Copyright © 2025 by Yvonne Nartey

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by UK copyright law or by the author. For permission requests, contact hello@lion-souls.com.

The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.

First edition 2025

A gentle note to readers

This book contains on and off the page:

Lions. Lots and lots of lions.

Violence.

Mental health issues.

Reading should be fun, so please mind your triggers and always seek help where appropriate to preserve your mental well-being.

Contents

Chapter 1

Eshe

Chapter 2

Eshe

Chapter 3

Eshe

Chapter 4

Adeben

Chapter 5

Adeben

Chapter 6

Adeben

Chapter 7

Eshe

Chapter 8

Eshe

Chapter 9

Adeben

Chapter 10

Adeben

Chapter 11

Adeben

Chapter 12

Eshe

Chapter 13

Adeben

Chapter 14

Eshe

Chapter 15

Eshe

Chapter 16

Adeben

Chapter 17

Adeben

Chapter 18

Adeben

Chapter 19

Eshe

Chapter 20

Adeben

Chapter 21

Eshe

Chapter 22

Adeben

Chapter 23

Eshe

Chapter 24

Adeben

Chapter 25

Eshe

Chapter 26

Eshe

Chapter 27

Eshe

Chapter 28

Adeben

Chapter 29

Adeben

Chapter 30

Adeben

Chapter 31

Eshe

Chapter 32

Eshe

Chapter 33

Eshe

Chapter 34

Adeben

Chapter 35

Adeben

Chapter 36

Eshe

Chapter 37

Adeben

Chapter 38

Eshe

Chapter 39

Adeben

Chapter 40

Eshe

Chapter 41

Adeben

Chapter 42

Eshe

Chapter 43

Adeben

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

Eshe

Yesterday, at the darkest point of the night, I met him again.

The sharpest point of his teeth pierced my neck and tore a hole large enough for some of my soul to bleed through.

Tonight, again, once I return to my West London flat, I’ll find myself lost in a field. I’ll think I’m alone, forgetting that these days, I am never alone. Not in my sleep.

He is always there.

He always finds me.

He always kills me.

No one here knows this. No one at this party cares. Not about him. Not about the girl they can see in the corner, wearing layers of makeup to hide everything but the signature frown that naturally falls on her face, and drowning in a dress that would suit better, prouder, stronger shoulders.

Green lines of ivy snake their way through the dark metal frame of the chandelier, covering its every surface in life and holding back that other man-made aspect of its beauty. It’s not functional – the absence of bulbs in the shells speaks loudly of that secret – but it doesn’t need to be. It hangs in the centre of the room, pulling enough eyes into it that I cannot help but wonder if this new function does not better suit it. Make it into more than it was before. Now, here, it does not need to illuminate the room. Plenty of lesser chandeliers perform that task well enough. Instead, it illuminates minds, even those of the most tasteless gathered here.

I struggle to keep my eyes off it. Even when my gaze is dragged away to survey the face of the next person who walks purposefully towards me, only to think better of being seen with me, my mind, its eye, remains fixed on the image of it.

Something about the hue of the green, in a room filled with delicate white things: drapes, tablecloths, suits on the men who glide through the crowd topping up glasses with quiet, sweet bubbles, this is different. It’s loud, alive, and refuses to be anything other than what it is.

I’m surprised it’s still here. Hugo’s dislike of colour is well known and documented at all the parties he throws. Why hadn’t he demanded that it be removed? Why isn’t this celebration of colour and life not quietly tucked away in a storage cupboard, where it doesn’t distract me, where it cannot speak to me of other things I have seen, proudly situated in places where they don’t belong?

The lion.

In my dreams, I see him; I stumble upon him. Or rather, he stumbles upon me. In a field of tall, swaying grass, we find ourselves trapped in a perfect circular clearing, with the wind steadily dispersing tiny seeds of promise. I am drawn to him. I shift closer to him.

It’s always me who attacks first. Charging at him, crashing into his magnificent frame. Then I become a lion, too. A lioness. My arms and legs furred, strong. My heart powerful, fierce, and powered by pure aggression. Every time I launch my attack, I lose the battle, my pride.

He stands over me, his mane pulsing in the wind. His eyes, the well of power in them, the bloodlust; it’s the last thing I see before his teeth connect with my neck.

Clink. Clink.

The sound of a clear crystal champagne glass being struck by the silver knife in Hugo’s hands sets my heart beating, pulling me from the dream’s memory but leaving its essence to cloud my soul. I can feel the cold air from the air conditioning unit on my skin, see my mother’s hand waving for me, and hear the collective silence of the fifty or so people at the party. I can even smell the last of the smoked salmon curls being ferried away by the white-suited men. But I am not here. I am there. With him in the dream. Before, after, and at the exact moment his teeth meet my skin.

My hand traces its way across my neck, pausing just to the side to probe at the sting—the sting left behind by the nightmare—a sting I should no longer feel, not now that I am supposedly in the real world.

For too many nights, before my eyes close, I have hoped for a reprieve, to dream of happier things, better things or even no things. Anything but the lion dream. But my dreams are always the same, and last night was no different. Deep into what should be rest, I find myself in the same spot, in the same field, with the same lion.

His mane, long. Burnt orange, thickly matted at the roots. Tapered at the edges like whips of sweet dark candy floss. Their ends, black, so blackened they absorb every sun ray I have seen around them. His eyes set deep, touched by time and darkened by sorrow. I have never known much about lions, but I know him and the deep-brown eyes which have met mine at night much better than I want to.

“I want to thank you all for coming.” I see Hugo’s lips say the words but don’t hear them fully as my other brother, Alistair, joins him by the wonderous redundant fountain of champagne. They stand together – as they always do, as I imagine they always will – comfortably at the centre of the room, everyone’s smiling eyes on them. The Kraffens. An institution, the legacy made real of a man, my father, taken far before all his dreams were realised.

They are pathetic.

My mother’s hand eventually finds mine and pulls it with such force my body immediately reacts defensively and readies to attack, just before the well-rehearsed cognitive behavioural techniques of my youth flush out the well-meaning aggression. As her hand squeezes mine, I feel her eyes scolding me while simultaneously begging for my attention to return to my brothers. It’s enough to force the other hand away from my neck, but not my mind from the dream.

I was fifteen when I first met the lion in my sleep, and I was intrigued by it. By him. That intrigue drove me forward to research all possible meanings. Dreaming of a lion meant that I felt threatened, I was strong, I was repressing my natural instincts. Never the same thing twice or anything that applied, not to me. So why, then, were my dreams stalked by a lion? And why was I a lion too, fighting the unwelcome visitor in my mind, night after night?

The intrigue quickly gave way to exhaustion as the hours of lost sleep built up. My grades suffered. Concentrating on titrations and angles was hard when your eyes refused to stay open. I had been a good student, and my grades were important to me and my family, so I became desperate. Started taking herbal sleep remedies to force quiet into my mind and bring forth a sleep to restore me. But their chemistry failed me, just like I eventually did the subject, forcing me to turn to our family doctor for sleeping tablets with chemicals I couldn’t pronounce. These chemicals might have troubled a better-rested person more than they did me. He seemed more than happy to prescribe them to me initially, only to later privately express his concerns to my aunt. Aunty Grace had secured the job for him in the first place, so I shouldn’t have been surprised by his going above my head.

Once she found out about my troublesome dreams, everything changed. She started insisting I kept her informed of all new developments and painfully share every fragment I managed to hold on to each morning. No detail was too small for her attention in her quest to understand my disturbed sleep and unmask the lion that haunted me.

He stepped back this time.

I’m hit with the realisation at the exact same time my brothers and their crowd erupt into applause. Their latest triumph; something to do with the stock price, maybe another acquisition, or perhaps Alistair’s upcoming climb of Mount Everest. I don’t need to know what they’re celebrating this time; I just need to mirror the excited smile on my mother’s face.

He did. This time, in the dream, I saw the lion step back.

The thought hadn’t been born when my aunt called in the morning. It was early, first thing, as it always is. She was careful with her words, soft with her pokes, but it was still unbearable. She asks me questions, and she probes my recollections so she can comb over the dream and carefully pick out all the new details that I, myself, have given up trying to track. I may not know who the lion is or why he is in my head, but I know well the routine he has brought to my life.

I’m not angry at her; I don’t blame her for pushing for the painful scrutiny that takes up most of our interactions. Her frustration only meets my own. And it tugs at the love and respect I hold for her, forcing my head to fall in defeat and my mouth to spill what it can.

I have to turn it over. I have to understand it, truly, to pass through it.

Yet, every time she gets me there, to a place where I can appreciate these facts and I’m willing to do the work, ready to really look into it, something inside me comes alive in tandem. A voice screams out in protest, begging me to run as fast as I can away from any action that might lead me further into the dream.

For years, I’ve lived with these dreams. They take over my soul for weeks, sometimes months, and then disappear. Coming and going like a first love you can never be rid of, who reminds you continuously that wherever you are in your life, whoever you are now, you are and will always be tied to what came first, and etched itself onto the fabric of who you are.

I am never scared in the dream, even when I know I should be. There is a strange familiarity between the lion and me; as unexplainable as it is, I feel it too strongly to deny its existence. Even at the end, when he attacks me, it’s him I think of. He draws my tears out, and I am, above all, sorry he has been put in this situation, his hand forced by me, by my being somewhere I shouldn’t be. And in his eyes, just before my own close, it is not anger or malice I see. It’s the opposite.

I frequently flash to the image of him. That mane flowing in the wind, framing his larger-than-life face. And his eyes, the way they pierce my soul in a way I haven’t felt wholly comfortable sharing with anyone.

I am not afraid of him; I have never been. But there is something else in the dream, something I cannot recognise well enough to put into words, that I am very fearful of.

I just remembered. The lion stepped back this time when I stepped forward. He seemed more afraid of me than I was of him.

I type the message quickly to my aunt, trying to avoid pulling my mother’s attention towards me. I am just about to press send when I remember; we argued this morning.

Well, I snapped.

My aunt wanted me to speak to a “friend of a friend” who could help. But I’ve already indulged so many of these friends. Too many people over the years have tried to help: specialists, doctors, psychiatrists, and others with no such formal education. They have all come with their own ideas and treatments. It’s never helped; eight years on and I’m done with it. Done trying to find a fix or make some sense of it. I just want to be free of it. Every part of me feels it, every section of my heart aches to be released from the hideous dream. To be rid of it and the scars it leaves, invisible on my body but all so visible on my mind.

I told her I wanted to be normal, and while I do, she isn’t wrong when she says I am “special”. I have never been anything like the other girls gathered here at this party. And I probably won’t ever be. Girls with more money than sense, my aunt likes to say. I played, studied, and grew up alongside them; they are my “friends”. But even putting the dreams aside, I have always been marked as different.

It isn’t that I have less than them – before he passed, my father was wealthy enough that his business empire more than provided an education and means to match theirs. Even my mother, though from much simpler means, was plucked from a well-known African family. Once akin to royalty, she was a princess whose beauty had been sought after across the world. And though the kingdom her family once held had long since fallen out of power and their borders expunged from all good maps, her titles and esteem remained.

On every level I should feel the equal of these other girls, match their “ness” with my own, but I don’t. On good days, I feel less, so much less than they all are. My body is too tall, too soft next to theirs. On bad days, like today, I feel like I’m too much. Tonight, everything about me is the wrong colour, my dress too bright against a sea of simple-silhouetted black attire. My hair too curly, too unruly. My skin too rich in melanin for the white room. All while, every day, I feel the burden of expectation and legacy, things far weightier than money or a good name.

The root of it all is that, more so than anyone else, my future has never been my own. There is too much expected of me, too many eyes upon me. My path has already been etched into the future’s histories.

Growing up, my friends spent their summers travelling across Europe, growing full on a wealth of new experiences and cultures, while I summered safely at home – my half-brothers afraid the optics of my living anything resembling the life of a young girl with means could harm the family name.

The day before my eighteenth birthday I snuck out to a party, thinking I might try my hand at some of the antics I had so often heard retold at school on Monday mornings, only to find myself, the next day, blinded by camera flashes, carefully reciting the constructed apology the PR department believed would pacify the weary stakeholders of my father’s company. And my brothers awkwardly reminding me afterwards that the boy I had been photographed “getting close to” wasn’t someone my family or I should be linked to. Never mind that I had heard, though never seen – they were always much smarter than me in that respect – that they had frequently done much, much worse than innocently striking up a conversation with someone.

And this year, my resignation from one of the country’s top business firms owned by a friend of Hugo’s hangs over me, tainting the few interactions I have with my brothers. Of course, they don’t want to hear my own thoughts about the toxic culture and the evident misogyny at play down the corridors. What matters – all that matters – is that it disrupts the plans they have for me, for where I should be in the next five years. Even now, months later, the shade is still palpable.

These iron chains that bind me to my father’s empire and my mother’s legacy are always at the forefront of my mind. Before I’ve even had the chance to meet anyone, they already know so much about me, carry too many expectations of what I should be. The other Kraffen. The girl from the second marriage. The lost one. The broken one. The one with the short fuse.

All I have ever wanted is to be free, just to be wild, unprompted, and to be. But my every breath, every thought, every action, carries far too much. I feel it constantly, pressing down heavy upon my head, making me smaller. Making me less. So, while I have long had to come to terms with these inevitabilities by carving out space to dull the painful reminder that I am not like everyone else, the last thing I need is for something else to mark me as special.

“We all have roles our to play. And your mother is not your enemy. She too does the best with what life has dealt her.” Her words still catch in my ears. The best. That my aunt could have thought it, much less said such a thing…

I look at my mother: her flawless profile always perfectly poised to hold a smile, her tall, slender figure that dresses beg to be draped over, her hair effortlessly pulled high in a bun so regal it needs to be adored. She stands tall, even today in a room where I feel my difference so starkly, she looks daringly out at all the other faces, much paler, much wealthier than hers. Her neck extended and her chin aimed at the heavens, her eyes can’t help but cast down, calling the others out for being beneath her, pronouncing herself superior to everything and everyone they know. They can never meet her bright smile for longer than a few seconds. Still, they keep trying.

She is not doing her best. This cannot be her best. I once longed to know her as well as I do my aunt. But that wish has long faded. Now, I am content to know as much about her as everyone else does. That she is a beautiful woman who cannot do without a project. Flitting from one thing to another, she creates stunning gardens, renovates rooms in our family home that don’t need renovating, and more recently has set her sights on moulding me into a person my brothers and their weary stakeholders might one day tolerate on the board.

So here we are, at a party in Canary Wharf that only she was invited to, and that I was dragged along to as her plus-one – a party where my family name is embossed onto every possible surface. Even the soft white napkins the other girls use to carefully wipe at the non-existent smudges on their lips carry my family name. But now I can only think of my argument with my aunt.

“I have to join the company, I have to wear this, I have to be with this man,” I’d said, frustrated. “Why do I need a company? Or a husband, or a legacy? Why do I always have to think about the future? What’s wrong with thinking about today? Now?”

She’d sighed. “We plan for the future so that we can continue to enjoy all our todays.”

“Why can’t I just be?”

“You won’t be in your twenties forever, Eshe.”

“No, but I will be trapped here. Living in this goddamn fishbowl. I’ll marry some rich, dull, pathetic man, and then I’ll grow old. Every year, older and older. Until one day, when I’m sad and bitter, when I can’t even wipe my own rich arse, someone will finally put me out of my misery and end this sorry excuse of a life.”

I can still hear my aunt’s scream. I can still feel the wave of regret that washed over me immediately. Even now, in this crowded room, my hands are cold as they grip the smooth emerald satin skirt around my legs.

My words were unspeakably cruel, especially this close to the anniversary of her husband’s death. My mind, since, keeps touching on my memories of Uncle John, the man who truly made my aunt the happiest woman on earth and then broke her heart when his illness slowly removed the memories and characteristics of who he was. She cared for him until the end, refusing to hire someone else, even to perform the most intimate tasks. Only two years have passed since his body followed his mind into death.

After my outburst, she made her excuses and said goodbye without any malice, though she should have had plenty. If I knew what to say, I could have called her back.

I’ve always done well at arguing; the vigour and strength my words can manifest when challenged are the crowning glory of my arsenal. Dressing down the maître d’ at Panna e Pancetta, the Knightsbridge branch, when he dared to insinuate that I might be in the wrong place after I’d showed up wind-struck, out of breath, and late for a friend’s birthday. Destroying Hugo’s friend Jeremy when his response to my resignation was to tell me I was destined to forever be alone, to tell me that everyone would leave because it was only a matter of time before my brothers, my mother, my friends, all realised what a waste of space I was, to remind me of how much I sucked from them with my “good girl gone insane” routine.

Too often, the dullness of my life provokes my passions elsewhere, overflowing and birthing a fire deep within me – a fire that, I have always feared, carries the capacity to consume me one day. Each time the fire rages and my tongue lashes, I lose myself, finding my way back to decorum far too late. Each time, as the flames slowly die down, I come to and see the pain I have wrought and I wish with everything I have the same thing: I wish I were quieter, maybe meeker, and definitely kinder. Then perhaps, I would feel less out of step. Perhaps everything ahead of me would be easier to swallow, and my whole life more palatable. If only I were those things instead of what I am.

I put my phone away, the message to my aunt unsent, before planting the obscenely high shoes I borrowed from my mother squarely back into the room. Music from a harpist – the one everyone knows Hugo loves to have sex with but hates to be seen with – drifts gently through the murmuring voices. Maybe tomorrow, I will find myself in possession of the words I need.

Collecting my breath, I force myself into the present just in time to see Hugo gently touch Alistair’s arm as he approaches my mother. Their eyes catch mine, and I smile back, waiting for them. They turn away, their eyes aiming higher than my head, desperately trying to find anyone else to talk to, while I will my smile to not fall.

Not today.

Not for them.

Chapter 2

Eshe

As I wait for the green man to grant me safe passage across the quiet road, I can see into the restaurant through its double-height glass front. Clean black lines frame the scene, inviting you closer to see its patrons, to join them, if you can afford the price of the French onion soup they are known for. Its small tables, covered in muted pink tablecloths, speak of an intimacy. It’s precisely the kind of place my mother would choose for lunch, and seeing her smile her casual gleam at the maître d’, I wonder why I haven’t been summoned here before.

She spots me as I wait for the signal, and even with all the glass and the metres of space between us, I can feel the sting of her eyes sweeping my frame, judging and dismissing the way I have pulled myself together.

A week has passed since she dragged me to the Kraffen party, and I know she hasn’t forgiven the hasty exit I made while her back was turned. It became too much. The room, the people, my brothers and the things their mouths would not say, but their eyes were all too happy to announce. It’s what most people forget when they hold their tongues and skirt past me, afraid to prickle my skin and set me off into hysteria: their eyes. How much they say, how loudly they scream the very things they worry will send me back to the places where I am the one who knows well the maître d’.

“There is no shame in mental illness,” they say, all while fearful that what I have might infect them. That they too might find themselves carried off by the firm, kind hands of porters.

They should be so lucky – to be forcefully disconnected from life, from all their bullshit, from all their shrouded and clear instructions for how I should behave. I’d go back if I could. I’d rather be there, in the void where even my mind is quiet, than back on their stage. But that, I suppose, is the crux of the matter: I would rather be anywhere but here in their world.

Inside the restaurant, their world opens brightly. At another table, a man and a woman sit opposite each other, a familiarity evident between them, something that was once love maybe, but now is so very different. The woman spends all her time looking anywhere but at the man, and he cannot take his eyes off my mother.

“You’re late.” My mother doesn’t look up as I approach the table.

I’m exactly fourteen minutes late, and while I know better than to keep her waiting of all people waiting, I can’t say I care much.

“What on god’s earth are you wearing?” She doesn’t miss a beat, her eyes stay firmly on the blush menu as her delicate fingers run across it.

For as long as I can remember, my mother has always laboured on me a particular way of presenting myself. A way that, when I don’t have to spend time in her company, I ignore wholly. She tolerates it. She has to. But only on the understanding that when I am back in her company or have the misfortune of standing beside her, I return to the form she has taught me. And I do, not because I like it or agree with her, but because the little I remember of my father only confirms that my argumentative streak didn’t come from him. And even I, with my arsenal of poison-tipped words, am merely a novice in comparison to the master my mother is.

Today, running so far behind, I didn’t have time to do any of the things required to make me into something she would find acceptable. My hair isn’t straightened, and instead, the coils – which on some days, left to their own devices could form wonderous curls – are wild, untamed, unkempt even for my taste.

None of the dresses I usually choose from for such occasions are back from the dry cleaners, so I opted for a pair of jeans, knowing she will say they are too tight.

“Please, don’t start!” I say. “I was running late and had to leave. I thought you would prefer I show up as quickly as possible rather than waste time getting ready.”

“I would rather you dressed appropriately and arrived an hour late, or not at all if that is what you plan to turn up looking like.” If there is any malice in her words, I do not hear it. Not anymore. Not when a lifetime of her tone has already made me immune to the thorns sometimes hidden in what she says.

“I’ll remember that for next time.” I start lifting the heavy sunglasses obscuring at least three-quarters of my face, but the spear her pupils shoot at me commands my hands to return them immediately.

Fuck.

Tired from another sleepless night, my eyes red from the tears that sprung from the dreamt damage on my skin, I wasn’t myself this morning. I forgot to put my makeup on. How? I’d ask myself if I didn’t already know. I didn’t put any on because I didn’t allow myself to see it. I never do. I avoid reflective surfaces until my face is fixed. Usually, it’s the first thing I do when I wake up. But today. Today, a million thoughts were haunting my mind.

There are so many aspects to what it takes to prepare for my mother’s presence that I despise, but the ritual of covering up the scar below my right eye is one that I wholly embrace.

I firmly consider what she taught me, showing me how to hide it away, the kindest thing she has ever done for me.

I was almost sixteen when I woke up to find my pillow, face, and arms stained with a bright-red sticky liquid. A second later, the pain hit; my whole face was on fire, a pulsating sting originating from my right eye. I had no memory of what happened. I couldn’t explain it, not to myself, my mother, or any of the doctors I was made to see. I’d been struggling. I couldn’t admit that then. Everything was slipping out of my grasp: my body, my friends, my mind, my dreams. They said I’d been looking for a way to regain control. They said I’d done it to myself. Taken some sharp instrument – scissors, a knife, they obsessed over what it was, but I still don’t know why it mattered. Why should the tool matter, when I had gotten up in the middle of the night and decided to mutilate myself? My face, the thing everyone saw, so everyone would know. So everyone would see, forever, that something wasn’t right. Still isn’t right.

It was in a brightly lit room, with walls lined with motivation posters that told me, You can do it and Tough times never last. Tough people do., that I first took “ownership” of my actions. My mother cried, the angles of her face falling into a Picasso portrait. All the beauty was still there, just in the wrong order, merely skewed into something the opposite of pretty. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. I was transfixed with one thought: this must be why she never cries. I can’t remember hearing them decide that I needed to go into a centre; my mother swears they did discuss it in front of me, and I agreed to it. Whatever was or wasn’t said, it was where I went for six months. To heal, to learn about myself, to practice fitting in.

When I came out, the first thing I asked my mother was to have the scar removed. Lasers, oils, powders, lotions, nothing she tried did anything to remove my shame. She feels it too, not just the shame but the oddity it provokes in people who see it.

I may hate the stupid clothes she insists I wear, the toxic things she forces me to do to my hair. But the techniques she has taught me to cover over the two volcanic lines that start above my eyebrow and make their way down just past my eye, across my cheek, I wholly embrace.

People are always fascinated by it, at least the few who have ever seen it. It draws unwanted attention to me and makes me into a spectacle. But that isn’t the worst of it; that isn’t what I hide from each morning when I smooth the thick paste over my face and beg its ridges to fall into the background. The people who know what it is, there’s a fear in their eyes, a visor that draws down, offering them protection. Who could do that to themselves? How messed up is she? What else is she capable of? Those who don’t know what is do not have the luxury of protection. Just questions. What happened? Where has she been? How broken, damaged, has it left her? Either way, it serves to present yet another example of the difference I constantly feel in my soul.

Through the shaded lenses, I find the strength to look away from the soft napkin my fingers have been quietly stroking and up at my co-conspirator. My mother’s lips purse together as she clears her throat, and I ready myself for her next attack. But her eyes are pulled away towards a man walking to our table.

The sight of him causes a smile to form on her face, which she directs squarely at him – as though I could ever doubt it was meant for me. He casts a brief look at me before he looks back at her and meets her smile with one of his own.

His smile catches me unaware. Where my muscles and mind are tensing, already preparing for an argument I know I will not win, seeing him quickly disarms us both. And the warmth in his face pulls something from me that only he is capable of accessing. Each and every time.

“Thomas, it’s so lovely to see you.” My mother’s smile remains, and her voice is her most elegant one, the one she only uses to impress someone and cover up the last remaining vestiges of an accent I suspect she must once have had. All traces of the fury she had been about to show were gone, maybe even forgotten.

“Olivia, always a pleasure.” His voice is smooth and compliments his smile perfectly.

“Thomas, I am so sorry for my daughter’s appearance. I can only assume she came straight from the gym.” Nothing in her face betrays a word she has said; it never does. The woman she has carefully constructed herself to be, and wants me to be, is always ready to force the world to see what she wants it to see.

“I think she looks lovely.” He smiles again and this time, it’s directed at me, building a bridge, and it is one I am grateful for on the battlefield I should’ve known I would be walking into.

Shamelessly, I look at him for longer than I should. He is handsome by every conceivable measure of attractiveness. His eyes – my favourite feature on his perfect face – sparkle, the pigment that makes up the brown so rich. They draw you in, you swim in them, catching the light, sometimes catching your very own reflection. You can see the world as he sees it, bright and full. The rest of him is equally noteworthy, chiselled and effortlessly boyish, but his eyes, coupled with that all-knowing, all-powerful smile, is what gets me.

He is the kind of man all women, even those with no time for men like him, swoon over. The first time I met him, at a lunch like this one, I couldn’t even try to tell myself that I wasn’t drawn to him. Others had come before, through friends or the introductions my mother delighted in making, but none were like him. They did not pull the focus of the room like he did; they didn’t have the eyes, or if they did, they didn’t look back at me like mine were the only ones they cared to notice. And they had never commanded anything more than a passing glance from me.

He was different, I could tell immediately, in the sense that there was nothing off or odd about him.

“Thomas is the son of my good friends Anne and Robert,” my mother had said back then. “He’s in the city for the next month before returning to Brussels.” When she introduced him as one from her circle, my prospective circle, I wanted to shoot him down as I had done all the others. The glee on her face as she presented him to me desperately provoked me to reject him. But I didn’t. I did the opposite, falling for his conversation that day, his smile later that week, and into his bed for the last eight months.

“All true.” His laugh had been so unnecessary, but it succeeded in pulling one from me too.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Thomas.”

“It’s Tom, and the pleasure is all mine.” The silence that fell only lasted seconds, but it felt like a lifetime. Encased in it, I found myself falling into the smile still resting effortlessly upon his face and thinking of all the possibilities.

He hadn’t remarked on my presence, so I assumed he must have been privy to more than I about our lunch date. If he had come there to meet me while knowing what my mother’s intentions were, then he must have on some level been okay, maybe even happy, with the idea of me. Even as I sat across from him on that day, he didn’t immediately leave, so I wondered if maybe he could – at least on the most foundational of levels – have an interest in me.

The thought excited me, and I saw it excite my mother too. Her triumph that one of her well-thought-out matches had come to something more than the others, something close to fruition.

For years before that day, she had tried and failed to put someone in front of me, someone who, as she put it, I could be seen with and build a life with. Her father had worked hard, soliciting many suitors on her behalf so that she could have more. And so she, too, worked toward the same goal. However, I doubt the wilfulness she was met with from me was anything like what he had contended with. Was it worth it? I still wonder.

It was rare for her, or any action she took, to bring me anything close to happiness. We were so used to butting heads, arguing, and disagreeing, so I couldn’t help but wonder what it must’ve felt like to her to see my smile and interest in something she had orchestrated. For us to be on the same side of something, just once. For her, Tom was heir to a very affluent family she liked, someone who could provide legitimacy to my image and cast me in a light much more tolerable to the powers that be. Ultimately, he could fast-track my induction into my father’s company and halt her fears that my brothers would take my inheritance on the technicality that my father’s will had not expressly made any mention of his fortune falling to any children other than those from his first marriage. For me, though, Tom was just normal. He was liked, accepted. Any specialness in him drew people closer; it didn’t push them away. Beside him, with him, I could have a chance at the same.

“I didn’t know you were back?” I whisper into Tom’s ear now, as he leans in and gently kisses my forehead.

“We wanted to surprise you,” my mother cuts in, smiling harder than before at Tom while shooting me a warning glance. The man from the loveless couple’s eyes are now firmly with our whole party, his pretence and decorum lost enough that he boldly meets my eyes, looking for the tension even a casual passer-by can pick up on.

Tom squeezes my arm to reassure me, comfort me somehow, yet it does nothing but rekindle the irritation he has only quashed.

Words form in my mouth and fall out onto the table. Words that speak to my annoyance at her continued involvement in my relationship and to the hurt I feel in being left out, again. Words loud enough to succeed in pulling the other man’s partner in for what might be their first shared activity in a while.

“It was meant to be a surprise,” my mother says. “You knowing negates the surprise.” Her tone is still controlled, though the veneer of calm is just beginning to slip.

“You know I hate surprises.” I direct my response to Tom, the reasonable one at the table, but his face tells me he won’t be baited.

We have been here before, not at this exact table, but in this same situation. Tom is an angel; he is everyone’s favourite person, my favourite person, and this is why. The things about him that first drew me in, that continue to hold me close to him, are sometimes the things that prickle my skin and flash concern. He is my boyfriend, yes, but he is always something else, something more to everyone else.

“Stop being so ridiculous, Eshe.” She continues in his stead, rolling her eyes, stoking the flames.

“Ridiculous? Me? It’s you who is being so ridiculous. Tom is my boyfriend. Why do you have to be involved in everything? Why can’t you just—”

“Eshe.” He doesn’t shout – he never shouts – but the emotion is still present underneath the charm.

His hand comes to my face and cups my cheek, pushing away the rage that has quickly overtaken me. Quietening my soul, he pulls me back and shields her from the primed words.

“How has your week been?” he finally says, after holding the gesture for longer than he needs to.

The smile that was there before fades and is replaced by an intensity I do not believe I have ever been fortunate enough to be the subject of with anyone else. It makes me feel different, special, but not how I am used to feeling. It makes special feel good.

I tell him all that the week has brought my way. I always enjoy talking to him: the intent in his listening and the way my words seem to be captured and cherished by him, the small smile that creeps across his face as he leans into every ridiculous thing I say, the supportive touches as I rail on about my never-ending job search and quest to find my own career path. So many other dates my mother ambushed me with ended quickly. I got bored and struggled to hide my disinterest in the stories they told me that were meant to showcase their wealth or conquests. Tom never did that; he never does. When he says he wants to know something, know me, his every action only confirms that further.

The three of us exceed our lunch slot, and the dinner one we are graced with despite the queue of waiting diners. The sky turns black, and Tom quietly promises we will do something tomorrow, just the two of us.

Later that night, as my head falls on the pillow, I am not afraid of the lion dream. My mind is too filled with Tom – the way he smiled and laughed, injecting his joy into me, the gentle kiss he gave me as we said goodnight. There is no space or time in my mind to think about the lion I might meet again once I close my eyes.

Chapter 3

Eshe

When my mother leaves for “business” the next day, she makes no effort to hide her delight at my growing attachment to Tom. It’s like every time she sees us together, she is reminded of a triumph and finds something new to keep her dreams for my future well and truly alive. She sees feelings for him taking root in me and uses those roots, their very existence, to nourish the hopes in her that have long been starved.

While she is away, I spend all my time with Tom. He’s rarely in London, spending most of his time growing his father’s business empire on the continent. It hasn’t ever bothered me, his absence. More often than not, it feels convenient; his being away leaves time for me. Yet whenever I try to explain how it feels when he is here, as opposed to when he is not, I catch myself smiling too hard, desperately trying to cover up a concern. Should I feel more difference between the two states? Should I feel more for him? For us? Should my quiet, reserved liking for him, after this long, be more of a passion? Something all-consuming, heart-racing and earth-shattering? Should it be love?

