The air shifted as Ayinla stepped onto the spiral staircase.
It was warmer here—impossibly so—and hummed with a low vibration, like the belly of a beast breathing in sleep. Behind him, Mirella clutched Efua's obsidian stone, its pulsing glow the only light cutting through the dark. Efua followed last, her mouth muttering something too ancient to be Spanish or Twi or even Latin. The words curled like vines in the air and clung to the walls.
They descended in silence.
Every few steps, a symbol etched into the wall would shimmer faintly. Some were geometric, like old alchemical glyphs. Others curved and flowed like Nsibidi script or Chinese talismans. But some were beyond language entirely—living things drawn in dead stone.
"How deep does it go?" Mirella whispered.
Efua paused, her fingers brushing the air like a blind woman reading wind.
"Deeper than memory. Deeper than time."
At the bottom of the stairs stood a door.
Not made of metal. Not wood. But something else—black as pitch, yet shifting with pearlescent sheen. Its edges rippled, alive, like water frozen mid-breath.
And embedded in its surface were teeth—not human. Not all alike. Some flat, some serrated, some glittering like crystal. Rows upon rows.
Mirella took a step back.
"It's… a lock?"
Efua nodded. "And also a warning."
Ayinla stepped forward. "What opens it?"
Efua looked at him solemnly.
"Not a key. Not a code."
She turned to Mirella. "It opens… to those whose blood remembers."
Mirella looked down at her palm, where the broken sun-ring glowed faintly. "You mean me?"
Efua said nothing.
But the door began to shiver.
When the door opened, it did not swing or slide.
It simply… ceased to exist.
Beyond it lay a vast space—neither cave nor room, but something in between. The floor was covered in carvings that moved when you weren't looking. Light poured from no clear source, illuminating hundreds of statues around the perimeter.
Each one was of a person: African, Chinese, Arab, European. Some wore priestly robes, others armor, others only ash and scars. Some looked human.
Some did not.
"This isn't a tomb," Ayinla whispered. "It's an archive."
Efua walked slowly, reverently, toward the central pedestal.
Upon it: a book made of skin, pages turning themselves, ink moving like mercury.
"The Book of Echoes," she said. "Only one person may read it… and only once."
Mirella felt the pull immediately.
As Mirella approached the book, the chamber darkened.
Symbols from the walls leapt to life, forming a spiral around her.
She did not read it with her eyes.
She remembered it.
Her father's voice—long dead—recited lines she'd never heard. Her grandmother's lullabies took on new meaning. Visions flickered: A boy with eyes of fire; a woman crowned with thunder; a spear carved from a star.
Then—an image that struck her breathless:
Ayinla, standing on a crumbling bridge between two burning suns, holding something ancient in his hands. And a voice:
"When the echo breaks the seal, only the blood that binds the sky to earth will choose."
Then everything went white.
The chamber shuddered.
The book closed.
Light vanished.
Efua shouted something in Twi, but the floor cracked before she could finish.
Ayinla grabbed Mirella's arm as the ground gave way.
They fell.
Through stone. Through dark. Through something not of this world.
And then…
Nothing.
When Mirella opened her eyes, the world had changed.
She was no longer underground. Or rather—she was beneath something, but it wasn't stone anymore. The sky above her was mirrored, reflecting not the landscape, but her memories. She saw herself as a child chasing fireflies in Sardinia. Her mother's funeral. The first time she'd spoken Yoruba to her father—and the tears he'd hidden behind a book.
She was lying in shallow water that wasn't wet.
The air shimmered like heat over desert sand. Yet the place felt alive, like it watched her. Breathed with her.
In the distance, a structure hovered, neither solid nor ghost. Shaped like an ancient Benin gate, but woven from threads of red lightning and silence.
And standing before it was a figure: masked, tall, wrapped in layered robes of silk and vine, face carved like obsidian glass.
The figure raised its hand.
"You are awake, Ana-Ọmọ-Irin," it said in a voice like cracked drums.
Mirella staggered to her feet. "Who are you? Where is Ayinla?"
"You will see him… if you survive."
The masked figure led her to the base of the gate, where three mirrors floated midair, turning slowly.
"In this place," it said, "you face not the world—but your place in it."
Each mirror showed a different Mirella.
In one, she wore white robes and carried a glowing staff—her eyes full of fire.
In the second, she was surrounded by flames, screaming as the world around her crumbled.
In the third, she stood beside Ayinla on a battlefield of stars, holding his hand as darkness approached.
"These are possibilities," the being said. "None are set. All are true."
Mirella stepped forward.
And the mirrors shattered.
A new one rose in their place.
It showed her face—aged. Alone. And behind her, the symbol of the broken sun ring… burning.
Meanwhile, Ayinla opened his eyes beneath a burning tree.
He was in a forest of petrified wood, under a sky that rotated slowly—sun on one side, moon on the other.
He heard footsteps.
And turned to see… himself.
Not a twin. Not a vision. But a version of him—dressed in ceremonial robes, face painted in Ifá chalk, eyes glowing with white fire.
"You should not be here yet," the other Ayinla said.
"Who are you?"
"I am who you might become—if you remember who you are."
Ayinla's breath caught.
"Why was I chosen?"
"You were not. You were born into it."
The trees whispered.
And from the roots beneath him, a song rose—one his grandfather used to hum, about rivers that flow between stars.
Back in the mirrored realm, the masked being stepped closer to Mirella.
"You ask what we are," it said. "We are Custodians—but not as you think. We do not protect gates. We protect what must pass through."
"What is that?"
"Memory. Pain. Truth. You."
Its hands parted the air like water. A vision appeared: the dig site, the blood, the book.
"We waited for your return, Ana-Ọmọ-Irin. You are of mixed blood, yes—but deeper still, you are of the forgotten thread—the eighth tribe, lost to time."
Mirella whispered: "There are only seven tribes of the original Custodians…"
"No longer," it said. "The eighth returned… through you."
And then everything exploded into light.
Ayinla and Mirella woke up in the collapsed chamber, covered in ash and echoes.
Efua crouched over them, eyes wide with fear.
"You were gone for hours," she whispered. "Your pulses… stopped."
They sat up slowly.
Neither could speak for several moments.
Then Mirella looked at Ayinla and said, "I saw… someone who knew me before I was born."
Ayinla nodded slowly. "Me too."
Efua narrowed her eyes.
"What did they show you?"
Mirella looked at the palm of her hand—now glowing faintly.
"They showed me what I'm capable of… if I don't lose myself first."