Chapter 1: Life in Camp Seven

The elders say Alkebulan used to be a place of freedom, harmony, music, and many cultures from different kingdoms. Everything changed when King Kimba, the Shadow Lord, took the throne. Now, it is nothing like it was before.

He took our stories. He burned every scroll, carving, and song that remembered who we were before him. Then he built Camp Seven, where people from other kingdoms work for him just to survive. There used to be six kingdoms. Now there is only Ngaru, and the rest of us are called Pillars. He says we are only good for holding up his walls.

I came to Camp Seven before I could walk. I have never seen the sky without a fence in the way, or had a morning that didn’t start with a guard banging on a door. Some of the older Pillars still whisper about a prophecy. They say a child will restore everything the King destroyed. I used to believe that. Now, most days, I just try to get through the work without feeling the whip.

I don’t know if that child is real. I am not even sure I want them to be, because hope is dangerous in a place like this. All I know is I have to follow the rules to get through the day.

So I will start with the morning when a boy with strange eyes caught a pebble he was not even looking at.

---

In the Kingdom of Ngaru, no one really owns anything. Not even the reflection in a mirror or the shadow that follows you. Everything belongs to the crown. The only thing you truly have is the dirt under your fingernails.

Lumani woke up to the cold, damp air of Camp Seven. Around him, the others were waking up too. A long, sad sound filled the room. It was the sound of people forced to start another hard day, just hoping to finish it in one piece.

CLANG!

An iron pipe slammed against the wooden door.

“Outside, Pillars!” a guard shouted from the hallway.

Lumani blinked his eyes open in the gray morning light. One eye was a vivid, starlit blue. The other, a rich amber. Most people in Camp Seven just called him weird-eyes.

He rubbed his face and tried to remember his dream. In it, a woman sang to him in a soft, sweet voice. The song always made him feel warm and comforted, but also a little lost. He tried to hold on to the tune, but it slipped away like water through his fingers.

“Oi, weird-eyes.”

The voice came from the straw mat beside him. It was Jabari, grinning at him. Jabari was fourteen years old. He was built like he had carried heavy rocks since he was born, and that is not far from the truth.

“Are you going to stare at the ceiling all day, or are you going to help me steal breakfast?”

“I am not stealing anything, Loudmouth.” Lumani rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Last time you ‘stole breakfast,’ we had extra work for a whole week.”

“That was because Ayo told on us,” Jabari complained.

“I did not tell on you!” Ayo’s voice came sharply from across the room. She was twelve, with a small scar on her cheek, and zero patience for Jabari’s silly ideas. “The guards caught you because you are as loud as a drum.”

“I am stealthy!” Jabari hissed.

“You trip over your own feet,” Ayo said back.

“That’s a strategy,” Lumani joked. “It confuses the guards. They never expect a thief to fall face-first into the mud.”

Jabari threw a small pebble at him. Lumani caught it in the air without even looking.

“How did you do that?” Jabari gasped.

“Lucky!” Lumani said quickly.

Lumani smiled. Mornings like this were not so bad.

A moment later, the guards marched them out into the freezing air. They led them past the huge walls of thorn and stone. Their work was simple: make bricks, then stack the dry ones.

Lumani picked up mud, pushed it into a wooden frame, and made the top flat with his hand. Then he turned the frame over and hit it twice against a stone; then a new brick fell out. Dark and wet. He set it down to dry.

Near him, Jabari carried an armful of dry bricks. He stacked them on a pile that was already taller than his waist.

“My arms are going to fall off,” Jabari groaned. “They are going to fall off. Right here.”

“Good,” Ayo said. “Then you’ll finally stop dropping them on my foot.”

“That was one time!”

“It was four times.”

In the next pit, Kofi laughed so hard he nearly lost his balance in the mud. He was small and wiry, with a grin that never seemed to fully go away, even on the worst mornings.

“It was five times,” Kofi said, catching himself on the edge of the pit. “I was there for at least three of them.”

“Nobody asked you,” Jabari said.

“Nobody has to ask me. I have eyes.”

