Before he realized it, before he could na the mont where resentnt turned into desire, he found himself leaning closer to the whisper, wondering not if it was possible...but how far he was willing to go to claim it.
With everything that had happened, Nwadiebube would have been a fool not to recognize Murmur’s intentions.
He saw the shape of the plan clearly now, the way it had been laid out piece by piece. The classic tale of demon kings vs the hero. Osita had been thrust into the role of the demon kinga, n overwhelming force feared by all, isolated by his own power, painted in shades of inevitable destruction. The world already whispered his na with dread.
That part of the story was complete.
All that remained was for soone to rise as the counterbalance. The figure who would stand before the masses not as terror, but as hope. The one who would challenge the monster not with fear, but with resolve.
The hero.
And Murmur had made it abundantly clear who that hero was ant to be.
So the months that followed were not wasted.
While the world hesitated, while Osita’s kingdom remained distant and unreadable, Nwadiebube acted. His capital, once scarred by the incident began to resemble its forr self far sooner than anyone expected. Reconstruction was swift, deliberate, and visible. He poured resources into rebuilding without restraint.
He moved before Osita ever did.
His people were everywhere. Borders blurred as his envoys crossed into neighboring lands, offering food, shelter, healing, and warmth. Aid ca without demands, without banners raised, only quiet presence and steady hands. To the grieving, there was comfort. To the displaced, there was refuge. To the angry, there was soone willing to listen.
At the sa ti, shamanism, the oldest power system long studied by his people rose sharply in prominence. Once regarded as esoteric, it was now seen as necessary. As relevant. None drew more attention than the practitioners of Death Shamanism.
Those who had walked the underworld and returned.
They spoke of journeys beyond the veil, of bargains made with forces that governed the departed, of truths glimpsed that most mortals were never ant to know. They carried fragnts of the dead’s secrets mories unanchored by flesh, echoes of what waited beyond life.
To a world drowning in mourning, that knowledge was intoxicating. Nwadiebube did not discourage it.
Hope, after all, ca in many forms.
Within shamanism, offerings had always been a common and deeply personal practice.
People gave what felt right, ho-cooked als placed beside the hearth, the fruits of a successful hunt, carefully chosen harvests, or simple objects filled with mory and aning. There was no rigid rule governing what could be offered. What mattered was sincerity. What mattered was intent.
For generations, most believed these offerings were symbolic, a way for the living to rember the dead.
Death shamanism changed that understanding entirely.
Through their journeys into the underworld, death shamans caught fleeting glimpses of what truly happened beyond the veil. They began to piece together the function of offerings, not as gestures, but as chanisms. Sothing real. Sothing asurable.
According to the death shamans, a heartfelt offering did not vanish into nothingness. It reached its intended recipient.
When made in earnestw, hen mory, love, and longing were poured into the act, the offering fed the soul of the departed in the underworld with presence, with identity.
The underworld, as the shamans described it, was not a place of imdiate clarity. When souls were first relocated there, they existed in a state of disorientation. They did not recognize their death, nor did they rember who they had been in life. Nas, faces, and bonds dissolved into a fog, leaving only fragnts of emotion behind.
Ti alone restored awareness.
The longer a soul remained, the more mories slowly resurfaced, until identity reford piece by fragile piece. But this process could take years or far longer depending on the soul.
What the death shamans discovered was that offerings could shorten that suffering.
Each sincere offering acted as an anchor, pulling mory back into focus. It reminded the soul of who they were, of who loved them, of the life they had lived. The more genuine the offering, the stronger the effect. In so cases, repeated offerings allowed souls to regain awareness in a fraction of the ti it would have taken naturally.
To the grieving, this knowledge was a balm.
Their actions mattered. Their love reached beyond death. Mourning was no longer helpless, it beca a form of care, a way to tend to those who had passed on.
And so death shamanism spread, in a world scarred by loss, the idea that the dead could be fed, rembered, and guided back to themselves was hope given structure.
A family could cook a al and set aside an extra plate for their loved one.
They would gather at the table as they always had, speak their nas aloud, and invite them to join, believing, with quiet certainty, that even from another dinsion, they were not eating alone. The idea alone was enough to steady shaking hands and soften grief that had felt unbearable only weeks before.
Praise for Nwadiebube and his kingdom began to ripple across the land. In these dark tis, he beca a shining light in the eyes of many because his people offered solace.
Mothers who had lost their children found the deepest comfort of all.
To know they could still feed their child, to nurture them, even after death was a rcy few had ever imagined possible. This truth, once closely guarded, had been shared during the last Judge eting by one of the godlings themselves, to a grieving woman.
Yet the teachings were never given without warning.
The death shamans spoke openly of the danger woven into the practice. While offerings nourished loved ones in the underworld, they also acted as beacons. Stronger souls, older, hungrier, and far more aware could sense these acts. So of them understood the value of offerings all too well.
Such souls could masquerade as the departed.
They could wear familiar mories like borrowed skin, deceive the living, and devour the weaker soul ant to receive the offering, claiming it and the nourishnt for themselves.
Because of this, the death shamans urged restraint.
Families were advised to create their own traditions, fixed tis and personal rituals that anchored intent and identity. The practice should never beco casual. Never routine. Daily offerings were strongly discouraged. Even once a month was considered risky, and only to be done with care, preparation, and clear rembrance.
Love, when broadcast too often, could beco an invitation.
Nwadiebube’s aid reached even the smallest kingdoms, places easily forgotten in tis of crisis, including those allied with Osita’s realm. Food caravans arrived without banners. Healers crossed borders without conditions. Reconstruction teams worked side by side with locals as if they had always belonged there.
Not once did Nwadiebube speak ill of Osita.
He never accused. Never pointed fingers. Never allowed his na to be used as a contrast. To all appearances, his actions ca from nothing but sincerity. From the quiet compassion of a ruler doing what needed to be done when the world was hurting.
That, more than anything, made people trust him.
anwhile, within Osita’s kingdom, the atmosphere could not have been more different.
Where the rest of Nana trembled at Osita’s power, his people had long since grown accustod to it. To them, it was not sothing to fear, it was a certainty. A wall that had always stood between them and annihilation.
His actions during the incident only deepened that belief.
To the citizens, Osita remained their guardian. Their unshakable shield. What weighed on them now was not fear of him, but fear of what had been lost.
The queen.
Her absence cut deeper than any devastation. Months passed, and still no word ca. The royal family withdrew from public view, their silence louder than any proclamation. Streets once filled with the echo of running feet and careless laughter fell quiet.
The street she used to walk, where rchants once smiled at the sight of their queen stopping to chat, to buy fruit with her own hands stood unchanged, as if waiting for soone who would never co.
Grief settled into routine. Then, one morning, the bells rang for an announcent.
The kingdom was inford of an upcoming coronation.
No details were given. No explanations offered. Only the certainty that sothing irreversible was about to take place.
And for the first ti since the queen’s disappearance, the people of Osita’s realm felt a fear that power could not shield them from the fear of change.
The announcent ca quietly, King Osita was abdicating the throne.
Leadership of the kingdom would pass to his son, Nwadike.
No reason was given.
The words spread through the kingdom. Many imdiately sensed that sothing was deeply wrong. The timing alone made it impossible to ignore. The queen had not been declared dead, yet neither had she returned. The people found themselves trapped between grief and hope, wanting to mourn her, yet clinging desperately to the belief that she still lived, sowhere, gravely wounded but breathing.
User Comments
0 comments from readers