Bound by ancestry - Chapter 26: Chapter 26

The descent from the White Village was slow. No one spoke. Each step taken felt like part of a ceremony none of them had rehearsed. The stones beneath their feet no longer whispered but echoed softly, as if remembering their presence even after they had moved on. The mountain no longer loomed with mystery but watched with understanding. The Circle walked with the heaviness of memory now etched into them.
Uche held the Heartstone lantern close to her chest. It had dimmed slightly, but the warmth it gave off had deepened. Inside it now pulsed not just one rhythm but many, woven together like a heartbeat joined by breath. Adaeze walked slightly ahead, her staff brushing gently against the earth as she traced invisible lines in the air. The mountains gave way to green slopes and clustered trees that bent toward them. The wind no longer resisted. It guided.
They camped at the edge of a long-forgotten forest. The trees there were older than the stories they had uncovered, their bark thick with moss and age. Chidubem stood beside one, palm resting on its trunk. “We are being watched,” he said.
Adaeze joined him. “Not by enemies. By what remains.”
Ogbonna scanned the surroundings. “Then what remains must be told we are not here to bury again.”
That night, as they sat around the fire, the Heartstone pulsed once more. Its glow stretched beyond the lantern and settled over the forest floor. Tiny sprouts emerged from cracks in the earth, glowing faintly before disappearing into the soil again. Adaeze leaned forward. “It is beginning again. The land is preparing.”
Uzochi looked up. “Preparing for what?”
“The convergence,” Adaeze said. “The moment when memory, truth, and voice are no longer separate.”
Chidubem nodded. “When that happens, all that has been hidden will rise.”
The next morning, they woke to a strange sight. All around them, the ground had split in narrow, straight lines. As if something beneath the surface had traced paths leading outward in every direction. The trees had shifted slightly in the night. None of them had fallen. But none were where they had been.
Ogbonna tapped his staff against a nearby root. “The forest is aligning.”
Uche stepped into one of the narrow cracks and knelt. “These are not just shifts. They are callings. Something below is trying to reach us.”
Without hesitation, they followed the lines. The forest thickened as they walked, but the lines never broke. Birds flew overhead in perfect arcs, their songs layered like stories passed down through generations. The Circle moved with purpose, their steps in rhythm with the land itself.
Hours passed before they reached the center.
A clearing.
Perfectly round.
Silent.
In the middle stood a stone altar covered in vines.
Not ancient.
Recent.
Adaeze approached and cleared the vines away.
Carved into the stone were symbols none of them recognized.
Chidubem ran his fingers along the edge. “This was not made by the villages. Not even by the Obiri. This is older than both.”
Uche stepped back. “Then who left it?”
A voice answered from the edge of the clearing.
“I did.”
They turned to find an old woman standing beneath the trees. Her hair was white. Her robes woven from bark and fiber. Her eyes reflected the canopy above. She stepped forward with the ease of someone who had never left this place.
“You do not belong to this age,” she said to Adaeze.
Adaeze bowed slightly. “Yet we walk within it.”
The old woman smiled. “Then walk gently.”
Chidubem stepped forward. “You left the altar?”
She nodded. “Long ago. When the Earth still remembered without help.”
“Who are you?” Uche asked.
“I am the one who breathes with the roots. I am the one who sings with stone. I am the Listener.”
Adaeze lowered her staff. “Then you know why we are here.”
“I know what you carry,” the Listener said. “And I know what it is doing to the land.”
Ogbonna’s expression hardened. “We are healing it.”
“You are opening it,” she corrected. “And that is not the same.”
Adaeze stepped forward. “Should the truth not be free?”
“Yes,” the Listener said. “But truth is a river. If you open all its paths at once, it floods.”
Silence hung between them.
Then the Listener turned and gestured for them to follow.
She led them through a narrow path none of them had noticed before. The trees parted as she moved, the air growing cooler. Eventually they reached a cave set into the hillside. Inside, the walls were covered with carvings. Thousands of them. Not names. Stories.
Uche touched one.
A child reaching for a star.
Another showed a village built on singing stones.
Another, a woman feeding shadows to a flame.
The Listener spoke. “These are not forgotten. They were protected. Sealed away because they were too powerful to be told without care.”
Chidubem looked around. “You protected them?”
“I was chosen,” she said. “Just as you were chosen to carry what remained.”
Adaeze turned toward her. “Then help us. Guide us.”
“I cannot,” she replied. “My time is ending. Yours is beginning.”
The Listener reached into a pouch and drew out a single seed. It shimmered with light that pulsed in rhythm with the Heartstone. She placed it in Adaeze’s palm.
“This is not a seed for the earth,” she said. “It is a seed for memory. When you plant it, it will grow into voice.”
Uche leaned forward. “Where must it be planted?”
The Listener smiled faintly. “Where the earth breathes deepest. Where the world first spoke.”
Ogbonna spoke softly. “The Cradle.”
The Listener nodded. “Yes. But it has been lost. Buried beneath centuries of silence.”
Adaeze closed her hand over the seed. “Then we will find it.”
The Listener stepped back. Her body began to fade. Not into shadow. Into mist.
“Follow the wind,” she said. “It remembers.”
Then she was gone.
The cave darkened.
But the seed still glowed.
They left the forest in silence.
Each one deep in thought.
That night, they camped near the river that bordered the Singing Hills.
Adaeze held the seed close as she watched the stars.
Chidubem joined her.
“Do you think the Cradle is real?” he asked.
“It has to be,” she replied. “Because the land keeps trying to speak.”
He nodded. “Then we listen harder.”
Uche lit the lantern.
The Heartstone flickered once.
Then pulsed.
The wind stirred.
And far away, the earth took a deep breath.