The silence in the barracks was no longer empty; it was a solid, suffocating presence. The space once filled with the soft sounds of shared sleep and murmured encouragement was now divided by an invisible, icy wall. Mosi and her small coterie of followers occupied one end, their conversations a low, conspiratorial rumble that stopped whenever Nawi, Asu, or Zevi drew near. The air itself seemed to carry two different temperatures—the cold hostility from Mosi's corner, and the tense, anxious warmth from the rest.
Nawi felt the rift like a physical wound. Every training session was now a minefield of deliberate missteps and loaded glances. The seamless unity of their shield wall was gone, replaced by a jarring, distrustful dance. The scent of their collective effort was now tinged with the acid smell of suspicion.
It was in this fractured atmosphere that Afi found her, two evenings after the blow-up. The older woman's face was graver than usual, her customary ironic smile absent.
"The sickness is not confined to your barracks," Afi said without preamble, drawing Nawi into the shadowy space between the armory and the granary. The air here was dry and carried the scents of old iron and dried maize. "The General's faction is not content with merely arguing in council. They are now actively poisoning the well."
"What do you mean?" Nawi asked, her senses immediately alert, the Reaper's instincts channeled into this new kind of hunt.
"There are whispers," Afi murmured, her voice barely a breath. "Whispers aimed at the junior Mino, those not yet fully hardened in their loyalty. Whispers that Commander Nanika is old, that her vision is one of cowardice, that she is more concerned with profit than with the glory of Dahomey. They are being carefully spread."
"By whom?"
"That is what we must discover," Afi said. "And we must do so without appearing to investigate. An open accusation would be like throwing a torch into a powder keg. It would give the Hawks the excuse they need to demand Nanika's removal for 'fostering discord.' We must be ghosts. We must see without being seen."
The hunt began. Nawi's world, already split between the physical drills and the political council, now added a third, shadowy layer: the world of espionage within her own home. Afi taught her to listen not just to words, but to silences. To watch not for attacks, but for the subtle manipulations that preceded them.
They patrolled the edges of the training yards at dusk, their footsteps silent in the gathering gloom. They lingered near the wells and the communal cooking fires, their ears tuned to the conversations of the younger Mino from other units. The air in these places was thick with the smells of evening meals—smoke, spices, simmering stews—and the easy, off-duty chatter of warriors. But now, Nawi heard the dissonant notes.
She heard a young archer from the Fanti regiment say, "My cousin in the male army says they laugh at us. They call us 'the palm oil guards.'"
She overheard two junior Agbarya spewomen debating: "Would the great Nanika of our mothers' stories have hesitated before Abeokuta? She seems… cautious."
"Cautious is a kind word for it," the other replied, a bitterness in her tone that felt rehearsed.
The seeds were being sown. And they were taking root in the fertile soil of youthful ambition and pride, the same soil that had once grown Zevi's drive and Mosi's hunger for glory.
Nawi reported each fragment to Afi, who pieced them together like a potter reassembling a shattered vessel. "The source is clever," Afi mused one night in the dusty archive. The single candle between them cast long, dancing shadows over the scrolls of tax records. "The words are never direct. They are always 'a cousin said' or 'I heard from a soldier.' The poison is untraceable."
Then, Nawi caught a break. It was during a weapon inspection. The air in the armory was, as always, thick with the holy scents of oiled metal and seasoned wood. She was running a whetstone along the edge of her Gbeni knives, the rhythmic shhh-shink a calming meditation, when she saw him.
He was a mid-level male commander, one of Gbehanzin's protégés, a man named Dossa. He was not inspecting weapons. He was loitering near the rack of practice spears, engaging a group of young, wide-eyed Agbarya recruits in conversation. His voice was a confident, friendly baritone, his posture relaxed, but his eyes were sharp, scanning the room.
Nawi, hidden behind a tall rack of bows, stilled her hands and listened.
"—a fine edge you have there," Dossa was saying to one of the recruits, his tone avuncular. "The work of a true warrior. It is a shame such a blade may never taste a real war. Stuck here, guarding trade routes and counting cowrie shells." He chuckled, a sound meant to be conspiratorial. "When I was your age, we were preparing to face the Oyo hordes! That was a time when the Mino were truly feared!"
The recruits listened, captivated by the attention of a senior commander. They smelled of fresh sweat and youth, their naivety a stark contrast to Dossa's calculated charm.
"But the Commander says a strong economy is a different kind of strength," one of the recruits ventured, parroting Nanika's line.
Dossa's smile was patronizing. "And she is a wise woman, in her way. But tell me, when you sing the war chants of your mothers, do they speak of profit? Or do they speak of glory? Of conquest? Do not let the fire in your hearts be banked by the caution of your elders. The true spirit of Dahomey is not in a ledger. It is in here." He tapped a fist against his own chest.
It was him. He was the source. The poison was being dripped directly from the General's cup.
