CHAPTER 23
The Splendor
Koffi was awake by dawn.
She’d done her best to do as Badwa said, to eat dinner, then get as much rest as she could, but it was impossible. Her dreams had been brimful with all the things she’d learned the day before—Adiah, the Shetani, the splendor, the truth about the Rupture. When she woke up and remembered everything all over again, a fresh jolt passed through her being.
She rose from her bedroll as the first rays of dawn touched the still-dark sky. It was a modest thing, lent to her by the yumboes, but certainly more comfortable than anything she’d ever slept on before. Her eyes roamed around the makeshift campsite, looking for her courteous hosts, and she was surprised to find the grounds were empty except for herself, Ekon, who was still asleep a few feet away, and the hut where Badwa assumedly was. There was no sign of the yumboes. She quirked an eyebrow, curious. Did yumboes even need sleep? Where did spectral caretakers of a magical jungle go? What did they do? She realized she didn’t really know.
In silence, she crept away from the campsite and into the looming trees. At this hour of the day, the jungle was not yet awake, and she was more than happy to keep it that way. She stopped when she found the small pond Badwa had referenced the night before, and knelt down to look into its uninterrupted surface. She paused. It was the first time in gods-knew-when that she’d actually looked at herself. She didn’t know what to feel when she saw her reflection in the faint morning light. The girl staring back at her was barely recognizable; somehow she looked older. Her dark twists had unraveled partially into delicate spirals that stuck out in all directions. She looked the same but different. It took her a moment to pinpoint why.
You’re not alone, you’re not the only one.
When she’d made that candle burst in the Hema another lifetime ago, she’d thought she was alone. When the old woman in the market had told her about magic in Lkossa, she’d felt less alone, but now . . . now there was another person like her, a girl she had something in common with, maybe even a friend.
Not a friend, she reminded herself. A prodigy.
If what Badwa had told them the day before was true, Adiah wasn’t going to be a friend; she was a master of the splendor, with more skill than Koffi could ever hope to have. She thought again of the promise she’d made to both Badwa and Ekon yesterday; she’d said that she would protect Adiah if she had to, but the longer she considered the words, the more foolish they sounded in her head. She’d barely been able to protect herself in this jungle. With a stab she thought of her deal with Baaz, the implications of what this change in plans would mean for her bargain with him. If Adiah was really the Shetani, it meant she couldn’t be taken back to the Night Zoo, and she certainly couldn’t be turned over to Father Olufemi. A faint panic crept in the longer she thought about Jabir still trapped in the Night Zoo, about Mama still lying in that infirmary bed—
“Hey, you okay?”
Koffi jumped. Ekon was standing a few feet away, between two trees, looking guilty. Heat rose in her cheeks when she realized how alarmed she must have looked. Gods, he was good at not being heard.
“Sorry.” Ekon raised his hands. “I saw you get up, and I—”
“Thought something might try to eat me?”
“More or less.” He offered a stiff nod before dropping his gaze and letting his fingers tap against his side. Ekon looked strangely nervous. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
Koffi swallowed. “Thanks for checking.”
“Right.” Finally Ekon looked up, clasping his hands behind his back. “Well, in that case, I’ll head back to camp—”
“I wanted to thank you for saving my life too.” Koffi stood. “A lot of what happened before is still blurry, but . . . I know I wouldn’t be here without you.”
Ekon offered a small smile before shaking his head. “Don’t thank me, it’s what any decent person would have done.” As though he’d just thought of something, his expression changed. “You said a lot of what happened before is still blurry. So, you probably don’t remember . . .”
“I remember the story you told me,” said Koffi quickly. For some inexplicable reason, it felt important to reassure him of that. “I wouldn’t forget that, Ekon.”
Ekon looked relieved, but only partially. “And, um, after you ate the umdhlebi tree’s fruit? Do you remember anything else from then?”
