The air in Ile-Ori tasted of dust and decay.
Adewunmi crouched at the mouth of the catacomb, her fingers brushing the stone slab sealed with ancient sigils. The symbols pulsed faintly under her touch, their carvings worn smooth by centuries of rain and neglect. Behind her, Ayodele leaned against a baobab tree, her breathing labored, the wound on her shoulder seeping black ichor that gleamed like oil in the moonlight.
"You're certain this is the place?" Adewunmi asked, though the answer thrummed in her bones. The catacomb hummed with a low, resonant frequency, as if the earth itself mourned the dead within.
Ayodele snorted. "The House of Heads doesn't exactly hide, girl. It waits." She pushed off the tree, wincing. "But ancestors aren't fond of visitors. Especially not ones who reek of godlight."
Adewunmi ignored the jab, focusing on the slab. "How do we open it?"
"With blood," Ayodele said simply. "But not yours."
Before Adewunmi could react, Ayodele drew a dagger from her belt—the same one stained with her own dark blood—and sliced her palm. Instead of crimson, thick, tar-like liquid welled from the cut. She pressed her hand to the stone.
The sigils flared red.
The slab groaned, shuddering as it slid aside, exhaling a breath of stale, icy air. Adewunmi recoiled. "Your blood… What are you?"
Ayodele wiped the blade on her tunic, her voice flat. "A debtor. Now move. The dead aren't patient."
The tunnel sloped downward, walls narrowing until they scraped Adewunmi's shoulders. Bioluminescent moss coated the stones, casting a sickly green glow. Skulls lined niches in the walls, their hollow eyes tracking their descent. Some were fresh, flesh still clinging to bone; others crumbled to dust at a touch. Adewunmi's coral bracelet flickered, its light weak but persistent.
"Don't touch anything," Ayodele muttered. "And don't speak names. The dead cling to them like leeches."
"Whose heads are these?"
"The proud. The foolish. The ones who thought they could cheat fate." Ayodele's tone sharpened. "Like your ancestor."
Adewunmi halted. "Adéọlá?"
The diviner didn't answer, forging ahead until the tunnel opened into a cavern. The ceiling arched high above, strung with cobwebs that shimmered like funeral veils. At the center stood a stone dais, its surface stained with old blood. Around it, skeletons knelt in eternal supplication, their bony hands clasped in prayer.
Ayodele lit a bundle of sage, the smoke coiling into serpentine shapes. "Sit. And pray your ancestor's ghost is feeling chatty."
Adewunmi knelt on the dais, the cold seeping through her robe. Ayodele began to chant, her voice echoing off the skulls. The air thickened, the scent of burnt hair and myrrh cloying. Adewunmi's vision blurred—
She stood in a moonlit grove, the air sweet with blooming frangipani. A woman knelt by a stream, her back to Adewunmi, hair coiled in intricate braids. When she turned, Adewunmi gasped. The woman's face was her own, but older, her eyes hardened by sorrow.
"Adéọlá," Adewunmi whispered.
The ancestor's wrists were shackled, the iron links vanishing into the water. "You shouldn't be here, child," Adéọlá said. "The living have no place among regrets."
"I need to understand the curse. How to break it."
Adéọlá laughed bitterly. "You think it's a curse? It's a lesson. One I failed." She lifted her chains. "I stole Oshun's grace to save my love. A warrior from a rival village. They would've killed him for daring to love me."
Adewunmi stepped closer. "What happened?"
"I begged Oshun for power. She gave it—a drop of her essence, enough to make me a storm." Adéọlá's voice broke. "I razed their war camp. But when the dust settled… he lay broken. My lightning had struck him down."
The scene shifted: Adéọlá cradling the warrior's corpse, her wails merging with thunder. "The Orishas let me live. Let me remember. And when I died, they buried me here, where my shame could fester."
Adewunmi reached for her, but the vision fractured. "Wait! How do I fix this?"
Adéọlá faded, her final words echoing: "The curse isn't in the power… It's in the heart."
Adewunmi lurched forward, bile burning her throat. Ayodele gripped her shoulders, the diviner's hands icy. "What did you see?"
"She loved him," Adewunmi rasped. "She tried to save him, but…"
"Love makes fools of us all." Ayodele's gaze dropped to her own black-stained palm. "The amulet's in Òkè-Ìgànn. Ogboni's stronghold. To enter, we need a sacrifice."
"What kind?"
"A life freely given." Ayodele's smile was razor-thin. "Don't look so grim. I've already paid."
She lifted her wounded arm, the ichor glistening. Before Adewunmi could protest, Ayodele slammed her bloody palm against the dais. The cavern shuddered, cracks splintering the stone. The skeletons collapsed into dust as the floor yawned open, revealing a staircase spiraling into darkness.
A cold wind surged upward, carrying the stench of rot and iron. Adewunmi's bracelet flared, its light revealing symbols etched into the steps—warnings in a language that predated Yoruba.
Ayodele swayed, her skin gray. "Go. The path won't hold long."
"You're coming with me," Adewunmi said, gripping her arm.
The diviner wrenched free. "I've done my part. What comes next… is your burden." She pressed a vial into Adewunmi's hand—a thick, iridescent liquid. "Nightshade nectar. It'll hide your scent from Ogboni's hounds. But drink too much, and you'll join the ancestors permanently."
"Why help me?" Adewunmi demanded. "What debt do you owe Ogboni?"
Ayodele's laugh dissolved into a cough. "He was my brother. Before the darkness took him. Before I… I let it take me too." She touched the blackened veins crawling up her neck. "The bracelet Yemoja gave you? It's not a gift. It's a chain. She's binding you, same as the gods bound Adéọlá."
Adewunmi recoiled. "You're lying."
"Am I?" Ayodele slumped against the dais, her breath shallow. "Ask yourself why Oshun chose you. Why a girl who's never left her village is suddenly the key to the gods' war."
The staircase groaned, steps crumbling. Adewunmi hesitated, then drank the nectar. It burned like fire, the world sharpening into grotesque clarity. She descended into the dark.
Behind her, Ayodele whispered, "Don't trust the Orishas, girl. They don't make saviors… They make sacrifices."