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V. THE GODFATHER AND THE POINT OF NO RETURN

The Godfather is the hand that brings the intending man to the Ship.

He shall give the recruit his OT, for no man should approach the sacred waters without knowing the words that govern them.

Beyond the shore lies the Point of No Return.

There the initiation is held. There the threshold is crossed. There the intending man meets the weight of the colours he seeks to wear.

Let the island remember those who came before. Let the sea bear witness to those who crossed after them.

A man may desire the Ship, but desire alone does not make him a Warrior.

VI. CHRISTMAS — THE FORM OF THE THREE SHIPS

Remember the song of the Three Ships that came sailing in on Christmas Day.

Let the intending man be led by three Warriors beneath the guise of choosing his form. Let him enter the room believing he has come to put his name upon the roll.

The candles shall burn. The skull and crossbones shall bear witness. The form and the pen shall await the hand.

And the old number shall speak again.

Fifteen strokes. No more, no less.

Let the back remember what the Chest once carried. Let the new Crew remember the old measure. Seven ranked and eight unranked; fifteen upon the Dead Man’s Chest.

The Ship has changed, but the sea has not forgotten.

When the form is taken, let the name be entered. Let the colours be remembered. Let Christmas remain upon the calendar of the Crew.

VII. THE PIECES OF EIGHT

The Pieces of Eight are the upper offices of the Ship. Their seats are distinct, but their duty is one: the preservation of the Brotherhood.

The First Seat — Warchief, or Captain

The Warchief commands the Ship and bears its supreme authority. His word shall carry weight, his conduct shall invite respect, and his command shall not be mistaken for a private possession.

He must know when to steer, when to hold course and when the Ship must be turned against the storm.

The Second Seat — Warpriest

The Warpriest stands second to the Warchief. He guards the sacred customs, the ceremonies and the spiritual order of the Crew. He is the keeper of solemn words and the witness to the Ship’s oaths.

The Third Seat — Steerer

The Steerer watches the waters beyond the Ship. He gathers intelligence, reads the movement of sharks, weighs danger and counsels the Warchief.

Let him see what others have not seen and hear what others have not heard.

The Fourth Seat — Treasure-Finger

The Treasure-Finger guards the Ship’s treasure. He watches the accounts, the contributions, the stores and the distribution of what belongs to the Crew.

Let no hand become longer than its office.

THE TREASURE AND THE FINGERS — CUT YOUR FINGERS

Every Warrior has a monthly obligation to the Ship. Let no man wear the colours and forget the treasure that keeps the vessel afloat.

CUT YOUR FINGERS.

Let every hand pay its due to the Treasure-Finger. Let no Warrior mistake his contribution for a favour, for the Ship does not sail on promises.

He who fails to meet the appointed payment shall know Casting.

Let every Warrior know that the Ship does not forgive an unpaid hand.

When a Warrior fails to meet the appointed deadline for his monthly dues, he shall be liable to Casting.

Casting shall come without warning. A Warrior may be walking among strangers, attending to his affairs, or moving freely through the world when his own brothers descend upon him. They shall turn against him without announcement, and he shall be caught unaware.

Let him not mistake the encounter for an attack by Sharks. It is the hands of his own Crew that have come upon him.

The purpose of Casting is exposure. Through this act, the secrecy of his identity is broken. Those who witness it shall know that he is a Warrior, and the man who once moved among them unmarked shall carry the shame of his Brotherhood being revealed.

But the unpaid debt does not end with Casting.

When the Ship comes to Achieve, the Warrior’s property may be seized and held against his outstanding dues. Let him know that what has been taken is not yet beyond recovery.

From the day his property is Achieved, the Warrior has seven days to cut his fingers and recover what belongs to him.

Let the seventh day pass without payment, and the property shall be sold. What has been sold shall not be reclaimed.

Yet the debt remains.

The sale of a man’s property does not wash his account clean. Until the outstanding dues are paid, Casting shall return, and Achieving shall follow again. The cycle shall continue until the Treasure-Finger receives what is owed.

Let no man confuse the recovery of property with the settlement of debt.

CUT YOUR FINGERS, OR THE SHIP SHALL TAKE ITS DUE.

The Fifth Seat — Senior Jingler

The Senior Jingler holds authority over the Hojas, the Jingles and the gyrations of the Crew. He keeps the songs in order and the rhythm alive.

For a Ship without its songs is a vessel that has forgotten its own name.

The Sixth Seat — Strike Chief

The Strike Chief holds authority over the strike. He knows the Doom Squad, the Spirits and the shadow of operations unseen.

The Spirits are feared because they are not seen coming.

Let the Strike Chief understand the weight of the office he carries.

The Seventh Seat — Grim Walker

The Grim Walker is the sworn shadow of the Warchief. He guards the Captain against enemies, betrayal and mutiny.

He must be trusted, tested and watchful. He shall not sleep while the Ship is threatened.

Where the Warchief stands, the Grim Walker must know what stands behind him.

The Eighth Seat — Four PM, or Quarter Master

The Quarter Master watches the conduct of those aboard the Ship. He keeps the Code, observes the customs, guards internal discipline and brings breaches before the proper authority.

The Steerer watches the world beyond the Ship; the Quarter Master watches the conduct of those aboard it.

Let the Eighth Seat never be mistaken for a lesser duty. The last seat of the Pieces of Eight is still a seat of authority.

Senior man on board, Senior on deck.

IV. THE OT

The OT is the blood beneath the colours.

It is not a book to be borrowed, nor a song to be repeated by a stranger. It is the knowledge by which a Warrior knows himself, recognises his brother and distinguishes the Crew from the sharks.

OT IS IDENTITY.

The Godfather who brings a lubber to the water shall give him his OT. Let him not bring a man aboard and leave him ignorant of the Ship.

The OT shall be carried in memory, speech, conduct, declaration and deed. It shall be mastered, not merely recited.

A Warrior who knows the words but cannot recognise their meaning has learnt the sound of the sea without understanding its tide.

The OT carries the Code, the customs, the Sagas, the declarations, the Claw, the Hojas and the signs by which the Crew knows its own.

Let no man boast of his colours while ignorant of the cloth.

Let no man claim the Ship while unable to answer for himself.

State your rank and department, and prove your viciousness.

THE PROTOCOL OF RECOGNITION
Let no man claim the colours of the Ship without knowing the ways of the Crew.
When a Warrior is called upon to make himself known, let him declare his bush name, rank, chapter and history. Let his name speak for who he is, his rank reveal his standing, his chapter declare the Ship from which he sails, and his history bear witness to the road he has travelled.
Let recognition begin with the name, but let no man mistake a name for proof.
Should doubt remain in the mind of the questioning Warrior, let him demand a Quote. For Quotes are the treasured sayings of the Brotherhood, drawn from its lore, beliefs and wisdom. Let the questioned Warrior speak from the knowledge he claims to carry.
Should doubt still linger, let recognition be taken further. The Warrior may be called upon to sing a Song of Hojas, or to perform a Libation to Thor.
In the Libation, let him raise the bottle of gin to his chest and receive the prayer before the bottle is opened. Let the words be spoken with reverence, for the traditions of the Ship are not empty words to be recited by strangers.
Let every questioning Warrior exercise his judgement. These customs are not a rigid ceremony, but the means by which one brother establishes himself before another. Not every man shall be required to pass through every stage; let doubt determine how far recognition must proceed.
Only when a Warrior has been identified and his identity satisfactorily verified shall he be Clawed. Let the Claw be the final acknowledgement, the sign that the man before the Crew has been recognised and received as a brother.
For a name may be spoken by any man, and a Quote may be memorised by a stranger, but the ways of the Ship are known to those who truly sail it.
NO VERIFICATION, NO CLAW.

V. THE GODFATHER AND THE POINT OF NO RETURN

The Godfather is the hand that brings the intending man to the Ship.

He shall give the recruit his OT, for no man should approach the sacred waters without knowing the words that govern them.

Beyond the shore lies the Point of No Return.

There the initiation is held. There the threshold is crossed. There the intending man meets the weight of the colours he seeks to wear.

Let the island remember those who came before. Let the sea bear witness to those who crossed after them.

A man may desire the Ship, but desire alone does not make him a Warrior.

To be continued…

THE WARRIOR CODE

The Sacred Charter of the Brotherhood

Let the sea bear witness. Let the dead remember. Let every man who sails beneath the Jolly Roger know the weight of the Ship.

⸻

THE FIRST WORDS

Hear this, ye who sail beneath the colours.

The sea is a lawless zone, but the Ship shall not be without law. For a vessel without order is a coffin upon the waters, and a Crew without discipline is nothing but savages.

We are not bound by the laws of the shore. We are bound by the word of the Ship, the blood of the Crew and the ancient customs handed down by those who sailed before us.

We are strong.

We are fierce.

We are rugged.

We are Warriors.

May the devil lead and guide us. May the blood in our veins never clot. May our Ships never sink, for Valhalla is our destination.

Let no man mistake our colours for an invitation. Let no lubber mistake our silence for weakness. Let no shark mistake our patience for fear.

State your rank and department, and prove your viciousness.

For the sea remembers every voyage, and the Ship remembers every man.

I. THE BROTHERHOOD

The Ship is older than the man who boards it and shall outlive the man who leaves it.

A Warrior may rise, a Warrior may fall, a Warchief may be overthrown, and a Crew may change its colours; but the Ship must sail.

The Crew is bound by a covenant older than the newest hand upon the deck. Its words are carried in the OT, its deeds preserved in the Sagas, and its authority guarded by the Pieces of Eight.

Let no brother place his name above the Ship.

Let no office become greater than the Brotherhood.

Let no friendship be mistaken for allegiance.

Friendship belongs to men; allegiance belongs to the Ship.

The Ship has no room for a man who wishes to sail only when the waters are calm. The Crew shall be known in the storm, in the darkness and in the hour when the sea demands its due.

II. THE FIRST LAW — BROTHER SAVE BROTHER

Brother is brother.

This is the first law and the last harbour.

When a brother calls, answer him. When a brother falls, lift him. When a brother is surrounded, stand beside him. When the sea rises against him, do not abandon him to the waves.

BSB — BROTHER SAVE BROTHER.

Let no Warrior hear that cry and pretend the wind carried it elsewhere.

A brother’s grievance is not always the Ship’s grievance, but a brother’s distress shall never be treated as a stranger’s inconvenience.

Forgiveness of a brother is the wisest choice. Forgiveness of a vandal is the greatest sin.

An eye for an eye leads to more blindness; yet a man who mistakes mercy for weakness has not understood the sea.

Never hang a leg.

Even in the face of death, never hang a leg.

For the Warrior who abandons his brother has already abandoned his colours.

III. THE OLD CHEST AND THE RUGGED EIGHT

Before the Rugged Eight, there stood the Magnificent Seven.

The Seven raised the Confraternity and set its ancient measure: fifteen men upon a Dead Man’s Chest — seven ranked and eight unranked.

They laid down a law against the violation of a brother’s honour. Yet the punishment they proclaimed was heavier than the hand that could enforce it. When their law failed to command obedience, they turned to the Black Spot.

And when a brother was Black-Spotted, another was brought aboard to keep the number.

But the sea does not forget a man merely because his name has been struck from the roll.

One day, the Black-Spotted returned beneath the colours. The Seven knew the face beneath the cloth. They knew the stain upon his name. They moved to disarm him, and upon the deck he fell. His head struck the earth, and his voyage ended.

The Eight unranked raised their voices.