Koffi dropped her gaze. The truth was, those moments after she’d eaten the strange fruit were blurriest of all, sort of like a dream, but . . . there was one thing . . . Her cheeks burned. A piece of a memory had just returned to her. She remembered sitting beneath a tree and feeling Ekon’s eyes on her. She remembered the way he’d looked at her, the way he’d leaned in slightly at the same moment she had. The way she’d wanted to—
“Good morning, child.”
She and Ekon looked up abruptly. The sun had finally appeared over the jungle’s treetops, and with it so had the jungle’s goddess. Badwa, weaving quietly between the trees, as serene and powerful as she had been the day before. Koffi marveled at the sight of her.
“Good morning . . .” Koffi paused. “I’m not actually sure what to call you.”
“My name will do.” Badwa’s eyes twinkled. “Are you ready to begin your lessons?” She looked from Koffi to Ekon, a bit of knowing touching her features. “Or, if I have interrupted you, I can wait . . . ?”
“No need!” Ekon’s voice was at least one octave too high as he turned on his heels to make his way back to the camp. Maybe he’d seen that knowing in Badwa’s eyes too. “Please don’t let me delay you.”
He disappeared into the trees, leaving Koffi and Badwa alone. Koffi felt a distinct pluck of sadness in his absence, but when the goddess cleared her throat, she refocused. “Are you going to teach me how to use the splendor?” she asked.
The goddess gave her an unmistakably wry look. “Not just yet. There are a few practical lessons to be learned, the first of which is that the splendor is not a thing to be used, but rather an energy to be borrowed, transferred from one vessel to another, and then properly released. Think of water.” She gestured to the pond before them. “It is fluid, ever changing. A single drop of rain is inconsequential, but one million drops of rain creates . . .”
“A monsoon,” Koffi finished.
“Precisely,” said Badwa. “It is also important that you understand the relationship between the splendor and the darajas. I told you yesterday that the first darajas were handpicked by my brothers, sisters, and I, but do you know what the word daraja means?”
Koffi shook her head.
“Like the word splendor, it comes from the old tongues we gods gave to mankind. Its meaning is simple: bridge.”
“Bridge,” Koffi repeated. “As in, something you cross?”
“As in, something that connects,” said Badwa. “The splendor is a spiritual energy similar to the air you breathe—it is constant, pervasive, vital to all living things. As a daraja, your body is uniquely equipped to draw it from the earth itself and redirect it. In doing so, you act as a physical conduit between the mundane and the divine.”
“So, what can I do?”
Badwa shook her head, but her expression wasn’t unkind. “The splendor manifests for each daraja slightly differently. To discover how it manifests within you is one of our objectives today. Typically, you will feel it most noticeably in extremities like your hands and feet, so . . .” She sat down and patted a spot of dirt opposite her. “Please sit and press your hands to the earth. We are going to test the strength of your connection to the splendor.”
Koffi stiffened but obeyed nonetheless. Once she was seated with both palms flat against the ground, Badwa clasped her hands.
“Close your eyes.”
Koffi did, feeling foolish. She waited, each passing second like a century. When she finally cracked one eye open, she found the goddess was staring at her, visibly perplexed.
“You felt nothing at all just then?”
Embarrassment flooded Koffi’s cheeks. It felt as though she’d just failed a test she didn’t know she was taking, but she didn’t dare lie. She shook her head.
“Strange,” Badwa mused.
“Actually . . .” Koffi fidgeted. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about something you said yesterday.”
“Go on.”
“You said the first darajas passed their abilities on to their children,” she said. “So, does that mean it’s a, um, family thing?”
Badwa’s eyebrows arched. “It is an ability passed through families by blood, though not always consistently in each generation. Why do you ask?”
Koffi looked down at her hands. “It’s just that neither of my parents were darajas—at least, I’m pretty sure of it.”
“And their parents?”
“They all died before I was born, except for my mother’s mother,” said Koffi. “But then she died when I was really small. She lived with us for a little while I think, but I can’t remember her.”
