Chapter Four – The Marketplace of Power
The first time Dele followed Kunle into the underbelly of student politics, he felt the air change.
It wasn't mana, not yet. It was the smell of rot and smoke, sweat and cheap gin, the scent of a system collapsing under its own weight. He'd smelled it before—in the refugee camps after the Surge, in warlord dens where alliances were bought with bullets and blood. But here, in Lagos of the past, it wore a different mask. Young men in campus jerseys argued like ministers. Shouting matches doubled as strategy sessions. And every word, every threat, every drunken oath, was tethered to money and muscle.
Kunle was sweating, though he tried to hide it. His cheap shirt clung to his back as he leaned closer to Dele.
"Baba, no vex, e go rough small. You fit hold yourself?"
Dele glanced at him. Kunle's voice was nervous, but beneath it there was excitement—a gambler walking into his first casino.
"I'll hold," Dele murmured, his tone flat, controlled.
He let Kunle lead the way into a dimly lit compound just off the edge of the University of Lagos. Inside, the so-called "union leaders" sat sprawled across wooden benches, bottles clinking, music thumping low. It wasn't leadership. It was a market of pawns. Every boy here wanted to be a lion, but Dele saw only hyenas circling scraps.
Kunle grinned and raised his voice.
"My people! I bring my guy—Dele. Sharp guy, sharp brain. E go follow us reason this thing."
Eyes turned. Some sharp with suspicion, some dull with drunkenness. A thick-set boy with tribal marks on his cheeks leaned forward. His voice carried authority, or at least the performance of it.
"Who be this one? Another street boy wey wan chop from our work?"
Dele met his gaze, unblinking. He said nothing. Silence was sharper than any retort.
Kunle hurried to fill it.
"No o, him no be anyhow. This one get sense, get eye. If we wan run for student election, we go need men wey sabi think. No be only fight we go dey fight."
The tribal-marked boy smirked. "Abi na philosopher you carry come?" He chuckled, others joining in.
Dele finally spoke, his voice cutting through the laughter like a blade.
"Philosophy feeds no one. But if you play your pieces wrong, you'll end up as another pawn buried before graduation."
The laughter stuttered. The room cooled. Dele leaned back, eyes sweeping the group. He didn't speak like a boy. He spoke like a man who had buried friends, commanded soldiers, survived an apocalypse. None of them could name it, but they felt it—the weight of someone who had seen death and returned.
One of the boys, younger, eager, tried to shift the mood. "Oya, leave am. Make we hear wetin you get to talk."
Kunle shot Dele a quick, nervous glance. It was a risk—open his mouth too much and they'd turn on him. Stay quiet, and he'd remain invisible. But invisibility had never won kingdoms.
Dele leaned forward, elbows on his knees. His voice lowered, intimate, dangerous.
"You fight for student union elections, yes? You want power. But power isn't in ballots. It isn't in shouting in campus halls. It's here—" he tapped the table with two fingers, slow, deliberate— "in who controls fear. In who decides which faces wake safely tomorrow, and which ones don't."
The group shifted. Uneasy glances passed. Some smirked, pretending bravado. But Dele saw it. The seed had been planted.
The tribal-marked boy scoffed, trying to reclaim ground.
"You dey yarn like person wey no go school. Na ballot go crown union president. Fear no dey carry person reach Senate House."
Dele let the silence drag, then smiled thinly.
"Then why do all of you walk with knives under your shirts?"
That silenced them properly. The music in the background thumped on, cheap bass rattling metal speakers. No one laughed this time.
Kunle coughed, forcing levity back. "See, no be say we wan start wahala now. But this my guy dey reason far. He sabi things. No be empty mouth."
The meeting dragged on after that, full of noise, bravado, and empty promises. Dele said little more, but he watched everything. He watched who deferred to the tribal-marked boy. Who whispered behind hands. Who fidgeted whenever police were mentioned. He catalogued them like pieces on a chessboard. Weak knights. Reckless pawns. One or two bishops, clever and cautious, waiting for someone stronger to follow.
By the time they left the compound, Kunle was buzzing.
"Guy! You see as you shut them up? Chai! Even Bala—ehn, that tribal mark guy—he no fit talk again. You get mouth, Dele."
Dele said nothing. He walked in silence until they reached the edge of the road, where the glow of Lagos nightlife flickered. Yellow danfos honked, hawkers shouted, the city alive in chaos. He stopped and turned to Kunle.
"They don't respect you."
Kunle froze. "Wetin you mean?"
"You run errands. You shout. You laugh at their jokes. But they don't respect you. They'll use you, the way they use all of them. Bala is not a leader. He is noise. When noise dies, silence takes over."
Kunle swallowed, eyes darting. "So wetin you dey talk? Make I just leave them?"
Dele leaned closer, voice soft, steady, the voice of command.
"No. You'll stay. You'll smile. You'll play the fool. But when I tell you to move, you'll move. And when you move, you'll strike hard enough they'll never forget your name."
The streetlight above flickered, casting Dele's face half in shadow. Kunle shivered. For a moment, it wasn't a boy beside him but something darker, something ancient wearing a young man's skin.
Kunle managed a shaky grin. "Baba… I go follow you. Walahi, I go follow."
Dele nodded once. It was not a request.
They began walking again, but Dele's thoughts had already leapt far beyond. He saw the union factions as dry tinder, waiting for a match. He saw Kunle as a pawn—expendable, but useful. He saw Bala as the kind of man who would die early, loudly, and pointlessly. And beyond them all, he saw a continent. A continent splintered, unprepared, weak.
Five years. Five years before mana surged, before the world drowned in blood and madness. He would not waste them.
Tonight was nothing but the first move.
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