Chapter 8 The waking stone

Chapter 8: The Waking Stone

The pendant wouldn't stop pulsing.

Even wrapped in cloth and tucked deep in Ayo's bag, it throbbed like a heartbeat-slow, deliberate, impossible to ignore. It didn't glow. It didn't hum. But it felt alive, as if the soul trapped inside it had started to turn over in its sleep.

Ayo pressed a hand against the pack as they walked through thick forest brush, ducking under low branches, boots slipping in the wet earth.

"Does it always do this?" he asked.

Malakai glanced back. "No."

"Comforting."

They'd been traveling for hours. Nyasha had given them directions to a sacred site in the highlands, a place known as Kibanda cha Moyo-the Heart Hut. According to the seer, it was where Elijah first called down fire and bound the relic to his soul.

There, Ayo might learn how to use it.

Because they had no more time to wait. Rami had drawn first blood.

And he wasn't alone anymore.

The sun sank fast behind the trees, casting long shadows across the forest floor. Birds fell quiet. The air grew colder.

"Is it far?" Ayo asked.

"We're close," Malakai said.

"How do you know?"

"Because I can feel it too."

Ayo was about to ask what it was when the forest opened abruptly into a clearing.

At its center stood a circular stone hut, half-swallowed by vines, roof still miraculously intact. It radiated stillness, but not peace. Something inside it watched the world with a memory older than the trees.

Ayo approached slowly. His fingers brushed the pendant through the cloth. It warmed under his touch.

"This is it," he whispered.

Malakai didn't follow him in.

"I'll keep watch," he said, eyes scanning the trees. "You have to do this alone."

"Of course I do," Ayo muttered, pushing aside the curtain of hanging moss and stepping inside.

The air shifted the moment he crossed the threshold. Heavy. Sacred. Dust motes hung like stars in still water. The walls were covered in markings-some he recognized from the seer's chamber, others he couldn't read but understood all the same. Symbols for life, soul, binding, fire.

At the center was a shallow stone basin, blackened from ancient flames.

The pendant grew hot in his hand.

Ayo stepped forward and unwrapped it. As soon as the stone touched the basin, the world shifted.

The air turned gold.

And he was not alone.

Across from him stood Elijah.

Not a dream. Not a flicker.

A full memory, breathing inside the hut.

Ayo gasped.

Elijah looked exactly like him-but taller, more graceful, wrapped in a crimson robe, eyes shining like bronze polished by flame.

He smiled.

"Hello, love."

Ayo staggered back. "This isn't real."

"It is and it isn't," Elijah said. His voice was his, but older. Wiser. "You're not hallucinating. You're remembering."

Ayo's heart thundered. "Why now?"

"Because the soul only unlocks its past when it's ready. And you, finally, are."

Tears stung Ayo's eyes. "I've seen you die."

"I know. I remember dying. I remember the knife, the betrayal. And I remember you-Malakai-screaming like the sky had broken."

Ayo clenched his fists. "Why did Rami do it?"

"Because we chose each other over the order. Because we said no to the bloodlines, to the hierarchy. Because I loved a vampire, and he feared what that meant."

Ayo nodded slowly. "You died for love."

"I lived for love," Elijah said, stepping closer. "And I died so it would live beyond me."

The pendant pulsed between them.

"You can still stop him," Elijah said. "But the relic must be awakened."

"How?"

"Blood. Fire. Truth."

"Malakai mentioned that."

Elijah smiled. "He always was too dramatic. But yes. This place remembers. Pour a drop of your blood into the basin. Speak your name-not the one given to you, but the one your soul carries."

"I don't know it."

"You do."

Ayo reached for the blade Nyasha had given him. Hands trembling, he nicked his palm.

The blood fell into the basin with a soft hiss.

The air ignited.

Gold and crimson light surged through the hut, crawling up the walls, igniting the carvings. The pendant glowed.

And Ayo whispered the name that rose in his throat like fire:

"Sanyu."

The hut shuddered.

The fire coiled upward and formed a figure-tall, golden, faceless.

It leaned forward.

And entered him.

Ayo cried out, falling to his knees. Pain lanced through his chest-then vanished. In its place, a rush of memory. All of it.

The boy he was. The man he became. The nights under starlight with Malakai. The sacred rituals. The burning temple. The betrayal.

He remembered it all.

And the relic-no longer dormant-settled against his skin with quiet purpose.

He rose, panting, trembling.

Elijah was gone.

But his voice echoed.

"Live, Sanyu. Finish what we started."

Malakai met him at the entrance, eyes wide.

"You felt that," Ayo said.

Malakai nodded once. "All the way to the trees. The forest bowed to it."

"I remember," Ayo said. "Everything."

Malakai stepped closer. "Then say it."

Ayo cupped his hand around the pendant. "My name was Sanyu. And I loved you before I knew what life was."

Malakai's throat bobbed. "And do you still?"

Ayo didn't hesitate. "Yes."

Their hands met between them, warm and certain.

But the moment shattered.

A scream split the night-a hunter's scream, guttural and shrill.

From the trees, a figure appeared.

It was Rami.

But not as he was before.

Now, he was cloaked in ash and bone. His eyes burned silver. And behind him came shadows-twisting, writhing, more creature than vampire.

"You found the relic," he said, voice rough with hunger. "Good. It saves me the trouble."

Ayo stepped forward, pendant glowing.

"You can't have it," he said.

"I don't need your permission," Rami snarled. "Only your blood."

Then the monsters lunged.