The tunnel ended in solid stone. The torches on the wall cast a sickly orange glow across the tunnel, revealing nothing but rough-hewn rock where there should have been... something. Anything. My fingers traced the damp surface, searching for answers, finding only the slick absolute stone.

This was wrong.

Even the feel of my bare feet against the packed earth echoed wrong. A few days ago, they'd dragged me through these tunnels, half-conscious but still counting turns – left at the cave-in, right at the underground spring, then straight until... but now the layout refused to align with memory.

Unless...

The thought chilled like harmattan cold in my gut: Ozo Ibezim was too clever to leave his underground fortress truly mapped in a prisoner's mind, even a half-conscious one. An unsettling chill crept up my spine. Ozo Ibezim had always been steps ahead, like a hunter baiting his prey. Even in defeat, he had planted traps, and I was merely another piece caught in his web. Had the guards taken extra turns while I struggled to memorise the layout? Had they...

A deep rumble jolted me from my spiraling thoughts. The torch flame wavered, dancing wildly as the tremor shook loose layers of red earth and ancient dust from the tunnel ceiling. The sound grew from a distant rumble like far-off thunderclouds to a roar that vibrated through my chest, sinking into my bones.

They had set a trap.

I whipped around, heart racing, but the way I'd come was already closing off. Massive chunks of earth and stone rained down, the wooden supports snapping like brittle bamboo in harmattan. The torch slipped from my grip, clattering to the ground, plunging me into pitch-black darkness as I pressed myself against the tunnel wall.

The world shrank to noise and weight, the roaring earth swallowing me whole. A jagged rock grazed my shoulder, then smashed into my back – smaller stones foreshadowing the larger ones tumbling after. I curled into myself, shielding my head with my arms, coughing as fine red dust filled the air, clinging to my throat and nostrils. The groaning, shifting earth felt alive, as if the land itself had grown impatient, ready to bury anything and anyone who trespassed. The tunnel seemed to breathe, each convulsion a heartbeat of earth itself, eager to entomb any who dared disturb its secrets. The relentless pressure of falling debris became a pulse against my skin, as if the land wanted to consume me whole.

Time lost its grip in the darkness. There was only the relentless downpour of dirt and rock, the heavy weight pressing against my legs, and my desperate attempt to carve out a pocket of air with my cupped hands. Each breath dragged red dust into my lungs despite my efforts, coating my mouth and throat with a gritty, iron taste. The space around me tightened, closing in as the tunnel continued to collapse.

Then, between one ground-shaking crash and the next, my senses blurred, like water slipping through a broken calabash. The last thing I felt was the chill of the stone against my cheek and the bitter realization that the onowu had played his hand better than mine.

The darkness closed in, deep and unyielding.

For now.

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The pain arrived before memory – a deep, pulsing ache as blood pooled in my inverted skull. Rocks pressed against my body at unnatural angles. Each breath was shallow and precious, tasting of blood and wet soil. The darkness was absolute, the kind that makes you question whether your eyes are open at all.

Time became a cruel riddle. Had it been hours? Days? The thirst clawing at my throat suggested the latter, but death had not yet claimed me, so perhaps...

A faint silvery glimmer caught my attention – so subtle I first mistook it for the hallucination of a desperate mind. But no – there, through a gap no wider than my palm, filtered the blessed light of the moon. The rain that had drummed against the earth during our attack had passed, leaving behind that peculiar stillness that follows a storm.

Survival required cunning now, not strength. My father's voice whispered from memory: "A trapped animal pulls against the snare and dies. A wise hunter studies the trap itself." I forced my breathing to slow, studying my prison through touch alone. The debris had created a precarious arch above me, with the largest stones wedged against each other like the roof of a shrine.

Then I remembered the small knife tucked into my waistband – the same blade meant to mark me as a sacrifice all those years ago. Back then, Amadi and I had gone on a mission to the mountain villages of Iso to kill their chief, but I'd lost a battle against one of his warriors. As a twisted act of mercy or mockery, they'd left that knife on me. Now, that cursed blade, once a symbol of defeat, would become my salvation. Working it free with agonizing slowness, I began to scrape at the packed earth near the moonlight gap, not trying to dig out, but rather...

There.

The first pebble fell away from above, then another. I was not digging a tunnel, but weakening the arch at its apex. Wisdom, not force, would free me. Each stone I dislodged shifted the weight above, widening the gap. Water began to trickle in – not a threat, but a gift, softening the earth further.

When the gap was wide enough, I braced myself and struck the key stone with the knife's head. The ceiling groaned, shifted, then surrendered to gravity's embrace. I rolled with the collapse, letting it carry me up and out like a nurse-wife delivering a child from the earth itself. I surfaced, gasping as though I had clawed my way back from the underworld itself. The taste of damp air was sharp and sweet against my dust-choked lungs, a promise that I was, against all odds, still among the living.

I emerged into a night painted in silver and shadow. The rain had transformed the compound's grounds into a maze of puddles, each one reflecting torchlight like fallen stars. And there, in the courtyard before the great house, my heart stopped.

The twins – those fierce young warriors who had followed me with such faith – lay still and cold on the mud-slicked ground. Their faces were frozen in expressions of resolve, as if even death had failed to rob them of their loyalty. A bitter ache rose within me, knowing that they had given their last breath following a leader who had barely escaped his own grave. But others still lived. Amadi, curse his resilience, stood proud despite his bonds. Obiageli's defiant glare promised vengeance, while Obi's calculating eyes already searched for weakness among our captors.

And then... her.

Mairo knelt in the mud, her face painted with bruises but her spine straight as a spear. A dozen bowmen surrounded them, arrows nocked and ready. Their posture spoke of trained Ashangi killers, not common guards. Each one could loose three arrows before a running man could cross the courtyard.

I pressed myself deeper into the shadows, my hand tightening on the ceremonial knife. The odds were impossible, but I had already died once tonight.

Perhaps it was time to share that experience with others.

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