The respect of the male army was a mantle they wore for a single, shining day. The paint was washed away, the uniforms carefully folded. The reality that followed was not parade-ground glory, but the grim, practical business of becoming the weapon they had been presented as. Their training did not end; it intensified, shifting from the theoretical to the brutally specific.
For Nawi, the Reaper, this meant a new kind of solitude within the sisterhood. While the Agbarya drilled in shield walls and the Fanti honed their archery at greater distances, her training was a silent, intimate dance of death. She spent her days with Adesuwa and a few other Reaper veterans in a secluded courtyard, its walls stained with old, dark splatters.
They taught her not just to kill, but to kill efficiently, silently, and with minimal energy expended. They practiced moving through the complex shadows of the palace at night, their bare feet making no sound on the packed earth. They learned to read the subtle tells of a human body—the shift in weight before a strike, the dilation of pupils in fear, the slight drop of a shoulder that signaled exhaustion. The air in this courtyard was always thick with the scent of dust and the metallic tang of the throwing knives they endlessly retrieved from straw-stuffed dummies.
The Gbeni knives became an extension of her will. She learned to throw them with a flick of her wrist, the blade spinning once before thunking into the throat of a dummy. She learned to use them in close quarters, the curved blade perfect for slipping between ribs, severing tendons, opening arteries. The veterans praised her focus, the cold, detached precision Iyabo had taught her. They saw a natural talent. They didn't see the furnace of old rage that banked heat beneath the ice.
Weeks bled into a moon-cycle. The routines became ingrained, the movements second nature. The war chants they sang each evening began to feel less alien on her tongue. The shared identity of the Mino was a warm, heavy blanket she sometimes found herself wanting to pull over her head, to forget the cold reality of why she was here.
Then, one evening, the summons came. Commander Nanika stood before them in the main yard as the sun bled out behind the palace walls. The air was cooling, carrying the day's last heat from the earth and the scent of evening meals from the city.
"The time for play is over," Nanika said, her voice cutting through the twilight hush. "A village to the north, Gbeka, has withheld its taxes. They have spoken words of rebellion against the Leopard King. They believe their distance and their thick walls will protect them. You will show them they are wrong."
A thrill, cold and sharp, went through the line. This was not a drill. This was not an execution of a bound prisoner. This was war.
"You will move out at the wolf's hour. You will be the claw that opens the door for the main force. The Agbarya will form the shield. The Fanti will provide covering fire. The Reapers," her eyes found Nawi, "will flow through the gaps and silence the sentries. This is your first blooding. Make your mothers proud."
The night was a taut, living thing. There was no sleep. They checked and re-checked their gear by the light of a single, guttering oil lamp. Nawi ran a whetstone along each of her eight Gbeni blades, the shhh-shink sound a rhythmic counterpoint to the frantic beating of her heart. The scent of the oil, the feel of the sharpened steel, was calming in its familiarity. This was a language she understood.
They moved out in the profound darkness before dawn, a column of ghosts in the night. There were no drums, no shouts. Only the soft, swishing sound of their footsteps in the tall, dew-soaked grass and the occasional chink of metal. The air was cold and clean, filled with the smells of the sleeping countryside—wet earth, blooming night flowers, the distant smoke of a dying fire. The moon was a mere sliver, offering little light. They navigated by the stars and the silent hand signals of the veterans.
Nawi moved within the formation, her body thrumming with a nervous energy she forced down into a cold pool of focus. She was a Reaper. This was her purpose. She touched the knives at her belt, their cool presence a comfort. She thought of Keti, of the fire, the screams. A part of her, the wounded animal part, yearned for this. It screamed for payment, for a balancing of the scales.
As they neared Gbeka, the order came down the line in a whisper. They fanned out, melting into the treeline that surrounded the village. It was a near-perfect echo of Keti—a palisade wall, thatched roofs, the scent of woodsmoke and livestock. The familiarity was a punch to her gut, but she used the pain, channeling it into the ice.
Through the gloom, she could make out two figures on a watchtower, silhouetted against the faint pre-dawn glow. They were laughing, sharing a joke, utterly unaware.
Nanika's hand came up, fingers moving in a series of sharp gestures.
Two targets. High ground. Reapers, take them. Silent.
Nawi's breath stilled. This was it. She looked at the veteran Reaper beside her, a woman named Chidi, who gave a single, grim nod.
They moved like liquid shadow, flitting from the treeline to the base of the palisade. The wood was rough and damp under her fingers. Using knots and gaps as handholds, they scaled the wall with the silent, practiced ease the Thorn Barrier had beaten into them. The only sound was her own heartbeat, a deafening drum in her ears.
She crested the wall, her body low. The two sentries were ten paces away, their backs turned. The smell of their cheap palm wine was sharp in the air.
Chidi pointed to the one on the left, then to herself. She pointed to the one on the right, then to Nawi.
Nawi nodded. Her world narrowed to the sentry's back, to the patch of exposed skin between his helmet and his tunic. She drew a Gbeni from her belt. The ebony handle was warm from her body heat. She did not think of him as a man. He was a target. A obstacle. A piece of the machine that had destroyed her life.
She threw.
The blade spun once, a dark flicker in the gloom, and buried itself to the hilt in the base of the sentry's skull. He made a small, gurgling sound, like a man choking on a piece of fruit, and crumpled without a cry. Chidi's target fell a heartbeat later.
It was done. The door was open. A strange, cold clarity settled over Nawi. This was easier than she had imagined.
Below, the signal was given.
The world exploded.
The Fanti let loose a volley of flaming arrows that thudded into thatched roofs, igniting them with soft whoomps of sound. The Agbarya, with Zevi and Mosi among them, hit the main gate with a running battering ram, the sound of splintering wood a violent crack that shattered the dawn. Shouts of alarm turned to screams of terror. The familiar, hellish symphony of a Dahomey raid began to play, and this time, Nawi was not a victim. She was a performer.
