Along the walls stood towering statues of every monarch who had ruled since the First Ascension. Their stony eyes watched over the living, as though even in death they still judged those who served beneath them.

The five members of the Royal Council sat around an obsidian table, polished so flawlessly it reflected their faces, though the worry in their hearts remained hidden. It had to be.

They were the most powerful minds in the kingdom—war generals, royal strategists, scholars, and advisers, some of whom had served two generations of Monarchs.

It was their duty to solve problems, to provide answers, and to keep the Crown standing.

This was not the first crisis they had endured, and it would not be the one to make them falter.

They first heard of the protests six months ago. It began in Lehoma, a southern kingdom so far from the Capital that no one in the palace cared enough to pay attention. They assumed that just like every other rebellion that rose in the past, this would die a natural death.

Time had always been the monarchy’s greatest ally. It made men exhausted and drained their hope. So the council waited, as they always had, for hunger and fear to do the work that soldiers should not have to.

But this time, time failed them. Instead of fading, the protests spread from Lehoma to the neighbouring villages. Their numbers only grew, and each time The Crown retaliated with threats and arrests, more loyalists came to the fold.

Still, they ignored it. Silence was a weapon that had worked in the past, but not now. The people were hungry and angry. It was what they wrote on their protest banners: ‘Hungry People, Angry People.’ And then there was the demand that sent chills through them, written boldly across the fabric the Rebels carried.

END THE MONARCHY. DEATH TO CLAN VHALROTH.

In all their years of serving the crown, they had never heard the people call for an end to the Monarchy, and that was what frightened the council.

The Monarchy had existed for centuries, with Clan Vhalroth ruling for years. Kingdoms had risen and fallen around them. Kings had died and sons had taken their place, but the Crown remained. Surely it would not be said that it ended in their lifetime.

Seven months passed and the protests only grew stronger. Traders traveling west had been turned back. Grain and livestock barns were looted. Major roads remained blocked for days at a time.

“If we won’t eat, the nobles won’t eat either,” they said in their protests.

That was enough to get the council’s attention. They knew now that this was no longer a disturbance happening in the distant North. It was becoming a threat to the Crown itself.

General Sefu shifted in his chair. He was the oldest among them, and the Commander of the Crown’s Guard. Waiting almost half an hour for the young prince felt like an insult, but he wouldn’t dare to say so. None of them would.

The doors opened without announcement and every member of the council stood.

Prince Azarek Vhalroth walked in without haste. Making powerful men and women wait was one of the many ways he reminded them that soon, they would all answer to him.

He wore ivory instead of the ceremonial crimson expected of the royal household. Gold traced the edges of his long coat in patterns that resembled flowing rivers—the symbol of the Vhalroth Clan—and a single emerald rested against his chest.

He was, as many often said, a beautiful man. He was tall enough to command every room without speaking. His skin carried a deep bronze glow and his face looked as though it had been carved by careful hands.

Prince Azarek looked around the chamber. Every person in the room was older than he was, and though it was his first time heading a council, his posture gave nothing away.

He had spent years watching his father command this very room. He had learned the High King’s bearing, his pauses, and his silence.

He took his seat, not at the head of the table, but in the chair beside it. The High King’s seat remained empty, as it had been for months now. It was not yet Azarek’s to take.

Only then did he look at the council.

“You may sit,” he said.

General Sefu nodded to a guard, and with the flick of an iron lever, the Watch Board in the council hall came to life.

“Scenes from the protests, my Prince,” he said.

The streets of Lehoma appeared first. Hundreds marched shoulder to shoulder and Royal Guards struggled to hold the line as stones rained through the air.

Another recording replaced it. The image steadied inside the darkness of one of the royal mines.

The workers’ clothes hung from their bodies in torn strips. Coal dust had settled permanently into the lines of their skin. A young woman wearing a black cloth across the lower half of her face turned to them.

“Tell the people how you live.”

One of the miners stepped forward. “We work eighteen hours a day,” he said hoarsely.

“Some weeks are longer.”

“What are you paid?”

He laughed dryly. “Bread.”

Another man came into view. “They buried Zin last week.”

He held up fingers missing their tips. “The tunnel collapsed after they ordered us deeper into the mines, and then they just left his body beneath the rocks. I guess their precious stones matter more than human life.”

The girl turned. “People of Nkosa,” her voice echoed through the Council Hall.

“These are your fathers. Your brothers. Your sons. They are beaten. They are starved and overworked to the point of death!”

“And for what? So that the Crown may dine from golden plates while we choke on dust?”

Her fist rose into the air. “If this is what it means to live beneath the Crown… then let us be free of it. We are the Unbound!”

Her voice erupted into a chant with the rest of the miners. “END THE MONARCHY!” “END CLAN VHALROTH!”

“Enough,” Azarek said.

Silence filled the council room. The Prince rested his chin on his hand, staring at the Watch Board.

“They wish to tear down what the gods themselves ordained,” he said with a small smile. “How remarkable.”

He looked to Elder Daram. “And what is the Mavu of Lehoma doing while peasants rehearse speeches? Surely he isn’t sitting comfortably in his palace while this spectacle unfolds beneath him.”

“My Prince,” Elder Daram replied. “The Mavu has ordered many executions of The Unbound—a hundred and counting—yet the protest keeps growing.”

“Then he has simply not killed enough,” General Sefu said.

“The Unbound?” Azarek let out a laugh. “Is that what they call themselves?”

“They’re becoming organised,” Daram answered.

“We should kill every last one of them,” General Sefu growled.

“They’re no longer divided by Clan. Families that spent generations spilling each other’s blood now march together with the crown as their common enemy,” Daram said.

General Sefu slammed his fist onto the table. “They’re peasants!”

He had spent forty years ending problems with fist and force. This hall of strategy and deliberation fought against his very instinct. If given the order, he would march into Lehoma with soldiers at his command and leave no rebel alive to raise another banner.

“Unity is a fragile thing,” he growled. “Surely it will break once enough heads are blown off.”

“You heard Elder Daram,” Mukasa said. “We’re not about to make martyrs out of them. These are desperate men, General. Most are only a few missed meals away from the grave. You cannot threaten a starving man with hunger, nor a dying man with death. They have nothing left to lose. That is why they stand together. We should be asking how to pull them apart.”

“So what do you suggest?” Sefu asked, his voice edged with contempt.

“We buy them.” As Keeper of the Royal Accounts, Mukasa had spent years believing there was no problem money couldn’t solve.

“Every movement has a man at its centre. Find him.” He shrugged. “And double whatever he thinks he’s worth.”

General Sefu scoffed. “You think coin can buy conviction?”

“I think coin can buy almost anything.”

Mukasa’s smile was thin. “If not the leader, then the man beside him…”

“We’re not rewarding terrorists, Mukasa,” Prince Azarek interjected. “Not a single Royal Coin will find its way into the pockets of looters.”

Mukasa inclined his head. “As you wish, my Prince.”

“Perhaps,” a voice said calmly, “if our old ways no longer suffice… we ought to try something new.”

It was the Royal Strategist who spoke: Matriarch Nyah of the ancient Clan Afolan, whose bloodline was almost as old as Clan Vhalroth itself. She was the first and only woman to hold a seat on the Royal Council.

Her son ruled Oshem in the west, a land of vast riches, whose inventions supplied the Crown and all the kingdoms with their weaponry.

Her grandfather, Oloye Afolan, had died defending the crown during the Siege of Koruma and his statue stood in the Hall of Heroes, and songs were sung about him to inspire loyalty in children.

Nyah inherited none of her grandfather’s swordsmanship. Steel, to her, was a clumsy weapon. She had inherited something far more dangerous: she understood people. In a council full of loud men eager to prove their strength, she simply watched, letting every man reveal his cards.

“And what would you suggest, Matriarch Nyah?” Azarek asked, leaning forward.

“An alliance of interests,” she said. “The people want a democracy. They want to believe they have a hand on the wheel of power.”

The Prince shifted in his seat, his brow furrowing. “Matriarch. If you have a point, reach it quickly.”

All their ears perked, and Matriarch Nyah knew that she had gotten their attention.

“The point, Your Highness, is that we give them what they desire without giving them anything at all. We give them the power to choose a Queen.”

“We invite the young women from every part of the kingdom to a Royal competition to be the next Queen. We broadcast the spectacle across every Watch Board in the Kingdom. And then we let the people vote for their Queen.”

She leaned forward. “Let the idiots believe they actually shape the world, while we feed them a mere illusion of power.”

Azarek’s eyes narrowed. “You suggest I surrender the royal bloodline to plotting peasants?”

“A Vhalroth does not choose his wife by a show of hands in the marketplace, Matriarch. If we allow the peasants to vote on who sits on the throne, we teach them that they have the right to choose who rules them,” the prince said with a steeling gaze at her.

Nyah did not flinch under his gaze. “They will only believe they are choosing, my Prince. The Crown will still hold the cards.”

General Sefu immediately backed the Prince, shaking his head. “It is an outrageous theatre, Your Highness is right. You suggest entertainment in the middle of a brewing rebellion.”

“It is not entertainment, General Sefu,” Nyah countered smoothly, turning her attention to him. “It is a deployment of hope and a strategic distraction for the crown.”

“And you would have the Prince wed a commoner? A local peasant?” The voice belonged to Maatu. It was the first time he had spoken, and true to him, it was to oppose her. Nyah knew deep down that he despised her presence at this council, but his approval left no mark on her.

“I am suggesting the Prince allies himself with his people, or, at the very least, gives them the appearance of it. For centuries, the Crown has remained distant and cold. That is why they rebel.”

“The Monarchy has no business concerning itself with the thoughts of peasants,” Maatu sneered.

The Matriarch ignored him and looked to the Prince. “Marriage has always been the ultimate broker of peace. Take one of their daughters as a bride, and you are no longer a god behind high walls, you become one of them.”

“The moment one of their daughters wears the crown, the people will no longer see an oppressor, they will see themselves. Give them that illusion, and the riots will end.”

Mukasa nodded his head, silently agreeing.

“It’s a dangerous game,” Maatu said. “The crown has better things to bother itself with than peasant pageantry.”

“Actually,” Elder Daram murmured, drumming his fingers against the dark wood of the table.

Azarek turned his gaze to the old man. Of everyone sitting around the table, Daram was the one the Prince trusted most. He had been a loyal advisor and a personal friend to his father for decades.

“There is an ancient fable from the eastern lands,” Daram said. “A king once faced a massive rebellion over land rights. Instead of sending his army to slaughter the rebels, he staged a great tournament where the champion would be allowed to rewrite a single royal law. The rebels spent three months watching the games, arguing over the fighters, and placing bets. By the time the tournament ended, they had entirely forgotten why they were angry.”

“Entertainment is a beautiful shroud, council men,” he said. “And a shroud is exactly what we need to bury this rebellion.”

They all looked to the prince who was listening intently.

“This… pageant,” the prince said. “What would it be called?”

“The Choosing,” Matriarch Nyah replied.

“You’ve clearly thought of this,” the Prince noted, leaning back with an amused glint in his eyes. “Tell me, Matriarch, how does your little game play out?”

Matriarch Nyah smiled. She had him.

“Twenty-two girls, hand-picked from the kingdoms and villages. They compete here, beneath our roof. We broadcast it to every Watch Board in the Kingdom. Every week, the people vote and a girl goes home, until one earns the crown.”

The prince stood up. “I concede to it. It seems we have a show to plan. Matriarch Nyah, put every detail of your proposal into writing and send it to my chambers so the King may affix his seal.”

He turned to the Keeper of the Royal Accounts. “Discuss the logistics with Mukasa. I want to know what this will cost the treasury. As for the rest of you, do everything in your power to support it. If we are to give the commoners a show, let us make sure it is the only thing they care to talk about.”

Authors Note:

This chapter we meet Prince Azarek, the prince twenty-two girls will be contesting for

I loved writing this one, Let me know what you think!

More soon❤️

I pressed my hands against the iron bars, reaching through toward my brother’s face. His lips were dry and cracked.

“Dembe,” I breathed. “Oh, Dembe.”

His skin burned against my palms and his hands shook so violently I had to cup them in both of my own just to keep them still.

“Eshari… how?” he stammered. “How are you here?”

“Don’t worry about me.” I dropped to my knees on the filthy ground so I could be level with his face.

Tears blurred my vision. “Don’t worry. I’m here. I’ve got you.”

“I’m sorry.” His chest heaved with a sudden sob. “Eshari, I’m so sorry.”

“Why, Dembe?” I whispered. “Why would you do this?”

“I had no choice.”

“You always have a choice.”

“No. Not this time.” He coughed, turning his face away, his whole body trembling with it. “There was no food. The children were starving. The rebels promised coin if I joined. I only did what I thought would help.”

“I joined weeks after you left,” he said. “The palace guards closed down the shops. Burned the market stalls. Took our wages as curfew fines and beat anyone who questioned them. It wasn’t fair, Eshari.”

His face tightened. “Oseko said we had to fight back.”

“Who’s Oseko?” I queried.

“A rebel leader. He took me in while you were gone and he provided for the children.”

I gave him a look, and he threw it back at me, sharper than I expected. “What was I supposed to do! Watch the children starve?”

“I would have found a way.”

“You weren’t there.”

The words landed like an accusation. “You weren’t there, Eshari. I waited. Every day, I thought you’d come back.”

“I’m sorry. I tried for months to reach you. I swear it. But there’s no leaving the palace until your time is served.”

He gave a faint, broken smile. “At least I get to see you before—”

“Before what?”

He sniffed, wiping his nose with the back of his sleeve. “I heard a guard say the rebels don’t leave these cells alive.”

“Look at me.” I reached through the bars, cupping his bruised jaw. “Look at me, Dembe.”

He lifted his eyes to mine, wide and wet.

“You are not going to die.” My voice dropped into something fierce. “Do you hear me? No harm will come to you.”

He shook his head frantically, his chains clinking against the floor. “Eshari, you don’t understand. The Crown doesn’t grant mercy to—”

“I know.” I cut him off. “I know what they do. But it’s handled. Your sentence is being commuted. You’re going to the mines instead.”

“The mines?” He stared at me, stunned.

“It will be hard labor. You’ll have to work,” I said. “But you’ll be breathing. You’ll survive it, Dembe, and when your time is served, you’ll come back to me. I promise you. On my life, on everything I am. I promise you, you are going to live.”

“How?” he whispered. “Eshari, how did you get a royal order changed? How did you even get down here? No one gets a visit to these cells.”

“The Prince helped me.” My voice came out barely audible.

“The Prince?” he repeated. “Eshari — what do you mean, the Prince?”

“You’re going to live,” I said. “You’re going to be fine. That’s all that matters. Do you hear me? That is all that—”

“Time’s up, girl!”

The guard’s hand closed around my shoulder, hauling me up and backward off my knees.

“No! Eshari!” Dembe lurched forward as I was dragged from the cell.

The palace made everything a spectacle, even the sentencing of people. It was broadcasted on the Watch Boards for all to see. A message throughout the kingdom of what would be the fate of thieves and people who revolted against the crown. It had not been my first time watching one. I was only little and a broadcast was shown on the huge Watch board in the market square.

Hundreds of people gathered. I was told they were executing enemies and plotters to overthrow the crown. The crown’s justice they called it. The High King had ordered for the enemies in the south to be sentenced to death.

I wondered, how the words of one man miles away can become Law here. The crowd cheered when the executioner said the oath.

“By order of King Nekan of Clan Vhalroth Ruler of Nkosa. King Over Kings, Chosen of gods and Men. You are condemned to die.”

People watched with thirst and excitement, but I turned away. Cheers erupted from the crowd and a rhythmic chant. “Long live the King!”

It was the same here today. The maids had talked about it.

“There will be sentencing today. So I heard.”

Just outside the courtyards, in the servants’ quarters, a crowd had gathered, waiting for the Watch Boards to flicker to life. I busied myself with extra chores, anything to keep my hands moving and my mind away from the fact that my brother would soon be chained in front of that screen for everyone to watch.

I reminded myself it would be over soon. The Prince had promised to spare his life. However many years his sentence carried, I would bare it. Still, watching my brother become sport for bored palace staff was its own kind of unbearable.

The gardeners and chefs had already claimed the front row, silver coins clinking as they pooled their bets.

“Hanging or beheading? Which does the High King favor today?” One of them laughed and the others joined in.

I thought I might go mad watching them. Weren’t these people human beings, same as the gardeners laughing at them? When had everyone become so thoroughly numb to horror?

Near the wall, I spotted Yola standing apart from the rest, watching the gambling with open disgust. She hadn’t spoken a word to me since I’d gone to the Prince’s chambers. Our eyes met. She only nodded.

Then the Watch Board flared to life, and a horn blast tore through the speakers.

First came the Mavu, guards trailing behind him, and behind them the Prince — draped in sweeping royal silks, seated on a raised chair. Behind them, the heavy thrum of drums echoed, accompanied by the shrill, dramatic praise-singing of women.

The Prince gave a lazy smile, waving to the roaring crowd, and my blood boiled with disdain. I knew exactly what bargain I’d struck to spare Dembe, and it sickened me to be in his debt.

If I grant you this, you belong to me. All of you, he’d told me, and the size of that debt made me recoil all over again.

After the theatrical welcome, the guards marched the prisoners into view. Heads bowed low, malnourished, beaten and bruised, they shuffled across the stone. Forty of them, if I’d counted right.

