Chapter One: Spirit Dance
"Igwe! Blessings upon you, great Chief of Isiala! You have been favored with triplets!"
The woman burst from the birthing chamber like a spirit chased by lightning, her voice cleaving the air with thunderous joy.
The chief's eyes lit up, wide with wonder. He leapt from his carved throne with the strength of a younger man and sprinted into the room.
"Ahhh! The skies smile upon me today! Two sons... and a daughter!"
His voice shook the walls with praise. He turned to his loyal servant, chest heaving with pride.
"Zion! Slay the spirit cows we feast tonight! Let the land taste our joy!"
"Yes, my lord!" Zion replied, already vanishing into a blur of motion, as if the gods themselves carried his feet.
Chief Obi stepped into the palace hall, his footsteps echoing on sacred stone.
"Announce it to the city!" he roared. "The gods have sent me two mighty lions... and a beautiful flower!"
From the shadows of the long corridor, a figure emerged neither man nor spirit, but something between. Cloaked in woven shadows, face veiled with mist that shimmered and shifted, he held a radiant gong carved from sky-metal. With silent grace, he walked barefoot, each step accompanied by the low hum of otherworldly presence.
He struck the gong.
Gbooom.
Its echo rolled over the hills and valleys, through the sacred groves, across the winding rivers, and into the soul of Isiala.
The people paused. Birds silenced their calls. Drums stopped mid-beat.
A message had been sent.
Back in the shrine chamber, Chief Obi knelt before his sacred altar. Arrayed before him were the ancient idols some carved from stone, others from bone, others still from wood too old to name. The Snake. The Lion. The Eagle. The Tiger. The Scorpion. And others... whose names had been buried by time and ash.
He began to chant, low and strong, voice weaving through the air like smoke. The air grew thick. Though the sky outside had darkened, gifts from distant lands began to arrive in woven baskets, draped in cloth, wrapped in whispered prayers. The spirits were awake.
He lifted his firstborn son, and the child cried one long, piercing wail that seemed to split the sky in two.
At once, two idols shimmered with living light one red and roaring, the other golden and fierce.
"Hahaaa! My son! You have been chosen by the God of Fire... and the Spirit of the Lion!"
He lifted the boy above his head, and began the dance of praise, feet stomping, chest pounding, sweat pouring from his brow like rain from the heavens. He moved in circles, singing words passed down by blood and bone.
Then, gently, he laid the first child upon a mat of eagle feathers and took up the second.
This boy did not cry.
He smiled.
Again, two idols stirred this time bathed in soft waves of blue and silver.
The chief's eyes widened in awe.
"The Ocean Goddess... and the Spirit of Mami Ngó... the Water Jaguar," he whispered. "You are a prince of tides and memory."
He danced once more, slower this time, as if wading through dreamwater. Then he paused, took up his calabash of palm wine, sipped once, and poured the rest onto the earth with reverence.
"These sons shall be named..." he said, voice deep with purpose. " Wisdom…. and Great."
At last, he turned to the daughter. She was smaller, wrapped in silk dyed with sacred herbs, her breathing soft and slow.
He lifted her with care, like one might hold a mirror to the moon.
The totems stirred again.
But this time, only one idol responded.
The Serpent.
It glowed not with fire nor water but with the dark green of secrets buried beneath stone. Earth. Time. Memory.
The chief faltered, blinking.
"Eh?" he muttered. "The Serpent? That one chooses... you?"
He studied her face.
The baby looked back at him.
Not with fear.
Not with joy.
But with stillness. As if she had already seen the world.
He smiled, though his brow was furrowed.
"You shall be called... Susan."
With a full heart, he carried the three children to their mother, kissed her forehead, and returned alone to the shrine, where he resumed his praise into the night.
Years passed.
The triplets grew like baobab trees after the first rains.
At ten, their powers began to awaken.
Wisdom, the firstborn, breathed fire from his mouth. His spirit was bold and reckless. He never turned down a challenge, and though laughter always danced on his lips, his eyes... his eyes were deep. Deeper than most men lived to understand.
Great, the second, moved like water. He could summon rivers from dry earth, command the clouds to weep, and ride the wind like a leaf in storm. He was gentle in speech, kind in heart but when angered, his gaze turned cold enough to freeze spirits in place.
And Susan?
She walked barefoot in the palace gardens, speaking to flowers and to the wind. Her voice was like dusk soft, but carrying weight. The wind obeyed her. The trees leaned when she passed. She said little, but her silence had shape.
One morning, a palace maid sprinted toward her, breathless, robes in disarray.
"Young miss! Have you seen the young lords?!"
Susan did not look up from the flower she was touching. She traced its petals with one slender finger.
With a soft sigh, she raised her hand. The air around her swirled, rustling the garden leaves.
"Why do you always disturb my peace with their nonsense?"
She glanced at the sky.
Then smiled faintly.
"Go to the market square. They're causing trouble... again."
The maid gasped, turned, and bolted.
Susan placed her palm against the soil. The ground rippled beneath her like stirred water.
Then... it opened.
A soft rumble. No roar.
Just a hush, as the earth swallowed her whole.
As if the land itself obeyed her.
Meanwhile, in the Rage Market Square…A roar erupted not from a lion, but from a boy with fire in his bones.
Wisdom pounced, slamming into a much larger boy, fists already wet with fury. He drove a punch straight into the boy's face, then another, then another until the ground itself seemed to flinch.
Beside him, Great stood quietly, arms crossed, watching with that cold, unreadable gaze. He did not blink. He did not move. He waited.
All around them, the market froze.
"Is that not... the Chief's children?" someone whispered.
"Ahh keep your voice low," another hissed.
A woman clasped her child's mouth shut with trembling fingers. "Don't look. Don't speak. Those ones... they are dangerous."
Fear rippled through the crowd like smoke through dry grass but not all shared it. A few voices, reckless or drunk on admiration, began to cheer.
"Teach him a lesson, O Lord of Fire!"
"Break him like wood, Wisdom!"
But the fire-born prince wasn't done.
The boy beneath him bloodied, whimpering was barely conscious now. Still, Wisdom didn't stop. Not fully. His knuckles hovered, waiting.
He was holding back.
Great's voice broke the silence like a knife drawn slow.
"Brother," he said, calm as a grave. "Why do you waste time? Kill him already."
The crowd inhaled as one.
Wisdom didn't reply with words. His left eye flared, suddenly wreathed in flame, and sparks danced across his open palm.
"Maybe I'll just burn him," he muttered, lips curling with delight.
" Stay your hand, Young Lords!"
The voice came from below.
The earth cracked open, and from the dust emerged the palace maid the same one who had begged Susan for help. Her wrapper swirled with stones, her fingers aglow with earth's blessing. With one smooth motion, she sealed the fireblooming in Wisdom's palm, cutting it off like a snuffed candle.
In the same instant, Great moved.
His machete gleamed as he drew it silent, fluid, lethal.
"Why do you stop our fun?" he asked, voice cold enough to freeze a river.
The blade cut through the air toward the maid's neck fast, merciless.
But she didn't flinch.
She hardened her arm with rock, catching the blade mid-swing, stone fingers gripping cold steel like it was straw.
The ground trembled.
Wisdom leapt. Fire flared his mouth as he soared over Great's shoulder.
"Don't worry I'll burn her myself!"
The maid's eyes widened she had been flanked. These were no ordinary boys.
And just before Wisdom struck
She landed.
A girl.
Graceful as silk, angry as a brewing storm.
Her bare feet hit the stone with a thud.
Susan.
Her lips curled not in amusement, but in something sharper.
She looked at her brothers, then at the maid.
"Such wicked little things."