The Royalty Drum

Moonlight sifted through the Listening Grove like ancient cloth, touching bark and root with silver weight. The trees had fallen into a breathless hush, and the rhythm Ayanwale had summoned still hung in the air—unresolved, like a song interrupted before its last note.

The glow of the Royalty Drum had dulled to an ember against his side, but its presence remained alive beneath his fingers, vibrating softly like a heart remembering itself.

Ayanwale crouched at the edge of the sacred basin where the name Ọ̀mọ́tíbụ̀nlá had been whispered back into the world. The Weaver stood motionless beneath the tallest tree, her long shadow braided with threads of golden sap. She didn't look at him—not directly. But her silence wrapped around him like a second skin, and it said more than words ever could.

"She's still unfinished," Rotimi said quietly, stepping beside him. His fingers were stained with ash and damp soil. "Her rhythm hasn't settled. It's choosing what to become."

"No," Ayanwale said, voice low. "It's remembering what it used to be."

Behind them, Zuberi turned their head, the veil of spirit-cloak rising with the breeze. The markings across their skin shimmered faintly—vine-runes lit from within.

"The drum knows it too," Zuberi said. "It remembers the Eleventh. And the Ninth."

Ayanwale's jaw tightened at the name.

The Ninth Rhythm.

Baba Oro's grave was a memory buried deep in the forest's belly—where sound had unraveled him and the rhythm he coveted became his undoing. Ayanwale hadn't returned there. Not yet. The Ninth was a wound he carried behind his ribs.

But the Eleventh was different.

It didn't scream.

It breathed.

And tonight, it whispered through every leaf of the Listening Grove.

"We have to leave," the Weaver said suddenly, her voice quiet but firm. "The Grove is not where the Eleventh wishes to be born."

Rotimi blinked. "But this is sacred ground."

"Too sacred," she replied, turning. "Here, it will be smothered. The rhythm needs space to remember itself. To choose its shape."

Ayanwale rose slowly. "Where do we go?"

The Weaver didn't answer immediately. She turned her gaze eastward—beyond the trees, past the mouth of the Spirit Gulley, to where the hills curved like open palms holding stars.

"To the place your mother was taken," she said softly.

The words hit Ayanwale like a second drumbeat. He hadn't spoken of her. Not to the Weaver. Not even to Zuberi. But she knew.

"Her name," he said, hoarse.

The Weaver didn't blink. "Yèyẹ Adùn. She was the first to hear the Eleventh… and survive it."

The grove fell silent again, but this silence was heavier. It pressed on his chest like water.

"She died," Ayanwale whispered. "That's what they told me."

The Weaver turned to him, and her eyes—full of thread and time—met his.

"She was taken. By the Order of Severance."

Rotimi swore under his breath. Zuberi's hands clenched into their cloak.

"The Order is gone," Ayanwale said, unsure whether it was truth or prayer. "The palace expelled them. The drum courts shut their doors."

"Some of them," the Weaver replied. "But not all. The Eleventh calls to the fragments of those who once caged it. They're gathering."

Ayanwale stepped forward, suddenly breathless. "For what?"

Her gaze hardened. "For war."

The word didn't echo. It didn't ring. It settled—like ash after fire.

Rotimi looked to Ayanwale. "So what do we do?"

Ayanwale turned to the Royalty Drum. Its skin gleamed faintly, symbols shifting across its surface like drifting smoke.

"We do what Baba Oro failed to," he said. "We balance them."

Rotimi raised a brow. "The Ninth and Eleventh?"

He nodded. "Together."

Zuberi's voice came soft and sure. "And if they refuse to coexist?"

Ayanwale turned, and in his gaze was something new—not defiance, not pain. Purpose.

"Then we show them how."

The Weaver smiled for the first time. "Then we go."

They traveled at dawn.

The path toward the east wound through forgotten villages, old salt trails, and memories left behind like dried riverbeds. Ayanwale didn't speak much during the journey. The Royalty Drum remained bound to his back, humming low like a sleeping beast. Each night, he listened to it breathe, and in his dreams, he heard her—his mother's voice. Not in words, but in lullabies. Half-forgotten. Threaded with grief.

On the fourth day, they reached the edge of the Veiled Hills.

Rotimi squinted at the landscape. "This place wasn't on any map."

"That's the point," the Weaver replied. "The Order made sure no cartographer could name it. It's where they kept what they feared most."

Zuberi knelt, placing their palm on the earth.

"She's near," they whispered.

Ayanwale closed his eyes.

And then—he heard it.

Not the Eleventh.

Not the Ninth.

But something beneath both.

A hum that made his blood still.

"Something's waiting for us," he murmured.

Rotimi drew a blade. "Someone?"

"No," Ayanwale replied, stepping forward. "Memory."

The old shrine stood at the hill's heart—cracked stone, worn banners, and a doorway half-swallowed by roots. The air here was different—thick with echo and silence braided together.

The Weaver didn't enter. She remained at the threshold.

"She's inside," she said. "But she's not whole."

Ayanwale stepped forward, fingers brushing the drum at his side. The Ninth pulsed once. The Eleventh shivered.

Inside, the shadows deepened.

He moved through them.

And in the center of the shrine—chained in rhythm-bonded thread, hovering in a cradle of silence—

Was Yèyẹ Adùn.

She looked like she had not aged a day.

But her eyes were closed.

And her chest rose and fell in rhythm with the drum's pulse.

She was sleeping in rhythm.

Bound in memory.

And as Ayanwale approached, her lips moved.

A word.

A name.

His name.

He fell to his knees.

"Mother…"

Her eyes opened.

And everything in the shrine shattered.

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