Kaelo left the house before the sun fully rose.
The mask sat on the altar as if it had never been touched, as if it hadn't just been buried in the ground hours before. Its smooth surface gleamed faintly in the morning gloom, and Kaelo swore it was watching him.
He needed answers. Not dreams. Not whispers.
Real ones.
There was only one person left in Umuré who might understand: Mambé, the spirit-walker who lived near the crossroads where the old paths met. She had once argued with Mama Naa over gods and graves. If anyone knew how to silence a deity, it would be her.
The road to the crossroads shrine was narrow and winding, flanked by tall elephant grass and trees heavy with shadow. Strange birds flitted between branches. The deeper he went, the more the forest seemed to breathe with him.
He reached the shrine just after the light broke fully through the trees.
It was a small structure clay and stone, overgrown with creeping vines, sitting at the meeting point of three dusty footpaths. The air there buzzed with silence, a sacred hush that pressed against the skin.
A woman sat beside it, her legs folded neatly, a mortar between her knees. She crushed herbs with practiced ease, her wrists wrapped in faded leather, her eyes sharp and bright under a pale blue headwrap.
"You took your time," she said without looking up.
Kaelo stopped in his tracks. "Mambé?"
She looked at him then, with an expression that was neither welcome nor warning.
"You wear the weight of a god like a sick child wears fever," she said. "It's already inside you."
Kaelo frowned. "You know?"
"Of course. Your grandmother told me long ago this day might come. I didn't believe her." She sighed. "I do now."
He stepped closer, lowering his voice. "He's waking. He spoke to me. In dreams… but like he was there. In flesh."
Mambé set her pestle down. "Was he a shadow?"
"No."
She raised an eyebrow.
"He was a man. A real man. Flesh, eyes like the inside of the night. He touched me." Kaelo swallowed. "I felt it."
Mambé nodded slowly. "Then you've seen his face. He's coming through."
Kaelo's throat tightened. "How do I stop him?"
She stood. "You don't stop gods. You bargain, delay, redirect. But once a path is opened…" She gestured to the earth. "You walk it. Or it walks you."
Just then, the wind stilled.
And Kaelo felt it again that presence, thick and absolute, as if the air around him had folded in.
From the trees across the shrine, a man stepped into view.
Barefoot. Wearing a robe the color of charcoal and dusk. His posture was quiet, elegant, as if the world belonged to him.
Kaelo's breath caught. The same face from the dream. Real. Human. Here.
Anoku.
Mambé did not flinch. But her voice dipped low. "You brought him here."
Kaelo whispered, "I didn't."
Anoku approached, slow and measured. His feet made no sound against the soil. His eyes bottomless black locked on Kaelo.
"I am not a dream," Anoku said, voice smooth and precise. "Not anymore."
He stopped a few feet away. Close enough that Kaelo could see the faint lines across his knuckles. His skin was dark, unscarred, but there was something ancient in the way he carried himself like he had walked through centuries, not years.
"Why me?" Kaelo asked, his voice almost cracking.
Anoku tilted his head. "You are the first in generations whose blood still remembers. You were chosen long before you were born."
"I didn't agree to this."
"You wore the mask," Anoku replied. "Even in dream. That is consent."
Kaelo stepped back, trembling.
Mambé raised her staff. "You cannot take him," she warned. "Not yet."
Anoku smiled, faint and terrifying. "I do not take. I reside. Slowly. Until the soul reshapes."
He turned to Kaelo again. "When you are ready, we will walk as one. Until then, I will wait beneath your skin."
And then he blinked out of existence. Not vanished like a ghost, but like a man walking behind a curtain of reality.
Kaelo staggered.
Mambé caught his shoulder. "He's not fully in you yet. But he's close. You have time."
Kaelo gasped. "How much?"
She looked away. "That depends on how long you can keep your soul yours."