They accused the Seven of taking the life of a brother whose failing had first brought him into disgrace. They would not accept the judgement of the old order. They broke from the Seven and stood against the Black Spot.

Thus came the Rugged Eight.

Their rebellion gave birth to the first law of the new Ship:

BROTHER SAVE BROTHER.

The Eight did not cast every old custom into the sea. Some markings remained upon the new vessel. The old number endured, though the old order had fallen.

Fifteen men upon the Dead Man’s Chest.

Seven ranked.

Eight unranked.

Let the old markings remain, but let the new law be remembered.


…. To be continued

Some fictional worlds are built around characters. Others are built around institutions, traditions, rivalries and rules that govern the lives of the people who inhabit them.

In my novel, Don’t Join, the Warriors are a fictional brotherhood with their own hierarchy, history, customs and code of conduct.

Over time, I’ve developed their world beyond the events of the novel. I’ve put together what I call The Warrior Code: The Sacred Charter of the Brotherhood.

It contains the history of the Magnificent Seven and the Rugged Eight, the origin of BSB (Brother Save Brother), the Pieces of Eight, the law of Command Must Be Obeyed, the Test, mutiny, and some of the traditions that define the Warriors.

One detail I particularly enjoy is the symbolism behind their Christmas tradition and its connection to the fifteen men on a Dead Man’s Chest.

I’ve always been fascinated by how fictional organisations develop their own language, rituals and internal politics. This charter is my attempt to make the Warriors feel like an organization with a history that existed long before the first page of the novel.

KASALA: THE CURSE
Issue #1: The Howls of Iku
Nike thought her biggest problem was surviving another ordinary day... until a chance encounter with a mysterious elderly woman changed everything.

After a heated struggle, Nike finds herself marked by an ancient curse. Suddenly, strange shadows stalk her every move, terrifying whispers fill the night, and the chilling presence of Iku, the Spirit of Death, begins to follow her wherever she goes. As the curse tightens its grip, everyone she loves becomes a target.

But that's only the beginning.

When a desperate art thief fleeing the relentless guards of The Lodge secretly hides a stolen statue in Nike's car, her life spirals into chaos. Unbeknownst to her, the statue holds dark secrets connected to the very curse that now haunts her.

Caught between supernatural horrors, deadly pursuers, and a power she doesn't understand, Nike must uncover the truth before Iku's haunting howls become a death sentence for her and everyone around her.

Will Nike break the curse... or become its next victim?

Secrets. Spirits. Stolen artifacts. The nightmare begins in Kasala: The Curse #1 - The Howls of Iku. 🔥👻⚡

Every howl brings death closer.

Full comic available on selar for just 200 naira

https://selar.com/0468v64070

KASALA: THE CURSE
Issue #1: The Howls of Iku

Nike thought her biggest problem was surviving another ordinary day... until a chance encounter with a mysterious elderly woman changed everything.

After a heated struggle, Nike finds herself marked by an ancient curse. Suddenly, strange shadows stalk her every move, terrifying whispers fill the night, and the chilling presence of Iku, the Spirit of Death, begins to follow her wherever she goes. As the curse tightens its grip, everyone she loves becomes a target.

But that's only the beginning.

When a desperate art thief fleeing the relentless guards of The Lodge secretly hides a stolen statue in Nike's car, her life spirals into chaos. Unbeknownst to her, the statue holds dark secrets connected to the very curse that now haunts her.

Caught between supernatural horrors, deadly pursuers, and a power she doesn't understand, Nike must uncover the truth before Iku's haunting howls become a death sentence for her and everyone around her.

Will Nike break the curse... or become its next victim?

Secrets. Spirits. Stolen artifacts. The nightmare begins in Kasala: The Curse #1 - The Howls of Iku. 🔥👻⚡

Every howl brings death closer.

Available on selar for just 200 naira only


https://selar.com/0468v64070

Issue # 1 THE HOWLS OK IKU

page 2

Issue#1 The Howls of Iku
page 1

Issue#1 The Howls of Iku
Cover PAGE

He had been ten the first time he felt it.
An old woman had dropped her groceries in Balogun Market. While everyone hurried past, Taiwo had knelt among rolling tomatoes and torn bags of rice, helping her gather what little she could still save. She had thanked him with tears in her eyes, and before he could stand, the warmth had washed over him for the first time, leaving him trembling with a peace no child should have had words to describe.
He had tried telling people about it afterwards. His mother had smiled and ruffled his hair. His teacher blamed an overactive imagination. His friends laughed until he laughed with them.

Eventually he stopped talking about it. Some experiences became smaller the moment they were spoken aloud. So, he kept the secret to himself, and every now and then, whenever kindness cost him something, the impossible feeling returned for a few fleeting seconds—as though somewhere beyond the world, an unseen hand was quietly thanking him in a language only his soul could understand.
***
That afternoon, Taiwo left the office carrying a stack of delivery forms beneath one arm.
The streets were alive even by Lagos standards. Hawkers wove between vehicles with impossible confidence. Conductors hung from danfo buses shouting destinations. Horns blared without pause. Heat rose from the asphalt in shimmering waves.
Taiwo barely noticed any of it.
His thoughts were elsewhere.
The leak in the ceiling.
The savings hidden inside his wallet.
The house.
Always the house.
One day.
One day he would buy it for her.
A scream shattered his thoughts.
Taiwo looked up.
A delivery van was racing toward him.
For a heartbeat, his mind refused to understand what he was seeing.
The vehicle was too close.
Far too close.
He saw the driver's face.
Saw the panic in his eyes.
Heard the scream of tires against the road.
Someone shouted.
Someone ran.
Taiwo froze.
Then fate blinked.
The driver jerked the wheel.
A tire exploded with a deafening crack.
The van swerved violently past him and slammed into a fruit stand.
Wood splintered.
Oranges burst across the pavement.
The crowd scattered.
Silence followed.
Taiwo looked down at himself.
No blood.
No broken bones.
Nothing.
The driver climbed from the wreckage, pale and trembling.
For a moment their eyes met.
The man's expression wasn't angry.
It was confused.
As though he couldn't understand why Taiwo was still standing.
Around them, voices rose.
An elderly woman shook her head repeatedly.
"That boy should be dead."
The words settled heavily in the air.
The driver finally found his voice.
"Why were you standing in the road?"
Taiwo blinked.
"What?"
"You heard me."
The driver's hands trembled.
"You people never pay attention. Always crossing roads like goats."
Something shifted inside Taiwo.
The fear disappeared.
The relief vanished.
Heat rushed into its place.
Hotter than embarrassment.
Hotter than anger.
For a brief moment, it felt as though something inside him had been waiting for permission.
Taiwo stepped forward.
"You nearly killed somebody."
The driver laughed.
A short, bitter sound.
And something snapped.
Taiwo's fist moved before thought could catch it.
The punch landed cleanly.
The driver's head whipped sideways.
The crowd gasped.
For a heartbeat, nobody moved.
Not even Taiwo.
Then the feeling arrived.
Not satisfaction.
Not triumph.
The opposite.
The strength drained from his limbs.
His chest tightened.
The world seemed heavier.
As though the city itself disapproved.
Taiwo staggered.
The anger vanished as quickly as it had come.
Leaving behind only exhaustion.
And guilt.
Several men rushed forward and pulled the driver away.
Others grabbed Taiwo.
But he no longer cared.
The farther the argument drifted behind him, the lighter he felt.
As though he had stepped away from something poisonous.
By the time he reached the pharmacy, the pressure inside his chest had almost disappeared.

***

Later that evening, Taiwo stopped at a small roadside food stall tucked beneath a faded blue umbrella that had long since surrendered any hope of matching its original colour. The aroma of pepper soup and frying plantain drifted into the evening air as the woman behind the steaming pots moved with the quiet efficiency of someone who had spent most of her life feeding strangers. Sweat glistened across her forehead despite the cool breeze rolling in from the lagoon, and every few moments she glanced towards the wooden bench beside the stall where two children sat waiting patiently with their schoolbags resting against their feet.

They were twins.
A little boy and a little girl.
Neither fidgeted. Neither argued. They simply watched the world pass by with the strange stillness children sometimes possess when they have learned more about life than they should.
Taiwo ordered a plate of rice and stew before settling onto the plastic chair beneath the umbrella. The woman smiled politely as she served him, but after a few moments she looked up from the pot and studied him with quiet curiosity.
"You work too much."
Taiwo laughed softly.
"In Lagos? Everybody works too much."
She shook her head as she handed him the plate.
"No. Everybody works. You carry work like it's your own child."
He smiled at the observation, though something about the way she said it made him lower his eyes.
"You spend too much time carrying other people's burdens," she continued. "One day you'll discover you've forgotten how to carry your own."
The words lingered with him long after she returned to stirring the pot. They felt oddly personal, as though she had stumbled across a truth he had spent years quietly avoiding.
His attention drifted towards the children.
"They're beautiful."
The woman followed his gaze, and for the first time that evening her smile faltered.
"They're blessings," she said softly. "The first blessings were taken back."
Taiwo looked at her.
"I'm sorry."
She nodded without looking at him.
"My first children were twins."
The steam rising from the pot hid her face for a moment before she spoke again.
"They didn't stay."
Silence settled gently between them. It wasn't awkward. It was the silence shared by two strangers who both recognised grief without needing it explained.
Taiwo glanced back towards the children sitting quietly on the bench.
"And these two?"
"They came afterwards."
There was relief in her voice.
But there was fear too.
As though joy had taught her never to trust tomorrow.
She looked at Taiwo again.
Really looked at him.
The wooden spoon slipped from her fingers and clattered softly against the side of the pot.
Something changed in her expression.
It wasn't recognition.
It was the uneasy feeling of seeing a face from a dream you had forgotten the moment you woke.
Her eyes moved slowly across his features before settling on his own, and the colour drained from her face.
"No..."
The whisper escaped before she could stop it.
Taiwo frowned.
"Are you alright?"
She didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she looked towards her children.
The little girl was staring openly at Taiwo now.
The little boy had stopped eating altogether.
Neither child looked frightened.
They looked...
expectant.
The woman swallowed hard.
"It cannot be."
"What can't?"
For a long moment she simply stared at him, caught between disbelief and something much older than fear. Then she reached for the children's hands with surprising urgency.
"We're going home."
"Mama?"
"Now."
She didn't look back again.
The twins did.
Even as their mother hurried them into the evening crowd, both children kept their eyes fixed on Taiwo until the city finally swallowed them from sight.
Taiwo remained beneath the faded umbrella for several seconds after they had gone. The food in front of him had begun to cool, yet he made no move to eat it. He couldn't explain why the encounter unsettled him, only that it felt strangely familiar—as though he had just brushed against a memory that belonged to someone else.
***

Sleep refused to come easily that night. Beyond the curtains, Lagos carried on with the stubborn determination of a city that had forgotten how to rest, its distant horns, barking dogs and rumbling generators weaving together into a restless lullaby. Pale ribbons of light slipped through the thin fabric and drifted across the ceiling, shifting whenever another car passed below, while Taiwo lay awake staring into the darkness, replaying the day until its moments blurred together.

The little girl in white.
The woman at the roadside stall.
The twins who had watched him with impossible familiarity.
The delivery van that should have killed him.

Each memory slipped into the next until they became impossible to separate, but it was one word that refused to leave him.
Brother.

It echoed through his thoughts with quiet persistence, gathering weight instead of fading, like a memory pressing from the wrong side of a locked door. The harder he tried to dismiss it, the more familiar it became, until he found himself wondering whether he had forgotten someone rather than simply forgotten something.