Badwa’s expression turned thoughtful. “Well, you are certainly a daraja. I sense it within you. Have you ever deliberately tried channeling the splendor?”
Koffi didn’t meet the goddess’s eyes. “Not . . . on purpose,” she whispered. “But a little while ago, I got upset when someone threatened my mom and . . . I’m not sure if I consciously meant to do what I did, but it wasn’t good.”
“I see.”
There was new understanding in Badwa’s eyes. The goddess folded her hands before speaking again. “As I said, the splendor is a spiritual energy. When you draw it from the earth and channel it, it should move through your body like a river, but it can only do so if your mind and body are both at peace. If they are not”—she gave Koffi a meaningful look—“there can be complications.”
“Complications?”
“If your mind and body are not at peace when the splendor is moving through you, it can create an obstruction that keeps it inside of you,” Badwa explained. “It can build like a toxin, and if it remains, it can wreak havoc on the physical body. You now know what’s happened to Adiah, but in the worst scenario, keeping too much of the splendor within you could cost your very life.”
Koffi swallowed, remembering the Night Zoo. She remembered taking that breath and holding it in, feeling heady, before feeling a release. It scared her to think of some dangerous thing building inside her, something that could kill her. “How do I stop that from happening?”
“Before you try to draw and channel the splendor, you must relax your mind and body entirely. You must find inner peace,” said Badwa. “I want you to close your eyes again. This time, take slow, even breaths. Count each one as a beat, like a rhythm.”
Koffi did as she was told, closing her eyes to the world around her. In the darkness, she listened to the sound of her own breathing. It felt silly. She imagined what she must’ve looked like sitting there, hands in the dirt like a child.
It’s not going to work, said a ridiculing voice in her head. Not for someone like you. Your mind is never at peace.
She tried to imagine a fortress like the Night Zoo, high mud-brick walls all around her mind. The voice of doubt lapped against her, persistent and unabating, but she built her fortress up higher. Tentatively, she reached for that light she’d felt inside Badwa’s tent. Like an answering call, it came, warming her fingertips for the briefest of moments. Just as quickly, it vanished. Koffi opened her eyes.
“It comes, but it won’t stay.”
Badwa’s eyes were measured. “Your mind isn’t at peace.”
Koffi looked around. “Sure it is. I haven’t been this well rested in . . . well, ever.”
“Being well rested isn’t the same thing as being truly at peace,” said Badwa. “There is something inside you preventing the splendor from flowing properly, something you haven’t acknowledged. You have suppressed it, and so suppressed your channel.”
Koffi’s eyebrow rose. “I don’t feel . . . suppressed.” She paused, thoughtful. “If anything, I get myself in trouble for not suppressing things enough.”
Badwa steepled her fingers. “Think back to a time in your life when you were truly upset about something, the last time you cried. How did you handle it?”
Koffi didn’t have to think far back to find a memory. “I don’t cry, really.” She realized as soon as she said the words how silly they sounded. “Well, I mean, I do cry, but not often. When I thought something had happened to my family, I sort of wanted to, but . . . I also didn’t.”
“Has your family ever upset you?” asked Badwa.
“No.” Koffi’s answer was immediate. “My mama is . . . well, she’s just good. She’s always sacrificing for me and putting me before herself. And technically Jabir isn’t related to me, but he’s as good as family too. All he wants to do is make people smile and—”
“What about your father?” Badwa’s voice was its softest yet. “Has he ever upset you?”
Koffi stiffened. “My baba is dead.”
“That is not what I asked.”
A beat passed between them before Koffi tried again. “It . . . wouldn’t be fair to be upset at my baba anymore. He’s gone.”
Badwa readjusted in the dirt. “Just because a person dies doesn’t mean their impact does. How do you feel when you think of him?”