I told him I loved him once. It was the first time he took me out with him to a party. Everyone I knew was there: my brothers, their friends, and my friends. Very few people adorning the halls were strangers to me and I felt awkward. My idea of what the whole experience, our first time out as couple, would be like was much more than it was. I had never attended a party quite like that – most of my social invites had abruptly halted after my second time away. But with him, with so much falling into place, I guess I expected more. He held tightly on to my arm the entire night, as I anchored my nerves. He showered me with gifts, whispered sickly-sweet compliments in my ears, and later that night he took me to the grandest hotel to ensure the occasion would be memorable. But it didn’t make me feel any more connected to him. His body, as it pressed into mine under the luxurious sheets… it too failed. Failed in making me feel closer to him, failed in making me feel anything. It wasn’t that he was a bad lover. He just made me question whether he was supposed to be my lover. But he had to be. He was my Tom. He was my future. So I upped my game, and I told him I loved him.

The words, even as they came out of my mouth, felt unfamiliar, untrue, and forced.

He said it back, though I got the feeling he too was reading from a script of how the evening should’ve gone. I never said it again; I couldn’t bring myself to taste the bitter falsity of those words. He didn’t either. And the story I told my friends of that night was coated in an excessive layer of fiction.

But I do like being with Tom. Being an us with him. He calms me, and quiets the fire that always seems to rage. He makes me better than I am: less prickly, kinder, and easier to be around. And I like that too.

But even Tom cannot affect the lion dream that continues to trouble me. He sees the signs of my fatigue and reads the ghosts of the night upon my face in the day. He’s asked about it too many times already. He is concerned; it’s easy to see why. And in his concern, I see the depth of his feelings for me, how much he cares. How it matches my own feelings. Yet, I cannot risk telling him about my dreams. Not when I know they mark me as strange and will only scare him off.

The first time he saw my scars, he froze. His eyes hitched on the ridges, and his breath ceased. He didn’t say anything, didn’t ask the usual questions. He must have already heard the stories; he just hadn’t seen how awful it was for himself. He recovered with a smile quickly. But it wasn’t quick enough, and after, I swore he would never see it again. He would never again see just how different I really am.

I continue to share the dreams with my aunt, especially as they become more intense. The vivid images of the lion sharpen and become more focused every night I’m in the field with him. Each night, without fail, I meet him in battle, only to lose and pay with my life for the challenge.

My aunt continues to consult her many friends, who know things above and beyond the normal sphere of the day to day, but I remain steadfast in my decision not to see them. I cannot indulge her fantasies, not with Tom and so much happening in my life. I cannot entertain the idea of my life being anything more than it already is. Instead, I persist, pushing forward with my relationship, my job search, and my life. Reaching a peace, fragile as it may be, where I am able to spend my days with Tom while sacrificing my nights to the lion.

It is a relief when some friends invite me to one of their family’s country estates for the weekend. Usually, I’d politely decline the invitation; I love being in the city too much and always find an uncomfortable solitude in the countryside that has never suited me. But lately, in the midst of my city, I have begun to feel restless, my lungs aching for better air, my legs desperate for more space. To run.

Between Tom, my unemployment, and the nightmares, I haven’t spent much time with friends. I have never been close to any of them in particular, but they are still my friends, and I do miss them. So, while I know there will be plenty I won’t enjoy over the whole weekend with them, I’m ready and determined to throw myself into the normalcy of a weekend away.

“I didn’t think you would actually come.” Beatrice meets me as I step out of the car and into their world – the grand, breathtakingly sculptured sandstone of their world.

She and Susan, the twins, are my oldest friends; their parents long-time friends of my father. We’d always attended the same schools, knew all the same people, and so, from early on, we became friends by default despite having little else in common. Most of the time, they are only ever disappointed in me, in how much unlike them I am, in how difficult I make things for myself. My grades were too high, they said at school; I just needed to not fail. The subjects I chose to study were too complicated. Why couldn’t I just choose subjects like theirs? After all, there was no need. The most I would do was run a department or two in my father’s company. It doesn’t matter that I have no interest in my father’s company. For them, it only ever matters that I am, once again, setting myself aside from everyone else. Using and displaying my difference like a weapon over them. Half the time, I am not sure they even like me. I don’t know that l like them either, but it doesn’t change who we are to each other.

“I missed you both. I wanted to see you.” I smile before she awkwardly embraces me with all of her perfectly slender six-foot-one frame.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you came. The girls will be so happy to see you.”

The girls aside from the twins are Alyssa, a friend of theirs whom I have met a few times but never liked enough to see outside of these group activities, and Tiffany, the heir to an energy empire, whom the twins fell in love with sometime after they turned seventeen and found that her connections were far more useful than mine, and her name a greater tool to open the doors to the parties they wanted to be seen at.

They are not so much pleased to see me as they are pleased to find out the latest on Tom, who – of course – they love and know well. Most of the time, when people ask how our relationship is going, it’s easy to read their faces and catch a pause in their breathing as they wait to hear that we are no longer together. If only so they can try their own hand at building something with someone so close to their every ideal of perfection. And it’s no different with the girls.

“How did you meet him again?” Susan asks as we sit down for dinner.

“Everyone knows how she met him. Her mother set them up,” Beatrice barks back, though her sister seems completely unfazed by her tone.

“I wish my mother was half as useful as yours,” adds Alyssa, the most ordinary of the group, the one with the least amount of face work.

At that moment, when she smiles back at me, her eyes still able to convey bitterness, I already want to run away. I have been here before. Most of my life has been here, a cycle of me forcing my square-pegged interests into their circles. This is not new; this weekend is exactly what I knew it would be, what it always is. But in the time I have been away from them, my mind has extensively glossed over all the ways they make me feel. The inadequacies they bring out, the loneliness their company blankets me in. Soon, we will be onto cruel conversations about other girls and their boyfriends, followed quickly by money, and then finally we will begin talking about the last thing they paid someone to fix on their already perfect bodies. It is always so pointless: their conversation, their thoughts, and their views. It continuously grates on me until a comment or two inevitably slips from my lips, only for me to be labelled as aggressive.

I’m beginning to doubt if I have it in me to last the weekend when our dinner is brought out, and I breathe a long sigh of relief. I am hungrier than I realised, but keener for the distraction away from me and my relationships. There is, after all, a limited amount of damage they can inflict with their mouths full.

“Oh, Eshe. I am sorry. I forgot you were still a vegetarian.” Susan smiles as the bloodiest steak I have ever seen is placed before me. “There isn’t anything else,” she continues in a tone far more aggressive than any I have ever used, despite what they say.

I smile back, tensing my jaw, and look at the steak. I haven’t eaten meat since I turned ten and fought hard against my mother to change my diet, but even if I did, the sight of the steak in front of me would be enough to send my stomach into a fit. I don’t want to start anything. Not this early into the weekend. I’ll eat around it, the tiny pieces of carrots that are yet to be tainted with the muddy red trickle from the thing in the centre of the plate. Never mind that, knowing Beatrice the way I do, I am sure she plans to make a point and I can expect to starve this weekend.

I am being watched all the while, even as the girls speak only of how much the steak reminds them of one they recently enjoyed in Buenos Aires, in Tokyo, in New York, and so on. My stomach angrily begs for more while I eat what little else there is on the plate.

“You’re a vegetarian who enjoys the taste of a good steak, then?” are Tiffany’s first words to me the whole evening, though I’ve felt her eyes piercing me through her thick golden fringe ever since I walked in.

Looking back at their faces, seeing their ridicule trained on me, I cannot initially deduce what has provoked their smirks. It is not until I look down at my plate that I realise most of the steak is gone. It’s in my stomach and mouth instead, being chewed in a manner sure to incite scorn from my mother.

It is so much more tender than I could have imagined, and each new chew produces a sensation in my mouth unlike anything I have ever experienced. The steak isn’t just nourishing me. No, it’s doing so much more. Flooding my system with endorphins, pleasure, and joy. My whole body reacts to the blood, the fat, the flesh. It craves it in a way that makes me feel starved, malnourished, and hungry for this thing alone.

I want to stop – it is against everything I believe – but my body will not let me.

Instead I smile at the onlookers. “It is a delicious steak.” Their smirks stay on their faces, their eyes meeting each other, saying things about me I already know they think.

Once we finish dinner, where I not only devour my steak but also another brought from the kitchen at Beatrice’s insistence, the gang retires to the patio for cocktails. I am exhausted by the constant pretence of being anything but what I am, so I make my excuses and retire to bed. No one tries to stop me; they themselves must be glad to be rid of me.

During the night, I wake up from my usual dream, and when I cannot find comfort in being in my own bed, I venture into their garden for its fresh air to have a go at drying the tears on my face.

The scents of the night flowers in the fill my nose, and I feel a peace settle on me. I relax into my shoulders and let my legs lead me down the dimly lit path deeper into the garden. I finally feel calm, leaving behind all my thoughts about the girls, my life, my dreams, and my world.

“Stay quiet, and nothing will happen.” Someone grabs me, and a scream rings out before his words can reach my brain.

“I said quiet!” he hisses, stealing away all the peace I have newly found and leaving the thin vapour of his breath on the back of my neck.

He drags me off the path into a much darker, more obscure part of the garden, and I do not fight. My heart is pounding in my chest, in my fingers, as my eyes dart over the darkness before me, the only motion the fear that has paralysed me will allow. I cannot stop searching, hoping, as my eyes scan the abyss. I need someone, anyone, to help, but I already know no one else is stupid enough to be in the garden at this time. Not when they all still have the ability to close their eyes and sleep undisturbed.

As I feel his hands upon my neck, his threat upon my life, my mind does not go to my family, friends, or Tom. It settles quietly upon the lion. I will never know him. I will never understand him or what his presence in my dreams, in my life, means.

If only I were that lioness in the field, I could meet my attacker, I could fight back. I could fight with the strength of the lioness in my body. Stand as tall and graceful as I do in my dreams; this time, I could be victorious. I could take back my life from these strange hands, and it would be my own again. This life, which has sometimes felt so much like someone else’s – that I have often struggled to feel any entitlement to – is still mine. And being the only one I have, I could fight for it.

Anger surges in me, spreading across my skin, hot and pulsating. This is how it all might end. In the garden of a place I have no business being, with the hands of a man I do not know upon my neck.

The anger, as it makes its way through my system, burns away all the fear that has crusted over and frozen my limbs. So much anger. Too much. It pushes oxygen out of my blood, taking over every cell. I am surprised by just how much there is, how much has always been there, just beneath my skin.

My heart beats faster than it should, knocking at my chest. The force of it overwhelms me, and I fall to the ground.

“I can’t breathe.” My mouth is dry as I choke out the words at the man, as though he has the means to stop any of the things happening within me.

“Get up!” Only then do I see the knife he is waving at me.

But I cannot get up. My whole body is shutting down. The only thing working is my heart, which is still refusing to slow down. The man reaches for me, pulling me painfully up onto my feet. I fall again, and my body rolls into the bushes after it meets the cold ground.

The fire in my heart detonates something deep within me, forcing its heat out of my blood and into every corner of my skin. My limbs start to burn furiously, sparking with excruciating pain. At the same time, my vision flickers. Switching on and off before settling. Once it does, I can see so much more as my eyes trade the blurs and mottled greens of my dark surroundings for brightly contrasted black lines and grey outlines, illuminating everything in the garden.

And then I erupt.

My body stretches out in front of me, behind me, pulling my frame onto its knees. As the pain reaches its pinnacle, I lose myself. All my consciousness is swallowed by a dark pit.

It’s only for a moment, and once I return, the pain is gone.

I move my hands in front of me, but instead find myself looking at two paws connected to my body by two furred legs. I panic and try to scream for help, but no words are released from my mouth, only a roar – loud enough to shake the world around me.

“What the hell?!” I hear the man who has taken me shout into the night.

He turns away from me, and for a second, I get to think I am safe – only for my body to leap into the air over him. This new frame, alien to me, crashes into him, pinning him to the ground. He screams out, and his fear delights something dark in me.

I watch it, my body, perform without my consent. I feel it roar again before it sinks my teeth into the man’s body. The blood, warm and charged, escapes him and rushes over me. It makes me feel sick. It makes me feel hungry. It scares me.

Leaping off him, I look down to see him mirror my terror from minutes earlier, crying out for help.

I hear people. Lights go on in the distance, painfully providing too much input for these eyes. I want to run to them for help, but this new body leads me further into the darkness. Picking up speed, my legs, all four of them, carry me swiftly away.

Deeper in the garden, I don’t feel scared. I feel satiated, and it overpowers any possible notion of fear.

My frame carries me to a fountain in the middle of the vast estate, and I drink its cool liquid, begging it to bring some balance to the heat still radiating within me.

As I come up from the surface of the water, I see a lioness looking back at me.

I see myself.

Chapter 4

Adeben

I see her standing alone in the field, surrounded on all sides by long grass that brushes against my skin. The wind is not quite still, slowly dancing through the blades of grass, but it, too, feels like it’s waiting for something.

She stares at me, and I am surprised to find no fear in her deep-brown eyes. This girl caught alone with the beast – me – should run. I should be able to hear her heartbeat racing, overwhelmed and drowning in adrenaline. But I cannot. It remains calm and steady. It calls to me.

I step towards her, hoping to provoke some kind of reaction, a rethink of her foolish stance, but she does not react.

We stand silently, facing each other for a moment longer. My eyes take her in further, hoping to learn more, but I know so much already.

Suddenly, she takes a step towards me, daring to challenge me. I step away, surprised and strangely stirred by her defiance.

She smiles with her eyes, challenging me further while also eliciting other feelings. She wants me to go to her. I want to go to her, but I do not. Instead, I watch her take another step closer to my frame.

I know her name and feel ready to call it out when she leaps into the air, higher than she should be able to. My heart quickens. Worry and concern that she will fall flood my mind. I want to catch her, protect her. But my body responds in kind, with its own leap, working to the opposite goal. The beast takes control, and I feel my own heart quieten.

My chest meets hers mid-air, and the power in me forces her to the ground.

I do not look at first, afraid to see another body mangled by the beast – by me. What I see next changes everything.

Her once long hairless hands are gone. In their place, I find legs like mine, strong, furred. They wrap around me and swing my body around. The girl is gone. Now, I lay on the ground with a lioness over me.

But I know she is not gone. I know in my mind, somewhere devoid of logic, that she is the lioness. Strong, beautiful, powerful, towering over me. I watch her in awe, sharing in her delight, when something changes in me.

The beast comes to the surface fully, and I slip back into the darkness.

Suddenly, all the feelings I enjoyed are replaced with pride and anger. I feel indignant that she should try to best me. Here in my own territory. Anger swells further, and before I can think, it has taken control of my body.

I attack her with violent purpose, removing her from the position she previously occupied and slamming her into the ground.

My heart quickens. My victory and her defeat are my only wants.

I scream her name, but my mouth only emits a roar.

In the back of my mind, from the corner where the beast has confined me, I see her look up at me. I smell her fear now. It fills my nostrils and delights the sinister thing that has already overwhelmed me. Her fear feeds the beast, my darkness, and plunges my own soul deeper into the background.

The worst thing she can do is show me that fear. I know it, and within her, I sense she does too.

There is no turning back from it, and it always comes before the end. Even in one as bold as her, fear is inevitable.

I see tears run down her face, and before I can do anything, my teeth are tearing into her neck, piercing a frame too much like my own. Her blood rushes out, spilling onto the ground and coating my mane.

She cries out, first as a whimper in her lioness form and then as a scream, when her body becomes human again.

I look down at her, bleeding, choking, dying, but never taking her eyes off me.

I, too, change back. The beast, satisfied with having won the challenge, leaves space for the man to repent.

The taste of blood is there when the morning light finally breaks through. The bittersweet warmth coats my tongue. It’s so strong that when I wipe at my mouth, I feel sure to find some of it on my hand. But it is not there. It was never there.

It was just a dream.

I know this, but still, my mind will not believe it. For months, I have experienced the same nightmare. But something is different this morning. Always after my dreams have been disturbed by her, I wake with some memory of blood. Her blood. But it has never felt as vivid as this. It has never tricked me into believing her blood was truly there. Never hung on my tongue like this.

Except it was not a nightmare. I cannot call it that. Not when I continue to thoroughly enjoy it each night. Not when I look forward to closing my eyes and seeing her again.

Who is she? Why does my mind continue to play out over and over this scene of debasement?

Initially, I hoped there was something to be learnt from it. Dreams like this always come with a purpose. Even if that purpose is initially obscure, meaning is always hidden within.

But this dream… I do not often dream in my lion form. I have not since I was a boy. Just before my awakening. Those dreams sought to prepare me for the changes my body was about to undertake. To educate me, so I would be ready for the Elders and their training. Many years have passed since, and I have accepted my Lion Soul. No, I have embraced it, and the role of the warrior. I am eager, always poised for the war that never seems to come. I have given myself over to the tribe wholly, moulding myself into whatever they needed. And then, as now, they need me to be the strongest, the most formidable, the beast.

I am what I am. I know my place, and there is a comfort in that. Working for their common goals. For the people. My people. Supply and demand. It is simple.

So why am I tormented each night with visions of a girl? A girl who dares assume a familiarity that is not possible. Worse still, she transforms. How, when our gift is reserved for only the strongest of men? Lionesses do not exist, cannot exist. Not as Lion Souls like us. I know this. The only ones that walk the earth are true lions. But she is not one of them. And she is not one of us either. She cannot be real.

Rising from my mattress, I make my way over to the small window that bleeds fresh sunlight into the room and pull the frame open. Cool, moist air rushes at me, pulling away so much warmth and anxiety from my body.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

My mind must be trying to tell me something. Some kind of allegory. She must represent something. Strength? Power? Might? Dreams and their messages are never as simple as they seem.

She does not exist.

Still, even as the thought plays in my head, there is something I am not fully prepared to admit. Something I cannot accept. She is not an allegory. She is not a dream. Somewhere, there is a girl with the soul of a lioness walking the earth. And she waits for me. To do battle.

Is she the war I have been preparing for? Is she what we continuously train for? Is she my purpose?

The thoughts flood my mind as my hands pull at the mattress, erasing the creases from the night, smoothing over the lines of worry before stopping abruptly.

Is it really me that must kill her?

I have never felt comfortable taking life. The feeling it leaves me with, knowing the world is lighter by my hand, or more often, jaw. But it is sometimes a part of it, something that comes with being a Lion Soul. I understand that. The soul of the lion is not put into the heart of a man to be meek. It is a force of power. Pure unadulterated power. Gifted to so few. Gifted to me. It is to be revered and honoured. And sometimes wielded to destroy.

That much is clear. Whether I want to accept it this morning or any of the other mornings, the feeling is the same. The dream is meant to prepare me. To ready me for her coming. To know a time is fast approaching when I, and only I, will be called on to remove the lioness from the face of the earth.

This is what the Elders will say, once I summon the will to tell them about the dream.

Keeping silent at all the recent meetings, I have neglected to share any details of my new night routine. Not because I am afraid of their reprisals. Those do not trouble me. Nor does what I have gleaned from my dreams of the strength she possesses.

No, what I am afraid of is the feelings she provokes in me. How much more potent they become each night, rooting further into my present. Overwhelming feelings of desire co-mingle and conflict with an anger in its most pure form.

I will need to act soon. That much I cannot deny.

Still, there is more I want to understand. About her. About myself. But most importantly, about the us that has developed in my sleep-weary mind.

So I sit on the mattress much longer than I should this morning too, my mind pondering again and again the meaning of the dream. The meaning of her. I re-examine all the evidence before reaching the same conclusion I reached months earlier.

Chapter 5

Adeben

All of the meetings I have attended since becoming a member of the tribe have been scheduled at the end of the last one. I see the other members of the tribe at those gatherings. Never elsewhere. We cannot be seen with each other too often.

If you live outside of the compound, you live a life separate, apart from the identity of being a Lion Soul. Hence the meetings we attend monthly, planned weeks in advance. And the excuses, carefully constructed to explain our leaving the places where we settle to make our way to Nima, the capital, the compound. It is necessary to keep the truth of what we are concealed. To allow us to live a semblance of a normal life, while still being what we are.

Moving into towns, cities, and villages across the south. Living alongside others without truly living amongst them. The truth of who we are and what we can do, only brought to the surface at the compound, when finally, we do not have to hide.

These are the practices at the core of our tribe. So, William, a fellow tribe member, should not be standing outside my door, his tall frame blocking the morning rays of the sun from warming up the cool air that settled just past the threshold during the night.

William and I awoke at the same time. We trained together, played together, and a friendship formed very early on, despite everything. It is not the same with the others. We have similar paths. We share experiences. They are my brothers, carrying frames built much like mine, skin too, darkened by the coarse sun, but we are anything but friends.

As the son of the Leader of our tribe, William is expected to one day assume leadership. Though it, like many things in our world, is not set in stone. Any of the Lion Souls can challenge William for the title, even if it has been so long since anyone sought to disrupt the line of succession. His lineage is clear: his father, his grandfather, his great-grandfather. The Lion Soul moves in his blood. Few others have such a clear line through their histories. And those who do are already far too content with their roles in the tribe to trouble themselves with any illusions of further grandeur. As a consequence, William lacks the aggression most of the others throw around to reinforce their status. He has never needed it. All of it will be his. That much is almost guaranteed – unless he makes a mistake.

We are brothers. Sometimes, when the sun hits us just right, obscuring the hard, worn lines of my own face, we even look like we are.

But I do not possess any of the lineage that William has. My father was a tailor, and his a carpenter before that. In the small northern village where I grew up, yes, there were stories about Lion Souls. But the people were too poor and desperate to afford those stories anything other than the space they occupied in the fables they told their children around the fire. I have always had to prove my place amongst them. I did not ask for the Lion Soul. The soul chose me. Still, there is always so much to prove.

As the first in my family to carry the Lion Soul, I am content with what I have. I have no desire to lead or sit anywhere near the top. I have already surpassed the little legacy attached to me. I only need to survive. And help if I can. When I can.

William finds comfort in this. It is what has allowed our friendship to grow even in the most infertile of places – when he talks about his future, which he does more than most assume, when he worries about the men he calls brothers and how, one day, one of them, more maybe, might challenge him for the title that he, himself, will freely admit strangely feels like a birthright. He knows that if they come, whoever they may be, it will never be me. And so, in a place where trust is rare and dangerous, where a friend might quickly become an opponent or a rival, there has always been enough between us to risk a bond.

“What brings you to the village?” I ask him, gesturing to the stool on my veranda that I have never had need of. Against the backdrop of the plantain trees ever edging their way into my space, he sticks out as something foreign. He has always been the tallest of us all, a giant, a frightful image but for the broad, toothy smile that always rests on his kind face.

“Village? I would hardly call this thriving hot spot a village.” But he laughs so comfortably, as though he has been here many times before. As though this, how we are now, is something we have done many times before.

“It is a village compared to Nima.”

“Maybe, but it’s nice here. I can see why you chose to settle here. It’s peaceful, calm. And not far from your hometown?”

My mind rushes far too easily to the memory of my hometown, Kakrawaa, which, as William suggests, is not far from the home I have built for myself in this small, remote town. Of course, once the image of Kakrawaa enters my mind, next is my family. My sisters. How long has it been since I have seen them? Too long. But not long enough that the thought of them does not still snag on something painful. I chose this town for its proximity, whether I was fully aware of it or not. It is close enough that I will hear of any trouble that befalls them. And far enough that they will never know how watchful my eyes are over them.

I see William’s face cloud with something like sorrow in my silence, pity that I do not have them close, that they do not know me. But it’s only for a second, and soon it is replaced with something else. Something I cannot quite read. Envy, maybe.

“Are they well?” he asks, and I nod back, still trying to reconcile his presence here while my mind is hazy with thoughts of the lioness, my sisters, and the memories that keep me far away from my hometown. “I will send them some turkey in the next shipment. We have surplus back home.”

I smile, thanking him for his continued kindness. They will be pleased to receive it. Ready to no doubt share it with their neighbours as they do everything, even the meagre wage I send at the end of every month. Everything they have is shared.

“You have come,” I say. “I doubt this is a social call?”

He laughs at the abruptness that my half of the friendship has always carried before his broad smile dissipates into a line. “No, Adeben, it is not. The Elders have called a meeting for tomorrow.”

“What?” The thought of another meeting. Another weekend of silence, hiding the dream and the truth I have acquired from the Elders, the Leader, my brothers. I was planning to tell them about my dreams. The girl and the things I know about her. I promised myself I would at the next meeting. It was easy to plan so, when I left the capital less than a week ago, with more time to learn about her. But one this soon? I will not be ready. Not to tell them. Not to share her and rob myself of the time I crave to be alone with her.

“They have news,” he says. “I am not sure of what. But something is wrong.”

“What could warrant this kind of departure from the rules?”

“I do not know, but there have been many whispers around the compound. Father will not say much, but insists that everyone attend tomorrow.” William’s face is contained, but I am familiar enough to read the concern in the slight narrowing of his eyes and lips.

“Of course, I just need to make some arrangements.”

“Yes. I will wait for you, and we can go together tonight.”

I cannot hide my surprise as I look back at him. The whole thing feels wrong. Dangerous.

News of an unscheduled meeting is worrying enough. And William arriving at my house, sitting here drinking tea with me – these are things that warn me of the future.

But his tone. The absence of choice. No question, only an assertion: he will wait. This assertion, as gentle as it might seem, screams that there is more to William being here. And his summons, it stirs an energy in me.

“You do not have to,” I tell him. “I will make my arrangements and meet you tomorrow.”

“It is no bother.” He smiles falsely, shifting his comfortable posture while his eyes skirt around me.

“I cannot leave immediately. It will appear suspicious. I would not have thought the Elders want people asking questions about where I have gone in such a hurry.”

“I understand. But Father has insisted that I bring you back with me.”

“To what end?” I rise from my stool so sharply it falls angrily to the ground as a roar threatens to escape from my chest.

I can feel it building further. The energy. The anger. So much more than irritation now. My breathing begins to catch, and a new roar climbs higher and higher up my throat.

“Brother.” William’s voice is gentle. He means for it not to further provoke my soul, but it is already past caring. “I mean you no harm. Relax.”

“Relax? How can I relax?” I shout as my head pounds with the increased blood flow. “You being here alone is cause for concern. Now, you demand that I follow you immediately?”

“I do not demand it. My father does.”

“Why?”

“Adeben, you know as much as I do. It is not my place to question him. I simply follow orders. You should too,” he reminds me. “I know you have things you have to take care of. As I said, I will wait, and then we can set off together this evening. Go, do what you need to do. I am sure I can find some way to entertain myself in your town until then.” He smiles brightly, and though I search for a hint of deception behind his eyes, there is none I am able to find.

My breathing slows enough at his smile that I can defuse the bomb inside of me.

When I leave William in my house alone, I go to cancel the appointments I have for the coming week. My mind continues to wander to dark places despite the diffusion. I cannot help but think back to my dream. My concealment of it. My enjoyment of it.

Concern grows the longer I pull at the image of the lioness. They must know about her. About my dream. There is always plenty the Elders seem to know when logic says they should not. My dream, and my refusal to share it with the group as I should have, must be the reason for the meeting. For my presence to have been demanded so absolutely.

Are the others receiving such visits? Maybe their summons are being delivered by faces far less friendlier than William’s. He has, of course, been sent by his father. The Leader, the man who ruled us, had initially been dismissive of my friendship with William. But as we aged and I found myself quickly becoming one of our tribe’s fiercest warriors, his attitude changed. Our friendship became useful to him. For moments exactly like this one. He knew he could send William to deliver news, knowing that he, and only he, would be able to navigate the temperament they all knew I possessed.

Even when I was young, I was the same. My mother would say I was quick to anger. And joining the tribe, that anger had gotten me into more trouble than it ever did in my village. The entitled way some of the Lion Souls paraded around the city, taking what and who they wanted, did not sit well with me. Maybe because I was so unfamiliar with entitlement. Maybe it was because I did not feel the need to be anything less than a person. Whatever the reason, it only causes friction. They all look down on me, except William. They mock me for being nothing but a tailor’s son. But I have never felt shame in the humble upbringing I was afforded.

More than that, I am never comfortable at the lavish weekends I spend with the tribe every month. Too wasteful and needlessly excessive. The food that always awaits us will never be finished, not even by the most ravenous of us. Girls too. They come in and out of the compound. Invited, lured, or bought to service the needs of the most debase of them.

The first time I was invited to the feast, I was offered a seat at a table overflowing with food. I was offered a girl. And when I refused her and her willing eyes, I was mocked. Weak. Impotent. The insults, sometimes cleverer than these, always carry the same sentiment. I took no notice then and take none now. I have never been interested in girls who have been bought and traded. And if I cannot secure company on my own merits alone, I do not see much point in having it.

On my own, I have succeeded more than a few times in obtaining the interest of girls. Girls who liked me, not the compound’s prestige or wealth. Girls I pursued and whose company I enjoyed. The chase, the seduction, the act itself. When fire, desire, and bodies coexist in the same space. In them, I would lose myself, all sense of who I was, what I am. For the briefest of times, I could be Adeben alone.

Until the release brought harsh truths to being.

I am not Adeben alone.

I am a Lion Soul.

I am a fatherless boy.

I am a killer.

Their weight on my skin is suffocating. Too much to bear.

Each and every time, never mind who lays underneath me or how broad their open smile is, I am overcome by my own reflection. The horrors of my past. Of my present, my future.

Now, each and every time I decide that I want to be one with another, I am tempered by my thoughts. I remember who I am, what I am, what I have concealed from the girl in front of me, and I find that the desire to connect with another person on that plane of existence has left my body.

I have never understood how my brothers can so happily and so frequently engage in intimacies pervaded with lies.

Now I make my way through the bushland that divides my house from that of almost every other house in the town, to the house of the girl I have been seeing. To cancel the plans we made for the weekend. Plans that carried the possibility of sex. It has to be done; I know that. I do not have a problem with it, either. I cannot even say I had fully resolved to be intimate with her. Maybe, I even welcome this stay. Still, I know she will be upset. Not because I am cancelling our plans, but because my visit will mean goodbye. Four weeks is longer than most of the relationships I allow myself. Any longer, and feelings start to appear. Feelings that might start out happy, only to turn unhappy when the time comes to sever ties, when they learn that I cannot love them.

As I draw closer to her house, I wonder if I have already made a mistake. Let things go on for longer than I should have. Perhaps I have missed the telltale signs of such feelings brewing in her already. She is a nice girl. Kind, intelligent, pretty. She will make someone happy one day. That person will just not be me. Not because of any fault or flaw in her. But because as a Lion Soul, my heart is not mine to give. I will never love her. Never commit to her.

The most I can ever offer her is children. Children I will not raise with her nor even acknowledge. Not unless they one day awake with the soul of a lion too.

Chapter 6

Adeben

The morning after we arrive in the Lion Soul compound, I wake feeling far from rested or refreshed. Far from ready for what I worry the meeting will bring.

My night followed the same pattern as all before. True sleep never came because my dreams were again disturbed by the lioness and the dance we perform nightly.

It was late when we finally reached the compound the night before, and everyone was already fast asleep, providing a welcome reprieve for us both. Having said little to each other through the five-hour drive there, we were both eager to part ways and have some time with our thoughts. I, myself, was far wearier than I could conceal from William or any of the others, so thoroughly concerned with the subject of the meeting and how much of it involved me.

When everyone gathers in the feast room, breakfast is already laid out. In true Lion Soul fashion, everything we could ever want is already provided: mountains of eggs beside flour-coated bread, ripe plantains and with buckets of beans, groundnuts, and coco. Soft kenkey and crispy fried fish, yams with kontomire. All our favourites are there. But I cannot eat.

William’s mother and sister make an appearance to welcome everyone. They always do. Even if they never stay long. The Leader is the only one afforded the privilege of marriage, having a family, and love. The tension and attention roused by the two women, particularly the beauty of William’s sister, in a room full of Lion Souls is always enough to drive them out. Still, they always come to welcome us back.

As the daughter of the Leader, Isabel and her family are privy to the truth of the Lion Souls and grew up with most of us at the compound. She is a human girl who pulls eyes towards her even outside of the compound with her beauty, and always handles the attention well. It has always been supposed that one day, when William takes the title of Leader, a Lion Soul will be chosen for her. Because while she may not be one of us, her Lion Soul lineage is too great not to be used to create more Lion Souls. From birth, she has known that this is how she will serve our community. Though, it’s a well-known secret across the compound that she is determined to marry for love.

