A powerful Nuru sorcerer attacks and rapes Okeke woman Najeeba during a spiritual retreat, intending to create an Ewu child.

After years as desert nomads, Najeeba brings young Onye to settle in the eastern Okeke town of Jwahir.

Onye accidentally picks up a feather and transforms into an animal for the very first time.

Eleven-year-old Onye sneaks out to undergo the Eleventh Rite of female circumcision with three other girls.

Onye wakes to find bruises on her neck after her biological father tries to strangle her through a dream.

Onye drops into the spirit world and violently attacks Aro in his hut after he again refuses to train her.

Onye's adoptive father Fadil dies, and Onye accidentally begins reviving him at his funeral before Aro intervenes.

After witnessing Onye revive Fadil at the funeral, Aro finally agrees to train her in the Mystic Points.

Onye passes initiation by fully experiencing death through the body of a woman being stoned.

Onye forces the people in Jwahir's market into the wilderness to witness her mother's rape firsthand.

Onye, Mwita, Luyu, Binta, Diti, and Fanasi leave Jwahir together to travel west and confront Daib.

A hostile crowd in Papa Shee hurls a brick that instantly kills Binta as she steps in front of Onye.

Onye joins the Vah women in a spiritual retreat and is completely destroyed and remade by the Creator.

Mwita uses Nsibidi writing from Ting to incapacitate Daib, but Daib tears Mwita apart before collapsing.

Onye rewrites the Great Book, is captured and stoned, then transforms into a Kponyungo and escapes east.

The main plot of Who Fears Death begins with Najeeba's rape by the Nuru sorcerer Daib, which produces Onye, an Ewu child living as an outcast in the eastern town of Jwahir. After discovering her shapeshifting abilities, Onye fights relentlessly to be trained by the sorcerer Aro, finally winning his acceptance after accidentally reviving her dying adoptive father at his funeral. Onye undergoes initiation, masters the Mystic Points, and eventually forces the complacent people of Jwahir to confront the violence in the West before departing with her companions. The journey tests the group at every turn, culminating in Binta's death at Papa Shee, Onye's spiritual rebirth among the nomadic Vah people, and the climactic confrontation with Daib in Durfa. Mwita sacrifices himself to incapacitate Daib, clearing the path for Onye to find and rewrite the Great Book. Though captured and executed as prophesied, Onye escapes death by transforming into a mythical fire-breathing Kponyungo and flying east.

The defining events of Onyesonwu's life and destiny.

Najeeba raises Onye alone in the desert for six years before deciding Onye needs companions to grow up around.

Young Onye wanders into the town blacksmith's shop and he treats her kindly, ignoring her Ewu status entirely.

The blacksmith Fadil asks Onye to introduce him to her mother, and Najeeba marries him within a month.

At the Eleventh Rite ceremony, Binta discloses her father has been sexually abusing her and the village elders confront him.

Mwita reveals his parents were killed by villagers, he was trained by a cruel sorcerer, and he escaped rebel soldiers by faking death.

A photographer brings graphic images of Okeke massacres to Jwahir, causing panic and forcing the village elders to hold a town meeting.

A traveling oral storyteller visits Jwahir and shares a prophecy about a sorcerer who will come to rewrite the Great Book.

The Ada tells Onye the story of the twins she abandoned in Banza and explains why she helped put juju on the Rite scalpel.

Onye and Mwita travel by alu to the West and encounter Daib delivering a speech to a large crowd.

The group arrives off-course in Banza and discovers Diti and Binta drunk in a tavern entertaining local men.

In Banza, Onye tries to heal the Ada's sick twin Nuumu but instead takes her life when Nuumu refuses the healing.

Wild camels attach themselves to the group and travel alongside them as loyal companions through the desert.

Diti discovers Luyu's affair with Fanasi; the two divorce, and both Fanasi and Diti slip away while Onye lies near death.

Okeke rebel leader Anai reveals that Daib's headquarters in Durfa is completely unprotected and tells them how to reach it.

Onye releases a massive shockwave that kills every adult man in Durfa while simultaneously making every woman in the town pregnant.

The secondary events of Who Fears Death trace the personal bonds and obstacles that define Onye's path from childhood to destiny. Najeeba's years of solitary desert survival and the warmth of Fadil's family give Onye the roots she needs, while the revelations of the Eleventh Rite forge her friendships with Binta, Diti, and Luyu. Mwita's dark backstory—trained by the very man Onye must eventually defeat—deepens the emotional stakes, and visits from a photographer and an oral storyteller begin to crack Jwahir's complacency about the violence in the West. On the road west, the group is constantly tested: they go off course into Banza, Onye kills a woman she tried to heal, wild camels become loyal companions, and Diti and Fanasi abandon the group during Onye's moment of greatest crisis. As they close in on Durfa, Okeke rebels provide the final intelligence needed to reach Daib, and Onye takes devastating action that ends his war campaign before she turns to find the Great Book.

The relationships and journey challenges that shape Onye's story.

Najeeba tells Onye the full story of her rape, revealing that Onye is Ewu rather than a Noah.

Mwita reveals he was the mysterious boy at the iroko tree and explains that Onye is an Eshu shapeshifter.

Onye learns that Aro bewitched the Rite scalpel to cause unbearable pain whenever a woman becomes aroused before marriage.

Aro visits Onye after Fadil's funeral and reveals her biological father is a sorcerer who tracked her through the Rite.

After passing initiation, Onye discovers she can regrow her clitoris as an Eshu, permanently breaking the Rite's hold over her.

Aro slaughters a goat and orders Onye to revive it, teaching her the first practical exercise in the Mystic Points.

During a lesson on alu, Onye travels within to the West and witnesses graphic scenes of Okeke being slaughtered and raped.

Mwita tells Onye he was conscripted as a child soldier by Okeke rebels, insisting that evil and violence exist on both sides.

Onye realizes that the woman whose death she inhabited during initiation, who was stoned, was her own future self.

A massive masquerade visits Onye among the Vah and covers her in needles, causing electric sparks to repel anyone who touches her.

After Onye impulsively attacks Daib following her rebirth, he overpowers her and marks her wrist with a slow-acting Nsibidi death symbol.

Ting uses her mastery of Nsibidi script to counter and destroy Daib's death symbol, saving Onye from the spreading poison.

Mwita reveals to Onye that her mother Najeeba has magical abilities and has been traveling ahead to prepare Okeke villages for their arrival.

Sola arrives at Ssolu, reveals Daib was once his own student, and tells Onye her true mission is to rewrite the Great Book.

Luyu is killed by soldiers while defending Onye just as Onye finishes singing the Great Book's rewriting into completion.

The turning points of Who Fears Death are the moments of hard discovery and consequence that slowly transform Onye from a confused outcast into the sorcerer who changes the world. Learning the truth of her Ewu birth, her nature as an Eshu, and the way the Rite was used to control her all gradually strip away the false story she had been told about herself. Her initiation and early training with Aro begin to arm her, but the realization that she witnessed her own execution during initiation—and Mwita's confession that violence exists on both sides of the conflict—forces her to grow beyond simple vengeance. Among the Vah, she is remade at a fundamental level by the Creator, but her recklessness nearly costs her life when Daib poisons her, requiring Ting's mastery of Nsibidi to save her. Mwita's revelation about Najeeba's secret abilities and Sola's mission briefing finally clarify what Onye must actually do, shifting her goal from killing Daib to rewriting the Great Book itself. These turning points culminate in Luyu's sacrifice, which gives Onye the precious final moments she needs to complete her true purpose.