“Have you come upon any of the Red Emperor’s declared enemies at this time?” she asked.

Her mouth said this, but what her eyes really said was Are you the Red Emperor’s enemy? to which Danso’s eyes were, unwillingly, answering Yes.

“Not any that I have recognised, officer,” he said, forcing his lips to ignore his brain. This question was another trap, and the next was likely to be the one with the trip rope, the one that snapped and held the weak animal tight in place, helpless.

The mouthpiece took a moment before she posed her last question.

“Have you, at any point, aided any enemies of the empire, or those who have strayed from the Red Emperor’s guidance?”

Yes, yes, yes, Danso’s brain said. Thankfully, his mouth did nothing but gulp. And perhaps that moment of pause was too long, because the peace officers responded. Their arms, which once hung by their sides or were folded across their chests, dropped to rest on their cutlasses, spears, axes.

Praise for
Son of the Storm

“A mesmerizing coming-of-age tale set against a thrilling, fantastical adventure that introduces a beguiling new world … and then rips apart everything you think you know”

S. A. Chakraborty, author of The City of Brass

“Ambition and intrigue cause surprises on nearly every page as characters reach for power in unpredictable and nuanced ways … The effect is rich, wild, and occasionally dizzying”

NPR Books

“Okungbowa weaves an intricate and irresistible plot around the tensions and contradictions of a corrupt, decadent society. The result is a vibrant tale of betrayal, intrigue, and revolution, which benefits greatly from an original setting, a fresh take on magic, and deftly executed characterization”

Anthony Ryan, author of The Pariah

“Fantastical beasts and forgotten magic propel a story about ambition, conspiracy, and the elusiveness of belonging. This is epic fantasy that will make you think and leave you unsettled”

Fonda Lee, World Fantasy Award–winning author of Jade City

“An epic fantasy set apart by how deftly Okungbowa unfurls his intricate, richly imagined world. It’s not often you get to read a fantasy novel that spans not only ancient magic, sinister machinations, and monstrous forests but courthouses, college classes, and hairdressers too, evoking the terrible and fascinating city-state of Bassa in living, breathing detail”

A. K. Larkwood, author of The Unspoken Name

“Highly recommended for fans of epic fantasy based on non-European mythologies … readers who enjoy protagonists on troubled journeys … or anyone who likes to chew on stories with complex shenanigans”

Library Journal (starred review)

“Enthralling … This sweeping and politically charged fantasy explores race, gender, and culture in a complex and compelling world”

BuzzFeed News

“A flash of lightning in the dark! Suyi Davies Okungbowa has created an original and fully conceived new world of fantasy teeming with brilliant possibilities and demanding to be explored”

P. Djèlí Clark, author of A Master of Djinn

By Suyi Davies Okungbowa

THE NAMELESS REPUBLIC

Son of the Storm

Warrior of the Wind

David Mogo, Godhunter

Copyright

Published by Orbit

ISBN: 978-0-356-51584-7

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2023 by Suyi Davies Okungbowa

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Excerpt from The Unbroken by C. L. Clarke

Copyright © 2021 by Cherae Clark

Map by Tim Paul

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

Orbit

Little, Brown Book Group

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

www.littlebrown.co.uk

www.hachette.co.uk

For those buckled and bent, but never broken.

Content Note

This book is intended for an adult readership, and contains themes, depictions, and/or instances of: albinism, animal death, artificial insemination, blood/gore, caste and class segregation, colourism and discrimination, death, pregnancy loss and miscarriages, murder, PTSD and anxiety, violence, and xenophobia.

Reader discretion is advised.

The Story So Far

IN THE UNICONTINENT OF Oon, surrounded by the Neverending Sea, the prosperous city of Bassa sits at the geographical and political centre of the mainland. Being the most fertile of all three regions (mainland, desertland, and islands), the empire of Bassa has long ruled by might and by tale. But everything is changing—the land, the winds, the seas. As resources dwindle, so does Bassa’s might. And unknown to the city, its story is about to be rewritten.