“Thank you all for coming,” the Leader – who is wearing his classic, white-pressed political suit – starts, breaking through the remaining raucous noise from Isabel’s appearance. “I am sure you are all eager to hear the pressing news I have to share.”

I want to look around the room, but the fear of meeting anyone’s gaze is too great. The room is vast, lined with tall mahogany beams almost as long as the tallest palm outside, my brothers seated neatly on rows of lined tables that fill the space. At least two hundred Lion Souls are gathered here today, more than an ordinary meeting. Still, there are faces I cannot see today amongst us.

“The Elders have seen something very troubling indeed. Something that causes a scar upon the earth.

“As you know, the Lion Soul is a sacred gift bestowed on a few men. Our numbers are rising, thanks to the values we hold dear and the sacrifices we make for the tribe. We here are very privileged to have this honour: to live as men and to live as the mighty lion. Protecting all that is right in this world, protecting the weak from the shadows. Without praise, without thanks, for the good of all.

“It is troubling for me to have to tell you today that we have a new enemy.” His face, when I look at it, is stern, cold, and hard. It gives up no secrets before his mouth does. “One who seeks to bring an end to the world we work tirelessly to protect. One who knows not the values we keep or the strength it takes to observe them. She brings with her only ruin and destruction.”

His words provoke the men at my table. They shout in anger, their voices building, towering over me – all while my silence happily betrays me to anyone who could care to look for my own reactions.

As the table to the left, to my right, and in front – all the tables – join in, William is first to speak audibly. “A woman?”

“Yes, son. A woman. The Elders have seen her. She takes the shape of a lioness.” He finishes just before the shouting overwhelms his voice. He tries to speak again, but his voice cannot rise over the collective. For the first time, I see his face drop its usual composure.

Some of the Lion Souls on the table to my left roar, setting off the others in the back. Outrage rolls off their skin, rage perspiring into the air. A woman. How could she jeopardise our world? How dare she?

“How can that be? What is she?” asks Gilbert, a Lion Soul twenty years my senior.

“We do not know. But of course, only men can awaken. Only men can possess the soul of the lion and walk among them. Whatever she is, she is an abomination, and she cannot continue to roam this great earth. The destruction she brings with her will touch everything we hold dear. Thousands will die because she lives. We must find her and remove her.”

“Who is she?” Kwesi K, whose presence has not been seen in the compound for the last two years, lifts his small voice to call.

“The Elders see very little of her and have only recently become aware of her existence. But do not fear, they have also foreseen our victory over her.” Cheers ring out, replacing the shouts and roars. My skin starts to warm. Slowly at first, almost comfortingly. Until the heat spreads and rises.

“I have been told that the one who shall remove her from this earth has already been chosen. The one who shall kill her has already seen his triumph, and he is the fiercest of us all.” The Leader continues savouring this new silence that has fallen. Every Lion Soul but me weighs up the information they have heard. All their minds wander, probing at their memories. Is it me? But, finding no new recollection, their eyes, as a collective, turn to fall upon William. All except mine.

“Stand now. Make yourself known, the one who shall deliver us from this evil.”

William looks around at them. Waiting. Demanding. He flinches in his seat. As the next Leader, it should be him. Everyone expects it to be him. I expect it to be him, want it to be him. So, I allow my eyes, too, to land on my friend, and I wait. Wait for him to find some fragment in his mind of my lioness. For my own thoughts and knowledge to transfer over to him. Because it should be him.

But it isn’t.

All their eyes are so trained on him, awaiting his response. They do not notice when, finally, I rise from my chair instead.

“Adeben?” William whispers, staring at me.

“I have seen it.” The words come out because I know they must.

“You?” A voice asks from the crowd, and I try to not let the anger in me find the face that would dare speak with such doubt.

“Yes. The Elders have seen that it is you.” The Leader’s words comfort me more than I could think them capable of. Outing myself feels less like a mistake now he has confirmed I had no real choice in the matter.

“You have seen her?” William’s question carries much more than it appears to any of our brothers. It contains his hurt, his shock, a reminder there were plenty of opportunities yesterday, last week, this morning to tell him. But I know he will not hold it against me. That hurt, as pure as I see it now, will fade quickly. It is his way.

“I have dreams. They plague my nights. In them, I see her face me in a field.” My breath catches. I am unskilled at addressing a room like this, unsure of how much to share.

“I have seen her fall. I have tasted her blood.”

The mood changes instantly with this assertion. The doubt previously clear on their faces is replaced with pride. They feel it. They see it on me. They know it. Once a Lion Soul has tasted the blood of someone in his sleep, it is only a matter of time before he tastes it awake.

“Yes. Yes! You will be victorious!” the Leader screams.

Moments later, when he has dismissed everyone and only William and myself remain, he hugs me. He has always been the Leader to me. William’s father only on rare occasions. Mostly an instructor, when I was first amongst the Lion Souls. Familiarity is not something that has ever existed between us. With his hands around me, he tries to force it into being. But his arms are cold. His body stone. So, all the warmth he hopes to convey is not only absent but corrupted into the opposite.

“This is a great honour.” He whispers the wet words into my ear. “You have been chosen. You will make us proud.”

“Who is she, Father?” William’s question kindly pulls him away from me. Giving my body time to shake off the repulsion.

“She is an abomination that Adeben will rid the earth of, long before she has time to destroy us.”

“But how can she exist?” I ask.

“My boy, do not trouble yourself with that. She must be destroyed, and you will see to that. You have seen it.”

“I must kill her?” My body reacts as I speak the words I have been afraid to utter, but not in the way I might have imagined it would. There is no delight. No sense of pride in my undertaking of this task. There is only sorrow.

For months, it has been the two of us in a dream, a fantasy. Today, she is real. Today, she is confirmed as a threat. Today, she has become my enemy. But before that, she was something very different to me.

“Yes, have you not seen it?” the Leader pushes.

“But I am not a killer. I—”

“Adeben, we are all killers. You have seen it, and therefore it will be. It does not matter who she is. She is an—”

“Abomination, I know,” I say quickly. “But how? And why? Women cannot awaken? They cannot become Lion Souls, can they?” His face is growing stiffer, but I need answers. Before I can think of carrying her blood on my hands, I have to know more.

“They cannot.” His eyes are wide when he answers.

“Then how can she? When I see her in my dream, she transforms before my eyes.”

“It must be a trick. Only men carry the Lion Souls. Only men can awaken.”

“But I have seen it,” I plead, but he cannot hear me. He tells me I am wrong. That I must be mistaken. That my dreams are playing tricks on me. She is playing tricks on me.

“Is that possible?” William jumps in before I say something I know I will regret.

“I do not know how she does it, but it is clear from the Elders that she must be removed, and Adeben will be the one to remove her.”

“So, I am supposed to kill her without even knowing where she has come from? How do we know she is our enemy?”

“Adeben!” he shouts, highlighting the line I crossed a while ago. I have pushed too far on the familiarity I am being afforded because of my dreams. I try to calm the stirring in my stomach that is my Lion Soul. I try to remember my place in this tribe.

“You have seen it. And it will be! Did you not say you have tasted her blood?”

I nod, afraid my words will only unleash the million more questions I have.

“Tasted her blood in a dream that you did not see fit to share with the rest of the tribe? It was the Elders who came to me, not you.” When I try to speak, he holds his hand up to stop me. “Do not try my patience. You have lied to your own brothers. Deceived them. And still, the Lion Soul has given you a way to prove your devotion to the tribe that took you in, gave you everything you have. To prove that you are grateful.”

“Father, he—” William tries.

“Quiet! Both of you. I will say no more on the matter. You have seen it, and it will be done. Am I understood?”

“Yes, sir,” we both answer.

“Now, I trust you can make your way to join your brothers. A feast has been arranged in your honour, Adeben, and I expect you to make every effort to show your appreciation for it.”

The fire still rages in my chest, but my grip upon it is firm enough that I manage to turn away to follow William towards the arches. We are almost out when the Leader’s face turns over his shoulder to spit, “Adeben. I hope you know that if you fail to complete this task, it will not be overlooked.”

Chapter 7

Eshe

I wake up with the afternoon sunlight piercing through the curtains, taking away all remains of the night before, save the taste of blood in my mouth. It feels like a dream at first, the man in the garden, my racing heartbeat, the lioness, the scent of his fear. It only takes a second for my mind to remind me that this time, it wasn’t a dream, and the horror from the night seeps back into my bones, chilling my core and pushing out beads of concentrated fear through my pores.

Everything the dreams have shown me, all the visions I have tried to hide away from for years, have come true. I am the lioness. I have always been the lioness, filled to the brim with power and anger, and capable of the most evil things. I want to deny it this time, too, but I can’t. Maybe I could have tried if I didn’t still taste his blood in my mouth, or smell him all over my skin, or see his contorted face in my mind. When I close my eyes, it’s the only image I see with every blink.

I attacked. I killed him.

It’s a quiet thought, but it descends on my mind so quickly, pushing everything else out.

Killer.

The thought continues, pushing down on me.

Murderer.

The weight of it.

Monster.

It reaches my stomach and begins to churn everything in there over and over until it forces it out. Everything I have eaten, everything I have tasted.

I fall to the floor violently, my core leading the charge to meet my vomit, stained far too crimson. The sight of it kickstarts another assault. My mind will not process it. The memory of her teeth, my teeth, sinking into the man’s neck. How it felt yesterday. How I feel now. A new emotion, neither fear nor disgust.

My heartbeat quickens before it starts to miss beats altogether, throwing my breath into short, sweet gasps. My mouth pools with digestive juices, and I am suddenly overtaken by a surge of pleasure. Like nothing I have ever experienced before. Hot and inescapable. For the kill. It’s pure ecstasy, born of a hunger I hadn’t even been aware of, but now feel I have satiated.

It sits in my chest and collects in the sweat running down my neck.

“Oh god.” The moan escapes me, forcing my hands to rush to seal my mouth, afraid of anything else that might betray me and belong instead to the lioness.

How? Why?

Questions race through my mind until they ultimately provoke one more question. The real one.

What have I become?

A knock on the door pulls me back into my surroundings, and I realise where I am. And I remember how much I wanted to be here last night. My room. My old room, filled with the things that were mine before I left the suffocation of my family home and made my own way in the world. I am surrounded by the things that owned me before everything outside this room got so much more enticing. The purple carpet I fought to pick out myself when my mother redid my room for the third time that year, the jacket my brothers got me for my eighteenth birthday that still hangs awkwardly on a coat hanger because it was too small to fit any regular-sized human. All these things used to provide clues about whose room this was, but today, they only echo back the image of a person who is gone. A girl who had never killed another. A girl who didn’t change into a monster. A girl who was, in fact, very normal.

“Eshe?” My mother’s voice enters the room before her knock does. “Eshe, my dear?”

She walks in beside my aunt but quickly leaves her side to pull me into a hug. Her brows knitted, her shoulders held together too tightly, she feels strange as her chest meets mine.

“I was so worried. The doctors said you were fine, but there was so much blood. I thought I’d lost you.” I remain in her arms, comforted and grateful for the shield they place between me and the world for the first time in a long while. Even if she cannot protect me from what is inside.

“What happened?” I ask, burying the memories desperate to show on my face, trying not to arouse suspicion. But the way my aunt’s eyes move between me and the vomit on the floor tells me that I have already failed in this as well.

“You don’t remember? Oh god, you must be traumatised.” My mother releases me slightly, only enough to look at my face. I can’t feel what she sees there, but her puzzled look tells me that my aunt is not the only one able to read me like a book.

“You were attacked. That man. He tried to kidnap you from that stupidly insecure estate of the Brambles. The security has always been so loose. I have said it time and time again. It was only a matter of time before something like this happened.” She forces me back into her chest. “He must have been waiting for you. He took you. Tried to abduct you. He probably thought he could get a ransom for you. Which, of course, we would have paid. Oh, my dear. I almost lost you.”

“And then what happened?” I venture, avoiding their watchful eyes instead of reminding her we don’t have money liquid enough for any kind of ransom.

“You were found in the garden. The man was attacked by an animal of some kind, and you must have fled. Thank goodness you were not hurt. How are you feeling?”

“The man! What happened to him?” I ask.

She pushes me back sharply and surveys me once more. It’s different to the way her eyes usually dismiss me, so I don’t know how to feel under this new gaze.

“I am fine,” I try. “I’m a bit dizzy. But fine.”

“You must rest. You’ve been through so much,” she says, but if only she knew how much I had actually been through, and how little I want to close my eyes again, the red lip stain that so often coats her lips would morph very quickly and very suddenly into something darker.

“The man. What happened—” My voice trembles and cuts off.

“I don’t know. I don’t care. He was taken away. The Bramble girls called as soon as you were found, and I brought you back here. I knew you would want to be home, safe.”

I don’t speak, I can’t. My mind is busy picking at everything she said.

I am not home. I am not safe, I want to say. I am pleased she came for me. I don’t trust myself to be alone, not in my flat. To have woken up at the Bramble estate would only have made everything ten times worse. All the questions, all their eyes searching me for answers I cannot give. Not when I remember things I should never say aloud.

Where am I supposed to find the words to tell them, yes, I was attacked, but then I changed into a lion and killed my attacker? Even as these sentences form in my own head, they are terrifying. They are insane – enough to ensure I end up locked up, either in prison or an asylum, if I ever make the mistake of speaking them aloud.

But I have to know. I have to know if I killed that man. I need to fill in the gaps that my mind has been kind enough to shield from me. Because if I really have done the unspeakable, if I really have killed him, then there is no hope for my soul. I haven’t always believed in possessing a soul at all, but now, as it hangs in the balance, for the first time, I feel sure of its existence. If what I fear happened actually did, I know that anyone, especially the nuns who schooled me, would freely admit that soul is now surely stained with the blackest of inks.

Worst still, if it – or whatever it was that came over me – had killed, it could again. Very easily. My family, my friends, Tom. If my temper should rear its ugly head, the lioness might too.

It has to be stopped. It’s the only thing I can count on.

I must be stopped. I cannot allow anyone else to get hurt or killed by the creature inside me.

Already, I can feel my body is different. My arms, when they move, feel like I have put someone else’s clothes on; they are too tight, too stiff, and they don’t bend the way they used to. I turn my head. It too feels alien. My whole body feels like someone else’s, controlled by someone else’s thoughts. And the power within it… I can feel it now more than ever before. Power, I am sure, only meant to be wielded to do harm.

“Tom is on his way over,” my mother says. “He came last night but popped out about an hour ago to get some things.” Hearing his name snaps my own mind firmly back into the driving seat.

I don’t want to see him. I can’t see him. Not like this. Not when I have done this. Everything about him rests for all to see on the surface. Then there’s me; everything he already knows, likes, and might one day truly love is a carefully constructed idea. And that was before I became something else. How can I look at him? How can I let him look at me now?

“Why don’t you get Eshe something to drink, Olivia?” my aunt asks from the space she hasn’t moved from since entering the room. “So she can take the medicine the doctor left?”

“Yes. Of course. Get into bed, darling.”

Once she has gone, I lose my ability to hide the tears forming behind my eyes. As my aunt’s soft arms wrap around me, I lose more of my frail composure and give voice to all my thoughts.

“I did it,” I whisper painfully, forcing out words that hurt into her neck.

“Did what?”

“I attacked that man. I killed him.”

If she senses anything different in me, neither her face nor voice let it show. “You are tired. You should—”

“No, please. Listen to me. Please! I killed him. In the garden.”

“He was attacked by a wild animal.” Her voice is so consoling, for a moment, I think I believe it. I want to believe it.

“It was me,” I insist. “The dream. It came true. I couldn’t sleep and went outside. He grabbed me in the dark. When he did, I don’t know how, but my body, it changed. The lioness, suddenly she was there. She attacked him. I could hear him screaming in pain. I saw it, it was me. I attacked him. I changed into the monster.”

“Eshe—”

“I don’t know how it happened. One minute I was me, and then the next, I was it. All I could feel was rage. It was… I was angry and hungry. I killed him.”

“Listen to me.” She grabs my face. Her kind eyes, which people often mistakenly dismiss as not as pretty as my mother’s, hold me steady. “No. He isn’t dead. And he attacked you. You only fought back.”

There’s a flicker of anxiety on her lips, pushing away her calm, and for the first time in my life, I can see something less than control in her. She steps away from me, and then as if thinking better of the gesture, she rushes back. Pulling me closer into her.

“She… I… How could this happen?” I mumble into the blanket of warmth that is her.

“I don’t know. I was afraid that this could happen.”

I cannot believe what I hear and involuntarily rip myself from her. “What? You knew this would happen?”

“I didn’t think it was possible. It couldn’t be. I’d heard stories when I was a girl about people, men, transforming into lions. And when you started having dreams, I spoke to some of them. They told me more stories.”

“Transforming? Is that what happened to me?”

“I don’t know. Everyone I spoke to told me that it was not possible. It’s so rare and only ever happens to men.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” she says, and then I’m back in the hug. “I’ll find out. Don’t worry. We’ll get to the bottom of whatever this is. I will fix this.”

“Will it happen again? Will… will I transform?” I turn to look at her face, and I can barely read her past the blurry, teary outline of her features.

But I can see her looking back at me, searching just the way I do, for words of comfort. Something to offer up as a sacrifice for happiness. Closing her mouth when she finds none. Her touch, her proximity is all she can offer me.

She is scared too, steadying herself against me, all the while. We both know we are trapped in a hug that cannot last.

When it ends moments later, she sits me down on the bed and hurriedly whispers into my ear.

She has always known there were things in the world that defied logic, and though she has never considered herself to be a superstitious woman, she has seen things, heard things, that haven’t always fit into the world. Some things are sacred, special.

“Even as a girl, I learnt to show them due reverence, the stories I always heard of the men changing into creatures. I never truly believed, even when the stories touched my life, and I knew someone who disappeared. The whispers I pretended to not hear mentioned lions, transformations, a calling. From the moment you told me about your dreams, memories I thought I left buried far, far away came back. Memories of a similar dream shared by someone else, just months before he disappeared and was never seen again.

“Still, I never believed the stories were true. I never supposed that the same thing could be happening to you. Too many things did not add up. How could it all be true, and why now? Why you?”

When she speaks, I can hear her pain, feel it. Me and everything happening to me is unearthing so many fears, opening tender wounds back up again.

With so much falling into place, there is still so much unknown. I know very little, save that the lioness is real. She has appeared now, and nothing will be the same again. Not for either of us.

Chapter 8

Eshe

I shower, wash and dry my hair, and twist the ends into the curls I wish they would naturally fall into. I eat the tub of yoghurt that’s about to go off. But something is missing. It’s like every action I take, every word I say, is without thought, without my own piercing judgment. Even the twins’ story about Tiffany’s latest behaviour elicits no more than a shrug from me. So, when my mother asks me to have lunch with her and my aunt, I cannot think of any reason not to go.

The dress I wear is one I know she will like; she’s asked me to wear it multiple times before. But I never do. It’s a lovely dress, a deep midnight-blue satin shift dress. I like the way it cuts my shoulders, the colour against my black curls. I always have, but I never wear it because she likes it. She likes it, and so I cannot also. Watching myself in my mirror, it seems so silly. The things I need to do to maintain my idea of myself, to fight against her. The amount of energy I have expelled in my quest to oppose her. Only to make myself into her opposite.

Today, I can’t remember why I felt I needed to do those things. Why did it matter? Why has it always been a good enough reason to get out of bed? To get out of the house and her world?

I woke up a few days ago feeling more rested than I have done in years, and since then, I keep catching myself looking over my life, my past, and wondering why it mattered, questioning my hesitation to be what I am supposed to be.

The first few weeks after the night in the garden were rough. The fear I felt the morning after the attack never dissipated; it only grew. I found myself continuously checking in on my mood, my thoughts. Were they clear? Were they even my own?

Outwardly, I must have seemed unhinged, jumping at every sound, so afraid to leave the house. I felt myself pulling away from my world, putting up barriers I believed could keep me and what I had become caged in.

My mother reacted exactly as I knew she would; she found herself a new project. I didn’t return to my flat. She wanted me close, and I let her keep me. She left brochures, forwarded articles on agoraphobia, and didn’t hesitate to tell me that it was the condition she and her therapist had diagnosed me with.

It would have been so easy to refute, and maybe I should’ve. But I was trapped in my lie – the one that fell out of my mouth whenever someone asked how I was, and I replied “fine”. How could I be fine? In what world were any of the things I was feeling fine? I had transformed. I probably would again. I couldn’t trust myself. I didn’t even know myself. Those truths were far too complicated and dangerous to share, so yes, I let her go on believing it was agoraphobia that had me constrained in my room.

It wasn’t all bad. At night, when I slept, there was so much more peace. I still dreamt of the lion and myself in the field, but I did so infrequently and could rest.

My aunt posited that the dreams were subsiding because I had been forced to face the reality of the situation, but I knew that wasn’t the case. The only reason the dreams were less intense was because my own feelings, my fears about them, were no more. I could no longer find any worry in me about meeting a lion in a secluded field, not now I knew there were worst things to be fearful of. Things like the lioness herself.

What had happened at the Bramble estate continued to haunt me, whether I was awake or asleep. I could feel the heartbeat of the lioness, her own quicker than mine, louder than mine. And it kept me inside.

My mother might have been convinced I was afraid of the outside, of the things that might happen to me, or that the world could do to me, but it was so far from the case. The thing that frightened me, the real cause of my fear, was inside of me. It was knowing that at any moment, I could change, I could hurt someone, just like I had done that night. If I stayed inside, exiled, cordoned off, everyone else would remain safe. At least, that’s what I hoped.

After that night, one of the first things I felt drawn to do was look into the man from the garden. I needed to know what happened to him. I needed my own verification, because what my aunt told me didn’t match what I felt to be true in my soul.

He wasn’t dead like I supposed, but he was still in hospital, in a coma. The doctors, I learnt, didn’t expect any real recovery in his condition. The authorities had concluded their enquiries, having questioned everyone, including myself for all of ten minutes, and they didn’t expect to find out any more about the wild animal they believed had attacked him.

Everyone had given up on Roger Nilson, a man who – it turned out – wasn’t the best of men. He was well known to the police before that night, and this attempted kidnapping wasn’t his first. Still, he was a person, a person I had attacked and had put into the hospital. And while everyone else seemed happy to write him off, I couldn’t. His face was etched into my memory, the sound of his voice buzzed in my ear, and now his life force was so irrevocably tied to mine. Every day that his chances of recovery dwindled, and his body deteriorated, a noose tightened around my neck. Day by day, slowly but surely, it made me into something I feared I had already become, something clear from the moment I woke up from the attack. I was a killer. I knew it, I felt it, and whether I had become one that night in the garden or I was just waiting for the penny to drop, drawing out the suffering of Roger. It was inevitable. The deed had, in fact, already been done.

Until then, all I could do was wait, hide, and pray that his blood would be the only blood to ever rest on my skin.

And I might have stayed there, hiding, had my mother not interfered once more in my life.

“Eshe, are you feeling alright?” my aunt asks, and I realise how little I have said and how little I have eaten of the papaya salad in front of me.

She’s sitting across from me, with my mother to my right, in yet another one of the stunning terrace lunch spots my mother likes to drag us out to. This one is nice, I like it. The green tablecloths, simple glassware, the openness of the high ceilings, the space in between the tables, it’s a lot less suffocating than her other favourites.

“Yes.” I smile back, hoping it will be enough to quieten her fears. And it isn’t a lie today. I am okay. I am fine. And lunch, even the salad I never would have ordered for myself or previously tolerated being ordered by my mother, is fine too.

For weeks, I hid from everyone. The Bramble girls called, and I couldn’t bring myself to answer their calls. Their questions and concerns were well-meaning, I am sure, but there was no part of me willing to entertain them. Tom called too. He wanted to see me, he wanted to speak to me, he wanted so much from me. Back then, he featured heavily in my thoughts. Whenever I had any time to think, whenever my aunt and mother allowed me space, he was on my mind. I wanted to see him; I wanted to laugh with him, smile with him. I wanted to tell him I loved him and see if I couldn’t find meaning and some truth in the words this time. But I couldn’t.

As much as what had happened with the lioness made me so keen to lean into him and pull tight on the idea of who I could be with him, I knew I had to end things. He deserved to be with someone better than me. Someone less whatever I was. Someone who was nicer and kinder all the time, not just because his presence forced it on them. Someone uncomplicated.

It was so clear to me. I had a plan, a good sense of what would come next in my life, and for the first time in my entire history, I accepted it. I didn’t fight back; I just fell into it, knowing it was the only option to keep those around me safe.

Then, one day I woke up and didn’t feel those things anymore. All the fear hiding in my chest was gone, purged somehow. The heaviness on my neck, the stings that came and went, barely registered. I can still remember the events of that night, of the dream. I see myself in that field, in the garden, with the man, with the lion, but I cannot bring myself to feel what I felt.

I don’t really feel anything.

It’s like I am underwater, looking up at this girl, knowing her and her dark secrets, her fears, her pain, but without any pull of familiarity. I don’t feel fear. I don’t feel pain. Not even when I think back to my father’s death all those years ago. I don’t feel joy when I think about Tom’s smile.

My heart is muted, beating slowly these days, barely moving past a monotonous drone, and I don’t mind at all.

Something isn’t right; I have something new wrong with me, something else to mark me as different. Yet the capacity to care seems to be just beyond my periphery, and I do not try to reach it. I am fine to leave things where they are. If this is my new emotional range – a range that used to include a fire burning hot and fast with anger – then so be it. Because I can still remember what that fire used to be like, even if I cannot feel it now. I am too calm, too disengaged to get there, and if I’m honest, I don’t want to.

The lioness doesn’t make another appearance, and it doesn’t surprise me. I can’t feel her either; I haven’t been able to for while, not since I started sleeping better and my heart became muted.

In this peace, I can face some of the truths that used to be too painful to touch. Truths like the fact that the lioness has always been there, beside me, so instep no one could see her, not even me. For years she was there, I realised in the garden. I’ve just never had the words to describe her, or the courage to see her. Now she’s gone, her thoughts do not pollute my mind, her adrenaline doesn’t push me, I am just me.

And while for the briefest second the thought feels lonely, her absence frees me.

I look up at my mother as her mouth continues to move with words I cannot decipher. Seeing my retreat was never something she could take lying down. A woman of action, she found my descent into depression unacceptable. She didn’t understand it, or me, though she continuously tried to rationalise why I might have felt the way I did, citing the attack and the trauma. But as a woman whose vigour for life had often been misinterpreted as being too opportunistic, it was clear she felt I ought to have picked myself up quicker. Worst still, she saw me push away Tom and the future she designed for me.

“Are you sure you are okay, Eshe?” my aunt says abruptly, cutting off my mother’s musing about the weather.

“I am fine.”

“Fine is all you seem to be these days. Shell of your former self.” Her eyes run over my face, scanning, searching, and probing for the connection she has always had access to.

“Grace, leave her alone. She’s happy. Can’t you see?” my mother bites in my stead.

The food on my plate catches my attention as I search for a way out of the argument they are falling into. My aunt tries and fails to restrain the irk in her words. My mother doesn’t bother, and both their tones rise, pulling worried glances from the tables meters away from us.

Wreck. Madness. Mess. I can’t help but catch the words bouncing back and forth between them. Still, I refuse to be drawn in and instead take solace in the facts I have uncovered in the last few days:

Something is very wrong with me. I am functioning much better than I have done in a long time. Far better than I have any right to be. Too well. Re-entering the world, returning to work for my brother’s friend, and returning long overdue phone calls. But I don’t care about anything anymore. I barely feel a thing.

Wherever my emotions have gone, the lioness is there with them. I wanted her gone, I wanted to feel safe and have those around me safe. Now I have it. Of course, I could never have imagined my thoughts, my feelings, my ness would be the price.

Whatever is happening to me has been orchestrated by my mother somehow.

“Olivia, really? Are you going to tell me I don’t know my own niece?” My aunt slams her fists against the table, and the tremor threatens to knock the tiny goblet of pale wine onto her plate.

“She’s my daughter,” my mother screams in turn, fully attracting the attention of the already disturbed diners. It’s lunchtime, and it’s quiet for a Saturday, but there are still at least seven heads glaring at us. “It is my job to look out for her. To make the hard choices. Not you!”

What comes next should surprise me, but it doesn’t. When you know someone as well as I know my mother, you grow incapable of being surprised by the things they do.

“I couldn’t watch her suffering,” she continues, her composure returned as she clears her throat and very carefully adds, “I may have given her some pills.”

“Olivia! Of all the things you have done—”

“And they have worked. She’s feeling better. Darling, aren’t you feeling better?”

They both look back at me, awaiting my judgment, but I have nothing to say. I could feel something was wrong, I could feel my mother’s hands meddling, and I know what they expect me to say. I should be angry; I should be furious. It’s an invasion of my privacy. It’s the worst thing she has ever done, and the list of things she has done is long. But I am not angry. If anything, I understand this gesture more than any before it.

“Olivia. You must stop immediately. You cannot—”

“No.” I cut off my aunt, and she works quickly to hide the pain that flashes up. “I’m not a child. I don’t need people deciding things for me. I can do that for myself. I don’t agree with her drugging me, but I can feel it. It obviously works. I feel better.” My words are pointed enough that she gets my meaning.

“You aren’t better, you are a zombie,” my aunt says. “Do you even feel anything?”

“Maybe you just need the dose adjusted,” my mother says. “I’m sure I could get you an appointment for tomorrow morning?” She smiles at me, the smile she uses when she is really trying. Her best one. This is the first time she has used it on me, and it’s beautiful. I can see the power it has to bend people to her will. Yet it doesn’t do that to me. It doesn’t pull me into her; it does the opposite. It wakes me up, a small part of my true self. Suddenly I’m aware of what I have allowed myself to be walked into, the risks I am taking.

But I do not feel that concern for more than a second, and when it dissipates, I am more certain than I was before that this – sacrificing myself and everything that makes up who I am – is the only way I can keep the lioness at bay.

Chapter 9

Adeben

I cross the compound with my head filled with thoughts. Over a week has passed since I came to the capital with William, when I was hastily summoned by the Leader. Since then, I have not been allowed to leave. They package it up as an invitation to stay. To plan out the details of my mission to find the lioness. But I know better than to think their careful words are anything other than an order. In the time that has passed, no one has tried to plan anything with me. Meetings are promised with the Elders each day, and every time I ready myself to meet with them, a new excuse is presented for their absence. Each one, each day, growing more and more implausible.

I want to do nothing but return home. The haste with which I prepared to leave left too much on pause. My return is long overdue. With my studio closed, I am losing loyal clients I have worked hard to secure each day. Their orders sit unfinished on the desks. It was not a problem when I imagined I would be back a few days later. But every extra day I spend here carries the potential to disrupt all I have built for myself. My whole life on hold because they asked me to come, then demanded that I stay so I can sit and wander aimlessly around a compound I hate being in, even at the best times.

Each morning, I wake up and resolve to tell them I am leaving. Every morning, I march over to the Leader’s office, only to be intercepted by William, who always finds a way to convince me to stay another day. Always has some interesting new adventure to distract me with. Always reminds me to be careful, to be wary of the shaky position I have created with the Leader. It is not in my best interest to anger him any further.

William’s adventures I am enjoying. Spending time with my friend, seeing more of the city than before. But I have never belonged in the capital. The more I see of it, the more I am sure of that. And every day I spend here only gives me some new insight into the lives of my brothers here, birthing a new disgust for how they live their lives.

Now the feasting is over and most of my brothers have returned home, it feels calmer. Yet still, a thick stench of decadence coats everything – the food they waste, knowing that not five miles away, there are people who would do anything for a mere scrap of what they throw away. The girls are still here. Less than when I first arrived, but still, they come to the compound each night, finding some new Lion Soul to gratify.

Even William is different. We have always been outsiders together, happy to cast scorn on our brethren. Happy to rage against the old ways our people seem to be stuck in. I see him now, much more comfortable in the hum of the compound, partaking much more freely than I had anticipated in things I did not know he did.

I do not mean to judge him. But I cannot help myself. Seeing him so at home in the compound, I cannot help but wonder if there is any chance of change. When he takes over from his father, will anything really change? Will it not all be the same?

