The twenty-ninth day of mourning began with silence.
No drums beat in the courtyard. No voices rose to greet the dawn. The palace was still, as though Uzazzu itself was holding its breath.
I had not eaten since yesterday. Food had become a stranger to me these past weeks — millet cakes turned to dust in my mouth, broths lay cold and untouched. It was as if my body had joined the land in its grief, refusing every comfort until the thirty days were done.
This morning, I rose before the lamps had been lit, tying my wrapper with slow hands. My fingers trembled, though from hunger or sorrow I could not tell.
Outside, the sky was the pale gray of mourning cloth. I crossed the courtyard, my bare feet stirring the dust, and found my horse waiting where I had left her.
She was the same mare who had carried Nala and me the night we fled the Kano
king — a dark, graceful creature with a white streak down her nose. She stamped her hooves softly as I approached, as though she had been waiting only for me.
"You remember," I whispered, stroking her muzzle. "You remember that night too."
I saddled her slowly, carefully, as though preparing for a ritual rather than a ride. The leather straps creaked under my hands, the air smelled of horsehair and iron. Mounting her, I felt the world shift — for the first time
in weeks, I was not simply sitting, staring at walls.
We rode through the quiet streets of the palace, past servants sweeping the dust, past guards standing like shadows. No one stopped me. Perhaps they knew where I was going.
The tomb stood at the far edge of the royal compound, its domed roof catching the first gold of morning. It had been sealed with carved stone, the ashes of my father laid to rest within.
I dismounted, my legs weak, and pushed open the heavy wooden door.
The air inside was cool, smelling of ash and incense. Light filtered in through a narrow slit in the wall, striking the center of the floor where the urn sat on a raised dais.
But I was not alone.
Idris stood there, his back to me. He was dressed in black from head to toe, his posture rigid, his hands clasped behind him. His spear wound had healed, but there was a shadow in his eyes that had not been there before the war.
He turned slowly when he heard me. his face softened for just a heartbeat, then became
unreadable again, before he looked back to the urn.
I stepped forward, my voice quiet.
"Ever since they brought him home we barely saw each other, and even when we
eventually did, this is the first time you have looked at me."
He said nothing.
I swallowed, forcing the words out.
"I feared for you, Idris. I dreamed every night that you were dead. That the earth swallowed you whole. I woke praying to the gods that they would return you to me."
Idris nodded once, his jaw tightening.
At last, he spoke — his voice flat, heavy, as though every word was dragged from a deep
well.
"I am here, Amira. But it seems the price of my life was heavier than I imagined."
I paused,then added, "I only wish Father could see us now. Everything feels…wrong."
He looked at me then, eyes dark with something like sorrow, something like resolve.
"The kingdom does not have the luxury of wishing, sister. We have bled enough. What
it needs now is a king."
His words cut, not because of their harshness, but because of how final they sounded. I stared at him, searching for my brother in his expression, but all I found was the warrior the war had carved him into.
"I know," I said softly, searching his face. "And soon—"
Before I could speak again, he stepped past me. "Do not linger here too long, Amira.
Grief can swallow the living whole."
And then he was gone, his footsteps echoing like a verdict.
I stood alone, staring after him, my heart aching with something heavier than grief. Perhaps war had changed him. Perhaps he blamed me — for my confinement, for not being there, for father's death.
Kneeling before the dais, I placed my palms flat on the cold stone and bowed my head.
"Baba," I whispered, my voice breaking. "I have done as you asked. I have stayed quiet, I have mourned, I have obeyed. But my silence cannot last forever. The kingdom is rising, and so must I. It needs its queen, I only ask that you give me a little of your strength and courage"
I stayed there until the first shaft of sunlight struck the urn, turning the bronze to gold. Only then did I rise, wipe my face, and walk back to my horse.
She turned her head toward me as I mounted, as though sensing the heaviness
in me.
"Take me home," I murmured.
And she did, her hooves striking the earth in a steady rhythm. The wind caught my wrapper, whipping it behind me like a banner, and for the first time since Baba's death, I felt the stirrings of something new.
Not peace.
Not joy.
Resolve.