The water was wrong.

  Ojie stood at the rail of the River’s Luck, watching the estuary bleed into the ocean. The water here in Igweocha was not the chaotic, churning grey of ?k?’s lagoons. It was black. Thick. It moved with a sluggish, oily lethargy, slapping against the hull like wet meat rather than fluid.

  It smelled of ancient silt and fermenting cassava. It smelled of secrets kept too long.

  "Stop staring at it," Y?misí said. She stood beside him, wrapped in a nondescript grey cloak that hid her silks. She looked smaller without the backdrop of her floating palace, but her eyes were just as sharp. "The locals say the river is holding its breath. If you look too long, it might breathe you in."

  Ojie did not look away. "Dele would have hated this place."

  "Dele is dead," Y?misí said. Her voice was not unkind, but it was final. "And we are alive. Do not waste the purchase price."

  The merchant cog groaned as it navigated the maze of the outer docks. Igweocha was a city built on stilts and desperation. Unlike ?k?, which sprawled with a chaotic joy, this city crouched. The buildings were timber and thatch, lashed together with vines, rising out of the mangrove swamps like the skeletons of wading giants. Smoke from thousands of cooking fires hung low over the water, carrying the heavy, spicy scent of ofe akwu—palm nut stew—and frying yams.

  They drifted past a shrine dedicated to the Python. It was a platform raised on ironwood pillars, draped in red and white cloth. A massive python, thick as a man’s thigh, coiled lazily around the central totem. The boatmen bowed their heads as they passed, murmuring prayers in Igbo.

  Ojie felt a prickle at the base of his skull. His bond, usually a dormant ember in his chest, flared with a sudden, restless heat. The Lion did not like the Python. It did not like the heavy water. It wanted to roar, to assert dominance over this suffocating silence.

  Quiet, Ojie commanded the beast. We are ghosts here.

  The River’s Luck bumped against a rotting pier in the lower districts. This was not a port for legitimate trade; it was a scar in the mangroves where smugglers and refugees washed up.

  "My contract ends here," the captain shouted from the helm. "Get your things. And watch your throats."

  Ojie grabbed his pack. The weight of his father’s armor in the iron chest was gone, left behind in the chaos of the escape, but he still carried the sword. The iron blade at his hip felt cold, a heavy anchor to the physical world.

  They disembarked. The wood of the pier was slick with algae. Ebose, the young guard who had survived the night in ?k?, followed them, his eyes darting at every shadow. His shoulder was bandaged, the crossbow wound weeping clear fluid.

  "Where do we go?" Ebose whispered.

  "Inland," Y?misí said. "I have a contact near the Market of Whispers. But first, we need to pass the toll."

  She nodded toward the end of the pier.

  A group of men blocked the walkway. They were not soldiers. They were local muscle, shirtless in the humid heat, their skin gleaming with sweat and oil. They wore wrappers of faded Ankara fabric tied at the waist.

  The leader sat on a crate of stolen gin. He was a mountain of a man, his belly spilling over his waistband, his jaw thick and heavy.

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  Ojie saw the tattoos immediately. Jagged, crude lines etched into the man’s neck and cheeks. A Stage Two bond.

  "New faces," the man grunted. He stood up. He did not speak the trade tongue of the coast, but a rough, broken Pidgin. "You pay landing tax. Or you swim back."

  Y?misí stepped forward, her merchant mask slipping into place. "We are simple travelers, seeking family. We have coin."

  She held out a small pouch of cowries. The shells glowed faintly blue—good currency.

  The man slapped her hand. The pouch fell into the mud.

  "Coin is for trading," the man said. He looked at Y?misí, his eyes lingering on the curve of her hips beneath the cloak. Then he looked at the sword on Ojie’s hip. "Iron is for taking. I like the sword. And I like the woman."

  Ebose stepped forward, his hand going to his dagger. "Back off."