Exhaustion claimed him before the question could find an answer.
For the first time in years, Taiwo dreamed.
He stood beneath a sky so black it seemed to swallow even the idea of light. An endless plain stretched before him, broken only by countless roads that crossed and divided in every direction before disappearing into the horizon. There were thousands of them, yet everyone seemed to lead towards the same place.
Towards the man waiting at their centre.
He looked no older than Taiwo. The same height. The same build. Even from a distance there was something disturbingly familiar about him, a feeling that deepened with every step until recognition struck with the force of remembered grief.
It wasn't that the stranger resembled him.
It was that Taiwo knew him.
Not from memory.
From absence.
The stranger stared back with the same expression, as though he too had found someone he had spent an entire lifetime searching for without ever knowing he was searching.
Almost without thinking, Taiwo stepped forward.
The other man did the same.
The roads shivered beneath their feet, and somewhere beyond the endless horizon a low rumble rolled across the darkness like distant thunder. The space between them seemed to collapse, not because either of them moved quickly, but because something older than distance no longer wished to keep them apart. Deep inside Taiwo, an emptiness he had carried for as long as he could remember suddenly awakened, stretching towards the stranger with an ache so profound it stole the breath from his lungs. It felt less like meeting someone new than recovering a part of himself that had been missing for far too long.
The stranger's eyes widened.
Recognition.
The same impossible certainty.
Their lips parted at the same instant.
"Who are..."

The dream shattered.
Taiwo lurched upright, dragging a desperate breath into his lungs as his heart pounded against his ribs. Darkness filled the room once more, broken only by the pale glow filtering through the curtains, yet for several long seconds he remained perfectly still, listening to the silence with the unsettling conviction that he had left something important behind.
Not somewhere.
Someone.

The dream dissolved as dreams always did, slipping beyond the reach of memory no matter how tightly he tried to hold it, yet the feeling remained. It lingered beneath his ribs like an echo searching for its own voice, or a name that hovered forever at the edge of remembrance.
Far away, beneath another roof and another restless sky, a young man woke with the same ragged breath... and the same impossible emptiness.

KASALA: ORIMEJI
One Soul. Two Bodies.

Twenty-four years ago, a father defied gods, spirits, and prophecy to save his sons.
He failed.
Or perhaps he succeeded too well.
Separated at birth and raised in different worlds, Taiwo and Kehinde have spent their lives haunted by the same dreams, the same emptiness, and the same feeling that half of themselves has always been missing.

Taiwo believes kindness is strength.
Kehinde has learned that power is the only thing the world respects.

When fate finally draws them together at a Lagos crossroads, the impossible happens. The wound that has divided one soul into two bodies begins to heal—but with every step the brothers take toward one another, the forgotten world stirs. Ancient monsters emerge from forests where they have slept for centuries. The Ajogun, the immortal spirits of chaos, slip once more into the world of men. Death itself is summoned to finish a task left incomplete.

Now witches, gods, and creatures older than history race toward the same inevitable meeting, while Eshu, the trickster who stands at every crossroads, watches with a smile.
Because some prophecies are fulfilled.
Others are misunderstood.
And when one soul walks in two bodies, the world must choose whether to become whole...
or break forever.

KASALA: ORIMEJI is the breathtaking fourth novel in Azubike Ahubelem's mythological fantasy series, where Yoruba mythology collides with modern Nigeria in an unforgettable tale of destiny, sacrifice, and the terrifying cost of rewriting fate.


https://selar.com/o3872z528u

2 LAGOS


Lagos woke before the sun ever had the chance. Long before dawn spilled across the lagoon, the city was already stretching its limbs. Generators coughed to life behind rusted gates, the first danfo conductors leaned from battered yellow buses calling destinations into the darkness, and traders lit flickering lanterns as they arranged tomatoes, peppers and yams with the practised rhythm of people who measured time by survival rather than clocks. The smell of frying akara drifted through the cool morning air, mixing with diesel fumes, wood smoke and the salty breath of the Atlantic, while somewhere a muezzin's call rose above barking dogs, clattering wheelbarrows and impatient horns. Lagos did not greet the morning with quiet dignity; it seized the day before daylight could claim it, surging into motion with the restless certainty of a city convinced that if it ever paused, even for a heartbeat, the world might leave it behind.

Taiwo stepped into it the way he stepped into every day, half-running and already late. At twenty-four, he had the lean build of a man accustomed to hard work. Years of carrying cargo, climbing staircases, and crossing Lagos on foot had hardened his frame without adding bulk. Sweat already clung to his forehead as he navigated the growing crowds, slipping between traders, commuters, and impatient motorists with the ease of long practice.
"Taiwo!"
He groaned before turning.
Madam Bose stood outside her provisions shop with both hands planted firmly on her hips. Beside her sat a fifty-kilogram sack of rice.
Taiwo looked at the sack.
Then at her.
Then at the heavens.
"Madam, one day this kindness will kill me."
She laughed. "Not before old age."
"Old age doesn't live in Lagos."
Despite his protest, he bent and lifted the sack onto his shoulder. The weight nearly staggered him.
Madam Bose's smile widened.
"I knew you would help."
"That's because you're a manipulator."
"You say it like it's a bad thing."
Taiwo carried the sack into the shop and returned moments later. As expected, a bottle of cold water was waiting for him.
He accepted it with exaggerated dignity.
"Now we're talking."

Stepping back into the street, he twisted the cap open and took a long drink.
That was when Taiwo noticed the little girl.
She stood alone on the opposite side of the road, dressed in a plain white gown that should have been dazzling beneath the Lagos sun, yet somehow seemed untouched by the dust, exhaust fumes and restless tide of people flowing around her. Traders hurried past carrying baskets balanced effortlessly on their heads. A danfo conductor leaned half outside his bus, shouting destinations into the morning traffic, while office workers squeezed between impatient cars with the practised urgency of people already running late. Yet no one looked at the child. It was as though the city had quietly agreed to flow around her without ever acknowledging she was there. She was looking only at him.
Taiwo lowered the bottle from his lips and smiled, the easy smile adults reserved for children they happened to meet. She didn't return it. Instead, she regarded him with a quiet familiarity that unsettled him, as though she had been expecting him for far longer than he had realised.
"They buried me four times," she said.
The words were spoken so simply that, for a moment, Taiwo thought he had misheard them.
"I'm sorry?"
"My mummy says next time I won't come back."
He found himself crossing the road before he had consciously decided to move. Up close she looked no different from any other little girl. Her sandals were worn, the hem of her white dress was stained with red dust, and yet there was something strangely timeless about her eyes. They carried none of the restless curiosity children usually possessed. They watched him with the patient certainty of someone waiting for another person to remember a conversation that had happened long ago.
Taiwo crouched until they were almost at eye level.
"Who told you you're an abiku?"
The little girl frowned, genuinely puzzled.
"I didn't."
She glanced briefly towards the traffic before looking back at him.
"I told them I'd keep coming back until my brother remembered me."

Something tightened inside Taiwo's chest. He had heard stories like this before. Families shattered by repeated infant deaths, many of which modern medicine would recognise as sickle-cell disease, sometimes reached for older explanations. In villages across Yorubaland, children who died young and seemed to return again and again were called abiku—spirit children caught in an endless cycle between birth and death. He had always pitied families who carried both grief and superstition together.
"You have a brother?" he asked gently.
The little girl smiled for the first time, though there was nothing joyful about it. It was the quiet, knowing smile of someone listening to a question whose answer everyone else had forgotten. Instead of answering, she lifted one small hand and pointed beyond his shoulder.
Taiwo turned instinctively.

Behind him Lagos carried on exactly as it always had. Yellow danfos bullied their way through impossible gaps in traffic, hawkers threaded between cars with trays balanced above their heads, two women argued over the price of plantains, and somewhere nearby a mechanic struck metal with a hammer, each sharp clang swallowed by the city's endless noise. There was nothing unusual to see. A horn blared loudly enough to make him flinch, and when he turned back, the little girl was gone.

She hadn't run. She hadn't melted into the crowd. One heartbeat she had been there, the next, the pavement was empty, as though Lagos had quietly folded around her and carried her away. The pavement where she had been standing was empty, and the stream of strangers flowing past showed no sign that anyone had noticed a child vanish in broad daylight.

Taiwo remained where he was for several seconds, the cold bottle still hanging forgotten in his hand. Eventually, he let out a quiet breath and shook his head, forcing himself to smile at the absurdity of it all.
"Poor kid," he murmured, convincing himself that somewhere nearby a frightened family was still fighting an illness older generations had mistaken for a curse.
Yet as he walked away, he found himself glancing back over his shoulder more than once, unable to shake the uneasy feeling that the little girl had recognised him long before he had ever seen her.
***
The rest of the day slipped into the familiar rhythm that seemed to follow Taiwo wherever he went. Before noon he had untangled paperwork that belonged to another department, solved a delivery problem no one else had noticed, and spent twenty patient minutes teaching a new employee how to use a system he should already have known. By lunchtime everyone had quietly accepted that the day's problems would somehow become Taiwo's problems, and by evening no one remembered they had ever been anyone else's.
It had always been that way. Kindness, he had learned, had an unfortunate habit of becoming expectation.

Just after lunch, one of the warehouse assistants appeared beside his desk, twisting the brim of his cap between nervous fingers.
"Taiwo... abeg help me."
Taiwo didn't even look up from the paperwork.
"Those four words have emptied my wallet, stolen my lunch break and added years to my life. What happened this time?"
"My daughter is sick."
Taiwo sighed, finally lifting his head. The young man's face carried the exhausted worry every parent recognised in another. Before Taiwo could answer, the assistant raised both hands in surrender.
"I know you're busy."
"So why are you still standing there?"
"I need somebody to cover the afternoon inventory."
Taiwo looked towards the supervisor's office before returning his gaze to the young man.
"If I do your work, they'll think you did it."
"Yes."
"If something goes wrong, they'll blame me."
"Probably."
"And if I say no?"
The assistant lowered his eyes.
"My daughter doesn't get to the hospital until tomorrow."
Taiwo stared at him for a long moment before letting out a defeated breath.
"I really need to learn how to mind my own business."
Relief spread across the young man's face so quickly it was almost painful to watch.
"Thank you!"
"Don't thank me yet," Taiwo muttered, gathering the inventory sheets. "If your daughter grows up to become Prime Minister, I expect front-row seats at her inauguration."
The young man laughed.
Taiwo tried not to.
He failed.
By the time the inventory count was finished, dusk had settled over the warehouse, and his own work still sat untouched on his desk exactly where he had left it. His supervisor noticed immediately.
"Why isn't this finished?"
Taiwo opened his mouth.
"I was helping—"
"I didn't ask who you were helping."
The office fell quiet.
Taiwo swallowed the reply pressing against the back of his teeth and simply nodded.
An hour later the building had almost emptied. The last page of paperwork slid into its folder, and he leaned back in his chair, rubbing tired hands across his face. His shoulders felt as though someone had hung sacks of cement from them, while a dull ache pulsed steadily behind his eyes.
Then it came.
Not suddenly.
Never suddenly.
The warmth arrived the way sunrise crept across a sleeping room, touching him so gently he almost missed it. It spread beneath his ribs before flowing through his chest and into every aching muscle until the day's exhaustion loosened its grip on him. His shoulders relaxed. The headache dissolved. Even the endless noise filtering in from the streets outside seemed to drift further away, leaving behind a stillness he had never been able to explain.
For those few precious seconds, he felt complete.
Not happy.
Not relieved.
Complete.
It was as though an empty place inside him, one he could never quite describe, had finally been filled. Every time it happened, he found himself holding his breath, terrified that acknowledging it might frighten it away.
It always did.

