Flames of the Forgotten, Echoes of the Divine
I. The Second Branch – The Ironclad of Mondela
They arrived under rain, their footsteps steady, their voices sharp as bone flutes.
The Ironclad of Mondela did not beg for shelter.
They offered a deal.
"We are not lost. We are not broken. But we are surrounded. If your fire burns true," said their matron-leader, Ajima, "then let it burn for us. In return, we bring walls. Shields. And warriors who do not flinch."
Their armor was bark-hardened and metal-woven. They prayed to a sun god who never forgave weakness. But they knelt before the temple, when the priestesses emerged in silence.
Sael measured them.
"They do not need saving."
Thalia added, "But they need a future."
Zion nodded.
"Then they become our Second Branch. And the fire will burn for them, too."
II. The Offering of N'bara
To honor their welcome, the Children of N'bara gathered on the seventh night under the black moon.
They lit oil lamps carved with river-spiral symbols.
Their oldest song-weaver sang the lullaby of the drowned—and offered sweetwater, pearls, and a bundle of reeds bound in blood.
They called not just to their ancestral river-god, but now, too, to the Lwa.
And when they did—
Papa Legba answered.
The sky cracked, not with lightning—but with silence.
A door shimmered open behind their shrine, made of memory and moonlight.
And through it, they saw the past:
The moment their ancestors fled the River Massacre.
The betrayal by the chief who opened the gates to slavers.
The one chance that was lost—because no god had listened.
But now… a god had.
III. Gate of the Past
Zion stood at the edge of the vision, as Legba turned to him with a cane of bone and laughter behind his eyes.
"We open it not to change it," Legba said, "but to learn from it."
Ayomi stepped forward, feeling the ghosts stir.
"But what if we see something we can't unsee?"
Legba smiled.
"Then you finally see clearly."
The Children of N'bara passed through the gate—only five of them, chosen by dream and scar—and returned with a memory the tribe had forgotten:
The name of the betrayer.
The path their ancestors had once meant to take.
And the curse that now began to lift.
From that moment on, the N'bara were no longer only refugees.
They were restorers.
IV. Kasa and the Burned Temple
Far north, beyond the vine-cloaked mountains, Kasa found it:
A ruin buried in ash—a temple once dedicated to Nzobalu, shattered by divine war.
There were statues with melted faces.
Walls etched with sigils scratched out by knives.
And deep within the inner sanctum, a mural nearly intact:
It showed Nzobalu, crowned in flame, standing beside two other gods—
One made of gold and smoke.
One with a serpent's smile.
The scene shifted:
The serpent god cuts open Nzobalu's chest.
The golden god binds him in silence.
And the people… kneel to them both.
Betrayal.
Not by mortals.
But by gods.
V. What Was Never Spoken
Kasa stared at the crumbled altar.
His sigil—once faint—now pulsed so hard it split the skin.
He heard no voice, but knew:
Nzobalu had been overthrown not for cruelty… but for refusing to bend to the others.
He burned without consuming.
And for that, he was erased.
Kasa sat in the ash, lips dry, eyes wide.
"They fear what cannot be controlled."
"So they destroy it."
He stood.
"I am not theirs."
And from the shattered altar, a single ember rose into the sky.
VI. Two Paths, Nearer Now
In Nouvo Lakay, Zion felt the ember pass overhead. He looked up, and the fire in the brazier bent unnaturally toward the east.
In the mountain ruins, Kasa turned west, toward a land whose name he did not know, but whose shadow now brushed his mind.
Two fires.
One divine, one defiant.
One built by gods.
One rejected by them.
And the world, again, begins to choose.