BOOK 1: SON OF THE STORM

DANSO, a disillusioned scholar at the University of Bassa, stumbles upon an ancient manuscript while skimming a restricted section. The written codex of the Manic Emperor contains stories about Bassa’s past that challenge everything Danso knows about his nation, raising even more questions about his past: his mixed heritage of an islander mother and mainlander father, which has earned him the lowest caste position of Shashi (though he is let into the scholar guild reserved for the elite Idu nobles, the highest caste position, due to his excellent memory). The codex also discusses a mythical mineral called IBOR, with which a gifted user, called an IBORWORKER, can perform supernatural feats. His quest for further answers puts him in trouble with his family, the university (which suspends him), and most importantly, ESHEME, his intended.

Things come to a head when an intruder breaches Bassa’s border. LILONG, from the Nameless Islands (believed by most Bassai and mainlanders to be extinct, alongside its peoples), is chasing the Diwi, a family heirloom of inert red ibor that has been stolen by NEM, a fixer (and Esheme’s mother). By a twist of fate, Lilong ends up in Danso’s family barn, where she is spotted by him. Her presence confirms Danso’s beliefs that the codex’s words were true: Islanders aren’t extinct, and ibor is real, proven by Lilong’s use of amber ibor (to change her skin shade and control her blade, among other feats). When Lilong leaves, Danso opts not to report her presence.

In the course of retrieving the Diwi, Lilong discovers that Nem has learned iborworking, and ends up attacking her. Both get wounded, Nem more so than Lilong. Lilong returns to Danso’s barn, and Danso helps her, but encounters Esheme in the process. In a bid to protect herself, Lilong attacks Esheme, and Danso’s Second, ZAQ, is dutifully required to attack Esheme’s Second, who intends to harm Danso. With a search for the intruder on, the three—Danso, Zaq, and Lilong—are forced to flee to Whudasha, a coastal protectorate where other Shashi are permitted to live outside of Bassa. To do this, they must head through the Breathing Forest.

Their journey through the forest is filled with challenges, including constant quakes and an attack by a lightning bat called a SKOPI. Here, Danso learns that such beasts are attracted to ibor and feats of iborworking. But after killing the beast, the Diwi—which has been inert in Lilong’s family for generations—is awakened by Danso’s touch, and the dead bat is brought back to life under his command.

Back in Bassa, Esheme has taken over Nem’s affairs while she recovers from a coma. She comes into possession of a broken-off piece of the Diwi, held by Nem. She also inherits a debt Nem owes to the powerful First Elder DỌTA. Dọta, who knew about Nem’s dalliances with ibor, wants his hands on the mineral, and tasks Esheme with retrieving the full Diwi from the fugitives, threatening consequences if she doesn’t. This sends Esheme down two paths. The first: sending her Second, OBODA, to Whudasha in pursuit of the fugitives. The second: a meeting with the Coalition for New Bassa, in which the coalition’s leader, BASUAYE, and one of his generals, IGAN, sign up to protect her and her house until Dọta’s threats wane. But Basuaye wants something else in return: to use the funeral of the Bassai Speaker—who died in a strange attack (later revealed to have been facilitated by Nem for his knowledge of her actions)—to push his goals for the coalition, which are to disrupt the Bassai elite and galvanize the people to his cause. Esheme, chosen to give an address (on behalf of the absent Nem) about the recent attacks (which have been pinned on the intruder), is asked to speak in favour of the coalition.

On the day of the funeral, Esheme delivers her speech, which she infuses with her own rallying cries, revealing truths about the Bassai elite’s secrets. Her speech ignites a fracas, during which Esheme is rescued by Igan. Afterward, Dọta sends his people after her, but due to the protection of the Coalition for New Bassa (and her newfound respect by the Bassai), is unable to reach her.