“Bad.” Koffi wanted to close her eyes, but found she couldn’t. “He was . . . a kind man. He made my mama laugh, and he made us feel loved. I—we both miss him all the time.”
“But?”
Something tightened in Koffi’s chest. She forced herself to speak the words anyway.
“He didn’t always make good decisions,” she whispered. “He was irresponsible sometimes, and Mama and I paid for it.”
“He disappointed you.”
Koffi flinched against the accusation. It was too severe, too harsh for someone as kind as Baba. Yet, as soon as Badwa spoke the words, she knew. Some inkling of truth touched her. Her nod was quick, almost imperceptible.
“You must acknowledge your emotions, child.” Badwa’s expression was firm but not unkind. “Acknowledge them, acknowledge their origins, and then let them leave your body naturally. Breathe in, and then release. It might also be wise to unclench your fists.”
Koffi looked down at her lap. She hadn’t even realized she’d balled her fists. When she opened her palms, her skin was marked with angry red crescents from her fingernails.
“I want you to try channeling the splendor again,” said Badwa. “But this time, when it comes to you, I want you to relax your entire mind. You cannot put up walls. Let whatever feelings that arise enter your body. Acknowledge them, then let them leave.”
“What if it still doesn’t work?” asked Koffi.
Badwa said nothing.
Koffi took a deep breath as she pressed her hands to the dirt again. Her eyes automatically closed, and behind her eyelids she stared into a red-black nothingness. She waited, hoping, praying. And then she felt it: a quiet twinge. It was timid, like a lute’s first notes, and then it grew stronger, warmer. Heat flooded her fingertips, but this time it did not fade. It reached for her too, like an old friend. It made its way up her knees, her hips, and when it reached her chest, she stiffened.
“Acknowledge it.” Badwa’s gentle voice sounded so far away in this nothingness. “Acknowledge it, and then let it go.”
Koffi’s muscles tensed as something formed in the nothingness. A figure materialized, sitting opposite her where Badwa should have been. It was a man.
His burlap tunic was shabby but familiar, and faint stubble dusted his jaw. Koffi met his kind brown eyes and, with a pang, saw her own reflected in them. This man had gray in his kinky hair; her father didn’t look the way he had when she’d been small. This felt like a figment of her mind, the man she’d imagined her father would have become if he’d lived longer. He offered her a small, sad smile.
Kof. His voice echoed in the chambers of her mind. My girl, beautiful inside and out.
A lump rose in Koffi’s throat that she couldn’t swallow. “Thank you, Baba.”
You left the Night Zoo. Baba’s eyes were alight, filled with that same boyish sense of adventure. I knew you would. Ah, my girl, we always understood each other. We were always the same, free spirits.
“I am not free, Baba.” Koffi tried to keep the trembling from her voice. “And neither is Mama.”
Baba’s smile faltered. You’re . . . you’re not upset with me, are you? Look at what you have accomplished because you dared. You were bold, you took risks, and they’ve paid—
“You took risks, Baba.” Anger churned in Koffi’s chest. “And then you died and left Mama and me to pay for it, literally. All my life, I’ve been paying for your risks, and your mistakes.”
The smile completely vanished from Baba’s face, replaced with something else. Guilt. Kof, I didn’t mean to—
“But you did. And I’m . . . I’m mad at you. I needed you, and you let me down. You let us both down.”
At her words, Baba hung his head. Long beats passed before he spoke again, his voice only a whisper.
I’m so sorry, Koffi.
And then they came, the tears. They were instant, and consuming. Koffi’s stomach twisted as sobs racked her body, and she felt something release in her core. It was painful at first, and then it wasn’t. Warmth flooded through her entire body, washing over her in a wave. When she looked up again, she found her father’s eyes were wet too.
You are better than I deserve. He took her hand in his and squeezed. One day, I hope you can forgive me.
Koffi squeezed back. “I already do, Baba.”