Nawi's first instinct was the old one: confrontation. To step out from the shadows and challenge him, to expose his treachery before these recruits. But Afi's warning echoed in her mind. An open accusation would be like throwing a torch into a powder keg.
She forced herself to remain still, to become part of the shadows, to observe. She watched as Dossa finished his manipulation, clapped one of the recruits on the shoulder, and strode out of the armory, his mission accomplished.
She found Afi immediately, her report terse and furious. "It is Commander Dossa. Gbehanzin's man. He is in the armory, whispering to the new recruits."
Afi's face tightened. "Dossa. A cunning weasel. But we have no proof. His words are slippery. He praises Nanika even as he undermines her. To accuse him is to accuse the General himself. We need something tangible. Something that cannot be explained away as mere 'opinion.'"
For the next two days, they shadowed Dossa. It was a dangerous game. Nawi used all the stealth skills of a Reaper, not to stalk an enemy sentry, but to trail a fellow commander through the heart of the palace. She learned his routines—his visits to the male army barracks, his long, private audiences with Gbehanzin, his habit of taking a solitary walk along the less-patrolled northern wall at the last hour of daylight.
It was on this walk that they found their opportunity. The air near the northern wall was cooler, carrying the green scent of the unchecked vegetation beyond the city. The fading light painted the world in long, deep blue shadows. Nawi and Afi watched from the cover of a tool shed as Dossa, seemingly alone, paused at a specific, crumbling section of the wall. He glanced around, his movements furtive, then quickly knelt, pried a loose stone from the base, and slipped a small, rolled parchment into the cavity before replacing the stone and walking on, whistling a casual tune.
Their hearts hammered in unison. This was it. The secret.
They waited until full dark, until the palace was asleep and the only light came from the distant, indifferent stars. The night air was cold, carrying the smell of dew and the distant, musky scent of the royal menagerie. Like ghosts, they flitted to the wall. Nawi's fingers, skilled at finding holds on the thorn barrier, found the loose stone with ease. She pulled it out.
Inside was the scroll. Afi unrolled it carefully. By the faint starlight, they could just make out the writing. It was a report, but a falsified one. It detailed the "poor morale" and "questioning loyalty" of the junior Mino, blaming it directly on Nanika's "weak and vacillating leadership." It was a masterpiece of insinuation, designed to be discovered by Gbehanzin's allies and presented to the Viceroy as "evidence" of the damage Nanika was causing.
"This is the poison," Afi whispered, her voice trembling with a cold rage. "He writes the lies, then plants them to be 'found.' He is not just spreading rumors; he is manufacturing a case against her."
"We have it," Nawi said, a fierce triumph surging through her. "We take this to the Viceroy now. We expose him."
"No," Afi said, her voice suddenly calm and decisive. She rerolled the scroll. "That is what he expects. A direct attack. It would still be our word against his, a messy, public fight that would shatter the kingdom's unity. There is a better way. A cleaner way."
She looked at Nawi, her eyes gleaming in the dark. "We do not remove the poison. We let the poisoner drink it himself."
The next evening, as Dossa began his solitary walk, two things happened simultaneously. A trusted aide of Commander Nanika's "happened" to be taking the air on the same stretch of wall. And Nawi, hidden again, watched as Afi, from a different angle, made a subtle, hand-signaled report to a senior member of the Viceroy's own personal guard, a man known for his impartiality.
The stage was set.
As Dossa knelt to retrieve his fabricated report, Nanika's aide approached him, her expression one of casual curiosity. "Commander Dossa? What are you doing at this old section of the wall?"
Dossa, startled, fumbled the stone. "Nothing! A private moment."
At that exact instant, the Viceroy's guardsman rounded the corner, his presence silent and imposing. "The Viceroy has been hearing concerns about the security of our northern defenses," the guardsman said, his voice neutral. "He has asked for random inspections. What have you found there, Commander?"
Trapped, Dossa could only stammer. The guardsman took the scroll from his trembling hands and unrolled it. He read it, his face a mask of stone. The evidence was not of Nanika's failing leadership, but of Dossa's treasonous plot to undermine it.
There was no dramatic council meeting, no public accusation. By the next morning, Commander Dossa was simply gone. The official word was that he had been reassigned to a remote border post. The whispers among the junior Mino, deprived of their source, slowly began to fade, like a fire with no one to tend it.
The poison had been drawn, not with a shout, but with a whisper. The war within the palace had been fought and won in the shadows, without a single blade being drawn.
Nawi stood in the training yard the next day, the sun warm on her back. The air still felt fractured, the rift with Mosi still a cold chasm. But the larger threat had been neutralized. She looked at her hands—hands that could wield a Gbeni knife with lethal precision, but that had just helped wield a far more potent weapon: information and strategy.
She had not avenged Keti. She had not defeated the slave trade. But she had protected the one person who offered a potential alternative to endless war. She had fought her first battle in the unseen war, and she had won. The path was still dark and complex, but for the first time, Nawi felt not like a pawn, but like a player. And she knew, with a cold, grim certainty, that this was only the beginning.