Massawa was still days away.
Musyoka and the Abyssinian scout pressed hard through the rugged highlands, the weight of their ssage heavier than the packs on their backs. But here in Shewa, ti had already begun to thin out. The knives were already unsheathed.
Commander Tesfaye had wasted no ti. After sending a pigeon to the capital—urging the Emperor to act on the news of Khisa and the Shadow Guard—he took matters into his own hands. He sent out covert riders to neighboring towns, letters sealed not with royal wax, but his personal blade’s blood.
"This is the mont," he had told Khisa. "If we fail now, Abyssinia will remain blind. But if we root them out today—tonight—we might just live to see a kingdom worth fighting for."
Khisa sat cross-legged with the last twelve Shadows. Beside him was Faizah, the wind in her eyes now still—calculating.
"I have been mapping out all the major information hubs in the town. You will scatter across Shewa," she said, her voice cutting clean. "You’ll sleep in brothels, play drunks in taverns, pretend to be thieves in alleys. Every corner, every whisper, every shadow—they’re all yours now."
Khisa leaned forward, eting each of their eyes. "Disguise yourselves. Blend in. Look beneath the skin of this town. Into the rchant stalls with no wares. Into inns where no one sleeps. Into questions asked by the wrong mouths. Into sudden wealth, sudden silence. Into alleyways where breath doesn’t belong."
"This isn’t a mission—it’s a reckoning. They’ve hidden among us for too long. Spies. Traitors. n who would poison children and enslave our won." Tesfaye said gritting his teeth.
He looked to Musimbi, who clenched her spear tighter. "They won’t get the chance."
They nodded, one by one, then lted into the night like vapor.
Khisa stayed behind—but not as himself.
He cast off the cool deanor of the Nuri prince. Now, he swaggered through the streets in dusty leathers, no axe at his back, no blade at his side. Just arrogance.
"I killed eight of them—Adal dogs. You should’ve seen them squeal," he laughed to a group of rchants drinking in a crowded courtyard. "Made off with a dozen of their guns, too. Selling ’em at half price if you’re interested."
He let coin jingle loudly, bought more beer than he drank, and told every bartender that he’d soon be marching to raid another Adal camp—unguarded, too. He spat in the dirt and cursed the na of every power from the east. He painted himself as a fool.
And that night, beneath the stars, he staggered down a back alley singing a slurred war song, pretending to trip, pretending to laugh. Waiting.
While Khisa made noise, Tesfaye made silence.
The pigeons were grounded. Any bird caught flying out of Shewa was shot down. He doubled the patrols—soldiers now on every rooftop, on every street corner.
He had his n stop every rchant cart, open every sack, shake every grain bag.
At the gates, travelers were delayed, redirected, detained.
Anyone who protested too much, anyone who avoided eye contact, anyone whose story changed twice—was taken for questioning.
Two of them cracked. One had a coded letter sewn into his tunic. Another had maps of Shewa’s watch towers.
The soldiers dragged five n out of an abandoned warehouse that night. Three more were caught trying to scale the western wall in silence.
One had poison hidden in his boots. Another carried a dagger too fine for a street peddler.
In a rotting building near the edge of Shewa, seven spies huddled over a map.
"That damned Tesfaye is hunting us," one spat. " How far he has fallen using a few won and boys playing soldier. When the orders co, we take the won first. Use them to smoke out the rest."
Another laughed darkly, his teeth yellow. "I saw one of them—tall, clean. Fancy spear. Pretty too. I’ll take her first."
They didn’t know Musimbi had been listening from the rooftop the whole ti.
When the roof gave way and she dropped in, her spear already spinning, they barely had ti to draw their weapons.
The first spy lunged—too slow. Her spear pierced his thigh, spun, and slamd the butt into his jaw. He fell with a cry.
The second ca in harder, a twin-bladed dagger flashing under moonlight. Musimbi sidestepped, then drove her spear’s wooden shaft across his ribs with a satisfying crack.
But one caught her by surprise—a wild swing from behind. She ducked, rolled, and felt the blade scrape her shoulder. Pain surged, but she didn’t pause. She swept his legs and drove her spear down through his chest.
Three dead. Four more to go.
Musimbi stood, blood trickling down her arm. "Co on, then," she growled. "Say that again."
Not far away, Faizah faced her own challenge. A wiry spy with sharp eyes and cruel hands.
She had tracked him alone. Now they stood in a quiet street, moonlight and tension filling the air.
He struck first, quick as lightning. Faizah barely deflected it, her blade clumsy in her grip.
"You’re not ready for this," the man hissed.
"Maybe not," she said, heart pounding. "But you don’t get to leave."
He ca again. She stumbled, slashed, missed. Her arm burned where his blade grazed her.
She rembered Khisa’s words: "Breathe. Don’t block—redirect."
The next ti he attacked, she spun—not away, but toward him, sliding inside his guard. Their blades scraped once, twice—
Then hers sank into his gut.
He staggered, wide-eyed. "You... little..."
Faizah held her blade firm as he collapsed. Her hands trembled—but her grip didn’t break.
At the heart of the spy network was a man nad Asim. He’d operated in shadows for years, smug in his invincibility.
But that night, the shadows hunted him.
Reports ca in—intercepted. His n were vanishing. No word from the warehouse. No pigeons got out.
Then ca the sound—an Abyssinian patrol banging on the gates. His safe house was no longer safe.
Asim ran.
He shoved through alleys, throwing coins behind him, ducking into a sewer path only two n alive knew. But Khisa had mapped that tunnel earlier.
Asim surfaced in a ravine just outside town, gasping, knees coated in filth.
He didn’t hear the Shadow behind him until a whisper passed his ear:
"Running doesn’t help."
He turned—too late.
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