If Pain was a color. It was red, throbbing at the edges of Ojie’s vision.

  He woke lying on a mat of woven reeds. The air smelled of camphor and river mud, the distinctive scent of a Python healing sanctuary. His chest felt hollowed out, the aftereffect of forcing an Ascension before his body was ready.

  He tried to sit up. A hand pushed him back down.

  "Easy" a voice said.

  Ojie blinked. Y?misí sat beside him on a low stool. She looked tired, her usually pristine headwrap slightly askew. But her eyes were alert, estimating.

  "Where are we?" Ojie croaked.

  "The Temple of the River," Y?misí said. "The priestess Adaeze brought us here. The Void assassins... they are gone. But the city is swarming with whispers of what you did."

  Ojie looked at his hands. They were still trembling from pain. "I killed them."

  "You incinerated them," Y?misí corrected. "Stage Four. I didn't think you had it in you."

  "Neither did I, it was a gamble"

  He sat up, fighting the nausea. The room was small, stone-walled, lit by glowing moss in jars. It was a cell, or a sanctuary. In Igwe?cha, there was little difference.

  "We need to leave," Ojie said. "If the Emperor sent Walkers..."

  "We aren't leaving yet," Y?misí said. Her tone was different. Heavier. "There is someone you need to see."

  Ojie frowned. "Who?"

  Y?misí stood up. She walked to the heavy wooden door and knocked once.

  The door opened.

  A boy walked in.

  He was limping slightly, favoring the leg Ojie had kicked. His face was bruised, one eye swollen shut. But the good eye... the good eye burned with a familiar, terrifying intensity.

  It was the boy from the docks. The so called king of the Gutter.

  Ojie stiffened, his hand going instinctively to his side for a sword that wasn't there.

  "What is this?" Ojie asked, looking at Y?misí. "Why is he here?"

  The boy didn't speak. He stood with his arms crossed, defiant, radiating a sullen fury that made the air in the small room feel electric.

  Y?misí looked at Ojie. She took a deep breath. This was the gamble. This was the moment that would break him or forge him.

  "You asked me once about the past," Y?misí said quietly. "About Yetunde."

  Ojie froze. The name hung in the air like smoke. He looked at the boy again. Really looked at him.

  He saw the high cheekbones. The set of the jaw. The way the boy stood weight forward, ready to strike. It was his own stance. It was his father’s stance. When he saw him earlier he choose not to believe it.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  And he saw Yetunde’s mouth. Her stubbornness.

  The world tilted.

  "No," Ojie whispered.

  "His name is Ayo," Y?misí said. "He is thirteen years old. He was born in the village where you hid. Yetunde raised him until the fever took her three years ago."

  She stepped back, leaving the space between father and son wide open.

  "He is your son, Ojie."

  Silence. Thick, suffocating silence.

  Ojie stared at the boy. Memories crashed into him nights spent in the village, the desperate comfort of a girl who smelled of woodsmoke, it was a mistake , the promise he had made to himself to leave her so she would be safe. It wasn’t met to happen, she wasn’t even the one he loved.

  I left her pregnant. I left her alone.

  "Is it true?" Ojie asked the boy. His voice was barely a sound.

  Ayo laughed. It was a harsh, ugly sound for a child.

  "Is it true?" Ayo mocked. "Look at me. Look at your blood."

  Ayo uncrossed his arms. He ripped the sleeve of his tunic, exposing his shoulder.

  There, etched into the dark skin, was a tattoo. It was crude, faint, clearly undeveloped. But the shape was unmistakable.

  A lion.

  Ojie felt the air leave his lungs. A bastard with the mark. It happened, but rarely. And usually, the mark was weak, placed on a foot or a hand.

  This mark was on the shoulder. High placement. Heir placement.

  "You knew," Ojie said to Y?misí. He didn't look at her. "In ?k?. You knew."

  "I suspected," Y?misí said steadily. "I confirmed it when I saw him fight."

  Ojie stood up. His legs were shaky, but he forced them to hold. He walked toward Ayo.

  The boy didn't flinch. He glared up at his father, hate radiating from him like heat from a furnace.

  "You left us," Ayo said. "You ran away to play at being dead, and you left her to rot."

  "I left to protect her," Ojie said. "The hunters—"

  "The hunters never came!" Ayo shouted. "She died of coughing sickness! She died because we didn't have coin for a healer! Because you were gone!"

  The words hit Ojie like physical blows. Each one a failure. Each one a crime.

  He reached out a hand. He wanted to touch the boy’s shoulder, to trace the mark, to claim his kin.

  Ayo slapped his hand away. The sound was sharp, shocking.

  "Don't touch me," Ayo hissed. "I don't want your name. I don't want your house. I want what you owe me."

  Ojie looked at his hand. He looked at his son.

  "What do I owe you?" Ojie asked.

  "A debt," Ayo said. "My mother gave her life for your secret. You owe me a life."

  Ayo stepped closer. He was almost as tall as Ojie’s shoulder.

  "You want to take back ?do?" Ayo asked. "You need soldiers. I have the street rats, I can get you men. We have the mud. They will fight for you."

  Ojie frowned. "You want to fight? You are a child."

  "I am the son of the Lion," Ayo spat. "And I am better than you were at my age. I survived without a castle."

  "Why?" Ojie asked. "If you hate me, why fight for me?"

  "Because when you win," Ayo said, his eyes glittering with a terrifying ambition, "when you sit on that throne... I want you to look at me every day. I want you to know that the bastard you threw away is the one keeping your crown on your head."

  He pointed a finger at Ojie’s chest.

  "I will be your soldier, Father. But I will never be your son."

  Ojie looked at Y?misí. She was watching them with a guarded expression. She had not expected this. She had weaponized his guilt wrongly.

  He looked back at Ayo. He saw the potential. He saw the raw power he had felt on the dock. The boy was a weapon. A dangerous, unstable weapon.

  But he was blood.

  "Agreed," Ojie said softly.

  He reached for his sword belt, hanging on a peg. He unbuckled the sheath of his father’s iron sword.

  He held it out to Ayo.

  "If you are to be my soldier," Ojie said, "you do not fight with a stolen machete."

  Ayo looked at the sword. It was plain, heavy, pitted with age. It was the sword of a fallen king.

  He took it. The iron seemed to hum as his fingers closed around the hilt.

  "We leave at dawn," Ojie said. "Get your people ready."

  Ayo didn't bow. He didn't say thank you. He turned and walked out of the room, the sword clutched in his hand like a promise of violence.

  The door closed.

  Ojie sank back onto the mat. He put his head in his hands.

  "You should have told me," he said to Y?misí.

  "If I had told you in ?k?, you would have come here as a father, not a warlord," Y?misí said. She walked over and sat beside him. She placed a hand on his back. "And a father would have died on those docks tonight."

  Ojie looked up at her. "He hates me."

  "Good," Y?misí said. "Hate is fuel. He will survive on hate where love would starve him."

  She looked at the closed door.

  "He is exactly like you, Ojie.."