No sooner had she spoken the words than the darkness began to dissipate. The splendor’s energy moved down her limbs, then left her. Something else left too. When she opened her eyes, she was back in the Greater Jungle and sitting across from Badwa. The goddess was smiling.
“Look, child.”
Koffi dropped her gaze. Her palm was open, and there, resting inches above it, was a small cluster of particles. Her mouth fell open as she stared at it, and then, just as quickly, the particles vanished. “Yes!” She jumped to her feet. “I did it! I channeled the splendor on my own!”
Badwa’s smile was wry. “So you did,” she said. “This time.”
“What?” Koffi’s eyes shot back to her. “What do you mean?”
Instead of answering, Badwa patted the dirt and gestured for Koffi to sit back down. “I am very happy you were able to successfully channel the splendor, Koffi; it is no small feat. But your work is far from done.”
“Well, that’s okay,” said Koffi. “You’ll be able to teach me—”
“No.” Badwa shook her head. “I won’t. You do not have time.”
“Oh.” The reality of the situation came crashing back to her without warning. Of course they didn’t have time, as the Bonding was fast approaching. They still had to find Adiah and get her to the Kusonga Plains. She recuperated quickly. “I do believe this will work.” She tried to say the words as confidently as possible. “I’m going to try my hardest.”
She’d hoped saying so might make the goddess smile; instead, the look on Badwa’s face turned sadder still. There was a decidedly somber touch to it.
“You must do more than try, Koffi,” she said quietly. “You must succeed.”
Koffi faltered. “What do you mean?”
The goddess’s eyes were steely. “What my brother tricked Adiah into doing to Lkossa nearly a hundred years ago was . . . cataclysmic, an unprecedented violence against the innocent.” She grimaced. “But it will pale in comparison to what Fedu will do if he finds Adiah again. Make no mistake, child, he believes his cause just, and he will pursue it until he has destroyed any semblance of the earth you know. He seeks to introduce a new world order, the manifestation of his arrogance, and he will stop at nothing to see that endeavor through.”
“But what about the other gods?” Koffi asked. “Atuno and Amakoya, Itaashe and Tyembu.” She paused. It felt strange to speak of beings she’d worshipped all her life this way. “Can’t they do anything to help, to stop him?”
Badwa’s expression hardened into something inscrutable. “My brethren and sistren are more, shall we say, detached from this world, more detached than I choose to be,” she said in a neutral voice. Koffi thought she heard a touch of emotion beneath it. “In a way, I cannot blame them—like me, they have existed for thousands of years—but I fear they will not understand the threat my brother poses until it is too late. For all intents and purposes, we must assume they will not interfere.”
Koffi stiffened. She was far from home, Lkossa and the Night Zoo were distant, but she still remembered the things she’d heard as a child, the stories elderly beastkeepers had recalled. They’d only talked about it when they were drunk and numbed, but that hadn’t stopped the terror from seeping into their voices. The cracks in the earth, the death, the terrible heat that had driven droves to madness . . . Koffi imagined all of it happening tenfold, not just to a single city, but to an entire continent, to millions of people.
“Ekon and I won’t let that happen,” she said, her voice full of resolve. “We’ll find Adiah and get her to the Kusonga Plains. Fedu doesn’t know what we are planning, so we still have an advantage. It can work.”
The goddess met her gaze in earnest before taking Koffi’s hand and squeezing gently. “But if it does not . . . I must ask you to make me a promise.”
At once, Koffi nodded. “Of course. Anything.”
“You must promise me,” said Badwa, “that you will do anything in your ability to prevent my brother from using Adiah’s power to exact his plans.” Her eyes turned meaningful. “Anything.”
Koffi paused. She didn’t know exactly how to interpret Badwa’s words and chose her own carefully.
“I understand.”
Badwa offered a small smile, and reluctantly Koffi returned it, trying simultaneously to ignore the unease settling inside her. The first time she’d seen Badwa for what she truly was inside the hut, she’d thought her glorious, the most beautiful being she’d ever seen. In a way, she still was, but behind that veneer, Koffi caught a glimpse of something else, something older and far cooler. She said the only words she could say.
