The tower burned.
Not with fire, but with thought.
Every flame was a memory—dancing, bleeding, whispering through the wind like pieces of half-told stories. The sky above it curled in wide spirals, cracked by lightning that never struck ground. Stars watched in silence.
Mirella and Ayinla stood at the lake's edge, their reflections shifting like pages in a book someone else was writing.
What is that? she asked.
Ayinla squinted at the tower. His breath was shallow.
It's where the war was fought. Not a battlefield. A forge. It's where they tried to reshape time with dreams.
She blinked.
That's impossible.
He shook his head.
It's memory made into weapon. Belief sharpened into blade. They didn't fight with armies. They fought with what they remembered… and what they could convince others was true.
Mirella stared at the tower.
So what are we doing here?
He turned to her.
Picking up what they left behind.
The ground trembled beneath their feet.
A bridge formed—stone rising out of the lake, one step at a time.
Each slab bore a single word, etched in Custodian glyphs: truth, denial, fracture, silence, return.
They walked.
The air grew colder as they approached.
At the top of the bridge, the wind stopped.
At the gate of the tower, a figure waited.
A man.
Unmasked.
He looked exactly like Ayinla.
Except older. Worn. Eyes dimmer. Smile colder.
I wondered when you'd arrive, the man said.
Ayinla stepped forward.
Who are you?
The man gave a thin smile.
I'm the version of you that won the war.
Ayinla stiffened. Mirella took his hand instinctively.
What do you mean?
The man spread his arms.
You're the one who ran. Who protected. Who remembered. I'm the one who rewrote the code and burned the dreamscape down. They called me the Forger once. Now they call me the Error. I saved the world—then erased the parts that argued.
Mirella whispered, That's why the Custodians tried to seal the gates.
He nodded.
Because I used them. I turned dreams into walls and futures into weapons. And now you've cracked open the paths again.
He gestured to the tower behind him.
It's awake. And it remembers me.
Ayinla narrowed his eyes.
Then why are you here?
Because you still think there's a way to save her and keep yourself. There isn't. The spiral she carries burns through reality. If you cross with her again, the gate won't open.
It'll bleed.
The older Ayinla took a step forward.
Let me finish what you started. Give me the spiral. I'll burn the tower again. This time from the inside.
Mirella felt the spiral under her skin throb.
It was responding.
Not in fear.
In recognition.
She stepped between them.
No.
The older Ayinla stared at her.
Do you even know what you carry?
Not completely.
Then why deny me?
Because I don't want to destroy the dream.
I want to unchain it.
The tower groaned behind them.
The flames pulsed.
The bridge cracked underfoot.
Choose, the older Ayinla said.
Mirella turned to the man she knew.
We can't both go forward.
He nodded.
But we don't have to go alone.
He reached for the spiral.
She took his hand.
The spiral ignited—wings of fire lifting from her back, not burning but illuminating. Ayinla's chest glowed in reply, symbols forming down his arms.
And the world split.
For a moment, there were three of them.
The past. The present. The possibility.
Then the older Ayinla vanished.
The tower opened.
And they stepped inside.
The inside of the tower had no walls.
It had edges, but they floated.
The moment Mirella and Ayinla stepped through, the spiral behind her ribs surged, and the entire space reacted—rearranging itself. The air folded. The sky bent inward. What was once vertical became wide.
And they were not alone.
Above them, across them, within them—dreams moved.
Millions of them. Spinning. Cracking. Stretching into threads of light and smoke. Each one playing like a film through the air. Some were joyful. Some wept. Some screamed. And some were silent but sharp.
Ayinla raised his arms. His markings flickered.
The tower is unstable. If we don't shape it first, it will shape us.
Mirella turned as a dream brushed her shoulder.
She flinched.
It was her mother's voice—soft and distant.
A baby's laughter.
And then a field burning.
Ayinla snapped his fingers and the vision snapped.
You can't let the tower touch your spine. That's where it writes the edits.
What edits?
He looked at her, grief pressing through his calm.
The kind that make you forget you ever existed.
A great stair spiraled upward through nothing.
It shifted each time they blinked.
One moment it was stone.
Then iron.
Then wood.
Then roots.
