CHAPTER TWO: The Name in the Mirror
"Orúkọ rere sàn ju wúrà àti fàdákà lọ."
A good name is better than gold and silver.
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The message never left her phone. Zainab checked her inbox the next morning and it had vanished. No trace. No number. Just the spiral symbol now etched into the fog of her memory.
Campus was unchanged. The scent of akara from the vendors, the rhythm of life moving forward as though Zola had never existed. Only Zainab carried the pause.
At night, she couldn't sleep. Not from fear—but anticipation. Like the page wasn't done speaking.
On the third night, it whispered again.
Not from the book.
From the mirror.
She heard her name, but not "Zainab."
Something older.
"Azhure."
The name echoed in a tongue her mouth couldn't shape, but her heart understood. Her blood recognized it. She said it aloud and the air held its breath.
Then she saw the spiral again—this time drawn into condensation on her bathroom mirror. She hadn't touched it.
She traced it with her finger. Behind her, the room didn't reflect. It watched.
And in the mirror, behind her shoulder, stood a silhouette—indistinct, silent, yet familiar.
She turned. Nothing.
But the air was colder.
She ran to Zola's book, opened it.
New pages had appeared.
Ink formed as if stirred by presence.
> "Azhure. Chosen not by time, but by memory. You are not finding your name. Your name is finding you."
She flipped the pages in disbelief.
> "There is a place your feet once knew. You must return where your shadow was first named."
Then the spiral again.
She closed the book. Sat on her bed. Breath shallow.
That night, she dreamed.
Of a woman with her eyes.
Dressed in white, standing in red earth.
The woman called her by name.
Not Zainab.
Not Azhure.
Something else. Something beneath both.
She awoke with sand in her palms.
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Chapter Two Ends
What name lives beneath the one you answer to?