The days after securing Zeila settled into a steady rhythm. No fanfare, no dramatic victories, just the hum of work that slowly transforms a port into a powerhouse. Kafi moved through the harbor like someone twice his age. The dockworkers joked that he looked too serious for an eleven-year-old, but when he spoke, everyone listened. His ambition carried weight.
Zeila was now the heart of his plan. It sat on the edge of the Gulf of Aden like a key waiting to unlock the world. Every dhow and merchant vessel passing between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean sailed near its waters. If Kafi could tighten his grip here, he didn't need armies. The world's trade routes themselves would work for him.
The warehouses were the first step. Kafi ordered them expanded and organized with a precision no one in town had ever bothered with. Frankincense was still their star product, its scent clinging to every corner of the port, but he wanted more. Coffee shrubs were planted inland even though most people shrugged at them. "Who drinks bitter beans?" the elders would murmur. But Kafi smiled because he knew what they didn't: someday those beans would become a treasure people fought over.
He introduced new measurements, new accounting habits, and record-keeping that made the older traders groan and the younger ones nod with excitement. The world was changing, and they could feel it even if they didn't fully understand why.
Some foreigners scoffed at Somali traders, calling them disorganized or backward. Kafi heard stories from sailors about how Africans were underestimated by nearly every far-off power. It irritated him more than he liked to admit. Not because of pride alone, but because of the opportunity hidden in that disrespect. If the world doubted Africa, then Africa could rise while no one bothered to watch.
So he used it. Every time a merchant captain assumed he was just a child pretending to be a leader, Kafi listened politely, nodded, then negotiated circles around them until they left confused and undersold. Word spread quickly: Zeila's young prince was not someone to underestimate.
He also began sending small caravans to the interior, teaching local clans the value of supplying goods consistently instead of sporadically. Trade routes strengthened like veins growing beneath the skin, connecting coast and countryside into a single economic body. People started earning more gold than their fathers ever had. Children ran around the market with baskets overflowing with dates, salt, incense, and the early harvests of coffee. Zeila felt alive.
But beneath all this, under the counting tables and the scent of burning resin, Kafi kept one truth locked inside his chest: he remembered another life. Another world. Knowledge no boy should have. He replayed it quietly at night, planning, adjusting, imagining a future where Africa didn't bend to anyone. A future where the Horn of Africa was not just a passageway for others but a force of its own.
He didn't rush. He didn't boast. He built.
And as Zeila grew busier and richer, whispers began to circle among caravan leaders and sea captains:
Something is happening in this port.
Something new.
Something powerful.
Kafi pretended not to hear, but he treasured every rumor. Slow growth was better. Slow growth rooted deep.
Before Ethiopia, before the Swahili Coast, before crowns and empires, he would build a foundation so strong that even time itself would struggle to break it.
This was only the beginning.