The warmth faded as quietly as it had arrived, taking the impossible sense of wholeness with it. The ache returned to his shoulders. The noise of Lagos flooded back through the open windows, and the familiar emptiness settled once more beneath his ribs like a room waiting for someone who had missed their way home.

Ogunshola knelt between the two sleeping children for what felt like an age before his hands finally obeyed him. Never had they seemed so heavy. They had wielded spears, lifted shields, carried dying men from battlefields, yet now they trembled beneath the weight of two newborn boys.

He lifted Taiwo first.
The child settled instinctively against his chest, small fingers curling around the leather cord from which Shango's oshe hung. Ogunshola closed his eyes. For one dangerous moment he considered ignoring the prophecy altogether. Let the Ajogun come. Let the wound swallow kingdoms. Let the world condemn him. Anything seemed kinder than becoming the man who willingly placed a road between his own sons.
His breath caught in his throat.

Slowly, he laid Taiwo upon one side of the glowing scar.

Then he turned to Kehinde.
The second child resisted without understanding why. Tiny fingers clung stubbornly to Ogunshola's robe, and when he gently loosened them, Kehinde began to cry—not with the frightened cry of an infant, but with a grief so deep it seemed far too old for a child who had only just entered the world.

The moment Ogunshola placed him upon the opposite side of the scar, the Sacred Grove cried out.
Trees bent until their branches scraped the earth. Ancient roots burst from the soil like serpents fleeing a fire. The River Osun surged against its banks, its waters churning white beneath the moon, while beyond the circle of blue flames the Ajogun threw back their heads and shrieked with savage delight. They had waited centuries for a wound to open.

The Three Mothers answered as one.
Their staffs struck the earth together.
Blue fire erupted around the clearing, rising in walls that reached toward the storm gathering overhead. Thunder rolled across the heavens, not as a warning but as a witness.
Only Eshu did not move.
He watched.
And smiled.

Ogunshola drew the ritual blade across his palm.
The pain was clean and immediate. Blood welled from the cut, ran along his wrist, and fell in slow crimson drops upon the glowing scar Shango had carved into the earth. The soil drank every drop before it could spread, and the amber light sleeping beneath the wound stirred hungrily, brightening until the entire clearing glowed from below. Thunder rolled across the heavens in answer, while the Three Mothers lowered their heads in silent reverence. Even the Ajogun ceased their restless shifting, sensing that the world had reached one of those rare moments from which there could be no return.

Ogunshola looked from one child to the other. His lips trembled before the words came.
"Orì Méjì."
"One head wearing two faces. One spirit drinking from two rivers. Children born with a crossroads hidden inside their bones."

The twins began to cry.
Their voices rose together until they became impossible to separate, weaving through the grove like a single ancient lament. It was not the frightened cry of newborns. It sounded older than language itself, as though something buried beneath the earth had recognised them long before they were born.

Ogunshola closed his eyes. Tears slipped silently down his face, falling into the glowing wound beside his blood.
"Forgive the hand that divides what heaven joined. Let one walk the road of harmony. Let the other walk the road of commotion. Let blood remember, though spirit must ache. Let destiny sleep until fate can bear to wake."

Each sentence settled over the grove like another stone laid upon a grave. The amber light spread beneath the earth in branching veins, racing beneath roots and shrines. Around Taiwo, a gentle warmth gathered, soft as the first light before dawn. Around Kehinde, the shadows thickened until they clung to his tiny body like mourning cloth stirred by an invisible wind.

Ogunshola's voice faltered.
"...Aṣẹ."
The world answered.
The wind disappeared. The river stopped singing. Even the leaves above forgot how to move. For one impossible heartbeat, the twins vanished—not from sight, but from separation. Ogunshola no longer saw two children lying upon opposite sides of the scar.
He saw one.
A being neither man nor child stood where they had been, vast enough to cast its shadow across countless roads stretching beyond the edge of creation. Every path led towards it. Every choice flowed from it. Every destiny, every kingdom, every triumph and every ruin waited somewhere along those endless roads, all beginning from the same impossible soul.

The vision lasted no longer than a heartbeat.
Lightning split the heavens.
The Sacred Grove exploded into white.
The revelation shattered like glass, and divine power crashed through Ogunshola's body with such force that he cried out. Fire coursed through his veins. The axe-shaped mark beneath his feet blazed like molten gold. Every bone in his body felt as though it would splinter beneath the weight of Shango's Aṣẹ, yet somehow, he remained standing.
With the last of his strength, he drove the blade into the heart of the glowing wound.

"Let them never meet..."
The words were almost lost beneath the thunder.
"...until they can choose what I could not."

The earth screamed.
The glowing scar split apart in a burst of amber light that rolled across the grove like a rising sun. Warm gold enveloped Taiwo, wrapping itself around him with quiet tenderness, while darkness gathered around Kehinde, not as evil, but as mystery, swallowing him until only the outline of his tiny body remained. The shockwave that followed tore through the Sacred Grove, bending ancient trees until their branches brushed the earth and hurling the waiting Ajogun backwards into the forest like dry leaves caught in a storm.

Then...
Everything stopped.

Silence settled over the grove so completely that Ogunshola could hear his own ragged breathing. The blade slipped from his fingers and struck the earth with a dull clang as his knees finally gave way beneath him.
Across the glowing divide, the twins lay awake.
They were no longer crying.
Neither reached for the other.
They simply watched one another across the wound that now separated them, their tiny eyes holding a recognition neither child should have possessed.

The seal had held.
For now.

The Three Mothers lowered their staffs together.
For a long while, none of them spoke.
Aro Pupa covered her mouth as tears slipped silently down her cheeks. Beside her, Aro Dudu knelt at the edge of the glowing scar, running trembling fingers across the warm earth before pulling them away as though she had touched something still alive.
Only Aro Funfun watched Ogunshola.
"You have not stopped it."
Ogunshola managed a tired smile, though every breath scraped painfully against his chest.
"I know."
"You have only changed its road."
His gaze drifted towards the children lying on opposite sides of the fading amber light.
"Then let the road be kinder than the one I was shown."

A quiet laugh drifted through the grove.
It was almost swallowed by the wind.
"Kindness..." Eshu murmured, tasting the word as though it belonged to another language. He looked from the twins to the glowing wound, and for the first time since he had appeared upon the impossible road, the smile upon his face seemed touched by something older than amusement.
"Even the gentlest road still asks to be walked."
The words settled over the grove like falling ash.

Ogunshola pushed himself painfully to his feet. Every muscle protested. His legs trembled beneath him, yet he crossed the glowing divide and lifted Taiwo into his arms.
The child had stopped crying.
Golden light lingered faintly in his eyes, reflecting the dying glow beneath the earth.
"Lagos," Ogunshola whispered, pressing a kiss against the boy's forehead.
He crossed the wound once more.
The air felt different on Kehinde's side of the scar. Colder. Still. The shadows beneath the trees seemed reluctant to leave him, gathering around the infant as though they recognised something hidden beneath his skin.
"Oshogbo."
Kehinde opened his eyes.
For one impossible heartbeat, the brothers looked at one another across the glowing wound.

Neither reached out.
Neither cried.
They simply watched, as though some forgotten part of them already understood what the world had done.
Very carefully, Ogunshola gathered Kehinde into his free arm, taking great care that the boys did not touch.
He no longer trusted the world enough to let them become one again.

Behind him, Eshu's voice drifted softly through the darkness.
"You have postponed the harvest."
Ogunshola closed his eyes.
"I know."
Silence lingered between them.
When Eshu spoke again, his voice carried neither laughter nor judgment.
"Every seed remembers the tree."
The blue flames shrank.
The impossible road folded quietly into the earth.
When Ogunshola looked again, Eshu was gone.

One by one, the Three Mothers disappeared into the forest, leaving only Aro Funfun behind. She stood beside the glowing scar until its light faded from amber to a dull ember, then rested the end of her staff against the wound.
The earth gave a faint, weary sigh.
She frowned.
Not because she understood.
Because she didn't.
For the first time in centuries, the prophecy had become more mysterious instead of less.
Without another word, she turned and vanished among the ancient trees.

At last, Ogunshola stood alone.
The Sacred Grove had fallen silent once more. Only the river continued its endless song, flowing as it had long before prophecies were spoken and long before men imagined they could change them.
He looked down at the children sleeping against his chest.
"You will grow beneath different skies," he whispered. "You will learn different songs. You will become different men."
His voice faltered.
"And if the roads should ever lead you back to one another..."
He could not finish the prayer immediately.
When the words finally came, they were little more than a father's broken hope.
"...may the gods forgive me."
A breeze stirred the branches overhead.
Neither child woke.
Far beyond the sight of gods, witches or men, something invisible slowly began to unwind.
A single thread became two.
One drifted towards harmony.
The other towards commotion.
They stretched across forests and kingdoms, across years that had not yet been lived, growing thinner with every passing season.
But they never broke.
Somewhere beyond time itself, the crossroads waited patiently for the day those two wandering threads would remember they had once been woven from the same soul.

Ogunshola closed his fingers around the silver oshe until its edges bit into his palm. The metal had grown unnaturally warm, pulsing against his skin like the heartbeat of something sleeping beneath the world.
He bowed his head.
"Shango."
The name escaped him with the quiet familiarity of a son calling for his father.
"Jakuta... Hurler of stones. Oranfe... Lord of thunder. Oba Koso... the king who refused the noose."
The white bead set between the twin blades began to glow, not brightly, but steadily, like an ember patiently remembering the fire from which it had been born.
Ogunshola swallowed hard.
"I have never asked You for victory."
His voice faltered as he looked down at the children sleeping fitfully against his chest. Taiwo's tiny hand had found the edge of his robe. Kehinde's fingers still clung stubbornly to his wrist, as though even in sleep he refused to let go.
Something inside Ogunshola broke.
"I have never asked You for power either. Men ask for power because they wish to rule other men. I ask only for sight."
The wind circled the clearing, carrying with it the scent of rain and wet earth. Beyond the firelight the Ajogun fell strangely still, their hunger giving way to caution.
"If these children are the doom the Mothers believe them to be, then show me. Strip away the love that blinds me. Let me see them as You see them."
His grip tightened around the pendant until blood welled between his fingers.
"But if there is another road..." He lifted his face toward the darkening heavens, his eyes glistening with tears he no longer tried to hide. "If there is even one path that spares them without condemning the world, then reveal it to me."
The grove held its breath.
Ogunshola drew one final, trembling breath before whispering the words that cost him more than any battle ever had.
"And if judgment cannot be turned aside..."
He looked once more at his sons.
"...let it begin with me."
The first cloud appeared above the grove.
Then another.
And another.
Within moments the stars vanished.
Darkness rolled across the heavens from every direction, folding over the sacred forest until the night seemed trapped beneath a vast black sea.

The air grew strangely heavy, pressing against Ogunshola's chest until each breath demanded effort. Around the clearing, the Three Mothers instinctively tightened their grip upon their staffs, their eyes lifting towards the darkening heavens where something vast was gathering beyond the clouds. It was not yet thunder, though thunder hid within it. This sound was deeper, older, carrying the slow, terrible authority of a storm that had existed long before men first learned to fear the sky.

Ogunshola felt it before he saw it.

