The Vision Chamber was like stepping into the heart of the mountain.

The air changed immediately, warmer but thicker, saturated with the scent of burning sage, melted wax, mineral water, and faint iron. Smoke curled lazily from tall brass censers along the walls, drifting up toward a vaulted ceiling that disappeared into shadow.

Four distinct sections circled the central space like altars to the elements.

To the left, water flowed in veils and sheets along the stone, descending from hidden sources above. It collected in pools that reflected blue light onto the ceiling, their surfaces disturbed only by the occasional ripple that seemed to move in time with Kana’s pulse.

Opposite that, thick roots of ancient trees plunged through cracked stone, twining around carved pillars and disappearing into the floor. Moss glowed softly green along their surfaces, and small white flowers bloomed where root met rock.

In the third quadrant, blue and white flames burned in ornate silver braziers, their light intense but giving off no smoke. The heat radiated, pleasant at first, then sharper the longer one stood near. The flames seemed to bend subtly toward Kana as she entered, like flowers tracking the sun.

The last quarter opened onto narrow archways cut directly into the mountain. Through them, the sky was visible, a high slice of blue darkening toward indigo. Wind chimes of bone and crystal hung from the archways, their song a constant, gentle ringing, like distant bells underwater.

The stone floor between these four sections was carved with intricate mandala patterns, circles within circles, veve-like sigils interconnected. The symbols pulsed faintly with light, creating the impression that the floor itself was breathing.

At the very center of it all rose the main altar: a wide circular platform of pale stone, carved with elemental symbols and the old sign for Àse. Surrounding this circle, set at intervals, stood totem-like altars for her grandmothers.

Each totem was unique. Some were carved with faces, eyes closed, expressions serene, lines etched deep into cheeks and brows. Others bore only symbols: a wolf’s head, a pattern of falling snow, a cluster of leaves, a spiral of wind. Brass nameplates glinted at their bases, inscribed with generational titles and years. Candles burned around them, hundreds of flames flickering in small, steady movements, turning the air above the totems into shimmering columns.

High above the central altar, an opening had been carved into the ceiling. Through it, the full moon peered down, perfectly framed, a bright white eye against deepening blue. As the day slid toward evening, its light would shift, narrowing and focusing.

Kana felt its attention already.

The Mbaya’Wolé filed in behind them, moving to the sides of the chamber. They knelt along the walls in synchronized motion, spears resting at their shoulders, wolves settling at their knees. The chime of metal against stone, the soft huff of wolf breath, the faint rustle of fur, these small sounds layered over one another and then faded.

Queen Kanaé moved to stand near one of the ancestral totems, her staff planted firmly, her gaze fixed on the central altar.

“Kneel, children,” Elder Aruya called softly.

Warriors bowed their heads. The chamber’s sound dulled, absorbed by stone and smoke and centuries.

Kana stood at the threshold of the mandala-covered floor, the staff in her hand glowing now with a steady, gentle light. Her skin tingled. The air felt thick, every breath like drawing water instead of air into her lungs.

This is it, she thought.

Elder Aruya approached the central altar and faced Kana, her expression unreadable in the shifting light.

“When you were born,” she said, voice carrying effortlessly, “this chamber stirred. The Bells in the temple rang. The wolves howled in their sleep.” A faint smile ghosted across her lips. “The mountain knew your name before you spoke it.”

Kana’s throat tightened.

“You come today not as a child of curiosity,” Aruya continued, “but as heir to Eshari. As a vessel of Àse. A connection to the spirits of the earth.”

Kana’s grip on the staff tightened. Somewhere in the corner of her vision, one of the totems shivered, not physically, but in the way its candle flames bent, snapping sideways for the briefest moment.

“You will see what they choose to show you,” Aruya said. “You will hear what they choose to say. And you will carry it.” Her gaze softened. “But you will not be alone.”

She turned and lifted her hands.

The chanting began.

At first, it was only her voice, low and even, threading Esharian words through the incense-thick air.

“Retounen kote ou soti,” she murmured again, but slower, each syllable stretched. “Wè sa ki mennen w isit la. Wè san an. Wè van an. Wè glas la.”

Return to where you came from. See what brought you here. See the blood. See the wind. See the ice.

The Mbaya’Wolé answered in a low, unified murmur that vibrated in Kana’s bones. Their words wove around Aruya’s, echoes and responses overlapping until language blurred into rhythm.

“Zansèt yo ap pale,” Aruya intoned. “Nou koute. Nou soumèt. Nou louvri pòt la.”

The ancestors speak. We listen. We submit.

Elder Aruya lifted the stone bowl with water drawn from the Vestige spring.

Aruya extended a slim ceremonial blade carved from white crystal.

“San pa soti nan bèt,” she murmured. “Men nan rasin.”
Blood not from the beast. But from the root.

Queen Kanaé stepped forward first.

Without hesitation, she pressed her thumb to the blade. A single drop of her blood slid down the edge, fell into the bowl, and spread in a bloom of deep, luminous crimson across the water’s surface.

