Ayomide was no longer a boy.
He was suspended in the air, his body locked in a trance between the stars and the stone heart of the Temple of Nok. His arms stretched outward as ethereal chains wrapped around his wrists runes dancing along the metal like wildfire. The Blade of Burdens floated beside him, humming louder than ever.
The temple itself had chosen him. Or maybe, it was merely reminding him that he had been chosen long before he was even born.
The voices of past kings, ancient prophets, and forgotten gods whispered inside his mind.
"You carry the blood of Kasim.""You were marked by flame.""You are not a child of Odanjo. You are the fire that will either purify… or destroy it."
Ayomide screamed as searing visions ripped through him. His skin burned like lightning etched along his veins. And in those visions, he saw futures terrifying, glorious, and uncertain.
In one vision, he stood atop the ashes of Odanjo, wearing obsidian armor, a crown of flame upon his head. Tayo knelt before him in chains. The Reaper was gone. The skies wept blood.
He had chosen power.
In another, he walked away from the blade, the curse dissipating. He lived in peace unknown, humble. But war ravaged the land without him. Kasim's remnants returned. The people cried out, leaderless.
He had chosen peace. But it came at a cost.
In the third, he stood beside the Reaper, his blade clashing against dark gods from the Eastern Sands. Orunfelu was king, Tayo was commander of the resistance, and Ayomide was a general a hero, but cursed forever.
He had chosen sacrifice.
The visions collapsed in on themselves, and the voice returned:
"Choose your fire. Rule. Run. Resist."
Ayomide's heart thundered.
And then, silence.
The Return
He awoke on the temple floor, drenched in sweat and clutching the Blade of Burdens. The others Tayo, Orunfelu, and the Reaper rushed to him.
"You were gone for hours," Tayo breathed. "We thought…"
"I saw everything," Ayomide whispered, eyes glowing faintly. "My past. My future. My father. My mother."
The Reaper stepped forward. "And?"
"I'm not the villain," he said. "But I'm not the hero either."
Tayo frowned. "Then who are you?"
Ayomide rose, taller than before. Steadier.
"I am the one who chooses."
Before they could leave, the temple doors sealed shut. A massive stone guardian, dormant for centuries, now stirred. It had one eye bright blue like a sun trapped in ice and stood three stories tall.
"The Trial of Flame," Orunfelu said grimly. "It tests all who awaken the Blade."
The Reaper raised her hand. "We don't have time for this!"
But Ayomide stepped forward. "This is my burden."
The guardian's chest cracked open, revealing a core of living fire. It launched bolts of flame that shattered stone like glass. Ayomide rolled, deflecting one blast with his blade. Tayo and Orunfelu moved to the side, firing enchanted arrows to distract it.
But nothing slowed it down.
Until Ayomide remembered what the temple had whispered:
"Your fire is not just destruction. It is memory."
He turned his blade inward toward his own heart.
"AYOMIDE, NO!" the Reaper screamed.
He stabbed the blade through his chest.
The room exploded with golden fire not one of death, but of truth. The guardian froze. Then bowed.
The door unsealed.
Ayomide stood, the blade now part of him, its glow burned into his soul.
The World Shifts
As they stepped outside the temple, the mountain air stung their lungs. But the world… had changed.
Smoke rose from the west. Villages once vibrant now stood in eerie silence. A red moon hung unnaturally high in the sky.
Orunfelu cursed under his breath. "We're too late."
A messenger hawk, its wings scorched, fell before them.
Tayo untied the scroll attached to its leg and read it aloud:
"The East has risen. The Bone King of Koradji marches with a thousand cursed soldiers. Odanjo will fall by the next moon unless the blade returns. The High Council is dead. The Queen has vanished."
Ayomide's jaw clenched. "The Bone King… that name hasn't been spoken in centuries."
The Reaper stared into the horizon. "He's more than myth now. He's Kasim's heir in the East."
Orunfelu looked to Ayomide. "Then you must decide. Do we return to a kingdom ready to crown you or bury you?"
They traveled through forests choked with ash, through rivers dyed red with strange tides, and past villages where people whispered of the Cursed Prince who walked like fire.
Some feared him.
Some knelt.
All watched.
In the capital of Lujeba, they saw firsthand what had become of the kingdom.
The palace gates were broken.
The royal banners were defaced, marked with the sigil of a skull wrapped in flames the Bone King's mark.
Ayomide's childhood friend, Princess Adesewa, was waiting in the ruins. Her once-lavish robes were tattered, her face streaked with soot, but her eyes burned with defiance.
"Ayomide," she whispered. "You're alive."
He rushed to her.
"Where is the Queen?" he asked.
Adesewa looked down. "Dead. Or taken. We found her crown in the river."
Ayomide's chest ached.
"What about the Council?"
"Gone. Executed one by one. The Bone King said they were false shepherds."
Orunfelu stepped forward. "Then it's true. He means to purge the kingdom."
Ayomide turned to them all.
"Then we purge him first."
That night, in the shattered throne room, Ayomide gathered the remnants of the royal guards, mages, and rebels. Fires crackled in the corners of the broken hall, casting long shadows.
Ayomide raised the Blade of Burdens before them.
"I am no king," he began. "I was cursed at birth, hidden in shadow, raised without truth. But today, I have seen the truth. I carry Kasim's blood but I do not carry his will."
He stepped onto the throne dais.
"If we wait, Odanjo falls. If we rise, we may still bleed. But I would rather die with fire in my chest than live with chains on my back."
Silence. Then
One by one, they knelt.
Adesewa.
Tayo.
The Reaper.
Orunfelu.
And dozens more.
Ayomide raised his blade to the night sky.
"Let the Bone King come. The Cursed Prince will meet him in flame."
As the oath ceremony ended, thunder rumbled without clouds.
A shadow moved beyond the ruined gates.
A lone figure stepped forward, wrapped in desert silk, with hollow black eyes and a golden scar carved across his face.
"I come with the Bone King's reply," the figure rasped.
He held up a bloodied satchel.
And threw it at Ayomide's feet.
Inside…
The severed head of the Queen.
The messenger smiled.
"Your move, fireborn."