The moon over Gambe hung lower these days, its pale light struggling to pierce the darkness that had settled over the land. It wasn't just nightfall that blanketed the town, it was the shadow of guilt, the uneasy weight of secrets buried just beneath the surface.
Julius sat in his prison cell, a space no larger than a goat pen, damp and stale from years of neglect. The walls were slick with mold, the floor uneven and cold. Each day bled into the next, marked only by the groaning of the rusted iron door and the faint shuffle of guards delivering his daily rations barely enough to keep a man alive, yet he endured Because of her Adaora.
Each time the iron bars creaked and her voice reached his ears, it gave him the strength to breathe. She never missed a visit. With the baby strapped to her back, she would trek from Ward Twelve to the prison just outside the palace walls, carrying warm food wrapped in cloth and hope wrapped in tears.
"Eat this," she said gently one afternoon, sliding a small bowl through the bars. "It's yam porridge, the way you like it. I added crayfish today."Julius smiled faintly. His hands trembled as he picked up the bowl. "You're spoiling me." "You need your strength," she said, kneeling beside the bars. Jordan babbled softly on her back, unaware of the shadows cloaking his father's face.
"I don't deserve you," Julius murmured. "You should have left this cursed place."
Adaora reached through the bars and touched his fingers. "We started this life together. I'll walk every bitter mile of it with you." Behind them, the prison guard cleared his throat. Time was up. Adaora rose, kissed her husband's forehead, and promised to return the next day as she always did.
Some days, she brought others friends, cousins, and men Julius had grown up with. They brought groundnuts, palm wine, and kola nuts. But most importantly, they brought words. Encouragement. Silence. Stories of what was happening outside the prison walls. But something always lingered behind their voices. An uneasiness, Something unsaid.
One afternoon, Adaora came with Okey, Julius's childhood friend and neighbor. Okey had always been jovial, the first to start a song during harvest, the last to leave a celebration. But that day, his eyes were darker, and his laughter forced. "How's the little prince?" Julius asked, nodding toward Jordan. "Strong, like his father," Okey said.
Adaora said nothing. Her face was taut, her voice distant. After some moments of silence, she finally spoke. "Did you hear anything about the night before they arrested you?" Julius raised an eyebrow. "No." Okey looked around cautiously and leaned closer to the bars. "Do you remember the palace servant Dapo?" "The chicken chaser?" Julius replied dryly. They both chuckled.
Okey's face turned serious again. "He left town. Just up and disappeared. His family says he was sent to another kingdom for training. But my cousin said he saw him crying outside the elder council a day before." "Crying?" Julius asked.
Okey nodded. "Mumbling something about 'it wasn't supposed to be this way.'" Julius leaned back, the porridge now forgotten beside him. The Prison seemed colder.
"I think he knows the truth," Okey whispered. "Or part of it." The truth, like a stubborn weed, has a way of pushing through even the most hardened soil. Inside the palace, behind golden doors and walls of marble, the truth had been buried with precision. The real thief had never been in chains, never stepped foot in that prison.
It had been Prince Obinna the king's younger brother.
Obinna had long resented the king's tight grip on palace resources. The golden bracelet he stole was meant to be traded for weapons and wine, part of a quiet plan to build influence among the western clans. But the bracelet had gone missing the night of the banquet, and a furious King Amos had demanded blood.
He couldn't punish his own brother. The laws of Gambe were strict: theft from the royal family was a crime punishable by death or life imprisonment. And yet, no law could force a king to sacrifice a prince. So, a scapegoat was chosen.
The king summoned Ogbuefi, the royal advisor. A man with grey eyes and a cold heart. "Find someone," the king had whispered. And Ogbuefi had chosen Julius.
A respected, quiet farmer. Close to the palace through his trade, yet powerless in influence. A man no one would suspect but whose arrest would cause a stir loud enough to bury the real thief in silence. That night, Ogbuefi had dispatched two palace guards to Julius's barn with the bracelet wrapped in royal cloth. It was buried beneath a mango tree, just shallow enough to be found when needed. By morning, the trap had been sprung.
Back in the prison, Julius struggled with the wave of thoughts rising inside him. "Why me?" he asked Okey. Okey had no answer.
But Adaora did. She turned to him, her voice sharp. "Because you were honest. Because you were the one man who wouldn't bow to them."A long silence passedThen Julius whispered, "I'm going to die here, "Adaora replied saying "No," she said, shaking her head fiercely. "You will not. I will keep digging. I will keep asking. Someone will talk."
That someone came sooner than expected.Three weeks later, Adaora returned, not with food but with Elder Chuka, a member of the council of elders, and a man who had known Julius since childhood. They knelt beside the bars. Chuka's hands trembled slightly as he gripped the metal rods. "I have something to tell you," he said. "And it may not help you now, but you must hear it." Julius's heart pounded.
"There was a meeting," Chuka said, voice low. "A private one. Between the king, Ogbuefi, and two guards. The night before your arrest." "I knew it," Adaora muttered. "I was not meant to be there. I arrived early to deliver scrolls from the archive. I heard them talking about how 'the farmer will do'. They said it was necessary. That it was temporary."
Julius's breath caught in his throat.
Chuka looked ashamed. "I should have spoken up. But I was afraid." "Why now?" Julius asked, bitterly. "Because I see what this has done to our town. People are afraid. And the truth… it won't stay buried forever."
Julius closed his eyes that night and cried.
Not out of weakness but because hope had returned, fragile as a thread of light through cracked stone. But hope, too, could be dangerous.
Two days after Chuka's visit, he was found dead at the foot of a cliff on the edge of town. The elders called it a fall. But those who had eyes knew better.
Adaora mourned again, but she did not stop. She visited the palace gates daily, holding Jordan, asking for the king to hear her. She spoke to anyone who would listen. And every time she left the prison, she whispered to Julius, "We will not let them win." What none of them knew was that the injustice had left a wound far deeper than any imagined. Something was waking in the soil of Gambe, Something ancient, Something angry. And it would not stay silent forever.
Adaora kept going to the King's palace to cry and asked that her husband's case be reviewed, she called on all the elders she knew were good and loving people, but they all turned their back on her. Each time she leaves the palace she cries bitterly and looks up at God asking for his divine help and justice for her husband to be released from prison. Adaora was becoming a man of her own as days passed by and she never believed she could be this strong with a strong fighting spirit.
Another visiting day came and Adaora as usual went to the prison to see her husband. This time around she came crying and lamenting, telling her husband that the king and all his elders had refused to listen to him. She told her husband holding tight to his hands that she has done everything possible to gain favour from the king but it seems the truth has been buried deep in the soil. At this point she was beginning to lose hope.
Frustrated, Julius for the first time shed tears in front of his wife after seeing the suffering his wife was passing through just because of him. He Knelt down In Front of his wife and almost laid a curse on the village but decided to hold his peace living the entire situation to God. The suffering was getting too much on Julius, Adaora and little Jordan and it seems Adaora was about to give up, it looks like she will stop coming to visit Julius, it looks as if she will move on with her life. Serious calamity is about to happen, Gambe village is about to go down, the truth needs to be told and those who committed the crime needs to be exposed before it's too late.