Back on the road, the fugitives (Danso, Lilong, Zaq) arrive in Whudasha on the back of a tragedy: an attack by a crop of bounty hunters on their tail, which Danso deals with by setting the Skopi’s lighting on them. They are discovered by BIEMWENSÉ, a Whudan outcast who nurses them back to health. Zaq, harbouring doubts throughout the trip, finally abandons Danso, but is picked up by the Whudasha Youth, led by the Supreme Magnanimous, KAKUTAN, who pressures the truth out of him. Kakutan sets upon Biemwensé’s home, hoping to avoid Bassa’s wrath by rounding up the fugitives and returning them to the city. But Biemwensé holds her ground, defending Danso and Lilong—before Danso quells the attack using the Skopi. Kakutan allows the fugitives to go if they leave immediately, which they agree to. They head for the headquarters to retrieve Zaq, but more surprises await.

Oboda, who has traced the fugitives to Whudasha, has commandeered the Whudasha Youth and set Zaq to a pyre in order to draw out the fugitives. This leads to a battle wherein Oboda is killed by Lilong, and Zaq is burned at the stake. Zaq’s death weighs greatly on Danso. Kakutan, realising what Oboda’s death means for her people, decides to lead all of Whudasha across the border—underneath the Soke mountains, through the Dead Mines—to the desertlands beyond, where they may be safe with a secret group who runs these passages. Danso, Lilong, and Biemwensé follow on this journey.

In Bassa, Esheme learns she is pregnant with the child of her desertland immigrant lover. While processing this, she receives Oboda’s deceased body, which, upon her touch with the small piece of red ibor, is brought back to zombie-like life (like Danso’s bat) and is compliant to her commands. When Dọta shows up in person with his personal army to retrieve the red ibor, she decimates him and his group in a bloody attack by her newfound weapon, Oboda. Afterward, Nem awakes from her coma, and Esheme fills her in on everything. Nem pieces together that Esheme’s carriage of a mixed-heritage child must be the reason she can wield red ibor (giving us an insight as to why Danso also can). Nem believes that protecting this secret is important, and therefore all mixed-heritage peoples must be prevented from learning it—especially Whudans.

This leads Esheme into capitalizing on her newfound power (and support from the people) to take over the Coalition for New Bassa (which she does by murdering its generals and imprisoning its leader, Basuaye). With a rousing speech, she commandeers the coalition into an attack on the Great Dome, which she leads herself, using Oboda and Igan. In view of the public, she gives the Bassai elite over to the people to be maimed, after which she is rewarded with their support and loyalty, and is proclaimed by them as saviour and the new emperor.

With her newfound position, Esheme gathers Bassa’s best forces and sets upon the Soke border, catching the escape of the Whudans in the nick of time. On the last bridge across the moats, where Danso, Lilong, Biemwensé, and Kakutan are escaping, she tries to barter the Diwi for Danso’s father, whom she has brought along. This ends in a battle where Danso’s father dies at Esheme’s hands (by burning), Oboda and the Skopi are lost in the moat, and the four fugitives escape. They are picked up by the secret group, who they learn are called the Gaddo Company.

Back in Bassa, Esheme is crowned the new emperor.

The Written Codex of Danso DaaHabba, First Jali of Bassa to Journey over the Soke Borders: Hereafter lie his personal accounts of travels and travails through the desertlands, from the western vagabond colony of Chabo, to the fabled eastern Forest of the Mist.

The Third Account: The salt-taste of triumph.

Triumph is salt. It is blood rushing back from throat onto tongue, warm and stale and sick. It is the ache of bones after victory, the agony of wounds treated.

—The Manic Emperor, Nogowu, Twenty-Third Emperor of Great Bassa

I FIND SOLACE IN a madman’s words once we have crossed underneath the border’s mountains and make our way to a future beyond Bassa. Our journey across the lower Savanna Belt lasts many days and ends in a colony obscured from the naked eye, whose roads only familiar feet know. Here, we dismount and venture into the shadows.

In the quiet, I discover madness. What else is left to lose but sanity when one has lost everything they love, has left behind all whose freedoms may well depend on their actions? So, while around us people sing happy songs, seek friendship, eat good food, and make home, I find no respite, and neither do my companions; there is only dust and sweat and hearts jumping into our mouths.

Silence is safety, but also anticipation.

As an old jali’s saying goes: There is no rest under the throne. But a child who says their parent will not rest, will not rest either. All of us, eyes open, will stand through the dark of night.

ochela

Second Season of the Red Emperor

Five Hunthands

The Lonely Roads West

Fifth Mooncycle, 19–21

CHABO WAS A COLONY of vagabonds.