“That skinny one looks like he’s already dead,” one of the guards said and laughter followed.

Then I saw my brother. Every instinct in me wanted to run to him, to throw my arms around him.

Dembe stumbled, the chains yanked his back, and a cruel wave of laughter rippled through the gathered staff around me. I felt a warm hand slip into mine. I looked up to see Yola. She said nothing, her jaw set, but her touch was an anchor I needed.

Up on the platform, Prince Nekaro sat with one leg crossed lazily over the other, watching the prisoners with an air of complete detachment.

A royal crier in black velvet robes stepped to the edge of the stage.

“By order of the Crown, the accused shall hear their crimes and their sentences.”

He unrolled a thick parchment and began reading out their crimes, his voice amplified through the speakers of the Watch Board. Petty thieves, debtors were among the fold.

A girl was sentenced for stealing from her master.

“Two years imprisonment,” the Crier announced. “For theft, the unlawful taking of property, and the loss of goods belonging to her master.”

The crowd booed, hurling insults at the screen. Too light a sentence for their appetite. I looked at the girl. She couldn’t have been older than fourteen. She was led aside, and the crier moved on.

Five years for a man who owed the crown in unpaid taxes. Six for a woman accused of skimming crown funds. Eight for a man who’d struck a royal guard.

One by one, they were sentenced. I counted without meaning to. Twenty prisoners left, and Dembe still among them, head hung low, his whole posture drained of hope.

The boy beside him was sentenced to ten years’ hard labor in the mines. I told myself Dembe would get twelve, maybe fifteen. It would be torture, losing him for that long, but he’d be alive. That was all I let myself hold onto.

When the Crier turned his eyes toward Dembe, his lips began to tremble. My own hands shook too.

Yola held them tighter.

“Steady yourself, Eshari,” she whispered.

I closed my eyes, waiting to hear his sentence. When nothing came, I looked up to see the Prince lean toward the guard beside him, murmuring something. The guard carried the words to the crier.

I stared at them, confused. Something was wrong. I could feel it before I understood it.

I squeezed Yola’s hand. “What is happening?”

She didn’t answer.

I prayed to whoever was listening. Please, keep my brother safe. Please, don’t let him get hurt.

The Crier cleared his throat, his voice returning to the speakers.

“The remaining prisoners are rebels, looters, and rioters who seek an end to the Crown. They are not mere thieves. They are plotters and usurpers, and they have committed a grievous sin in the eyes of the gods and of the High King!”

“No,” I whimpered.

The crowd roared, hurling curses at the screen.

“Great is their crime,” the Crier declared, his voice rising over the clamor, “and greater still shall be their punishment!”

The cheer that followed buried the cry that tore out of me.

Two guards wheeled a heavy wooden contraption out onto the center of the stage. A thick crossbeam stretched between two posts. From its centre hung a coarse rope, its knot thick and ugly.

The crowd roared with delight at the sight of the ropes, and the world tilted beneath my feet. Through a veil of tears, I searched the screen for Dembe’s face. He looked terrified, panic wide in his eyes as he stared at the wood.

I promised him. I swore to him he wouldn’t be harmed.

“No!” I screamed, thrashing against Yola’s grip.

She held me tighter.

“Let me go!” I cried out.

“Told you it was hanging,” a voice said somewhere in the crowd.

The crier kept speaking, but I couldn’t hear the words anymore. My ears seemed to grant me that mercy. The roaring crowd dissolved into a dull thrum. Yola pressed her hand over my eyes. A second mercy.

Through the gaps between her fingers, I forced myself to look. Dembe stood beneath the beam, tears wet on his face.

In an act of defiance or acceptance, he raised his hands up and parted it.

“The Unbound!” Dembe screamed, his voice cracking as it broke through the broadcast.

The Prince let out a short, mocking laugh. “How are you the Unbound, when you stand in my chains?”

The crowd erupted with laughter. Yola buried my face in her dress. A second later, the crowd gave one thunderous, collective roar.

I knew it was done.

I don’t remember walking. I must have gone limp, because the next thing I knew, Yola had wrapped her scarf across my face, and we were moving through the crowd, their roars fading slowly behind us.

“You can’t stay here any longer,” Yola muttered, guiding me down a corridor.

“Where are you taking me?”

She said nothing, only quickened her pace. We slipped past the courtyards, past the halls.

Ahead, footsteps echoed. Yola yanked me behind a pillar, pressing her back flat to the wall. Two guards passed, laughing loudly, recalling the sentencing.

“Did you see the way his legs kicked?” one said.

A sob rose in my throat, but Yola’s hand clamped over my mouth before it could escape.

“You need to leave,” she whispered, once they’d passed. “Your days here will not be easy, and the Prince will not stop taunting you.”

“But where will I go?” My breath hitched. “I have nowhere.”

“Leaving is safe. Figure out the rest after.”

Every guard and servant was still gathered at the Watch Boards, so the passageways were entirely unpatrolled. We cut past a dark alley and reached the bin yards, a filthy place where the palace dumped its rotted food and trash. Yola stopped beside a heavy iron grate set into the ground.

“You’re not the first girl I’ve led out this way.” She crouched, gripped the iron, and twisted it open.

She looked up at me, nodding toward the black hole beneath it. “Everyone’s still at the sentencing. Once it’s over, they’ll come looking. You need to go now.”

“But I—”

“Jump.” She reached out and adjusted the scarf over my head, tucking it in place like a mother sending a child into the cold.

The stench hit me before I even reached the edge, a thick wall of rot and stale water that turned my stomach. I stared down into the dark, my feet refusing to move.

“You need to jump, Eshari,” she said, throwing a fearful glance over her shoulder.

I closed my eyes, swung one leg into the damp opening, and dropped into the dark.

The heavy iron hatch slammed shut above me, sealing out the light.

I closed my eyes and jumped into the hole, and the iron hatch slammed shut above me, sealing out the light.

I hit the ground hard, water splashing over my knees. The stench was rancid. I pulled Yola’s scarf up over my nose and mouth, tying it tight behind my head.

I kept walking through the dark, hopeless and half-blind. Rats skittered past my feet. My legs grew heavier with every step. I walked for what felt like hours, nauseous, dizzy, until I saw thin streaks of light cutting through the black above me.

I looked up and saw an iron grate. Faint noise drifted down from the street beyond it. I pressed my hands against the bars and pushed with every strength left in my body. It didn’t budge. I pushed again, and again, until the frame finally gave way with a groan.

I scrambled out and took in the cool night air that hit me, clean and free of rot.

I looked around, my heart hammering. I was no longer inside the palace, but somewhere in the streets of Gombe.

It was getting dark already and I had no coin for a room, no fare for a train back to Kambwe. I suddenly became afraid and aware that they would’ve taken note of my absence by now, and be in search of me.

Before I could make sense of where to go to, a sudden growl of thunder shook the skies.

I ran, ducking beneath the canopy of an empty stall as the rain broke loose above me.

Alone there, the day finally caught up with me. My body shook with sobs, thunder rolling over my grief like it meant to drown it out. Dembe was gone. I was alone.

By the time the rain stopped, the streets had gone pitch-black and silent. I stepped out, shivering in soaked clothes, wandering without any direction at all.

“What’s a girl like you doing out here alone?”

I spun around and quickened my pace, but another figure stepped into my path, blocking it. Two young men, rain-slicked and grinning, stood in the dying light of a lantern.

“Leave me alone,” I snapped, backing away.

“We only asked a question.” One stepped closer.

I turned to run, but the one behind me lunged, grabbing a fistful of my hair and yanking me back.

Not again, I thought.

I didn’t know I had that kind of wildness in me, or maybe I simply didn’t care anymore whether I survived the night. I whipped my head around and bit down on his hand until I tasted blood. He screamed, his grip loosening. The second one charged, slamming his palm against my throat.

“You’re feisty,” he sneered, leaning in. “We like that.”

I spat in his eyes and drove my knee up hard between his legs. He doubled over with a groan. I was done being prey. I would rather die here, before I let another man take anything else from me.

Furious, the boy lunged and slammed my head hard against the stone wall.

Then I heard a loud shot, followed by an agonizing scream. The boy pinning me clutched his thigh, collapsing onto the wet floor.

I gasped, and looked around frantically.

A second shot cracked past the other boy, missing him. He let go of me instantly, turning to run, but a heavy boot caught him in the chest, dropping him flat onto his back.

A tall figure stepped out of the dark, holding a rifle leveled directly at the boy’s forehead.

“After the Royals,” he said, “I hate people like you the most.”

“Please — don’t!” The boy threw his hands up.

“Why not?” he asked, his voice low and menacing. “You consume, you destroy, you take what isn’t yours. Tell me, if I put a hole through your skull tonight, who in this village actually loses anything of value?”

He cocked the rifle and the boy squeezed his eyes shut, sobbing aloud. The gun fired, the bullet burying itself in the dirt an inch from his ear.

“Get out,” the man said coldly.

The two boys didn’t hesitate. The uninjured one scrambled to his feet, grabbed his bleeding companion beneath the arms, and dragged him into the darkness.

I stood frozen against the wall, staring at the stranger who had just saved me, with half a mind to run away.

My eyes widened. “Who are—”

“Oseko.” He stepped into the lantern light so I could see him properly. He stood tall and broad. “I knew your brother. I came to Gombe when I heard his unit had been taken. I watched the sentencing today.”

My mind briefly shot back to when my brother spoke about him in the cell.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Eshari.” He paused. “I want to help you. Come with me.”

“Help me?” I spat, anger rising in me. “It’s your fault! It’s your fault he joined your foolish little rebellion!”

He laughed. “We are not little. We are many. And your brother knew what he was fighting for.”

“He was a boy!” I yelled. “He was a boy who listened to your silly words and ended up with a rope around his neck.”

Oseko didn’t flinch. “Death is the only promise ever made to people like us, Eshari. Tell me, is dying while fighting for something worse than dying slow from hunger in an orphanage? Or rotting away as a palace maid until they’re through with you?”

I looked at him coldly. “I am not going anywhere with you.”

“Then where will you go?” He held my gaze. “Come with me. Join us, Eshari, and you can avenge your brother. Or you can keep running forever.”

Authors Note:

kay so 😭😭 Eshari is finally out of that palace but at what cost?? And Rip to Dembe😔

and then we meet Oseko??? Anyway. let me know what you think!! are you Team Run With Oseko or Team Eshari Needs a Minute To Grieve First, drop your theories, I live for them

more soon ❤️

The palace routine did not care if you were broken. It demanded clean floors and tidy kitchens. I knew better than to speak, let alone display my misery, so I dragged myself through each shift. I hauled heavy buckets through the kitchens and scrubbed heavy garments in the washroom, concealing all the pain I carried.

It was only at night, alone in my corner of the room, that I let it surface, quiet sobs that refused to leave my throat. I pulled the sheets over my face and cried into them so no one would hear.

Sleep had become my enemy. The moment I surrendered to it, the heat of his hands and the weight of his chest rushed back to claim me. So I stayed awake instead, staring into the black sky, wondering about the gods. If they saw. If they cared. And if they truly judged.

I did not grow up reading the Sacred Letters or memorizing the scrolls of Diviners, but in times like this, I could not help but wonder about the Divine. If there were grand, all-knowing beings watching over the kingdoms, why were their eyes so utterly blind to cruelty and injustice?

The Diviners speak of righteous judgment, yet the wicked dine on gold platters while the innocent suffer. If the gods existed, then they were either terrifyingly cruel or utterly powerless. Or perhaps they were just like the Mavu and his son, sitting on high, distant thrones, drinking wine and scoffing at commoners.

My thoughts didn’t run for long. Morning came, and with it the senior maids, making their rounds with the harsh clatter of metal against the corridor walls.

“Out of your beds! ” a voice barked outside my door.

The day began with the same tedious chores as always. By noon I was in the laundry cellars, filling basins with soapy water. A sharp, hollow ache throbbed low in my stomach, the same dull pain that had been coming and going, ever since the Prince’s cruel act.

I swallowed the discomfort and bent low to scrub the linen sheets.

A basket dropped onto the wooden bench beside mine with a wet thud, and I flinched, pulling back instinctively.

“Easy, girl. It’s just me,” a low voice said.

It was the woman from the washroom the other day. She unloaded her pile of dirty sheets, studying me. “You look like you haven’t slept a wink.”

“I’m fine. Just tired from the late shifts.”

She kept her inspecting gaze on me, unblinking.

“I never asked your name,” I said, mostly to steer her away from how tired I looked.

"Yola," she replied quietly, plunging a bundle of tablecloths into the basin filled with suds.

“How long have you been here?”

“Long enough to see young girls like you be swallowed whole,” she said, pausing her movements to stare at me. “I’ve seen that look before. Too many times, on too many girls.”

I went still, my hands freezing mid-scrub. “I… I don’t know what you—”

“You don’t have to say a word.” She lowered her voice. “I know the Prince. Anyone who’s been here long enough knows exactly what he is.” She went quiet a moment, looking as if she were somewhere else entirely.

“ I was desperate. Desperate to get word to my brother… to know how he fares.”

Yola looked at me, her expression softening into what looked like pity. She shifted her laundry basket aside and drew closer to me. A single tear escaped my eye, and I quickly wiped it away with the back of a soapy forearm.

“Usually, I have little patience for naive girls,” she said with a small smile. “But you remind me of myself, once. I can help you Eshari.”

I glanced frantically toward the archway where a guard stood, fearful that the air itself might carry our words to him. “How?” I whispered.

“A cousin of mine was enlisted into the Palace guard some days ago,” Yola said, plunging her arms back into the water to keep up appearances. “He’ll go out on his rounds through Kambwe this week. I can tell him where to look, if you will tell me where to send him.”

I sat up straight and told her everything—where the orphanage stood, and the woodshop Dembe sometimes worked at. I described his scrawny frame, his dark skin, his deep-set eyes, and the thick, unkempt locs that always fell over his forehead.

“That should do it,” she said.

I looked up at her, tears gathering. “I’ve done nothing to earn your kindness. You don’t know what this means to me. Thank you.”

“He leaves for Kambwe tomorrow and comes back a week after. I’ll need to catch him before the day ends.”

A small hope sparked in my chest. I was almost afraid to feel it. My hope had been shattered too many times now. I feared the way it filled my chest, just before something reached in and tore it out again.

The days went by as I waited for news of Dembe, rising each morning with a desperate, silent prayer after another nightmare. In the dream, I stood deep in a forest calling out to him, but he couldn’t hear me, my voice swallowed by a thick fog that wrapped around him until he was gone. I woke each time certain something was wrong. Today, I would find out if I was right.

Yola and I were meant to meet in the washroom, our unspoken spot. I stood at the basin, scrubbing silk robes with half-hearted effort. My mind wasn't on the chores. I waited, my head snapping toward the door at every footstep.

Yola, you’re here.” I wiped my wet hands on my uniform as she walked in.

My gaze darted past her shoulder into the dark hallway, checking that no one had followed. I tried to read her face before she could speak. It gave me nothing.

“Is there news? Did your cousin come back?”

I didn’t like the way she avoided my eyes, or the way she drew closer and took hold of my forearms. I knew that look. I had worn it myself when delivering bad news to the children at the orphanage—telling them they would not be chosen, that they would have to go to bed another night with empty stomachs. I knew exactly what it meant on someone else’s face.

My chest pulled tight. "Yola. Speak to me."

“He came back yesterday.” She reached for my hands, holding them still between hers. “Eshari… he went to the orphanage. The woodshop, too. Your brother wasn’t at either.”

A chill spread through me. “What do you mean?”

“The palace guards swept through Kambwe three nights ago.” Her words spilled out fast and half-whispered. “There was a mass sweep for suspected rebels after the rail line was sabotaged in Qatri.”

“My brother is no rebel.”

Yola shook her head. “My cousin managed to look at the prisoner logs, Eshari.” Her hands moved to my shoulders, steadying me. “Dembe was listed among them. He’s being kept in the palace prisons as we speak, awaiting trial.”

The weight of it slammed into my chest and stole my breath.

“No,” I said. “No — no—”

My knees gave out. Yola caught me, pulling me against her shoulder before I hit the stone.

“No,” I gasped into her dress. “No. No.”

The word broke apart in my throat until it wasn’t a word anymore, just heaving, incoherent sound.

“Hush, Eshari.” Yola clamped a hand over my mouth, glancing toward the door. “Hush now. Someone will hear.”

"I have to get to him," I said. "I have to... the warden, or the guards. I can tell them he isn't part of any rebellion, I can make them see—"

“You can’t.” Her hands dropped from my shoulders. “You can only wait for the trial.”

I stepped back, shaking, staring at her through a thick haze of tears. “A trial? Since when has justice ever favored people like us? Since when has waiting for the right thing to happen ever proved fruitful?”

Yola shrank back slightly, turning her eyes to the floor. She knew the truth as well as I did. There would be no trail. And even if there was, it was only a performance staged after a verdict had already been decided. And as the protests across the city grew worse, the crown did not answer with mercy or fair hearings, they answered with swift executions, broadcast on the watch boards for all to see.

I turned from her, pressing my palms flat against the wet stones of the washroom wall.

How could he? How could he have been so foolish as to join the rebellion? How could he have been so stupid as to get caught? How could he do this to me?

My chest threatened a second wave of tears, but I wiped my eyes before they could fall.

Crying will do nothing. Crying has done nothing.

