The palace of the Oyo Empire did not sprawl like the compounds of the Delta, nor did it scrape the sky like the black monoliths of Abuja. It was a fortress of concentric walls, a geometric perfection of white clay and dark, cured timber. It was a place of secrets, where silence was not an absence of noise, but a heavy, deliberate presence.

  Empress Oyin walked the corridor of the Forbidden Wing.

  She was a woman of striking, severe beauty. Her skin was the color of polished ebony, her features sharp and imperious. She wore the iro and buba of the royal house, woven from the finest aso oke, shimmering with threads of silver and indigo. Her head was wrapped in a towering gélé that seemed to defy gravity, pinned with needles of pure ivory.

  Two guards stood before the door at the end of the hall. They were massive men, bonded to the Rhino spirit, their skin thick and greyish, textured like armor plating. As Oyin approached, they did not salute. They turned their faces to the wall, staring at the intricate murals of the Oyo ancestors. To look upon the Empress in this hallway was death.

  She did not acknowledge them. She produced a key from her sash. It was not gold or iron, but a heavy, complex mechanism carved from the heartwood of an Iroko tree.

  She unlocked the door. The tumblers clicked with the sound of breaking finger bones.

  She stepped inside and closed the door behind her. The lock engaged automatically.

  The air in the room was cool, conditioned by spirit-runes etched into the floorboards, and scented with lavender and old paper. It was a large room, occupying the corner of the wing, with windows that looked out over the private gardens where no one was allowed to walk.

  It was a bedroom. But no one slept here.

  Oyin walked to the center of the room, her hands folded before her. She let her gaze drift over the shrine she had built to a ghost.

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  To the left, a cradle carved from rosewood, draped in silk that had yellowed with age. It was empty.

  Beside it, a small wooden horse on rockers. Dustless.

  Further along the wall, the objects grew up. A set of wooden toy soldiers cast in tin. A wooden practice sword, small and balanced for a child’s hand.

  And then, the clothes.

  They were laid out on a long table of polished mahogany, arranged by age. Tiny tunics for a toddler. Sturdy breeches for a boy of six. Formal robes for a prince of ten.

  Oyin stopped at the end of the table. Here, the clothes were new. The fabric was crisp, the stitching immaculate.

  She reached out and stroked the velvet of the tunic.

  "You would be tall," she whispered to the empty air. "Like your father. But you would have my hands."

  She closed her eyes as she reminisced.

  A chime sounded from a silver bell by the door. A request for audience.

  Oyin’s face hardened. The mask of the mother vanished; the Empress returned. She smoothed the indigo tunic one last time, aligning the sleeves perfectly.

  "Soon," she promised the empty clothes.

  She left the room, locking the door on the life that should have been.

  In her private solar, General Ogundipe waited. He was an old warrior, his face a roadmap of scars, his loyalty absolute.

  He knelt as she entered. "Your Majesty."

  "Rise, General." Oyin swept past him to the balcony. Below, in the great courtyard of the Afin, the army of Oyo was assembling. Thousands of soldiers in quilted armor, the sunlight gleaming off their spear tips. War chariots drawn by zebra-striped quaggas. Sorcerers in masked processions, chanting the war songs of the West.

  "The vanguard has crossed the river," Ogundipe reported. "We have seized the bridge at Jebba. The road to the east is open."

  "And the resistance?"

  "House Olúf?? has closed its gates. House Sarkin moves south, but slowly. The Emperor in Abuja..." Ogundipe hesitated. "The Emperor sends silence."

  "Let him be silent," Oyin said. "When we are finished, he will have nothing left to say."

  She gripped the stone railing. The power of her empire stretched out before her, a coiled spring ready to snap.

  "General," she said. "Your orders are specific."

  "We are to secure the trade routes and squeeze the capital," Ogundipe recited.

  "No," Oyin said softly. She turned to face him. Her eyes were cold, devoid of the sentimental madness that filled the waiting room. She walked to him, lowering her voice.

  "You are going to the Delta. To Igwe?cha."

  Ogundipe blinked. "The Delta? Majesty, that is a swamp. There is no strategic value—"

  "There is a reason," Oyin cut him off.

  She looked back at the waiting army, at the thousands of lives she was about to spend like copper coins to save many more lives.