The Royalty Drum

Dawn of Unspoken Names

The golden dawn stole over the horizon, painting the listening grove in hues of ochre and rose. Morning dew clung to leaves like gems — each one holding a whispered memory. Ìrètí moved through the grove barefoot, her cloak of silence flowing behind her like a river's sigh. Zuberi walked beside her, small yet steady, their eyes fixed on the path ahead.

A new chapter had begun. The Child of Silence carried a seed of memory that pulsed with promise — but beneath that promise lay peril. The Eleventh Naming had stirred ancestors. Voices once lost could now be heard. And some voices would demand reckoning.

They emerged at the Council Ring, where the Council Trees waited in solemn hush. The air held expectation; not a drum rattled, not a leaf moved, yet everything seemed on the edge of song.

The Eldest, Ọ̀kàǹgbá, spoke with a bark-rustle that carried more gravity than any voice could.

"The seed blooms. The echo quickens. But names once struck may rise again—and songs long buried may break the world anew."

Inner Echoes and Discovery

Ayanwale rose from the shadows of his compound, the early sun casting his silhouette long across the courtyard. He placed his palms against the Royalty Drum — not to play, but to feel. The drum hummed faintly beneath his hands, as if reminiscing. Within its carved face were grooves mapping a legacy he'd only begun to read.

He inhaled slowly.

He could feel ancestral eyes watching—guiding him. The Ninth stood firm beneath his palms, a silent ally, yet something else pulsed faintly beyond.

A distant longing. A voice unseen.

He closed his eyes and saw his father, Kolawolé, gathering clay at dawn, singing to unmade rhythms. In that memory, Ayanwale understood more clearly: Legacy was not handed. It was inherited by listening.

A Ritual Among Ancestors

The Council Ring drew together again that afternoon. Ìrètí and Zuberi stood at its center. They carried the seed in a leaf-carved vessel. Rotimi and Baba Aje stood close by. An assembly of spirit-folk, elders, vine-born wanderers, and Listen‑keepers circled around—forming a great ring of hope and fear.

The Eldest explained in a voice shaped by roots:

"This seed is memory condensed. It needs to be planted where silence and song converge."

He motioned to a circle of bare earth at the heart of the grove.

Zuberi knelt and placed the vessel gently into the soil. The seed seemed to breathe inside its chamber, releasing faint pulses. As the soil swallowed it, a tremor rippled out, vibrating across tree trunks and earthen floor. Even the Listening Trees pulsed with tune.

Then came a silence so deep, it felt like time paused.

And from the depths of that silence—a single note bloom.

It echoed over the grove. A sound so ancient, it felt primal.

A mother remembered her child. An ancestor found their voice.

A world that refused to forget.

Emotional Shift

Women wept. Children gasped. Even the trees wept sap from crevices, like tears of satisfaction. The Living Drums nestled in Listening Trees hummed with added weight. Zuberi's face shone, eyes unblinking, but no tear fell.

Ayanwale clenched the drum's rim.

Ìrètí placed a hand on his arm — steadying.

"This is only the beginning," she murmured.

The Whisper of Unease

Rotimi's brow grew dark.

"That seed… it didn't come from us," he muttered to Ayanwale later, as they walked beside vines heavy with sap.

Ayanwale nodded. "From the Whisper Keepers."

"They're bound to silence," Rotimi said. "Would they give the seed freely? Or would it demand payment?"

Ayanwale exhaled.

"Everything given from silence comes with its price."

They reached the ancient well near the compound, where water ran deep into memory. Ayanwale cupped water and drank. Rotimi followed. The taste stung with ancient salt—reminding them that to remember also meant to bear bitterness.

A Shrine Defiled

That night, the wind turned sour. Birds did not roost. The Listening Trees muttered in unrest.

Baba Aje called them early.

"Come," he said simply.

They emerged into moonlight and found something that made each breath freeze.

The Shrine of Whispers — a circular chamber beneath the oldest banyan root — had been defiled.

The carved names had been marred. Symbols scrawled over them — circles broken by violent slashes. The floor stained in patterns red-black. A broken drum lay center-stage, its skin ripped, beads scattered.

Zuberi gasped.

"A memory stolen," Baba Aje whispered.

Ìrètí knelt by the broken names. "By who?"

A heavy wind answered.

The Ajalu had come.

Confrontation in Silver Moonlight

In the grove's edge emerged a figure cloaked in night dyes. No longer flesh, but half-shadow.

It bowed.

Then spat:

"You plant memory. I peel it away."

"Who are you?" Ayanwale demanded, raising the Royalty Drum.

"A child of broken rhythms," the spirit rasped. "A name erased. I came for my own—now I take all."

He brandished a drumstick carved from bone. It crackled. Time fractured around him.

"I will unmake this seed."

He raised the bone.

And before he struck, Zuberi stepped forward.

No weapon.

No drum.

Only gesture.

They placed their small palm upon the broken drum-skin.

Everything halted.

Because in that moment, rhythm answered absence. Memory answered vengeance. Echo answered void.

The broken instrument hummed.

The seed beneath the earth pulsed again.

The spirit let out a wail.

It shattered and dissolved like smoke.

The air cleansed itself.

The Price of Remembering

Dawn broke red.

The Shrine had healed. Names were intact. Blood stains vanished. Even the broken drum had reformed—though when Rotimi inspected it, the skin had turned translucent, revealing faint veins of silver.

A Warning.

The Listening Trees released a sap-mark on Zuberi's arm—the spiral of the Unheard—but now threaded with silver threads.

They whispered again:

"Guard the seed. Guard the word."

Ayanwale placed a hand on Zuberi's shoulder.

"You carry the world's memory now."

Zuberi looked back.

No words.

Only presence.

Whispered Prophecy

By night, as embers died in the hearth, Ayanwale dreamed.

He stood in a forest of drums—each carved with his ancestors' names. Behind him, twelve rhythms glowed as constellations in dawn sky. One figure stood, half-remembered:

A child—silence in her eyes.

A voice whispered behind him, echoing through time:

"She who listens beyond sound will unlock the final gate."

He turned.

Zuberi stood at the entrance of the drums—seed in hand.

A world waiting to be born.

And then the voice spoke his name.

"Ayanwale… are you ready to remember the world that forgot you?"

And just like that—

He woke.

The Royalty Drum vibrated softly in the dim hut.

Outside, the Listening Trees trembled.

A single thorn fell to earth with the sound of an unspoken drumbeat.

The Eleventh Rhythm had remembered.

And it had named them all.