While the palace was being turned into a slaughterhouse, Dave was five miles away at the fruit market in Mile 1. The rain turned the dirt paths between the stalls into a treacherous red slurry. He stood under a tattered yellow umbrella, clutching a waterproof bag containing the original camp manifests.
"You're Dave?" a voice asked from behind a stack of pineapple crates.
Dave spun around. A man stepped out—a man who looked so much like the late King in his youth that Dave nearly dropped his bag. He was dressed in the simple clothes of a fisherman, his hands calloused and his eyes weary but kind.
"Graham?" Dave whispered.
"I am called Ekenne," the man said. "But the papers you sent... they show a different story. Why now? Why after twenty-seven years?"
"Because the man sitting in the palace just ordered the death of everyone who knows the truth," Dave said, his teeth chattering. "I saw the trucks. I saw the men. Edna... my sister... she's gone mad with the crown."
Ekenne—the real Graham—looked at the documents. He saw the photos of the woman who had claimed the other boy. He saw the cold, calculated swap. "I remember a woman," Ekenne said softly. "I remember her holding a boy's hand and walking away while I sat under the mango tree. I thought I had done something wrong. I thought that was why she didn't pick me."
"She chose power over you," Dave said. "And now, that power is going to burn this city down."
Suddenly, Dave's phone buzzed in his pocket. It was a news alert, the headline flashing in bold, jagged letters: TERRORIST ATTACK AT GBAKA-GBAKA PALACE. KING AND COUNCIL REPORTED DEAD. PRINCE GRAHAM SURVIVES.
Dave looked at Ekenne. "It's over. He's killed them all. He's the King now."
"No," Ekenne said, his voice gaining a sudden, royal iron. "He is a murderer. And I am the one who was left behind. It's time I finished the journey I started at that camp."