The moon was swollen and red.
Ayanwale sat alone by the shrine, the echoes of his restored name still lingering in the air. The Royalty Drum rested beside him, its six glowing marks dimmed, as if mourning something that hadn't yet happened.
Amoke returned from the forest, her expression grave.
"There's something I need to show you," she said.
"What is it?"
"Not what… who."
They walked in silence to the edge of the village, where the trees grew darker, older. There, hidden beneath the roots of an iroko tree, lay a shrine not listed in any of the village's ancestral records.
Its stones were scorched.
Its offerings long rotten.
But one item remained untouched—a sealed calabash wrapped in red cloth and bound with a faded black ribbon.
"This is your mother's," Amoke said. "I've seen it once before. When she came here during your naming ceremony."
Ayanwale stepped back. His heart thundered.
"My mother was a woman of honor."
"She was," Amoke said gently. "But honor bends when a mother's afraid for her child."
They unwrapped the calabash.
Inside: strands of hair, a sliver of bloodied cloth, and a folded leaf of parchment bearing a sigil—a twisted drum entangled with the symbol of the Ajalu.
"In exchange for silence, I give my blood."
Ayanwale sank to his knees.
"She made a pact…"
"To hide something," Amoke said. "Or someone."
Then the wind changed.
The trees groaned.
And a voice—familiar, tired, and warm—whispered on the air:
"My son…"
Ayanwale turned.
His mother's spirit stepped from the shadows, dressed in the white of burial but barefoot, her eyes full of tears.
"I did what I thought would save you."
She sat before him, the calabash between them.
"You were born under a cursed moon. The drums did not sing for you the day you arrived—they wept. The seer said the Ajalu had marked you."
"Then why didn't you tell me?"
"Because the only way to protect you was to make them forget. I made a pact: in exchange for your safety, I erased parts of you from the spirit's eyes. You were a boy growing up with a drum they could no longer hear."
"And Baba Oro?"
"He was there when you were born. He witnessed the pact. He was once my betrothed… before I fled his madness."
Ayanwale's voice broke.
"You knew he would come back. You knew, and you said nothing."
Her spirit trembled.
"Would you have believed me? I watched my husband die trying to protect you. I couldn't watch you walk the same path."
A long silence.
Then she reached out and touched the drum.
The marks glowed again—but this time, a seventh mark began to appear: a circle within a circle, surrounded by thorns.
Amoke gasped.
"The Seventh Rhythm… the Rhythm of Blood."
Ayanwale stood slowly.
"What happens if I awaken it?"
His mother's eyes dimmed.
"Then you will know every truth carried in your blood. Not all of it is noble."
"And if I don't?"
"Then Baba Oro wins. He will twist your past, erase your future, and wear your legacy like a crown."
He looked to Amoke.
"If I play this, I might lose myself."
She stepped forward and held his hand.
"Then let me be your anchor."
That night, beneath the red moon and beside the bones of broken drums, Ayanwale sat before the Royalty Drum.
He placed his hands gently on its skin.
And played the Seventh Rhythm.
It was not a sound.
It was a flood.
He saw generations—fathers, mothers, warriors, liars, visionaries. He saw his great-grandfather before he was corrupted. He saw Baba Oro as a boy, weeping over a broken drum. He saw his mother at the river, offering her blood.
And then…
He saw himself.
Not just as he was—but as he might become.
A man not defined by drums— but a living rhythm, one capable of binding the world of humans and spirits.
And then he screamed.
Because beneath it all, in the very root of his bloodline, pulsed one final truth:
Baba Oro… was his uncle.