At first light, the mist above the plains broke open like gauze unwrapping a secret. The rising sun painted the sky in shades of flame and honey, casting long shadows behind every spear and spire of grass.
Ayọ̀kúnlé stood beside the watchtower, cloaked in a deep blue robe embroidered with the sigils of the five relics. No longer did he wear armor. His protection now was his people their belief, their stories, their trust. Still, the sword of light and memory rested at his back, dormant but present.
The fires from the distant encampment had not dwindled. Whoever had come was not leaving.
"They know we've seen them," said Adérónké, tightening the strap of her gauntlet. "They want to be seen."
"They've positioned themselves in the open," Tùndé added, stepping up beside them. "Not hidden. Not threatening. But deliberate."
"It's an invitation," Móyèṣọlá murmured. "But for what, we don't yet know."
Ayọ̀kúnlé gave a slow nod. "Then we'll answer."
He turned to the three envoys behind him chosen not only for their strength, but for their clarity of mind and their knowledge of diplomacy. Among them was a scholar from the western coast, a diplomat from the highlands, and a priestess of the river gods. Together, they would represent Odanjo's future.
"No weapons," he said. "But wear your truths."
Each one bowed before mounting their steeds.
As the envoy departed through the tall grass, silence returned to the ridge. Ayọ̀kúnlé watched until they disappeared into the soft shimmer of heat and horizon. Then he turned back toward the city gates.
Behind the walls of Odanjo, the rebuilding had begun in earnest. Markets bustled. Young artisans carved symbols of peace into doorframes. The bells of the old temples rang with fresh tones. There was life again. But not naivety.
Every person remembered the war.
And every person had vowed: never again.
Later that afternoon, the envoys returned.
Ayọ̀kúnlé was in the Council Grove when the word reached him.
He found the three dismounting at the gates, their faces solemn but untroubled. The scholar was the first to speak.
"They come in peace."
The priestess followed. "But they come with a warning."
The diplomat stepped forward and handed Ayọ̀kúnlé a scroll. Its seal bore a sun split in half one side golden, one side black.
"From the House of Ṣákó," she said.
Ayọ̀kúnlé blinked.
That name had not been spoken in a hundred years. The House of Ṣákó had once ruled lands beyond the western dunes, a kingdom known for its riddles, its silence, and its sudden disappearance. It had vanished at the dawn of the last age, swallowed by mystery and whispered curses.
"They claim to be descendants," the scholar explained. "Survivors of an exile that scattered their people across the unmarked lands."
"And now they return?" Ayọ̀kúnlé asked.
"Not to claim Odanjo," the diplomat clarified. "But to forge an accord. They believe an ancient enemy stirs one that once forced their exodus. They say the Shadow King was only the beginning."
Ayọ̀kúnlé unrolled the scroll.
The ink danced in precise, unfamiliar glyphs. And yet, somehow, he understood. Not with the mind but with the soul.
It was a warning.
And a map.
"There are more relics," he whispered. "Not of Odanjo. Of other lands. Other powers."
Móyèṣọlá, who had joined silently behind him, nodded. "The world is older than any one kingdom. And it remembers even what we forget."
He looked up. "Then we cannot be content with just peace. We must be guardians of its seed."
That night, he called the Council together.
In the great hall, beneath the ceiling painted with stars and fire, the leaders of Odanjo gathered: warriors and scholars, farmers and artisans, healers and storytellers. Not rulers of others but servants of the realm.
He told them what the envoys had seen.
He told them of the House of Ṣákó.
He told them of the map.
And then he said, "Odanjo must not retreat into comfort. We cannot mistake stillness for safety. What rises beyond the horizon does not wait for us to be ready."
There was silence at first. Then murmurs. Then nods.
Finally, the elder stonekeeper stood. "We once forged unity through pain," she said. "Let us now forge it through purpose."
The motion passed. The alliance would remain not just as defense, but as exploration. Ambassadors would be chosen. A new order would be formed, not of dominance, but of guardianship.
Ayọ̀kúnlé stepped outside as the meeting adjourned. The stars above him blinked gently, as if listening.
And then he heard it again.
The drums.
But this time, not from one direction but from many.
North. East. South.
Faint. Distant. Yet unmistakable.
Across the world, something was awakening.
Ayọ̀kúnlé smiled not with fear, but with certainty.
A new age had begun.
And he would meet it not as a lone prince fighting shadows.
But as a king who remembered.
A king who listened.
A king who dared to build beyond the ruins.
By dawn, the air smelled of river dew and possibility.
Ayọ̀kúnlé walked the length of the Skyway Bridge, the ancient stone arch rebuilt by the hands of those who had once lived as enemies. Now it linked the royal citadel with the eastern quarter once a place of exile, now a cradle of dreams.
Children ran barefoot across its wide span, chasing ribbon-kites that danced like spirits on the wind. Traders wheeled carts of fruit and spice. A sculptor from the mountain clans etched peace runes into the bridge's base with a chisel made from melted sword hilts.
The king paused at the center, gazing out over the waking city.
From this vantage, Odanjo looked like a breathing poem stone and soul, blood and bloom. And though he stood above it, Ayọ̀kúnlé did not feel apart from it.
He felt rooted.
Not because of a throne.
But because of the stories that wove through every alley, every rooftop, every whisper in the wind. His story had once been a curse. Now, it was a chapter in a living legacy.
He closed his eyes and heard it:
Not drums this time.
But song.
Faint, warm, wordless.
A lullaby carried by a mother at her doorway. A tune hummed by a carpenter shaping wood. The soft resonance of voices in harmony, not because they were told to sing, but because they wanted to.
That was peace not silence, but music.
Still, he knew peace was not an end.
It was a pause between storms. A rhythm that needed tending.
And so, when the envoy from the southern isles arrived at midday, bearing tidings of a sea-born fire and a fleet flying blackened sails, Ayọ̀kúnlé did not flinch.
He gathered his council, not to prepare for conquest, but for conversation.
"Peace," he said, standing before the roundstone table carved with the symbols of every allied land, "is not a wall we hide behind. It is a field we must defend together."
Móyèṣọlá, ever his steady mirror, spoke next. "And if fire crosses the sea?"
"Then we meet it with water," Tùndé answered, stepping forward. "Wisdom, not wrath."
Adérónké smirked. "But should they bring swords, we'll make sure they meet the better steel."
Laughter followed, light but firm. These were no longer broken factions patched together by desperation. They were a woven braid stronger with every strand.
That night, around the great hearth of the Hall of Seeds, Ayọ̀kúnlé met with elders from distant clans. They spoke of the days before the curse, of the forests that once sang, of beasts that walked with humans, of spirits that gifted the rains. The old world had not died it had been waiting.
And now, slowly, it was waking.
Ayọ̀kúnlé listened to every word, recording none, remembering all. These weren't lessons for scrolls. They were the heartbeat of the land.
When the fire burned low, a child from the River Clan approached. She carried no title, no offering only a question.
"Will the sky fall again, King?"
He knelt before her, eye to eye, and smiled.
"No," he said gently. "We're learning how to hold it."
And as the hearth crackled behind him, Ayọ̀kúnlé realized something strange and beautiful:
He no longer dreamed of the past.
His dreams were forward now of bridges not yet built, of voices not yet heard, of seeds not yet sown.
The Cursed Prince was gone.
Only the Gardener King remained.