The morning came not with fanfare, but with a hush an almost sacred quiet that blanketed the lands like snow once forgotten. The wind moved gently through the restored plains of Ọ̀dànjò, carrying scents of old myrrh and new rain. Even the birds seemed to respect the stillness, their songs soft and ceremonial.
Ayọ̀kúnlé stood at the edge of the river they once called Ìrántí The River That Remembers.
Its waters were clearer now, freed of the ash and sorrow that once bled from the cursed lands. It had watched his journey from boy to beast, from cursed prince to chosen king. And now, it shimmered beneath the light of dawn, reflecting not just his face but all the lives he had carried with him.
Behind him, the capital was stirring.
The builders sang as they laid the final stones of the Hall of Echoes, a sanctuary carved from silence and memory. Market stalls were rising like seedlings after storm, their bright cloths snapping in the wind. The children had begun to write again not with coal and fear, but with ink and wonder.
But today, Ayọ̀kúnlé sought neither palace nor council. His sword was sheathed, his crown left behind. He wore the robes of a traveler simple linen and leather, stitched with the faded sigils of the old realm.
He stepped into the river, where the water reached his knees and swirled around him like a memory long buried.
He closed his eyes.
And listened.
Beneath the current, he heard it the whispers of those who had come before. Not words exactly, but vibrations. Rhythms. Wounds turned to warnings. Hopes woven into the flow. It was said that the river remembered every foot that had crossed it, every tear spilled into its basin, every life surrendered to its depths.
And in its memory, he found stories.
There was the tale of Ọlọ́runfẹ́mi, the fisherman who had refused to abandon the cursed banks, choosing to cast his net each morning despite the blackened sky. It was he who had hidden the last map to the Spirit Well, wrapped in oilskin and tucked beneath a stone at the river's curve.
There was the echo of Ẹnìyànlá, the grandmother who sang to the water during the long famine her voice trembling with loss, but never silenced. Her songs had kept a village from tearing itself apart. Her lullabies had become psalms.
And then, then, there was the voice of his mother.
Not as he remembered her from childhood, cloaked in royal regalia. But as she had been on that last day, kneeling in the temple garden, hands red from tending the sacred soil.
"A tree does not grow by running from the sun," she had said. "Even in drought, it must reach for the light."
Ayọ̀kúnlé opened his eyes.
And smiled.
By noon, the people gathered at the riverbank.
Not because they were summoned but because they felt it. A pull, like the gravity of shared healing. Adérónké arrived first, her armor gleaming despite the mud on her boots. She carried no weapon, only a bowl of yams and honey a peace offering to the ancestors.
Then came Olúmọ̀, the silent scribe of the old libraries, with his cane and scrolls. Behind him, the children of the allied tribes, each bearing a flower from their homeland. Warriors, weavers, elders. Even those who had once called him enemy.
They circled the river, but no one spoke.
Ayọ̀kúnlé raised his hands.
"We stand," he said, "not to claim victory, but to remember the cost."
The silence bowed its head.
He continued.
"There are wounds we cannot see. Wounds that do not bleed, but echo. Each of us carries them. Each of us has buried names too sacred for stone. Let this place be more than water. Let it be memory. Let it be mercy."
And then, with a single gesture, he stepped aside.
The people came forward, one by one, casting their flowers into the river.
Not all names were spoken aloud. Some were mouthed in secret. Some were whispered with shaking lips. But every petal that touched the water shimmered briefly with light like the soul of the one remembered.
Adérónké whispered her sister's name. Tùndé bowed for a brother lost at the gate. Even the children knelt, their tiny hands trembling as they offered petals for heroes they had never met.
The river took it all.
Held it.
Promised not to forget.
By dusk, the sky turned the color of old wine.
Ayọ̀kúnlé sat alone once more, beneath the carved stone of the new obelisk marked only with a single word
Ìrántí.
Memory.
He traced the letters with a calloused finger, thinking not of crowns or conquest, but of gardens. Of laughter. Of a time when his people would speak of peace not as a dream but as a story they had lived.
The stars began to blink awake.
He lay back on the grass, the river murmuring beside him, and whispered to no one in particular:
"We remember. And we rise."
From the north, drums began again. Not war drums but celebration. A festival was blooming in the outer provinces, and the winds carried music thick with promise.
The cursed prince was no more.
But the world still called him forward not to fight, but to guide. Not to bleed, but to plant. And as the fireflies began their slow dance above the river's edge, Ayọ̀kúnlé felt something he had not known since boyhood.
Rest.
Real, bone-deep rest.
It was not the end.
But it was a breath.
A sacred pause before the next song.
And the river, ever ancient, ever listening, sang with him beneath the moon.