I knew what I had to do. My stomach churned at the thought of it, but it was my only choice, to crawl back to the Prince’s chambers, to lay myself at his feet, and beg him to spare my brother, or grant him a lighter sentence. It meant giving away the last shred of dignity I had left. Dignity didn’t matter now. Not with Dembe’s life on the line.

“I know what I must do,” I said, feeling the resolve settle in my chest.

Yola’s face tightened with sudden, horrified realization. “If what I think is what you plan to do, then you must end those thoughts this instant. The Prince will not help you.”

I looked at her with a hardened expression. “Well,” I whispered, “I have nothing left to lose, do I?”

“It’s foolish!” I heard her say, but my back was already turned. I agreed. It was foolish. But caution wouldn’t help me now. I was already standing in the fire, whether I walked slowly toward it or turned back, it wouldn’t stop me from burning.

I knew exactly where to find the Prince, because I’d spent the last three weeks avoiding him. Whenever I was posted to clean the royal chambers, I traded shifts with the maids who longed to work the upper quarters. They were glad to swap, leaving me to scrub the stone latrines below instead of risking bumping into the Prince. I’m sure they wondered why I’d give up such a coveted post, but no one ever asked.

I didn’t trade my post the next day.

I cleaned the royal chambers and waited until the other maids had cleared out. Only then did I climb the stairs to his tower.

The same guard from that night stood by the door, chest armor gleaming, sword and rifle resting heavy at his hips.

“I wish to see His Highness,” I said, bolder than I felt.

He looked me over with contempt. “The Prince is occupied with better matters. Leave.”

The sensible Eshari would have shrunk back and retreated. But I had outgrown sensible. A reckless boldness took hold of me instead, born from the certainty that I was doomed either way. I lifted my iron bucket and slammed it against the stone floor, the clang ringing off the walls, hoping he’d hear it beyond the door.

The guard moved instantly, grabbing me by the collar and striking me hard across the face. “Get out of here!” he roared.

It was then the door swung ajar behind him. I pressed a hand to my burning cheek, my eyes meeting the Prince’s cold stare through the gap.

He looked at me for a long moment. “Let her in,” he commanded.

The memories of that night came rushing back the second I walked in. My eyes went to the wine bottle still sitting on the table. Then to the door leading to his inner chambers.

He stood near the dressing mirror in sweeping robes, not sparing me a full glance.

“You didn’t fight your way past my guard just to stand there and stare,” he said. “Speak.”

"There is a favor I would ask of you, Your Highness."

“And yet you’ve come so…” His eyes moved slowly over me, head to foot. “…fully dressed.”

I felt shame wrap around me. “Please," I whispered.

He sighed, a weary, dramatic sound. “Say what you’ve come for.”

“My brother.” My voice broke. “He was taken with the rebels. I’ve come to beg mercy on his behalf.”

I dropped to my knees, crawling closer across the rug. “I know the punishment for rebels is death. But I beg you, my Prince, send him to the mines.” My words tumbled over one another in a frantic rush. "Or the quarries... anywhere. He is strong. He can work. Please...”

I pressed my face flat against the floor, sobbing silently. "Leave him in chains if you must. But please let him live.”

He watched me for a long moment. “Don’t snot on my rug. It’s sheepskin.” A pause. “Get up. Wipe your tears.”

“Your brother should hang for his crimes. Rightfully so.” His tone stayed even, almost bored. “It would make me weak to simply let him go.”

I tried to kneel again. “Please, I beg of—”

“I told you to stand.” He snapped. “What is it about your knees on the ground that makes you think I’ll soften? It only makes me think less of you. That doesn’t help your case.” His eyes dropped, and something in his smile shifted, slow and sickening. “Besides. I prefer your knees on my bed.”

He closed the distance between us. I recoiled as his scent hit me.

“Please don’t.”

“Oh?” He caught my chin between two fingers, tilting my face up to meet his. “Here I thought you’d come because you missed me.”

He leaned in, his thumb resting against my jaw. “Life is unfair, isn’t it?” His voice dropped to something almost gentle. “A girl like you, your beauty belongs in royal courts. Men should spend fortunes just to be seen beside you. And yet here you are.”

“You’d have made a beautiful princess.” His thumb traced lower. “If I were foolish enough to put a child in you, my father would have you and it both killed. Neither of us would want that, would we?”

“Come now.” He wiped a tear from my cheek before it could fall. “You’re too pretty to cry.”

“If I grant this,” he said, “you belong to me. All of you. For as long as I want you.”

I nodded, fear closing around my throat like a hand. “Yes, Your Highness.”

I clung to his word, taking comfort in his promise that my brother would only be sentenced to years of hard labor in the mines. Before I left, he also granted me permission to see my brother in his cell.

A guard led me through the black iron gates of the prison, armored men stationed at every corner of the high stone walls.

The air grew frigid and sour as we walked deeper into the corridors, reeking of damp earth, stagnant urine, and old blood. It was suffocatingly dark, the only light flickering were from wall torches. My heart broke for Dembe, seeing the condition he lived in.

Catcalls and laughter echoed from the other cells as I passed.

The guard stopped outside a cell door, slid open a small barred window, and banged the butt of his rifle against the iron.

“Get up, fool. You have a visitor.”

Dembe sat slumped in the far corner on a heap of rotting straw, his ankles bound in iron cuffs that scraped the stone when he moved. When he lifted his head, my heart shattered. He was barely recognizable. Dark, purplish bruises bloomed across his jaw and temple and his thick locs matted with sweat and dried blood.

He squinted into the torchlight until his eyes found mine.

"Eshari?" his voice came out a dry rasp. He tried to stand, but the weight of the chains yanked him back down. "Eshari... what are you doing here?"

Authors Note:

If you’ve made it this far, I need to know — how are we feeling about Prince Nekaro? Because personally, I wrote him and I still want to reach into the page and slap him myself. “All of you is mine” ke?

And Eshari… my dear, my heart is with you.

Drop your thoughts below 👇🏾. I want to know what you think. It genuinely makes the writing worth it.

Till the next chapter❤️

Love, Racheal🩷

It had been my first real chance to leave Kambwe and its crushing poverty behind. A chance at a new life and a proper home, but the couple did not want Dembe. They wanted only me. They had no desire to shoulder the double expense of twins.

I had refused their offer. I remembered looking the Matron in the eye and telling her that Dembe and I came as a package deal. It was either both of us, or neither of us.

Now, as I stood within the walls of the palace, I thought back to that afternoon. It felt like a cruel irony.

Back then, not even the promise of a better life could separate us. But years of unrelenting suffering had a way of sieving one's convictions. And now, here I was, miles away from him, unsure if we would ever see each other again.

Every day I woke up, my mind immediately turned to ways of getting word to him. In desperate attempts, I tried to talk to some of the palace guards—those who I assumed looked friendly—but they were statues of iron, they did not smile or speak. I couldn't even beg the favor of sending a letter to tell him I was okay, let alone send him some coin.

I thought of the children, how they were faring and what thin broth they were scraping by on.

“You’ll waste away thinking,” a voice said, cutting through the noise of the washroom.

I jumped slightly, clutching a heavy, damp sheet against my chest.

“You’re one of the new girls, right? I’ve been watching you.” She set a pile of clothes down, giving me a pitying glance. “It’s almost like your ghost is walking these halls while you're trapped somewhere else. You have to be present, girl. The walls have eyes.”

I stared at her, my jaw tightening defensively, but she continued anyway, her voice dropping to a cautious murmur over the rushing water. “I know how it feels. Being new, having family back in the village, and not trusting a single soul here. But it gets better. I promise.”

“No, it won't,” I said, shaking my head, my voice brittle.

Three months, and the place had been nothing but endless rules, barked orders, and scoldings. My days were a blur of exhausting labor: scrubbing stained tiles, washing heavy sheets until my palms were sore, and tidying kitchens larger than the entire Kambwe market square.

Any slight tardiness meant immediate punishment from the senior maids. Just last week, my wet fingers had slipped, and a cup had shattered against the floor. I was punished with meal deprivation, and a day’s wage was deducted from my pay.

“Pestering the guards won't help you either,” the girl added.

My eyes widened with sudden fear. I hadn't realized anyone had noticed me trying to talk to them.

“You’ll get yourself into serious trouble,” she warned.

“I… I’m just trying to get word out to my brother,” I whispered. “I wanted to know if someone on the staff had a way to deliver a message.”

She leaned in closer, pretending to inspect the stains on my sheet. “Then do it wisely. Lay low and find out who you can actually trust first. Don’t make yourself so obvious. If a low-level laundress like me can notice your mistakes, the senior staff certainly will soon.”

I looked at her closely, noting the tired lines around her eyes.

“You’re the only person who has spoken a kind word to me since I arrived. Even my roommates just ignore me.”

“I recognize my own people when I see them,” she said, a faint smile on her lips. “My father is from Kambwe.”

Before I could ask her name, a voice echoed from the corner of the washroom.

“This is no time for idle chatter and gossip! Get to work immediately!” a senior maid roared, her heavy wooden paddle smacking against a pillar.

We dispersed instantly, the brief spark of warmth snuffed out by the cold reality of the palace routine.

As the weeks went on, I found myself missing the simplest things. I missed the annoying sound of my brother’s loud laugh. I missed the constant noise of the children at the orphanage, the very noise I used to complain about.

Oh, what I would give for their screaming now, compared to the degrading scoldings of the senior maids.

What I would give for Dembe’s thunderous snoring, compared to the silence of roommates who only stared at me.

What I would give for a bowl of watery soup with no meat, surrounded by the people who loved me, compared to a plate of pristine food eaten alone on a cold mattress.

Later that afternoon, I sat on the edge of my bed, picking at a plate of rice and boiled egg. I felt a twisted sense of gratitude that I could actually eat twice a day here, but every swallow came with a dose of guilt as I wondered what Dembe and the children were eating.

Suddenly, the heavy wooden door flew open, slamming against the wall with a loud bang. One of the senior maids stepped in.

“You’re way past your scheduled break time, girl!” she snapped, pointing a finger down the corridor. “You are needed in the kitchens immediately. Get up, now!”

I bolted out the door and sprinted down the long halls toward the main palace wing. The senior maids had announced that we were serving dignitaries from the capital kingdom, along with the Mavu and his family.

It was my first time on duty for a royal serving, and the pressure inside the kitchen was magnified. The senior maids inspected us keenly, something as small as a misaligned spoon would get your ears sharply pulled or your knuckles smacked with a wooden stick.

We lined up in single file, each with a tray in hand, a guard leading us as we walked deeper into the palace's inner sanctum and crossed vast courtyards. We halted outside a massive set of double doors, and they groaned open, flanked by guards.

This was the throne room of the Mavu.

He sat at the far end of the room on a towering throne, the crown on his head tilted slightly to one side. Beside him sat a boy—looking no older than Dembe—who I assumed was his son. There was his wife, and several other men who were also finely clothed.

We greeted them in unison, bowing our heads low, and began our work in a rehearsed movement.

The trays were set down, the cutlery arranged, and the wine decanters placed. The nobles carried on with their conversation as though we were entirely invisible.

“Reports from the King, Your Highness,” one of the elder men said, leaning forward and sliding a folded piece of parchment toward the Mavu.

“The protests are under control,” the Mavu grumbled, tossing the paper aside.

My hand moved cautiously between the two men as I leaned over to pour wine into their cups.I stepped toward the Mavu’s son, raising the bottle to pour a drink into his cup, but he quickly placed his palm over the rim, stopping me.

He looked up, his gaze meeting mine, and a slow, amused smile spread across his lips.

“Not in the mood for a drink right now,” he said, his voice entirely too relaxed for a room full of tense politicians.

I nodded. “Yes, Your Highness.” As I stepped away, I could feel his gaze lingering heavily on me.

“There are reports that the primary trade routes out of Gombe are completely blocked by the rioters,” one of the chiefs said. “With all due respect, Your Highness, I wouldn't call a halted economy 'under control'.”

Three months in the Palace and the Rebels had already extended the riots to Gombe, I thought.

The Mavu tilted his head. “Do you dare question my authority, Elder Daram? Or how I maintain jurisdiction over my own kingdom?”

“The High King simply wants proper, permanent measures taken, Your Highness,” the man muttered, backing down under the Mavu's glare. “The crown in Nkosa cannot afford to look weak while the peasants riot.”

I moved back, keeping my eyes down as I began plating the fresh fruit. There were grapes, pineapples, sliced sweet melons, and pears. There were more food on this single table than I’d ever seen in my life.

The Prince's voice cut through the discussion, directing itself toward the back of the room. “You there. Bring the grapes over here.”

I looked up, realizing his eyes were locked onto me. I cautiously walked over to his side, watching his eyes shift up and down my form, the smile never leaving his lips.

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Over the weeks, it felt as though the Prince’s shadow hung over every corner of the palace.

While I was dusting the inner chambers alongside a few other maids, a sudden hush fell over the room. Every girl immediately dropped her tools, lowered her head, and curtsied in unison.

“Your Highness,” we chorused.

When I risked a glance upward, I found him looking directly at me. He paused mid-stride, letting his eyes track up and down my form, then walked past the line of maids without a word.

It would not be my last encounter with him. I would meet him again while I scrubbed the long gallery halls, his stare lingering as he walked past with a trail of guards behind him.

It was late in the evening when I finished cleaning the higher chambers. I gathered my tools, turning to make a quick exit, when the door swung open and the Prince walked in alone.

“Leaving in such a hurry?”

Clutching my basket tightly against my apron, I gave a nervous bow. “I am done with the evening cleaning, Your Highness.”

“Do you know how difficult it is for a woman to catch my attention?” he said, taking a step toward me. “For a man of my position, I see countless beautiful women from the highest clans.”

I dropped a quick, trembling curtsy. “Your Highness, you honor me with words I do not deserve.”

“And what is your name?” he asked, tilting his head.

I stammered, “Eshari, Your Highness.”

“Eshari,” he repeated. “And how are you liking the palace so far?”

“It is a great privilege to serve the crown, Your Highness,” I replied instantly.

He let out a snicker. “Then why are you so desperate to leave?”

My eyes widened in sheer panic. “Your Highness, I… I would never… I have no desire—”

“My guards tell me everything, Eshari,” he said, his voice calm.

I looked up at him. “Your Highness, I am only a foolish girl,” I said, pleading desperately.

“I do not wish to leave the palace. I was only… I was only desperate to get word to my brother. We were separated at the tracks, and I—” I cut myself off, realizing I had spoken far too much.

“Your brother?” he asked, stepping even closer. “Do you know I have the power to make all your problems disappear?”

He reached out, his fingers grazing the skin of my cheek, and I gave a trembling nod against his touch.

“I know, Your Highness.”

“Then why are you so frightened?”

“My—my apologies, Your Highness.” I forced myself to stand still.

“Better.” Something in his expression settled, satisfied. “See to it that you meet me tomorrow night in my private chambers after the late shift. We can discuss your situation properly then. I believe we may have an opening for a boy like your brother within the stables.”

A rush of pure relief washed over me, and I bowed low to thank him. “Your Highness, you are far too kind. Thank you.”

“You may go,” he said.

The thought of Dembe living here with me in the palace elated me. I hummed as I scrubbed the floors and washed heavy sheets. Not even the scolding of the senior maids could dampen my spirits.

The next night, a guard summoned me to the Prince’s chambers after my shift. As I followed him out, one of the senior maids caught my eye from across the corridor, her stern face tightening into a look of disapproval. But she could do nothing—not when the Prince’s own guard escorted me.

The guard ushered me into the chambers, shutting the door firmly behind me. The heavy click of the bolt brought the sudden realization that I was alone with the Prince.

The Prince sat on the terrace with a glass of wine in hand, looking out at the ocean beyond the balcony.

“Your Highness,” I said, bowing low.

He smiled warmly, gesturing to the chair across from him.

“You may sit, Eshari.”

I sat down tentatively, nervous under the weight of his stare. But Dembe’s safety was my priority, so I ignored my unease and spoke of what I had come for.

“You wanted to discuss my brother’s employment, Your Highness,” I said.

He let out a laugh, taking a slow sip of his wine. “You are much bolder tonight, aren't you?”

“Apologies for my haste, Your Highness. I only thought we could—”

“Get to the point?” he said, his smile widening.

“No… no, Your Highness,” I stammered, pulling back.

“Good,” he said. “Because I prefer to take things slow.”

“Tell me, Eshari, have you ever tasted Southern wine?” He reached for a silver decanter, pouring the liquid into a cup.

“No, Your Highness. I have never had the privilege.”

“And the first time you are granted such a privilege, it is poured by the hand of a Prince,” he said, smirking as he extended the cup toward me. “Isn't your life turning out just like one of those old folk tales? Slums today, palaces tomorrow.”

“Your Highness, thank you for the immense honor,” I said. “But I cannot. I must serve early tomorrow morning, and I—”

“Take it,” he said, the warmth in his voice instantly vanishing.

With shaking hands, I reached out and took the cup. Under his unblinking gaze, I brought it to my lips and forced myself to drink.

A slow, satisfied smile returned to his face as I swallowed it down. “Good,” he murmured.

I forced an uneasy, tight smile, knowing I had to leave. I did not like where this was going.

“Your Highness, I… I suddenly feel quite fatigued. If it pleases you, I would like to take my leave for the night.”

“Ah,” he said, his eyes glinting with a sudden, manic excitement as he stood up. “But you haven't tasted the best bottle yet.”

