“My name is Fela Buhari. I am now and forever will be a member of Muungano. I command a HOVA Brigade, the Hellfighters, the unit responsible for exploring the other side of the Orun Gate. You say I am a spy sent by Muungano. You can write whatever story you want of me once I’m gone. While I am here, know that no matter what you do to me, I was born free and I will always be free.”

Car’Annie turned her transmission back to herself. “To their final moments, your spies demonstrate your arrogance. Your incursions bring pain to your people and death to your soldiers. Now they must pay for the policies of your nation’s war machine. Your arrogance brought this upon you. You think you can just go anywhere, take anything. Well, we draw the line in the sand. If you break our borders and invade our lands, then this is the price you pay.”

That was the thing VOP Harrison, Car’Annie, LISC, the Earth Firsters, all of those who clung to the “classic” paradigms, missed. Power wasn’t about the ability to bend another’s will to their agenda. Power wasn’t about hurting others. Power was about being a shield, to protect others from harm. It didn’t have to be destructive or oppressive. It didn’t need to erase another’s humanity. It could create opportunities. It could connect and include. And when someone was in trouble, placing herself between them and harm was her definition of a good death.

The last thing Fela heard was the sounds of blaster fire.

22 AMACHI ADISA
The Citadel

The corridors of the Citadel seemingly have an agency of their own, shifting about according to their own whims. Now you and Ishant are lost within its halls. Steeped in shadows, the great passageway stretches on without end. The soft crunch of your footfalls against the flooring marks your passage as the Niyabinghi escort you. You try to catch Ishant’s face, but his gaze remains locked forward. Every part of him stays alert and ready. You pass through another support arch, another vertebra in the long spinal column of the shaft. At each juncture, another pair of guards come to stiff attention. Except they wear the royal colors of the house of Nguni. By your ancestors, you swear, even you are already starting to think of the family as royals.

The Niyabinghi halt in front of a hatch, relieving the Nguni guards who stand there. You and Ishant exchange glares. He tenses.

“Don’t,” one of the Niyabinghi says to Ishant. “You are outnumbered and outclassed. If we were just the Nguni guards, your gambit might be worth taking. You”—his voice raises, dangling a question while he circles Ishant in careful assessment—“have had extensive training in the Forms, though you try to hide it.”

Ishant unclenches as if he’d been exposed and found wanting.