I have been too long in the capital, I resolve. I have begun seeing things, finding threats and enemies where once there were friends. I must go.

Another week, and I know I might not only find myself friendless but also acting upon the signals Isabel continues to throw my way.

She has always been kind to me. More than that, she has never been shy in displaying her feelings for me. Everyone sees it; everyone feels the way her eyes linger on me, finding me always in the sea of Lion Souls. Her eyes never bother to hide the desires that have thankfully remained unspoken. I like it – the way she looks at me, the way she makes me feel. And it would do me no good to pretend her desires do not meet some of my own, hidden deep within. I do not have the luxury of displaying how profusely her presence floods my senses and pushes something wild to the forefront of my mind.

It is flattering to say the least. She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. That she should throw anything my way, that she should even see me, is more than my position warrants. Being with her is something I do not allow myself to think about often. But when I do, I think about how right it might feel. How, of all the women I have met, all the women I have ever been interested in, she is the only one I will not have to lie to. I will not have to hide from. I can be myself with.

But her attentions are dangerous. Should I ever allow myself to be drawn into her and pulled towards her lips, I could lose everything. My friendship with William – how might he react? My place amongst my brothers. And the Leader’s wrath would be great. I might be exiled. She is not to be touched. The directive is clear. And as determined as she is to carve out her own path and make her own decisions about where she directs her attentions – her heart too – these are not solely hers to command.

I have to leave. Today. I decide this just before I hear my name called by William.

“Adeben, did you not hear me?” He smiles, but I must ignore him. Today cannot be like all the other days where I allow him to succeed. “I have news for you. Elder Botkin has asked to see you.”

“Another meeting they can cancel.” I continue walking away, but he grabs my arm and steadies me.

“Calm, brother. He is waiting for you in your room.”

“Now?” My mind floods with panic, yet there is also a hint of relief.

“Yes. But come and find me after. I have something planned for us today.” William then runs back in the direction he appeared from, leaving me dumbfounded in the middle of the compound.

Walking back to the room I have been confined in for the last week, I try and fail to calm my nerves. All this time I have spent waiting for the meetings they continuously promise, and I have spent no time thinking about what they could want to say. Do they want to question me further about the dream? Are they going to reprimand me for my silence? Will they share details of how they want me to perform my task? How they want me to kill her?

A cold sweat runs down my back, but that is not what catches me unaware. Instead, I am surprised by a soft delight that creeps up within me at the thought I might be about to begin my mission. I might be close to seeing her.

“Adeben,” the Elder says, once I enter the room.

It’s too strange. My whole life as a Lion Soul, I have seen them. I knew them all. Their names, their stories. But I have never spoken to them. There has never been a reason to, not from the space I occupy in the tribe. Yet now, there he is, Elder Botkin, in my room. Sitting on my bed, and saying my name as though we were old friends.

“Elder.” My head falls in a reverence I believe I am supposed to show.

“Come sit. I have been waiting.”

“Sorry, Elder Botkin,” I reply, looking at the space on my bed he has invited me to sit in – a space that belongs to me but has so firmly been repossessed by him and his presence.

“I understand you have questions.”

“No. Yes. I want to understand,” I bumble out. He waits for them, my questions. They have all moved in my head, but now, here, I cannot find any to push out.

“Ahhh, Adeben. Speak.” His tone is not angry, but it is hurried. I look at his face and see the stories that it tells. His wide eyes, sunken into his sun-beaten brown skin. A poorer man’s skin might have looked old, leathered, but his ages with pools of silver light that surround the mountains of his cheekbones.

“Who is she? The lioness?” I say quickly.

“I do not know.” My heart sinks before he continues, “You probably know more about her than I. It is you who dreams of her.”

“Yes.” I nod back, and my eyes finish their inspection of him this close. Too close.

“For a while too,” he adds.

I cannot tell if he means to question me, so I nod again.

“And you kept this to yourself?”

“Yes.” Before he asked, I was worried about their reaction. Before I came to the compound, I fretted about their punishment, my potential banishment. But when he asks me for the first time, I feel shame.

“Why?”

When I tell him I do not know, he will not accept it.

“You know. Tell me. Why did you keep her to yourself?”

“It was not like that,” I say.

“Was it not? Each night you closed your eyes, you knew you would dream of her. Only you.”

“I don’t know, Elder.” He surprises me with a laugh, and I venture a glance at his face to find a soft smile that surprises me more.

“Is she beautiful?” he asks. More surprise, more shame, more fear coats me. “Is she pretty? The lioness. The girl?”

There is nothing accusatory in his voice or on his face, but I look away, afraid to answer and further compound my crime.

“I assume that is a yes, then?”

“It was not like that.” My words fall out.

“It was a rhetorical question. I have seen her myself.” He smiles, lowering his head to meet my eyes. “And you are not the first to have been seduced at night by the vision of a beautiful woman.”

“She is a threat to our world,” I remind myself aloud.

“Is she? Have you seen that?”

“No, but the Leader—”

“Did he see her too?”

I shake my head in confusion.

“Well then. If you and I are the only ones who have seen her, then we shall base what we know about her on what you and I have seen alone.”

“I don’t understand. Is she a threat? Is she evil?”

“Evil?” He shakes his head. “No one person is evil. Everyone is both good and bad. Some more good, others more bad. Even you. You are both. You have the possibility in you to help people. But you also have the possibility to harm people. As for her, is she a threat? I do not know. I have seen her. That is all. I see every Lion Soul at the very beginning, then again when they awaken.”

“So, you saw her? Before?” My words are careful, and I still feel the danger of the path I am on.

“Yes, I saw her a few months ago. Usually, I first see Lion Souls when they are born. But she was different. I did not see her until recently, so she was not in the book.” My face falls at this assertion, and he reads it enough to know what I am realising. He smiles. “Yes, I saw you see her.”

“So why didn’t you—”

He cuts me off with his palm. “You saw her. Not me. I merely saw you see her. It was not my place to tell. But when she awakened for the first time, I no longer had a choice. I wanted to wait. I had hoped you would come to us with what you had seen on your own. But you did not. And once she had awakened, I had to instead. As is my duty.”

I pause to think about what he has said, but the questions I had been unable to find earlier rush back into my mind all at once. Too full, I cannot focus enough on any one of them to speak it.

“I see all Lion Souls,” Elder Botkin continues. “I see them born, and I feel the possibility within them. I see them when they awaken, I see, so I can help. To arrange for them to be met. For someone to find them, help them, teach them. It can be very frightening, the gift, when it first happens. Lion Souls have questions; they are not born with all the answers. So, when I see them, I send them guides. As I did for you when you awoke. Do you remember the first time?”

I nod sharply, unwilling to cast my thoughts back to anything that happened then.

“Do you remember the fear you felt? The uncertainty? What would you have done if I had not sent someone to you?” And there it is. Not the memories, but the thick wall of shame that shrouds them, that keeps me from going too far into my history.

“So you want me to guide her?” I ask, shaking everything else off.

“That is my purpose,” he answers calmly, his face turning away from me and into the sunshine from the window as though the sun and its rays are the only thing of real importance in that moment.

“But in my dream…” I start. “You must have seen it. I kill her.”

“Yes, I have seen that you dreamt it. But dreams are just messages. They do not always mean what they seem.” He doesn’t turn back to me, but I still feel the smile on his face.

“But my mission. The Leader said I have to find her and kill her. That she is a threat? I don’t understand.”

“Look. We Elders see things, but we are not omnipotent. There is much we do not know about her. That we must find out. We must understand how she, a woman, awoke. You must find her, yes.”

“And then?” I ask.

“And then we will learn who and what she is. So far, all we know is that she possesses the soul of a lion. I have seen her, and I have felt her. If she were a man, I would send a Lion Soul to guide her. But she is not. She is something that should not be. So, we must learn more.”

“You want me to go to her?”

“Yes.”

“And when I find her?”

“Adeben, information is power, and right now, we have very little information.”

“The Leader was very clear in his instructions,” I say.

“The Leader, like all of us, is scared. This is not the way. It is strange and different. We do not understand it, but we cannot resort to violence just because we are afraid. You will find her, discover what she is, and we will form a plan based on that information.”

I can do that, I tell myself, feeling both relief and disappointment. My heart wants to find her, see her. But my Lion Soul wants something else entirely.

“In the meantime, Elder Lot will continue to look for her,” Botkin adds.

“Elder Lot? He has seen her too?”

“No, he has not.”

“So why will he look for her?”

“Ahh, what is it they teach you souls? You think we Elders sit around all day with no purpose, doing nothing?” He turns back and rolls his eyes. “Elder Lot sees threats. He sees all the danger approaching and warns us.”

“And he has not seen her? So maybe she isn’t a threat?”

“Maybe not. But we do not know that. We do not know anything, save for what you have seen. She may be harmless, or she may not yet be the threat she will one day become. He will watch for her. So, until then, gathering knowledge must be our only goal. Do you understand?”

I nod, pushing down a new fear growing inside me.

I do not want to kill her. I never have, but I was prepared to do so, to find her and end her existence, if that was what was needed of me. Because the Lion Soul that moves in me is the greatest gift I have ever received. The Lion Souls, even if I do not always subscribe to all the ideals they hold, are my family. They took me in when I had nothing. They gave me a chance at a better life. Trained me. Nurtured in me the skill I can now make a living from. I will always be bound to them. So, for them, I could find her and kill her – a stranger to me, a dream to me. But now, being asked this… To find her, to learn more about her. I will need to get close. I will need to watch her. And in watching her, I might know her. I might start to feel her, more strongly than I have yet in my dreams.

How, then, once I know her, once she is more than a dream, will I be able to take her life and walk away intact?

“You are afraid?” the Elder asks seriously.

“No,” I reply resolutely, quashing the fears even as they begin to root.

“Good. You will leave the day after tomorrow.” Then he gets up and leaves me and the room behind.

Chapter 10

Adeben

It all happens so quickly. Elder Botkin leaves my room, and everything changes as the door closes behind him. All the waiting, all the inaction comes to a halt. Ushered from meeting to meeting, I am given details, contacts, money, and an itinerary for my mission. Every detail of what I will do is handed to me. Without any input from me.

I will be setting off for London. That is where they have tracked her to and where I will be for the next few months, though none of the carefully laid out plans make any mention of when I might return.

They ask me to settle my affairs for good. I will not be returning to my town and will be expected to settle in the compound upon my return. I will be expected to assume the role the tribe presents me with. What I want has already become inconsequential, now that I have been chosen for this task. I am special, they repeat. More special than anyone could have imagined in my future. More special than anyone with my lineage could ever be thought to be. Too special to be allowed to fall back into the quiet anonymity they afforded me before.

William is pleased. He does not pretend to hide his joy that I will join him in the capital and that I might be afforded a role in the tribe that would place me close by when he becomes Leader. When he says goodbye to me, it is all he speaks of. When he wishes me luck and the swift completion of my task, he does not speak about what the task is, though he knows. Everyone knows I am being sent to kill the lioness.

The mission has not changed. The Leader makes that clear once he hears about my meeting with Elder Botkin. The Elders want information, and I am to gather that. To satisfy the old men, he says. But once I have their information, the task remains the same. The lioness must be killed.

He may not be able to rule without the Elders’ approval, and he will not go directly against their wishes, but he makes sure I remember that it is him who leads the Lion Souls. So, while my brothers all come to congratulate me on the honour of my being chosen and the elevation of my status in our tribe, I know the truth. Their eyes linger on me, holding too firmly on the image of the person before them now, as if they already plan to inspect the difference upon my return. They pity me and are grateful not to have to carry this burden.

It takes almost no time to settle my affairs and dissolve the life I have built. And it is much easier than I imagined it would be to say goodbye to the town I enjoyed living in. To the people I had always kept at arm’s length. Much easier than I am comfortable with. Because no one will miss me, and nobody’s life will be impacted by my departure.

Had I really been living?

When my father died, people came from miles away to pay their respects, to say goodbye to the man I had always disliked but whose life had touched so many. Many of them came to mourn him at the funeral, went out of their way to travel far and stay in a village that had not been built for so many guests. Most of them slept on mats on the cold, hard floors across the neighbourhood.

That was what it was supposed to look like when a life was dissolved. If I died, who would come?

William?

A few of the Lion Souls, out of obligation?

I keep wondering as I approach the village I grew up in. Maybe it is being back here, my proximity to where we buried my father, that is bringing these morbid thoughts front and centre into my mind.

I have not been back here. Not since my father’s funeral, when I swore I would never again return. And I never had any plans to. There is nothing here for me, that much was made clear. Even in the morning, when I left the compound to return home, to pack up my life, the idea of returning to my hometown had not even crossed my mind. Yet now, here I stand. Outside the house I was born in.

It is stupid. I have been foolish to allow my memories of the past to drive me here. I do not have to say goodbye. There is nothing I have to tell them. Nothing I have for them. William has promised to take over and send them provisions while I am away. He had even offered to keep an eye on them. I told him it was not necessary, knowing he would anyway. They will be fine. They will be taken care of, and there is nothing more I can give them.

Is there something I want from them?

I know I have no right to ask them for anything. I have already taken so much.

“Adeben?”

I hear my sister’s voice. It breaks my thoughts and everything in me.

“It’s really you?” she cries from behind the window, her eyes widening.

I only have a moment to collect my thoughts and order my emotions before she reappears at the front door. She is crying, tears running down her face, but I hold back everything the sight of her brings up.

“Come, let me see you.” She pulls me closer. The warmth from her body spreads onto mine as she holds my shoulder. It startles me, feeling her that close, feeling anyone that close.

“You are well?” I ask sheepishly when I can take her inspection of me no more.

“Yes. Come in.” She pulls at my hand, trying to draw me into the house, but I do not move. My position outside the door is the one thing I cannot let the emotions of this reunion compromise.

“Mama is not here.” She smiles, searching me this time for familiarity.

“I know.” Because, of course, I checked before even approaching the house.

Her smile falls slightly, but she still has an open, warm expression. She does not say anything for a while; she just looks at me and sends what I recognise as love towards me. I want to say something. I feel awkward. I feel too much. But I get caught in simply being there with her, her warmth meeting some of my own.

“We have been receiving the provisions you send. Thank you.”

“You are welcome. I would send more, but—”

“Come now. It is plenty. It really helps us.”

“I am pleased.”

“You will not come inside?” she asks again, maybe thinking I must be more settled than before.

“No. I will not stay long.” I try to smile back.

Seeing me for the first time in years, I witness her feeling the sadness of my departure all over again. Years of searching for me – in the crowd at the market, in the street, anytime she left the village – I have seen her do it. Hoping to find me, hoping to embrace me, hoping to succeed in begging me to come home. I have watched her and wondered so many times what it might be like when she saw me. How she might react. Would she shout? Would she hug me? Would I hug her? But now, with her in front of me, I feel a shyness descending over me. She is smaller than I remembered. Or perhaps it’s me who is bigger.

I can see her tiny micro-reactions to the sound of my voice. Her eyes catch on the faint shadow on my jaw. I am no longer the boy she tried to protect, that she taught, fed, and sheltered from the darkness that lived in our home.

Has it really been only nine years? Have I really changed so much since then? And yet she seems frozen, right where I left her. Maybe I am remembering wrong. Maybe the image I have of her is one I have stolen without her knowing over the years, but I cannot remember her being anything other than what she is now. All my life, for as long as I have known her, she has only looked like this: big, open, wide eyes that I would know everywhere. I have known them for too long not to feel them anywhere.

She raised me as her own. She was fifteen when I was born, my mother already too old and weary to raise her first son. So, it fell to Ada to wash me, feed me, and ensure I survived all the usual pitfalls that befell infants in our village.

And I made it. Because of her, I survived my life in the village. Because of her and the things she taught me, I survived, even when I left her. She always used to say that she wanted me to be a better man than my father. I want to tell her that I am. I want to tell her she can be proud of me. But I don’t know if she can.

She reaches up, and her hands gently touch the skin below my eyes. Rubbing at the circles that sit there and contain the worries of someone double my years.

“I came to give you this.” I shift, handing her an envelope.

She takes it from me and holds it close to her. “Thank you.”

I try to turn away. My task, if it can be called that, is complete. But she touches my shoulders.

“You are well, Adeben?”

I turn back towards her and nod. I want to see her care.

“And you are taking care of yourself?”

I nod again

“You are sleeping?” She lifts her hand as though she will touch my face again but pauses. Thinking better of it, she points at my eyes.

“I am okay.” I smile weakly.

“You know I worry.”

“I know. You do not have to.”

“Tell the rain not to fall.” She smiles, and it sets me back. Back into a million memories of her saying that phrase. And at that moment, I am glad I came. It is nice to know she is still here, she is still her, and as long as she remains, there is proof I lived.

“Amina and Arabella will be sad they did not see you.”

“They are well?”

“Yes. Amina came for Mama this morning to go to the market. Arabella just had her second child last week. A baby boy. She named him Ben after you.”

“Ben.” I smile, remembering fondly my youngest sister’s nickname for me.

“Are you sure you cannot stay?” Ada tries.

“Sorry. I cannot. I—” I start, before seeing the sadness descend on her face. “I have a flight. I am going to London.” The words escape.

“Ey, London. Really?”

I smile back, wishing I had not said anything. My trip, the plans, and my leaving are supposed to be secret. No one but the Lion Souls must know. But seeing her glee when she says, “My Adeben in London.” I am glad for it. Glad that she knows something true about me. Glad to be confiding in her once again.

“For a while,” I say. “But I have arranged for the provisions to be continued in my absence.”

“Ah, Adeben, don’t worry about us.”

“Tell the rain not to fall.” It slips out. Provoked by her and the way I feel when I am with her. The things we say, the things we do. The memories I thought I had buried deep are now on the surface. What she means to me. How much of me is her. I don’t think I will ever forget again.

It is too much. The things ahead of me, how much I want to stay here with her. How much I want to hold her hands on the veranda and just sit, like we used to, in silence and watch the sun slowly reach the other side of the world.

“Wait,” she whispers when I turn away and try to remove myself.

When I look at her, she smiles and reaches behind her neck. She takes something off and places it in my hand.

“Take this. To keep you safe.”

Still standing on the doorstep, close to but never crossing the threshold into the house where she raised me – the house that might have been mine when my father died – I open my hand to see what she has given me.

A necklace with a carved pendant. I hold it up to the light to see it is a lion. Dark brown, and carved so life-like. I know instantly the work is so skilful it could only have been crafted by the hand that first taught me my own craft: hers. And my eyes gloss over.

“I can’t—”

She cuts me off, taking the necklace from my hands and placing it around my neck. “This is not the only lion I have carved. I have plenty.” She laughs, and I realise how much I have missed that sound. How much I have missed her.

“Thank you,” I manage to whisper under the emotional storm.

“Promise me you will come by again when you return from your travels?” she begs cautiously.

“Can you get something for Arabella’s boy with the money?” I reply instead, and I see her try to hide her disappointment as she nods.

“Come here,” she commands, pulling me into a hug.

As she holds me tight, I breathe in her scent, to have something to ground this new memory of her, of this day with her. I don’t want to forget today.

That we spoke.

That she laughed.

And I smiled.

Chapter 11

Adeben

The cold air hits my neck and travels down my spine. Everyone warned me about the temperature change and how acutely I would feel it. But they did not prepare me for the chill that seems to permanently sit in my bones. No amount of clothes, I am quickly realising, can protect my umber-brown skin from the bitter dry air that pierces each and every layer.

The first few days, I wore scarves and hats for protection, but that only seemed to provoke ridicule from passers-by.

“This is nothing compared to winter,” the driver ferrying me to my appointments kindly cautioned me. But I cannot fathom the temperature dropping more than it already has. Spring is what he keeps calling this, though my mind cannot reconcile any of what I have felt so far with warmth. As a boy in my village, there were cold nights once the sun had set, taking away its warm rays. But the ground had always been busy collecting heat, so at night there was still enough warmth to anchor your feet to and create a barrier from the chill.

In London, the cold defies even the sun, and at times, the sun only seems to edge on the cold wind. The ground is solid, dead, black and grey. Little seems to grow, save for a few trees carved into holes in the ground and caged in by metal fences.

I sit on the bench and look quietly at those trees, trying to ascertain why a person would even want to cage something like a tree in the first place. My fingers grip the cup in my hand, desperately trying to pull some of its warmth into my body. Since arriving in London, so many of the things I had expected to find were not at all the way we had imagined them in my village.

In Kakrawaa, we often dreamt of visiting London. Seeing all the sights, eating the delicacies, and seeing the pale faces outnumber our own. And here now, yes, there are more pale faces than home. But I always imagined I would find something interesting, exciting in witnessing them. Really they only serve to remind me how far away from home I am, how unfamiliar the land I have come to is.

It has only been a few days, and I miss home. The thought surprises me – that I, one who isn’t even currently in possession of a home, could be homesick. Yet the feeling is there, and I cannot shake it. I miss the sun, I miss my brothers, I miss William, I miss Ada. There are many more people here than any of my previous homes, but the absence of a familiar face weighs on me. Everywhere I turn, I feel constrained, my Lion Soul does too. Because in the middle of the city, there are no free spaces for me to run. No space for me to be myself. And no one to tell these strange thoughts.

Amidst it all, I find myself drawn to the faces I see that resemble mine. Brown faces, a multitude, all different shades, some familiar and many more not. A couple of times now I have sat for hours at the mouth of London Bridge, in their way, and watched them. All the unique faces and different languages, in awe as they intertwine and connect.

The delicacies I always dreamt of finding were also disappointing. On par with what I have already sampled in the capital, Nima, many times over. The fast-food places similar to – or often exact replicas of – the places William has previously dragged me to. Still, I enjoy the drinks, the hot drinks.

In the short time I have been in the city, the abundance of places to buy a warm drink sits top of the list of things I like about my new home. The warmth that spreads down my throat and into my hands is the only real mercy in this cold world. Each cup – coffees, teas, potions – is bittersweet and a small piece of home for a foreigner like me, so far away from his familiar.

Waiting to meet Grace, I am thankful for my foresight in purchasing the largest cup of coffee offered at the café underneath my apartment this morning.

“It must be very cold for you.” Grace smiles as she approaches me. I suggested we meet in an office, or the apartment I was staying in, anywhere inside, but she had been adamant about meeting in the middle of Hyde Park. It annoyed me, still does, and as she approaches, I struggle to find any other emotion to display.

“Here,” she says, passing me a large white blanket. “You can sit on this. I remember how every surface was too cold my first months here.”

I don’t move.

“Thank you for meeting me, Adeben. I was grateful to be put in contact with you. I was searching my contacts back home for answers when I was given your details. They said you could help?” She has a warm smile that matches the big round eyes that dominate her face. It’s striking, captivating, but not at all intimidating. It helps push some anger away, and I take the blanket from her.

“It is no problem. I am only here to help,” I say, remembering why I am here. This is not a visit to London. This is not a holiday. This is a mission. I have been sent here by my tribe, this meeting set up, so I can find out more about the lioness. Information that will help us understand why she exists. Information I will not be in a position to gather if I cannot gain some trust here today.

Pushing aside my feelings about the cold, London, and the woman before me, I smile back. I force myself to assume this new role I need to play.

“I had not realised you would come so quickly,” she says as she lowers herself to join me on the bench over the blanket.

“I was sent by the tribe to come and help.”

“The tribe?” she asks.

As I feel her tension spike, I respond, “I was told you were informed?”

“Yes, I was told a little about you and your work.”

“I am a guide. I travel to find and help people like your niece.” I carefully relay the information I have been briefed to share, but nothing more. “People with the Lion Soul. The change can be alarming and troubling. A guide is usually sent to find the person, to try to help them understand what is taking place and to teach them the ways of our people.”

As she listens, her face and that smile retreat, leaving a weary mouth slightly ajar. “Of course. It has not been an easy time for her. She has… She is lost.” Her eyes fall, taking her whole face with them.

“As is so often the case. My job is to try to offer her some techniques to take back control, so she can resume a normal life.”

“So that is possible?” she asks. “In my hometown growing up, the stories I heard… the men. The men never came back.”

“Sometimes, a Lion Soul will choose a different path in life than they were born into, but more often than not, they choose to return to their previous life. It can be done with the right training and time.”

“Good.” Grace sinks back further into the bench and smiles.

“You should not worry. This may seem strange to you, but plenty of Lion Souls awaken every year, and they undertake the same training I will be showing your niece.” How easy the words, the lies, fall out of my mouth. How would I know how many Lion Souls awaken every year? How would I know anything about their training?

“Forgive me, but I expected you to be older?” Grace looks away after looking at me for longer than we both know is polite, but I am prepared for this, too.

“I assure you I have the experience needed for this.”

“Oh, no. Sorry, I didn’t mean any offence. I just… This is not a normal case. My niece, I understand that she is the first woman to… to be one of you?”

“Yes. It is not a normal transition. Our records do not have any women before this. We will have to adapt some of the methods. Which is why the Elders thought someone like me would be best, someone not so set in their ways.” I smile back.

“Yes, I see.” She falls silent, and it’s my turn to look away from her and into myself. Have I been too confident and not met her concerns with enough pause?

I can feel worry creeping up my arm as she turns away and grips the wooden arms of the bench. I need her. She is my only link to the lioness. Secure a relationship with the aunt. Elder Botkin’s message rings in my head. I have only been here for a few days, and already I sense I may have jeopardised the mission and lost my chance to see her after coming so close.

“I had expected her to be here today,” I whisper, and it’s the first true thing I have said to her.

“Sorry. I should have been more clear. I would have told her about you, but …” She trails off, becoming more distant.

“It is quite normal for a person to reject the process. Everything they know has been upturned. Who they thought they were has become a distant memory to them. Many often believe they can simply ignore it, and it will pass.”

She nods. “Yes, she is pretending it didn’t happen.”

“That is quite expected. But she must start the training soon, she must accept this. It will not go away.”

“I don’t know what to say to her.” She looks back at me. Her intensity and those eyes – I shiver under them.

“Do not worry. I will handle it.”

“She will not listen. She is quite set on the matter.”

She looks sad and tired, and I can easily imagine where she is in the process. How she feels her niece slipping away from her, becoming someone else. Because I have been her niece. I am her. The pain on her face was worn before, by Ada. She is worried. About her niece, and about me, the stranger she is letting in on the secret they both share. But I can also see how determined she is to get her niece some help. What it must have taken to reach us – the research, the contacts, searching for someone who knew enough about what was happening to her niece – it cannot have been easy. We are well hidden. Then, finally, finding a glimmer of hope when I agreed to meet her. It must have felt like a relief, until she saw me.

Now, as I sit beside her, I can read her predicament. She does not know me. She does not trust me. And she should not. My purpose is not aligned with hers. She cannot know that, but I want to tell her that. I want to warn her to be cautious, more cautious than she has been up till this point.

But she is not Ada. And the lioness is not me.

“She is stubborn?” I ask, pushing away the transference that could end my mission before it has even begun.

“Very.” She smiles, and I try to imagine the lioness smiling. I don’t know her, not like her aunt does, but a part of me wants to.

“Most Lion Souls are. They have traits that manifest from birth. They form their character even before the soul has fully awoken.”

“She is tough. Really tough. Even as a girl, she had a will like no other.”

“She stood out?” I ask.

“Yes, often for all the wrong reasons. But she has a good heart.”

“She will be fine. Only those with the strongest will ever awaken.” A stillness falls between us. We are both waiting, carefully watching the wind pick up dead leaves, wishing it could do the same to us.

“Will it happen again?” Grace asks cautiously.

“Yes.” My words are solemn. “With or without the training, she will transform again. With the training, she can learn to control it, and only change when she desires. Without it, the soul will just keep knocking.”

“Oh god.”

“It is nothing to fear. It’s a gift, truly. And this is what the training will show her.” I try to sound reassuring.

“I need her to be safe. Can you promise me she will be safe?”

Her words freeze me. No one has prepared me for this question. Am I prepared to promise something I know I cannot fulfil? Promises are oaths to Lion Souls, unbreakable vows that once uttered, should never be broken. Can never be broken.

“I will promise to teach her everything that I know,” I say.

“Promise me she will be safe.” She raises her voice, and I glance around to check if anyone can hear us, but this park, much like most of the streets I have walked here, is filled with people busy minding their own business. Couples pushing babies, people walking their dogs. None of them care to know what two strangers on a bench are discussing, not when they carry so many of their own concerns.

“I cannot know what will happen. It is not in my power to make such an oath.”

“Then promise me you will do everything in your power to keep her safe. You can do that?” Looking into her eyes as she speaks and seeing the love she has for her niece, it meets everything I have been tasked with by the Leader, it meets my own fears and desires, and it challenges them.

“I promise to do everything in my power to keep her safe.” The words fall out before I can think of a way out.

“Thank you. I just need to know that someone from your world will look out for her. You say it is a gift, but she did not ask for it. She doesn’t even want it. Ever since the dreams started, I have been worried.”

“She dreamt of her changing beforehand?” My blood turns to ice, forsaking its role in keeping the cold, bitter air away.

“Yes, she dreams of a lion.”

“In a field?” My heart skips a beat.

“Yes, she’s had the dream many times. She would see the lion, she would change into a lioness, and they would fight—”

“Till the lion killed her?”

“Yes, you have seen the dreams?”

My head starts to nod, but I catch the movement before it can reach her and instead say, “No, our Elders saw it.”

“Who is he? The other lion?”

“I do not know.” The lie is barely audible.

“What does it mean?” she asks. “Will this happen? Was it a vision of some kind?”

“Dreams are not facts. They are representations of things. Even these kinds of dreams. The dream was probably just to warn her that she would be changing. Most Lion Souls dream of their awakening before the time comes.”

“We… I was worried that the lion from her dream would find her. Would kill her.”

“I do not think we need to worry about that.”

“I suppose now you are here, your tribe will protect her.”

“Yes.” I slowly nod.

“And you? Forgive me, but you are a Lion Soul, too?”

“No!” It’s such a quick no, she feels it. Her eyes widen. I am trapped. I am the trees I have seen and neglected to save. Away from my tribe, away from the architects of all these lies I have been feeding Grace.

“But I thought…”

“I am a guide.” I hastily recover under her still watchful gaze.

“But how will you teach her if you are not also a Lion Soul?”

“I have guided many Lion Souls before.” The lies continue.

But I was not prepared to learn that the lioness too has had the dream. Up until this point, I have believed that myself and Elder Botkin were the only ones privy to that nightmare. If she has dreamt it too, if she has seen it too, then she already feels danger is approaching. She will know who I am. Should she see me in my lion form, she will recognise me from her dreams.

She cannot know. She cannot see me. I have to hide who and what I am even further. Even if it is all I have, my Lion Soul the only thing of note in me. I am not an agent. I do not go on missions. I am a Lion Soul. My strength is in that. My might. How can I gather information on her, find out what she is, and train her in any way if I am trapped in only one body?

“My brother was a Lion Soul,” I manage to say, “and I trained to be his guide when he awakened. It is not usually how it is done, but I had a natural talent the Elders saw fit to nurture.” By the smile on her face, I see that it is plausible enough to save my mission for another day.

“I see. And you believe you can help her?”

“Yes, I believe I am the only one who can.” She looks away, and I’m pleased for the reprieve, for some time to think. To understand where I have let myself be led.

“Okay, Adeben. I will trust you.”

“We must begin training at once,” I reply, holding back the excitement threatening to colour my face.

“That will be a problem. As I said, she was not willing to come here today.”

Nothing about this mission is proving easy. My resolve and my commitment to the Lion Souls are being tested at every interval. Still, I have come this far. And as I think of what lies ahead, something changes in me. This was the first test, and I have made it. Scarcely, but I have managed to secure Grace’s support. Next time I will be ready. In this challenge, this task, I cannot be intimidated by the hurdles ahead. Find the girl. That is all I need to focus on. Everything beyond that is too murky, too uncertain. Find her – that is what both the Leader and Elder Botkin asked of me. I can do that. I want to do that.

“Leave it with me,” I answer, filling with anticipation. The chase, I could enjoy that. She is stubborn. She has made up her mind and does not want to be found. But her stubbornness has not yet met mine.

Chapter 12

Eshe

Finding the right level with the pills, without the help of my mother’s psychiatrist, was challenging; some days felt too little, others too much. But ever since I discovered my mother was slipping pills into my breakfast smoothie, I’d become obsessed with trying to have it all – finding a way to feel again, while also keeping the beast at bay. It’s a week before I start to feel anything like myself again, but it’s worth it to have cracked it and finally find a state I can live in. It hasn’t been simple. And like almost everything, the balance I strike carries a cost I could never have foreseen.

