Say Walah

43: The Eight Seeds

The girl, no older than seven, led me through dark, unfamiliar paths with silent feet, moving as if the shadows were her own. When I tried to catch her eye, she kept her gaze forward, her small shoulders straight with the importance of her task.

We entered a secluded area, an ancient site where towering stones stood in a silent circle. Moonlight reflected off their surfaces, illuminating fragile white flowers clinging to the rocks—flowers I had never encountered before, glowing softly in the dim light. The air felt charged with an unfamiliar energy, sending a shiver down my spine.

I had come to this compound for years, yet somehow this place had remained hidden from me. It was as if a pocket of the old world had survived here, untouched by time or change.

The moon hovered above like a watchful eye, its silver gaze casting every rock and shadow in eerie stillness. Mairo's breath had only just steadied when I slipped away, her wounds barely healed. She didn't need to know about Nne ogwu's midnight summons—not yet.

As I stepped between two towering rocks, I found others already gathered. Young men and women near my age, their bearing marking them as warriors even in civilian wrappers. Some faces I recognized from training grounds from years past. Others were strangers, though they carried themselves with the same watchful readiness I had learned to recognize in fellow fighters.

Then I saw Amadi.

He sat with his back against one of the rocks, jaw clenched tight enough to see the muscles working. The smug but fearless warrior who had fought through wars and bounty hunting missions with me, looked hollowed out, grief etching new lines around his eyes. Of course – he had loved Rimi too, in his own way. We all had.

"How did you leave the forests of Alaobosi?" I asked him softly. The war there had been raging for weeks. "The fighting—"

"I sent for him." Nne ogwu's voice came from the shadows. She emerged into the moonlight like a spirit, her white hair glowing, glass beads clicking softly in the locks. Her eyes, sharp as a hawk's, swept over our gathering. "Sit. Complete the circle."

I found my place, noting the precision of our arrangement. Seven of us, spaced evenly around the circle with Nne ogwu standing at its center. The number itself felt significant – seven northern villages, seven sacred streams, seven market days. Power lived in such patterns.

Nne ogwu lifted her staff, and the quiet murmurs died instantly. "I have gathered you here," she began, her voice carrying urgency, "because the northern villages of Nri stand at the edge of chaos. The balance we have maintained for generations trembles."

She struck her staff against the earth once, and I swore I felt the ground shudder beneath us. "The Igwe of Obiako has been taken."

Breaths hitched around the circle. A king's kidnapping spat in the face of centuries of tradition and law.

"The Onowu grows bold," Nne ogwu continued, her lip curling slightly. "He thinks himself clever, using proxies and pawns to distance himself from his crimes. But I have watched him, as I have watched all the vipers in our midst. He has found an ally in Ozo Ibezim."

"The king's cowrie master?" someone whispered. I recognized Nlecha's voice, though I hadn't noticed her in the circle before.

"The richest man in all of Nri," Nne ogwu corrected. "A man whose wealth has bought him everything except the power he truly craves. Together, they believe they can reshape the northern villages to their liking." Her eyes burned in the moonlight. "They forget that power flows through older channels than cowries and titles."

She moved to the circle's edge, touching each of the strange white flowers as she passed. They seemed to brighten at her touch. "The Onowu thinks himself protected by Ibezim's wealth and private army. Ibezim believes his cowries makes him untouchable. They have both forgotten what real power looks like."

Her gaze fell heavy on each of us in turn. "That is why you are here. Seven chosen by the old ways, seven who still carry the blood of warriors and dreamers in their veins. Seven who remember what justice meant before men started measuring it in cowries."

Amadi straightened, some of the old fire returning to his eyes. Around the circle, I saw others sitting taller, feeling the weight of Nne ogwu's words settle on their shoulders like a mantle.

"The northern villages stand on the brink," Nne ogwu said softly. "But we..." She smiled, and in that moment she looked both ancient and terrifyingly young. "We are about to push them over the edge."

The white flowers pulsed once, like stars catching their breath, and I felt destiny shift beneath my feet.

Nne ogwu's eyes found mine and Amadi's in the moonlight, sharp as the stone blades. "I see the fire in you both," she said softly, though her words carried the weight of iron. "It burns so hot it would consume everything – including yourselves."

Amadi's hands had curled into fists against the stone, his knuckles white. I felt my own pulse thundering in my throat, that familiar rage rising like bile.

"But this..." Nne ogwu continued, gesturing to the circle of stones around us, to the land itself, "this comes before your vengeance. Before all our personal quarrels. The Onowu has grown cunning in his ambition. An open war against him now would be suicide."

She touched the lion claw pendant that hung at her throat – a twin to the one the Onowu now possessed. "He holds the Igwe's claw. However he obtained it, the power and respect it commands are real. The old ways don't concern themselves with the how, only the what."

"Then what are we to do?" Amadi's voice was hoarse with frustration. "Watch him destroy everything while we—"

"We will be water," Nne ogwu cut in. "Not fire. Water that erodes the mighty stone. Water that finds every crack and weakness. Water that drowns while its victim still smiles."

A sudden movement in the shadows beyond our circle. "I belong in this."

The voice struck me like a physical blow. I turned, though I didn't need to see her face to know – Mairo stood in the gap between two stones, her slight frame somehow filling the entire space. She should have been asleep. She should have been safe.

"What they did to Rimi..." Her voice caught, but her chin lifted. "This isn't just about politics or power. This is personal."

Moonlight caught the tears on her cheeks, but there was steel in her spine. How long had she been listening? How had she even found this place?

Nne ogwu raised her hand, but Mairo stepped forward before she could speak. "I will not be left behind. Not this time." Her eyes blazed. "I would rather die than watch from the shadows while others avenge my sister. I am already part of this story – you cannot write me out of it."

I wanted to shield her, to make her understand the dangers we would face. But the fierceness in her eyes stopped me – this was her fight as much as ours. Who was I to stand in her way?

Something passed across Nne ogwu's face – surprise, perhaps, or recognition. She studied Mairo for a long moment, then touched one of the white flowers. It flared briefly, casting Mairo's face in sharp relief.

"Eight, then," Nne ogwu said finally, her voice carrying a note I had never heard before. "Perhaps that was always the true number. After all..." A small, dangerous smile curved her lips. "What is vengeance without the heart that births it?"

Mairo stepped into the circle, completing a pattern I hadn't even realized was unfinished. The white flowers pulsed in unison, and the air grew thick with possibility.

Eight souls. Eight paths to justice. Eight seeds of revolution, planted in moonlit soil.

The northern villages would never be the same.

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