“I . . . I promise . . . ,” she said. “That I will do what I need to.”
It seemed to be enough for the goddess. Satisfied, she leaned back and folded her hands. “You will need to continue the kind of exercises we have done today, drawing small amounts of the splendor in and through your body,” said Badwa. “To do it well will also require you to practice emotional intelligence. You must learn to rule your heart, and to be constantly aware of what you are feeling, and why you are feeling that way.”
Rule your heart. Koffi considered the words. They bore a distinct similarity to the ones Mama had said to her at the Night Zoo.
Sometimes, though, you can’t lead with your heart. You have to think with your head.
Mama hadn’t told her the whole truth about what she was, but she’d given her that small token of truth as a guide. All this time, she’d thought the last thing Mama had given her was that second chance at life on the Night Zoo’s wall, but maybe her mother had given something else.
Badwa cleared her throat. “I would like you to try once more,” she said. “Are you ready?”
Koffi nodded.
“Good.” Badwa pressed Koffi’s hands to the dirt. “Now, again.”
Koffi practiced channeling the splendor with Badwa for the rest of the day, and the two days after.
The lessons on splendor theory were long, the physical exercises intense. After the first day, Koffi had stopped waking up early. Every muscle in her body ached, even parts she hadn’t known existed. She didn’t think she could retain one more concept, directive, or lecture about the history of the splendor’s use. It was grueling, but Badwa didn’t let up. According to the goddess, in older times darajas had begun their formal training with the splendor around age ten, and spent an additional decade learning its nuances under the tutelage of several masters. Koffi didn’t have several masters, or a decade of time to play catch-up, so she was getting the expedited experience. Gradually, her command of the splendor improved.
Each time she closed her eyes and reached, it seemed to come more and more willingly. By the second day, she found that she could not only summon particles of the splendor but could send it in certain directions when she focused hard enough. It was a curious, fascinating phenomenon. Sometimes, the energy hummed through her, gentle and warm; other times, it was scalding, like swallowing a mouthful of too-hot tea. When she held it in too long, she felt light-headed. When that happened, Badwa grew stern.
“Resist that urge,” she said. “You must train yourself not to keep the splendor inside of your body for too long. It’s dangerous.”
“But that’s how it gets stronger,” Koffi argued. “When I hold on to it, I can feel it building—”
“You must let it go.” Badwa’s voice was insistent. “The splendor will make you feel powerful in the moment, yes, but even as a daraja, your body is not equipped to hold on to it. You are only meant to channel it and then move it from one place to another. Never forget that.”
It felt strange when, on the third day, Badwa told them their lessons were concluded. On the one hand, Koffi was grateful for the respite; the splendor had a distinctly fatiguing effect after a while. But on the other hand, stopping made her anxious, even afraid. Badwa wasn’t going to be around much longer. Badwa wouldn’t be there to encourage her when she failed, or chastise her when she overextended herself. The reality of the situation pressed in. Soon, she and Ekon were going to have to leave this place and find Adiah. Not only would they have to convince her to come with them, but they’d have to travel miles west to get her to the Kusonga Plains in time for the Bonding, all while avoiding detection. Doubt wriggled through Koffi’s insides like an invasive worm. What if they couldn’t find Adiah? Worse, what if they did find the other daraja but couldn’t convince her to join them? The ideas wreaked havoc in her imagination.
She found Ekon back at the campsite, sitting among a huddle of what looked like yumbo children. Whatever misgivings he’d previously had about them seemed to have been abandoned, because he was fastidiously studying Nkrumah’s journal while two little girls decorated his curly hair with flowers. When he noticed Koffi, he looked up.
“They . . . wanted to do my hair.”
Koffi barely managed to look serious. “The pink and green does bring out your eyes.”
