They left at dawn, cloaked in silence.
Ayọ̀kúnlé did not wear a crown, nor did his horse bear the banners of Odanjo. His armor was plain old leather and woven sigils, talismans sewn into the seams like whispered prayers. He carried only what he needed: a waterskin, a blade once forged from the heart of a star, and a scroll written in a tongue only the Watchers would understand.
With him rode seven.
Not warriors, but witnesses.
Móyèṣọlá walked beside the caravan barefoot, her staff marking time. Adérónké, ever watchful, had fastened her sword across her back—not for aggression, but to honor the silence of the path. Tùndé, humming an old war song under his breath, had traded his spear for a harp. The others—an old scholar, a mapmaker, a child marked by stars, and a woman whose eyes could see tomorrow followed quietly.
They did not look back.
Because this journey was not for the past.
It was for what lay beyond the last border.
The lands east of Odanjo were wild untamed, unspoken.
No stories were told of these paths, only fragments: A forest that sang. A desert that never ended. A mountain that bled salt. Travelers who had gone there often returned… changed. Some never returned at all.
But Ayọ̀kúnlé was not afraid.
Not anymore.
The curse had taken his fear long ago and left behind the gift of listening.
He could hear the shift in the wind's voice. Could taste the difference in the air as they crossed the River Kùlódé, whose waters ran warm even in winter. The land itself seemed to murmur secrets, like a dream trying to remember itself.
By the fourth day, the path vanished altogether.
They moved by instinct now.
By trust.
On the sixth night, they made camp in a hollow where ancient stones stood in a circle weathered, marked with symbols older than ink. The stars above shimmered strange and purple, and the moon flickered as if uncertain of its shape.
Around the fire, the child began to sing.
Not in a language anyone knew, but in pure tone rising and falling like waves in a stormless sea.
The woman with tomorrow's eyes gasped softly. "She sings the same song the stars used to."
Ayọ̀kúnlé closed his eyes. The melody pierced something deep inside him. A memory he hadn't lived. A truth he hadn't spoken.
"She's a Key," Móyèṣọlá whispered. "One of the final ones."
Adérónké stared into the flames. "Then what door are we standing before?"
By morning, the air had changed again.
Not colder. Not warmer.
Just… older.
A rift appeared in the landscape, not quite a canyon, not quite a wound. The earth had split once long ago and the place had never healed. Mist rose from the chasm, curling into letters no one could read but all could feel.
Ayọ̀kúnlé stepped to the edge. Below, there was light not fire, not sun.
Memory.
It shimmered like golden dust, swirling through the chasm like breath. He dropped a single stone into it. It didn't fall.
It floated.
Móyèṣọlá stepped forward. "The Threshold. We're here."
The Watchers of the Outer Realms did not arrive with thunder.
They emerged as if they had always been part of the land.
Seven beings cloaked in robes of shifting shadow and glass. They had no faces, only reflections one could see in them their own fears, hopes, histories. One could get lost just staring.
Ayọ̀kúnlé did not bow.
He placed the scroll before them and waited.
A moment passed. Then one stepped forward and spoke—not aloud, but into the minds of all gathered.
"You are not the first to come."
He nodded. "I hope to be the last."
"You bring no army. No demand. No prophecy."
"I bring a question."
"Then speak it."
Ayọ̀kúnlé drew a breath. Around him, the mist stirred like breath on glass.
"What becomes of a world that has broken its curse?" he asked. "What now anchors its soul?"
The Watchers did not answer quickly. Their silence was vast, echoing through each heart like thunder through a canyon.
Then the lead Watcher spoke again.
"It becomes a choice."
Ayọ̀kúnlé stepped closer. "Then show me how to guide it. Not as a king but as a keeper of memory. As a student of balance. As someone who once lost himself and found a people."
Another Watcher raised their hand.
"Then you must walk the Mirror Spiral."
The Mirror Spiral was not a place. It was a trial.
Ayọ̀kúnlé entered a cavern carved from crystal, alone.
Each step echoed not in sound but in memory. Around him, the walls reflected his life not as he remembered it, but as it might have been. In one mirror, he saw himself never cursed, crowned young, proud and ruthless. In another, he was a farmer, content in obscurity. In a third, he was dead slain in the forest, forgotten.
He walked.
And the reflections grew stranger.
His enemies forgave him.
His allies betrayed him.
The world fell. The world rose.
He wept, not from sorrow but from awe. From the weight of possibility.
When he reached the center, there was no mirror.
Only himself.
Not a prince. Not a warrior.
Just a man.
Whole.
He touched the center crystal.
It pulsed once, then shattered.
He was ready.
Outside, the Watchers waited.
"You have seen," one said.
"I have," he replied.
"You have chosen."
"I have."
The Watchers turned to leave, disappearing into the haze without farewell.
But one paused.
"Guide not by law, but by listening. Lead not by fear, but by example. The wound of the world is not healed in one reign. But it begins with one heart."
And then they were gone.
Ayọ̀kúnlé emerged changed not in form, but in presence.
The others sensed it.
Tùndé placed his hand over his chest in salute. Adérónké simply smiled, fierce and proud.
Móyèṣọlá bowed her head. "You've returned."
He nodded.
"We all will."
They turned west.
Toward Odanjo.
Toward home.
The journey back was slower.
Not because the road was harder.
But because they took time to see.
To speak with shepherds in the hills, who spoke of wolves gone quiet. To share fire with wanderers who had never known a king who listened. To leave behind seeds in dry earth literal and metaphorical.
And when the gates of Odanjo appeared at last on the horizon, the wind carried with it not only dust but hope.
At the citadel, the people gathered.
Not with horns or banners.
But with lanterns.
Each flame a story. A promise. A light against forgetting.
Ayọ̀kúnlé stood before them.
He raised no sword.
Only his voice.
"The curse was not just a spell," he said. "It was a forgetting. Of who we were. Of what we shared. Of how to see."
He looked over the crowd. Their faces held no fear.
Only firelight.
"And now," he continued, "we remember. And in remembering we become."
The lanterns rose into the night sky.
And the stars above answered.