He walked over to a cabinet, pulling out a dark, slender bottle. “None of that cheap trash they serve in the kitchens. This is what is made for a true prince. Pure Secar wine.”

He turned the bottle toward me with a smirk. Prince Nekaro, it read, his own name pressed into the glass.

He opened it and poured it into my cup before I could protest. “And you have the unique privilege of sharing it with me. Take it.”

He thrust the cup into my hands. The fear of his sudden anger overrode my caution. If I played along, I told myself, he would let me go.

The wine hit my throat like liquid fire, burning so fiercely that my face instantly contorted.

Prince Nekaro threw his head back, laughing heartily. He leaned in, trailing a finger along my lip.

“Look at how incredibly lucky you are, girl. How many common maids can say they’ve sat in the high tower, drinking wine from the prince’s own cellar? Well… a few, perhaps,” he added, letting out a loud chuckle.

I tried to stand and leave. I didn't want to be here with him. I didn't want his help. I wanted to be back in my room, but as I got to my feet, a wave of dizziness crashed over me.

“Sit, my love,” he said.

The dizziness came fast after that. A massive, rhythmic thudding began in my head. As he moved in front of me, his figure split into blurry shadows, and when he spoke, the sound reached my ears as if I were underwater.

I tried to push myself up again, my limbs screaming, but his hands came down on my shoulders. I remember being dragged, my feet scraping against the rug. Then, my back collided with a mattress. My head slammed hard against the wooden frame of the bed, a sharp flash of pain cutting through the numbness.

I tried to scream, but no sound came out, only a faint, airy gasp. I tried to raise my arms to push the crushing weight off me, but my body was entirely unresponsive. My arms wouldn't lift. They lay pinned to my sides like stone. Then the darkness closed in.

I clung to the hope that it was a fever dream. A cruel nightmare born of homesickness. Any moment, I would wake up to the smell of firewood at the orphanage, listening to Dembe argue with the children.

Just a dream, I whispered to myself, but the ceiling above me wasn't the thatched roof of home.

The memories came rushing back in jagged fragments. I remembered the suffocating weight of his body. I remembered the grip of his fingers. I had fought, I remembered. Weak and useless, but I had fought still.

I had to leave. I had to leave now. I bolted upright, pulling the silk sheets to my chest as panicked breaths tore through me.

Across the room, footsteps clicked against the stone floor of the balcony. Nekaro stepped inside, fastening the tie of his robe.

“Awake already?” he asked. His voice was casual, entirely untroubled.

I stared at him through a haze of shock. He was a prince. The son of the Mavu. He could have any woman he wanted. Why did he choose to do this to me?

I wanted to scream every curse I knew, but nothing came out of my throat but a pathetic, broken sob.

He didn't look at me. He kept his back turned, adjusting his beaded bracelet as he gazed out at the morning sea. “You must forgive me. The girls of Lehoma are usually so… loose. I didn’t expect a girl your age to still be untouched. Had I known, I would have been gentler.”

He reached into the pocket of his robe, his fingers digging around until they produced a handful of silver coins. Without turning around, he tossed them backward onto the bed.

I searched his face, desperately hunting for a flicker of guilt, or any small shred of human feeling after the atrocity he had just committed, but there was nothing.

He gave me a glance over his shoulder. “My guards will ensure you find your way back to the servants' quarters.”

I weaved through the sea of bodies in Gombe Market, hunting for buyers. The two patrons I’d managed to steer back to Mama Nare’s stall had scoffed at the price and walked away.

“Get me customers who won’t waste my time, girl,” she snapped. “I’m not paying you to bring me sightseers.”

The market was nothing like the barren markets of Kambwe. Gombe was a wealthy hub, and its market mirrored the fortune of its people. I looked at the rings on a buyer’s finger and wondered, with a bitter pang in my chest, how many months of food that single hand could buy for the orphanage.

“Beautiful bags and shoes!” I shouted, lifting a pair of Mama Nare’s shoes and a leather satchel above my head. I tried to catch the eye of a passing man.

“Do you want to buy some fine leather, sir? It is affordable—”

He pushed past without granting me a glance. I had to make coin today. If I went back to Kambwe empty-handed, we would have no food to eat, and no other jobs could save us anytime soon.

I thought hard about the people surrounding me. These were not peasants looking for a bargain. These were wealthy vanity-seekers.

I cleared my throat and lifted the shoes higher.

“Look like royalty with these beautiful shoes and bags!” I yelled. “These pieces are for the uncommon!”

A woman paused, eyeing the satchel, and within a few minutes a steady stream of buyers followed me back to Mama Nare’s stall.

As I ran back and forth, I kept a frantic tally in my mind. Twenty buying customers so far meant twenty coins. Enough to buy cornmeal, palm oil, and even a bit of meat.

Elated by the coin practically jingling in my imagination, I wandered toward the far end of the market, where a crowd had gathered to sell more, but their eyes locked on a parchment glued to the wall.

At the top, stamped with a fierce golden hawk, a heavy headline read: ROYAL NOTICE.

My eyes raced down the writing and it read: By decree of the Crown, the Palace of Lehoma requires Domestic Servants, Kitchen Hands, Laundry Workers, and Garden Workers.

I leaned in, pushing past the shoulder of a towering man to read the smaller print below.

“Accommodation would be provided within the palace gates. Daily meals would be provided. Wages would be covered in full.”

The notice ended with a command: All interested and able-bodied subjects shall convene at the Gombe Grand Square for examination by the Royal Chamberlains next week.

A dizzying wave of hope rose in my chest. This was it. This was finally our chance to leave Kambwe for something better.

I told Dembe about the notice the moment I got to the orphanage, but I made sure to wait until food was served, so I could stack triumph on top of triumph.

I’d used some of my runner’s fee to buy meat, along with cornmeal and ingredients for soup. It had been months since we’d eaten meat.

“Accommodation, daily meals, and a fixed monthly payment,” I said, leaning across the low wooden crate we used as a table. “Can you imagine it, Dembe? No more starving. No more working and being owed. We should both go. We might both get in.”

“It sounds beautiful, Eshari.” His eyes darted to the younger ones, blissfully shoving food into their mouths. “But let’s not get our hopes up too high.”

I dipped a ball of cornmeal into the soup. “Why not? What are the odds that on the very day I go to Gombe for the first time, I see an opportunity like this. A coincidence like that isn’t just luck. It’s a miracle waiting to happen.”

Dembe let out a short laugh. “Eshari, since when do you believe in miracles?”

“Since today.” I smiled. “I told you things would be fine, didn’t I? I told you we’d figure it out. Just look at us now, we’re eating like royalty.”

Dembe barked out a laugh, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He rose with his head bowed low, flattened his hand against his chest, and adopted a ridiculous accent.

“Oh, forgive me, Your Royal Highness Eshari. Shall I fetch your silver basin to wash your majestic fingers?”

The little ones erupted with laughter too. For a few minutes, the weight of the orphanage washed away in a wave of loud, chaotic joy.

I had hope for once, and I carried it with me to Gombe Grand Square on the morning of the interview. Hundreds of people came, forming lines that snaked across the hall.

Royal guardsmen walked through the queues, their breastplates polished to a shine, dark blue coats falling to their knees and heavy iron rifles resting against their shoulders.

“Still hoping for a miracle?” Dembe called from the men’s line opposite mine. He was seeking service as a palace gardener.

“I don’t need your doubt right now, Dembe,” I said, keeping my chin high and my eyes locked forward.

“Look around, Eshari.” He gestured at the crowd. “There are hundreds of us. The odds are nothing.”

I shook my head, refusing to let his fear bleed into me.

For over an hour the queue barely crawled, and as afternoon settled in, the heat pressed down on us. A dull ache gathered in my chest just watching how desperate we all looked.

Suddenly, a voice boomed from the speakers mounted on the roof.

“No more servants will be taken for the gardens! Disperse and head home!”

An angry roar rippled through the front of the square.

“This is unfair!” a man screamed.

“I’ve been standing here since before dawn!” another yelled, his face twisted in rage.

I ignored the shouting and searched the chaos for Dembe. When I found him, my heart sank.

He gave a weak shrug. “I’ll wait by the gates,” he said, turning his back, letting the retreating crowd swallow him.

When it was finally my turn, I stepped up to the long wooden table, submitted the documents they asked for, and answered a string of rapid questions from a stern-faced man.

He pointed toward the edge of the square and told me to wait until they reached a decision.

I sat on a low bench, my eyes heavy, almost asleep, when the speaker blared again, calling the names of those who’d made it. It wasn’t until the twentieth name that I heard mine.

“Eshari Ibabi!”

My eyes snapped open. I bolted off the bench and ran to the desk.

“Eshari Ibabi?” the man asked and I nodded frantically.

“The train to the palace awaits you. Your work as a maid starts today. The guards will escort you.”

I looked up at two Royal guardsmen who stood beside a cluster of girls.

Joy and shock collided in my chest. “You mean now? Today?”

“The train leaves now,” he said, his voice hard and final.

My eyes raked across the hall, searching for Dembe. I needed to tell him. I needed to give him the coin I had left. But before I could take a single step toward the gates, a guard was already at my side, his cape sweeping my shoulder as he steered me toward the girls.

“Wait,” I said. “I have to find my brother. He’s outside the gates. I have to say goodbye. I can’t just go.”

The guard said nothing. Another moved in on my left. Together, they formed a wall of moving iron, crowding us tightly together and herding us toward the train.

My eyes searched the crowded square, but there was no sign of Dembe.

We were nearly through the massive iron gates, heading for the waiting tracks, when a familiar figure broke through the crowd.

“Eshari!”

“Dembe!” I lunged forward, trying to break free, but a heavy hand slammed into my shoulder and shoved me back into the center of the group.

“Let me pass! I just want to say goodbye to my brother!” I threw my weight against the guard’s rigid breastplate.

“You are palace property now, girl,” the guard on my right spat, his voice booming behind his visor.

Dembe sprinted down the stone path, his face wild with panic as he threw his body against the guard, reaching through the gap to grasp my hand.

“Eshari—!”

“Move back, peasant!” the guard roared, and with a sweep of his forearm, he struck Dembe across the chest, sending him flying backward.

“No!” A raw, ragged scream tore from my throat. I thrashed against the hands holding me, clawing at the gaps in their formation.

“Let him up! Dembe!”

The other girls just stared, while the guards kept their silent, relentless march. I couldn’t break their formation.

I caught one last look at my brother, scrambling to his knees, his face smudged with dirt, his eyes wide and frantic as he stared at the train.

“Eshari!” he screamed, his voice carrying over the hissing steam, raw and breaking.

I didn’t remember much from when I was little, but I remembered the Matron’s stories about the palace. She would gather us around the hearth in the orphanage and tell us about the days she’d worked there as a young laundry maid. I had devoured every word, painting my mind with her descriptions of towering golden walls, endless greenery, and hallways that stretched into infinity

But my imagination had been a bad painter.

Through teary eyes, I watched the high walls of the palace grow closer. Peeking above the skyline stood the colossal statue of Obamoro, first ruler of Lehoma. He held a massive stone spear aimed at the sky.

As the train rounded the bend, the full majesty of the estate spilled into view. I couldn’t swallow my awe, and neither could the other girls, who pressed their faces flat against the glass.

Towering gold pillars reached upward, bearing the weight of the terraces above. Perched on every balcony were grand statues of stone hawks, their wings flared as if caught mid-dive. In the center of the courtyard, there was a massive fountain, surrounded by lawns so lush, they looked painted.

A sudden, low hum vibrated through the glass and a mechanical bird swooped directly over our train. A blinking blue light whirred in its underbelly as it scanned us. For one terrifying second, it felt like it was looking straight at me.

The palace slipped out of view, and the train stopped beside a row of buildings lined up in perfect rows.

The guards inside unlatched the heavy iron doors and herded us toward the exit.

"Stand straight, girl," a guard barked, shoving my shoulder as I stepped off the metal ramp. I stumbled, but I quickly caught myself and fixed my gaze on the ground.

We shuffled into a rigid line. A new cohort of guards marched over with a tall woman in a high-necked black dress that trailed along the stone. A silver plaque pinned to her chest read: Head of Palace Protocol.

She walked slowly down our line and I kept my gaze fixed on her shoes as she stopped  in front of the girl beside me. With two long fingers, the woman pinched the girl's chin and forced her head up.

“Where are you from, girl?”

“Kajun,” the girl whispered.

The woman’s grip tightened on her chin, tilting her head back further. “Do you lack courtesy? Is that how you answer, or has the wretched village of Kajun failed to teach you how to address your betters?”

"I… I apologize, Mma," the girl stammered. "I am from Kajun, Mma."

The woman released her with a disgusted flick of her wrist, leaving red finger-marks on the girl's skin. She paused, letting her stern gaze linger, before shifting her  eyes to me.

“Your stench tells me you’re from Kambwe,” the woman said, and one of the guardsmen chuckled behind her.

I nodded. “I am, Mma.”

“Look me in the eyes when you answer, girl.”

I lifted my chin and met her cold gaze, noting the mole on her jaw. She stared through me for a long, agonizing moment before moving down the line to survey the rest of the girls.

When she was done, she stood with her hands behind her back and the guards beside her.

“The Palace of Lehoma is known for its excellence, its spotless walls, and its esteemed welfare,” she began. “As maids of the palace, you are expected to show up promptly. Diligence is expected. Courtesy and neatness are expected.”

“You are not to speak unless spoken to. Should I see you engaging with any of the nobles unless called upon, there will be severe punishment. You are not to leave the palace walls, ever, or accept any visitors.”

Worry grew in my chest. I thought about Dembe. I thought about Zola and the younger children back at the orphanage. Would I never see them again?

“You have been granted the rarest privilege of your miserable lives, to serve the crown,” the woman said, walking from one end of the line to the other. “You will do so with absolute gratitude and flawless performance. Am I clear?”

“Yes, Mma,” we chorused. A faint, smile curled the corners of her lips.

“That is all. Further instructions will come tomorrow. The guards will escort you to your chambers.”

That night, I shared a room with three other girls. It was paradise compared to the mud hut I’d left behind in Kambwe.

We had running water, crisp cotton sheets, and a wardrobe stocked with everything I could possibly need. But the opulence felt like a mockery to me. I couldn’t marvel at this new life knowing Dembe was miles away, and the children were left vulnerable without me.

Dembe wasn’t here to laugh with me at how ridiculously soft the pillows were.

Instead, I soaked the fabric with silent tears, cursing my own naivety. Why had I ever believed this placement was a miracle?

If I was a prisoner behind these golden walls, how could I send coin back to help the children? How would they eat?

I stared out the high, barred window, watching the blue lights of palace drones patrol the dark sky. A desperate resolve hardened in my chest.

There had to be a way to send help. I had to find a way out, or a way to reach them, before these walls swallowed me whole.

Authors Note: it’s just chapter 2 and a whole lottt is already happening! Let me know what you think about the story so far ❤️

Eshari

I have done so many terrible things because of hunger. I’ve fought because of it. I’ve stolen and lied because of it. But the hunger I speak of is not the one common to you, where your stomach merely growls and pinches you till you can find something to eat.

My hunger is a different beast. It is feral. It is a slow, lingering rot that pushes a person past the edge of common dignity, stirring a young girl down paths she should never have to walk. My hunger has a mind of its own. It is a voice that whispers to me to kill the lizards clinging to the mud walls of our home and eat it.

It whispers to me to take a market woman’s charred tilapia sizzling over the coals. It was my hunger that calculated the distance, measuring exactly how many seconds it would take for her to yell “Thief!”, how far my feet could carry me before the crowd’s attention turned and hands reached out and attack me.

My hunger has learned that no one is coming to save us, so it has learned to fend for itself. It comes up with recipes like water and oil, grass boiled with salt. Lately, it has grown quiet. It doesn't growl as much as it used to. It knows that even begging will not suffice, for even our neighbors have nothing but hollow eyes to offer.

Poor or not, I carried a stubborn pride inside me. I refused to sentence myself to a life of the streets, holding out an empty palm. So, I took whatever scraps of work I could find.

As if being born in Lehoma, the poorest kingdom in Nkosa, was not enough, fate saw fit to place me in Kambwe, the poorest village in it. There was nothing here. No trade guilds to offer a fair wage, and no escape for a girl whose only inheritance was a slow starvation.

Even the soil had abandoned us, refusing to yield grain. The crown had bled the village dry of taxes and they’d simply forgotten we existed.

But it wasn't just the crown. Someone once told me that the people of Kambwe were just as cruel. Back then, I had argued. Now, I believed it.

Last week, I cleared the open, black-water gutters in the streets, pulling out rancid waste with my bare hands. The merchant who hired me hadn't bothered to provide gloves. When I was done, he tossed me a few copper coins that wouldn’t have fed me for a single afternoon.

“This is less than what we agreed,” I said, my voice tight.

He gave me a slow, foul glance, his eyes sliding over my mud-splattered clothes with disgust, before he turned his back and walked away.

This week, I found myself in the farm fields, wading knee-deep in the muddy ditches under a blistering sun. It  paid enough and I managed to buy a loaf of bread. I shoved it deep into my bag, pressing my arm over it as I hurried through the dark alleys, terrified someone would steal it from me.

I found my brother, Dembe, crouched at the foot of the door, waiting.

“Welcome, Eshari,” he whispered, his eyes instantly dropping to the bag. “Is that bread?”

“Shhh,” I hissed, grabbing his arm and pulling him inside. “If the others know we have it, they’ll beg. And I am not sharing tonight.”