  The man laughed. It was a wet, snorting sound. He rolled his neck, and the air around him shivered.

  "Show them,rukewe," one of his lackeys jeered.

  Rukewe grunted. The tattoos on his neck flared a sickly russet color. His jaw unhinged with a sickening crack, the bones shifting, expanding. Two ivory tusks, yellow and hooked, punched through the skin of his lower lip. His nose flattened into a wet snout. Bristles of coarse hair erupted along his spine.

  A Boar bond. Stage Two. Crude, ugly, but physically overwhelming.

  Rukewe grabbed a street urchin who had been watching from the edge of the pier, a boy of no more than ten, holding a basket of dried fish. He lifted the boy by the throat with one hand.

  "This is my dock," Rukewe roared, his voice distorted by the tusks. "I take what I want. Sword. Woman. Breath."

  He squeezed. The boy kicked, his eyes bulging.

  Ojie felt the Lion slam against his ribs. Kill him. Tear the throat out. Show him a true predator.

  If Ojie manifested his bond, even at Stage Three; he would draw every hunter in the city. The Iparun would find him. The prophecy seekers would find him.

  Survival demands becoming monstrous, the old adage whispered. But survival also demanded silence.

  Ojie dropped his pack.

  He did not draw the sword. Not yet.

  He moved.

  years of hiding had not taught him how to be a king. They had taught him how to be a rat. How to strike from the dark. How to end things before they began.

  Ojie covered the ten paces between them in three strides. He did not roar. He did not glow. He was a blur of dirty linen and intent.

  Rukewe turned, sensing the movement, raising his free hand to backhand the nuisance.

  Ojie slid under the blow. He drove his elbow into the soft, unarmored solar plexus of the giant.

  Rukewe wheezed, dropping the boy.

  Ojie spun. He kicked the back of Rukewe’s knee, forcing the boar-man down. As he fell, Ojie drew his iron sword.

  He did not flourish it. He did not offer a duel.

  He drove the pommel of the sword into his temple. The sound was like a hammer hitting a melon.

  Rukewe collapsed, his transformation stuttering, the tusks receding as his focus broke. He lay in the mud, groaning, half-unconscious.

  The lackeys drew their knives.

  Ojie stepped onto Rukewe’s chest. He reversed the sword, pointing the dull iron tip at the man’s throat. He looked up at the lackeys. He let a fraction of the Lion bleed into his eyes—just enough to turn the iris from brown to predatory gold.

  "The tax is paid," Ojie said. His voice was low, carved from bone. "Leave him, and you live. Stay, and I fill the river with you."

  The lackeys looked at their fallen leader. They looked at the boy gasping for air in the mud. They looked at Ojie’s eyes.

  They ran.

  Ojie stepped off the unconscious man. He wiped his blade on his trousers, though it had drawn no blood. He helped the urchin up. The boy stared at him, terrified, then snatched his basket and vanished into the maze of stilts.

  Y?misí picked up her pouch of cowries. She dusted it off, her face impassive.

  "Subtle," she noted.

  "Efficient," Ojie corrected. He sheathed the sword. His hand was shaking, just slightly. Not from fear. From the effort of holding the Lion back. The spirit was pacing in his blood, unsatisfied. It wanted meat.

  "The water remembers violence," a voice croaked from the shadows of the pier.

  An old woman sat there, gutting fish. She had not moved during the fight. She looked at Ojie with milky, cataract-filled eyes.

  "You smell of the dry earth, boy," she rasped. "You smell of a fire that went out."

  Ojie ignored her. He looked at Y?misí. "Lead the way."

  They walked into the city. The heat pressed down on them, heavy and wet. The air tasted of spice and rot. Beneath the wooden walkway, the black water lapped at the pylons, hungry and waiting.

  Ojie touched the hidden pendant beneath his tunic. He had taken a life in ?k?. He had broken a man in Igweocha. The ghost was fading. The warlord was waking up.