A smile broke out over Ekon’s face, and involuntarily she found herself smiling back. Koffi did her best to stay out of the yumbo girls’ way as she settled beside him and nibbled on a fresh pawpaw from her bag. She was all too aware of how close they were, and of how little she minded that closeness.
“So, what are you up to?”
“Just some reading,” said Ekon absently. With a book in his lap and sitting in sunlight, he looked perfectly peaceful. “The usual light stuff—variances of photosynthesis in carnivorous plant life, the migration patterns of plain tiger butterflies, to keep things poetic. I’ve had my eye on a chapter about rhinoceros beetles . . .”
Koffi smiled. “The usual.”
“I’ve also been mulling over a plan,” said Ekon, a bit more seriously. “I know training with Badwa is important, but . . . I was thinking we should probably leave soon.”
Koffi nodded. “I agree.”
Ekon flipped to the front of Nkrumah’s journal to study its map.
“The Heart of the Jungle is still slightly north of here, a day’s walking if we—”
“Hold on.” Koffi’s eyes had wandered south of Ekon’s finger, back to the bottom corner of the map. Ekon tried to follow her gaze, confused.
“What?”
“That word.” She pointed to it. She still couldn’t read Old Zamani, and the characters looked unfamiliar to her, but she’d just remembered something. “Before we left Lkossa, you told me what it was.”
“Yeah, I remember that.” Ekon squinted. “It just says ‘sanda,’ but that’s not a word in Old Zamani, or new Zamani, for that matter.”
Koffi didn’t answer. She was still staring at the foreign word, trying to picture it mentally in a language she knew. Sanda. Master Nkrumah, the author of the journal, had written it with beautiful penmanship, notably making the first and last letters of the word slightly larger. She stared at it a moment longer before it dawned on her.
“Not sanda,” she whispered.
“Huh?”
“Not sanda,” she repeated. She pressed a thumb over half of the word for a second, then switched to the other side. “They’re two letters: S and A. Together, they look like sanda.”
“The S could be for Satao, that was Master Nkrumah’s first name,” said Ekon. “But I don’t know who the A is.”
“Adiah.”
They both looked up. Badwa was standing across the campsite, watching them. “The A stands for Adiah.”
Ekon started. “Master Nkrumah and Adiah were alive at the same time?” he asked. “They knew each other?”
“I believe it was a bit more than that,” said Badwa as she approached. “As I understand it, they were once very good friends.”
Koffi looked between the goddess and the journal. “He wrote their initials here, together.”
“After Adiah fled into the jungle, he searched for her,” she said quietly. “The desperation to find her affected his mind as he got older, and I believe it stayed with him until the very end.”
“The stories,” said Ekon. “People said he started calling the Greater Jungle her, but—”
“But he wasn’t talking about the jungle,” said Koffi sadly. “He was talking about Adiah. He was looking for her.”
Badwa sat down before them. “I could not tell Satao where Adiah was,” she said calmly, though Koffi thought there was regret in her voice. “Keeping her safe meant keeping her hidden, even from the ones who loved her. But times have changed.”
Koffi sat up. “You mean, you can tell us where she is?”
The corners of the goddess’s mouth tugged into a small smile. “As I said before, this is my realm. I know everything that happens within it.”
“Then you know where Adiah is,” said Ekon.
Badwa nodded. “She is north of here, a day’s walk from this camp. Leave tomorrow at first light and walk in that direction. Stay true to the path, and you will find her.” The goddess’s expression changed. “I’m afraid that, after tonight, we must part ways, children.”
“We understand,” said Koffi. “Thank you.” She waited until the goddess left them again before looking at Ekon, the smallest smirk touching her lips.
“See? All we have to do it head north from here, no problem at all.”
Ekon’s eyebrow quirked. “Is it just me, or does that almost sound too easy?”
Koffi grinned in spite of herself. “Only one way to find out.”