I knew how much I had to do for that loaf and I was too hungry to share.  The rules of the orphanage was to share everything. We shared our clothes, our food and the cramped rooms.

Sometimes, the communal misery grew suffocating, especially when you worked so hard to find something to eat while the others sat and waited to be fed.

Dembe nodded quickly. We crept into the shadows of the main room, crawling beneath a wooden table.

The room was nothing but damp mud-brick. Spread across the floor on thin straw mats, were six children, curled together to keep warm.

Above them, the roof bulged with rot. It wasn't even raining, yet a foul, stagnant moisture leaked from the roof, falling with a rhythmic drip into a wooden bucket.

Safely hidden under the table's frame, I unzipped my bag and pulled out the loaf. I had even managed to get a small jar of peanut sauce. I tore the loaf in half, handing the larger portion to Dembe.

“A whole day’s wage,” I said, letting out a laugh as I dipped my bread into the paste.

“I cannot live like this anymore, Eshari,” he said, glaring through the darkness toward the sleeping children.

“Can you believe the carpenter still owes me for the last work? That stingy, fat fool. I should take a few of the boys, go down to his workshop, and rough him up.”

“No,” I said firmly. “You will leave the boys out of your troubles.”

My brother was a spark looking for a dry field, and he got easily riled up. And although nobody had named me so, I felt the heavy, instinct of a mother for every child in this house. We were twelve orphans in total. Dembe and I had been here the longest and we were also the oldest. I would not let him drag the young children to his fight with debtors.

“I broke my back carrying his logs for three weeks,” he hissed, his jaw clenching.

“Doesn’t mean you should go looking for a fight.”

“Fine, peacekeeper,” he muttered, stuffing the rest of the bread into his mouth.

We stayed in silence for a long moment, the only sound being the steady plop of water hitting the bucket. I stared at the leaking roof, wondering how much longer the beams would hold.

“I got an offer today,” Dembe said quietly, not looking at me.

I paused. “A job? What kind?”

“One of the protest leaders. From the squares..”

“The pro—” The word tore from my throat, but Dembe’s hand clasped over my mouth.

My eyes widened with a sudden, freezing terror.

“You didn’t even let me finish,” Dembe whispered fiercely, slowly pulling his hand back.

“And I won’t let you,” I said to him. “We are starving, Dembe, but we are not fools. The last rebels the Mavu’s guard caught were publicly executed.”

“We are already dying, Eshari!” His voice cane out in a strangled cry. “Look at us! Hiding to eat a piece of bread. If joining the rebellion means putting an end to this then—“

“So you want to be a damned revolutionary now? You want to march against the crown? Against Clan Vhalroth?”

“Curse the crown!” He spat.  “They sit in their gold-painted towers, drinking palm wine from silver cups, while they leave the rest of Nkosa to rot! Why should we protect their peace?”

“Dembe, look at me.” I grabbed his face, forcing his gaze into my eyes. “I am not wading through filth just to watch you become a pawn in someone’s political game. I know it’s hard, but we’ll find a way. We always do.”

“Eshari, they offer money and food—”

“I don’t care if they offer you gold! You are not a rebel. You are my brother and you’re all I have.” I gripped his arms. “Promise me, Dembe. Promise me you won’t go near them.”

He hesitated. “Alright. I promise.”

“Good. I have plenty to deal with already.”

A soft rustle caught my attention. I turned my head to see Zola, one of the younger girls. She had crept out from the huddle and stood at the edge of the table, her eyes staring silently at the bread remaining on my lap.

“Go back to bed, Zola,” Dembe grumbled.

“It’s okay,” I said.

I cut off a thick piece of the remaining bread and gave it her. She retreated into the far corner of the room to eat it.

The Gombe Market Festival was today. It was my only chance to secure enough coin to feed us for weeks.

A merchant woman had hired me for a runner's job. I was to weave through the massive crowds, hunt down buyers, and lead them back to her stall. If they bought, she would toss me a small fee.

The festival was a grand, chaotic affair. Once every year, traders from every corner of Lehoma descended on Gombe Market, the largest trading hub in the kingdom, to buy, sell and bargain.

The merchants knew what was at stake and they needed eyes in every corner of the market. So they hired desperate girls like me to run ourselves ragged through the streets, chasing wealthy buyers and luring them back to their stalls.

“I’ll be back before nightfall,” I said to Dembe, slinging my bag over my shoulder.

“Keep an eye on the little ones, alright?”

Dembe didn't look up from the floor where he was tying a rope around his boot. “Don't get trampled,” he said.

I left the orphanage and hurried through the streets until I reached Mama Nare’s shop. She was already outside, packing leather shoes and handbags into large wicker crates.

“Good morning, Mama Nare,” I called out, forcing optimism into my voice.

“Good. You’re early.” She wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her wrist and pointed toward another pile of goods. “Don’t just stand there, girl. Help me with those. The train to Gombe doesn’t wait for late merchants.”

I knelt and began wrapping the leather goods in cloth before stacking them inside the crates.

Within the hour, we were standing in the choked line at the train station. But even over the shouting of conductors and the hiss of steam, a low rumble echoed from the eastern square.

It was the protestors. Their voices rose in a rhythmic, menacing chant: “Death to the monarchy! Death to Clan Vhalroth!”

Mama Nare noticed the way my fingers tightened around the crate handles. She reached out, patting my arm.

“Don't worry yourself, girl,” she muttered, her voice laced with scorn. “Those troublemakers will grow bored soon enough. They claim they want to end the monarchy, yet they spend their days looting shops, stealing , and terrorizing their very own people. Idiots, the lot of them.”

A tall, gaunt man standing ahead of us slowly turned. “They are doing what docile people like you lack the stomach for,” the man spat, leaning over his own bundle of goods. “They are fighting for a future while you content yourself with bowing to tyrants.”

“Ah, a rebel sympathizer,” Mama Nare said. “You speak as though this is the first riot we have survived. Nothing ever comes of these uprisings. Only dead boys in the ditches and harsher taxes from the crown to pay for all they’ve destroyed.”

“So what then?” the man shot back, drawing the eyes of the surrounding guardsmen. “Should we simply sit and do nothing while they starve us?”

I looked at Mama Nare, expecting an answer, but she simply faced forward as though the man no longer existed.

When the train finally came, a mad scramble ensued. The wooden benches were claimed within seconds by the aggressive and the swift.

The rest of us stood shoulder to shoulder in the narrow aisle, packed so tightly, we could barely breathe. No one questioned why there weren't enough seats for the taxes we paid. They simply shifted their weight, against the jolting of the train, grabbed hold of the straps, and stared blankly ahead.

It was the curse of Lehoma, I realized. Survival was a second nature to us. We had learned to adjust to misery so perfectly.

About the Book

The Kingdom of Nkosa is on the brink of collapse as rebellion demands an end to the monarchy. To reclaim the people’s loyalty, the Crown launches The Choosing—a competition where twenty-two girls will compete to become the future queen. But Eshari enters for a different reason. Recruited by the rebels, she must infiltrate the palace and assassinate Prince Azarek Vhalroth. As hidden truths come to light, vengeance begins to falter, and duty finds itself at war with the desires of her own heart.

Authors Note:

Ahhhhh. I’m writing a political fantasy novel. It’s my first time and I’m enjoying world building and making up names that don’t exist lol. If you like books like Children of blood and bone, The hunger games and any other fantasy book, then this book is for you!

Let me know what you think about Chapter One.

Please read, share, like and comment!

“And there are times when decades seem to happen in months. So have patience and don’t lose hope. Like one of my closest friends always says, all things work together for good.”

I ended my speech with that line, lowering the microphone slightly as the audience rose to their feet, applause filling the hall.

Wunmi stood near the back of the hall clapping enthusiastically. She had been the one who invited me to speak at the event she was hosting—a women empowerment program to celebrate women’s month.

“Me ke? Wunmi, I’ve never spoken in public before.” I had said weeks earlier, sitting across from her at our dining table. “Why do you want me to speak at this event?”

“You’re such a liar,” she said. “You lead Bible study after church. Isn’t that speaking in public?”

I paused. “Well, it’s church. That’s my family. This event is a group of strangers I don’t know, and they certainly don’t care about me.”

Wunmi leaned forward, her voice softening.

“But you do know them, Uju. They’re just like you, remember? Young girls who are lost and confused and don’t know what the future holds for them.”

She reached across the table and squeezed my hand.

“It’s exactly someone like you who needs to speak to them. Someone who has been in their shoes.”

I looked at her, thinking it over for a moment before sighing.

“Alright,” I said finally. “I’ll do it.”

“Yes!” she squealed, throwing her arms around my neck in a hug. “I’m so proud of you, Uju.”

After the speech, I stepped down from the stage and immediately looked around for Wunmi, still a little nervous about how it had gone.

“Oh my God, Uju!” she grabbed my shoulders the moment she saw me. “You did amazing. I almost shed a tear while you were speaking.”

I chuckled at her dramatics. “Are you sure? I felt so nervous up there.”

“You were incredible—excuse me one second.”

She turned quickly to speak to one of the event organizers waiting beside the stage.

Watching her move confidently through the crowd made me smile. When she first told me she wanted to start hosting events as a career, I already knew she would succeed.

Nursing hadn’t been paying her well, and she wanted a different path.

“What do you think?” she had asked nervously the day she told me.

“Wunmi, you’re already a talkative,” I said, grinning. “You’re funny, you know how to work a crowd. What I’m wondering is why you didn’t think of this long ago.”

After that day, she began taking free hosting gigs anywhere she could find them.

Now she was one of the most sought-after event hosts in Lagos.

I watched her proudly as she stood on stage again, speaking into the microphone while wrapping up the program.

As I stood near the aisle, someone tapped gently on my arm. I turned to see a young girl standing there, clutching the strap of her bag.

“Hi… good afternoon ma,” she said quietly, eyes lowered. “I know you from Instagram. I just wanted to say I love your fashion designs.”

I smiled warmly. “Thank you so much, my dear. That means a lot.”

She shifted nervously from one foot to the other “I’ve always wanted to be a fashion designer too. Your work is so beautiful. Can I ask how you started?”

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Chidera, ma.”

“Chidera,” I repeated, reaching into my handbag and pulling out a business card. “I love that you’re curious about fashion design.”

I handed it to her.“This is the address of my shop.”

The card had ‘Wear Uju’ printed boldly across the front in elegant lettering.

“You can visit on Mondays, Wednesdays, or Fridays. I’m usually around then. I’ll happily answer all your questions.”

Her face lit up. “Thank you so much ma!”

She waved excitedly before walking away. I watched her go with a small smile.She reminded me of me.

She wasn’t the only one who came to see me after the event. Several girls approached, telling me how much they loved my speech and how inspired they felt.

These days I had learned to accept the attention that came with the little fame I’d gained, especially since Wear Uju as a brand was doing really well.

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My shop now had eight staff members working there. There was always something happening.

Orders poured in constantly from our social media platforms.

Everything had tripled months ago when a particular celebrity ordered from us and wore our ‘Pretty in Pink’ dress in a photoshoot.

We hadn’t prepared for the flood of orders that followed. That month I barely slept.

More celebrities began placing orders, and I worked tirelessly because I didn’t want to disappoint anyone with delays.

Eventually, I hired more staff and trained them so the workload could be shared.

Nothing prepared me for entrepreneurship. I started completely clueless, with only a passion for designing clothes.

I didn’t know anything about the administrative side of things or even the legal part.

A year ago, when I was preparing to move into my shop, I ran into a legal dispute with the previous tenant.

I sat on my bed staring at the contract papers. “Can you imagine?” I said to Wunmi anxiously, flipping through the pages. “I don’t even know what any of this means.”

She leaned closer, scanning the document.

“I mean… you could send it to Chino,” she suggested casually. “He could take a look at it.”

I frowned immediately. She was always trying to get me to talk to Chino whenever possible.

We hadn’t spoken in two years. I couldn’t just show up with a problem. Out of stubborn pride, I hired a lawyer instead and moved into my shop.

The shop stood in a neat plaza along the roadside in Lekki Phase One. It had taken everything I had saved to secure the rent. But the moment I unlocked the doors for the first time and stepped inside, I knew it had been worth it.

That same afternoon, I sat alone in the shop when a message popped up on my phone.

It was from Chino.

Congratulations on your new store. I’m really proud of you, Uju. You’ve come so far.

I stared at the screen. Tears gathered unexpectedly in my eyes. I hadn’t realized how much his words would affect me. I thought distance and silence had buried my feelings. But the moment his message appeared, everything came rushing back.

His smile. Our conversations. The long moments we spent talking. The way he looked at me. His eyes. His goodbye.

It had been six years since he left Nigeria for the UK. A lot had changed in that time.

Most updates about Chino came through Wunmi because his social media rarely revealed much.

He only posted milestones. His graduation after his master’s degree. Photos from traveling around Europe. The day he got ordained as a pastor.

I called to congratulate him then, but he didn’t pick up.

Days later he replied.

Uju I’m sorry I’m just seeing your message. Things have been crazy here. We have a lot to catch up on. Can you imagine I saw someone wearing your dress in London recently? You’re global now Uju.

I didn’t know what to say. So I never replied.

“Chino is in Ireland right now,” Wunmi told me once while we were cooking dinner.

“Okay,” I said quietly, stirring the pot.

She turned and looked at me seriously. “This thing you two are doing is very stupid. You love each other. Why not just be together?”

“He broke up with me,” I reminded her.

It happened three months after my divorce from Akin. Chino and I had started dating. Looking back now, it probably wasn’t the best decision.

I was still healing. Still trying to rediscover my life.

And somehow I believed Chino would fix everything.

“I don’t want this for you,” he said one evening while we sat in his car.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You need time Uju. Time to heal, time to really live the life Akin stole from you, time to see what life can offer you.“

His hands tightened slightly on the steering wheel. “I don’t want to steal that from you.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“I’m breaking up with you, Uju.”

I didn’t take it well. I thought he was wicked. I believed he couldn’t possibly love me and still hurt me like that.

But he kept insisting it was for my own good.I didn’t understand then. Now I do.

Six months later he asked to see me. We met in a small cozy café.

He ordered my favorite milkshake and I remember smiling when the waiter placed it on the table.

“My page is doing well,” I told him. “I get orders monthly, but it’s still just me sewing everything. It’s been quite stressful.”

He laughed softly.“ Soon you’ll have to hire staff.”

“Staff ke? Where will I get the money to pay them?”

He leaned forward. “Uju… with everything that has happened, I don’t think anything is impossible.”

That was what I loved about Chino. How he never made me stay small.

That day at the cafe, he told me he was relocating to the UK.

His flight was the next day.

“How long will you be gone?” I asked quietly.

“Indefinitely. After my masters, I’d like to work there as well.”

“So this is it?”

“It may be,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry, Uju. Sorry that things didn’t work out.”

We tried to keep communicating while he was away, but things were inconsistent. I didn’t fully understand why until Wunmi told me one day.

“He’s in a relationship, Uju. Someone he met in school.”

Maybe at the back of my mind, I had still hoped that we could be together. I thought that eventually things would change and somehow it would all make sense in the end. But after I heard that, I made the decision to move on completely.

Even months after Wunmi told me they had broken up, I didn’t do anything about it. I was too busy with my business.

The next update I heard about Chino was that he was coming back to Nigeria. That was two months ago.

Wunmi and I were still living together, although now in a much bigger and more spacious apartment.

She came out of her room one afternoon and pushed my door open, leaning against the frame with a smile playing on her lips.

I was sitting at my vanity, my phone propped up on a small stand while I recorded videos of some of the dresses we had just designed for the social media page.

“Guess what?” she said.

“You know I hate guessing games.”

“Chino is coming back to Nigeria soon!”

My heart had skipped. I didn’t know how to react. Deep down I was happy—excited even—to see him, but so much had changed. He was a pastor now. Would he be the same Chino I knew? Six years had passed. That was a long time. What if he was in another relationship? What if he didn’t like or care about me anymore?

After Wunmi concluded the event, she came over to me, slipping her phone into her bag.

“Let’s go get some ice cream. Today has been such a stressful day.”

“It’s ice cream from Kandi’s Café I’m craving,” I said, picking up my car keys from the table.

“Those people should make you their ambassador by now,” she joked as we walked out.

I drove there while music played through the speakers. Wunmi was in charge of the playlist, so she sang along perfectly while I confidently sang without knowing half the lyrics.

When we walked into the café, cool air brushed against my face and the sweet smell of waffles and vanilla filled the room.

Facing the counter with his back to me was someone I couldn’t mistake.

The way he sat in his black T-shirt and cream pants, one arm resting casually on the counter.

Still, I couldn’t really tell if it was him.

I glanced at Wunmi.

She was smiling at me.

“Ohh, I forgot to tell you that Chino is here,” she said, a mischievous grin spreading across her face.

Almost as if he had heard his name, he turned.

Our eyes met.

For a moment the noise of the café, the clinking spoons, the low chatter, seemed to fade into the background.

He lifted his hand and waved, that familiar smile spreading across his face, the corners of his eyes crinkling the way I remembered.

I stood there, my breath failing me as the years between us unraveled all at once, every quiet feeling I had buried spiraling back like they had been waiting for him all along.

