The winds in Anin turned colder, though it was the middle of the dry season. The city had never been so alive and so tense. With the Unity Summit at its peak, banners flew high and diplomats toasted to old alliances.
But beneath the marble floors and golden chandeliers, something was stirring.
Not everyone wanted unity.
Adiro sat on the edge of his silk-draped bed, the letter from the veiled woman clutched in his hand.
The handwriting was elegant, but rushed like someone had written it under pressure.
"My darling Adiro,
If you are reading this, I am gone.
You have a brother. His name is Niko.
He is your twin. Hidden to protect him.
Hidden to protect you.
They would have torn you apart…"
Adiro folded the letter tightly, the edges crumpling in his palm.
A twin? A brother he never knew?
It was impossible and yet it wasn't. The boy he'd seen at the monument. The unease he'd felt. The features like a reflection.
And the pendant he wore now under his robes the same dove symbol that the boy had on his necklace.
He opened a locked drawer, pulled out his personal journal, and began to write furiously:
"They lied. Kojo. My grandfather. All of them.
I must find him. Before they find him first."
Niko hadn't slept in two days.
After Kola's revelation, everything felt surreal. The streets, the people, even his own name felt foreign now. He kept the photograph of Adiro hidden in his jacket pocket, glancing at it as though it might vanish.
In the apartment, Kola was restless, flipping through old files and royal documents he'd stolen or copied over the years. His voice grew low and urgent.
"There's more," he said. "Look at this."
He pulled out a document marked Project Ashanti.
"Secret military protocol drafted between Oremi and Dakira decades ago. Back when the war ended, both kingdoms agreed to never allow a bloodline unification. Too dangerous. Too powerful."
"Why?" Niko asked.
"Because a single heir from both sides could unite the kingdoms, dismantle the royal houses. End centuries of rule."
Niko shook his head. "I never asked for any of this."
"That doesn't matter. You were born into it."
Suddenly, the power went out. Total darkness. A faint click at the door.
Kola grabbed Niko and shoved him into a back room. "Go. Now. The roof exit."
"But...."
"They've found you."
The men who burst into the apartment were dressed like maintenance workers, but their silence gave them away. Not a word. Only movement.
One searched the drawers. Another smashed the files. A third picked up the pendant on the desk and examined it with a gloved hand.
"Not here," the leader growled.
They burned everything.
From the rooftop, Niko watched the smoke rise. Kola didn't escape. He saw the gun flash through the window.
He bit his fist to keep from shouting.
Back in the royal palace of Dakira, Elder Kojo sensed something was wrong.
The prince had changed. Quieter, sharper. Too sharp.
He intercepted a message Adiro had sent through a discreet courier, an inquiry to the Anin city archives about one Niko Adepo.
Kojo summoned the king.
When King Mensah arrived, cloaked in his ceremonial black, Kojo handed him the letter with shaking hands.
"He knows," Kojo said. "Or at least suspects."
Mensah read the message in silence. Then, with terrifying calm, he said:
"Then we must find the boy before he finds his way to the throne."
He rang a silver bell. "Summon Commander Zara."
Niko now moved through Anin in disguise, helped by a few contacts Kola had arranged before his death. He lived in alley shadows, slept in hostels under different names, and carried the pendant close to his skin.
But he wasn't running anymore.
He was watching.
And learning.
One of his allies, a streetwise girl named Sefa, managed to slip him a newspaper with a photo from the Summit.
Adiro was there.
Smiling. Speaking. Shaking hands with delegates.
His twin.
"They even dress him like a god," Sefa murmured. "And you.... you look like a fisherman."
Niko smiled faintly. "I was."
"You're more than that now."
Back in Dakira, Prince Adiro stormed into the old archives, demanding access.
"This is my birthright," he told the chief archivist. "Open the sealed vault."
The man hesitated. Then, moved by either fear or fate, unlocked the gate.
Inside were scrolls, letters, and royal family trees. And at the back, sealed in wax, was a document labeled:
"ZINA OF DAKIRA – EXILED FILE."
Adiro cracked it open.
Inside, he found the truth.
Zina. His mother.
Akin. His father.
Oremi.
And the second child, marked as removed from royal record.
He sank to the floor, pages around him like falling feathers.
Niko made his way to the Summit grounds the following night, slipping through the shadows, following a path Sefa mapped out.
He didn't want confrontation. Just confirmation.
But the royal tent was guarded. Cameras. Drones. Too risky.
Then, as he turned a corner, he ran straight into someone.
Both stumbled back.
It was him.
Adiro.
This time, there were no guards. No distance.
Just two boys. Two sons.
They stared at each other. And in that heartbeat, the world felt silent.
"You…" Adiro said.
"You look like me," Niko whispered.
Adiro reached out. "I know who you are."
"Then why do I still not know who I am?" Niko asked.
But before Adiro could speak, a bullet struck the ground between them.
Gunfire.
Screams.
The shadows moved again.
They ran.
Together.
Through the alleys. Over rooftops. Into the old quarter of Anin, where the royal guard rarely patrolled.
They didn't stop until dawn broke red and heavy.
When they did, both boys collapsed against the broken wall of an abandoned house, gasping.
Adiro looked at his brother, blood on his sleeve, a cut on his brow.
"You have to come with me," he said.
"To Dakira?"
"No. To the truth."