Every soul in Chabo was running from something. People of disrepute who, if their feet were to touch the dust of any city or settlement in the Savanna Belt, would be pounced upon and sent into a forever darkness. Those who lacked ambition, aspiration, or resourcefulness, making Chabo the only place on the continent that would not eat them alive for it. Those who moved between worlds, who needed a place of dishonour that operated by its own rules to pause and rethink their strategies.

Chabo asked nothing of those who came. There were no councils, no civic guards, no warrant chiefs, no vigilantes, no peace officers. Nothing but a haphazard collection of rogue communes in the western armpit of the Savanna Belt. It was generally agreed that any soul without a wish to be absorbed into this colony was to remain on the northward trade routes that sprouted from Chugoko, a real city. It was advised not to turn even one’s neck westward, let alone one’s kwaga.

Except, of course, if one wanted to turn their sights on Chabo in search of something that did not wish to be found.

Five mooncycles into the second season of the Red Emperor, a wagon carrying five men turned westward like so, sidling the Soke mountains and border moats, and set themselves upon the Lonely Roads West to Chabo. Each man was dressed in armoured hunthand garb—skirts, chest plates, iron headwear—and bore a short spear and long blade. Faces half shielded by veils, eyes alone betraying grim temperament. In their wagon: shackles, blindfolds, an iron crossbolt.

They rode in the open wagon and spat in the browning grass by the wayside, not an eye taken off the roads, minds focused on the colony ahead of them. They camped without event on the first day. By the next day, they came upon the first person they had seen in a long time: a wrinkled old desertlander who sat in the dust and batted flies from his lips.

They kicked aside his alms bowl and shoved a worn leaflet into his nose.

“In the name of the Red Emperor, tell us what you know of this,” the leader of the hunthands—a dark man with tribal marks etched into his cheeks, remnants of his hinterland origins—said in halting Savanna Common.

The almsman cocked his head and licked his dry, cracked lips. He squinted at the sheet of paper, struggling to make out the faint markings in the glare of the sun. It was unclear what language the words were written in. Besides, the man couldn’t read. He shrugged after trying, pointed at his ear, then at his head, to say he understood neither their words nor the markings.

“We seek the jali who made this,” said the leader, switching to a smoother border pidgin, more easily understood. “We are led to believe it came from Chabo.”

The almsman shrugged again. The leader smacked him on the cheek.

“Listen, you millipede,” he said. “This jali and his accomplices are fugitives of the Red Emperor. If you have seen a Shashi in Chabo, you better tell us now.” When the almsman struggled to process the word Shashi, the leader added: “He rides a dead bat that is not dead, and can call on lightning. He may be travelling with a yellowskin.”

The almsman blinked at that, then stifled a chuckle, and that was all it took.

One of the men punched him in the face and broke his nose. They left him bleeding into the dry grass, red reflecting in the hard heat of noon.

Next, they came upon a nomadic group of cattle and goat rearers. They stopped and asked the same questions. The rearers, a ragtag group of poorly armed men, said they sounded ridiculous. A bat-riding Shashi and a yellowskin? They had walked the length and breadth of this Savanna Belt and had never seen such things. They waved the hunthands aside and asked to be left alone.

One of the hunthands took off his veil to reveal his mouth: lips sewn shut, copper wires criss-crossing top to bottom, leaving dark, reddish patterns where they pierced.

Immediately the nomads saw this, they fell to their knees, heads bowed in the sand. “We did not know you were the Red Emperor’s peace officers,” they pleaded. “We thought you were bandits or swindlers trying to take our goats.”

The lead hunthand, in response, mounted the crossbolt and shot it between three goats. The rearers swallowed their hurt and rage and sorrow as the hunthands made them chop up the meat, dry it over a fire, and salt it for the rest of their trip.

On the third day, a few hours outside of Chabo, the hunthands met another vagabond.