My relationship with my aunt.

She’s never believed in using prescription drugs, not when other, more natural solutions are still on the table. And so, while this is not the first time my mother has been in favour of my taking them and her against it, this is the first time I have been in another corner to my aunt on the subject.

It’s odd to be at odds with her; we usually see so much of the world from the same point of view. I’ve always been able to count on her support, for her to align herself with me, defend me. She was the only one who saw things from my side when I quit my job, the only one who encouraged me to be myself, even if I didn’t always like that self. When I was younger, it was her who would smooth over the trouble I always seemed to cause, hold back my mother’s wrath when my words had gotten me banished from most of the extracurricular clubs. From hockey to Guides, she was there. Her quiet, calm voice promising me it was only a matter of time before I found my people, the place I belonged, where I would thrive. I only want her to be back there, with me, in my corner. I want her to see things the way I do. I cannot risk the lioness coming out again, and something about the drugs settles her fierce temperament inside of me.

Only settles. I can feel it still; she’s still here, just quieter, weaker. On the days when the drugs are too strong, I don’t feel her at all. But those days carry a higher cost. On those days, there is very little I can feel at all.

Quieting the beast is not the only benefit of the drugs. They also quiet the temper I have been trying to control my whole life. With the drugs, things that are usually sure to provoke a fury within me barely register an annoyance. The low, leery lighting of the open-plan office that boosts Jeremy’s smarminess, the way he leans over my desk as he “shows me the ropes”, his eyes tracing the contours of my skin expectantly, hungrily, while he explains just how far I could go, if… I see it, and yet I can still work peacefully in spite of it.

Elsewhere, it’s not just calmness it brings; it’s more. Without the anger, I find I have more of a capacity to be open and warm. I am less guarded with everyone. Tom, especially.

Everything with him is moving much faster, much smoother than before. Where he had always been ready to commit to me, our lives, I had always hesitated, questioning our compatibility and the true depths of my feelings for him. With the drugs, that is all gone. In its place, I find a peace settle in me whenever I am near him. I can allow myself to be there in the moment with him, without any real fears or questions about why we are there, why we are together. He doesn’t say much about the change in me, but I feel him shift, I feel him turn in to me, and for the first time, I wonder if I might be falling in love with him.

I am not the only one who seems pleased with the progression of our relationship. My mother, seeing us grow closer, gets ahead of herself. She cannot help it. Every conversation becomes about the life we are so close to building and how close Tom might be to proposing. It’s silly, I know, but I cannot bring myself to remind her that days away from my twenty-third birthday, no one is about to propose to me. Instead, I let her play out her fantasy, and I allow myself to consider that as silly as it might be, if it did happen, if he were to ask me, how happy it would make me. I would say yes. I know that for a fact. I could be happy, really happy with him. I know that now.

It’s when I know I love him, that maybe I am in love with him, when thinking about him asking me to marry him doesn’t bring me out in a cold sweat but instead spreads the biggest smile across my face. A smile that doesn’t fade, not from the moment it appears. I love him. I love Tom. I feel it. I know it. All I want to do is tell him. Properly, not like before. This time with feeling, with everything I know. And I hope when he hears it from my mouth, he will be able to tell the difference; he will know that this time, unlike the last time, that it is true.

I’m going to tell him when we go for dinner. As usual, my mother is throwing a grand party for my birthday next weekend. A few of my friends have been invited, but most of the guest list is people my mother knows, people who know me but have no relationship with me, some who haven’t even met me before. While she is distracted with it – Tom, knowing how oddly I stand in the corner, spectating at all those parties – is taking me out on the day instead. It’s things like this that I don’t think I fully appreciated before. The things he does for me and only me.

So when the day of my birthday comes, all I want to do is go for dinner with him and celebrate.

Before I can, my mother insists that the dress I had planned to wear to what was feeling a lot like her party is not good enough, so she drags my aunt and I out shopping. And the trip doesn’t go to plan. Initially, I enjoyed the fuss the two of them were making over me. Even enjoyed trying on a ridiculous number of dresses. What I didn’t enjoy was the hushed argument between my aunt and I while my mother tried on dresses too. In the soft, flattering glow of the changing rooms, my aunt told me she had made contact with a tribe in West Africa who were like me; they too transformed into lions. She told me they were eager to meet me and had sent someone to guide me, help me accept what was happening to my body.

I appreciated she was trying to help. I appreciated she had spent so much of her time trying to decipher it all. But her insistence I join her later, so I too could meet the man they had sent over was too much. I wanted no part of it. I feel like my life is only just beginning to get back to normal. The lion dreams are almost gone, and I am finally making peace with what happened. She didn’t see it that way.

“Stop burying your head in the sand. You need to face the problem to pass through it.”

But she didn’t know what it felt like that night in the garden. The horror I witnessed and was a part of. Something in me broke that night, and now there was a way to fix it, to return my life to what it was. To make it even better. Why couldn’t she understand? Why couldn’t she see I was happy? With Tom, with her and my mother, with my future. I had dreams again, real ones, to keep me company at night and to propel me forward in the day. The thing inside me wouldn’t allow me to have those things or be them. It only wanted to destroy them. Destroy everything, everyone, in my life.

My mother’s return in a dress so very similar to at least ten others she already owns brushed the argument away. Nothing resolved. I felt sad. I felt a pang of regret and a deep longing to connect with my aunt, but I knew her well. I knew her position on the matter wouldn’t change. So, when she called later that evening, I didn’t answer. Of all the arguments I’d had, I wasn’t keen on a redo of our first one. For most of my life, I had constantly argued with my mother but not her. She might have been calling to say sorry, to tell me she now knew that the man from the tribe was a fraud. There was also a chance she was just calling to wish me a good night with Tom or tell me something completely unrelated to what had transpired earlier. But I couldn’t take that risk. So much hung between us, even before that argument.

Maybe this is what our relationship looks like now? Now, as I enter the next chapter of my life, my need for the advocate she has always been is no more. Maybe we worked when she was the adult and I was lost and unhappy, when I needed her against my mother? Maybe I have outgrown her?

Ignoring her call manifests a painful gurgle in the pit of my stomach as I get ready. I hope she’s okay, I think as I lock the front door of my flat. And when I arrive at the restaurant and am led to the table, walking underneath a ceiling made up of sunflowers, it’s still there. Maybe I should’ve picked up? Perhaps I could’ve done better?

“You look amazing.” Tom beams at me, flashing that award-winning smile with some extra teeth on the side. It spikes something in me, a flicker. I am where I am supposed to be. I feel it in this moment. Everything and everyone else can wait.

He rises to meet me and leans in to kiss my cheek, but it isn’t what I want. I need to connect with him; I need him to know I am here, really here. So, turning my cheek away, I meet him with my lips. The kiss is full of all the passion I can find in me, and at first he is too taken back to react. I persist, drawing more out from him; my lips need to connect to him, my future.

It’s him who pulls away first, looking deep into my eyes as though looking for an explanation there. This isn’t us, this isn’t what we do. But this is what love is, right? Passion. Fire. This is what we need to be.

“I ordered some champagne,” he says, still searching me for some source of difference.

I laugh. “Oh, that’s a tad extravagant even for you.”

“Maybe it is.”

“I’ll have a little. I am still on my medication.”

“Has that not cleared up yet?” he asks, his cheeks falling back down.

And it’s back, the reason I cannot be that girl. I will never be that girl. How long will I have to continue to lie? I can see no version of our future where I tell him about the beast inside. There is only so long that I can continue feigning some mysterious rash as the reason for my pills. He’s smarter than that.

“It’s fine. It’s definitely working. And I can have a little indulgence, I’m sure.” I smile, sipping the champagne to break the sight of his furrowed brows.

My lips pull for another sip, but suddenly, everything feels off. My heart begins to quicken, and a cold sweat falls on my back. I feel on edge. I am not sure why. Something awful is about to happen. Though my eyes, my mind, say the complete opposite.

I look up at Tom to see if he can read any of the sudden fear that has stricken me on my face but find him happily talking away to me. I try to listen to the words I can see coming from his mouth but there’s a deafening sound in my ears. A thump, over and over again. I scan the room for its source, but it’s too loud to zero in on.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

A door crashing into a frame.

Panic starts rising. Have I been poisoned? I look at the glass of champagne as it bubbles away innocently .

“Are you okay?” I see Tom ask.

“I need a moment,” I say, but I can’t tell if I whisper or shout it as I rise from my chair.

On my way to the bathroom, I search again for the source. It’s getting louder, faster. Harder in my ear.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Everyone is looking at me. At least, it’s what it feels like as I make my way through the tables, weaving in between the couples, all staring lovingly into each other’s eyes. I only find one set of eyes trained on me when I look. A man. Smothered in a giant green knitted scarf and looking at me directly. Only me. His eyes, they pierce my skin in a way that makes me feel very exposed.

I look away, close my eyes, trying to focus on the sound instead. Allowing the vibrations to lead me to the source.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

I follow it, letting my ears and every sensor on my skin lead me forwards. It guides me deeper into the restaurant without any of the collisions my knees made on the way in. Once I open my eyes again, I see the source. The same man. The green scarf man. Looking back at me still. His eyes and their intensity are unchanged. He seems so familiar, but I have never seen him before. There is no way I could’ve seen his face before and forgotten it.

He stands out from everyone in every conceivable way. His skin, a burnt brown, seems to absorb all the light in the room, while simultaneously emitting its own warm glow. His frame is larger, broader than anyone else in the room. Even sitting down, he seems to tower over them all. Yet, despite the size of him, the sheer mass of him, there is a gracefulness surrounding him that I cannot comprehend.

I wait for him to politely look away. But he doesn’t. His eyes dare me. Challenge me in the most brutal and gentlest of ways.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

I can see it now. The source. So clearly. It’s him. His heart. Beating.

The force of it is so loud, I am astonished no one else can hear it. Even he appears unbothered by it. The sounds coming from his own chest, moving his shoulders out towards me and then back away.

Everything about him is so calm, so out of place with the bustle of the restaurant and all the conversations around him.

I try to look away, but I cannot. His gaze pulls at me. It won’t let go, and I think it scares me. Makes me afraid of who he is and the reactions he triggers in every cell of my body. All the tiny explosions that make it tingle.

Except I’m not afraid. My heartbeat is increasing, and my palms are perspiring, but the overriding feeling is not fear. It is something else. Something more closely resembling delight. A frisson of passion – waves of it. More than I have ever felt in my life. I am enthralled by him. Stranger still, I am enjoying my capture.

Until fear does come.

A darkness descends over me, and I begin panting quietly.

What is he doing to me?

But he isn’t doing anything. He doesn’t seem to be, intentionally, anyway. Looking at all the hard angles of his face, I search for a reaction, but it isn’t there. His mouth, as far as it stretches, is emotionless. If anything, it’s only his eyes, pointed at me, boring into my soul, that look changed. They’re wider now, with surprise glinting in them from what is happening to me. To him. To us. He, too, is captured. Caught in my gaze.

It has taken over his whole body and frozen him in this moment with me.

His shoulders continue to move towards me, drawing closer. My own shoulders respond. In tandem, we dance.

My heartbeat joins his. Slowing down to the same pulse I can hear in my ear. His pulse.

Thump, Thump. Thump. Thump.

Until they are completely in sync.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Chapter 13

Adeben

“Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.” The waiter who seated me earlier exclaims before, during, and after he bumps into the girl. For the first time today, his disinterested face shows something other than disgust.

She turns to look at him, apologises weakly and stumbles back to where she came from.

My breath has begun to return to normal, and my shoulders relax back into themselves. I do not know what has happened, but it has left me winded. Physically. Emotionally.

The girl. She must possess more power than the Elders thought. How else would she be able to trap me in her gaze?

Yet, something in the expression on her face, the face I have been absorbed in for the last few minutes, said it was not something she was doing intentionally. She too was caught, the same way I was. In whatever it was that had just happened.

The waiter snapped the connection, and I am grateful for that. It was too disconcerting to feel all my will leave me, to feel myself void of my own convictions in place of another’s. The will of a stranger.

But she is no stranger. I have shared my dreams with her for months. We have witnessed the same scene play out each night, trying to decipher the meaning. How can I say she is a stranger when we have experienced so much together already?

I realise it was foolish to hope to ambush her at this restaurant. I tracked her before, watched her, waiting for the right time to pounce, but none of those times felt right. I had begun to worry if I would ever find the right time. If I was not, perhaps becoming too content to watch from the shadows, never having to meet her, never having to face the mission before me. Coming to the restaurant would force my hand, I knew. Once she saw me, there would be no way back into the shadows. Forcing me to introduce myself and begin the task I have been sent to London for.

Of course, I had no inclination that something as bizarre as what had just happened could happen when she did see me.

It was like she could hear me. That’s not possible, I tell myself as I reach for a menu. Lion Souls can sometimes recognise each other. Often through a pull, but nothing this powerful has ever occurred. I have never been so mesmerised, so caught.

Perhaps it is because she is a woman. There are bound to be complications, other feelings that could taint our pull.

Even as I think it, I know it isn’t what happened. There is more to it than that. Her eyes have a depth to them, a hard glow. Her lips today wore a red too full for my mind to form any comparison. I just know that, on her, it quickly became a red I will not ever forget. She is beautiful. I have given up trying to deny that fact, and on every level, I am attracted to her. The sight of her provoked long-banished emotions like desire. But it was more than that; it felt like more. I could feel her in me. As if, for the briefest of moments, she lived in my soul.

I cautiously glance up from my menu in her direction, careful not to be drawn into another trance with her. She’s flustered, I can see from across the room. Turning her head away, she tries to avoid looking at me. Yet I can still feel her eyes calling me.

I observe her, see her reach into her bag and pull something out. She throws it furiously into her mouth; the man in front of her with his tower of gelled hair seems oblivious to her discomfort. He continues droning on. He never stops, not even when she glances back at me. She does not catch my eye. Not this time. I look back at my menu too quickly.

We continue stealing glances until the man reaches forward to grab her hand. He holds it firmly in his, doesn’t let go. The scene spikes my heart rate. My jaw tenses, and a sound collects in my throat.

I am losing control. Something in the exchange with the girl has provoked my Lion Soul. My rage begins to simmer. Soon, my thoughts are all heinous. The gel-haired man, I want to tear him to pieces. I want to destroy him right where he sits with no regard for who will see.

What is that feeling creeping under my skin? Why has this simple gesture birthed such an anger in me?

After all my training, years, I am afraid I will lose control.

I rise from my table quickly, but still succeed in drawing in the eyes of the woman to my left, who has periodically looked away from her lover and at my frame. She smiles past his doting face; I almost miss it as I rush to the toilets.

I have to get away from him. More importantly, I have to get away from the lioness.

I wash my face with cold water, hoping to regain some of the control I risked losing. In this quiet moment, I manage to ground myself, to re-form some of the pathways decimated by the girl.

I may not have prepared adequately for today. I rushed into it. I should have waited, learnt more about her from the shadows, from her aunt, before placing myself in her path.

So many doubts flood my mind. So unsure of myself. My brothers would laugh if they could see me now. This is not me. They say I am brash, even arrogant sometimes.

“There’d be a million more wars, Adeben, if even half the men of the world had your temperament,” William had said at the compound after he’d succeeded in calming down an indignant Kojo once again only a few weeks ago.

So why do I now feel so crippled by indecision and weighed down by doubt?

I have to get out before anything else can happen. I need to be better prepared, I resolve, as I run out of the toilet door.

But my body, taking the corner too quickly, crashes into another.

“Sorry,” I hear just before I see it is the same person I am trying to escape.

“It’s fine.” I put distance between us, and she looks up, recognising me.

“You! Who are you?” Her tone is cold and sharp.

My body tenses, readying for the assault I expect her proximity to bring, but it doesn’t come. Surprised, I search her face again, checking it is indeed her. It is, it’s her face, but everything else about her feels different. The energy I felt earlier is gone. Her eyes are vacant. I cannot reconcile the two images. She, standing before me, had been the cause of my discomfort, of the other things I felt.

The girl in the restaurant was powerful. A ferocity marked her apart from everyone, from anyone I have ever met. I wanted to know her, see her. Even in the surprise of being captured by her gaze, there was a willingness in me to submit to such a being. This girl, now, is not the same. She wears the other girl’s features, moves like her, but is a dull ember in comparison.

“Hello?” She waves her hand in front of my face.

“I am Adeben. I have come for you.”

“You have come for me?” She scoffs, and I don’t blame her. Even as I heard the words my brain fashioned together, I knew I could have done better.

“Your aunt,” I say, “did she not tell you I would be coming?”

“Oh. You are from that weird tribe in Africa.” She rolls the dull marbles that have taken up residence in her eye sockets before continuing, “I told her to tell you I want nothing to do with any of you.”

“It is not a choice you can make. You have been given a gift,” I continue, ignoring the irritation building within me that she – everything about her – is not as I imagined, as I thought I saw earlier. My eyes refuse to look at her anymore, refuse to give this heinous image any more space in my mind, and instead drift past her to the door that will lead me away from this catastrophe.

“I don’t want it. Take it back.”

“That is not how it works. You have been blessed with a gift and need to learn to use it.”

“I don’t want it. I don’t want any of this.” Her voice is steady despite the irk it is tainted with, but I will not allow myself to lose any more of my composure, not for her.

“With training and knowledge, you can learn to control it, harness it.”

“You are not hearing me,” she says. “I. Do. Not. Want. It. I want no part in your silly group.”

“Mind yourself, Eshe! You should not be so disrespectful about things you do not understand.” My blood is at full boil, flushing my skin. Her insolence. Her manner. Everything about her. She is not who I imagined all those months ago. She is not who the Leader warned me about. I do not know who she is.

Maybe she senses it because she stills for a moment. Breathing in deeply, she shakes her shoulders out. And it is as if, in the action, she shakes off a film, a coating, the hardness and the bitter scent on her, before calmly responding, “I do not mean to offend you or your beliefs. But I have been clear with my aunt, and now I am being clear with you. I do not want any part of what you are trying to do here.”

“It does not work that way.”

“Listen to me! I do not want any part of this. You have… How dare you!” she shouts, provoking me, but in her raised voice I feel a semblance of the girl I saw earlier. “How dare you turn up here, interrupt my evening with your voodoo? I did not ask for this. I did not ask you to come here. In fact I have asked for you to return from wherever you came from.”

“I came here to find you and help you understand your gift.”

“Stop calling it that! It is not a gift. A gift is something you want. And if you do not want it, you can return it. So here, if it really is a gift, today I am returning it. I do not want it. Do you understand me?”

Neither of us speaks for a moment. I see her attempt to control her breath. Breathing deeply, she seems to force a calm into her soul. I watch her carefully, struggling to understand what has happened and is still happening. Who is she? I cannot comprehend it. In her passions, I feel a flicker of familiarity – she is a Lion Soul – but it’s just a trace. And as her breathing slows, as she regains control of herself, it fades, leaving me to doubt if it was indeed there in the first place.

“If you do not learn to accept and control it, it will consume you,” I say quietly, because it’s true. I can feel so much already out of balance in her.

“I have it under control. Trust me,” she responds, cocking her head.

“You may think you do, but trust me, you do not. That much is clear from today alone. You need to begin the training immediately.”

“Look…” she begins, but my hands stop her.

“No, you look. You know nothing about what lies within you. You may be foolish enough to trick yourself into thinking you have it under control. But how can you, when you cannot even begin to understand what dwells inside of you and the power it possesses?”

“You think I don’t know how powerful the beast is? I almost killed a man,” she whispers, pain flashing on her face, everywhere but in her eyes.

“You attacked someone?”

“Yes. I… it tore at his throat.” She will not look at me. All the anger, the effrontery gone. I can only see her pain – a pain that I know well.

“You killed him?”

“No. Maybe? Almost? He is in a coma. I did that. The thing within me did that.”

“If you tasted his blood, then he is already dead.” I don’t want to say it, she doesn’t want to hear it, but it must be said. The horror on her face only confirms I have wounded her. “Lion Souls do not play with their prey. If they attack, they kill. If you attacked him, then he is dead. Whether today or next week, he is dead.”

“Oh my god.” As she sinks to the ground with her eyes tightly shut, the pain in her, the tears on her face, chokes me. This is the way it has to be. This is the way it always is. The story of the Lion Soul and its awakening rarely follows a path without bloodshed.

“You need to learn,” I say. “You need to—”

“Stop! Stop talking to me!” Viciously wiping away the tears, she screams, and the force throws me back, forming a growl in my throat that I barely manage to hold down. “I am done listening. Leave me alone,” she spits, rising up and walking away.

“If you keep fighting it, it will fight back. And believe me, you will lose.”

“Leave me alone.”

She is almost out of my view, but I run up and whisper in her ear, inches away from the open dining room, “It will happen again. If you do not learn, you will hurt someone else.”

She turns to meet my eyes, perhaps looking to find some semblance of a lie, but there is none. Whether she wants to believe me or not, I have no reason to lie, not about this. I think maybe she has heard me, maybe she will come with me, let me help her. But she surprises me. Her face hardens, and all the fear, all the pain I saw earlier, is gone. She walks back to the table to meet the gel-haired man and puts everything that has transpired between us behind her.

Chapter 14

Eshe

Dinner with Tom was everything I was hoping it would be. We reconnected and reached a new place in our relationship, a place I had been holding us back from. When I sat opposite him and he took my hand, I left it in his without allowing the familiar awkward pins and needles to overcome me. He mattered to me, and I mattered to him. He said as much himself when he told me he loved me. I’d wanted to say it, to take that leap forward, wholly, to him, but it didn’t matter that he had done it instead. None of it mattered because when he said it, I felt in my heart that he meant it. His words, this time, were nothing like last time. They weren’t reactionary; they stood on their own.

Still, it surprised me how much hearing them from him meant to me. How much of a capacity he has to affect me. I was even more surprised by how I felt when I said the exact same words back to him. How hollow they still felt in my mouth – the bitter taste they left there – and how much joy they could still provoke in his eyes. Could he not hear the tone of my words?

It had nothing to do with me or Tom. It was only because I was distracted, I told myself then and have continued to do since. I was distracted by the man who ambushed me. What he did.

He ruined everything when he showed up and trapped me with his mind.

It doesn’t matter. I don’t care how or why he did what he did, I keep reminding myself, pushing everything he said, everything he was, into a distant memory. When I tell people about that night, how things went, he wouldn’t feature. No. No one needed to know how he made me feel in the moments we had connected, the way the bond had destroyed my heart while simultaneously replenishing it, making it anew. They didn’t need to know that despite my best efforts and continuous promises, I was thinking about him and what he said often, replaying our exchange – what he said, how he said it, and what he looked like, when we were one.

I’d even started looking for him, in the streets when I crossed the road, behind me in the queue at the supermarket. He was there, somewhere. I knew it. I never caught him in the corner of my eye, where my mind told me he was, but I felt him everywhere.

It bothers me, the place he has taken up in my mind, how easily my thoughts of that night, of my birthday, involuntarily find the image of him. I try to think of Tom, the way he looked when he said he loved me, the gorgeous purple tie I’d bought him for Christmas on his neck against a black shirt, and then there he is. Adeben, the intruder. The one who stops the glee I try to force from sticking.

It annoys me more than I can fathom. As close as I have come, all the progress in my life, and how fickle the memory of him makes it all seem. The excitement I want to feel is gone, the peace I had found before gone too. Something about him and what he said continuously provokes me, returning the anger, the quiet rage the drugs have dispelled. I can feel my nerves on edge all the time, and nothing will still my mind. I haven’t been back to the office since I left early a few days ago, unable to stop myself from choking on a million unspoken venomous words, all provoked in the space of one meeting. The drugs, once adept at pushing aside all these feelings, cannot hold back too much for too long. They wear off quicker and quicker each day. So I take more. Far more than I am willing to admit, far more than I know I should be taking. But the alternative, falling back into the darkness, leaving the beast within me unchained, does not bear thinking about.

I might have been able to push all of that aside if not for the fact that the dreams have returned too. As usual, they steal my nights and any hopes of rest. I wake up after they have done their part, tired, scatty, and unfocused. But the dreams are different this time. I no longer dream of the lion meeting me in the field; I dream only of that night in the garden, with myself the attacker.

I see Roger. I see myself attacking him and destroying him. In these dreams, my rage fuels me, blinding me to any signs of his humanity or even my own. In these dreams, I circle him when he is the one alone in the garden. I tease him with my roar and drink in the stench of his fear.

When he tries to run, I leap into the air, meeting him every way he turns. He pleads for his life, tears rolling down his face, but there is no mercy, not in me. I am the beast, she is me. Hungry, furious, and determined to get her target. I do not fight her this time. I push her forward, her wishes and goals becoming my own sick desires.

He cries out one last time when I have grown tired of him. Dashing forward, my jaw connects with his throat, blocking any future sounds that might have escaped. The kill is quick. Within seconds, I have decimated his soul and quenched my hunger.

I wake up, and I can taste his blood in my throat. I wake up, and I can feel the pleasure the night brought.

Each time it happens, the seconds where I can feel the lioness’s delight last longer. The time it takes for my own self to come round, to feel the disgust that follows, is put off for longer.

These dreams and the corresponding effects on my body do not scare me alone. Tom searches me intently and often, searching for a reason for the bags my eyes have begun to carry. And no matter how hard I smile back, he sees more than I want him to. Why am I still taking the medication? What happened that night? His questions carefully pepper every conversation we have, and I know it is only a matter of time before the many lies I have strung together come undone, leaving me exposed.

My aunt, too, grows more and more concerned. She insists I speak to Adeben, that I need to hear him out and learn what he can teach me about his people. But I cannot shake the feeling that he is not my salvation. Something about him threatens not only the careful balance I am trying to maintain but all of me. Aunty Grace will not stop, though, pushing me to make contact. Begging me to stop taking the drugs I suspect she already knows I take too many of. She would be harsher with her insistence if she had any proof, but in the absence of it, she merely nags.

It’s so much to carry, and I want to shut it all out. Maybe I could if I, too, didn’t feel like I have strayed too far from who I am. The lack of control I feel, the frequency of moments where I feel more like someone else, are too concerning. The hunger stabbing at my stomach, the craving for meat, red and rare. I fight it, but it’s futile. The diet I have maintained and established for myself, the one I fought hard for, is just another part of me being erased. My head reminds me I do not eat meat – I can’t – while my body reminds me in dark whispers of the taste of the steak in my mouth, how nourished I felt in the aftermath, and how much I need it again and again. I must keep fighting, I know; I must hold onto the fragments left of me. I must ignore the fatigue gripping my limbs and the sensation that every movement feels like too big an ask, every step a request for too much power, more than I have.

“You look like you’ve barely slept.” My aunt gently pulls my hair from my face to expose more of my sunken features. When she called and said she was coming round, my every instinct was to avoid her, avoid this, so sure was I of an ambush. But I want to see her; I want to fall into someone so linked in my mind with comfort.

“I’m just a little tired. I have been so busy with the party.”

We sit in the garden surrounded by blackbirds and bright-purple flowers. Mother is out, busy with the usual things she busies herself with. On days as beautiful as today, when I know she isn’t here, I sit in this garden and pretend that its borders mark the entirety of my world.

“Are you sure you still want to go ahead with that?” She looks surprised, genuinely, but I have my own surprise to meet her. “With everything going on?” Her hands wave slowly at me, turning a wheel, turning the world around, turning me around. But she should know better.

“Nothing is going on! It’s my birthday party. You know as well as I do that if I don’t have this, I’ll never hear the end of it. The gossip alone.”

“I don’t care about gossip, and I am surprised you would.” Her voice is shrill, coated in a cold immediacy, but not harsh. Never harsh.

“I don’t. I just want an easy life. And to be honest, I don’t see anything wrong with having a party to celebrate. These last few months. I need this. Something normal.”

“I don’t think this is the right time. You should be focused on your training with Adeben.” She says his name with a familiarity that irks me.

“I’ve already told you and him. I have no plans to train for anything with him.”

“Eshe, you need to get this under control.” She leans forward to take more of me in, but I can’t meet her.

Reaching for my cup, I pull some warm coffee into my mouth, steadying my soul and reply, “I do have it under control.”

“Not with those silly drugs. You can’t keep taking them for the rest of your life.”

“Pretty sure I can.”

Her eyes are tired, exhausted because of me and the things that I will not do for her or for myself. She shifts, gets up from her chair and walks over to the door with frustration leaking out of her.

“Is that what you want for yourself? To be drugged your whole life?”

“I know I don’t want to spend it running around with a group of lost boys.” Another sip. I need more, maybe even something stronger to hold myself together, to not be baited, to still my heartbeat yet again.

“You wouldn’t be,” she replies. “Adeben said your training would take a few months, and once you have learnt control, you can jump back into your life. People do it all the time.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, placing the cup down. A moment, that’s all I need. Once I open them, she’s on me. Her hands are holding my arms, pulling them into her and away from the hole she thinks I’m falling into. I try to turn away from her face, inches from mine, but quickly, with a strange firmness, she pulls my chin back and whispers, “What you’re doing now isn’t working.”

I push back. “You don’t know that.”

She looks at me with a gentleness in her eyes, pulling on invisible strings, while her hands still pull on my body. Taking a deep sigh, something changes enough in her that I become alert. “I didn’t want to tell you this. Maybe I shouldn’t. But you need to stop burying your head in the sand on this. I am here. Adeben is, too. We can help you. We want to help you.”

I don’t know how I know that whatever she is about to say will destroy me, but I know it even before the words leave her mouth.

“The man who attacked you. The one you… The one from the Bramble estate. He passed away a few days ago.”

“He’s dead?” I don’t notice my mouth moving, not when every other part of me is tensed, frozen, still.

“His injuries. There was nothing they could do.” Her hand glides over my arm to offer comfort; I cannot have her touch me, not now. The stillness shatters as I propel the chair and my frame far away from her.

“Please don’t,” I beg as a dam of tears breaks. “I killed him,” I whisper, afraid to hear the words back with my own ears as my entire wretched body trembles.

“It wasn’t you. You didn’t know.” She tries again to approach me, but I recoil.

“It was me. I saw it. I felt it happen. I was there.”

“No. It wasn’t.” I am too weak for the realisation that she succeeds in making contact with me. Pulling me into her, she buries my tears in her chest. Her arms are a barrier to everything outside of me, trying to protect me.

“I didn’t tell you this to upset you,” she says. “I knew it would destroy you, but I hoped it would help you see that you need to learn to control it. You had no choice before. You did not know, but now you do. Now you can do something.”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone else.” I barely manage to get out the words before I find myself locked in my thoughts, my memories.

He’s dead. Dead. I cannot stop thinking. The man I circled in my dreams, attacked repeatedly, is dead. For weeks, I quietly hoped for a change in his condition. Even when everything I heard told me it wouldn’t be possible, I still hoped. Yet even in that hope, he wasn’t a person. He was something tied to me, to that night. A weight.

In my dreams, he is always faceless, but I don’t need to see his face to know it is him. Even when I think about him, it’s not his face I settle on, but the outline of him. A silhouette, just a body.

I have been lucky; the drugs I believed weren’t working have protected me, obscuring his face, features, and humanity. But now, as the drugs I hastily took before my aunt came wear off, I am forced to confront the image of his face. The idea that he is – was – a person. He came from somewhere and is now gone somewhere else because of me.

The heavy covers, protectors, the drugs have carefully laid over everything I was afraid of are being yanked off in my mind. I can remember things I didn’t know I had even forgotten. Roger. Who is he to me? What did I make him into? A victim. My victim. My first?

Adeben warned me it would happen. His words were clear; I remember them. I couldn’t hear them then.

Is this who I am now? A killer?

Deep down, chained up and thrown into the darkest corner of my mind, this is the truth I have pushed away. Something capable of destruction. Something that thrives on carnage. Something that is not me. At the same time, it is the truest expression of me. This is what I have tried and failed to hide.

“You won’t hurt anyone else when you know how to control this. When you learn how,” my aunt whispers into my head, and with no other options left for me, I force myself to hear her words.

Chapter 15

Eshe

It’s one of those blistering hot spring days where the air is heavy with the sweat of everyone in London. When I arrive at the park, much earlier than I need to, there isn’t a patch of browning grass left unconquered by a blanket or a folding chair.

