The night my father died, the city did not scream.
Addis Ababa slept as if nothing sacred had been broken. No bells rang. No thunder answered the crime. The moon hung above the prison yard like a witness too afraid to speak.
I learned of his death from a guard who would not meet my eyes.
"They say it was natural," he muttered, keys shaking in his hand. "An old man. A quiet end."
A lie does not become truth simply because it is whispered.
I sat on the stone floor of my cell, chains biting into my wrists, and listened to the silence where an empire used to breathe. Somewhere beyond these walls, portraits were being torn down. Statues dragged through streets. Names erased from mouths. The Lion of Judah had been caged—and now, they said, he was dead.
My father once told me that history is written by those who survive long enough to pick up the pen.
I wondered if I would survive the night.
The cell smelled of rust and damp earth. Water dripped from the ceiling in slow, patient drops, as if time itself had learned cruelty from men. I pressed my back against the wall and closed my eyes, but memory is louder in the dark.
I saw him as he was before the fall, standing tall beneath the palace ceiling, robes heavy with centuries, eyes sharper than any blade. Haile Selassie I, Elect of God, King of Kings, Lord of Lords. To the world, he was an emperor.
To me, he was simply my father.
"Amanuel," he had said to me once, placing a hand on my shoulder, "a crown is not gold. It is weight. And one day, you must decide whether you are strong enough to carry it, or wise enough to put it down."
At the time, I did not understand.
Now, with iron around my wrists and death in the air, I did.
Footsteps echoed down the corridor. Slow. Measured. The sound of men who had already decided my fate. I rose to my feet, spine straight despite the pain. If this was to be my end, I would meet it standing.
The door opened.
Light spilled into the cell like an accusation.
An officer stood there, young enough to still believe in slogans, old enough to know fear. His uniform was crisp, but his hands trembled.
"You are to be moved," he said.
"Where?" I asked.
He hesitated. "That has not been decided."
That was answer enough.
As they led me through the corridors, I passed cells filled with shadows, former ministers, generals, men who once commanded armies and now whispered prayers into darkness. None spoke. We had learned that words were dangerous things.
Outside, the air was cold. The night sky stretched wide and indifferent above the prison yard. I lifted my face to it, searching for something, God, fate, my father's spirit, but the stars said nothing.
A truck waited by the gate.
This was how empires ended now. Not with fire, but with paperwork. Not with battle, but with silence.
As they pushed me forward, a strange calm settled over me.
They could kill the man.
They could bury the name.
But Ethiopia was older than all of them.
And as long as I breathed, the blood of kings still remembered how to endure.
I stepped into the truck, chains rattling softly, and for the first time since the fall, I allowed myself a single, dangerous thought:
If the Lion has fallen… then something must rise in its place.
The engine roared.
And the night carried me away.