Heat blossomed beneath his skin, spreading from the silver oshe resting against his chest until every nerve seemed to awaken at once. The pendant burned, not with pain, but with recognition, as though it had sensed the approach of the hand that had first blessed it. The hairs along his arms rose. The earth beneath his feet quivered. Somewhere high above the grove, the heavens drew a long breath.
The first bolt fell beyond the circle of blue fire, striking the forest with a crack that shook ancient trees to their roots. Birds burst screaming from the canopy, scattering into the night as branches groaned and bowed beneath an invisible weight. Before the echoes had faded, a second bolt ripped across the sky, flooding the Sacred Grove in blinding white light. For a heartbeat every tree stood stripped of shadow, their towering trunks jutting from the earth like the ribs of some forgotten giant buried beneath the forest floor.
Then the heavens opened.
Lightning did not fall.
It descended.

A single pillar of white fire plunged into the clearing with such force that the earth lurched beneath Ogunshola's feet. Stone shattered. Soil erupted into the air. The blue flames exploded skyward, changing first to white, then to a fierce molten gold that bathed the grove in the light of a newborn sun.
When the smoke slowly drifted away, the mark remained.
An oshe.
The double-headed axe of Shango had been carved into the earth itself, its burning outline glowing like fresh-forged metal beneath a blacksmith's hammer. The Sacred Grove bent before it. Branches lowered until they brushed the ground, leaves turned their pale undersides to the light, and even the River Osun seemed to hesitate before flowing onward.
Beyond the clearing, panic rippled through the watching Ajogun.
Many fled at once, vanishing into the ancient forest as though pursued by the dawn itself. Those that remained withdrew into the deepest shadows, their hungry eyes never leaving the blazing symbol, unwilling to flee the miracle they had witnessed, yet too terrified to draw any closer.

It began with warmth.
Not the violent heat of lightning, nor the sting of fire against flesh, but something infinitely gentler. It unfolded beneath Ogunshola's ribs with such quiet certainty that, for a single bewildering heartbeat, he forgot the prophecy, the witches, and even the hungry eyes watching from beyond the clearing. Peace settled over him so completely that every scar he had earned as a warrior seemed to loosen its grip upon his body, while the fear that had haunted him since the twins were born simply... vanished.
The warmth did not remain alone.
It became strength.

Not the strength of muscle or iron, but something older, deeper, flowing through him with the unstoppable certainty of a river rediscovering the course it had carved since the beginning of the world. Every breath tasted of rain. Every heartbeat echoed like distant thunder. He could feel the storm gathering above the grove as though it had become another chamber of his own heart, every flash of lightning answering the rhythm of his pulse.
For one moment, Ogunshola understood why men longed to become gods.
It was not because gods ruled.
It was because they were never alone.
Something vast stood within him now—not replacing him, but carrying him, sharing his grief as though it had always belonged to both of them. Tears slipped silently down his face, not from pain, but from the unbearable relief of laying a burden upon shoulders strong enough to bear it.
Then his back arched.
The cry that burst from Ogunshola's throat no longer belonged to a man alone.
"ARÍRÀ!"
The sacred cry struck the grove with the force of a thunderclap, rolling through the ancient trees until even the River Osun seemed to recoil from its echo. The heavens answered instantly. Lightning flashed across the clouds in blinding sheets, and the storm that had circled the Sacred Grove finally descended.
Ogunshola threw back his head.
His body arched as though seized by an invisible current before settling into a posture none of the Three Mothers had ever seen him assume. One leg crossed over the other, his spine impossibly straight, while every muscle in his body relaxed with the strange, effortless authority of a king taking his rightful throne. It was no longer the stance of a weary soldier.

Shango had mounted him.
The change rippled through the grove before anyone dared lift their eyes. Blue fire bent low against the earth, sparks spiralled through the air like living things, and the scent of rain gave way to the sharp sweetness of ozone. The Three Mothers fell immediately to one knee; their foreheads lowered in reverence.
"Shango..."
"Oba Koso..."
"Jakuta..."
"Oranfe..."
Their voices disappeared beneath the storm.
When Ogunshola finally lowered his head again, it was not a father's eyes that looked upon the twins. Lightning churned behind his pupils, blue giving way to gold before returning to blue once more, while every breath carried the distant rumble of thunder. The storm no longer gathered above him.
It waited upon him.
He stepped forward once.
The earth answered with a low groan.
Another step.

The blue flames leaned towards him as flowers turn towards the morning sun, while the remaining Ajogun withdrew into the deepest shadows of the forest. None fled. None advanced. They watched with the wary stillness of predators who had suddenly found themselves in the presence of something far older than hunger.
Shango stood over the children.

Taiwo gazed back without fear, his tiny face bathed in golden light. Kehinde's cries dwindled to quiet whimpers until at last they too fell silent. Even the storm seemed to hold its breath.
"The children shall live."
The words rolled across the Sacred Grove like distant mountains breaking apart. Thunder answered from somewhere beyond the clouds, not in agreement, but in obedience.
"The road before them shall be hard."
The burning oshe blazed brighter beneath his feet, its molten outline spreading through the earth like veins of living fire.
"Their destiny shall wound the world..."
A murmur passed through the forest. Even the oldest trees seemed to shudder beneath the weight of the decree.
"...but they shall live."
No one questioned the judgment.
Not the Three Mothers.
Not the spirits hidden among the ancient trunks.
Not even the waiting Ajogun.
The words had ceased to be prophecy.
They had become law.

Slowly, the storm began to release him.
The lightning faded from his eyes first. Then the impossible weight pressing upon the grove lifted, little by little, until the trees dared to straighten and the wind remembered how to move. Stars emerged cautiously through the broken clouds, and the silver oshe resting against Ogunshola's chest cooled once more against his skin.

He staggered.
The strength that had carried a god abandoned him all at once. His knees buckled, and only by driving the ritual blade into the earth did he keep himself from falling completely. Ogunshola drew a slow, ragged breath, his chest still echoing with the last command Shango had left behind.
Live.
Choose.
Bear the cost.
He looked down at the twins, their cries now softened to quiet breaths, and spoke with a voice that was entirely his own.
"If they cannot remain whole..."
He swallowed against the grief tightening his throat.
"...then I will divide them."
Aro Pupa recoiled as though the words themselves had struck her.
"You would divide a soul?"
"I would let them live long enough to choose."
Silence followed.
Aro Funfun did not answer. Instead, she lowered her gaze to the blazing oshe carved into the earth, studying it with an expression Ogunshola had never seen upon her face. Not fear.
Uncertainty.
The old certainty she had carried into the grove no longer fit the night unfolding before her.
"You are not healing the wound," she said quietly.
Ogunshola shook his head.
"No."
"You are giving it another shape."
He looked from one child to the other.
"I am buying them time."
The eldest Mother rested both hands upon her staff.
"Time has never belonged to men."
"I know."
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Then Aro Dudu broke the silence, her voice little more than a whisper.
"Death buries flesh..."
Her eyes settled upon the glowing scar.
"...but wounds remember."
The words lingered.
The blue flames twisted uneasily.
Then laughter rolled through the grove.
Not through the ears.
Through the bones.
Ancient.
Patient.
Amused.

As though someone standing at the end of every road had just heard a particularly interesting joke.
The laughter rolled through the grove long before anyone saw its owner.
It settled inside Ogunshola's chest, ancient and amused, as though someone standing at the end of every road had just heard the oldest joke in creation. The blue flames leaned sideways without a breath of wind to move them, making room for something the fire itself dared not touch.
A narrow road unfolded across the clearing.
It had not been there a heartbeat earlier.
Nor did it seem to arrive.
Rather, reality behaved as though it had suddenly remembered a road that had always existed and quietly stepped aside to reveal it. The path shimmered beneath the moonlight like heat above sun-baked stone, winding through roots and shrines without disturbing a single leaf.
The laughter came again.
Closer this time.
The Three Mothers lowered their heads before anything emerged.
Only then did the road begin to widen.
Aro Dudu stepped forward.
"Eshu Elegbara."
Her voice trembled despite herself.
"Owner of the crossroads. Do not mislead us."
The flames swayed.
Aro Pupa joined her.
"Keeper of paths. Do not confuse us."
Aro Funfun lowered her head.
"Witness to choice. Do not turn against us."
The laughter returned.
Softer now.
Closer.
All three witches bowed.
"Keeper of chance and consequence."
"The one who throws a stone today and kills a bird yesterday."
"Witness to every choice."
The road widened until it seemed less a path than a wound cut through the world, and from its shifting depths a figure emerged. Ogunshola tried to fix his gaze upon him, but the effort slipped away each time he thought he had succeeded. One moment the stranger was young enough to be his son, the next old enough to have watched kingdoms rise from dust. He seemed tall, then short, familiar, then utterly unknown, as though every blink stripped away one face only to reveal another waiting beneath it. Only the eyes refused to change. They held the pale, impossible light of a thousand crossroads meeting beneath a moonless sky, and in them Ogunshola glimpsed every choice he had ever made... and every one he still could.
Eshu.
The Orisha studied the twins.
Then the burning mark Shango had left behind.
Then Ogunshola.
A slow smile spread across his face.
"Ah."
The single word carried the sound of forgotten bargains.
"Oju's blood."
His smile widened.
"My road."
His gaze settled upon Ogunshola.
"Your choice."

The Three Mothers looked at one another. It lasted only a heartbeat, yet none of them spoke. Aro Dudu's fingers tightened around the beads hanging from her wrist until they creaked softly against one another. Beside her, Aro Pupa lowered her eyes to the cracked clay vessel, as though hoping the flames would explain what Eshu would not. Only Aro Funfun kept her gaze on the god of the crossroads, but even she did not return his smile.
Eshu chuckled again.
The sound drifted lazily through the grove, carrying all the easy confidence of a traveller who had reached his destination long before everyone else. It was not cruel, nor triumphant. If anything, it carried the weary amusement of someone watching children argue over a map while standing on the very road they were trying to find.
Ogunshola's fingers closed around the pendant until the silver bit into his palm.
"You knew."
Eshu tilted his head, considering the question as though it amused him more than it deserved.
"I have stood where every road begins," he said at last. "It would be stranger if I did not."
"You allowed this to happen."
The smile faded so quietly that no one saw it leave. Even the blue flames lowered, their restless dance settling into an uneasy stillness.
"No."
The word was neither loud nor angry, yet it struck the grove with the weight of an old truth. Leaves trembled in the trees. Somewhere beyond the clearing, an Ajogun lowered its gaze.
"I did not cut the road."
His eyes wandered beyond the Sacred Grove, beyond the ancient shrines and the watching spirits, as though he were looking across centuries instead of distance.
"A man desired what was never his to carry."
He did not speak Oju's name.
He did not need to.
"The road answered him, as roads always answer those who choose to walk them."
His gaze returned to Ogunshola.
"Do not mistake an open door for an invitation."
Silence settled over the clearing.
The Three Mothers did not interrupt. Even the Ajogun seemed content to listen.
Then, as suddenly as it had vanished, the smile returned.
Smaller this time.
Older.
"Humans have always blamed the crossroads for where their feet carry them." He spread his hands with quiet resignation. "Yet no one curses the river after choosing to drown."
The words lingered in the night.
Eshu looked down at the scar Shango had carved into the earth, then at the sleeping twins in Ogunshola's arms.
"A man may lift a snake from his bed and believe himself safe."
His smile widened.
"Morning belongs to the snake."
He took a single step back onto the winding road.
"And a road divided..."
His voice drifted away with the wind.
"...never forgets where it was once whole."