It’s no surprise I’m early; a habit in reaction to growing up with a mother who doesn’t take tardiness well. But today is excessive. I’ve been ready for hours, left my flat a good hour and a half before I needed to make my way across London to the park Adeben insisted we meet in. And all the time I wasted doing breathing exercises, trying to steady my nerves did nothing for me or the hours I am forced to wait for him to arrive. All I can do is stand and wait. Shifting from hip to hip while every single nerve in my body is sparking and on edge. I’ve felt this way since I agreed to meet with him and promised my aunt I would hear what he had to say this time.

The last place I want to be is here, waiting to see him. I am weary of him, of being thrown again into a trance like before. Of losing so much control in favour of taking something from him. I don’t even think I have fully recovered from the last time. But I have no choice now. The news of Roger’s death changes everything. I know that. I cannot continue to blindly feel my way around my problem, not when I risk hurting so many people. I need to learn more, I can admit. Learn, so I can figure this out, my way.

So here I am, in a park, waiting for the man who claims he can help. Adeben, who I know nothing about, save that he has been sent by a tribe of people who are afflicted with a curse like my own.

I see him approach, and all my nervous energy tickles my throat. “No voodoo trance this time, please.” I laugh nervously before he can get too close.

He looks back at me with a coldness that wasn’t there last time. “I had nothing to do with it.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you last time…” It falls out of my mouth, and he barely hears it. His eyes are so concerned with looking anywhere but at me. It shouldn’t bother me, but it does. There was something else in him last time, aimed at me, given freely to me. It isn’t here today, and I feel desperate for its return.

“Your aunt said you were ready to begin your training?” He kicks at the dirt.

“I would like to know more. I promised her I would come here and hear what you have to say.”

“I don’t have the time for this. If you want to learn, I will teach you, but if you—”

“Hey. I’m here, aren’t I?” I cut in, only to elicit the biggest eye roll I have seen.

“You think because you have travelled, what, five miles or so to be here, you have accomplished something? I came here for you. I came here to help you. If you do not require my help, I am very happy to return,” he says.

“I didn’t mean that. Look, this is all so strange. I didn’t ask for this and don’t want it.”

“Yes, you have already said. So why are you here today? Why have you bothered?”

The irritation coming off him floods me and picks at an anger. I try to hold it back; I try not to let him provoke me, but it’s hard. I came here because he and my aunt were insistent that I needed to learn more.

Why is he standing here now, giving me so much attitude? Being so cold? Looking back at him only serves to push me more. It’s not him who is about to have his whole life turned upside down. It’s not him who has grown so afraid of his own shadow.

I let it out. “It seems you want to be here just as much as I do. But we are here, so why don’t you tell me what you have to tell me? You were so eager to do so the last time we met when you rudely interrupted my date.” I hear the words, I see his face fall, and I know how weak my position has just become.

“A date?” He laughs. “You think any of that matters? Do you think it matters to me? It shouldn’t even matter to you.”

“So now, I can’t be happy? Because some beast has taken residence inside of me. I am wrong for trying to live my life?”

“You…” His voice is shaky as he steps back from me. Catching a breath, he returns to pronounce, “You are so insolent!”

“That is not fair. You don’t even know me.”

“No, it is fair. You said you came here to listen, so listen! You cannot even begin to understand the grace of the thing inside you. You don’t know where it came from or the honour bestowed upon you by being chosen. People would die for the opportunity to be one with such a power, and yet you treat it with such disrespect. In all my years, I don’t think I have met anyone as ridiculous as you.”

“Well,” I say, and now it’s my turn to spit the words, “I don’t believe you have ever met a girl with this thing inside of her, so I don’t think the things you have or haven’t seen in your life count for very much, do they?” All I can think of doing is showing him some of the venom I continuously protect everyone else from. But as I ready myself for the rest of my attack, I see a knowing smile spread across his face. “What?”

“You,” he replies while laughing.

“I am funny to you?”

“Yes. You think because you are a girl, I should treat you differently. You think because you have a life, a date, the Lion Soul should wait for you. Do you think you are special? More special than any other?” With every beat, he abandons the space between us, pulling closer and closer. I step back again and again only for him and his frame to absorb every inch I leave I available.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. There is enough arrogance in you to stain the air that surrounds you.”

“Well, that’s rich coming from you.”

“Maybe. But at least my arrogance is well-founded.” Smiling still, his shoulders fall. He looks at me, really into me, and I can’t help but recoil.

“You don’t know me,” I tell him.

“But I do. Probably better than you know yourself. You are stubborn, to the point of hard-headed stupidity. You have a fire inside you that burns with rage so strong that you worry it will one day consume you. You are quick to anger; people walk on eggshells around you. And then there is the arrogance. You think you are better, much better than everyone around you.”

“That’s not—”

“But you are also brave; the same fire that burns your rage carries you forward when others run back. You are loyal; for the people who matter to you, there is nothing you wouldn’t do. You have an enormous sense of justice; right is right, and wrong is wrong, no grey. All these traits – along with compassion, which I am yet to see in you – are common to all Lion Souls. Do you really think you are different?”

“Lion Souls? It’s what you said before.” I move closer to him, the flash of anger replaced with curiosity.

“Yes, the Lion Soul is what you have been rudely referring to as the beast.” Adeben turns and starts walking away, towards the coppice area of the park.

“Where does it come from?” I ask as I follow after him hungrily.

“From lions. At the end of their life, some of their souls move on and join with a human soul for the next chapter. When they do, they imbue the human soul with some of their qualities.”

“So that’s how I… In the garden that night, I saw myself as the lioness.”

“Yes, most Lion Souls can transform in their prime.” He turns back to face me, and I stop just short of running into him. His eyes, the glare of his attention, is all on me. All here for me. I want it all.

“But why? To what end? Last time I attacked a man.”

“Because it is necessary,” he says, as if it is obvious. “Most Lion Souls transform when their fight-or-flight response kicks in or when they are angry, until they learn to control it. Once they learn control, they can change whenever it suits them.”

“Why would they want to transform?”

“Why wouldn’t they? It can be quite enjoyable to shed one’s human form for the lions. To feel the raw power of the lion move in you.” In his eyes, there is an unmistakable sparkle of joy. It softens him slightly, makes him more approachable, less coarse. He smiles back at me, and it’s a bit too intense. I roll my eyes and look away, afraid once again of the power of his stare. “You would enjoy it too if you opened your mind to it.”

“I can’t see that happening.” His eyes settle on me again, disputing what I have said like he knows better. “Do you enjoy it?” I ask cautiously.

“I am only a guide,” he replies, burying the warmth beyond my reach.

“What’s a guide?”

“This. I guide new Lion Souls. Teach them what they need to know.”

I frown. “So, how did you do that thing the other day?”

“That was nothing to do with me. It must have come from you.”

“I didn’t even know I could do that.”

“Right now, you don’t know anything about what you can and cannot do. So, let us begin. I need to see you.” His words break the ease I have settled into.

“I’m right here.” I laugh weakly, stepping away and opening up the space between us.

“No,” he says, “the lioness.”

“What? Why?”

“I need to check your form.” He shifts uncomfortably, knowing he has crossed a line, but doesn’t say anything for a while. I hope he has moved past the stupid request, but he continues, “I need to check you can.”

“You think I would make this up?”

Why would I want this to be happening to me?

“No, but I need to see how you do and what you look like.” He steps back further.

“Not happening.”

“Come on. Don’t be coy now. Change.”

“I don’t know how,” I whisper, but he hears me still.

“Yes, you do. It’s always there, fighting to get out. In your case your refusal to connect with the Lion Soul probably means it’s bursting to get out. Just let go.”

“I can’t. It could hurt you.”

His arrogance brims over into laughter, and he smirks. “You won’t. Trust me, the Lion Soul will not attack me.”

“It could attack someone else. Someone in the park,” I say, looking around but seeing no one else. The chatter and the blankets are gone, the laughter too. Now it’s just me, him, and his unreasonable demands.

“No one is anywhere near us. I chose here for a reason.” He won’t give up, I know. Every excuse I throw his way comes back to me with a grin.

“I can’t. I can’t feel it,” I finally admit.

“It’s not an ‘it’, it is you. You can’t separate who you are from the Lion Soul. Your soul and hers are merged. The connection is always there.”

“You aren’t listening. I can’t feel it. I’ve blocked it.” I walk away quickly, desperate to be surrounded again by the whole of London. I need them to quash this request and break this strange intimacy. “It’s gone. I have been blocking it for a few weeks now,” I continue.

“That is not possible.” His body appears quickly in front of me, too quickly to be normal. He blocks my way out, all while his smirk remains.

“It is. I have pushed it out.”

“What have you done?” Only then does it fall, the smirk, his face, the warmth.

“I have been taking these pills. It helps control it.” I am coated in shame under his eyes. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t really need to. I can feel the horror, the disgust in him. “I discovered it by accident. It helps keep it in check…” I continue on autopilot before his hand rises up towards me, stopping my words in their tracks.

“I don’t even know where to begin.” He’s shaking. With anger, I would guess, but it could be more of his disgust.

“I can’t have it getting out again,” I say. “I cannot have anyone else die because of me.”

“Your arrogance is truly outstanding. You think you can drug a creature as powerful as a lion that has lived god knows how long with some silly pills, just because it is inconvenient for you?”

“I need to control it, to protect everyone from it, from me,” I whisper, but he won’t look at me. Suddenly, I cannot handle it. I pivot to find his gaze, crazed, hungry. My shame encases me.

“If you think that anything you have just described is you exerting any form of control, then you are delusional. Truly.”

“I am doing the best I can.” I want to cry, but I will not allow myself to be seen that way, not by him.

“No, this cannot be your best. This is ridiculous. Foolish. Controlling your abilities comes from an acceptance of the Lion Soul, a bond is formed, an understanding is reached, and you share what little time you have on this earth with the soul. That is the only way you can ‘control’ it.

“What you have done is try, and the operative word here is ‘try’. You have tried to drug the Lion Soul. It’s a soul. Drugs have no effect on it. It isn’t human. It isn’t tangible. When you transform, it isn’t the soul that transforms. You transform because the soul has gifted you with skills and abilities.”

“Stop shouting at me!”

But he continues. “You have drugged you and only you. The Lion Soul is tethered to you and your body. If you are drugging yourself, then you are removing what little control you have over it and leaving your body unmanned, ready to be controlled by any force that inhabits it. And since you’re too busy being drugged, the only thing left to take the wheel is the Lion Soul. Which, incidentally, all your pills and your insolence have only pissed off. So now, you are nothing but a ticking time bomb, ready to go off at any point. It’s no longer a question of if you will kill someone, but when you will.”

My skin is ice despite the best efforts of the sun’s rays. “I’m not taking very much. I’m not drugged up. I’m fine. I am in control.”

“You are not in control, and if you cannot see that, you just became the most dangerous thing on this earth.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say to that.” I try to process all he has said, all he has thrown at me, all while holding off on giving space to the fury his tone provokes.

“I want you to say you will stop this now.”

“I can’t tell you that. Sorry, but I can’t ever lose control like I did that day in the garden.”

He steps back even further as if to get a better look at the mess I am. His judgement stings, but it is expected. I knew he would have plenty to say; even my aunt does. But as painful as the look he casts back is, I am firm in my resolve. I know what I am doing is right. I cannot risk the little control I have now. I cannot risk this Lion Soul inside of me getting out.

It’s not like I enjoy taking the pills. It’s not like I do not sacrifice a portion of myself, my happiness, my essence, each day when I am forced to take more. But it is a sacrifice I am willing to make. If it keeps everyone else safe. Safe enough to stand in front of me and look back with disgust and judgment in their eyes.

“Then I cannot help you,” he says with a calm coldness. “If you are planning on continuing to drug yourself, then not only are you a walking time bomb, but you do not even possess enough control to be able to transform yourself, so there is no point in even beginning to teach you. I have wasted your time. And mine. Send your aunt my regards.”

He walks away from me. I call his name out, but he doesn’t turn back. It’s so clear that he is done.

Chapter 16

Adeben

It has been days since my encounter with Eshe in the park, but it still feels like yesterday that I walked away from her and resigned myself to the simple fact that she was going to implode. She would not be the first; a few over our history have done so before. One who awakened at the same time as me, Lawrence, he too went down a similar path to Eshe and rejected the Lion Soul he had been gifted. Lawrence did not last long. The soul within him, as predicted, burst through and claimed his body as its own.

People are neither good nor evil, and Lion Souls are the same. Stress, circumstances, experiences all carry the potential to distort them and make them do things unnatural to their true selves. The same was true of the Lion Soul that took over Lawrence’s body. By the time it had claimed his skin, it had already been subjected to too many months of struggle, caged within, battling for survival. It left its essence warped into something else, something dark – so dark that once it had control, it proceeded to commit truly awful atrocities. Killing without pause or remorse until it was stopped. I witnessed the strain, the weight of the burden on the faces of the men tasked with taking him down. Life is sacred, Lion Souls revered, so to carry the blood of one is a stain that can’t ever be removed. Does a similar fate await me?

The Leader was quick to remind me of my mission when I last updated him on my progress, or lack of it. He now believes that Eshe drugging herself, her rejection of the Lion Soul, will be the thing that leads to her downfall. The precursor to my dream. I am struggling to see it any other way myself, knowing that if she does descend into darkness, if she unleashes her soul untethered, I cannot stand by and watch her destroy people. I will have to act. I will have to put her down.

I sought Elder Botkin’s counsel, hoping to hear something different. But he only confirmed what we all know: she cannot be allowed to remain if she loses control, as much as we want to understand her and the truths we need to possess. Anything she can illuminate about her provenance is meaningless once she loses control.

But knowing it all, believing it all, does nothing to dissuade the hope in me. A hope that she will heed my warning and choose another path that does not carry her inevitable destruction. Or the destruction of the soul dwelling within her. Even if everything I know about her tells me she will not be easily swayed.

The damned stubbornness that will surely be her undoing is one of the things I like about her. There is a familiarity I first witnessed in my dreams and later found when meeting her in person that calls to me, mirrors me. She is strong too, much stronger than I thought she could be, possibly strong enough to challenge even me. And that, too, is attractive to me. She could make a good Lion Soul, one I would gladly spar with, if she or my world would ever allow her to be.

Perhaps I was wrong to hide myself from her? If I had shown her who I was, maybe she would have found some comfort in meeting another? It might have helped her accept who she is more easily and put an end to the damage she was inflicting.

The Leader agreed I made the right choice to conceal who I was. He, too, saw danger in her recognising me from our shared dreams. Discovering it was me who attacked her, who killed her, could only provoke fear. I would never be able to get close enough to catch her unaware. She may be young, and her abilities not fully realised, but she could still be a challenge to subdue if fear prompted her. How can you surprise someone, mount an unsuspecting attack on a person, if they were already waiting for your hand to strike?

Elder Botkin, on the other hand, disagreed and rebuked me for not being honest with her. He told me I should have shown her who I was to fully gain her trust and help her with the transition. Lying to her, he said, would only make her more mistrustful of me, because even if she did not know I was a Lion Soul, her lioness would. It could influence her, lead her to the truth by herself. And if she discovered the lie, there would be little chance or opportunity for trust between her and a Lion Soul again.

I am torn in my mission, about what I should have done and what I should do next. I am not a guide. I have not been trained to help her. The little I remember of my own brutal training is all I have to draw upon. I celebrated the last day of my own training. Knowing I was no longer to be subjected to the drills, to the mind games I had grown to hate.

So many memories from that time, from when I first awoke, have been kindly removed from my mind. Yet here I am, tasked with guiding another.

I have never had the patience to be a guide. Instead, I am a soldier, a warrior with the ability to carry out orders and small but essential tasks for the betterment of my tribe. Guiding is best left to those with an aptitude to teach, and missions for those who could work as operatives, nimbly and quickly. I am brute force, strength, and stamina. I am their weapon, sent in when something needs to be defeated. No one calls upon me when they need to make plans or birth a strategy. I will never lead, but I can follow. In London, now, with this mission, I am wholly out of my depth. I do not belong here.

Still, I stay.

My only order is to stay close to Eshe, ready for when she implodes. Ready to act. This is it, and despite every part of me wanting to run away, as far away as I can, I have to follow.

The last thing I want is to see it all happen with my own eyes; the stories I heard about Lawrence were enough to provoke nightmares. Yet I am being asked not only to bear witness to it but to step in and euthanise both Eshe and the damaged soul within her. With this ahead of me, any peace I might have found for myself in this life or the next is already forfeit.

Still, I stay.

It never crosses my mind to disobey my orders, to refuse to give up my peace. If that is the sacrifice being asked of me, I will do it. Running, disobeying, are not luxuries ever afforded to a warrior, not in battle. I wouldn’t even know how to do it.

I tried to warn her aunt, not about everything, but enough that she could understand the danger Eshe was putting herself, and those around her, in. And I felt for her. I heard the pain in her voice at finding herself helpless. The sadness and frustration in finding that words are her only tool after all, words that fall hard upon deaf ears. All she can do is hope it is not too late for Eshe to find her way back.

I don’t tell her it’s already done because I cannot find the words to say it without sounding cruel. I don’t tell her that when the time comes, it will be me who puts the Lion Soul down, but not her niece – she will already be lost. There is much I don’t tell her, because though it was her who made contact with us, she is not a Lion Soul. Merely another unfortunate person who loves and will lose a loved one either way. This is why we do not have families, we do not love, and why we are alone. It is easier this way.

Still, I am grateful she is there in Eshe’s life, grateful for the link she gives me to her. More grateful still when she makes my mission easier by inviting me to Eshe’s party. I had planned to keep an eye on her anyway, as I have taken to doing. An invitation merely makes it easier, with fewer questions asked about my presence.

But I have always disliked parties and looked forward to this one even less. The few I attended in my village always seemed pointless to me. An opportunity for people to spend more than they should on people who often mattered so little, to show off or parade some milestone or good fortune that never lasted. And everything I know about the world Eshe and her aunt inhabit reminds me of the compound, the capital, and all the things I despise about my brothers. The excessive waste proudly on display shows my new home to be very much like the one I left behind.

I am not at the party for more than a minute before I feel everything I knew I would. Ushering me in like a dark secret, the staff present me to Grace, who is almost unrecognisable in celebratory attire. The concern I saw not too long ago written on her face is gone, replaced with an expression that matches the guests’, who perspire nothing but wealth and a keen sense of privilege.

“You came.” She beams at me, taking my arm with a kinship we do not yet possess.

“You asked me to.” I force a smile to push away the awkwardness I can feel settling in on me, surrounded on all sides by nothing safe.

“I’m glad you did.” She moves me across the room, further into the crowd.

“How is she?” I ask.

“She is the same. She says she’s fine, but I can see a change in her since you met the other day. I think what you told her must have sunk in, or at least some of it.”

“And yet, she is still here, continuing with this?” My eyes catch the sea of balloons trapped, waiting above our heads. Keen partygoers giggle excitedly while their eyes search for the person they want to be seen with.

She nods slowly. “It’s hard to wake up one day and find everything you thought you knew about yourself untrue. Can you imagine what she must be wrestling with?”

Of course, I understand. I know what she is feeling. I have lived this moment before. But for me, there was a relief in naming the difference I’d felt my whole life. I was pleased when they explained it and offered me a new path. By that time, there was nothing left of my old life to return to. It was them or nothing.

“I understand.”

“She will get there,” Grace says. “It will just take her some time.”

“Time is not on her side.”

Grace looks back at me, and I see the old fear in her eyes before they are drawn to the centre of the room.

My own follow hers to find Eshe arriving. She’s partially obscured from my view, but I can see her. And it’s enough to stop my breath. She looks incredible – stunning – in a gold dress that makes her look every part the royalty I know her family to be descended from. I am struck by her, and though I have thought it before, I let myself think it again: her beauty exceeds that even of Isabel.

I should look away; I know that. I should stop my mind from charging headfirst into all the thoughts I have suppressed. All the wishes and desires I have hidden even from myself. But I don’t. For this moment alone, I tell myself, just once, I want to be free from all the restraints I place upon myself. I want to delight in looking at her as I allow myself to dream of another life. One in which I might be free to speak and act on the things I feel.

Then I remember myself and where I am. I remember what I have told myself before about her, about Isabel, and the things they provoke in me. I can appreciate their beauty, I can give it a name, but I cannot allow any part of it to seed in my mind. Because, yes, they are beautiful. They may be stunning. They may call to me. But are also dangerous. Eshe even more so. And while the forbidden nature of these thoughts may spur lesser men on, I know too much to see anything but pain and regret waiting ahead for me in it.

My eyes dutifully obey my command and fall off her, back into the room. But in my peripheral vision, I can still see her. And the arm that is resting on her back – the idiot from the restaurant. The sight of him startles something deep inside me, a loathing so strong it unleashes a growl. Angry and menacing, it is muffled enough that no one else hears it. It still provokes shame.

I have no right to feel any of the things the growl speaks of, but there is still anger in seeing them together. Anger aimed at her. The sight of her trying to build something with someone, pretending to be something she is not, something she can never be. The gift that has been bestowed upon us comes with a price; we cannot walk the world as ordinary people do, or forsake our calling for a chance at happily ever after. To think anything else is foolish and selfish. Just like she is. To stand there surrounded by all those people, with him. No matter the path she chooses, this life will never be hers, can never be hers.

That’s why I can’t control myself. Why I let my Lion Soul get the better of me. The gel-haired man and his proximity to her have little to do with it. I reaffirm that like a mantra, already aware of the lie I am trying too hard to sell.

I am just about able to turn away from them, when I feel her eyes upon me.

Chapter 17

Adeben

I make my way across the room, threading past platters of neatly arranged tiny portions of food, avoiding meeting the gaze I know is still on me. She’s watching me. Has been since she caught me watching her far too intently. She has started towards me a few times already, but each time I’ve safely hidden away in the crowd as her guests pull her into yet another conversation.

I never should have come to the party. I’m growing increasingly concerned about my loss of control. Twice now in as many weeks, after years without incident. I cannot allow a third.

Most of the people at the party do not take much notice of me, but a few have their eyes trained on my every movement. A group of girls whisper to each other, giggling away as they hunt for my eye, only to look away when I turn to face them. Another man might have been flattered. Any one of my brothers would’ve pounced by now, but I am too bored, too exhausted to feel anything but a growing sense of irritation.

I need to leave. I need to go home and recollect myself. I want to speak to the Elders, demand more information so I can be done with this mission and return.

“Hi there.” One of the girls from the giggling group, broken away from the pack, stands in front of me.

“Hi,” I answer only out of politeness before shifting away.

“And who are you?”

Something in how she says it pulls my focus, and I turn back to look at her. Her boldness, her refusal to be dismissed. She is not my type – she is too much of the traits I dislike – but still, I find myself willing to give her my time and attention.

Maybe it’s because I am tired of being ignored by everyone else. Maybe it’s because I have not entirely shut down the part of me that fell into watching Eshe. Maybe it’s because I feel a longing in me for home, for comfort, for touch, and I need to quash those feelings to be able to do what I have been sent here for.

So when she touches my arm suggestively to punctuate her every word, I let her. Her eyes challenge me, leading me further into the moment. But this feels far safer than the other thoughts in my head.

After talking for what feels like an age, while her clan watches her intently, her words grow bolder, more suggestive, throwing away any opportunity for her meaning to be missed.

It is unwise, I know, even as I allow myself to enjoy all the contact she hungrily throws my way. I need to stay on task, keep my focus on what I came to the party to do, the voice in my head whispers. But it doesn’t stop me. I fall further away from my plans, my task, and my nature. Possessed by some unseen force, a fire ignites, and all I know is that the girl currently holding my attention is neither the source, the igniter, or the firewood.

I happily let her lead me away from the main party to a corridor. Her smile is hungrier still, her lips pursed expectingly, her body so close. Too close. A shiver runs down my spine, its path accelerated by drinks far too rich for my blood.

And then I’m strangled by my desires, the fire in my chest. The heated blood coursing through my entire body. She leans forward, her lips closing the gap between what is me and what is her, but leaving a centimetre to be claimed.

I stare at the space, waiting to be absorbed. Her eyes closed, her own desires frozen, the bloated lines of her lips ready. But who is she? Suddenly, my mind, fighting against a haze, is confused by the figure in front of me.

I retreat, opening up enough space to confirm she isn’t who I thought she was. She isn’t capable of starting these reactions in me. She isn’t the one I want.

“Adeben.”

The sound of my name does not quite manage to push away all the haze, but the sight of Eshe meters away does.

“What are you doing?” Her tone is laced with an anger I don’t believe has the right to be there, but it is there nonetheless, and something about that delights me.

“I didn’t see you there,” is the only response my heady mind can construct.

“You didn’t see me? That’s what you are going for?”

“Look—”

“You have been avoiding my calls and messages for days,” she says. “And now you’re here? With her?”

“Is there a problem?” the girl asks, pushing her body too close to me, and for the first time, Eshe looks directly at her. Her eyes smoulder with a fire, continuing to spike something in me. Adrenaline, maybe.

“This is your type?” Eshe continues, her frame blocking any way out of the corridor for me and my companion. “I would’ve thought you had better taste than that.”

“What? How dare you?” The girl is shocked, hurt and confused, and I do not blame her.

“You’re a real classy guy. Spouting all that nonsense about me, and then you’re here doing this?” Eshe’s voice is getting louder, more cutting. “Is this what they sent you over here to do?”

“I didn’t see you.” My voice strains, still heavy with confusion.

“I spent the last half an hour looking for you!”

“I didn’t ask you to look for me,” I reply with my tone, shoulders, and self-respect low.

“Then why are you here?”

“Your aunt asked me to come,” I answer, placing space again between myself and the girl I have no business being here with.

“Oh, it’s just a coincidence you are here, ruining yet another thing in my life?”

“I don’t know what your problem is, Eshe,” the girl starts, her shoulders rising indignantly.

Eshe will not back down, though. All her anger, which had been pulsating at me, for me, turns and shifts towards the girl. Taking a step towards her, she shouts, “This does not concern you, Tiffany!”

“I’m struggling to see how any of this concerns you!” Tiffany too is getting bolder. I believe she always was; it is what led me here, after all.

“This is my party!”

“So go back to your party and leave us alone.”

“Are you kidding me?” Eshe screams. Now, there is no mistaking what is happening. It’s not anger rolling off her. It’s rage. The kind that has only one destructive purpose.

I move between her and Tiffany and attempt to diffuse things. “Eshe, you need to calm down.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. Stop telling me what I need to do and what I shouldn’t be doing. When you— You just—”

“What’s her problem?” Tiffany turns to me, but it’s the worst thing she can do.

“Get out!” Eshe screams, loud enough that everyone must hear. Tiffany jumps back, falling behind my body. It’s just dawning on her that something is not quite right.

“Eshe, you need to calm yourself,” I try.

“Get out now!” More rage clouds over her at the girl now cowering behind me.

“You should go,” I whisper to Tiffany, making sure my body is the only subject of the rage I have brought on.

She looks back at me, unsure if she should stand down from this exchange, her pride already wounded.

“Go now. Please,” I beg as I see her eyes fall on Eshe, noticing how breathless she has become.

I turn back to Eshe after Tiffany has conceded and walked away. “You need to calm down. You know what could happen.” But it has the opposite effect than I intended.

“Shut up!” she screams. “Stop telling me what to do!” Her rage comes to a head, and her hands reach out to push me. The force of it, only a fraction of what I suspect she truly contains, is still enough that I fall back against the wall. “You! You just show up here and think you can control me.”

When I have regained my position, she pushes me again. This time, I am prepared, so her action only moves her closer to me.

This close, I can see her. The brown hue of her eyes burning amber. I can see she is fading away, and the lioness is taking over. I know how little time I have to act before it is done.

This is not how I want it to be done. Even with everything I know, I hope – I still do – that she can make it through. Withstand everything happening to her. That she can control it, and I will not have to step into the role waiting for me.

Soon, Tiffany will return with others. If I do not act quickly, they will be in the perfect position to witness Eshe transform.

I can feel her rage. I can see it on her face. I know that if I do not act, I will soon witness a massacre that I will struggle to prevent, even in my lion form.

My mind searches for all possible courses of action while simultaneously cursing Eshe for not heeding any warnings. She has been so stubborn, so selfish in her determination not to accept who she is, and this – her refusal to be anything other than what she wanted – has dragged me into a role I do not want.

“Who do you think you are?” she continues raging.

Time is running out. I can feel it. I need to change and take her down. I cannot give her a chance to change instead. As rageful as she is, the lioness will only carry that rage much further.

“And with her? You, with her?” As she leans in to push me again, my eyes dart past her and see the kitchen doors to the right of us. A plan forms. But it will be useless if I do not move quick.

“I’m sorry,” I say as I run to the doors.

“Sorry? You think you’re sorry?” she screams as she aims herself in my direction. “You don’t know what that word means.”

When I enter the kitchen, I see a few people busy working. “Get out now!” I scream at them. They are startled enough by my presence that when Eshe enters the kitchen, too, they do not think twice about performing as I have asked.

“This is between you and me,” I say. “No one has to get hurt.”

“Do you think I care about them? About any of you? I just want to be left alone.” Her words are sorrowful, but she is too filled with rage to feel any other emotion. She continues to stalk me further into the kitchen as the last of the kitchen staff escape. “Why can’t you all just leave me alone?” she bellows, before charging at me.

As she does, I reach over to open the door to the walk-in freezer that I have positioned myself in front of. She is too blinded by her rage to notice or react to the movement. Already, her form has begun to change. Her legs are throwing her into the air, the force carrying her further than it should. It doesn’t take long before the girl who was angry at me is gone, and it’s the lioness instead, carrying her thoughts and rage, flying through the air towards me.

I fight the urge to release my lion form when the spike of adrenaline calls on my Lion Soul. She reaches me with a speed she would realise was not normal if she were in her right mind.

I move out of her path. She goes barrelling into the freezer, and I waste no time locking the door, trapping her inside before she can spin around and come for me.

I barely hear her growling through the metal door and over my pounding heart.

I need to settle my heartbeat. I need to calm down, or she will not be the only lion in this kitchen.

I cast my mind to the place I always go to when I need to force a calm through my body. Sinking to the door, the sounds of the lioness muffled behind me, I raise my hand in front of me. Slowly, steadying my breath and skipping a few intakes, I trace my finger across the lines of my palm. Following each line, I tell myself the story of where I have come from, where I am now, and where I hope to go, just as my sister taught me to do as a boy. It always works. It does this time, too. When my finger has reached the last faint line on my smallest finger, I feel in control again. Ready to assess my situation and find a way out.

I can still hear her behind the door, her roars muffled but still stained with rage. There is no way I can get into the freezer, and I don’t want to. If I do enter, it will not be to retrieve her. It will be for one purpose only.

This is all my fault.

I could kick myself for being so foolish. I had no business with that girl, Tiffany, yet I allowed myself to be provoked and led by my desires. I should never have let myself fall so easily into watching Eshe, never entertained the thoughts I have no right to think. Now, instead of guiding her, helping her, I have provoked her and ultimately given cause for her rage to overcome her.

Of course, I couldn’t have known she would find me or that her finding me with Tiffany would have made her wild. It’s not my fault. There was too much I could not have foreseen, I tell myself, all the while knowing I have made a terrible mistake.

I cannot kill her. Not like this. Not when I carry so much blame for what has happened tonight.

I am tired. Too exhausted to do anything of consequence.

I will wait, I decide. Leave her in there for the night. Perhaps when morning comes, things will be different. She might regain control, the cold air forcing a calm into her. And, failing that, the cold should subdue the lioness enough for my hand to be swift.

Chapter 18

Adeben

I sit on the floor with my back against the freezer through the night. Any rest I’d planned on seeking slips out of my grasp despite my body’s sensible cries. She will not be able to get out. I know this. Not in her lion form, and not even if she changes back. But I am vigilant, nonetheless.

Around three in the morning, I could no longer hear her roars and so I allowed myself to be hopeful. Hopeful against all the odds that she had regained control. But when I looked in through the window in the freezer door, I saw it wasn’t the case. The lioness had simply grown tired and sprawled herself out on the floor, falling into a deep slumber.

It was devastating to see her still there.