The end!! Thank you for reading!❤️

I met Nechi outside the Federal College next to my house. She was seated on the bench just outside the gate. I’d never seen someone so strikingly beautiful. Her eyes struck me in an instant. She leveled her gaze at me, and a smile followed. For the first time in my life, I didn’t overthink a situation. I walked up to her and said the most stupid thing about how she was competing with the sun and she was winning and she laughed.

I did not have to think of a funnier joke or wonder if she was laughing just to be nice, as I did with other girls. I sat down, and we talked for about thirty minutes. All this I did without being conscious of the fact that I’d not had my bath that morning. I was on my way to buy akara from the woman at the gate of her campus, so I didn’t comb my hair or put on my best clothes, and she didn’t mind that at all.

When I got home, she called me and thanked me for buying akara for her too. “It was really nice,” she said over the phone. “Thank you.”

“So, when next will I see you? I can come and pick you up.” I could tell she was smiling to herself over the silence before she said, “Friday is my free day. We can see then.”

And that was how I started dating Nechi, the most beautiful girl ever. I’m not just saying this because she’s my babe. Nechi has the kind of beauty that everybody agrees on.

After a few weeks of dating, I introduced her to my friends, who had a hard time believing I was dating someone. They knew who I was—I stayed indoors and only concerned myself with work, church, and my family. She joined us at a restaurant after her classes one day, and I could see the look on their faces as Nechi walked in.

I was dating a queen, and then and there, all the jokes they made about me becoming single forever meant nothing to me at that point. Nechi was seated beside me, my reward after years of teasing and heartbreaks from all those rubbish girls.

She made me feel so complete. I loved the way she spoke, the way she walked, and how she made me feel. And oh, she was a Christian too. I knew in my heart that it was God and only God who brought Nechi into my life.

It wasn’t until weeks later that I noticed something.

I might have noticed it earlier and overlooked it as girly mood swings, but Nechi got angry sometimes in a way that wasn’t usual. The day I really took note of it was when we were at a café. She was eating meat pie and Chivita, which she had requested, and I was busy on my laptop. Prior to the date, I told her I was very busy, but she insisted we see, and she didn’t mind that I’d be busy.

I could tell by her demeanor that she was not happy as I kept typing away on my laptop. I watched her pinch out the crust of her meat pie and throw it on the floor. She was angry, and she wanted me to know. Meat pie that I bought for 1,500.

“I don’t like this, it’s so dry. I want the shawarma,” she demanded, as she often did—which I found cute for a while—but now I realized how entitled she was. I didn’t mind spending money on Nechi, but she was always ready to demand something else after. I don’t know what she heard about tech bros, but me, I’m not on that level yet.

All the numerous dates she planned, the many times we ate out, money for her transport, and other things she requested were cutting into my finances.

“If you want the shawarma, then buy it,” I said, somewhat upset. She got up angrily, and in a blink, all my stuff fell to the ground.

My mouse, my headphones, and a hard drive. We both looked at each other. A short glimpse of regret flashed over her face, and mine was shock at her display of what I couldn’t comprehend to be anger, bad home training, lack of decorum, or childishness. I decided it was all of this combined.

That night, she called me so many times, and when I finally picked up, apologies poured through the phone.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what went wrong. I was having a bad day. It won’t happen again, I swear. Mark, I’m sorry. Please answer me.”

I heaved a long sigh over the phone. “Nechi, I forgive you, but this cannot happen again. This cannot happen again.”

“Thank you, my love. I’m working on it. Please bear with me. I love you. I love you so much.”

It wasn’t until two months later that Nechi’s anger took another form. She threw something at me when we were arguing, and that same look of regret appeared on her face. She went on her knees and started apologizing.

It had to happen for the fourth time before it clicked to me that Nechi had a serious problem.

We were in the streets of her campus, seated on a bench resolving yet another issue, and something that started out calmly turned into a heated argument. She swung her hand, and it hit hard on my eyes.

I was ashamed to tell my friends the truth when they saw it.

“Guy, why your eye swell like this? Na all these boys wey dey disturb Nechi, you go fight?”

I laughed inwardly at the way he instantly assumed it was a guy who did it.

“Na me wey no dey look wey I dey walk,” I lied and let them continue teasing me about being partially blind. I would rather have that than them finding out it was Nechi who did it.

My phone rang throughout that week with calls from Nechi. I blocked her, but she called with different unknown numbers, and I didn’t bother answering. She sent me text messages and videos of her crying, apologizing, and telling me she was going to die if I didn’t answer her.

She swore that she didn’t mean to hit me.

I was hurt, not because of the bulging pain in my eye but because I somehow ended up in what was clearly a toxic relationship. And the silly thing was that I was still in love with Nechi.

I agreed to see her on a Friday. She had a look of remorse plastered on her face, and when she saw my eye, she began to cry, and I consoled her.

“Mark, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

We were silent for a while before I said, “We have to do something about this.”

“Anything, my love, I’ll do anything. I even want to go for therapy. I think I have an anger problem.”

I gave her a long look. “We need to go to my pastor.”

I could see her face go sour, but I didn’t care.

“Babe, you see all these pastors, sometimes they can be very judgmental.” She looked at me again and saw that I was serious. “Okay, okay, I will come.”

I stood up and walked to my car. “See you on Wednesday.”

On Wednesday after service, we met with Pastor Dami, a good friend of mine. I’d briefed him on what was going on between Nechi and me, and he spoke with us and prayed for us. Nechi burst into silent tears as he prayed.

“God, please help me o,” she kept saying.

Dami pulled me aside when we were done.

“Ebube,” he called me by my Igbo name, and I knew he was about to say something serious.

“Let me speak to you as your friend now.”

He’d said what had been on my mind for weeks now, to end the relationship with Nechi.

But that was why I came to him, to figure out if something different could be done. I left, quite unhappy. I didn’t expect to receive basic advice from my pastor; I expected more.

Doesn’t he believe in the work of the Holy Spirit? Nechi can change. Nechi will change.

The next few months were exactly what I’d prayed for. I’d never seen Nechi so radiant and happy. “I’ve been reading my Bible,” she said.

“Okay, don’t stop reading it, you hear?” She smiled at me, the same smile I’d fallen in love with.

I felt like calling Pastor Dami, who kept asking if I’d ended things with Nechi, to inform him that it’s been more than a month and everything was fine between us.

That week, I drove her to her mother’s house so she could get some food items. I’d seen her mother before, but there had been no formal introduction. Now that I was confident in my relationship with Nechi, I properly introduced myself to the woman, who refused to make eye contact with me.

We both sat in the living room while Nechi gathered foodstuff in the kitchen. She asked me what I did for a living and how long we’d been together. She seemed surprised when I told her we’d been dating for seven months.

“That’s a record,” she muttered. “I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that Nechi can be a bit much, but she’s in my prayers.”

“I’m handling her, Ma,” I said with an uncomfortable laugh.

On our way home, the air in the car had changed. I could feel Nechi’s anger and the silence it usually came with. I tried appeasing her by telling her I’d make my famous jollof spaghetti, but she didn’t smile.

The silence followed into the kitchen as I prepared food for us. “At least help me cut the tomatoes, and we’ll talk.”

She got up begrudgingly and took a knife toward the bag of tomatoes.

I sighed. “What is wrong, Nechi?”

“I overheard you and my mother. I heard what she said to you, and you didn’t defend me! You didn’t tell her that I’ve changed…”

“Nechi, please, what are you talking about? Your mother didn’t say any—”

“I heard the both of you! In fact, I’m done with this relationship. I’ve tried these past few months to be good to you. I even started attending your church, and we’re not even married! Is it me you’re using to do iyawo? Me, that men are dying to propose to every day?”

I drew closer to her. “Nechi, please calm down.”

“Don’t touch me! Don’t ever touch me! I said don’t touch me!”

She swung something at me. At that point, I wasn’t sure if it was the tomatoes dripping quickly on the floor. Tomatoes didn’t look that red. From the look on Nechi’s face and the tomato-stained knife on the floor, I don’t think it was. The last thing I heard was her screaming, “Jesus!” while I blacked out on the kitchen floor.

“All things work together for good.”

I said it, my conviction lessening each time the words left my lips. It was almost like I was trying to convince myself.

How do you will words to become true when everything in your life seems to say otherwise?How do you insist on good when bad and horrible things continue to persist?

There was a time my aunt seemed like a mad woman to me. Every evening she would press her knees to the cold floor beside her bed, her wrapper spread around her like a wilted flower, crying out and insisting on things before God. But they never changed. Her husband never changed. Her sickness never left. She never had her own child.

Yet she went again the next day. And the day after that. Again and again.

Back then I thought it was madness for someone to be so persistent when nothing was happening.

But maybe I was wrong.

Maybe I was only seeing what I was supposed to see. Because even though none of what she prayed for happened, there was a strength in her that helped her face it all.

And so I knelt down like a mad woman myself. Not to wish all my misfortune away, but for the strength to face it.

The strength to face Akin and his lawyer. The strength to speak without tears gushing out of my eyes. The strength to endure the lies Akin spewed about me in court. The strength not to give in and go back to him.

“You cannot be patient,” Akin said one of the days we met at the courthouse.

We sat on the wooden benches inside the courtroom while we waited for the registrar to call our case.

“Ahh, Uju,” he continued, shaking his head. “When I met you, you were not like this o. Because I was going through hard times, you want to leave.”

I didn’t say anything. I simply looked away, fixing my eyes on the tiled floor.

My silence seemed to trigger him even more. Then came the taunting.

“So you want to leave me. I’ve gotten another car o.” He chuckled loudly. “You thought my state would last forever? You might have even been the weapon fashioned against me. Immediately you left, I cashed out.”

He laughed again, loudly enough for both our lawyers to hear.

Beside me, Chino stood still. His dark suit fitting neatly against his frame. His jaw tightened as Akin spoke, but he said nothing. He simply kept his eyes on me.

Chino was representing me and had promised that Akin wouldn’t just walk away leaving me with nothing.

At first I wanted to fight, to get back the money he had taken from me. But my resolve thinned each time I faced him. Now all I wanted was to be far away from him.

Chino drove me to court most mornings. His car smelled faintly of leather and peppermint gum, with a worship song playing as he drove. Before we stepped out, he would always pause, turning slightly in his seat.

“Take a deep breath,” he said gently.

His voice was calm, steady. I gripped the door handle and inhaled slowly.

“Don’t let him get to you,” he added. “You’ll soon be free from all this.”

That day, Akin’s lawyer met me just outside the women’s bathroom.

“Hi Uju,” she said with a curt smile.

She was wearing a grey blazer and well-tailored black trousers. Her heels clicked sharply against the tiled floor.

“Good afternoon,” I replied. “You’re blocking my way.”

She smiled again. “You’re a young girl o,” she said. “Many girls would pray to be in your situation and look at you throwing it away because of what?”

She stepped closer. “I know right now you feel like this is a good idea. But let me tell you, after you divorce Akin, what next?”

Her voice lowered. “Who is going to marry a divorcee? Where will you stay? What will you do with your life?”

She studied my face and noticed my demeanor.“Calm down,” she continued lightly. “I’m just trying to talk with you as a woman.”

She folded her arms. “Akin told me he had never raised his hands on you before this. In fact he treated you like an egg. You kept a secret from your husband. Of course he had every right to get angry.”

I felt irritation crawling up my throat.

“He is back on his feet now,” she continued. “He bought a car. He’s even planning to move to a new place in Victoria Island.”

She placed a hand lightly on my shoulder. “I’ve been doing this work for a long time. If na marriage without problems you dey find, that one no dey possible. Everybody is carrying their own.”

She gave a small laugh. “Which Nigerian man no dey beat or cheat?”

Then she shook her head in mock disbelief. “You wan divorce because of beating.” Her laughter echoed down the hallway as she walked away.

Chino drove me back early that day. We had waited almost two hours in court, but Akin never showed up. His lawyer kept dialing his number, frowning each time the call went unanswered.

We stopped at a small eatery nearby. Plastic chairs, laminate tables, the smell of soup and spice thick in the air.

Chino looked strangely out of place. He was still wearing his black suit and a deep green tie, the knot slightly loosened.

We sat across from each other. “I’m sorry about all this,” I said for what felt like the hundredth time.

He was doing all of this for free. He hadn’t practiced in a while, but offered to do it for me. I didn’t know what else to do except apologize every few minutes for the inconvenience I might be causing him.

“Stop apologizing, Uju,” he said, smiling faintly.

He leaned back in his chair. “If there’s anything I’m proud of using my law degree for, it’s putting men like Akin in their place.”

He paused. “Plus… you’re my friend. Friends help each other.”

His eyes lingered on mine a moment longer than necessary before he looked away and reached for his glass of water.

This whole situation had brought us together in ways I never expected. The last time we came back from court we stopped at a café. That was when I told him everything.

How my mother went missing when I was young and was later presumed dead. How my aunt adopted me at thirteen and brought me to live with her. How she sent me to school and dreamed of sending me to university. How Akin came into my life — kind and unsuspecting.

But when I began looking back, the signs had been there all along.

The way he cut me off when I spoke. The way he treated other people. Maybe I had been too foolish to notice.

“Uju,” Chino said softly, leaning forward, his elbows resting on the table. “There’s no need to blame yourself.”

His voice had softened. “You had just lost your aunt. Some part of you probably felt you needed someone.”

He paused. “Your uncle also failed you.”

I quickly looked away so he wouldn’t see the tears gathering in my eyes.

He told me about himself too. His mother’s sickness. How they tried everything but she still passed away. How his father declined afterward.

When she died, the family unraveled.

“I did drugs and partied hard,” he admitted quietly. “Almost threw my life away.”

He stared into the distance for a moment. “I still don’t know how I got back on my feet.”

Then he looked at me. “I’m just grateful to God for that. He literally saved my life.”

“And now you’re here saving mine,” I said.

He smiled slightly. “All things work together for good, Uju.”

He drove me back to Wunmi’s place. I had been staying there for over two months now. Every day I felt guilty thinking about the inconvenience I might be causing her.

I apologized whenever my things were in the way. I woke up early each morning trying to help her prepare for work. One morning she caught me in the kitchen.

“Uju, go back to sleep please,” she said, turning the sizzling plantain in the frying pan. “You are not my maid.”

“I just want to help,” I said quietly.

“When I need your help I will call you,” she replied. “But please go back to sleep.”

Whenever she returned from work she brought fruits and some stories from work. I knew all her co-workers by name now, even though I’d never met them.

There was always something to laugh about with Wunmi. But this evening she noticed how withdrawn I was.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Akin was absent today.”

“I feel like that man just wants to drag this whole process,” she said. “What is wrong with him?”

I shook my head. “It’s not even that. It’s his lawyer.”

I told her everything the woman had said.

Wunmi’s face twisted in disgust. “I genuinely cannot believe women like that exist.”

She leaned closer. “Please don’t let that get to you. So what if he’s rich now? He’s a horrible person, Uju. Don’t you remember what he did?”

“I do,” I said softly.

“But she’s right… who will marry a divorcee? Where will I go? What will I do with no degree?”

“Uju,” Wunmi said firmly, “going back to Akin won’t solve any of that.”

She reached for my hand briefly. “You need to focus on what matters now — getting your life back.”

There was a short silence. Then she suddenly smiled mischievously.

“So… how’s Chino?”

I frowned, knowing where the conversation was headed.

“I saw the way you two were giggling when he dropped you off.”

“He’s fine, Wunmi,” I said quickly. “And I’m not steering this conversation where you want it to go.”

She laughed loudly. “Na wa o. I’m only asking a question.”

“And I’ve answered you,” I said, throwing a pillow over my face. “Now leave me alone.”

“See this girl o. You’re depriving me of gist?”

I burst out laughing beneath the pillow. For the first time in a long while, I felt lighter. Like I had dropped a weight I’d been carrying for too long.

Chino broke the news to me the next day.

“Akin was arrested yesterday,” he said.

My stomach tightened. “For what?”

“Fraud. Apparently he’s a scammer and he was caught.”

I was on the phone, speechless.

“Did you ever know he was a fraudster?” Chino asked.

“No there were no signs..,” I said but I stopped myself to think deeply.

His weekend trips he never explained. His HR, telling me he had been let go for mismanagement of funds. The way he would sometimes lower his voice on the phone and speak in an accent that wasn’t his. His sudden wealth. It was all tying itself together now.

“Well what’s going to happen now?” I asked Chino.

He sighed. “Hopefully I can talk to his lawyer, now she knows she’s representing a fraud and a thief and a woman beater, maybe she’ll advise him to stop dragging the case.“

I was quiet for a moment, letting it settle. “Thank you so much Chino. I don’t know how else to thank you.”

“Ah, me I know o. You see that Banga soup you cooked when I came to Wunmi’s place, just prepare it for me abeg when this whole thing is done.”

I laughed. “Okay, I will.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “This will all be over soon. I will make sure of it.”

I sat with the phone in my lap long after the call ended. I thought about the life that was waiting for me on the other side of all of this. A life with Akin's shadow finally lifted from it. This was my second chance. To rewrite everything, to begin again. And I believed, that God would write it well.

I can’t believe I have actual readers reading my story. I spontaneously put out the first chapter having no where else to take this story, and wasn’t sure if I’d be consistent with writing. Lol, but I have people who are actually waiting for a next chapter now, so here I am up by 12am writing this story. I hope you all like it, one more chapter to go before I bring it to an end. Thank you for reading.

Also make sure you check out my other story. When walls fall. It’s a romance ish, story. I know you’ll like it too.

