I REMEMBER THE morning after the Raid as if it were yesterday.
You would think the sun wouldn’t have risen, or the moon would’ve gone dark, but everything started exactly the same.
I awoke with a start, six years old and searching for the pleated lines of Binta’s bonnet. My dreams had gifted me an adventure on the seas. I had to tell her everything.
“Binta, where are you?” My voice echoed against the gold decor and pastel pinks of my quarters. But when the door swung open, a tall handmaiden entered, a kosidán with thin lips and a sharp chin.
I sat with balled fists as she scrubbed my skin too hard. Pulled my hair too tight. Whenever I dared to ask where Binta had gone, the handmaiden pinched my arm. I broke free of her grip the first chance I got.
“Father!” I slid across the marble floors as I ran. I thought the handmaiden shrieked after me with rage. Perhaps it was actually terror.
I burst through the oak doors of the throne room, ready to make my case. But Father was still.
So unnaturally still.
“Father?” I stepped back into the hall. He always watched the sun rise over Lagos, but that day the very air held its breath around him.
In that stillness I knew something had changed. We would never return to a kinder time again.
All these years, I’ve wondered how he must have felt.
Today I feel it myself.
“No!”
Tzain thrashes like a wild animal, desperate to break my mental hold. I can’t stomach the way he writhes. The tears and snot that drip past his nose.
“How could you!” His screams are like shattered glass echoing in our silence. “How could you?”
The toxic Cancer clouds begin to dissipate. Not even a single breeze moves between Ibadan’s mountains.
I try to ignore the hollow pit in my chest. I won the war.
But at what cost?
Strike, Amari.
The world spins around me though my feet stay rooted in place. There’s no going back from this. This is a strike Tzain and the elders won’t forgive.
But I cannot allow that weight to break me now. We have our victory.
It’s up to me to declare it.
“Let’s go.” I march to my cheetanaire, mounting its leather saddle. This is the moment that will spread throughout the lands. The story that shall birth Orïsha’s future.
A new kingdom will rise from these ashes. A kingdom worthy of these sacrifices. But no elders follow my lead. They all stand still in shock. Shock I don’t have the luxury to feel.
They’ll understand in time.
Right now I must go declare the end of this endless fight.
I snap the reins of my cheetanaire, racing away before they can see me crack. I can’t stomach the sound of Tzain’s tears. The agony of his whimpers.
My hands shake beyond my control. I can’t believe all the lives I took.
Inan. Mother.
Those soldiers. Those villagers.
Zélie—
No.
I push away the weight I could never bear. If Zélie were alive, she would’ve returned with Nâo. The monarchy killed her with their explosions.
Zélie’s sacrifice allowed us to win the war.
That is the story we shall tell.
But as I approach Ibadan’s borders, stories aren’t enough. Even from afar, I see the blackened corpses that lie in the streets. Corpses that lie there because of me.
I picture Inan and Mother among the dead.
I picture my best friend.
Strike, Amari.
Father’s voice fills my mind as the tears fill my eyes. Though I breathe, my chest stays tight. It feels like I’m being buried alive.
“Orïsha waits for no one,” I whisper the words. “Orïsha waits for no one.”
I will the words to be true as I ride through Ibadan’s gate.