The ripples glowed.

Aruya turned to Kana.

She pressed her thumb to the blade. The sting was brief, sharp.

Her drop fell.

The water reacted instantly.

The two drops, mother and daughter, met, spiraled, and merged. The bowl pulsed with red light that brightened, deepened, and then shifted into a molten shade of garnet, thickening.

Aruya lifted the bowl reverently, her voice taking on the weight of the ritual:

“San manman.
San pitit.
Nan dlo zansèt yo, pòt la louvri.”
Mother’s blood.
Daughter’s blood.
In the water of the ancestors, the door opens.

The bowl began to steam.

The symbols carved into the basin’s sides lit up, each line flickering with faint blue light. The floor beneath Kana’s feet thrummed in response. Some of the candles nearest the altar flickered.

Something in the room shifted.

The temperature, already cool, seemed to drop all at once. Gooseflesh raced up Kana’s arms beneath the sleeves of her robe. The breath in her lungs felt suddenly too warm, too loud. The glowing spiritual symbols along the walls brightened, pulsing faster now, their rhythm no longer steady and slow but urgent, insistent.

The opening in the ceiling framed the moon more starkly as the sky darkened. Its light grew stronger, cutting a direct path down into the chamber, dust motes and spiritual particles dancing madly in its beam.

Aruya lifted the basin with both hands and turned toward Kana.

“Come,” she said.

Kana’s legs moved.

She didn’t remember choosing to step forward, but her feet found the path of the mandala lines with unerring accuracy. She reached the central circle and stopped, standing just outside it, staring down at the stone carved with the old symbol for Àse.

“Lay the staff down,” Aruya instructed.

Kana did. She set it gently beside the circle, the wood making a soft, final sound against the stone.

The elder gestured to the center.

“Kneel, Kana Nambiri,” she said, voice echoing in the chamber. “Daughter of Queen Kanaé. Descendant of Narobei. Heir to Eshari.”

Kana stepped into the circle and knelt.

The stone was warm beneath her knees, then cool, then impossible to name, as if it held seasons layered atop one another. Her hands rested on her thighs, fingers curling into silk. She kept her spine straight, despite the way her heart hammered so hard she could hear it in her ears.

The basin of blood was set on the stone in front of her. Its surface shimmered faintly, catching the moonlight as it began to shift.

From somewhere far to her left, she sensed her mother watching. From her right, the silent, kneeling presence of warriors and wolves. Above, the steady, unblinking eye of the moon.

“Look up,” Elder Aruya murmured.

Kana raised her head.

The beam of moonlight found her.

It slid across her painted brow like a touch, cool and heavy. It traced the lines down her nose, scattered along her cheeks, caught in the white paint along her chin. The light intensified, turning the edges of her vision sharp, then soft. Her skin prickled everywhere it touched, as if thousands of tiny needles pressed in from the outside.

The chanting rose again.

“Kite pòt la louvri,” Aruya called. “Kite pale a vini. Kite rasin yo reveye.”

Let the door open. Let the word come. Let the roots awaken.

The Mbaya’Wolé responded; their voices echoed like a soft choir’s song. Had the wolves always been this quiet?

The edges of the chamber wavered.

Sound pulled away first.

The chanting retreated, as though she was pulled away. Kana could see mouths moving, saw the subtle shifts in shoulders as the warriors responded, but no sound reached her.

Her own heartbeat became the only noise she could hear, too loud, beating out of rhythm.

Her vision narrowed next.

The totems of her grandmothers, once solid and still, blurred at the edges. Some seemed to lean forward. Candles around them elongated, their flames stretching and swaying in ways that didn’t match any draft of air.

The room darkened, though the moonlight never dimmed. It was as if that beam intensified while everything else receded, washing color from the world until only white and blue remained. The fire in the braziers turned nearly invisible, their heat a ghost against her skin.

Kana tried to breathe deeply. Her lungs seized. Her fingers twitched against her thighs, then refused to move.

Something is wrong, a part of her thought, clear and distant. This is too much, too fast.

Her mouth parted, but no sound came out.

Her vision tunneled.

The edges of the world drained away, leaving only the basin of blood and the column of moonlight. The water’s surface rippled, though nothing touched it. Then, impossibly, it began to rise, not in a splash, but in a smooth, upward curve, as if the stone beneath it had become a mirror rejecting its reflection.

Kana’s last coherent thought was a name, surfacing from somewhere deep and old:

Narobei.

The chamber dimmed until even the blue fire went black.

Kana couldn’t feel her hands anymore.

She couldn’t hear the chanting, or the wind, or the waterfall outside. The air pressed down on her from all sides, thick as water, crushing her chest, squeezing the breath from her lungs.

The last thing she saw was the blood in the basin, suspended in front of her like a liquid veil, reaching toward her face in thin, trembling strands, like fingers made of smoke and red light.

Then the world dropped away.

She fell.

Not forward onto stone, not backward into her mother’s arms, not sideways into the circle of warriors and wolves.

She fell down.