And Happy Women’s Day🩷

And then there was Chino’s Bible study class, where I was learning things I did not know before. I found myself looking forward to it. It was interactive and often funny. People asked the very questions I always thought to ask, but could never voice. Chino listened before answering thoughtfully.

I had questions too.

About my aunt’s death. About my life. About Akin losing his job. About the steady unfolding of misfortune that seemed to follow me without pause. I wanted to ask if God hated me, or if He had favorites, or if there were simply people He chose not to help.

It was after the class that I asked him.

As usual, he moved around the room, stopping by each chair, bending slightly when he listened, and nodding attentively. I had never asked him anything before. When I called his name, he turned with readiness.

I told him about my aunt, how she passed away, even though she did everything. “She prayed. She fasted. She helped people. But she still died,” I said. “Sometimes I just find all this hard to believe.”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he let my words settle between us, turning them over in his mind.

“Uju,” he said finally, his voice soft. “I am truly sorry about your aunt. But bad times do not mean God is absent. Knowing God does not exempt us from suffering.”

I nodded. He told me about Joseph in the Bible. He also shared a little of his own story, losing his mother before he entered university, and how he turned to drugs for a while to cope. I could not reconcile that with the person speaking to me now.

“Whatever you’re going through, Uju, I want you to have in mind that God turns situations around. He has never stopped doing that.”

Before he walked away, he left me with a verse. “All things work together for good.”

I carried it with me throughout the week, repeating it quietly to myself. I held on to it because I needed to.

My world felt as though it was tilting, and I was trying not to lose my balance. It had been a month since Akin lost his job. In that month, I had grown used to his anger, the way it arrived without warning, and to a loneliness that sat beside me even when he was there.

He was hardly ever home. But when he came, he came soaked in alcohol, his eyes red, his patience thin. I preferred his absence.

Lately, he had stopped leaving money for food. The rice in the bag sank lower each time I dipped the cup into it. I learned to measure carefully, to stretch what could not be stretched.

He did not seem to notice. Or perhaps he did not care.

The last time he came home, the smell of alcohol entered before he did. I felt irritation rise in me, hot and sudden, but I swallowed it and served his food. It was the last cup of rice. When I placed the plate before him, I said quietly, “The rice has finished, sir. This is the last one.”

He looked up slowly. “What do you mean it has finished? Is it not just the two of us eating? And I have not even been eating much. So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying the rice has finished,” I replied. The sharpness in my voice surprised even me.

“Uju!” he barked. “Is it me you are speaking to like that? Look at this girl I brought out from nothing. Because I don’t have a job now, you think you can speak to me anyhow?”

I shook my head quickly. “No, sir. That’s not what I meant. I was only telling you—”

“It is my fault,” he cut in. “My fault for bringing a poverty-stricken girl into my house. Now she is belittling me. Do you even know that I am still sending money to your crippled uncle? Do you know?”

His questions were not meant to be answered. They were thrown at me, heavy and loud.

The outbursts did not stop with me. They spilled to the neighbours, to the friend who came one afternoon and gently suggested he accept a position at a smaller company, at least for the time being. I overheard them from the kitchen. The friend’s voice was careful, measured. Akin’s was not.

“You want me to downgrade?” he snapped. “Is that what you think of me?”

The friend tried to explain, but Akin had already decided it was an insult. When he asked him to leave, the room grew very still. His friend stood up slowly. As he stepped out, he gave me an unsettled look.

A part of me always knew it would happen, and it was only a matter of time. When he shouted and threw his hands in the air, my body would shift subconsciously, as though anticipating it and practicing for something that would soon happen.

There were the small things too. The way he shoved past me when he was angry. The way his grip tightened around my wrist when he scolded me, firm enough to leave an ache long after he let go.

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None of it, on its own, felt enough to call it what it was. Even after seeing the worst parts of him, I tried to hold on to the better parts, but there was none.

The day it happened, Wunmi called. It felt as though someone had told her, and she called.

“You’ve been on my heart,” she said. “I should have called earlier. Work has been dealing with me. How are you? How is the hubby?”

On another day, I would have arranged my voice properly. I would have said we were fine. But I was sitting on the kitchen floor. My stomach felt hollow, and when I tried to answer her, my jaw protested. There was a tightness along my neck, and my lip stung when I pressed it together. What came out instead was a small, uneven sound. Then the tears followed.

I did not plan to tell her anything. The words simply slipped out, and she did not interrupt, not with advice or unnecessary questions. She only breathed softly on the other end.

“I’m coming,” she said.

By the time she arrived, a driver was with her. Her eyes moved over my face and paused, but she did not ask the question sitting between us. The driver held the door open. Wunmi sat beside me in the back seat. The car smelled faintly of air freshener. Neither of us spoke. We did not need to.

I caught my reflection in the window as we drove, eyes swollen and my lip broken at the edge. I looked away. Wunmi reached for my hand and held it firmly between both of hers.

She paid the driver when we stopped in front of her house. It was a one-room apartment. Small. Bright curtains with yellow flowers. Throw pillows in colours that did not match but somehow worked.

The bed was the only place to sit. She guided me there before moving around the room with quick, purposeful steps. A cup of water. A small plate of food. Paracetamol pressed into my palm.

“Drink,” she said.

She stood in front of me while I swallowed the tablets, her arms folded across her chest. There was no softness in her face now.

As the silence settled, I kept my eyes on the floor, on the small crack in the tile near my foot. I felt ashamed; I had brought my mess into her neat, colourful space.

She drew in a long breath.

“How long has he been doing this?” she asked.

My fingers tightened around the cup. “This is the first time,” I said quickly. “He has… pushed me before. But it wasn’t like—”

“Uju.” My name landed firmly between us. “That is still something.”

She began to pace, one hand on her hip. “We need to report this. We need a lawyer. Chino studied law. Even if he’s not practising, his father has a firm. We can—”

“No.” The word came out sharper than I intended. I shook my head. “Please don’t tell Chino. We don’t need a lawyer.”

She stopped pacing. “We don’t need—” She let out a short breath of disbelief. “Uju, that man—”

“He’s still my husband,” I said, my voice thinning. “And… this time, it was actually my fault.”

Wunmi closed her eyes briefly, as if counting.

“I don’t care what you said,” she replied. “Nobody gets to do that. No matter what you did. Not because he lost his job and not because he’s having a bad time.”

I stared at my hands. Leaving Akin formed itself quietly in my mind, but it looked impossible. I had no money of my own. No plan. No place except this small, already crowded room. I didn’t want to stay and become another burden she would have to carry.

She must have seen something shift in my face. “If you’re thinking about where you’ll stay,” she said, her tone softening, “you’ll stay here. You’re not going back there.”

I nodded, though the nod felt weak. My head throbbed in rhythm with my pulse. Even lifting my chin felt like effort.

“I have to go for my shift at the hospital,” she continued. “But you’re staying here. We’ll talk properly when I’m back.”

“There’s rice and stew in the pot,” she added, already reaching for her bag. “Eat. Rest.”

I murmured something that might have been agreement.

She stepped closer, placed her fingers gently under my chin, and lifted my face so I had to look at her.

“All will be fine,” she said, steady and certain. “You are safe here.”

Her thumb brushed lightly against my cheek before she let go.

On her bed, I stayed awake, thinking back to all that happened. How Akin went through my phone, how he scrolled through my messages, his thumb slow, curious. Then the pause. The slight narrowing of his eyes when he saw the transfer my aunt had made before she died.

He looked at me. “So you have money like this,” he said. “And you’re hiding it from me.”

He called me a thief and demanded that I open my account, stretching my phone towards me. It was the first time I did not bend to him.

“No,” I said. The word startled me. It felt like something I had borrowed from someone else.

He laughed, but there was no humour in it. “You’ve grown wings, abi? Because of money you can talk to me anyhow? I said open this account.”

“It’s mine,” I replied, though my voice trembled.

“You have this kind of money and you’re watching me suffer! Eh? This ungrateful girl. This girl that I brought out of poverty.”

When I still did not take the phone, his hand met my face. It was quick and sharp. I stumbled back, my jaw striking the edge of the kitchen counter.

He stood over me, blocking out the light, the phone hovering in front of my face, demanding I open it. I wouldn’t. It was all my aunt saved up for me, because she wanted better for me. It was all she had that she gave me.

“Open it,” he shouted.

Akin’s grip on my neck tightened. “Open this thing now.” I didn’t want him to have it. I would have rather passed out there on the floor than let him reap the reward my aunt had worked for, but his grip only tightened, and my resolve dwindled.

The room began to blur at the edges. My hands moved, and I opened the account. I watched him transfer it to himself. When he left, I stayed on the floor for a while. Later, I checked my bag. The small cash I had hidden there was gone too.

The money was never enough to start a new life, but it had always been my quiet plan B. My safety net. The one thing that made me feel like I wasn’t completely trapped and now it was gone.

Now, I truly had nothing.

The thought sat heavily in my chest. Wunmi’s room was small. One wardrobe. One bed. A narrow space between the wall and the window. I looked around and tried to imagine myself fitting into it without shifting something out of place.

She had already done too much, and I had only known her a few months.

It felt wrong to arrive in someone’s life with this kind of weight. I could already see how it would look, me coming into her life and she having to adjust her routine, spend money on foodstuffs for two people now, and share her space with me.

And Chino. I didn’t even want him to know. I did not want to become a prayer point in their circle.

Leaving Akin felt like the brave thing to do. But in my mind, it unraveled quickly. He would look for me. He would not stop. And where would I go? My uncle would never take me back. Going back to him began to arrange itself as the only practical option.

Wunmi had her own life. Her shifts. Her bills. Her future. She did not need mine added to it.

I lay on my side and stared at the bright curtains, listening to the quiet of her room, and I wished it would all end, that none of this had happened.

Author’s note

Yayy part 4! After how many years lol. Please pray for me, life is lifing, but my goal this year was to write my short stories and I want to be consistent with it, so I will not stop! What do you think of this chapter? There’s probably only three more chapters to go!

In the three months since being married to Akin, I had learned the choreography of being a good wife.

I woke up early. I cooked so he would have food to take to work. I swept and wiped the house clean. I washed his clothes, ironed them crisp, went to the market, and stood over the fire again in the evening so dinner would be ready the moment he stepped in.

My days arranged themselves around him.

I slipped into the role easily. Too easily, perhaps. I learned the shape of his temper and how quickly it rose. I learned the careful language that could calm him, the soft tone that would not offend, and I learned that silence was often safest.

On one of the rare evenings when his mood was okay. Maybe his team had won or he got some money, I’d practiced and I gathered the courage to speak.

“I was thinking… if I could continue learning to sew,” I said quietly. “I still have the sewing machine It’s in my aunt’s house. I could bring it here.”

He turned from the television and looked at me, his eyes narrowed in calculation.

“I hope it will not disturb me,” he said.

“No, sir,” I replied.

Sewing was perhaps the only thing that brought me joy. I would cut pieces of fabrics and try to make something decent out of them. I sewed when he left for work and on the weekends when he travelled for his business.

The business that kept him up late at night. I would hear him shouting on the phone, his voice rising and falling, sometimes slipping into a weird foreign accent I did not recognize.

I once tried to ask him what happened on one of the days he was angry that he lost some money.

“Even if I explain it to you a hundred times, you will not understand,” he said.

He said things like that often. He would ask, “What do you even know?” in a mocking tone, as if my ignorance amused him.

Over time, I learned to keep quiet around him, afraid of saying the wrong thing. I began finding pleasures in being alone. Thinking of styles to sew, going to church and treating myself.

I sometimes took a little from the money my aunt had given me. With it, I bought small things I had always wanted to try. I was careful not to buy anything that would make Akin ask questions about where I got the money.

Last Saturday, I bought shawarma. It was not as nice as I had imagined.

Back in secondary school, the children who ate burgers and shawarma always made it seem like they were enjoying something special, something I was missing out on. I had wanted to try it for years, but my aunt would say, “Why would I buy bread and sausage for four thousand naira when there is food at home, eh Uju?”

She was right, as she was about most things.

I felt oddly disappointed by the taste. I thought of trying a burger this week, but I was afraid it too would not live up to my expectation too.

I bought some fabrics to practice with. They were new styles I wanted to learn, especially since Akin had refused to let me return to my apprenticeship.

Going to the market always brought back memories of my aunt. I had learned to price things the way she did. That day, I bought two yards of fabric for far less than the seller first asked. I priced tubers of yam from twenty-five thousand down to fourteen. I was so proud of myself. It was the kind of small victory I would have rushed home to tell her about. She would have praised me, or laughed and said she could have gone even lower.

I wanted to tell Akin. I wanted to share these ordinary moments with him. I wanted to see if there was any small joy I could squeeze out of my marriage. I wanted us to gist, to laugh, to talk about our days. Instead, he came home tired, complaining, and asking for his food.

One night, feeling unusually bold, I asked, “Why did you marry me?”

He did not answer.

I lifted my head from my side of the bed and saw that he was already asleep.

I cannot remember the exact day I stopped trying. Maybe it was the day I mistakenly burned his kaftan while ironing and cooking at the same time, and he pushed me away, calling me a fool.

“Common ironing, you burn cloth. What are you good for, Uju?”

Or maybe it was the day he said the soup was tasteless, asked me to taste it, and shoved his finger down my throat.

Sometimes, I sat quietly and tried to arrange the past few months in my head, trying to find the exact point where I should have chosen differently.

I had still not gained admission into the university. That dream had quietly slipped away too and it’s not like Akin would’ve let me.

It was during one of those heavy days that Wunmi met me after church. Her voice cut through my thoughts and pulled me back.

“What’s your name? I’ve been seeing you in church and you’re always alone. My name is Omowunmi, but you can call me Wunmi. Let me guess, your name is Oyinda. You look like an Oyinda. Oh! You’re not even Yoruba? But you really look Yoruba.”

I was surprised by how many words could come out of one person’s mouth without pause. But I liked the way she spoke. There was no caution in her voice, no fear. I wished I could speak like that.

Wunmi was not someone you could easily avoid. She met me after church again the next week, and the week after that. Soon, she had my phone number.

“What about your Instagram? Are you on Instagram? Let me go and like your fine pictures.”

“No I’m not,” I said.

“Ah! How can you not be on Instagram? What of TikTok or X? You look like someone that likes to read, so maybe you’re on X?”

I laughed. “I’m not on any of them. Maybe I’ll download them later. I don’t really see the point.”

“Point ke ? Uju, if you want to start your sewing business, social media is a must. If not, who will see all the dresses you sew?”

I had told her I knew how to sew when she complimented the blue bubu dress I wore the week before. I had made it myself with fabric from the market.

“I’ll try and download them,” I told her.

She met me again after church the next Sunday and convinced me to stay back for the youth Bible study. I liked to be home early so I could cook before Akin returned in the evening, but that day, I stayed.

I found myself smiling as Wunmi dragged me from person to person.

“This is my friend, Uju,” she said proudly.

I waved and smiled, too shy to say much. She was still the only one I really spoke to.

Then the teacher walked in. He was tall and dark, wearing a blue sweater and a cream jacket over well-tailored trousers. He looked young, but there was something in the way he stood that made the room quiet.

“See fine man o,” Wunmi whispered, leaning toward me.

I laughed shyly and tapped her leg, but she was not wrong. He introduced himself before the lesson began. “My name is Chino, and I’ll be taking you through the next ten weeks of this class.”

I watched him as he taught. He opened a chapter of the Bible and broke it down gently. People raised their hands to ask questions, and he answered with patience. The class was lively and interactive.

For the first time since I got married, it felt like I belonged somewhere. Something I hardly felt in my own home.

After the class, he came around to greet us and ask how we found the session. I noticed his smile and how neatly put together he was.

“Pastor Chino! This your jacket sharp o,” Wunmi said, laughing as usual.

“Who be pastor? Na you ordain me?” he replied, laughing with her.

Then he looked at me. “Who’s your friend?”

“This is Uju.”

He stretched out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Uju. I hope you enjoyed the class. I don’t think I’ve seen you before. Are you new?”

“No, she’s not new,” Wunmi said quickly. “She just dey hide. She can be shy sometimes.”

“Madam, I’m not asking you,” he said, smiling.

He turned back to me. “It’s very nice meeting you, Uju. Sorry you have to deal with this talkative.”

I smiled. “It’s nice to meet you too.”

“So, are you coming for Idera’s book launch?” he asked Wunmi.

“Yes o. Let’s go and support our celebrity friend.” She turned to me. “You should come too. It’s not far from here. Don’t worry, you’ll be back home on time. I’m sure your hubby wouldn’t mind.”

I had told Wunmi about Akin, but only the parts I felt were safe to share. I wanted to refuse the invitation, but Wunmi had a way of pulling you along. You found yourself agreeing to things you would normally say no to.

“Hope you have fixed your AC o,” she said as we got into the car. “We don’t want to sweat.”

Chino laughed, and I caught myself noticing how easy his smile was.

The book launch was held in a small hall decorated with yellow and blue balloons and ribbons. Yellow was the colour of the book too. A large banner stood by the entrance. The author, Idera, was smiling in a suit, and the title of her book was written boldly across it: The Courage To Do.

I felt a quiet admiration for this stranger who seemed to be living the kind of life that I didn’t think was a possibility.

She gave a short speech while I sat between Chino and Wunmi. She spoke about following your dreams even when you are afraid. She spoke about never limiting yourself, especially as a woman.

