Ugegbe could no longer stand her deceit. She could not remain before the woman who had given her so much more than she'd asked for with her lies teeming and festering. She could almost smell her deception's putridness, and it churned her stomach, making her queasy each time she was to speak with Bundo or Kamalu or...him.

Once again, she'd shut him down, not allowing him to slip into her life. She was already entangled with him in her head, but she did not need any more of him digging further into her. She feared that in the future, her falsehoods would catch up with her, and she'd have nowhere to go, no one to turn to once they realised who she was. What she'd done.

Heretofore, she was on a muddy, slippery slope, tumbling down without any brakes to pull on. She was yet racing to its bottom, accelerating at each beat passing and with each lie she told. And it was eating deep into her. Guilt from tricking good people—who had taken her in and cared for her—into empathising with her while she took advantage of their kindness.

Only pieces of the story they knew of her were authentic. She'd fed them spoonfuls of fables and yarns, beginning from who she was to why she was in Zoro. At a time, she would have been called nobility. Her father had relations to the throne and had borne the title of a chief in his prime.

That was until it all plummeted, and he'd lost everything: his wealth, his pride, his daughter. Ugegbe kept these truths from her benefactors, choosing instead to serenade them with the state of Osisi, how it was in a war with its neighbour, Oguri, while actively concealing who she was, what she would have been called back home.

Ugegbe: a slave.

As for the why of her escaping to Zoro, she'd spun her fiction into the heart of Osisi's conflict. But it was all disinformation. She was running, not from the ongoing battling that was slowly ruining the kingdom, but from herself. Her past. She was not brave enough to face it and was not convinced she would ever be.

Twirling around, Ugegbe washed her gaze over the walls of the room she'd spent weeks living in. She'd spent a lot of time contemplating her existence and purpose in life, and it'd come to feel like a home to her. Like a haven she could rush to for comfort. It made her forlorn to be leaving it all behind.

She would miss it with all of her heart. The little wooden figurines that rested on the austere log table had become her companions, offering her friendship when there was no one else around, precisely in Bundo's absence. Never had she thought it would be this easy to become fond of objects that she'd not touched once nor of a place that she did not understand its origins or heritage. Yet, she was dejected.

Tucking her emotions into a locked chest, Ugegbe exited the room, her small bag of clothes in tow. The herbalist was planted on her stool, a long palm frond in her left hand, which she carved into with a paring knife.

"Ezinwanyi," her thick voice clouded the room, suffusing each corner with her presence, but she did not glance up from her project. It was a wonder how she'd detected her visitor's showing.

"I have come." Ugegbe shook looseness into her stiff limbs and cut a path into the bigger room in the house. She snuck a look at the older woman's hairdo—which was proving to be most bizarre today—and slightly grimaced.

Bundo had spent a fine chunk of her morn pushing to style her braids into the shape of animals. However, she'd failed quite woefully. Ugegbe knew because she'd been there, and the woman had beckoned on her to help with the coif. The promising style did not work as Bundo's hair did not have the ought length, though it did not stop the herbalist from fashioning out creatures from palms and binding them in her hair by fastening her plaits around them.

Ugegbe was thoroughly nonplussed about her end goal and exceedingly puzzled concerning how she could be of assistance. Bundo had helped her with her hair earlier in the day, stringing cowries through the three high mounds towering on her head, but she did not know how she would return the favour, not when she was currently staring at a chicken-like statue nestled in the woman's locks.

"Bundo, why do you make them—the animals?"

The sound of knife eating into branch ceased as Bundo fixed on her a wry smile. "It is to honour my dead."

"Y-your dead?" Ugegbe sputtered, thrown off by the possessiveness the woman had communicated. It was a first for her to hear any regard the dead so personally. But then again, she supposed that it wouldn't have been so different if she had said 'my dead mother or father or relative.' Nonetheless, it had resonated like a gong within her, rousing the truth she'd dared lain to sleep.

Bundo took a break from her snipping and trimming to fix a piercing gaze on her viewer. "Are you new to that utterance, Ezinwanyi?"

Ugegbe shifted on her foot, unsure of what to say. Since Prince Nnofo's passing, there had been an unsettling feeling gyring around her in the mention of death. In this instance, she was primarily affected because of the stark proprietorship present in Bundo's response. It reminded her of what she had done, what she had taken from someone else.

Torment and anguish shrouded her whenever she contemplated the loss she'd brought to the queen of Osisi, Nnofo's mother, and his people at large. She'd taken their prince from them, and she would never forgive herself for it. They would not pardon her either.

"I should start going." She simply said, ready to set out. It would be of no benefit if she let herself sink into lower spirits than she already was in. Her better option was not to wallow in her despair and melancholy but to wade through them, venturing to discover higher grounds. The gloom would not disappear any soon, but that did not mean she would lay low and wait for it to do so. Outcast or not, she would forge her own destiny with her will.

"Indeed." Bundo trilled from where her hands hummed like busy bees, whittling and shaving away. "Wait a while, and I shall finish. Then, I will be your escort."