I didn’t have much hope my plan would work, that Eshe might have enough time to reclaim her body and mind. But I’d had enough hope to try.

As soon as I saw the lioness, that hope – the little there was – evaporated quickly, giving way to other feelings. Feelings anchored in things like truth and fact. Truths that told me more than enough time had passed and if Eshe was going to change back, she would’ve already. Facts like Lion Souls never sleep in their lion form; they cannot maintain the form while their mind rests and is at peace. These truths, these facts, ultimately work to remind me that the hope I am holding onto outside the door is nothing but a figment of my imagination.

The only thing I am glad of is that I managed to convince Grace to go home. She was the first to enter the kitchen once the news of the commotion inevitably reached the main room. I explained that Eshe had turned again, leaving me no choice but to contain her. She wanted to see her and go to her, but I convinced her that her help was needed elsewhere to keep everyone away. She handled it well, concocting a story that sent everyone out looking for Eshe and giving the kitchen a wide berth. And even after she returned to see her niece, she seemed to understand when I said she couldn’t.

There is too much to be explained. Not least, some explanation about why I chose to lie to her about being a Lion Soul myself. And then there is the task I might need to complete. In no universe, under any circumstances, would she stand for my doing anything but saving her niece. And Grace would only bring with her more hope – hope that would no doubt feed and refresh my own, only prolonging this whole process even further.

I do not need her and her hope clouding my judgment.

Yet my judgment is already clouded. I know Eshe now. I enjoy her company. Even when difficult, I find her more tolerable than most people.

It was cruel for anyone to think I could come here, watch her, know her, and then look upon her carcass, knowing she died at my hands.

This is your fate.

It is the hand that I have been dealt. And there is only so long I can remain rooted on this floor, refusing to look into a freezer. Refusing to fulfil what my dreams have long tried to prepare me for.

Another hour won’t hurt, I tell myself, for plenty more hours.

***

“Hello.”

I hear a voice so quiet my mind claims its providence from within. These tricks I play on myself will be the death of me.

“Hello.” Rising quickly with more anticipation than sense, I force myself to look into the window – only to see Eshe and not the lioness.

She calls out my name as I open the door, and I am stunned into silence. I can scarcely believe my eyes, but there she is, lying on the floor. Alive. Back. It is what I have been hoping for. But when have any of my dreams, hopes, wishes ever come true?

“Eshe,” I finally manage to say. She looks up at me. She’s covered in bruises, scratches, some dried blood, but she looks fine.

Suddenly, she looks away from me and down at herself. When my eyes follow her, I am embarrassed not to have noticed.

“Sorry, your dress. It split.” I blush, turning away quickly and setting my eyes on the task of finding her something to cover up.

A half-empty coat peg houses scarves and aprons from the staff I dismissed, but not much else. An oversized jacket is the best I can find, and even when I give it to her, I still cannot shake the mortification.

“Thank you,” she whispers and only then do I allow my eyes to fall back on her. Pulling her up off the ground, I cannot help but notice when her skin connects with mine, and I feel the icy crystals left by this plan.

It was a stupid plan. How long has she been herself again, calling out, waiting for help, while I refused to look back inside the window like a coward? She could have died in there. She came close, I know, as I watch her try to take a step but fall back down.

“Did I hurt anyone?” she whispers, her eyes wider than usual, but still avoiding landing anywhere on me or the air surrounding me.

I help her to chair. “No, I got you into the freezer just as you changed.”

I hear her thank me as I push the chair towards the stoves. Turning all of them on, I smile back at her, begging for warmth to enter her. Some colour to return to the ashen hue on her beautifully brown face.

“How are you feeling?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I—” She is overcome by tears.

“You are okay. No one was hurt. These are all good things,” I try, feeling distinctly inadequate when it comes to everything regarding her.

“I am not okay. I don’t know what I am.”

“You are here. That’s all that matters right now.”

She seems to find some comfort in the hollow words, and while her shoulders continue to rise and fall quietly, her sobs stop.

Seeing her like this destroys me. I want to do more. I want to hug her, console her, but I find myself unable to bear the sting of her proximity. Her cold skin reminds me of my part in this, the damage I have done to her.

“Where is everyone?” she asks with some volume, her voice finally returning.

“They left a while ago.”

“How long was I in there for?”

I cannot look at her anymore. It’s too painful, too raw.

“How long?” she begs.

“A day.”

“Oh God. They must be worried. Oh, Tom.”

Hearing his name, I do not trust myself to act like I should. I answer back far too quickly, and I still cannot catch myself before my eyes roll. “What do you remember?”

“I came to look for you, and then. Shit, Tiffany! Is she okay?” Her head turns far too quickly to find me behind her, and the movement unsettles her. Holding her head in her hands, she closes her eyes while her fingers stab at her temples.

“Yes, she’s fine.”

“Thank goodness. I just lost it. I was so—” She stops, maybe embarrassed, ashamed, or disgusted, before continuing. “I could see and feel everything. It was me, but it was like I wasn’t in control anymore. I couldn’t stop it.”

“The Lion Soul took over. People don’t usually come back from that.”

“You locked me in there.” It’s not accusatory, but that’s how I read it anyway.

“I had no choice, I didn’t want you—”

“I know. Thank you. If you hadn’t been here, I would have attacked someone.”

“If I weren’t here, you probably wouldn’t have lost control,” I say, feeling the weight of the night before, my actions, my weakness, all of my mistakes.

“I was angry. I felt it all day. I just couldn’t shake it. If it hadn’t been you, someone else would have…”

I shake my head. “I shouldn’t have behaved that way. I am sorry.”

“No, you have nothing to apologise for. You can do what you want, with whoever you want.” She tries to smile, but it’s so weak, so distorted, it only serves to unnerve me further.

“I am still sorry.”

“It was smart of you to lock me in the freezer. It drove her mad not being able to get out.” If she reads anything in me about how I feel, she doesn’t show it.

“It was all I could think of at the time,” I say. “To cage a Lion Soul is wrong. Painful. I wish there had been another way.”

“You did what you could. But next time, you can’t take any risks. If I lose control like that again, I need you to promise me you won’t risk thinking I’ll come back. I need you to promise me you will put her down.” The resoluteness in her voice surprises me, and it takes a while before I can respond.

My eyes fall past her, fixing on the freezer door.

There was no space for the feelings that the door and the dark chamber behind it provoked me in last night. Not when there were so many other feelings brewing in me. But now, I cannot escape them. And I am instantly back there, in Kakrawaa, behind my own door.

Trapped. Confined. Punished. The blue box, my father’s studio, was my own freezer for so many of the nights during my childhood.

The air inside it was not as cold as the air that blanketed Eshe last night, but the thought is more than enough to send a violent shiver through my entire body.

Who was that boy? Screaming, begging for help, crying for Ada.

The fresh wounds on his back stung, leaking blood to conceal older, deeper wounds. His cries did little to provoke any mercy and even less to ward off the rats, whose domain he was intruding upon.

She always came. Ada. Even if each time I doubted her, she came. Her soft voice sang me into a slumber that should not have been possible. Her strong arms carried me away, while the cloths she hid me in, carried her scent. Magnolia.

She was my salvation. The only light in a blackened prison.

I look away from the freezer door. How easily we emulate the wickedness we have seen. How easily we put on the shoes of those before us.

I find my words again. “There cannot be a next time. Eshe, this can never happen again.”

“I know. I see that now. Believe me. But I am not going any further until you promise me. I can’t hurt anyone else. I couldn’t live with that.”

“What makes you think I could do anything to stop you?”

“I think we both know that you could.” There’s so much accusation in her voice. I don’t want to hear it. I cannot. “Look, we are stuck together. That much is clear. So let’s not lie to each other. I know what I need to do now. This is the only path left for me, but I need to trust you. If I can’t trust you, I can’t do this with you.” As she speaks carefully, her colour and strength return – slowly but at a pace that should not be possible.

“You can trust me,” I push back.

“Then don’t lie to me. There’s a question I need to ask you.”

My heartbeat quickens. It’s clear what she will ask. How can she know? I have been so careful, too careful. Perhaps Elder Botkin was right; her Lion Soul knows. Has always known. And maybe I was foolish to believe that even though she was at war with her soul, there would be no lines of communication. No way for her to feel or hear anything her Lion Soul might have to share.

“I won’t ask you today,” she continues. “But one day, I will ask you my question, and when I do, I need you to tell me the truth. No lies.”

“I understand,” I concede, grateful for the reprieve, not knowing how I might have answered today if she forced the issue.

“Good, so now promise.”

“Promise?”

“Promise me that if I go again. You will not hesitate and put down the lioness.”

My skin prickles uncomfortably at her words. My breath deepens. “You want me to promise to kill a Lion Soul?”

“Yes. I need you to promise. That’s the only way.”

“You’ve come back from the dead with a million demands. What happened to you in there?” I laugh, giving me a reason to take in all the too-warm air in the kitchen. It floods my system, calms the prickle down, all the while, her eyes never leave me.

I try to walk away from her, but her hand, still bitterly cold, grabs my arm. With a low tone frequently breaking, she says, “I almost didn’t make it back. I was lost with no hope. It took everything I had to get back here.”

“Yes, and you made it.”

“No, you don’t understand. I shouldn’t be here. I only just made it through. And knowing what it took, I know I could never do it again. I will never come back again. I see now that there is no other way. And you need to see that too.”

Looking into her eyes, with the fire from the cooker reflecting in her irises, I know she is right. I know she understands now the path ahead of her, the futility in trying another. And I know she is right about me, too. I took too big a risk waiting to see if she could return. Nothing I knew about my world told me she could. She had gone too far. Yet here she is, standing in front of me. Alive, well, in control. Her own self. It is impossible, should be impossible. But then everything about her should not be possible. She shouldn’t even exist, and yet here she is. So, with her, it is easy for me to believe in the impossible.

Faced with the same situation again, my instinct will be to wait. I waited this time and have been rewarded for my faith. Now, there is so much more hope in me than I had sitting on the floor for all those hours last night. But something in her voice, in her eyes, tells me that I am wrong and she is right. She knows more than me. She has been to the edge, fallen off it and somehow managed to climb back up. So, when she says she can never do this again, that it will not happen again, I believe her. I feel it. This enormous feat she has performed will never happen again, no matter how much I wish for it. And the strength, the magic, the power, it took to do it will not return to her.

“I promise that if it comes to it again, I will kill the Lion Soul. I will not want to, but I will because you asked.” My words are thorned when they leave my throat, but on her face, I see the comfort she finds in them. “In return, you have to help me ensure that it never comes to that.”

“Of course. I don’t want to go there again.” She looks away from me and straight into the fire. From where I stand, it consumes her eyes entirely, leaving no other colour, no space for anything else.

“No more pills,” I tell her. “You need to train. You need to allow me to teach you all I know.”

“I will.”

“I need you to commit fully to this and only this,” I push, pulling her gaze away from the fire and to me.

“I will.”

“Not here, it’s too dangerous. There is a place just outside of London. We must go there and begin the training immediately.”

“How long for?”

“I don’t know how long it will take. But you need to be prepared to stay for however long that is. No questions.”

“Sure.” It doesn’t come easy to her – she struggles with the word, the acceptance of it – and it is not enough.

“I mean it. It will be difficult. You won’t like it, but we need to do it.”

“What does it involve?” she asks, breaking away from me. Her head turns as she rubs at her neck, subconsciously – or maybe even consciously – using her hand to shield the spot on her neck we’ve both dreamt of too often.

“No questions,” I say. “It is what it is, and if I am going to do it, I need you to trust I can help you.”

“No questions? What is this?” I have pushed too far, and though her eyes return to me, I still see the fire from the stove in my eyeline, flickering in them. “Am I supposed to just submit to your will?”

“In a way, yes.” I smile because something sick in me delights in seeing her fire.

“No. I’ll tell you now then, I want to learn. I need to learn. But I will never be a blind fool.”

I laugh but only to cover up everything else I feel. “I am joking about you submitting to my will. But very serious about everything else.”

“Okay, yes,” she says seriously. “I can do that.”

Chapter 19

Eshe

It’s been a week since we left the party and drove straight to the house in Surrey that Adeben arranged for us to live in while my training was underway. I haven’t seen anyone but him. My family, Tom – he said they would all be distractions until I learnt to control my Lion Soul. He would not put them in danger, not until I showed him that I, and only I, was in control of my actions. It makes sense to me. I understand. The last thing I want to do is hurt them or anyone else. And if this is what it takes to make sure I never feel the way I did in that garden or that night at the party, it’s a price I will happily pay.

I miss them. All of them.

Hearing the worry in my mother’s voice when I told her I had checked myself into a facility to help deal with the trauma of the incident at the Bramble estate was hard. It probably wasn’t the first time she had worried about me, but it was the first time I heard it so clearly.

My cover story, the reasons I gave for my absence were much easier to sell than I might have liked. No one was surprised at where I had ended up. I suppose my erratic behaviour for the last few months gave them enough to build their belief on. And my histories were a blueprint for what would come next. Tom was pleased I was “getting help”. He told me he was proud I had strength enough to acknowledge something was wrong. Even Tiffany took my apology in her stride and offered details of better facilities if I didn’t find the help I needed where I was. It was so normal to them, almost expected, that I would be due another breakdown.

So now I’m doing that, getting help. The help differs from what they imagined, but the “breakdown” felt very real and much like the ones that had come before. I want to get well. I want to surrender myself to the training Adeben promises will leave me feeling more whole. I need to be better than I have been at handling everything that has fallen into my lap – or so he tells me as I wait for the day when he believes I am ready to start training.

Per our deal, I stopped taking the pills I began to rely on for more than just taming the Lion Soul. Adeben suggested I reduce the dose slowly over a few weeks and wean myself off them, but I didn’t. I couldn’t risk weeks, not when the lioness had already forced her way out. It was only a matter of time until she burst through me again. I was desperate for control, needed it so I could confront her. And if that meant I had to take the quicker, more hazardous route, then that was what I would do. Having spent hours in a freezer, withstanding her assault and the cold, I was sure I could withstand any symptoms of withdrawal, too.

On the first day, my system shut down. A darkness covered my vision and drove me to bed, where I stayed for days, fighting the dizziness and haze that coated my every movement.

A few days in, when I thought I was over the worst of it, I searched for Adeben. Since we arrived at the cottage, I’d seen very little of him, only catching glimpses of him for seconds when he brought food I couldn’t eat to my room. I felt “better”; I told him I was ready to begin our training. He laughed. His whole body joined in, moving with a ridiculous bounce even as he walked away. I would have been annoyed had my overriding feeling not been gratitude. Gratitude he had walked away when he did before he could see me lose my balance and fall.

At least he didn’t see how weak I still was.

It doesn’t deter me. I continue, trying again and again. Each new day, I find him cold, that same stupid laugh the only answer he gives.

He was so different after the party, much kinder, more open. Since we left the city together, something has changed. He has changed. Weeks ago, he haunted me. Everywhere I went, there was his face, his voice, begging me to accept what was happening to me, to give him the chance to teach me. And now here I am, ready, willing, open to hearing him and getting started on the training he has gone on about for so long. Everything he asked, I have done, all to prove I am ready. He said I needed to come here, so I did. I left my home and everyone I loved. Only to be confined in this country house, more alone than I have ever felt. What more does he want? What more can I do to meet his idea of ready?

The more I think about it, the angrier I get. The things I have given up, the people I might have already lost. This isn’t the first time I have had to go away. Everything I have done here I could have done at home. Why has he brought me here just to ignore me? Why is he behaving this way when I am doing exactly what he asked? Why have I let him?

“We are starting today!” I shout, having charged my way through the house to find him in the study, still carrying all the anger his stupid laugh has created.

“Excuse me?” He barely looks up from the book he is reading. The arrogance of him, to not even meet my eyes.

“Today! My training starts today.”

“You are not ready.”

“Today! Enough of these stupid excuses. You brought me here to train, so train me.” Making my way further into the room, I check my stance, afraid that my body will betray me this time, like all the last times.

“I’m not sure why I’m having to repeat myself,” he says.

“You’re repeating yourself? Are you kidding me?”

Only then does he put the book down and turn to face me. “Look, I have told you. You—”

“Don’t you dare say I am not ready. I am telling you I am ready. It’s my body. I know what it is capable of, and I am telling you, I am ready to start. Today!” My heart starts quietly racing, and each beat carefully punctuates my words.

He looks back at me, his eyes pulling back the cold glare that has been there since we arrived, and smiles. “Okay. We start today.”

“What?” I choke out, winded.

“We will start your training today. That’s what you wanted, right?”

“Yes, but why are you agreeing with me?”

“Because now I believe you are ready,” he says, and if he is hoping to shock or trick me, then I can’t do anything to stop that. Everything is written on my face. He sees it before continuing, “Because you are angry. I can see you are angry, so you are ready.”

“You wanted me to be angry?”

“I didn’t want anything. I needed to see that you could be angry.”

“Why? The last time I was angry, you saw what happened. You had to lock me in a freezer.”

His face falls, and he says, “I wish you wouldn’t keep bringing up the freezer. Last time you weren’t angry, you were rageful. Rage is very different to anger.”

“Rageful?”

“Yes, you were rageful. You almost destroyed me and that girl. You were blind with it. It’s dangerous. Being angry is different. It is a normal emotion in a normal situation. I understand why you are angry. I would be angry too.” There’s a smirk that rests on Adeben’s face as a default emotion. Today, that smirk is so much more than passive.

“I don’t get it.” I feel like a dumb rich girl, too silly to understand any of the things that I know I need to understand.

“Often, after a traumatic experience, a Lion Soul may start to fear emotions they perceive to be negative and repress them. Anger is one of the strongest triggers for a Lion Soul, so experiencing it and handling it calmly is crucial to being in control.”

“How did you know I wouldn’t lose it again?”

“I can tell. I knew last time you would.”

“That’s why you asked Tiffany to go and lured me to the kitchen,” I say carefully, feeling him tense, ready for me to bring up the freezer again.

“Yes. The pills you were taking are meant to help dull emotions. You wouldn’t have been able to feel the anger with them still in your system.”

“But I was angry last time?”

“No, you were rageful.” He repeats the word and I cringe, internally, externally, on every level. The shame of it, my actions that day. He sees me react but continues, “It’s true. You were. You were filled with rage and probably had been for a while. With that many pills in your system, you never felt the anger that started it. And because you didn’t feel it, you let it be, the irritation growing. You couldn’t recognise the emotion, and you could not form an adequate response to alleviate it, allowing it to swell into rage. And we all know how that ended.”

“Okay. I get it.” I roll my eyes, turning my face away. But his smirk finds me.

“Do you? I asked you to come here only if you would trust me in what I was doing. When I say you are ready, it’s because I have seen all the things I need to see to know. So next time, trust me.”

“Fine.” His eyes glance over me, waiting. I don’t know what he wants to hear or needs to hear. He has his process, and I understand that. But I have mine too, and being kept in the dark, being kept full stop, isn’t something I know how to stomach.

“We can begin now,” he finally says, place the book he was reading back into the shelves behind him and standing tall. Wasting no more time, he leads me out of the house and into the gardens.

It was dark when we first arrived, and in the week I have been here, I’ve barely left my bed, let alone the house. So seeing these gardens and realising they were here all along strikes me dumb. They are beautiful, filled with stunning patches of colour that my eyes struggle to take in all at once. As we walk through them, my mind tries to find where they end. Miles ahead, stretching to the edge of my vision, are walls. It’s almost like a fortress, the walls so high and covered in ivy that effortlessly merges the garden into the woods beyond. It doesn’t feel imposing. It feels safe, comforting even.

It takes a while before we reach the centre. And in the middle is a quiet lake, untouched by human hands. It’s carpeted in lily pads and filled with the sounds of life – buzzing, croaking, and birdsong drift all around us.

Everything about this place calls to me. It feels peaceful and contemplative. It sets free all the anger and apprehension in me. It’s so different to the house that stands to its rear. The house is cold, modern, but this is warm and inviting. This feels like a place where I can happily hide away for as long as I need to. This feels like a place where I can try to repair the damage I feel inside. A place I can thrive in.

“This is amazing.” I look over at Adeben, sitting more peacefully than I have seen him before, by the lake.

“It belongs to one of the tribe members. We use it when we have business here.”

“This place should be for more than business. It’s an oasis. It’s a shame no one lives here permanently.” I continue walking around the lake, taking it all in, feeling overwhelmed and content. I start to feel Adeben watching me, and though his gaze prickles my skin, I do not react.

“So now we begin. Show me.” He smiles, leaning further into the bench.

“I don’t think I can.”

“You can’t train until I can see what we are working with.”

“You’ve already seen it. At the party.” We both avoid each other’s gaze in the pause after my words.

“I was too busy trying to contain the situation to inspect your lion form. Plus, you need to be able to change at will, not just when you’re fired up. It’s different. It feels different.”

I take a deep breath and wait for her to appear. She doesn’t. I search my mind for some idea of how to do this, something instinctual, but there is nothing like that in my memory. My eyes close, and I try again. But I don’t really want to. Not here. Everything about this place is the opposite of what the lioness is. To unleash her here, to do to this place what she has done to every other place… I can’t do it. Not when the memory of the wreckage she left behind in the freezer is so fresh in my mind. Not when I can still remember the damage I did at the Bramble estate. To Roger.

“Just relax, it’s easy,” Adeben says.

“I can’t.”

“You can. Relax. Just let the veil fall down.”

“There is no veil. There’s nothing.”

“It’s easy. Just relax.”

His tone isn’t provoking, but that’s what it does. “You do it then,” I spit back, catching his glance and meeting him with an edge.

He won’t change, I know that. But I am sure he can.

Everything he told my aunt, everything he has led me to believe, says that he can’t. Yet, I know, somehow – I feel it, as truly as I know the area around me is filled with air – that he is a Lion Soul. The way he moves, the grace his limbs pull forward with, the way he stands tall; it all too keenly resembles a lion. It’s like there is a force, invisible but felt, moving around him, pushing out everyone in his path. I saw it at the party, how his presence moved people before his body reached them. Even before then, I felt how he pulled at something in me. A kinship, a familiarity that can only be explained by him being what I am. A Lion Soul.

Then there was his roar. I heard it at the party.

When I came out with Tom, I felt his eyes on me. I knew he was watching me. Even in a room that crowded, with everyone’s eyes on me, watching me, discussing me, his felt different. There was something in his, the way they traced over me, that I enjoyed. I’d even started to imagine what he might be thinking, what the sight of me might have created in him. Desire, I flattered myself to believe. Then, I felt a surge of anger in him. And heard him make a sound that filled the room.

Except it didn’t fill the room. No one else seemed to have heard him. But I did. I know I did. It was a roar, a lion’s cry. He was gone when I summoned the courage to look back at him. Withdrawing fast, he hid like he had done something wrong. Everything I thought I knew became so much more certain after that.

Why didn’t he just tell me? Why? My questions, carefully probing, are always ignored, making it clear he wants to hide that truth. But why? Why hide from me?

He might have been afraid to show me at first; I haven’t exactly been welcoming to him or the Lion Souls. But now, with just the two of us in the garden, it’s different. I am different. There is no reason to hide. There is no reason not to show me what to do instead of wasting time just telling me. Surely, he knows a demonstration would be the best way to teach me what he insists I need to learn.

“Do you want to learn or not?” he asks. “You need to calm your mind of all other thoughts.” My eyes are closed, I am trying to do exactly what he says, but I can feel him behind me, close, and something in the space between us is charged.

“I don’t think you should stand so close to me.”

“Is my proximity making you uncomfortable?” he asks gently.

“No. I don’t want to hurt you.” My skin starts prickling. My scalp warms, heating up to a temperature I cannot ignore.

“Don’t worry about that. Focus on your breathing.”

“Okay. Breathing.” I smile, hoping he can see.

“Find her, find the lioness in your mind,” I think I hear him say. I can feel his breath on the back of my neck. And all other thoughts fall away.

“Okay. I’m searching for the lioness.”

“You don’t have to search in some deep corner for her. She’s there. She is you. When you close your eyes, she’s there. Just acknowledge her. Let your mind see her,” he continues, breathing in and out slowly. I am drawn to him. My own breaths begin to mirror his.

“I can’t see her.”

“Try. Stop telling me what you can’t do and just do it.” The pace of his breath quickens, pulling mine along.

“Can you calm down? You’re doing that thing again.” My heart races now with something I don’t dare examine.

“I am not doing anything. You need to focus.” I feel the connection weaken as I picture him stepping back.

“I can feel it. You’re doing that thing you did at the restaurant. How can I focus when you’re altering my breath?”

Now my frustration has company. His own is much heavier, much darker and all-consuming. “Control your own breath. You need to find calm to be able to do this.”

“How can I be calm when you’re standing behind me, breathing all over my neck?” My words are harsher than they need to be and full of both our frustrations.

“If I am making you uncomfortable, I’ll leave. You can stay here, practising until you change.”

“Adeben, I didn’t mean that.”

“You said you were ready! This is what training looks like.” He sounds winded. He sounds like I feel. He continues, “I’ll be inside. Return when you have successfully changed into the lioness.” So much anger coats him as he disappears from my view. Then I am left alone in the beautiful garden, trapped with a lioness I cannot find.

Chapter 20

Adeben

Hours pass after I leave her in the garden, and the guilt I have ignored swells when she does not return. I looked out of the kitchen window an hour ago, and she was still there. In the same spot. Even after it was too dark to see her fully.

I should have gone out back, told her we would try again tomorrow. That it was okay, that this task is hard. But I didn’t. Instead, I find other things to do. I busy myself around the house. I write my report to the tribe, though there is nothing new to say. And I pretend I do not know she is still outside, right where I left her.

She frustrates me. More than anyone else I have ever met. She is capable of so much, yet something is always holding her back, dulling her light. As a boy, I mastered the art of raising and dropping the veil in seconds. It was not difficult. I let go, and the Lion Soul came forward. I pulled back, and my human form returned. This is the easiest of all the lessons she will need to learn. No one ever struggles. Not with this.

The only reason she is still outside is because of her own wilfulness. Her protest. Initially, those were my thoughts. She’s being obtuse, protesting the way I became angry and left.

But she stayed. She kept trying. She is trying. I can see that. As well as the frustration I unknowingly passed on to her.

My frustration isn’t with her. I am stuck trying to teach her things I have no real understanding of, that I don’t know how to explain. The words my own guide had given me were clear; they provided a roadmap to the Lion Soul, instructions on how to connect, how to care. Even if I never needed them. For me, from the moment I changed, I felt him. I was one with the creature inside of me. I understood him and welcomed him in so easily. Eshe is different. She rejects it. Her rejection is clear even though she says she is open to it. It colours everything. How am I, someone who has never had the same problem, expected to find words that can reach her?

Maybe I expect too much from her. Am I too hard on her?

I want to spare her the way I was trained. I am trying, although failing, also to be kinder, softer than they were.

I tried to show her another side of me, a side that isn’t a warrior or a taskmaster when I stood closer. I wanted her to feel my presence, to know that whatever she was afraid of, she did not have to face it alone.

But that, too, was a mistake. She latched on to me and my proximity. It affected her. Affected me. Once again, she pulled me into a place where I was connected with her, her essence moving through my body as though she owned it – as though I and everything I am belonged to her. I liked it. Feeling connected. It has always warmed my heart, meeting another Lion Soul and feeling our souls call out to each other. But with Eshe, it is something much more intense. Her soul crawls into me, takes up residence and threatens to never leave.

I see how uncomfortable it makes her, whatever it is that keeps happening between us. She does not like it, not like I do. And so my delight turns to shame. I avoid her gaze, her proximity, try to stop making her uncomfortable. I have to, with this much ahead of us that requires her to trust me. Yet unconsciously, my mind takes every available opportunity to do the opposite. And my body happily follows its cue, always finding a way to be closer.

It’s not sexual, I don’t think, even if there is a whiff of something similar about it. It’s closer to companionship. I crave it from her. After being alone for so long, I want to be near her. With her. At all times.

“You were just going to leave me there?” Her voice breaks into the kitchen, pushing all other thoughts deep into the back of my mind, where they belong.

“What?”

Her hair is covered in leaves and branches, and dirty lines trace their way across her face to her eyes – wild, wide, and wonderous. “You just left me there!”

“You made it clear you didn’t want me there,” I say, and look away from her again. I can’t look at her.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.” Leaving her behind, I walk out of the kitchen, my only thought being to try to find some space away from her. And it surprises me. That I can so long pine for her return and then, the next moment, want nothing more than to hide away.

“Wait! I did it!” she cries, chasing after me.

“You changed?”

“Yes! I couldn’t get it at first, but I kept thinking about what you said. About her being there behind my eyes, and so I called to her.”

“You spoke to her?”

“Yeah, I guess I did. And then I stepped back, and I changed.”

“That’s fantastic. Speaking to the Lion Soul wasn’t on our schedule till next week.” I smile as pride swells in me for all the things she is capable of, all the things I expect from her, rightly or wrongly.

“I lost control, though. For a bit. Once I changed, she ran so fast I couldn’t stop her.” Now that my eyes are on her, she steps back from my gaze. Nervous, afraid to meet me.

“So, how did you get back control?”

“Oh, I didn’t get control back. She ran for at least an hour. The walls are quite high and covered in ivy, so she couldn’t climb them. Eventually, I guess she just got tired and passed the control back over.”

“And how… how do you feel?”

“Tired. Really tired. I felt every one of those miles she ran. And hungry. Really hungry.”

But she doesn’t look tired. She looks wide awake. Alive, I think as I watch her body shift from side to side, trying to expel the power, the energy I know well. And miss.

“It’s to be expected,” I say. “Come, have some dinner.”

We walk back to the kitchen, and I reheat the stew I made hours earlier while I waited for her to do what she has just done. I try to cover up the pride, the joy bursting in me, but the smile plastered across my face will not fade.

I knew she could, I knew she would, and she has. Changed into the lioness and back. Somehow, she heard me and the clumsy words hastily fashioned by an inexperienced mouth. Somehow, she found something of use in them, something to guide her.

She can do this. I can do this. I can teach her. She can learn. She can control it. And if she does, she will no longer be a threat to anyone. She can just be a Lion Soul. And I might end up having no other task ahead of me.

I place the bowl in front of her, and she looks back at me with those still wild eyes before carefully reminding me that she does not eat meat. I insist she try it and explain how necessary it is right now for her body, her Lion Soul, knowing it is the only thing sure to soothe the aches that will come later.

She smiles when she finishes the bowl at a pace rivalling any of my brothers in the compound. “It was amazing.”

“Would you like some more?”

“Yes, please.” She hands her bowl back. As she does, her fingers connect with mine around the rim for the briefest second. A charge sizzles under the contact. I wait for her to retreat, to pull back, afraid, annoyed, but she doesn’t. Instead, she says with an undisturbed smile, “It’s so good. When did you learn to make this?”

“My sister taught me when I was young. I make it often.” I smile back, gently taking the bowl away.

“You have a sister?”

“I have three sisters.”

“Three? That can’t have been fun.” She laughs gently, pulling me in and easing us both away from the awkwardness of this afternoon.

“It was great. They were very loving. My sister Ada, the eldest, she raised me. She taught me how to make this stew.”

“I’ve always wanted a sister.”

“And I always wanted a brother. They say you always want what you don’t have. But I loved my sisters growing up. They were each very different. Ada was the mother hen. And Amina, she follows Ada, she was the opposite. Did her own thing, never needed anyone else. Arabella was closest to me in age, but she was still nine years old when I was born. How she would read and read. Always romances, always dreaming of Prince Charming with his long golden hair, turning down proposals almost every day.

“In the end, she married the boy from our village who had followed her around with his tight, short, black curls since before I was born. She finally admitted that he meant more to her than all the fictitious princes. They just had their second child.”

“They sound lovely. You must miss them, being here.”

“I don’t see them, even when I am not here.” I smile back, surprised by the ease with which I have shared their names.

“I bet they miss you.” She looks up from her stew at me.

I look back and away quickly, afraid to get sucked in again. Fearful of the familiarity I can feel being pulled tight. “Now you have changed, we can move on to the next stage of your training. However, we will have to work on your ability to control changing back. You need to be able to lift the veil back up as well as drop it.” I step back from the kitchen counter and her.

She rolls her eyes and groans. “Don’t do that. Don’t fall back into ‘I am your guide’ mode. There is nothing more I can learn this evening, so let’s just be people.”