I listened as if she were speaking directly to me. At one point, our eyes met as she said, “Don’t be afraid to do the things you’re passionate about.”

I thought about sewing. About how much I missed it. I wanted to make beautiful clothes and see people smile as they tried them on. But I could not picture a life where I was free to want anything without Akin deciding for me.

When the event ended and people stood up to talk and mingle, I remained seated. It was hard to be in a room like that. What would I say if someone asked about me? That I had not gone to university? That I had nothing of my own? That I had quietly handed my life over to a man who treated me as if I were nothing?

Chino noticed I was alone and came to sit beside me.

“Sorry, we’ll be leaving soon,” he said. “You know how Wunmi likes to talk.”

I smiled. “Yes.”

“So, Uju,” he said, leaning back in his chair, “Wunmi told me you’re a really good fashion designer. What’s that like?”

Fashion designer? What has Wunmi told him? The words sounded too big for me. A fashion designer sounded like someone in a big building, with workers and valuable customers.

“I sew sometimes,” I said carefully. “I’m still trying to get better. I used to be an apprentice, but it’s far from where I stay now.”

“Oh,” he said. “You can always pick up lessons on YouTube. Small confession, that’s where I learned almost every skill I have.”

“Wunmi mentioned that,” I said. I didn’t add that I wasn’t sure how to start or what to look for.

“Let me show you,” he said, stretching out his hand for my phone. “You can download the app… oh wow, you don’t have any apps. Not even Instagram or TikTok. That’s actually impressive.”

He spent some time on my phone while I answered his questions.

“What would you like your username to be?”

I hesitated. “Uju.”

He laughed gently. “There are thousands of Ujus. You need something more creative.”

“But it’s my name.”

He thought for a moment. “How about Uju the fashion designer? Or Uju Wears?”

I shook my head slightly, unsure.

“What about WearUju?”

He looked at me and smiled. “That’s a good one. Let’s hope it’s not taken.”

He crossed his fingers as he typed.

“Yes!” he said, excited.

I found myself smiling too, unexpectedly pleased.

“What are you two rejoicing about?” Wunmi asked, walking over.

“I just helped Uju set up her account,” Chino said.

“Ah, thank God o. You’re officially part of civilization now,” she laughed.

And for the first time in a long while, I laughed freely.

I had never seen anyone so calm in Lagos traffic. The last time I was stuck in traffic with Akin, he rolled down the window and insulted almost every driver we passed.

“Oga, move!”

“Why you dey comot for line like that?”

“See this idiot just block me!”

Chino was different. He pressed the horn when he needed to, shook his head at reckless drivers, but his voice never rose.

Before long, we turned into my street in Ikeja. It was one of those streets where every building looked alike, painted the same tired colours, standing shoulder to shoulder. The apartment was small but neat. One of the things Akin often reminded me to be grateful for.

“Stop frowning your face,” he would say. “Are you not happy I brought you out of that wretched place to stay here? Did you have AC in your aunt’s house? Did you have steady running water? Water heater? Ungrateful bush girl.”

As we got close, I asked Chino to stop a few blocks away.

Just in case Akin was home. I did not want him to see a man dropping me off. Even with Wunmi in the car, I knew what Akin would choose to notice.

I remembered the day I went to his office to drop off his lunch. He had been in a meeting, and while I waited, one of his colleagues spoke to me to pass the time. I laughed at something he said and Akin saw this. When he got back, he called me hurtful names.

The happiness I carried home faded as soon as I stepped inside. I dropped my bag, tied my wrapper tighter, and slipped back into my routine. I cooked. I cleaned. I laid out Akin’s clothes for the next day.

He did not come home that night.

At first, I was not worried. Sometimes he came late on Sundays. I told myself he would walk in at any moment, complaining about traffic, asking for food.I slept and woke up to an empty house.

I called him. Once. Twice. Ten times. His phone rang and rang.

Monday passed. Tuesday passed and then the fear began to sit properly in my chest. I did not know who else to call. I did not know any of his friends. So I went to his office.

I spoke to a man I recognized. He looked uncomfortable when he saw me and quickly pointed me toward another office to see a woman that would speak to me.

I waited. My heart was beating too fast. When she came out, I noticed the tag on her blazer first. Human Resource Manager.

“Good afternoon, ma,” I said quickly.

She looked at me for a few seconds before speaking. Her face was hard.

“Akin’s wife, right?”

“Yes, ma. I’ve not seen him for three days. I don’t know where he—”

“Your husband has been dismissed from this company,” she said flatly. “For reckless conduct, harassment of staff and customers, and mismanagement of funds.”

The words came too fast. I could not hold on to any of them.

“I’m sorry I have to be the one to tell you,” she continued. “As for his whereabouts, we do not know.”

My ears were ringing. “Ma… please… is there nothing you can do? Please. This is his work. My husband is very hardworking. Maybe you can give him another chance.” My voice broke. I was bending, almost kneeling.

“There is nothing we can do,” she said. “If you’ll excuse me.”

She signaled to the security and I was already being guided toward the door.

A weight clamped itself around my chest. Fear. Dread. He had lost his job. And he had never been a happy man even when he had it, how much worse would it be now?

When he finally arrived, I didn’t think I could make myself any smaller. But I did. My steps softened. My greetings were lower and timid. Every motion in the kitchen was careful, precise. I measured the salt, the oil, the stew, and anticipated whatever he would complain about.

For the first time in our marriage, he looked deflated. The ego that usually clung to him, sharp and unshakable, seemed to have thinned. What replaced it was something quieter and more insidious: an edge of irritation that seemed to seep into everything, every interaction and anything I did.

He noticed the lights I left on. “Do you think the light is free? Don’t you know this is paid for?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” I murmured, shrinking further.

When I served his food, he pulled at my ear. “See how this girl packed oil in the stew. Have you bought a bottle of groundnut oil in your life before? Eh?”

Later, when the estate manager came to ask for contributions, he slammed the door at him.

The water stopped, nepa took the light , his football team lost, the fuel in the generator finished, everything seemed to push against him, and he pushed back against me.

On my wedding day, I wasn’t present.

I smiled when I was supposed to smile. I laughed when laughter was expected of me. But everything in me felt distant, like I was watching myself from somewhere far above. My chest was heavy. My eyes kept filling, and I kept wiping them before anyone could notice.

“She would be so proud of you,” my uncle said. I almost said, No, she wouldn’t. But I didn’t.She wouldn’t be proud. This was not her plan.

The day I told her about Akin, about how he said he wanted to marry me, she smiled in that knowing way of hers.

“So he doesn’t want to be your friend again,” she said, stretching the word friend into something else.

When he bought me perfumes and body creams and I brought them home, she would lift them up and ask, “Is this from that your friend?”

My aunt had always been fiercely protective of me, perhaps because there had been others before Akin, and she was always quick to sniff out their intentions. Her first question was always the same.

“Is he a child of God?”

Somehow, that mattered to her more than anything else.

“He goes to church,” I said.

She looked unconvinced. Her face changed in a way I had learned to read. Then came the questions about his family, his work, the way he treated me. I realized, with irritation, that I did not know how to answer most of them. I did not truly know him.

“What church does he attend?” “Why hasn’t he come to see me?”

She was a difficult woman who had already planned my future for me, and she saw Akin as an obstacle. There was a vehemence in her when it came to my life. She had sworn with all her heart that I would go to school. She didn’t go. My mom didn’t go. So many women in our family didn’t go.

It was as though it was a curse she wanted to break. She said it in her prayers. She toiled for it. When her husband complained that she was sending me to school, she said that she wanted me to get into the university.

He complained again when she paid for my tailor apprenticeship while I waited for my university admission. “If she’s not in school yet, she should learn handwork,” my aunt defended.

Although she didn’t need to, she had the final say in her marriage with my uncle. All he did was voice his disapproval and go into the corner of the living room, where he ate his bitter kola quietly after my aunt had finished berating him.

I didn’t like to watch their fights. It did something to me. He would say words like, “You stole your sister’s daughter, barren woman,” and she would counter with, “Jobless cripple. It is because of you I don’t have my own children.”

Long after my uncle became quiet, she still kept talking. She was a fighter. It was both her good and bad trait. She fought cancer. She fought society. She fought the devil. She fought for her faith. She fought for me.

When the days of her death grew closer, I could tell. Her fire was dwindling. She got nicer to her husband. She prepared him food. She read her Bible even more than she used to. Her smile grew weaker, and she softened. She had started to give me different tasks: “You need to open a bank account.” “Get an ATM card.” “I should get you a better phone.”

One day in my room, with my new phone, I received a big alert that almost made me scream. The next morning I asked her why she sent it. She said she wouldn’t be needing it anymore and that she was “not giving it to that lazy man to spend it on beer.”

“That can cover your university fees for more than two semesters, till you start making your own money.”

Later, she called me to her room. Her breathing was difficult. Her eyes searched my face.

“Uju, do not marry that man. Go to school. Make something of yourself. Be what your mother and I could not be. O, Nwa Caro.” She called me the name she fondly used.

“Okay,” I nodded.

She had left me with a heavy responsibility: do what we could not do. But I promised her anyway.

That was the day I rejected Akin’s offer of marriage. I liked him a lot, but my promise to my dying aunt was more important.

As I stood at the altar reciting my vows to Akin, I felt her disapproval settle around me. We exchanged rings. He kissed me. I froze, struck by the terrible permanence of it. In the front row, my uncle smiled. I’d finally made him proud. I saw the kegs of beer he wrote on my marriage list for Akin. I was finally useful to him.

“My wife,” Akin whispered to me. He looked really happy to say it.

“My husband,” I said back.

“No,” he said. “Call me your lord.”

I stiffened. “My lord.” Then he gave me a smile of approval.

I stayed there like a log of wood on our matrimonial bed while he groaned, stiffened, cried, and poured on top of me. I made food that night and served him in the living room, where he watched football on his brown couch with his legs spread apart. I watched him mould the eba as he insulted the players on screen, and he barely noted my presence.

“Why did I do this?” I thought to myself. “Was I afraid?

Did the curse not break?

Maybe this was the fate for women in my family.

Maybe my aunt had asked me to do the impossible, to be what she and my mother could not be.”

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We went to my church for thanksgiving on Sunday. It was closer, and Akin’s car was having trouble starting. Looking back now, I don’t think Akin had a stable church. He complained bitterly about all the churches he had attended, how all they knew was to chop money, how all the girls there were prostitutes sleeping with the pastor but pretending otherwise. Then he joked about soon opening his own church to start business.

I was happy to be in my church and to see familiar faces, although I hadn’t been attending since my aunt died and I wasn’t really a committed member. My aunt forced me to come, but I never really integrated myself, never got to know anyone or talk to anyone.

During my aunt’s burial, I saw the importance of it, how they all came to show support, and now what I once dismissed and saw as excessive, I craved. I wanted to talk to someone, to tell them how much I missed my aunt. I wanted someone to see me and ask me how I was doing. I wanted the hugs and the smiles I used to ignore.

I received a lot of congratulations from some of my aunt’s friends who knew me. Some of them followed up with questions, their words bending carefully around something they were not bold enough to say, and Akin never left my side.

“Ah, na the pastor’s wife dey preach today?” he said when Pastor Ify got on the pulpit after the praise and worship.

“No, this is our main pastor.”

“So na woman dey preach for your church,” he said with a slight laugh.

He spoke more pidgin to me now than the eloquent English he spoke when he first met me, as though the work of becoming his wife was finally done and whatever came after no longer required polish. His facade was down, and I was finally seeing him, seeing my husb—my lord, Akin, for who he was.

Almost immediately, I felt the urge to dress him up, to make him look better, to hide all his ugly parts. When our pastor asked after the service why he hadn’t come to introduce himself before the wedding, I spoke up for him.

“He wasn’t available. He travelled that week, ma.”

Was this it? The instinct you develop as a wife, the same way an animal develops an instinct for survival. The instinct to lie for him, to soften him, and to make him presentable to the world.

I didn’t know if I was trying to cover his shame or mine, because I had chosen him, I had married him. And when I couldn’t get what I wanted, I began to build a different Akin from my imagination.

I could imagine that Akin really wanted to visit my church and do a proper introduction, but he was so busy with his successful job that he just didn’t have the time.

I could imagine that I went home and he did not give me a stern warning never to cut him off mid-sentence again.

I could imagine that he had not been a bit rough when he was in bed with me.

I would call him passionate instead of aggressive.

I would call him unromantic, as though romance was a weakness he had outgrown as a man, when in fact he lacked emotion and made no effort to love me.

I would tell myself that I was the one who did not know how to soothe him, the one who spoke wrongly, the one who failed to predict his mood and arrange myself well enough around it, when he was the one who flared up so easily.

I would do that, because that’s just what you do as a wife.

It’s just what you do.

Author’s Note

Let me know your thoughts on Chapter 2, how you feel about Uju, her Aunt, her Uncle and ofcourse Akin lol. Thank you for reading!

I loved having to explain things to her, things I didn't get to explain to other girls whey their eyes don tear reach back. My Uju was not like other girls, she was simple. Her chocolate skin glowed in her eight-part all-back, her regular hairstyle. She had a slim figure and was evenly proportioned. She liked to wear nice dresses and skirts and had a childish smile.

After weeks of speaking to her, I knew that I wanted to make her my wife. We would spend time in my car after she closed from the shop, and I would drive her around. Take her to get ice cream, buy her body cream and perfume. She would pretend to turn them down, but after much persuasion, she'd accept them. That was the Uju I knew, so conservative, never wanting much. Beautiful. Simple.

One day, when I brought up the topic of marriage during one of our rides, her mouth fell open.

"Aren't you thinking of that?" I asked, responding to her surprised face.

"I'm not sure, Akin. I'm still learning my sewing, and my aunty said she will enroll me in university soon."

I laughed heartily. "Uju, sewing will be the least of your worries when you get married to me. And school? Do you really think you need to go to school?"

She nodded solemnly. "I do."

I was hurt by her refusal and lack of excitement, but I did not show it. I really liked her, but I did not want her to think more of herself, so I let it go. After that day, our meetings became simple waves from my car, or shy greetings whenever I came around the shop. She was always eager to tell me the new things she had learned to sew, but I feigned disinterest as I wanted to let her know that I wasn’t happy with her. Soon, she stopped waving whenever I passed with my car, but I never gave up, I knew somehow that she’ll end up being mine.

Months down the line, Uju lost her aunt. I had never seen her so sad. I went to pay my condolences at her house and watched her as she served me groundnuts and garden egg. Her uncle, who was partly crippled, sat with me and lamented about the passing of his wife, mostly about how there would be no one to take care of him now that she was gone, and how he needed money to treat his leg. It didn't look like he had anything going for him. I had seen the empty provision store outside their compound.

Right there, I told him about my plans for Uju, and he approved without hesitation. I realized that without her aunt, there was no one who was going to send her to the university, so that dream was over for her.

A week later, when I came to visit, he began to call me his son. I had given him some money, and I guess that was the reason for the promotion.

"I've spoken to her, Akin. She said she will think about it. You know she was very close to my wife and is still mourning her."

I left the house thinking about all the girls in Lagos who were pining after me, ready to offer themselves on a platter, and Uju, who had to "think about it." I was calm and patient. I knew I would eventually get my prize. Uju was not like those other girls, after all. She was special, and I enjoyed working for her.

Uju became my wife months down the line. After much persuasion from her uncle, she finally agreed.

It was the kairos of God that I would walk into a random church behind my house, depressed and joyless on a Sunday morning, and the sermon I’d hear would be Agalliao. I went to church not because I loved God, but because I had to perform the perfunctory duty of a daughter living under the house of Christians and go to church.

I’ve experienced several kairos moments in my life, now that I know what it means, but me stepping into CCI, that has always been a walkable distance from my house that Sunday, was the biggest kairos and still the biggest kairos of all. Why? Because I heard the sermon that would change my life forever.

Now, know this. I was not a fan of God or Christians for a long time in my life. I used to be quite a cynic, but hear it from a self-proclaimed atheist who insulted and mocked Christians and even God himself, that I’ve been personally touched by Him. I didn’t know Him, but He knew me and what I needed at that time, and even in my ignorance, He somehow divinely orchestrated my life.

When I listened to Agalliao in church, I felt moved, and I went to listen to our apostle’s sermon on it. There was a part he said, “Joy is a fight,” and I cannot explain, but that was the exact moment I was delivered from depression.

A realization had dawned on me that I was in charge and in control of my joy. I’d been living my life with the disposition that this thing owned me and I was “just this way.” It dictated my moods, dictated my happiness, dictated my life. I relied solely on artificial substances to feel genuinely happy sometimes, but hearing for the first time in my life, “Joy is a fight,” I cried because I just realized that I was in a losing battle.

When it dawned on me that I was in a fighting ring with depression and it was beating the hell out of me, with strength I didn’t know I had, I got up and started fighting back. I imagined the fighting commentators being surprised at the sudden turn of events. Me, who had never landed a blow on this opponent, started fighting and swinging, and I won.

You know you have joy in you when sad situations don’t dictate or direct your life. Yes, I was “happy” when I was depressed—temporary bouts of happiness over silly things: a new phone, going for a party, doing drugs, materialistic things—but joy was absent in me.

Now joy is here, and the only way I can explain it as a former English teacher, is this: happiness feels like present tense, but joy, joy is present continuous.

It is there, it is just always there. Joy exceeds, joy survives, it animates you, it pours into you, it changes you. It changed me.