Lumani tossed a scoop of mud into his own row. “He’s not wrong, Jabari.”

“Whose side are you on, Lumani?” Jabari asked.

“The side that isn’t covered in bruised toes.”

Kofi went back to scooping mud, humming something low under his breath, the way he always did without seeming to notice.

“You’re doing it again,” Ayo said.

“Doing what?” Kofi asked.

“The humming.”

“I always hum. You’d miss it if I stopped.”

“I really wouldn’t.”

“You really would. Camp Seven would feel too quiet, and then you’d all remember where we actually are.”

---

Jabari was big and strong, but his brain and his feet usually agreed on one thing: bad ideas.

In the middle of the workday, he decided to try something new.

“Watch this,” he whispered.

Ayo did not look up from her row of bricks.

“That is what you always say before something terrible happens,” she replied.

Jabari placed one foot on a flat board lying in the mud. He pushed himself forward with the other.

“Mud-skating,” he announced.

For one glorious moment, it worked. Then the board turned sideways. Jabari’s arms shot into the air. His legs went in opposite directions, and he landed in the mud with a heavy splat.

Kofi covered his mouth, but the laugh escaped through his fingers.

Ayo closed her eyes. “I warned you,” she yelled.

Jabari sat up slowly. Mud covered him from his chest to his toes, with a thick lump resting on his head like a crooked crown.

“I meant to do that,” he said.

At the far end of the work line, Kamau stopped lifting stones. He was the man who had raised Lumani since he was a few days old.

A guard came quickly.

“What happened here?” the guard asked.

Jabari stood up. Mud ran from his clothes. The guard looked at the broken bricks. Then he lifted his whip. Lumani’s heart pounded. He stepped forward.

“Sir! Please do not punish him.”

The guard turned.

“Did I ask you to speak, weird-eyes?”

“No, sir.” Lumani forced his face to remain serious. “But Jabari was not destroying the bricks. He was showing us his legendary warrior camouflage.”

The guard stared at him.

“His what?”

“His camouflage, sir.” Lumani pointed at Jabari. “He was teaching us how to hide in the mud. Watch. If he closes his eyes, he becomes invisible.”

Jabari squeezed his eyes shut. He stood perfectly still with mud running down his face.

The guard looked at him.

“He does not look invisible,” the guard said. “He looks like a fool covered in mud.”

“That is the trick, sir. Everyone thinks that at first.”

“There is no trick.”

“That is exactly what someone would say if the trick was working on them.”

The guard opened his mouth. Then he closed it again.

Kofi laughed. Ayo pressed her arm against her mouth, her shoulders shaking.

The guard glanced down at his own boots. Then his face hardened.

“You think you are clever?”

The guard raised the whip again.

“Enough,” Kamau said.

He walked into the pit, his eyes lowered just enough to avoid challenging the guard, and stopped beside Lumani.

The guard turned toward him.

“You have something to say?” the guard asked.

“Yes, sir,” Kamau replied.

Kamau looked at the damaged bricks. “The clay is still wet. Nothing has been lost.”

The guard pointed the whip at Jabari. “He destroyed the Lord’s property.”

“Then let him repair it.”

“I decide his punishment.”

“Yes, sir.” Kamau’s voice remained calm.

The guard stepped closer. “Do you question me?”

“No.” Kamau looked toward the work rows. “I am thinking about the count.”

The guard followed his gaze.

“If you punish the boy now, the bricks remain broken,” Kamau continued. “If he returns the clay to the frames, the Lord still receives his bricks.”

“And what do I receive?”

“Twenty extra before the evening horn.”

Jabari opened his eyes. “Twenty?”

Ayo kicked his ankle.

The guard studied Kamau. “And if the count is short?”

“Then the fault is mine.”

The guard lowered his whip slightly. “You will help him.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the strange-eyed one will clean the pit.”

Lumani nodded. “Yes, sir.”

The guard pointed at him. “No more jokes.”

Kamau rested a hand on his shoulder. “He understands.”

The guard walked away. Everyone remained silent until he reached the fence. Jabari wiped mud from his face.