CHAPTER 1 — THE WOUND

Deep within Osun's Sacred Grove, where centuries of worship had worn the veil between worlds thin, the forest stood untouched by time.
Ancient iroko and silk-cotton trees towered overhead, their trunks broad as houses, their crowns knitting together so tightly that moonlight reached the earth only in scattered fragments. Beneath them, the River Osun wound through the darkness, silver against black soil, slipping past shrines stained by age and sanctuaries carved with the faces of forgotten kings.
Moss clung to weathered statues hidden among tangled roots. Stone altars emerged from curtains of fern and wild orchid. Narrow paths twisted through the undergrowth, smoothed by the feet of countless pilgrims who had come seeking blessings, forgiveness, vengeance, or miracles.

The grove remembered them all. Its roots drank their sacrifices, its stones kept their secrets, and somewhere beneath the endless murmur of the River Osun, prayers whispered centuries ago still lingered like voices that had forgotten they belonged to the dead.
Tonight, even the spirits were silent.

No insects sang from the undergrowth. No frogs croaked from the marshes beyond the shrines. The wind that usually wandered through Oshogbo after sunset had disappeared.
The forest was listening.

At the heart of the grove, a blue fire burned.
Three women stood around it.
The Aro Meta.
The Three Mothers.
Their robes hung in heavy folds, concealing their faces, but their eyes glimmered beneath the hoods, reflecting the blue flames like polished obsidian.
When they spoke, their voices emerged as one.
"The children must not live."
The words struck the clearing harder than thunder.

Ogunshola stood before them, bare-chested, his skin marked with streaks of white ash. Sweat glistened across his shoulders despite the night's coolness.
In his arms lay two newborn boys.
Twins.
Taiwo rested against his left arm. Though tears glistened on his cheeks, he no longer cried. His wide eyes stared into the blue flames as though he could see something moving within them.
Kehinde screamed, and the sound that burst from the infant's lungs seemed impossibly large for so small a body. Birds exploded from the canopy in a single black wave, while the blue flames around the clay vessel leaned sideways as though caught in a wind nobody else could feel. Somewhere beyond the circle of firelight, one of the waiting Ajogun recoiled, its shadow melting deeper into the trees. The cry rolled through Osun's Sacred Grove, striking trunks that had stood since the first priests walked beneath their branches. Ogunshola waited for the echo that every forest should have given back.
It never came.

The silence that followed felt wrong. Not empty, but watchful, as though the grove itself had swallowed the child's voice rather than allow it to return. A chill crept across Ogunshola's skin. Forests echoed. Mountains echoed. Even valleys answered those who shouted into them. Yet the Sacred Grove, ancient beyond memory, held Kehinde's cry inside itself and offered nothing back.
Aro Pupa, youngest of the Three Mothers, tightened her fingers around her staff.
"Even now," she whispered, her gaze fixed on the children, "the roads answer them."
Ogunshola said nothing.
His arms tightened around his sons.
Beyond the circle of blue firelight, the darkness began to move. Not with the restless sway of branches nor the uncertain dance of shadows, but with intention. Shapes unfolded from ancient iroko trunks only to dissolve again, while others glided soundlessly across the forest floor without bending a single blade of grass. Eyes opened where no faces existed, watching with the patient hunger of scavengers waiting for death to finish its work. The Ajogun had come—not to fight, but to witness. Something had bled into the world that night, not flesh but destiny, and creatures born from old wounds had always known how to find a fresh one.
Aro Funfun stepped forward.
The eldest of the Three Mothers moved with the quiet certainty of a river wearing down stone. She stopped beside the blue fire and rested one hand upon the clay vessel at its centre.
The flames quivered beneath Aro Funfun's hand.
At first Ogunshola thought the night wind had finally returned, stirring the blue fire into restless motion. Then the flame divided.
One tongue of blue became two, rising together above the clay vessel with effortless grace. They circled each other like dancers who had rehearsed the same steps since the beginning of time, neither brighter than the other, neither leading nor following. For one brief heartbeat, the sight was so beautiful that even the Ajogun beyond the firelight seemed content to watch.
Then one flame drifted away.
The second hesitated before following.
The space between them widened by no more than the breadth of a finger, yet the grove answered as though the world itself had been wounded. A sharp crack raced across the side of the clay vessel, the earth groaned beneath their feet, and somewhere beyond the clearing the waiting Ajogun lifted their heads in unison, drawing slow, eager breaths like carrion birds scenting fresh blood.
The Three Mothers looked at one another, and for the first time since Ogunshola had entered the Sacred Grove, none of them seemed eager to speak. Aro Pupa's fingers tightened around her staff until her knuckles turned pale, while Aro Dudu lowered her gaze to the cracked clay vessel, tracing the widening fracture with eyes that had suddenly grown distant. Only Aro Funfun remained still, yet the certainty that had marked every word she had spoken that night had quietly deserted her.
When Aro Pupa finally found her voice, it came little louder than a whisper, as though she feared the grove itself might overhear.

When one soul stirs in bodies not meant to share its breath,
the crossroads shall lose their balance.
When One walks where Two once breathed,
the forgotten shall remember.
When the wound recalls the hand that carved it,
the hungry shall rise to answer.
The roads shall wander blind, unable to name the living from the dead.
And when Two become None,
the First Choosing shall be asked again.

The verse drifted into the silence and seemed to disappear among the ancient trees. No wind followed it. No thunder answered. Yet something in the Sacred Grove changed. Beyond the ring of blue fire, the waiting Ajogun lifted their heads as one, while the crack running through the clay vessel spread another finger's breadth with a dry, brittle sound that echoed far louder than it should have.
Ogunshola searched their faces. "What does it mean?"
None of the Three Mothers answered.
Not because they refused.
Because none of them truly knew.
Aro Funfun looked from the fractured vessel to the twins sleeping peacefully in his arms, and when she spoke again, there was no anger in her voice—only the terrible resolve of someone choosing the lesser of two evils.
"Give us the children."
Ogunshola tightened his hold on the twins.
"No."
The answer came before reason could soften it.
Aro Pupa moved first.
Her staff struck the earth.
The sound rang through the grove.
Blue symbols blazed beneath her feet, spreading across roots and stone like veins of living fire.
The darkness beyond the clearing stirred.
The Ajogun leaned closer.
"Do not make this harder than it must be."
Ogunshola stepped back.

Both children cried at once.
Their voices should have been no more than the frightened cries of newborns, yet something about the sound unsettled the grove. Taiwo's cry rose first, Kehinde's answering it a heartbeat later until the two voices became impossible to separate. The blue flames faltered. The spirits fell silent. Even the Ajogun waiting beyond the clearing seemed to lean closer, as though listening for something hidden within the sound itself.
For one suspended moment, nobody moved.

Then Aro Funfun raised her hand.

The earth answered.

Roots burst from the earth in a violent tangle, thick as serpents, snapping through the air where Ogunshola had been standing only a heartbeat before. He twisted aside, clutching the twins against his chest as the vines slammed together with enough force to splinter bark. The children screamed in unison, and for the first time the waiting Ajogun leaned forward, their desire no longer hidden.
"Enough."
Aro Dudu, the middle Mother, advanced through the firelight.
"The world is larger than your grief."
"The world is not asking for my sons."
Her eyes hardened.
"The world may not survive them."
The roots came again, tearing through the earth with enough force to split stone. Ogunshola threw himself aside, the twins clutched tightly against his chest, and landed hard upon one knee. Kehinde screamed in terror. Taiwo joined him a heartbeat later, their cries weaving together until Ogunshola could no longer tell where one ended and the other began.

Ogunshola tightened his hold until Kehinde cried out in protest. Horror struck him immediately and he loosened his grip, whispering an apology the child was too young to understand.
The prophecy had never frightened him as much as this moment.
Not the Three Mothers.
Not the spirits gathering beyond the firelight.
Not even the storm he could feel building somewhere above the grove.

Only the thought of empty arms.
He looked down at the boys. Taiwo had stopped crying again, staring into the blue flames with an unsettling calm that no infant should possess. Kehinde still fought the night with every breath, his tiny fists opening and closing as though he already refused the fate older souls had chosen for him.
Something inside Ogunshola gave way.
They were only children.
They had not asked for prophecy. They had not invited destiny. Yet everyone standing in that sacred clearing weighed their lives with the cold detachment of people discussing the weather rather than the murder of two newborn sons.
His hand rose instinctively to the pendant hanging against his chest. It was a silver oshe, the double-headed axe of Shango, its twin blades cradling a single white bead between two red ones. Even before his fingers closed around it he could feel its mystical
warmth, as though the metal remembered its covenant, every prayer and sacrifice ever offered in the god's name.
Ogunshola closed his fingers around the silver oshe until its edges bit into his palm. The metal had grown unnaturally warm, pulsing against his skin like the heartbeat of something sleeping beneath the world.
He bowed his head.
"Shango."
The name escaped him with the quiet familiarity of a son calling for his father.
"Jakuta... Hurler of stones. Oranfe... Lord of thunder. Oba Koso... the king who refused the noose."
The white bead set between the twin blades began to glow, not brightly, but steadily, like an ember patiently remembering the fire from which it had been born.
Ogunshola swallowed hard.
"I have never asked You for victory."
His voice faltered as he looked down at the children sleeping fitfully against his chest. Taiwo's tiny hand had found the edge of his robe. Kehinde's fingers still clung stubbornly to his wrist, as though even in sleep he refused to let go.
Something inside Ogunshola broke.
"I have never asked You for power either. Men ask for power because they wish to rule other men. I ask only for sight."
The wind circled the clearing, carrying with it the scent of rain and wet earth. Beyond the firelight the Ajogun fell strangely still, their hunger giving way to caution.
"If these children are the doom the Mothers believe them to be, then show me. Strip away the love that blinds me. Let me see them as You see them."
His grip tightened around the pendant until blood welled between his fingers.
"But if there is another road..." He lifted his face toward the darkening heavens, his eyes glistening with tears he no longer tried to hide. "If there is even one path that spares them without condemning the world, then reveal it to me."
The grove held its breath.
Ogunshola drew one final, trembling breath before whispering the words that cost him more than any battle ever had.
"And if judgment cannot be turned aside..."
He looked once more at his sons.
"...let it begin with me."

The first cloud appeared above the grove.
Then another.
And another.
Within moments the stars vanished.
Darkness rolled across the heavens from every direction, folding over the sacred forest until the night seemed trapped beneath a vast black sea.

The air grew strangely heavy, pressing against Ogunshola's chest until each breath demanded effort. Around the clearing, the Three Mothers instinctively tightened their grip upon their staffs, their eyes lifting towards the darkening heavens where something vast was gathering beyond the clouds. It was not yet thunder, though thunder hid within it. This sound was deeper, older, carrying the slow, terrible authority of a storm that had existed long before men first learned to fear the sky.
Ogunshola felt it before he saw it.


Lexxyla, Nostradamus, felsunseg, tahir0, Jasmine4, priestchurch, joyberry, supizino, FakoMaybach1, MightyFortress, Chukwudozzie, cuteesthy, Olu317, donkelz, stephenGee12, Temmason, olumanja, rasiyorum, Danpersie31, Peppergroove, Kassia, joyberry, Oyindawealth, obafemylegacy, Maymac, Essyprity, Tuhndhay, richiearmany14, geezyk, emarkson, donpeteranking, mynuel, Dztzl, kingjomezy, gmekx, godwinfury, sunkoye, lonewolftzar25, holakizzo, bobosneh

# INTRODUCTION

The events of *Orimeji: One Soul, Two Bodies* expand the mythology first introduced in:

* Kasala: The Curse
* Kasala: The Lightning Stone
* Kasala: Cross Roads

While previous novels explored curses, witchcraft, divine possession, revenge, crossroads, and the hidden world of gods and spirits, *Orimeji* explores a deeper mystery:

**Can destiny itself be broken?**

The answer lies within a wound created twenty-four years before the story begins.