This man happened to be headed away from Chabo, toward Chugoko, and luckily for them, knew about the tract. He had seen others like it being read back in Chabo, passed from hand to hand. All nonsense stories, he said, lies about the Red Emperor and Bassa. But it was popular in the colony, often read around night-fires among the companies that plied their trade there.

They thanked him, but for good measure, stripped him of his belongings.

They had barely gone another hour when they met another vagabond, this one cloaked in every sense of the word. Their wrappers went up to their wrists and ankles, and a veil shielded their face, leaving only their eyes visible. Even their hands and feet were wrapped in strips of cloth, as if they’d once been buried beneath the sand.

Upon sighting the hunthands from afar, the vagabond stopped in the middle of the road.

The men, unsure of what they were dealing with, disembarked from their wagon. The leader shouted his questions—in Savanna Common, in Mainland Common, in two border pidgins. None evoked any response. Then the man with the sewn lips revealed his face, and the vagabond snickered.

“If you were truly peace officers,” the vagabond said in High Bassai, “I would already be dead.”

The leader’s eyes narrowed. The man with the sewn lips removed the false wiring, tossed it in the sand, and wiped the fake blood from his lips.

“Who are you?” asked the leader.

“Come and find out,” said the vagabond, then ducked into the bush.

The men moved before they thought, drawing, unsheathing, a synergy born of seasons of hunts together. They piled into the bush, but one ran to the wagon, mounted the crossbolt, aimed it in the general vicinity of the vagabond, and fired. The iron bolt whizzed through tall grass, parting vegetation, headed for the retreating figure’s spine.

Out of nowhere, a flash of colour, as a gem-hilted blade appeared and struck the crossbolt clean in the head, altering its trajectory. The bolt missed the vagabond narrowly, tearing through their wrappers, splintering one tree, embedding itself into another.

“Ambush!” cried the leader, but it was too late. The vagabond had stopped running and had now turned to face them.

A second figure materialized in the grass: a man in a boubou kaftan, head in a turban, the curved sword in his hand pointed at the hunthand leader. Various people dressed and armed in a similar manner began to appear, their curved swords pointed likewise. In a moment, the hunthands were outnumbered, outarmed, outfoxed.

“If you know what is good for you,” the man in the boubou said, “drop your weapons.”

The lead hunthand, though not fully understanding the Savanna Common spoken, recognised the language of a well-executed trap. Especially once he spotted the vagabond from much earlier—the one who’d told them about the tract—among the group.

He surrendered his weapons and signaled for his men to do the same.

The cloaked vagabond stepped forward. Up close, he could see it was a woman: young, low-brown, desertlander. Raised scars peeked out near her collarbone, stretched and leathery, as if belonging to some other skin.

“You will be returning those,” she said, of the belongings they stole.

The lead hunthand nodded solemnly, then asked again, softer this time: “Who are you?”

“We,” she said, “are the Gaddo Company.”

Lilong

Chabo

Fifth Mooncycle, 21, same day

LILONG RODE BACK TO the colony beside Kubra, in the lead and on the kwaga gifted to her by the company. This was how crucial she had become to company affairs over the few mooncycles since her arrival. So integrated, in fact, that she barely spared a thought for their targets anymore, especially when they deserved it like the hunthands they had just stripped of everything and abandoned in the savanna.

It’d started with Kubra asking her to join their raids. Not a request per se: It was customary for Bassa escapees to work off the cost of their escape. Between the four in her group, Lilong was the best choice, being the most skilled, most easily adaptable, and least recognised.

Initially, she’d accompanied them only on food raids, robbing Bassai merchant caravans along the trade routes. But the caravans soon became harder to defeat as the routes saw increased patrols by the Red Emperor’s bounty force of peace officers. So Lilong opted instead to provide first points of attack closer to home, fitting so seamlessly into the role that, within the season, she had become Kubra’s second-in-command.

They rode into the colony through the widest of the four mainways, that which contained both the depository and the public house. At this time of day—early evening—a motley selection of people milled about at the height of their business. There were no stables, so most tended to their mounts—camels and kwagas both—in back corridors. Most also trained their wild beasts in the street, like the feral camel that spat in Lilong’s direction as they went by, the owner trying to rein it in.

