The amulet's heartbeat was a drum of war.
Adewunmi pressed herself against the damp cavern wall, the Nightshade nectar scorching her veins. The vial's iridescent liquid had twisted her vision—shadows now pulsed like living things, and the air shimmered with ghostly afterimages. Ahead, the tunnel opened into a vast chamber lit by braziers of green fire. At its center stood an altar of polished obsidian, its surface reflecting the cavern's stalactites like inverted teeth.
Ogboni knelt before it, his back to her, chanting in a language that clawed at her ears. The stolen amulet floated above his palms, its heart shape warped, throbbing with veins of black light. Around him, cultists in tattered robes swayed, their eyes milky and unblinking.
Closer.
She crept forward, the nectar's bitter taste sharp on her tongue. Ayodele's warning hissed in her mind: Don't trust the Orishas. But there was no time for doubt. The amulet's dark pulse quickened, syncing with her own frantic heartbeat.
Ogboni's voice rose, guttural and triumphant. "Ìkú l'ó jẹ́ ayé!" Death consumes the world!
The amulet flared, a vortex of shadows swirling above it. Within the maelstrom, Adewunmi glimpsed faces—villagers from Ile-Ifẹ, their mouths stretched in silent screams.
She lunged.
"No!"
Ogboni spun, his face a skeletal mask of scars. He slashed a dagger through the air, and the shadows lashed out like whips. Adewunmi rolled, the coral bracelet flaring as a tendril grazed her arm. The impact seared her skin, the scent of burnt flesh choking her.
"Foolish girl," Ogboni spat. "You think this power is yours to wield? It is a cage."
The cultists closed in, their movements jerky, limbs snapping like marionettes. Adewunmi tore the vial from her belt and drank the last of the nectar. The world fractured—she saw through the cultists, their souls tethered to the amulet by threads of rot.
Cut the threads.
She slashed her palm, golden blood welling, and smeared it across the bracelet. Light erupted, severing the threads. The cultists collapsed, their bodies crumbling to ash.
Ogboni roared, hurling the amulet into the vortex. "You are too late! She comes!"
The shadows coalesced into a figure—a woman with skin like storm clouds, her hair a whirlwind of lightning. Oya. The Orisha of winds and rebirth stepped from the vortex, her voice a tempest.
"You have done well, little priest."
Ogboni prostrated himself. "Goddess, cleanse this world of its corruption. Let your storms birth a new dawn!"
Oya's gaze swept the cavern, settling on Adewunmi. "And you, child of Oshun? Will you cling to this rotting world, or let it burn?"
Adewunmi tightened her grip on the bracelet. "Destruction isn't rebirth. It's cowardice."
Oya's laugh shook the cavern. "Spoken like a mortal. You cannot fathom what must die for beauty to rise." She raised her hand, and the vortex exploded into a cyclone of shadows.
The amulet spun at its core, cracking.
Adewunmi dove into the storm.
The world dissolved.
She was drowning in light and darkness, Oshun's essence warring with Oya's wrath. The amulet's shards sliced her palms as she grasped it, the pain blinding.
"Let go," Oshun's voice whispered, sweet as honey. "Let me end this."
"Fight," snarled Adéọlá's ghost. "Or become my shadow."
Adewunmi screamed, pouring every shred of power into the amulet. Golden light flooded the vortex, Oya's storm recoiling. The obsidian altar shattered.
Ogboni lunged, dagger aimed at her throat—
A spear of lightning struck him down.
Sango stood in the rubble, his axe dripping with celestial fire. "Enough theatrics," he growled.
The cavern collapsed.
Adewunmi crawled from the wreckage, the cracked amulet clutched to her chest. Dawn bled across the sky, the blood moon a fading scar. Ayodele lay nearby, her breaths shallow, black ichor pooling beneath her.
"You… got it," the diviner rasped.
"Why?" Adewunmi demanded. "Why help me if you knew the bracelet was a trap?"
Ayodele's laugh bubbled with blood. "Because… the gods aren't the only ones… who gamble." She gripped Adewunmi's wrist, her touch icy. "The nectar… it's not just for hiding. It lets you see. Look… at the amulet."
Adewunmi held it up. Through the nectar's fading haze, she saw the truth—the cracks oozed darkness, tendrils snaking toward her heart.
"All power demands payment," the amulet whispered.
Ayodele's hand fell limp.
The village was burning.
Not from flames, but from Oya's storms. Tornadoes of shadow razed the fields, the sacred grove a tangle of splintered trees. Villagers fled toward the river, their screams swallowed by thunder.
Adewunmi stumbled into the square, the amulet's weight a brand against her skin. Her mother's hut was gone, reduced to smoldering rubble.
A child tugged her sleeve—Tunde's sister, her face streaked with soot. "They took her! The wind-witch took Iyaoluwa!"
Above, in the eye of the storm, Oya hovered, Adewunmi's mother clutched in her taloned grip.
"A trade, little storm," Oya thundered. "The amulet for the woman who bore you."
The coral bracelet shattered, its shards cutting Adewunmi's flesh.
"Choose."