Ugegbe examined the other palm fronds that were heaped at her feet, their grasslike leaves sweeping the mud floor, and knew she would not be waiting. She did not have that luxury to linger. Moving was her best option if she wanted to arrive safely at her destination before nightfall.

"You need not bother yourself with escorting me, Bundo. I will find my way myself."

"Really?" The rough huskiness of the herbalist's voice made Ugegbe wonder if she'd always talked like that even when she was younger.

"You have done a lot for me, and I will eternally be grateful. Not many would have saved a stranger they knew nothing of with their knowledge like you did. I am regretful that I have no means to repay you now but in the future... Someday, I promise that I shall give back as much as of what you gave me."

"Do not bother, Ezinwanyi." She said firmly but not without her natural gentility. "I have been paid wages for the help I gave you." Her bushy brows startled as she bit into the wood, leaving a cavernous gorge. She took a minute to glare at the result of an accidentally heavy hand before tossing the branch aside and remarking. "It is good that your accent could pass as one of ours."

"Yes," Ugegbe agreed bashfully, remembering how Bundo had caught her—while mashing leaves into pastes—practicing the lilt she'd realised Zoro's people had, setting them apart from those with Osisi's cadence, which happened to be less complicated.

For all her rehearsing, she'd barely come up to speaking like one of the commoners, as she had no knowledge of the more refined and polished words of nobles in Zoro. It would have to do, she supposed.

"Since it is your wish to leave immediately, I give you my kindest wishes. May you find favour, Ezinwanyi. Good woman."

"Thank you, Bundo." Ugegbe smiled, genuineness shining through her tiredness. Both mentally and physically, she was drained. However, she had to make this voyage and send her way to the only place she could find protection.

She couldn't let herself be enfeebled, not when her father had made the most prominent sacrifice for her. It terrified her that he could be threatened or facing hurt in her absence, and her self-blame struck, ever-consuming when she picked at the reality that she was not there with him. All she could do was look forward and begin the struggle to build something of her future. If she had to hew it out from hard rocks, then so it would be.

"May luck shine on us both," Ugegbe concluded her greeting and walked out of the door in brisk strides.

Her new wrappers flapped in the wind that was building up momentum. Her outfit was the only extra she'd collected from Bundo the night before. The woman would not have it any other way. Ugegbe could not bring herself to refuse the gift either; she'd already said no to many others.

Moreover, the wrappers would do her a big favour. Her prints would no longer be gawked at by others or recognised to be peculiar at first sight like they were when she visited the market with her dyed clothes from Osisi. She'd been asked questions about where she was from and her motives behind travelling to Zoro. Nevertheless, she'd kept her answers short and straight to the point for all queries. In some cases, she'd even given no reply.

Not everyone needed to know her true identity. It was why she'd admitted the wrappers were not from Zoro but never explicitly stated that she wasn't either. Though, she could tell they suspected so fair enough.

A trader had once held her back to assert that he was beyond positive that she did not belong to Zoro. She'd asked why, and his rejoinder had been such shining beauty as that which she owned could not have stayed hidden for so long. Ugegbe had nearly cursed her perfect features at that juncture, holding back solely for the fact that the tongue held power that she did not need to abuse.

Pushing her shoulders back and banishing her slight slouch, Ugegbe took the path that led deeper into the village. The period of her recuperation had not been in vain, as she had a keen sense of direction. Chin tilted up, she flounced down the worn path, seeing to it that her steps neither hesitated nor vacillated at forked roads. She needed to make herself seem unlike a visitor and simply a passerby. Having people doubt her assured facade would be deleterious.

The outside world was not as merciful or carefree as Bundo. The herbalist had not cared for the respect that flocked along with age and seniority. She'd not cared for the reverence she should have been paid, which had been perplexing to Ugegbe at first. But she'd gotten used to it and soon followed her lead. However, Zoro as a whole did not ignore hierarchies. Respect was expected and perhaps even demanded amongst the people.

Heading north, the roads grew steeper, and Ugegbe felt the strain on her calves and knees. She was getting fatigued, slowly but surely, and was not confident she was much closer to the angry, towering fences Bundo oriented her to watch out for.

Apparently, her progress should only be pacing along a straight track to meet the man her safety depended on. Yet, it was as tedious going up the hills as it would have been snaking through rugged terrains. Not that she'd have wished for that either. It was merely frustration upsetting her balance and turning her thoughts fuzzy.

Ugegbe's legs had begun to tremble, as weak as a baby calf's when a machete was speared against her neck. Fear prickled her spine as she swallowed a boulder. "What do you want from me?" She contrived to ask, heart palpitating to the frenzied beat of a merry masquerade's dance.

"I will ask the questions here, spy."

Once again, she thought bitterly, the heavens were against her.
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A/N: Hello, lovelies! I'm not sure if you've all noticed, but I'm trying to speed up the timeline of events as I feel like this book has dragged out for quite a long time. I hope you all are enjoying the chapters, nonetheless. Cheers loves!