Chabo welcomed them as it often did: by paying no attention at all. The colony had a character of its own, a spirit of organised chaos that possessed all who arrived here. It had to be a possession, Lilong surmised, since no matter how deadly a vagrant one was before joining the colony, it was only a matter of time before they turned out differently (though worse in other ways, she thought with an eye on their tattered clothing, rotten teeth, and general lack of hygiene).

There was an odd sense of belonging one developed to the place, something Lilong had sorely missed in all her time traipsing the mainland. The full-bellied laughter of colourful strangers who did not wish her death, and whom she did not want to strangle in turn. Singing by the night-fire. Combat training with fighters she barely knew yet shared a common goal with.

But that feeling, she reminded herself often, was dangerous. No one here had anything in common with her. No one here had to return home—a home that awaited with jaws open—to reclaim their family’s honour. No one here held the future of the continent in their hands.

“It’s time,” said Kubra, pulling Lilong out of her thoughts.

She blinked. “For what?”

“The meeting. The audience with Gaddo you asked for?”

Lilong’s eyes narrowed. “You said after fifty successful raids. I have not done fifty.”

“And yet they would like to see you anyway,” said Kubra. “Something urgent. Come by our quarters tonight and I’ll take you.”

Lilong wanted to allow herself a moment to exhale, to scream with joy and say, Finally, Lilong, you’re going home! She wanted to envision her daa’s face, pretend he was still alive (until she knew otherwise for sure). She wanted to imagine her siblings’ excitement when she returned with the Diwi in hand. She wanted to envision the Elder Warriors of the Abenai League patting her on the back for doing the right thing.

None of those things were going to happen. But that was not the reason for holding her breath.

She didn’t detest the Gaddo Company. She could even say she enjoyed working here. There was recreation, camaraderie, gifts like the kwaga. Two mooncycles in, Kubra bestowed upon her a “colony name,” which the company used in the field in lieu of one’s true name. (He named her Snakeblade—snake for her ability to, in his words, “shed skin,” and blade for her skillful ability with her short sword). It was a nice gesture, even though it was in keeping with the Code of Vagabonds—the loose list of rules of conduct by which every resident of the colony lived—which stated: Never inquire about a person’s past or their true name—a colony name and all the past they offer is sufficient. (Other rules: Stay within assigned territories; keep weaponry unconcealed at all times; company leadership must remain secret.)

Regardless, her impending journey east was an open secret. Traversing the Savanna Belt to the eastern coast where the Forest of the Mist lay would be a perilous task. There was a bounty on her head. Peace officers prowled the region. Bandits and wild beasts littered the open savanna. Even if she could somehow overcome these, there was the little matter of food, water, and reliable transport for the length of the trip, costly things she could not afford. She’d learned the hard way on her initial trip to Bassa that lacking these could kill you just as quickly as a sword.

So she’d requested a meeting with Gaddo to ask for help.

The Gaddo Company was one of the largest companies headquartered in Chabo, bigger than the Savanna Swine, Ravaging Mongrels, Tremor of the Sands, and other fledgling companies roaming the savanna but keeping base here. The Code of Vagabonds ensured that every company adhered to Chabo’s rules, but also served to strengthen the standing agreements between the companies and the law, which once consisted solely of vigilantes employed by Bassa-ordained warrant chiefs. But with peace officers now in the region, the warrant chiefs’ vigilantes no longer held as much sway—not even in Chugoko. The identities of company leadership were now at a premium. A headless group is a multi-headed one, Kubra had said, not as prone to decapitation.

So Lilong ended up never meeting Gaddo, despite working for them for a season and a half. But suddenly, out of the dust, an invitation?

“Tonight is not good,” said Lilong. “That is no time to prepare.”

“There’s nothing to prepare,” said Kubra. “They know all there is to know about you.”

Lilong eyed Kubra. “What have you gossiped?”

“Me, gossip?” Kubra chuckled. “Your suspicion knows no bounds, Snakeblade. You four need to keep an open mind until the meeting.”

Lilong lifted an eyebrow. “Us four?”

“Yes: you, the Whudans, the jali. Gaddo wants to meet you all.”