She dropped into the village, her Gbeni knives finding their marks with a terrifying, preternatural ease. She was a whirlwind, a dancer in a ballet of death. A man rushed at her with a spear; she sidestepped, her blade opening his thigh, severing the artery. He fell, clutching his leg, his life pumping into the dust. Another swung a machete; she flowed inside his guard, plunging a knife up under his ribs, feeling the grating resistance of bone and the soft, final give as it found his heart.
Her senses were hyper-acute. She could smell the specific scent of the different bloods—the iron-rich smell of the first man, the slightly sweeter smell of the second. She could hear the individual cracks of burning timber, the specific pitch of a child's wail from a hut, the labored breath of a dying man at her feet. She saw it all through a lens of cold, surgical focus. This was the focus Iyabo had taught her, but it was powered by a deep, subterranean river of rage that was now breaking its banks.
She was not just a Reaper. She was vengeance itself. Every life she took was a phantom blow against the warrior who had killed her mother, against the kingdom that had stolen her sister. The paint on her face felt less like a mask and more like her true skin. The war chant echoed in her mind, a soundtrack to the slaughter. We are no longer women, we are men.
The village militia, what was left of it, began to break, their resistance crumbling into panicked flight. The Dahomey soldiers and Mino moved through the chaos with methodical efficiency, rounding up captives, putting the dying out of their misery, looting anything of value.
Nawi saw a man, older, with a grizzled beard, stumble out of a burning hut, his hands empty, raised in surrender. He was a fighter—she could see it in his stance, in the old scar on his face. But he was done. The fight had gone out of him. His eyes were wide with the same terror she had seen in the faces of Keti.
"Please," he croaked, his voice raw with smoke. "No more. We yield."
The cold, focused part of her knew the protocol. Surrenderers were to be taken captive, assessed for value.
But the raging beast inside her saw only a target. She saw the face of every Dahomey soldier superimposed over his. She saw her mother's still form on the hut floor. The controlled whirlwind of her movements shattered into a single, violent impulse.
With a raw cry that was half-sob, half-snarl, she launched herself at him. She knocked his hands aside and slammed him to the ground, her knees pinning his shoulders. She drew a Gbeni, its blade stained red, and raised it high for the killing thrust. The man stared up at her, his eyes not just terrified, but profoundly sad, resigned. He saw his death in her eyes, and he accepted it.
That look, that quiet, human sadness, should have stopped her. But the rage had its own momentum.
"NAWI!"
The voice was a whip-crack, lashing across the courtyard. It was Nanika.
Nawi froze, the knife poised at the apex of its arc, her entire body trembling with the force of withheld violence. The world rushed back in—the crackle of fire, the screams, the smell of blood and smoke.
"He has surrendered," Nanika said, her voice low and dangerous as she strode forward. She did not shout. The quiet intensity was far more frightening. "The fight is over for him. Stand down."
"He is the enemy!" Nawi spat, her voice cracking, the words torn from the raw, bleeding core of her. "They are all the enemy!"
"The enemy is a tool," Nanika countered, her flinty eyes boring into Nawi's. "Some tools are broken. Some are repurposed. This one is no longer a threat. To kill him now is not strength. It is waste. It is loss of control." Her gaze was a physical pressure, forcing Nawi to see past the red haze. "A Reaper is a scalpel, not a club. You have done your work. Now sheathe your blade."
The tension held for a long, agonizing moment. The part of Nawi that was still the girl from Keti screamed in protest. Kill him! Avenge us! But the part that was the Mino, the part that understood discipline and purpose, heard the truth in Nanika's words. To kill him was to become like the mindless, brutal soldiers who had ravaged her home. It was to become the very thing she hated.
With a shuddering gasp, she lowered the knife. The energy drained from her, leaving her empty and shaking. She climbed off the man, who scrambled backward, his eyes wide with a mixture of terror and bewildered gratitude.
Nanika did not praise her. She did not chastise her further. She simply looked at Nawi, a complex expression in her eyes—disappointment, understanding, and a grim assessment. "Collect your knives. The battle is won."
The return to Abomey was a grim parody of their departure. They were victorious. They had lost no one. The male soldiers looked at them with even greater respect, their earlier cry of "Mino!" now earned in blood. Zevi walked with the confident stride of a proven archer, her quiver emptier. Mosi hefted her spear, a fresh notch carved into its shaft. Asu's shield was scarred and smeared with blood, but her eyes, while weary, were clear.
Nawi walked among them, her body aching, her uniform stiff with dried blood that was not her own. The eight Gbeni knives were back in their sheaths, clean now, but she could still feel the ghost of their impacts in her hands. The cold focus of the battle was gone, replaced by a churning, sickening confusion.
She had been brilliant. She had been everything the Mino had trained her to be. She had fought with a skill and ferocity that had undoubtedly saved the lives of her sisters. The vengeance she had craved had been meted out, drop by bloody drop.
But as she looked at her hands, she saw not the tools of a liberator, but the stained hands of a conqueror. She had not been avenging Keti. She had been repeating its destruction. She had lost control, becoming the mindless fury she despised, and only Nanika's intervention had stopped her from committing a wasteful, dishonorable murder.
The machine had not just used her; it had shown her a reflection of herself in the heat of battle, and the face she saw was a terrifying hybrid of the girl she had been and the monster she was becoming. She returned to the royal precinct victorious, her hands stained with the blood of her enemies, but her soul stained with a deeper, more troubling question: in her quest for revenge, was she simply becoming a sharper, more efficient tooth in the very beast that had devoured her world?