By morning, Naya could no longer feel two of her toes.
The river had thrown them onto a bank nearly three kilometres downstream. They had lost food, rope, the journal and most of the ammunition from Eli's old pistol.
Naya sat beneath a tree and stared at the water.
"We should go back."
Eli looked at her as though he had misheard.
"You?"
"Don't sound so surprised."
"Yesterday you argued with a giant snake."
"Yesterday I still had dry socks."
He laughed.
It was the first full laugh she had heard from him.
For a few seconds she forgot the forest.
Then he winced and touched his bandaged shoulder.
Naya moved beside him. "Let me see."
"It's fine."
"You say that about everything that is clearly not fine."
She retied the bandage.
Eli watched her hands.
"If we go back," he said quietly, "Victor follows."
"You know his name?"
"I heard one of his men shout it."
"And if we keep going?"
"He follows."
"Excellent choices."
"There was a third option."
"What?"
"Not entering the forest."
She tightened the bandage harder than necessary.
Eli hissed.
"Sorry," she said without sounding sorry.
They continued toward the ridge.
Without the journal, Naya relied on memory and the map she had folded separately into her trouser pocket. Eli relied on something else entirely.
He knew the land.
Too well.
He knew which stream curved toward the ridge, where old traps had been placed, where a narrow trail disappeared beneath elephant grass. At one point he turned away from the map altogether and led her through a grove of iroko trees to an abandoned settlement hidden in a hollow.
Naya stopped at the first house.
"You've been here before."
Eli did not answer.
Inside the largest building, dust covered framed photographs hanging crookedly on a wall.
Naya lifted one.
Her breath stopped.
Her grandfather stood in the picture.
Beside him was the tall man from the photograph in the box.
"Eli."
He came closer.
His face went still.
"That's my father."
Naya looked at him sharply.
"Your father?"
Eli sat on a broken chair.
For the first time since she had met him, he looked unprepared.
"His name was Gabriel Eze."
"Why was he with my grandfather?"
Eli rubbed both hands over his face.
"Because they were looking for the same thing."
"The chamber?"
"The truth about Daramola."
Naya waited.
Eli finally told her.
His father had worked as a logistics officer in the final years of Daramola's government. Naya's grandfather had been attached to an audit unit. Together with two others, they discovered discrepancies that led to hidden transfers, false inventories and missing people.
"When Daramola's men realized someone was investigating," Eli said, "everyone scattered. Your grandfather left the region. My father stayed."
"Why?"
"He said somebody had to make sure the chamber remained hidden until it could be opened safely."
Naya's expression hardened. "So your family became guardians."
Eli nodded.
She remembered the journal.
DO NOT TRUST THE GUARDIANS.
She stepped back.
"You knew this whole time."
"I knew our fathers worked together. I didn't know what your grandfather had left you."
"You knew about the chamber."
"I knew it existed."
"And the snake?"
"I knew stories. I learned its routes. I learned what smoke drives it back. I never knew whether the ritual story was true until yesterday."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"No. I expect you to decide whether I've had enough chances to kill you already."
That silenced her.
He was right, and she hated that he was right.
They searched the settlement.
Beneath a floorboard they found records wrapped in oilcloth. Not the main evidence, but lists of names and dates. Several names belonged to families Naya recognized from modern newspapers: industrialists, senators, bank founders, former military officers.
Then she saw one that made her blood cold.
BAKO.
Victor's surname.
She showed Eli.
"He's not just working for someone," she said.
Eli nodded. "He's protecting himself."
They found another name.
DARAMOLA.
Next to it, a handwritten note:
LINE CONTINUES. WATCH THE HEIRS.
Naya thought of Emmanuel Daramola, the sitting president.
"My grandfather knew."
"Knew what?"
"That this wasn't history. It's still alive."
• • •
That night they camped inside a stone chapel whose roof had partially collapsed.
Naya sat beside a small fire while Eli repaired his knife sheath.
"Do you ever leave this place?" she asked.
"Sometimes."
"That sounds healthy."
"I go to town."
"To buy food?"
"And experience electricity."
She smiled.
Eli looked at her for a long moment.
"You should smile more."
"You should tell the truth more."
The smile faded.
"I am telling you everything I know."
"That's not the same as telling me everything."
"What does that mean?"
"It means there are things you feel but don't say."
He looked away.
Naya immediately wished she could pull the words back.
The forest hissed softly around them with night insects.
Eli set down the sheath.
"When I saw you at the cliff," he said, "I thought your grandfather had sent another person to die."
"He was dead already."
"I know."
"Then what did you think after?"
Eli met her eyes. "That you were stubborn enough to make dying difficult."
She laughed quietly.
He moved closer.
No grand declaration. No music. Just the faint crack of the fire and two exhausted people who had almost died together too many times.
Naya touched the scar above his eyebrow.
"How did you get this?"
"Forest."
"Of course."
"I fell out of a tree when I was twelve."
"That is disappointingly normal."
"Sorry."
Their faces were inches apart.
Naya kissed him first.
It was brief, uncertain, then deeper when neither pulled away.
For a handful of heartbeats the entire world became the warmth of his mouth, his hand at her cheek, the impossible relief of feeling something other than fear.
Then Naya leaned back.
"You still haven't told me everything."
Eli closed his eyes and laughed once. "There she is."
A stone scraped outside.
Eli's eyes opened.
The fire suddenly seemed too bright.
They extinguished it.
Something moved beyond the chapel wall.
Not footsteps.
A slow dragging sound.
The serpent did not attack immediately this time.
It circled.
Naya heard its body passing over stone, around the rear wall, then the side. A section of broken masonry shifted under its weight.
"It knows we're here," she whispered.
"Yes."
"Why isn't it coming in?"
Eli looked toward the metal disc at her neck.
"Maybe it's waiting for us to move."
The serpent's head appeared through the roof opening.
Naya stopped breathing.
One yellow eye looked directly down at them.
Then the wall exploded inward.
They ran.
The snake struck through the chapel, crushing pews and stone.
Eli threw a resin flare to the left.
The serpent recoiled, but only briefly.
"It's learning," Eli shouted.
They crossed the abandoned village as the snake smashed through buildings behind them.
Naya ducked beneath a collapsed beam.
The serpent did not follow.
It went around and appeared in front of them.
"It is learning!" Naya screamed.
They turned again.
A goat, wild and thin, bolted from a ruined pen.
The snake ignored it.
Naya stopped.
"Eli!"
"What?"
She ripped the metal disc from her neck and threw it hard into the darkness.
The serpent froze.
Its head turned.
Then, without hesitation, it followed the disc.
Naya stared.
"It's the symbol."
Eli grabbed her hand. "Move."
They disappeared between the houses.
Neither saw the man hidden behind the old well.
Victor waited until the serpent had passed.
Then he walked toward the place where Naya had thrown the disc.
He found it half buried in mud.
A circle.
A line.
Three cuts.
Victor smiled.
• • •
At dawn, Naya and Eli reached the ridge.
Black stone rose from the forest like the spine of something buried.
They climbed through a narrow ravine until the path ended at a wall.
No cave.
No opening.
Only a carved symbol in the rock.
The same symbol as the metal disc.
Naya touched the empty space at her neck.
"The key."
Eli stared at the sealed door.
"Victor has it."
From somewhere below them came a distant gunshot.
Then another.
Victor was coming.