Lilong did not like the sound of that.

“And speaking of the jali,” Kubra continued, “can you tell him to stop distributing those tracts? We have better things to do than intercept hunthands.”

Lilong pursed her lips. “He is … going through some things.”

“Then he better go through them fast,” said Kubra. “Or one day, it will land in the hands of a peace officer who can read, and then we’ll all be doomed.”

Back at her quarters before the sky turned sunset orange, Lilong took the secret entrance—the rear one built of wood, made to look like an abandoned shack. She made straight for the washroom, wiped her sweaty parts, and switched back to her regular complexion before heading for the common area, praying that the evening dish would already be laid out. Sure enough, as she emerged from the darkness into the only room with windows not boarded shut, Biemwensé and Kakutan sat on short stools at the dwarf roundtable, surrounded by pounded yam, dika nut soup, and ram.

“Ooh, ram,” Lilong said, reaching for the bowl of meat. Biemwensé, without looking, stretched out her stick and smacked her hand before it reached the dish.

“Wait until your brother joins us,” she said.

Lilong massaged her smarting hand. She wasn’t sure if it was just a language thing, the way Biemwensé used brother to refer to Danso and auntie to herself and Kakutan. Other things she insisted upon: all four of them living in the same quarters; requiring everyone to be home before dusk; having the evening meal together. It was play-acting family, a fantasy, and Lilong hated it. Each had their own family, and this little gang of four was not it. Biemwensé herself never wasted an opportunity to speak about how much she missed her children, how much she wished she was back in Whudasha with her boys. Even Kakutan spoke often of returning to do right by the Whudans, gather them from every corner of the mainland and lead them back to safety.

Each had their own way of coping with the limbo they were stuck in, but Lilong’s patience for indulging them was wearing thin.

“Maybe you should tell brother,” Lilong said, “to stop leading bounty hunters here.”

Biemwensé pretended not to hear, instead resetting each dish in scalding water to keep the food warm. Lilong took the opportunity to snag one of the diced chunks of papaya lying in a side dish and stuffed it into her mouth.

Kakutan, transformed from Supreme Magnanimous to Chabo commoner by losing her warrior garb and cutting her hair short—part camouflage, part comfort, she’d say when asked—leaned in. “What happened?”

“I have good news and bad news,” said Lilong. “Pick.”

“Bad,” said Kakutan, at the same time Biemwensé said, “Good.”

“More hunthands who can read,” Lilong said, pulling out the yellowed tract seized from the men and slapping it on the table. “Mainlanders, these ones. I don’t know how this travelled all the way there.”

The women stared at the tract. Not that they needed to. As much as Danso denied it, everyone in this house knew it was him writing and distributing them.

Kakutan shook her head, saying, “Several times I’ve warned him. And yet.”

“Please don’t bring outside on my table,” said Biemwensé. With her stick, she shoved the tract onto the floor.

“He has to stop now,” said Lilong, “or all this hiding is for nothing.”

“Then tell him,” said Biemwensé. “He listens to you.”

Lilong shook her head. “Not anymore.”

Silence bit at them, interrupted only by Biemwensé’s impatient tapping of her stick.

“What’s the good news?” asked Kakutan.

“Meeting with Gaddo. Finally.”

The former Supreme Magnanimous sat up, flush across the face. “Say again?”

“Tonight. Kubra will take us.”

“Us?” Biemwensé said, at the same time Kakutan said, incredulously, “Tonight?”

Lilong nodded. “They want to meet with all of us.”

“Why?” asked Biemwensé. “You’re the one who needs help.”

“You are the ones going back to the mainland,” Lilong retorted.

“Right,” said Kakutan, rising. “Well, we can’t eat now! I hear meeting company leaders is like meeting royalty. I suspect there will be a hearty meal, and we cannot disrespect them by suggesting we’re full.”

“So what happens to all this?” Biemwensé gestured at the meal. “After I spent seasons preparing it?”

Kakutan shrugged. “We are sorry?”

“I can eat,” said Lilong, reaching for a bowl. Biemwensé’s stick came back up, but this time, Lilong was ready and caught it.

