The chamber revealed itself like a forgotten breath an ancient inhalation held in stillness for centuries, waiting to be exhaled again. Ola stepped in cautiously, his senses overwhelmed by the luminescence that bathed the cavern in shifting hues of deep blue, green, and silver. The walls shimmered like living crystal, smooth and translucent, as if the river itself had grown a heart and wrapped it in stone and memory.
The air was dense but not suffocating. Mist hovered above the floor, swirling gently around Ola's ankles, each movement stirring faint ripples that responded not to gravity but to memory. The atmosphere trembled with song—fragments of melodies forgotten by time, echoing like phantom lullabies. He walked slowly, reverently, knowing this was not a place to be rushed through. Every step was an offering.
In the center of the chamber, illuminated by a pillar of soft, undulating light, sat Ẹ̀nítàn.
She did not rise to meet him. She did not need to.
Her presence was commanding even in stillness.
She was both river and woman draped in cascading threads of riverweed that veiled her form like ceremonial robes. Her crown, a woven band of coral, shells, and bone, pulsed with the rhythm of the water. Her eyes, dark and fluid, studied Ola with a gaze that felt like both a welcome and a warning. They were eyes that had watched centuries pass, had seen joy, betrayal, and unbearable silence. And yet… they held music.
"You carry the song," she said, her voice not spoken but sung each word a note suspended in the air, harmonizing with the chamber's breath.
Ola knelt instinctively. "I carry what was lost. The rhythm you were denied."
There was a silence. But not an absence. A listening. A remembering.
Her smile was a curve of soft sorrow, a note bent by grief but not broken. "Few have come not with weapons, but with song."
Ola hesitated, then stood and drew in a steady breath. He had practiced the verses, yes but now, beneath her gaze, in the heart of this sacred space, it felt like something far more fragile and necessary. A trembling bridge across centuries of silence.
He opened his mouth and began.
The first line, recovered from the cleft rock, rang out softly:
"When the river loses its voice, the people forget their names."
The chamber responded.
A soft hum awakened in the walls, and the mist curled upward like listening hands. Ẹ̀nítàn's lips parted slightly, her expression taut with memory.
Ola continued, his voice growing stronger:
"But when a child dares to sing to the drowned, the water will remember."
This time, the river moved.
A swirl of luminous liquid rose from the ground, twisting slowly through the air around them, trailing light like strands of spun moonlight.
Then came the final line:
"And the Queen of Lost Songs shall open her mouth once more."
Ẹ̀nítàn exhaled as if a locked gate had swung wide inside her chest.
Her voice joined his not as an echo, but as an equal partner. She sang the lines again, each word shaped by centuries of longing, each note anchoring the truth of her existence back into the world. Her tone was haunting layered with joy and pain, like lullabies sung by grieving mothers, like praise songs offered through tears.
As their voices braided into one harmony, the chamber shifted.
The ceiling lifted higher, translucent and vast like the belly of a whale. Water rose all around them not to drown, but to dance. It curved in suspended loops and spirals, glimmering with captured memories laughter from festivals long vanished, cries of children swept away in storms, drumbeats from ceremonies lost to conquest.
The air became music.
The sorrow she had carried for so long betrayal, abandonment, the silencing of her name spilled out from her in shimmering tears. But the tears no longer fell. They lifted. Each droplet hovered, refracting light and song, until the entire chamber pulsed with memory and motion.
"You have freed me," she whispered, her voice quivering with relief and astonishment. "Not from chains… but from silence."
Ola lowered his voice, eyes damp, chest pounding. "It wasn't just your voice that was stolen. It was ours too. Our stories. Our truth."
She looked at him now not as a stranger, but as kin.
"You heard me when no one else did."
He nodded. "Because you were always singing. We just forgot how to listen."
The glow surrounding her deepened, no longer just a soft light but a radiant pulse. Her riverweed veil began to shimmer, dissolving into rivulets of silver that wrapped around her like silk. Her crown of coral lit with a brilliance that illuminated the entire chamber revealing, for a moment, the faded shapes of others who had once served her, worshipped her, betrayed her.
She stepped forward.
And for the first time in centuries, she walked on the waters of her own memory free.
The Queen of Lost Songs stood tall before him, no longer spectral, no longer drowning in silence.
"We are one rhythm now," Ola said softly, voice trembling. "You, me, the river… those who remember, and those who forgot."
Ẹ̀nítàn nodded, her gaze clear and resolute. "Then let it be carried."
She stretched her hands forward, cupping the space between them. In her palms, water gathered and formed a small orb glowing, humming softly.
"A memory seed," she explained. "Plant it in their hearts. It will awaken the song in others."
Ola accepted it with trembling hands. The orb pulsed like a heartbeat. It was warm, despite being born of water.
"Go back," she said, her voice now deep and commanding, layered with a music that could split mountains. "Tell them the river remembers. And that the song never dies."
He wanted to stay. To ask her more. To sit in the quiet of this chamber and learn every melody it held. But even as he lingered, she began to fade her form dissolving into flowing water, her coral crown becoming droplets of radiant light that scattered across the chamber.
A final note pure and unwavering filled the air.
Then she was gone.
The chamber dimmed, but the song remained.
Ola stood for a long time, his eyes closed, his heart full. The orb of memory still glowed softly in his hands.
Behind him, the exit to the chamber shimmered open a path not of stone, but of water.
He turned and walked toward it, knowing what he carried now could never be lost again.
And as he crossed the threshold, he heard her voice one last time, echoing faintly behind him like wind in reeds:
"The river sings again… because you dared to listen."