A month later, the palace was quiet. The blood had been scrubbed from the marble, and the limestone walls had been repainted.
Ekenne stood on the balcony where the false King had once stood. He wore no crown. He had refused the coronation, at least for now. He had spent his first week as the "True Heir" opening the palace gates to the people, turning the West Wing into a center for the displaced—a place for the children who were still lost in the shadows of the city.
Dave sat on the steps below, smoking a cigarette and watching the sunset. He was a free man, though he knew he would carry the guilt of his silence to his grave.
"Will you take the stool?" Dave asked, looking up.
Ekenne looked out over Port Harcourt. He saw the shimmering creeks, the flare of the oil refineries, and the sprawling markets. He thought of the mango tree at the camp, and the thousands of boys who never got a name, let alone a kingdom.
"I will take the responsibility," Ekenne said. "But the stool? The stool died with my grandfather. From now on, we don't build palaces. We build homes."
In the distance, the bells of the city began to ring. They weren't ringing for a King, and they weren't ringing for a lie. They were ringing for the end of a long, dark night. Edna Mark had lied her family into disaster, but in the ruins of her ambition, a city had finally found its truth.
The rain in Port Harcourt had finally ceased, leaving the city in a steaming, equatorial grip. But for the man stepping off the private charter at Omagwa International Airport, the heat felt like a physical assault—a reminder of the life he had traded for the grey, sterilized comfort of London.
Richard Amadi stood on the tarmac, his tailored wool coat folded over his arm, looking at the horizon. He was sixty-two, his hair silvered at the temples, his face etched with the quiet guilt of a man who had watched a war through a television screen.