POV: Tsehay
The desert doesn't lie.
That's the first thing you learn when you grow up where the wind eats houses. It tells you the truth even when you don't want it. It tells you who's thirsty. Who's lost. Who's bleeding. The sand remembers everything, and if you know how to listen, it will tell you.
I came to the desert to teach that. To build schools where kids learned how to fight, and how not to. How to throw a spear, and how to put it down. For 11 months it worked. We had 3 schools. Stone buildings with thatched roofs. We taught 400 kids. We taught them history. We taught them how to read the stars so they wouldn't get lost. We taught them that strength isn't about how hard you hit.
Then the kids started forgetting.
Not their lessons. Not their names. Each other.
A brother would walk past his sister in the market and not nod. Two girls who braided each other's hair every morning started sitting on opposite sides of the class. A father asked his son who his mother was.
It wasn't sickness. I checked. It wasn't curses. I checked that too. It was absence. Like someone had gone through with a knife and cut the string between them.
So I followed the sand.
The footprints started showing up a month ago. Small ones. Bare feet. Always in a straight line, always heading east, always disappearing at the edge of a dune like whoever made them just stepped off the world. I followed them for days. The sand was wrong. White. Cold. It didn't belong here. Our desert is red and hot and alive. This sand was dead.
On the 4th day, the footprints stopped at a place that wasn't there yesterday.
A city.
It wasn't built. It was cut.
Houses made of sandstone that looked like they'd been carved out of a single dune with a blade. No mortar. No seams. Just smooth walls and sharp corners. Streets that ran in perfect grids. No people in the streets. No smoke. No sound. But the windows were dark, and I could feel eyes behind them.
And above the city, in the sky, was a sun that wasn't our sun. White. Too bright. It didn't move.
I didn't go in right away. Tsehay's first rule: You don't walk into a trap with your eyes closed. I circled it. Three times. On the third circle I saw it. The mark. Carved over the main gate. Three lines. Like a mask. Like the Court.
The Court was dead. Kunle broke the Spear. We saw it.
So why was their symbol here?
That's when Juma called. Then Sango. Then Dele.
"The shards are cracking," Juma said. "It's spreading."
"It's in Lagos," Sango said. Voice tight. "Kids are forgetting."
"The power grid is fine," Dele said. "But people aren't."
I told them about the city. About the footprints. About the sun that didn't move.
"Come home," Juma said. "We have to go through."
"Give me one day," I said. "I need to see what's inside first."
I lied to them. I wasn't going in to "see." I was going in to cut.
Because if someone is cutting roads between people, then they need to learn what it feels like to be cut.
The gate wasn't locked. It didn't even creak. It just opened, like it was expecting me.
Inside, the city was empty. Not abandoned. Empty. Like someone had scooped the life out of it and left the shell. Houses with furniture but no dust. Markets with fruit that never rotted. Schools with chalkboards full of writing, but the chairs were pushed in like the students had just stepped out.
And everywhere, sand. That white, cold sand. In piles in corners. In lines along the walls. In footprints that all led to one place.
The center.
There was a building there. Taller than the rest. No windows. One door. Above it, the three-line mask, big enough to swallow a man.
I put my hand on the door. It was warm. Not from the sun. From the other side.
I pushed it open.
Inside was a room. Circular. Like the Hall of Threads. But instead of 12 pedestals, there was one. A table. And on the table was a map.
Not a map of land. A map of people.
Threads. Thousands of them. Gold and silver, stretched across the table, pinned down with small knives. Each thread had a name on it. I saw some I knew. Musa. Tobi. Aunty Ngozi. Kids from my schools.
And in the middle of the map, a pair of hands.
Pale. Burned. Three lines on each palm.
The hands were holding scissors.
The scissors were cutting.
Not fast. Methodical. One thread at a time. Snip. And when a thread was cut, it didn't fall. It turned to sand. White sand. And the sand was poured into a jar beside the table. The jar was almost full.
"You're late," a voice said.
I didn't jump. I turned.
A woman was standing in the corner. She wasn't old. Maybe 30. But her hair was white, and her eyes were the color of the white sun outside. She wore robes the color of sand, and on her forehead was the three-line mask, burned into her skin.
She wasn't holding the scissors. The hands on the table were doing that by themselves.
"You're Court," I said. It wasn't a question.
She smiled. "I was. Past tense. The Court is dead, remember? Kunle was very thorough." She said his name like she was tasting it. "I'm what's left. The Echo."