They climbed.
And the higher they went, the heavier their bodies became.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
Every unresolved regret from their past pulsed through their bones.
Mirella felt her knees shake.
The time she'd lied to save herself.
The friend she'd abandoned.
The letter she never sent.
Ayinla touched her back, breathing deeply, grounding them both.
Remember—regret is only memory unhealed. If it touches you, name it.
She nodded. Each step was a chant.
I did this. I'm still here. I can begin again.
Halfway up the stair, a door appeared.
Its surface was made of faces—dozens of them—pressed into the wood like fossils of emotion. Some were hers. Some weren't.
It swung open before they touched it.
A hall waited inside.
At the far end: a mirror.
Not cracked like before.
Still. Clear. Deep.
Mirella stepped forward, and the spiral beneath her skin began to sing.
It wasn't music.
It was truth.
Ayinla followed slowly, watching her reflection form in the glass.
But it didn't mimic.
It moved before she did.
Ana-Ọmọ-Irin stared back at her.
Not in judgment.
Not in anger.
In recognition.
The two women stared at one another.
Then Ana spoke.
If you cross with my flame, you'll finish what I failed to do.
What did you fail?
I was afraid. I locked the dream away, sealed it with guilt. And the tower has festered ever since.
Then what do I do?
Don't carry me.
Burn me.
Mirella gasped.
The mirror fractured from the center.
The spiral erupted with light.
Behind them, the tower began to collapse—not falling, but unmaking itself.
Ayinla reached for her hand.
They ran.
But the ground was no longer floor.
It was memory, breaking apart like dried paper.
Dreams flared around them—final bursts of unfinished stories.
Mirella screamed Ana's name as the tower buckled.
Then silence.
She woke on stone.
Breath ragged.
Body whole.
Ayinla beside her, unconscious but breathing.
The tower was gone.
Only a crater remained, shaped like a spiral burned into the earth.
And floating above it—
a single feather made of fire.
The feather hovered above the crater, turning slowly as if caught in a wind that didn't exist.
It wasn't made of fire anymore.
It was made of story.
Each vein in the feather shimmered with words—some ancient, some still being written. Names curled along the shaft like a heartbeat: Ana-Ọmọ-Irin. Mirella. Ọlanma. Lightweaver. Flame-bearer.
Mirella stood shakily, her feet unsure on the scorched ground. The spiral beneath her skin had gone quiet, not extinguished, just… listening. As though waiting for her to decide something.
She reached up.
The feather floated lower, pausing just out of reach.
Then Ayinla stirred behind her.
She turned, kneeling beside him.
His eyes fluttered open.
We survived.
We did more than survive, she whispered.
The tower is gone.
He sat up, rubbing his temple. There was ash in his hair, flecks of gold in his palm. He held up his hand. The lines across his skin had shifted—no longer glyphs of protection.
They were now threads, like a loom waiting to weave something that hadn't been written.
What did we unlock? he asked.
Mirella looked up.
The feather descended slowly, finally landing in her open hand.
The moment she touched it, it dissolved into her palm—not burning, not vanishing, but sinking inward, like it had always belonged.
She didn't flinch.
A warm wind circled her once, brushing her braids, curling under her skin.
And then, behind her—
the ground cracked.
A ring of light opened from the spiral crater.
And a voice unlike any they'd heard before whispered across the clearing.
You have undone the Forger's seal.
You are now the Dream-Keeper.
Ayinla turned, stunned.
The voice didn't speak through sound.
It spoke through possibility.
The sky above them darkened—not with storm, but with choice.
A second moon blinked into existence.
A spiral of stars realigned.
Mirella stood tall.
What happens now?
The voice responded, soft as a lullaby.
You bring back what was buried.
And then you decide if it still belongs.
Behind them, the first steps of a new path appeared—not stone, not fire.
Memory woven into road.
And far at the end of that path, a flicker of color neither had seen in all their lifetimes—
green.
Living, breathing green.
A place not yet ruined.
Ayinla stood.
We go forward?
Mirella nodded.
Not to fight.
But to finish the story.
Together, they stepped onto the path that only memory could reveal.
And behind them, the spiral glowed once more—quiet, steady, and whole.