---

# 1. THE COSMIC ORDER

The universe operates according to a balance established by Olodumare.

Every force within creation serves a purpose.

### Olodumare

The Supreme Architect.

Creator of:

* Orun (Heaven)
* Ile (Earth)
* Humanity
* The Orisha
* The laws governing creation

Humans were originally intended to dwell with Olodumare in Orun.

They were sent to Ile so that experience, suffering, triumph, and choice could shape their destinies.

---

### The Orisha

Divine powers entrusted with guiding creation.

The Orisha do not control humanity.

They influence.

Guide.

Protect.

Test.

Judge.

Among those central to Orimeji are:

#### Shango

Orisha of:

* Thunder
* Lightning
* Fire
* Kingship
* Divine Justice

Shango's judgment determines the fate of the twins at birth.

---

#### Eshu

Orisha of:

* Crossroads
* Choice
* Consequence
* Chance
* Communication

Eshu does not create destiny.

He governs the roads through which destiny travels.

---

### The Ajogun

Spirits of calamity.

They embody:

* Sickness
* Conflict
* Loss
* Misfortune
* Death
* Hardship

They are not evil.

Like storms, they serve a purpose within creation.

The Ajogun are among the first beings to recognize the danger created by Ogunshola's actions.

---

### Aje

The primordial power of witchcraft.

Aje is not inherently good or evil.

It is a force of balance.

The Aje maintain equilibrium between opposing forces.

---

# 2. THE ARO META

The Three Mothers.

The highest known manifestation of Aje authority.

The Aro Meta function as:

* Judges
* Guardians
* Executioners
* Custodians of cosmic balance

The current Aro Meta include:

### Aro Funfun

Associated with wisdom, foresight, and patience.

### Aro Pupa

Associated with action, passion, and intervention.

### Aro Dudu

Associated with mystery, memory, and hidden knowledge.

Together they form a three-legged stool.

Separate they are powerful.

Together they represent balance itself.

---

# 3. THE IROKO TREE AND UDI

One of the greatest secrets of the Kasala Universe is the relationship between the Iroko Tree and Udi.

### The Iroko Tree

To ordinary people:

A sacred tree.

To initiates:

A living gateway.

A bridge between worlds.

A doorway through which spiritual beings, witches, and ancient powers may travel.

---

### Udi

Udi exists within the Iroko Tree.

It is not another planet.

Not another dimension floating beyond reality.

It is a hidden crossroads contained within the living heart of the Iroko.

Within Udi:

* Distance loses meaning.
* Time behaves differently.
* Spirits gather.
* Ancient agreements are remembered.

The Aro Meta use Udi to observe disturbances affecting the cosmic order.

---

# 4. ORI AND DESTINY

Within Yoruba spiritual philosophy, every person possesses an Ori.

Ori is:

* Destiny
* Divine purpose
* Spiritual identity
* The highest self

A person's Ori shapes the road they walk through life.

Ordinarily, every human possesses one Ori.

The twins do not.

---

# 5. ORI MEJI

"Two Heads."

"Two Destinies."

"Two Paths."

The title of the novel refers to a condition that should not exist.

Taiwo and Kehinde are not merely twins.

They are two manifestations of a single destiny.

One soul.

Two lives.

A situation so unnatural that even the Aro Meta fear its consequences.

---

# 6. THE WOUND

The central event of Orimeji.

When the Aro Meta decree that the twins must die, Ogunshola refuses.

Instead, he performs a forbidden ritual.

The ritual divides one destiny into two separate lives.

The result becomes known as:

### The Wound

A fracture in reality itself.

The world continues.

Life continues.

But something fundamental becomes incomplete.

The wound remains hidden for twenty-four years.

Yet destiny continually attempts to heal itself.

---

# 7. THE SEAL

The Seal is the supernatural barrier created during Ogunshola's ritual.

Its purpose is to:

* Separate the twins
* Prevent reunion
* Delay prophecy
* Force destiny into dormancy

The Seal is not permanent.

It requires constant sacrifice.

Unknown to everyone except Ogunshola, the Seal survives because he continually feeds it with his own life force.

His life becomes the lock holding destiny apart.

His death breaks that lock.

---

# 8. THE SONS OF THE CROSSROADS

The Aro Meta refer to Taiwo and Kehinde as:

### The Sons of the Crossroads

This title reflects their unique relationship with:

* Choice
* Fate
* Eshu's domain
* The fractured road of destiny

Unlike ordinary people, the twins do not walk separate roads.

They are the same road divided into two directions.

---

# 9. TAIWO

The first twin.

Raised in Lagos.

Taiwo naturally gravitates toward:

* Compassion
* Service
* Protection
* Sacrifice

Whenever he acts selflessly he experiences a brief feeling of completeness.

Unknown to him, he is touching a fragment of the destiny stolen from him at birth.

---

# 10. KEHINDE

The second twin.

Raised in Oshogbo.

Kehinde gravitates toward:

* Strength
* Authority
* Confrontation
* Order through force

Like Taiwo, he experiences moments of completeness.

Unlike Taiwo, these moments emerge when he imposes order upon disorder.

He too carries only half of what he was meant to be.

---

# 11. ABIKU

Spirit children who move repeatedly between life and death.

They occupy the boundary between worlds.

Because of this, Abiku often sense disturbances in destiny before ordinary humans.

Their increased activity serves as an early warning that the Seal is failing.

---

# 12. KPELEKPE

The Kpelekpe are Were-Hyenas.

Among the most feared supernatural predators in the Kasala Universe.

Characteristics include:

* Shape-shifting ability
* Hyena-headed beast forms
* Extraordinary strength
* Resistance to many magical attacks while transformed
* Extreme aggression after tasting human blood

Kpelekpe are highly sensitive to disruptions in spiritual balance.

Their increasing presence signals that the world itself is becoming unstable.

---

# 13. OGUNSHOLA'S SACRIFICE

To many readers of previous Kasala novels, Ogunshola appears to be:

* Warrior
* Hunter
* Servant of Shango
* Guardian of sacred relics

Orimeji reveals a deeper truth.

He is also:

A father.

Everything in the novel originates from a single decision.

His refusal to surrender his children.

The tragedy of Orimeji is not the prophecy.

It is the cost of love.

---

# 14. SHANGO'S JUDGMENT

When called upon, Shango does not deny the prophecy.

He confirms it.

The twins will wound the world.

Yet he refuses to allow them to be killed.

This judgment creates the central paradox of the novel:

The danger is real.

The children are innocent.

Both truths exist simultaneously.

---

# 15. ESHU'S LESSON

Throughout the Kasala Universe, Eshu consistently teaches one principle:

### Choice Creates Consequence

Eshu does not force people onto roads.

People choose roads themselves.

Ogunshola chooses.

Oju chooses.

Nike chooses.

Taiwo chooses.

Kehinde chooses.

The consequences belong to them.

Not to the crossroads.

---

# 16. THE FORGOTTEN KING

Long before the events of Orimeji, there existed a name erased from history.

A king.

A conqueror.

A man elevated through worship.

A being whose existence challenged the natural order.

His shrines were destroyed.

His followers scattered.

His Oriki forbidden.

Yet memory survives.

And memory has power.

His name is:

### ARIKAN

The King Without Equal.

The Man Raised to the Rank of an Orisha.

The God That Should Not Exist.

His return may shape the future of the Kasala Universe.

---

# TIMELINE OF THE KASALA UNIVERSE

### Book One

Kasala: The Curse

The rise of Nike.

---

### Book Two

Kasala: The Lightning Stone

The awakening of Shango's legacy through Ogunshola.

---

### Book Three

Kasala: Cross Roads

Oju's revenge and the struggle between destiny and vengeance.

---

### Book Four

Orimeji: One Soul, Two Bodies

The hidden history behind Ogunshola's greatest secret and the beginning of a wound that may change the world forever.

---

# FINAL THOUGHT

Every road begins with a choice.

Every choice leaves a mark.

Some marks become scars.

Some scars become legends.

And some wounds wait twenty-four years before they remember how to heal.

Welcome once again to the Kasala Universe.

In Kasala Vengeance Episode 6, Oju’s desperation for power leads him into a dangerous encounter with the trickster spirit Eshu.

After a failed attempt to transform himself into a lion, Oju becomes trapped in a chaotic battle of wills with the cunning deity. Each deal he makes gives Eshu more influence over his body, turning Oju’s quest for mastery into a humiliating and unpredictable curse.

Refusing to surrender control, Oju performs a powerful ritual at his shrine, offering sacrifices and begging for forgiveness. The ritual finally grants him the transformation he seeks—but not without consequences.

As Oju learns to control his shifting abilities, he realizes the true challenge is not the power itself, but resisting the tricks and temptations of Eshu.

Will Oju master the art of transformation, or will the trickster god continue to twist his fate?

🔥 Watch Episode 7
to see Oju’s most intense trial yet.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lURJpYoCv84?si=DuGW8m-VNdOfe2Mm



#KasalaVengeance
#AfricanMythology
#Eshu
#YorubaMythology
#ShapeShifter
#AfricanFantasy
#SpiritualBattle
#MythologyStories
#AfricanStories
#Episode7

Nike thought the night would end in grief and sleep… but at midnight, her soul was summoned.

In Episode 6 of Kasala Crossroads, Nike is dragged into Iyami Aje, the secret realm of the covens of mothers. There, the feared Aro Meta reveal a truth she never knew:
🩸 She was born an Aje.
🔥 Her power lives in her mouth.
🌬 And she cannot escape her destiny.

As ancient laws are revealed, Nike learns the terrifying balance between Black, Red, and White witches, the dangers of legacy magic, and the cost of spiritual contracts. Bound by words she never meant to speak, Nike must choose:
fear… or power.

And somewhere in her heart, one name still burns—Oju.

“I wear a shirt of fire.”

✨ Mythology. Power. Consequences.
Welcome to Kasala Crossroads.





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGRvESDeBa0?si=WTj_lofFWzXpKLpQ

Please like and comment to help the page


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4zd81BwgAg?si=mWK75NvRkdlMc_Hd

At the crossroads of fate, Oju seeks confirmation that his plans are unfolding perfectly—but nothing is ever simple when Eshu, the Orisha of trickery and choice, is involved.

In Episode 4 of Kasala Crossroads, pride clashes with prophecy as Oju consults Eshu for guidance, only to be confronted with hard truths about power, illusion, and the limits of man. As Eshu warns of ruin and temptation, Oju stands firm in his belief that controlling divine power makes him more than human.

But can a man truly wield an Orisha without paying the ultimate price?





https://youtube.com/shorts/2aKHL05HReM?si=TtnfZdqzP9VnGsV1

In Episode 3 of Kasala Crossroads, the balance begins to crack.

Oju summons the power of the Trickster and sets his revenge into motion, while Ogunshola—newly crowned CEO of REMI SHOES—finds his reality subtly unraveling. Familiar faces speak unfamiliar truths, authority turns deceptive, and unseen forces begin to manipulate both destiny and desire.