"Echo of what?"
"Of order," she said. "Of control. Of a world that made sense. You 12 broke it. You said people should choose. That gods shouldn't wear masks. That was very pretty. Very messy."
She gestured to the map. "Look what your 'choice' did. People fighting. People forgetting. People hurting each other because they don't know who they are anymore. You gave them freedom and they used it to get lost."
"So you're cutting them?" I stepped forward. My spear was in my hand. I didn't remember drawing it.
"I'm simplifying," she said. "The world is too big. Too many threads. Too many connections. It hurts people. So I'm cutting them. Making it smaller. Safer. One thread at a time. One memory at a time. Soon, no one will remember how to be afraid of each other. Because they won't remember each other at all."
"That's not peace," I said. "That's erasure."
"Is it?" She tilted her head. "Tell me, Tsehay. Do your students hurt less now that they don't remember the ones who bullied them? Do parents fight less when they don't remember the arguments? I'm giving them mercy."
"Mercy is a choice," I said. "You're not giving them a choice."
The hands on the table paused. The scissors hovered over a thread labeled "Sango Jr - Dele".
"That one is pretty," the Echo said. "Lightning and speed. They fight like brothers. But brothers fight. And fighting hurts. So..."
"Don't," I said.
She looked at me. "Or what? You'll hit me? You're a god of war, Tsehay. You were made to hit things. But what happens when the thing you need to hit is an idea?"
I threw the spear.
It didn't hit her. It hit the table. Right between the hands. The impact sent threads flying. Names scattering. The jar tipped and sand spilled across the floor.
The Echo didn't move. "That was rude," she said. "Now you've made it worse. Those threads won't go back. They're cut. Those people will never remember."
"Good," I said. "Now I know where you live."
She laughed. It sounded like wind through dry grass. "You think this is the only city? This is one of twelve. One for each of you. We're cutting your roads, Tsehay. All of them. And when we're done, the 12 won't remember why they were ever a 12."
The floor shook. Not an earthquake. The white sun outside flickered.
"Time to go," the Echo said. She picked up the jar of sand and walked to a door I hadn't seen before. "Tell your friends. Tell them I said thank you. For breaking the Court. It made this so much easier."
"Wait," I said.
She stopped. "What?"
"Why the footprints? Why leave a trail?"
She looked back at me. For the first time, she looked tired. "Because someone has to follow them. Because if no one follows, then I'm just a monster cutting strings in the dark. But if you follow... then you chose this too."
And then she stepped through the door and it closed.
I ran to it. It was gone. Just wall.
The room was silent. The map was a mess. Threads everywhere. Some cut. Some frayed.
I knelt and picked up one. "Amina - Chike." It was still whole. For now.
My hands were shaking. Not from fear. From rage.
This wasn't a war. This was surgery. Cold, careful surgery on the soul of the world.
I left the city the way I came. The gate closed behind me.
Outside, the desert was red again. The white sun was gone. The city was gone.
But the sand was still there. In lines. Leading east.
I called Juma. "I found her," I said. "She's called the Echo. She's cutting the roads on purpose. She has 12 cities. One for each of us."
There was a long silence. Then Juma said, "We're coming to you. All of us. Sango, Dele, Kunle. We're going through the crack together."
"She wants us to follow," I said. "She left the trail on purpose."
"Then we follow," Juma said. "But not like she expects. Not one by one. Together."
I looked at the footprints. They were already starting to fade.
"One day," I said. "Give me one day to get the kids out. To tell them—"
"You don't have to tell them anything," Juma said. "We'll remember for them."
I hung up and went back to the schools.
I gathered all 400 kids. I told them a story. About threads. About choices. About how even if you forget someone's name, your heart remembers how they made you feel.
Some of them cried. Some of them didn't understand.
I gave each of them a piece of red string. "Tie this to someone," I said. "Anyone. So when you forget, the string will remind you."
It wasn't enough. But it was something.
That night I sat on a dune and watched the stars. The real stars. Not the white one.
And I thought about what the Echo said. About mercy.
Mercy isn't forgetting. Mercy is remembering, and choosing not to hurt anyway.
The Echo didn't understand that.
But we did.
Tomorrow, we go into the white desert.
Tomorrow, we find the other 11 cities.
Tomorrow, we cut the cutter.
But tonight, I tie a red string around my wrist.
And I remember every name.