colored robes. Hair soft and coiled like a halo around her calm presence. The same presence that had once hovered over his dying body, breathing life into him without words.
"Nyah," Kael said, not knowing how he knew her name.
She turned.
Her eyes met his and for a moment, time faltered. There was no crown. No journey. No myth. Just a woman who had walked too far, and a boy who had come too soon.
"You've come far," she said.
Kael nodded. "You called me."
"I don't call," she said. "I awaken. You chose to follow."
He stepped closer, unsure what to say. He expected power. Command. Something divine. But all he saw was softness—and tiredness behind her strength.
"Why me?"
Nyah tilted her head, studying him.
"You listened. You walked through fear. You chose humility when you could've chosen glory. The crown does not seek rulers. It seeks reminders."
Kael swallowed hard. "I'm not ready."
"No one ever is," she said, stepping forward.
She raised her hand but not to touch him. To offer. In her palm, a glowing ember floated: the crown, not of gold, but of light and memory. The legacy of every soul she had awakened.
"This isn't power," she said. "It's burden. Grace. And a fire you must carry until it passes again. If you take it, you will walk alone. You will give more than you keep. You will fade."
Kael looked into her eyes. He saw sorrow. He saw strength.
He saw freedom.
And he reached out.
The moment his fingers touched the ember, it burst—not with flames, but with memory. A thousand voices. A thousand lives. Every soul she had crowned echoed within him.
Nyah smiled.
The spiral on her wrist dimmed.
Her form shimmered softly, slowly as if returning to the wind.
Kael fell to his knees, overwhelmed by what he carried.
And when he looked up, she was gone.
Only the spiral remained in the soil where she had stood.
And Kael, now the boy who crowns, stood alone on the hilltop burning with quiet light, and ready to walk the path.
(EPILOGUE) THE FIRST MEETING
It had been weeks since Kael descended from the hill.
He walked without map or direction just as she had. Villages whispered of him: a quiet boy with flame behind his eyes and stories in his silence.
He asked for nothing.
He listened.And when the time was right, he named.
The first came to him in the ruins of a forgotten town. A young girl, covered in soot, digging through ashes to find her mother's song bowl. She didn't speak. She hadn't in days.
Kael knelt beside her, reached out, and placed his hand over her heart.
He didn't crown her with fire or ceremony. He simply whispered:
"You are seen."
The spiral passed from his palm to hers in a soft glow. Her breath caught. Her eyes widened.
And for the first time since the sky burned, she smiled..Kael stood and walked on, leaving only footprints and warmth.
Some said he was a prophet. Others called him a ghost.
But those who truly knew? They called him what he was:
(The one who crowns.)