“What is wrong with you?” said Lilong. “You are not anybody’s maa here. Stop this.”

“Lilong,” said Kakutan, cocking her head. “Be gentle.” To Biemwensé, she said: “You know she’s right.” Then the former Supreme Magnanimous left it at that and went to prepare.

Biemwensé remained unfazed. “We all eat,” she said, strengthening her grip on the stick, “or no one does.”

Lilong slapped the stick away and left the room.

Danso was holed up in the dark, writing in his codex, when Lilong knocked and entered. He did not acknowledge her.

“You missed evening meal,” she said. “Biemwensé is upset.”

“Not hungry,” he said without looking up.

A beat, then she said: “We caught hunthands today. They had your tract.”

“Not my tract.”

Lilong collected herself. Be gentle.

“I know you are bursting with stories, and that you want to”—she put on his voice—“liberate people’s minds. But this actually hurts us.”

Danso said nothing. Lilong changed tack.

“Listen,” she said, stepping closer. “As a jali, I know this is the one power you have.” She did not mention the other power, the one he had forever abandoned and forbade her to speak of. “Your codex—its purpose is storytelling, yes? Tell all the stories you want in there. I promise you these tracts will not be missed. Nobody wants to hear the truth about Esheme—”

“Don’t say her name.”

Lilong held up her hands. “Fine. The Red Emperor.”

“Don’t say that either.”

Lilong scoffed. This was fruitless. “Look at us, arguing about names and tracts. We could be putting this time to better use. Like practicing with the Diwi.”

Danso stiffened. She hurried forward, giving him no time to respond.

“I have thought it through, Danso. We wrap ourselves up like I do on raids. No one recognises me out there, even when I do not skinchange—no one will be able to tell! We ride off to the outskirts, start out with the small critters—lizards, scorpions. Try bigger after.” She waved a hand over the scattered papers of his codex. “This isn’t the power that will save us if we come upon the emperor’s forces. Ibor is.”

Danso’s writing hand stopped moving. A shadow of a smile tugged at his lips.

“You have been practicing that argument.”

Lilong wrinkled her nose. “And what if so?”

“It’s a good argument.” He went back to writing. “But I told you. I’m not touching it again.”

Lilong exhaled, defeated. “Danso …”

He turned, anticipating the rest of her sentence. His hair, now moon-sized and unbraided, had not seen grooming in many mooncycles. His beard was the same, encroaching down his neck, moustache threatening to block his nostrils. His eyes were bloodshot from peering in the dark, refusing to light anything more than one candle.

What exactly are you going to say, Lilong? she thought. That she understood what it meant for one’s family, friends, home, livelihood—everything they loved, knew, and believed in—to be snatched away forever? Had she seen her daa murdered by her own intended’s hand? Had her closest associate been burned to a crisp right before her eyes? Had her sole actions broken the world and cost everything in the process?

She, too, had lost things, but not like this. It had to be hard, living every day knowing he escaped Bassa’s grip, but everyone else he cared about was still trapped there: friends, uncles, mentors. Had to be hard knowing he could do little or nothing to help them—not even with stories, the one thing he was good at. And how could he save them if he wasn’t safe, if he couldn’t even go outside without a disguise?

At least everyone under this roof had something to look forward to, a people to return to, no matter how fractured the situation. Danso had nothing.

So what did she really know about what he was going through?

“Never mind you,” she said. “I just came to give the news.”

This made him perk up. He put down his charcoal stylus and gave her his undivided attention.

“We have the meeting. Tonight.”

His eyes lit up. “Gaddo?” She nodded. “All of us?” She nodded again.

“The aunties want you to … make yourself proper.”

“Ah,” he said, then chuckled. She hadn’t heard that sound in a while.

“So, this is real?” A small vigor had crept back into his once-defeated manner. “We’re going home?”

He said home like the Ihinyon islands were theirs to share. Maybe they were. Agreeing to come east with her was the right choice, seeing as he had nowhere left of his own. Perhaps it wasn’t a bad idea to start thinking of Namge as home. And who knew? Maybe the seven islands might be more welcoming than she envisaged.