Ada And The Broken Oat
495 Words
Three rainy seasons had passed since Ada became the Flamekeeper.
One quiet evening, as Ada tended to herbs outside her small hut near the edge of Ọhịa Ndu, a stranger approached—cloaked, limping, his face hidden under a wide-brimmed hat soaked in rain.
He carried a message scroll sealed in black wax with the mark of a falcon pierced by a spear—a northern war symbol long thought extinct.
The scroll read:
> “To the Flamekeeper of the South,
Shadows have risen in the North. A blood-oath broken is waking the Dark.
We request your fire. Before the world forgets the sun.”
Signed: Prince Danjuma of Kagara
Ada burned the scroll after reading it—but the words stayed in her mind like a splinter.
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Ada didn’t trust the North.
Her mother had once warned: “The North deals in silver tongues and silent knives.” But truth was truth—if their blood-oaths had been broken, it meant ancient agreements between kingdoms had been violated. Such things didn’t end with politics. They ended with death, curses, or worse—eternal shadow.
Before dawn, Ada packed her staff, her mother’s wrapper, and a gourd of spirit flame. She asked Mama Ebere for a final reading.
The old woman touched the ash in Ada’s palm.
> “A prince will love you.
A friend will betray you.
And your fire… will flicker.”
Ada said nothing. But her silence was heavy.
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Kagara was not what Ada expected. The North was colder, built on cliffs and stone walls. But beneath the palace of Prince Danjuma was a secret deeper than any shrine—a prison.
And inside it? A woman.
Tall. Dreadlocked. Eyes silver with madness.
She called herself Ifunanya, once a Flamekeeper like Ada—but stripped of her fire.
“She broke the oath,” Danjuma explained. “She tried to bend the flame to her own will, to rule, not protect. So we sealed her beneath the mountain. But now, something has awakened her power again. Something that echoes… from your forest.”
Ada stared at the prince.
“Are you saying I caused this?”
“I’m saying… you were never the only one.”
-
Ada couldn’t sleep.
She stood on the palace balcony, wind brushing her face. Then she saw it—a fire glowing in the distance, deep red, unnatural. It danced like something alive, angry, calling her name.
The next day, Ifunanya escaped.
She left behind only one message, burned into the prison wall:
> “Flamekeepers are not born to serve kings.
The fire belongs to us all.
Ada… join me, or burn with them.”
Now, Ada must decide:
Protect the kingdoms that once hunted her kind?
Or side with a woman who may have been betrayed like her?
But the scariest truth?
Ada’s fire began to flicker.
Something was weakening her… and she didn’t know what.
---
To Be Continued…
- Writer
