There are sounds that can’t be heard.

  Not because they’re too quiet.

  Not because you lack the ears.

  But because they were never meant for mortals.

  This was one of them.

  Boom.

  Boom.

  The rhythm pulsed through Zuberi’s body like it had always been there, waiting—coiled in his bones, braided into the roots of his spine.

  The ancient drum beneath his palm wasn’t made of wood. No. It was flesh. Old, divine, and very much still alive.

  Its skin twitched with every strike.

  Veins moved.

  The damn thing breathed.

  Wambui took a step back, eyes wide. “It’s reacting. It's recognizing him.”

  Wanjira muttered under her breath, reaching for her staff. “Shit. This is too fast—G?kamb?ri, what the hell did you give him?”

  The old woman just laughed—a soft, toothless sound like cracked porcelain rattling in a pouch.

  “He touched the Drum of Ngalawa. The price must be paid.”

  “The price?” Zuberi’s voice was wrong. Echoing. Layered with others.

  A woman sobbing.

  A man praying.

  A child laughing.

  And something else.

  A roar. No—a chant.

  From beneath the drum, something moved. The gourd shook.

  Then the drum spoke.

  Not aloud.

  Not in words.

  But in knowing.

  He saw it.

  A thousand years ago.

  A mountain of bones.

  Warriors dancing with ash on their faces.

  The sky bleeding orange and weeping backwards.

  A god—half-man, half-constellation—was bound to a drum and played until he shattered.

  His name was M’Gar?mbo.

  His crime?

  Knowing the Fifth Pillar’s name.

  He screamed it as he died.

  And the sky forgot how to rain for forty days.

  The drum was made from his chest.

  Outside, the Mb?rim? didn’t knock anymore.

  They sang.

  Softly. In reverse.

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  Their song entered the bones of the hut and made the walls weep wax.

  One of them leaned forward, pressing its faceless head to the door.

  Its voice was every ancestor who died nameless.

  “Let us in. Let us in. We only wish to remember him.”

  G?kamb?ri spat on the ground.

  “Liars.”

  She turned to Wambui. “Protect the Vessel. He must speak the Fifth Name before they breach.”

  “I don’t know if he can!” Wambui snapped. “He’s barely conscious!”

  “Then speak it for him.”

  Wambui paled. “You know what that does to me—”

  “Speak it.”

  Wambui reached into her pocket.

  Pulled out a folded leaf with symbols drawn in milk and moonlight.

  Opened it.

  And whispered:

  “Ngai ya G?k?y? n? wega.”

  The Mb?rim? screamed.

  The hut shook.

  The Drum opened its eye.

  Yes. The drum had an eye.

  Right in the center, where his palm touched it, a slit formed—vertical, like a cat’s. It pulsed open, revealing an iris made of starlight and teeth.

  It looked into Zuberi.

  And it showed him everything.

  A girl made of stormwater laughing atop Mount Kenya.

  A ship with no sails drifting across Lake Turkana.

  A lion with feathers whispering prophecy into a baby’s ear.

  A city beneath Nairobi carved from obsidian and glass, guarded by invisible singers.

  And at the center of it all—

  A pillar.

  Wrapped in vines.

  Sinking.

  Forgotten.

  But not lost.

  Zuberi’s voice tore itself into the world.

  Not speech. Not song.

  A Command.

  Something the world hadn’t heard since before language was born.

  The symbols on his chest turned liquid and poured upward—forming a spiral above his head.

  The Mb?rim? shrieked, retreating into the hills, folding into themselves like paper burning backward.

  G?kamb?ri fell to her knees.

  Wambui just stared.

  Because standing where Zuberi had been—

  Was not Zuberi.

  Not entirely.

  His eyes glowed with five colors:

  Earth. Sky. Water. Flame. Spirit.

  His voice rumbled:

  “I REMEMBER MY NAME.”

  Far away, across the desert of unborn dreams, something heard him.

  It stirred.

  It cracked its neck.

  It smiled with all thirty-three of its mouths.

  In the language of fear, it whispered:

  “The Fifth Pillar breathes again.”

  Zuberi collapsed.

  The light faded.

  The drum went silent.

  He coughed. Once. Then again. Rolled over and vomited stardust.

  Wambui caught him. “Hey. Hey! Don’t pass out. Not now. You’ve just been remembered!”

  Zuberi’s voice was hoarse. “I need… chapati.”

  Wanjira burst out laughing.

  G?kamb?ri snorted. “The boy is Kikuyu.”

  Outside, the air was still.

  But not safe.

  Because now that he had awakened, the real enemies would come.

  Not the Mb?rim?.

  Not the shadows.

  But the Ones Who Forgot—the exiles of memory.

  The ones who had buried the Fifth to begin with.

  And they were no longer sleeping.