As ancient gods collide with modern ambition, one question looms:
Who is truly in control at the crossroads?

⚠️ Deception. Power. Consequences.
Welcome to Kasala Crossroads.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTMKw2sYBFE?si=g9pXddTej1W_5BIB

#YouTubeSeries
#Storytime

New episode life now


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0THc64-n_I?si=WaxNsb-sarHwBn7R

Kasala Crossroads:

When the candles flicker, the veil thins.
Oju calls on Eshu, keeper of the crossroads… but the shadows answer with a truth he never expected.

Nike, once underestimated now rises as Aje, an Aro Meta bound to cosmic balance.

Ogunshola’s past returns, and the line between destiny and consequence begins to bend.

Power shifts. Fate moves.
Every choice has a price… and the Orisa always collect.

Kasala: CrossRoads is available on Amazon and Selah.


https://youtube.com/shorts/7xEYdVeURLw?si=ojX-nl0jYvoIC-To

Kasala Crossroads Episode 2: Ogunshola Returns… But the Spirits Aren’t Done With Him

Ogunshola and Adeshola finally arrive in Lagos after their second honeymoon, but peace doesn’t follow.
His mysterious pendant stirs, his father disapproves, and a chilling message from Nike shatters his resolve to stay away from the spiritual world.
What happened to Tunde? And why is Oju’s shadow returning?
Find out in Episode 2 of Kasala Crossroads — where destiny, tradition, and danger collide.

This episode explores:
✔ Yoruba spirituality (Shango, Oranfe, thunder symbolism)
✔ Family drama + cultural tension
✔ Supernatural mystery (Oju, missing Tunde)
✔ Ogunshola’s internal battle between duty and peace





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0THc64-n_I

Hi guys watch kasala Crossroads episode 1 Nike’s Dream on YouTube

Nike’s Dream: A world of wonder… and warning.
When reality fades, the unseen awakens.

Exhausted, haunted, and seeking answers, Nike falls into a deep, surreal dream. She drifts through a glowing garden where fireflies dance and a towering, mystical Iroko tree guides her through a world both magical and unsettling. Every moment blurs the line between reality and the unknown—her journey has only just begun.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLx_OIWksAw?si=ejmESFpbzQZQWsAM

Join me on this journey as I bring Kasala: CrossRoads to life, character by character, scene by scene.

I’ll be posting new clips every Friday. Share with your friends and tell me what you think!

When the candles flicker, the veil thins.
Oju calls on Eshu, keeper of the crossroads… but the shadows answer with a truth he never expected.

Nike, once underestimated now rises as Aje, an Aro Meta bound to cosmic balance.
Ogunshola’s past returns, and the line between destiny and consequence begins to bend.

Power shifts. Fate moves.
Every choice has a price… and the Orisa always collect.

Kasala: CrossRoads is available on Amazon and Selah.

Watch Thriller below



https://youtube.com/shorts/7xEYdVeURLw?si=3ZVrtWoyfTyza-dG

In a bustling military barracks in Nigeria, the atmosphere was charged with discipline and precision. Soldiers, clad in their crisp uniforms, moved in perfect unison during a drill, their boots striking the ground with a synchronized, thunderous rhythm. Each step sent up clouds of dust, creating a haze that hung in the air, adding to the intensity of the scene. The sharp, commanding voices of the drill instructors cut through the noise, ensuring every movement was executed flawlessly. The air was thick with the smell of sweat and determination, a testament to the rigorous training and unwavering dedication of the troops.
"Left! Right! Left! Right!" The commander's voice cut through the thick, humid air.
Nike's boots dragged in the dust, each step heavy and reluctant. Sweat trickled down her face, soaking into her uniform. She swiped at it with an impatient hand, her eyebrows knitting together in frustration, lips pressed into a tight frown. Today, the military drills felt especially punishing.
"Nike, lift your feet and swing your arms to shoulder level!" The commander's bark echoed, sharp and insistent.
"I'm not feeling strong today, sir," Nike shot back, her voice defiant but controlled.
Once, she might have lashed out with a sharp insult, damned the consequences. But since her grandmother's curse, she had learned restraint. Joining the military had been a step towards mastering her temper, channeling her power for good, and finding discipline.
The commander's jaw tightened, eyes flashing with restrained anger. He knew the havoc Nike could wreak if pushed too far. "If you're tired, go rest in my office," he said, voice edged with tension.
"Thank you, sir."
Mustering a final surge of energy, Nike marched toward the commander's office. As she opened the door, a rush of cool air from the air conditioner greeted her, a welcome relief from the oppressive heat. She sank onto the couch, not caring about the dusty footprints she left on the cement floor. The office sprawled out around her, spacious yet chaotic. A battered, brown desk dominated the room, its surface obscured by haphazard stacks of paperwork. Trophies gleamed from the orange walls, catching the light alongside a mounted deer head, its antlers casting intricate shadows.
Nike’s body melted into the couch, her eyes fluttering shut. Sleep tugged at her, offering a brief escape. Just as the edges of consciousness began to blur, the door creaked open.
"Why did you sound so rude to me?" The commander's voice was surprisingly soft, seeking honesty rather than confrontation.
Nike sighed, her frustration melting into apology. "I'm very sorry. I'm actually weak today, sir," she admitted, forcing herself to sound as respectful as possible.
The commander studied her intently. "Since you came back from that mission in Oyo State, you've been different. I know you neutralized the threat, but you didn't give me details. Was it that traumatic?"
Nike's breath hitched. "No, sir," she gasped, trying to steady herself. "It was just very tasking, and I feel it took a toll on my physical body."
He took a good look at her, noting the stark changes. Her once vibrant face now seemed like a mask of sadness, and her body, previously full of life, appeared to be withering away. Concern laced his voice. "Have you been eating well? You're losing weight."
Nike attempted to smile but it faltered. "Please, sir, any news on Oju, the culprit I told you was instrumental in causing that catastrophe?"
The commander's expression darkened. "To be honest, I've pulled all my resources. I've even contacted people in the DSS, but there's no trace of him. It's as if he never existed."
Disappointment flashed in Nike's eyes, but she wasn't surprised. Oju was a powerful witch doctor, undoubtedly using a cloaking spell to evade capture. He was responsible for killing Tunde, and Nike vowed to make him pay.
Her thoughts drifted to Tunde. She had loved him deeply, beyond reason. He wasn't her ideal man, but his adventurous spirit and willingness to help her break the curse endeared him to her. Losing him was a wound that refused to heal.
"I think I need some time off," Nike pleaded.
The commander considered her request. He knew she was invaluable, his secret weapon. He recalled the first time she unleashed her curse, summoning Iku, the spirit of death, during an ambush. The terrorists had fallen to gruesome accidents and turned on each other in madness. Since then, she had always led the charge, destabilizing enemies before the squad moved in.
"Please go, take as much time as you need. I've got you covered," he smiled, reassuringly.
"Thank you, sir," she replied, grateful.
A black Uber taxi arrived to take her to a hotel. The luxurious setting reminded Nike of Tunde, deepening her sorrow. She didn’t need to work or be in the army; Tunde had shared part of the money he'd made from an artifact he had stolen from a lodge guarded by Ogunshola.
“Ogunshola!” Nike muttered to herself. The name stirred a memory of a kiss shared under the influence of divine possession—a moment when godly lust had blurred the lines between enemies and allies. The fleeting smile that crossed her face was a bittersweet echo of that time.
She picked up her phone, scrolling through her contacts until she found Ogunshola's number. Her finger hovered over the dial button, hesitation clear. Their relationship had shifted from adversarial to complexly intertwined. Initially, she had seen him as a brute, driven by savagery in his quest for the artifact Tunde had stolen. Only later did she learn he was the guardian of a sacred lodge, a protector of the Oshogbo kingdom’s treasures and the Yoruba tribe’s heritage.
Desperate for guidance, Nike had tried reaching him for months without success. His number never connected, and her texts went unanswered. Her restless mind turned to the elder witches, their promises of aid left unfulfilled. She paced her room, finally grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge and downing it, hoping for clarity.
As Nike strained to make contact with the Arometa, her mind wandered back to her last conversation with the Aje witches. The memory was vivid, as if she were reliving it in real time.
The witches had turned their penetrating gaze towards her. The silence between them was heavy, charged with an ancient, almost palpable wisdom. Nike could still hear their voices, each word resonating deeply within her.
"Picture this world as a clay cooking pot balanced on a three-legged stool over a fire," one of the witches had begun, her tone both soothing and foreboding. "What happens if one leg breaks?"
Nike, overwhelmed by everything she had experienced, had paused to think before answering, "The pot would crash down, break, and spill its contents into the fire."
"Exactly," the witch had nodded approvingly. "When one leg breaks, it must be replaced immediately."
The memory of the fat witch's words came next, stark and haunting. "I wear a shirt of fire, she wears a shirt of blood, and you wear a shirt of rags."
Then, the youngest witch had added her cryptic remark, "But all animals are of the same sort, which kill and eat other animals."
The culmination of their conversation echoed in her mind, as both witches had spoken in unison, their voices creating a haunting harmony in the stillness: "Welcome."
In that moment of recollection, the Santerían Priestess’s prophecy flashed vividly in her mind: “Di dog wears a shirt of fire, di leopard a shirt of blood, di cat dat of rags, but all di animals of di same sort which kill an’ eat other animal.” The eerie similarity between the two encounters was undeniable. The significance of the three shirts weighed heavily on her, a metaphor she was beginning to grasp.
She understood, at least in part, that the witches were inviting her to join their coven. The thought lingered, a dark temptation she had no desire to indulge. She only sought their guidance, not a place among them. The memory of the witches’ words and the prophecy intertwined, creating a tapestry of caution and wisdom that fueled her determination to seek the Aromata’s help while staying true to her own path.
Nike thought deeply about the last three months. If the Aje witches were serious, they should have contacted her by now. Maybe they had found someone else. But an idea came to her mind—perhaps the witches' words were a secret incantation to summon them or make contact. Desperation and hope intertwined as she decided to recite the words, believing they might appear to her and bring a solution.
"Di dog wears a shirt of fire, di leopard a shirt of blood, di cat dat of rags, but all di animals of di same sort which kill an’ eat other animal. I wear a shirt of fire, she wears a shirt of blood, and she wears a shirt of rags."
The ancient words, whispered in hope, yielded no sign. Frustration surged through her, and she slammed her fist into the drawer beside her bed. The witches’ failure to provide contact details or guidance gnawed at her resolve. She had been left in the dark, with cryptic words and no clear path forward.
Nike couldn't shake the feeling that the witches held the key to the answers she sought. However, she resigned to her fate, accepting that Oju was likely beyond reach and that the witches had perhaps moved on. She resolved to use this time for rest and personal healing. She needed to find strength within herself.
To soothe her weary spirit, she ordered a bottle of red wine and a large platter of asun, peppered barbecue goat meat. Each bite of the fiery meat sets her taste buds alight, the spice searing her tongue like a scorching wave. She reached for the wine, taking a hearty gulp, but the heat persisted. She poured another glass, the wine’s warmth creeping into her cheeks. The spice brought tears to her eyes, but the flavour was irresistible.
By the time she finished the asun, the bottle was drained, and the effects of the wine began to weave their drowsy spell. Her eyelids grew heavy, and she was soon engulfed in a deep, sleep-laden haze. As she drifted off, a sense of calm washed over her, the weight of her worries temporarily lifted by the simple pleasures of food and drink.


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