“Are we not people now?” I ask.

“We were. We were talking. Getting to know each other, and then you fell back into guide mode.”

“Oh.” A flush spreads across my arms and face.

“You do it all the time. Let’s just talk like two normal people.” The warm smile stretching across her lips expands when she finishes, and I cannot help but fall again.

“Okay. What do you want to talk about?”

“Everything. I know nothing about you.”

“Well, what do you want to know?” Something outside of my control dares me, dares her, as I smirk dangerously.

I know what she wants to know. How can I not when she looks deep into my eyes and searches for a flicker of him at every opportunity she gets? I promised I would tell her. And I will. When she asks, I will not lie. But not today; I am not ready. We are not ready. I still have too much to do with her. My Lion Soul, the truth of what I have hidden, will only get in the way. Still, my eyes dare her, beg her to push me, probe me, command me to say the thing that I do not want to say, that will build a bridge over to her, and move me even closer than I am now, with the kitchen counter between us.

“It was nice hearing about your sisters. Tell me about your home. Where do you live? Africa? I’ve never been.” She retreats. Maybe knowing – feeling – that I am not ready to give her the answers she wants. It’s a kindness I have not seen in her yet. It makes me excited to find out what else there is in her that I do not yet know.

“Africa is a continent, a very big place. The Lion Souls are based in a tiny part of it, a country in West Africa called Kakra.” I smile before finishing, “And I don’t have a home, a house. I move around a lot.”

“So where will you go after? When you return?” She catches herself and shifts anxiously.

“I don’t know. Somewhere new. Where I was before… I cannot go back. Leaving will have provoked too many questions. It would raise too many suspicions to go back. So I will find somewhere new to settle.”

“Won’t you miss the people?”

“I do well with a change of scenery. Being somewhere new suits me.”

“What about the other Lion Souls? Do they move around as well?” she asks.

“No. Most of them live in a compound in the capital, Nima. A few like me move around, and more have old ties to other places, so they live there.”

“Why don’t you live in the compound?”

“I don’t really like it there.” I laugh. It’s the first time I have said that aloud so simply. “I enjoy being away. I think I do better on my own.”

But if I am pleased with my confession, she is not. I see concern flash in her eyes as she quizzes me further. “You don’t like the others?”

“It’s not like that. They are my brothers. I enjoy spending time with them, seeing them when we meet, but as I say, I do better on my own.”

Eshe does not say anything for a while, weighing up my words, but when she does speak, it’s with a sweetness that could easily be taken for weakness. “I would love to go one day. To the compound, to meet some of your tribe.”

I want to tell her that going to the compound is not something she should wish for. That there is no place for her there. No real place. She would not like it. Our ways are so different to hers. She would not like my brothers, and they would not like her. She is too different. Too much of things they do not tolerate well. Things that have nothing to do with her being a woman.

Chapter 21

Eshe

I find myself easing into the life and time I spend in the country. Previously I could barely manage a day or two before I began to feel untethered, but there is something very freeing in being here with no return date. Something very familiar. I don’t have to think about all my commitments, the projects on my desk, and the friends I have promised to see. It’s all on hold, everything that made up my life: family, friends, career, and boyfriend.

Since I spoke to Tom to tell him the lie my tongue has grown comfortable with, I’ve barely spent any time thinking about him. At first, I worried about his questions, what he might think of my abrupt departure, and the weakness I owned up to. Would he change his mind about us? Would he finally realise the person he thought he loved didn’t exist? But the ease with which he accepted my story and the understanding he expressed cleared my mind of those thoughts. I could be better if I committed myself here and gave in to the training. So I have. Fully. Focusing only on my training, I have to put my thoughts of him aside to keep my mind with me and only me. It’s the only way I can find the mental capacity needed to undertake all that lies ahead of me. All that Adeben has laid out.

Still, I feel apprehensive at how quickly my mind surrendered all thoughts of Tom and the life I was so focused on building with him. It was almost like Tom and my feelings for him aren’t rooted deeply enough, and so they are easily removed. Like foreign invaders that forced their way in, they do not belong, so when they are purged, there is nothing but a peaceful celebration. A new wellness. An equilibrium in their stead.

Adeben, on the other hand, resists any such purge, actively consuming my thoughts and sucking up whatever time might have been left for Tom. My mind will not move past him. I am intrigued by him, the person I’m beginning to learn he is when he allows me to see anything true about him. He is difficult and so inconsistent. And it’s not easy living with him.

Some days, he is cold, barking orders at me in a tone that rubs me the wrong way, ultimately provoking my temper, and we argue. Other days, there is a tenderness in him that surprises and delights me; he makes me feel like he’s right behind me, on my side. And with him there, I have an endless supply of strength. I can do anything.

Too often, I find him looking at me, absorbed in me, but only when he thinks I cannot see him. His stare and how he looks at me is unmistakable, and my whole body reacts, waking under his gaze. It’s hard to ignore. At first, I tried to catch his eye, to tease him, question him for staring. But each time I did, his fear and shame at being caught stained not just the air but his future behaviour. He always overcompensates, and we both end up having a bad day for it. Soon, I stopped catching him, stopped looking back. My mind quieted and my body got used to the tell-tell prickle of his gaze while I left it be.

All the while the questions I have for him hover on my lips, ready to fall; if only I could just push them forward. But I won’t, can’t, not while we are still learning to trust and know each other. Not while he is still so unknowable.

I am continuously learning how to be around Adeben, even as my training has come to a crashing halt.

I changed once more into the lioness in his presence. He was insistent that he needed to check, to see the lioness’s form and examine her.

Everything about what happened was uncomfortable. Too intimate. To find the form that was me but felt anything like me, so exposed, vulnerable, and open to damage.

His hands touched the fur of the lioness with a tenderness that not only made me feel more bare but sparked a cinder of jealousy. He was careful, kind, with her, while he was still so unreadable, so inconsistent with me. The whole thing lasted no more than a minute before I found myself pulled sharply back into my own body. The relief was short-lived when I saw Adeben run off, the anger in him very clear, very readable.

“She is injured,” he spits, barely looking back at me when I track him down to the kitchen. His hands tightly grip the kitchen sink.

“The lioness?”

“She is very weak. Very ill. I suspect that’s why she cannot hold her form for long.” I can’t see his face, but I can see his mood. The anger stains the air, keeping my feet gripped to the floor and trapped by the door.

“That’s why I keep changing back?”

“Yes.”

“Well, how bad is it?” I don’t know why I ask him; I can read his face from here. And somewhere deep inside, too, I can feel the thing in my body well enough to form my own diagnosis.

“Very bad. She needs to heal or… She needs to heal.”

“Or?”

He finally turns to face me, his eyes piercing me – cold, hard, stone. His lips purse out. “Or she will die.”

“Die? She can die?”

“All living things die.”

“I thought she was already dead?”

“She’s not a ghost.”

His irritation keeps me where I stand still and warns me to hold my tongue. But I don’t. “Okay. I thought she was like a spirit?”

“She’s a soul. And that’s not how it works anyway. You have to heal her.”

“How do we do that?” I ask, another question that betrays the sentiment with which I view him.

“I suspect that when I locked her in the freezer, she injured herself, and the prolonged cold temperature weakened her so she could not heal.”

I see the sorrow in his heart, and it begs to be soothed. I know how he feels about what he did. I see it constantly in the memory flashed onto his face. “It’s not your fault. You had no choice,” I say as I take half a cautious step forward.

“No, it isn’t my fault. It’s yours.” His whole body shifts, the energy he puts out levelling up into something darker. Not quite aimed at me.

I pull my advance back, as he refuses to turn and look at me, and I whisper, “My fault?”

“If you hadn’t spent so long suppressing her and tried even once to connect with her, I would never have had to do that. I warned you.”

“I didn’t think it would kill her.” I don’t feel the words leave my mouth. I’m too occupied with tensing, bracing for the next stream of words.

“Isn’t that what you were trying to do all along? Kill her so you could go back to your life?”

“It wasn’t like that. I was scared.”

“And she wasn’t? Do you even care? This poor creature now might die just so you can have your pathetic boyfriend and spoilt life back.”

His venomous words wrap around me. I’ve been here before, under an attack I am better suited to lead. But this is the first time I’ve felt words pierce my skin this deeply. And it’s my voice that is the first to fall, breaking, weakened when I say, “Stop shouting at me. I am trying to help, aren’t I?”

“No, you aren’t. A Lion Soul who has been accepted would have healed by now.”

“I have been trying.”

“Clearly not enough.” He finally turns away, waves of anger coming off him as his grip further threatens the solid white porcelain sink.

He has more to say, his jaw ticking, holding back more poison. But when he suddenly lets go of the sink and casts his whole face and gaze at me, his lips seem at peace with what he won’t say this time. He leaves the kitchen, moving quickly but carefully, desperate to avoid any connection with my body, which partially obscures his path.

I wait there for him to come and apologise, but he doesn’t this time. Not that day or the next, when I still find myself waiting for him and the pattern I have quickly learned he follows.

I go to him, knocking at his door, trying to patch up the gulf that his words, his accusations, have created, but he ignores it, doesn’t even acknowledge the branch that should be in his hands. It takes me another full day to feel the full sting and brevity of what he has said. What he believes I am capable of. And when the feeling comes, along with the thought that I would purposefully kill the lioness, I am not prepared for the weight.

She is injured, dying.

I never wanted any part of her, but I also never wanted her dead, especially not because of something I did. I don’t know her or fully appreciate what she is, but I am learning, trying, and I know enough to know I won’t be able to live with myself if I am the cause of her death. Adeben will never forgive me. I don’t know what I can do.

Contrary to what he may believe, I have been trying to connect, to reach the essence inside of me, the foreign thing – her. I want to accept her; I want to make peace with what she is and what that means for who I am, but each time I try to I reach out to her, I feel that she is still so very separate from me. Not a part of me. Because we are not the same – we are so different, too different. And though I would never let Adeben hear me say it, I still feel very much like my body has been possessed by her, this being that doesn’t belong.

If I’m honest, a part of me believes that if the lioness dies, my life can return to what it was before her. Maybe even be better: without the fits of passion, the anger, all the things that are hers and have been hers for longer than I realised. My family could be safe, my friends too. No one else would be at risk if she went away.

Yet I know those thoughts are wrong. I know I can never share them. Because to give them life would make them real and ultimately force into existence a truth I do not wholly believe. Yes, I think and feel it, but not all of me does. They are just thoughts I need to keep alive inside of me, to firmly place a barrier between the parts of myself that are me and those that are her.

“Can I?” Adeben’s voice enters the room before he does. His face is, as always, unreadable, unknowable, while mine beams back despite the feelings I am forcing down inside of me.

“It’s your house.”

“It’s not my house.” He smiles emptily as he lowers himself to sit at the other corner of the bed, as far away from me as he can manage while still maintaining an unnerving eye contact.

What does he want?

“How are you doing?” he asks, breaking the silence.

“She’s fine,” I reply.

“I asked how you were?”

“As if you care. Like I said, she is fine, still weak, but still here.” I cannot take him anymore; everything about him says “Come closer,” and all the while his words shout, “Get back!”

“I do care.” He puts out his hand to stop me from walking away, mirroring the power his words hold.

“Shouting at someone and ignoring them for days is a great way of showing it.” I try weakly to pull away, expecting him to release the contact around my arm, but he surprises me by holding firm.

“I am sorry. I behaved badly.”

“Apology not accepted.” I find the force I have been looking for and pull my arm away from him, but cannot find the strength to leave.

“I panicked,” he says. “I have never seen a Lion Soul look like that before. It upset me, and I am sorry to say I let my feelings get the better of me. I took it out on you.”

“I never wanted her to die. I never wanted that, even when I wanted to be left alone. It wasn’t death I wished for her. I wanted her to find someone else, someone better. Someone who could be strong enough to carry her. I didn’t want her to die.”

“I know.”

“It didn’t seem like it the other day. It seemed like you thought I was intentionally trying to harm her, like I knew she was sick and said nothing.” My voice carries higher.

“I didn’t think that.”

“You did,” I say. “Admit it, you thought I was trying to kill your precious Lion Soul.”

“No!”

“Admit it. You wish she could be here and I was the one stuck inside, sick.”

It’s not anger I feel now as the tears start to fall down my face. I don’t want to look weak, not in front of him. I don’t want him to know how much his absence, his coldness, has gotten to me. But I’m fighting everyone, everything inside and outside, for a scrap of control.

“How could you say that?”

“Admit it, you prefer her. I see the way you look at me sometimes. Except it’s not me you’re looking at, it’s her. You look at her like—”

He cuts me off, trying to reach for my hand, my eyes, my soul, and says, “Eshe, that’s ridiculous.”

“Do you think I don’t see it? I pretend. I pretend I don’t see you, but I do. I see you, I feel you. I can feel the things you are thinking.”

“You are the same person. Eshe, there is no her, and no you. You aren’t separate lodgers in your body. You are supposed to be one. Can’t you see that?”

I can barely hear his words. The tears cloud over so much of my mind, confusing me and my heart. Suddenly, I feel flushed, unsteady, thoroughly overwhelmed by every sense.

“If I speak, I am talking to you both. If I challenge you, I am challenging you both. And if you think you saw or felt me…” He meets my eyes, but I cannot hold it. “If I look at you, I’m looking at both of you.”

I don’t understand. I cannot process the words I hear him say. My breath shortens, hardens. Everything is loud, too loud, while my head is bloated with thoughts and air, feeling like it might float away and carry me high.

I try to sit back on the bed. The rest of my body feels heavy, too much to carry.

Adeben comes closer to me, and I see him mouth my name. Eshe. Eshe. Until a weakness stretches across my body, and darkness steals my vision.

Chapter 22

Adeben

She falls. One minute, she is screaming at me, her features becoming strained, and the next, she is falling forward away from the bed faster than my mind can process the change. My arms meet her just before she can impact the floor. She feels too warm, dangerously so . I cannot feel her, Eshe or the lioness. Both their presences are gone and the body in my arms is devoid of a soul as far as my senses can tell.

“Eshe,” I continue to call out with no response from her mouth or soul.

As I place her gently in the bed, my concerns paralyse me, blocking any other thoughts from forming. I can do nothing but stand over her, watching, waiting for some sign.

The first thought that arrives is a curse for myself. For arguing with her again, for reacting so badly when I saw the lioness broken, and placing my frustration on her. I felt cold, frozen, despite the sun’s best efforts at trying for warmth. The state of her – the wounds that had not healed, the blood that should have longed been cleaned away. Eshe thought I blamed her, and I said as much, but the only person responsible was me.

It was careless, and foolish to think the night in the freezer would cause no lasting damage. Believing in Eshe’s miraculous survival blinded me. A better person, a more experienced guide, would have known to treat the lioness’s wounds. Instead, they have been left to grow far worse, become infected, and poisoned her. The signs were all there. I could have seen them. Should have, if I had not been so distracted.

Now something is wrong with Eshe, too.

Knowing the Lion Soul was ill had been hard enough. But there was nothing I could do, not when she was sick because the bond between her and Eshe did not exist. Had there been a link of any kind, I would have seen signs of the same illness in Eshe. I would be able to treat her and in turn, help the lioness. Both could have been saved if there was a connection, a tether, already established. But as I stand watching her, I know for sure they are two separate beings; Eshe herself confirmed it when she had all but accused me of having feelings for the Lion Soul.

There is no reason why Eshe, too, should be ill. She is not connected to her, so there is no way that what is affecting the lioness can pass onto her.

It’s all so above my comprehension. So much more than I have ever experienced. But I cannot stand by and watch them die. I have to do something. I cannot let her go on believing what she did. The musk of our last conversation still hangs heavy in the air.

My hands find the phone in my pocket and dial Elder Botkin’s number before I can think of all the ways this might come back on me. It does not matter.

“Elder Botkin?” I say when he finally answers, knowing he will not recognise the number.

“Adeben? What is this?”

“Sorry. I am sorry, but I need your help.”

“How did you get this number?” Elder Botkin asks, but I do not care to explain how I have the number I should not have. The consequences of my actions can be pushed aside; nothing else matters.

“Eshe. She is unwell. She just collapsed,” I continue.

“Adeben, you need to speak to the Leader.”

“No, you have to help me. She will die otherwise.”

“This is not my concern. You need to call back through the proper channels.”

“No, I am calling you. You told me to come and learn about her. I cannot learn anything if she is dead.” For the first time, my voice is harsh against the Elder. But I quickly changing tact and my tone, and I beg, “Please. Help me.”

He finally sighs. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. She was fine, and then she just passed out.”

“Her pulse?” he asks.

“It’s racing. Her skin is burning hot.”

“And the Lion Soul?”

“I don’t know. I can barely feel it,” I say and cast a look at her. Her body is so lifeless, while her face is trapped in a calm composure.

“Has the soul recovered from the injuries you noted in your last report?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then she is infected too.”

My head shakes firmly. “No, they have not bonded.”

“You must be mistaken. She is succumbing to the same infection. Check her eyes.”

Carefully lifting her eyelid, I search for a golden glow but find none.

“Check again,” Elder Botkin’s voice urges.

I stand over her, lifting her eyelid up again. Hoping, wishing to see something that can provide me with a course of action. In the first eye, I see only a sea of dark brown looking back at me. And that brown removes what little hope I have by the time I reach her other eye. Searching for longer than I should, I stare deeper into it.

“Well?” The Elder’s voice calls.

Just then, I see something different. A flash of gold, the slightest hint of it. I smile. But it’s so far away from where I stand.

“Wait!” I shout back, leaning in, my face dangerously close to hers as I try to make out if I have seen what I think I have. My fingers carefully pull back her eyelid as my palm connects with a ridge. It draws my attention, and I follow it along the side of her face. Buried underneath a thick surface, the unmistakable scar of a Lion Soul claw.

Who did this to her? Who hurt her?

As her face lies peacefully in my arms, a growl, a torrent of rage pushes out from my lips.

The Elder shouts, “Adeben!”

“There’s a flash,” I say, seeing more brightly a spark of gold burst in her iris. “It’s slight. It’s not holding.”

“Interesting.”

“What does it mean?” I ask as my fingers continue to trace the ridges across her face.

“Their bond is forming. You have to act quickly. You need to burn the fever off, so the bond can take. And then you must secure it immediately.”

“But it will kill her,” I tell him. “If the Lion Soul is dying and they are bonded, she will die too. She has been well only because the bond is non-existent.”

“The soul will die if you do not. Bonded, you can try to heal the Lion Soul, which should heal her.”

“But it might not work. What if I bring her fever down? That should give her a fighting chance.” My head is spinning with more indecision. But I have to try.

“Adeben, if you do not bond them, the Lion Soul will die.”

“But she might live. It should be her decision to bond to the soul. It is not my place,” I say.

“Your duty of care is for the Lion Soul.”

“Someone has to care for her.”

There is a pause. “Adeben, be careful that your feelings do not cloud your judgement.” The Elder’s words might have reached me yesterday. But today, they do little more than annoy me.

Ending the call, I resolve to do what I feel to be right. His words were only a suggestion, and from an old man miles across the ocean. He does not have to look at her face and see how close she is to a place of no return. I have already mourned the Lion Soul. I have spent days afraid of that loss, but this is something else. Eshe must survive.

Carrying her quickly to the bathroom, I place her on the floor beside the tub, filling it with the coldest water and bags of ice hurriedly collected from the freezer drawer in the kitchen. I hope it will be enough, that this time, too, she can do something impossible.

Before lifting her into the bath, I whisper into her ear, “Please fight. Eshe, please.”

Once her body hits the water, she gasps for air, violently kicking against me and the cold. I try to calm her down, try to hold her steady and reassure her that it will be okay.

“No!” she howls, trying to push past me. Her eyes are wide, raw with pain.

“I need to break your fever.”

The screams and words break with a roar. “You’re killing her!”

“No! You will die if I don’t break the fever.”

“She will die.” Her voice steadies while her body trembles, and she pleads, “I can feel her, she is dying. You need to help her.”

“I can’t. If I bond you now, you will be sick too.”

“No, we can both heal.”

She fights, but I push back. “Listen to me. She is dying, if you bond with her, you will die too.”

“I can save her. I know I can.”

There is a truth in her eyes I cannot acknowledge, and so I say, “It’s too late. You’re not well yourself.”

“Because she isn’t. She needs my strength. I can do this. I know I can. Please. I need you to believe in me. Please.”

I believe in her. I have done from the moment she infiltrated my dreams. Too often, she has already exceeded my beliefs in what she can do and who she is. But this… To do what she asks is too much. There is too much risk. The soul is sick; too much can go wrong if she tries to bond with it now. The damage I saw in the Lion Soul was physical, but I know enough to expect there to be more than that. To expect wounds, mentally, from the damage both of us have inflicted. A soul like that could not be bonded with. It shouldn’t be.

“It’s too dangerous,” I say. “I have to save you.”

“Adeben, I don’t need you to save me. I need you to help me save her,” she whimpers, warm tears running down her frozen face.

“How can you ask me to do this? First, you accuse me of having feelings for the Lion Soul, and now you want me to sacrifice you for her. You don’t make sense.”

“Please, Adeben. I can do this.” In her eyes, I see the flickering amber glow of their bond again. I also see her absolute certainty in what she wants to happen. Something about it, despite my best intentions, roots in me. Finds the old and everlasting belief in me for her and pushes aside my doubt. Why shouldn’t she be capable of transcending the boundaries of what I believe to be capable again? Is this not the crux of who I have seen she is?

My arms remove her from the cold bath that has turned her skin into a burning ice. I take her to the living room and cover her with blankets that I hope will warm their souls back up.

Elder Botkin is not surprised when I call him to find out exactly what I need to do. And he is kind enough not to mention how abruptly our last conversation ended. Doubts still run through my thoughts. I fight against the desire to return her to the bath instead, to continue trying to break the fever and save her. But I respect her too much to do that, to take away the choice she has made with her own mind for her own body. I could never forgive something similar being done to me, so I hold steady in our course.

“Are you ready?” I ask, looking at her, though it pains me to see her struggling to breathe, struggling to hold on.

The whole room is burning with the heat of the five electric heaters I have placed in a circle around her. Beads of sweat run down her face like streams of hot lava, erupting into the air as her breath catches on the hot dry space around us. It’s already clear the heat of the room is meeting the fever in her, and together, we are killing her.

“Yes,” she answers with a voice so weak I could pretend to not hear it.

But I can’t.

Kneeling beside her, I take her ankle into my hand and begin. “From the vines grows the fruit that sustains us. From our growth comes love that builds the soils. From the soils, a bed for the vines to emerge.”

Taking the naked strand of black-eyed Susan vine and wrapping it around her ankle, I utter the words every Lion Soul knows.

“Your soul will never walk alone. Your soul will never walk alone. Your soul will never walk alone.” I take another strand of the vine and weaving it into the others until the two are indistinguishable. “Your soul will never walk alone.”

I have never done this, merely had the honour of witnessing it, feeling it. For a moment, the awe stills me – long enough for just one thought: Should I be doing this? Should I be here?

“Your soul will never walk alone,” I finish resolutely.

“What’s that?” she asks when I lift her head against my chest and place a cup to her lips.

“Some herbs. They will put you into a deep sleep and take you to her. For the two of you to commune and come to an understanding.”

“Remember what you promised.” She smiles at me, but in her condition, her lips are swollen and too busy with breathing for words. Nothing about it resembles a smile.

I lower her back down when she dutifully finishes the drink and watch her fall into a sleep. Her breathing slows down to a point I can barely register. Panic sweeps through me, threatening the nerve I am holding. What have I done?

Chapter 23

Eshe

I open my eyes and find myself back in the Bramble estate, the garden from my nightmare. The garden I have spent too much time in already. My skin starts to prick with sweat and the outside air quickly turns it into beads of ice. Every instinct in my head tells me to run as fast as I can away from this place, but I don’t. My feet betray all the will of my mind and remain steady in their defiance. I won’t be leaving. Not until I find it.

I am not scared. I need to be here. I have a purpose here that I must fulfil at all costs.

I search my memories for a trace of the purpose, some spark that could illuminate my being here and the path ahead of me.

I find none and begin to feel hot. A burning fire resonates inside me, threatening to engulf the garden, turning it into a smoky wasteland. Maybe then, this place will lose all its power over me and my dreams.

Eshe. I hear my name in the wind.

Eshe, it calls again.

I spin around, searching for the mouth that produced my name. I find nothing but dark bushes waving in the wind.

Eshe.

My feet respond, moving me forcefully further into the garden in search of the voice. At that point, I become aware of fear within me – not of my surroundings, though they strike an exposed chord of regret. The thing provoking the fear is the possibility of failure. Failure to accomplish what I came to do in the garden. The very task I am struggling to recall.

Moving forward still, I probe my mind once more. I search for fragments of memory. Where was I before? Why am I here? Why would I choose to return here?

Eshe.

This time, I can feel myself closer to the source of the voice. My eyes, now trained in the dark, can distinguish a faint light ahead of me, and I continue to move towards it, hoping for answers.

“Hello?” This time, I hear my own voice, detached somehow from me as it echoes across the still silent garden. “Hello?” I shout once more. Harder and louder, it returns to me.

I do not let it deter me. I continue through the garden towards the light ahead of me. All the while, the heat is baking me, growing with every new step I take. Close to consuming me, I feel a passion flickering in the fire I know I must control.

Suddenly, I am in front of the water fountain. There is no sign of another being, or a source for the calls I am chasing, in the soft silver light that surrounds it.

I lower myself over the water to splash some on my face in an attempt to cool my body down. But when I touch the it, the heat transfers. The water starts boiling, releasing little bubbles that quickly grow in size and ferocity.

Afraid, I withdraw from the pool but not before catching my reflection smiling at me in the water’s surface. My own face falls in response, but the reflection holds its smile.

I did not think you would come, the reflection says to me.

I lean in further to see more clearly, but I fall. I fall into the fountain and through the water. I fall for what feels like hours, holding my breath, not swimming, not drowning, just falling.

The water spits me out on the other side into a field of flowers. All the same flower – bright yellow with a dark-brown centre. So many surround me, the sun shining off their yellow petals and back at me.

I said, I didn’t think you would come. I look up to find myself standing over me. I rise up and stand to face her, shocked, surprised, and a little delighted.

“Who are you?” I ask, circling the other me carefully, looking for differences.

You don’t know me? she asks.

I open my mouth to say no, I have no idea who this person is or why they look like me, but my tongue instead declares, “Yes.”

She nods and moves closer to me, charging the particles in the void between us.

“Who are you?” I ask, forcing the words out.

Perhaps this will refresh your memory. She smirks, then, inches away from my face, transforms into the lioness.

“You!” My surprise overwhelms me, and through it I find memories rushing back into my consciousness. Adeben, the herbs, the lioness.

“You are dying,” I remark, holding so much still.

All things die, says the voice that enters my mind as I watch the lioness prowl around me.

“I came to help you. I can help you.”

You want to help me now?

“Yes, if you will let me.”

Was it not you that led to this? Is this not what you wanted?

“No, it isn’t.”

Careful. You cannot lie to me. I know your mind well.

“I don’t want this. I didn’t want you to die.”

You shut me out. For years. Left me in the coldest region of your mind.

“I am sorry. I am truly sorry.”

Am I now to trust you?

“Please, I want to help you.”

You, help me? You cannot even help yourself. How could you possibly help me?

“I came here to help. I sacrificed—”

Sacrifice? You dare speak to me of sacrifice? You know nothing of sacrifice.

“Maybe. But I am here now. And I don’t see anyone else.”

Do not anger me, human. I may be weak, but I possess enough strength to take you down right where you stand. The lioness moves closer to me, her head cocks to side, observing, menacing. But her stance doesn’t provoke anything within me.

“I didn’t come here to fight with you.”

Then why did you come?

“To secure our bond.”

The lioness laughs and walks away from me. I follow her, but she turns towards me and emits a roar so ferocious, it stops me in my tracks.

As if I should bond with you, the voice snorts.

“If you don’t, you will die.”

Better to die free than be chained to you for eternity, she says, still walking away.

“You are me, and I am you. That’s what Adeben told me.”

If that is what your male told you, then he is as stupid as he is treacherous.

It’s my turn to snort as I say, “You don’t like him? You could have fooled me with all the looks the two of you throw at each other.”

The desires I hold within me are for the majestic soul trapped in his body, not for him. You will find that those are nothing but your own desires.

“It doesn’t really matter who holds what feelings. My point is: you belong with me.”

You think you can control me? she growls.

“No, I wouldn’t dare. Not again. I see that now. We are one. We are equals.”

You dare to think you are my equal?

“Yes, I do. I am your equal. We are partners.”

And partners try to drug and cage each other?

“I was afraid. You killed a man.” My eyes, heavy with shame, meet the floor, boring deep into the vines slowly moving across the whole surface.

You called for me. I came to protect you. That man was not good. You know that.

“Even so, you had no right to kill him.”

I can and will do as I please. If you did not want him dead, then you should not have called me. The only reason that man is dead is because you wanted him so. If you cannot accept that, I have nothing more to say. Leave this place and let me die in peace.

I want to argue; I want to tell her she is wrong, but I do not. Her words are but manifestations of my own unspoken ones buried deep, too dark to see the light of day.

Painfully forcing my gaze to meet hers, I announce, “Yes, I wanted him dead.”

Was that so hard to admit to yourself?

“Yes, it was very hard. I don’t. I am a good person. I want to be a good person. Good people do not kill other people. Only bad people do.”

Nothing is ever that simple. Good people, as you put it, do bad things sometimes, and bad people do good things as well. That man had to die. Now he has. His death does not prove your goodness or badness.

“But how will I know then? If good people and bad people do both good and bad things. How will I know which I am?”

Why do you need to know?

“Because I need to know who I am.”

Who you are is nothing to do with that. You are who you are, good or bad.

“I cannot explain it. I need to know what kind of person I am.”

You are afraid you are a bad person? she puzzles.

“Yes.”

Then, be a good person.

“It isn’t that simple.”

You will find it is. If you want to be a good person, then behave like a good person. Make decisions a good person would make. And in time, you will be a good person.

“And what about you? Are you a good person?”

I am not a person. I am a lion.

“Of course.” I laugh.

Good. Bad. I am neither. I am great and do not concern myself with anything so mundane.

“You are great?”

Yes.

“Like a great lion?”

Yes. I am greater than anything you have ever encountered. I am a queen. I am a warrior. I am a mother to a nation. I am infinite. The greatest soul to have ever been. And so, I cannot allow myself to be tethered to someone whose only concern is to blend in. I do not blend.

“I understand.”

Do you? Do you understand what you are asking of me?

“I can be better. I can try to be great, too.”

I would not be here in the first place if you did not possess the capability for greatness. That has never been in question. You must want it. You have to want me.

“I can do that.”

Can you?

“Yes, I can. I want this. I need this.”

Know fully what you are committing to before you make your vow.

“I know what I am doing.”

You cannot go back from here.

“I know.”

You cannot continue to hide.

“I know.”

Then, make the vow. She steps back, taking me in further, and I am grateful for the reprieve. Her presence, the whole of her lion being, is a lot to behold.

Black lines trace the half circles of her eyes, calling forward an old-world quality that screams Queen. Mother. Pharoah. Ruler.

Dusty brown fur coats her entire frame with a dark hue, powdering her face and again calling attention to those eyes – Balls of liquid light erupting into irises too dark to hold comparison.

I never saw it before. Her. The power intermingled with grace. How frightful she is. How comforting she is. But now I do. I see her.

The deep pore wells that house her long silver whiskers.

The humped brows.

The black scars across her face. My scars.

“Before I do, I need you to promise you will give me the time to get there.”

That is not how it works, human.

“I know, but I just need time to get there with this whole Lion Soul thing. I can be the person you need me to be.”

I do not need you to be anything other than the person you truly are.

“I can do that.”

And for the rest, your male will guide you.

“He’s not my male!”

He is the only male I have heard in your heart. But you must be careful of him.

“Because he lied about being a Lion Soul?”

It is time for you to make the vow, she says, moving closer to me.

“Okay. The vow.”

I can feel nervous excitement and ask myself, Will I be different? Will I feel the same? Will I sound different? Merging with this soul, will I lose a part of me? Or is she right? Will I just become who I have been all along?

Then I say the words I didn’t know I knew, but have always known, as I step towards her face, so it is but inches away from mine. “I will never walk alone.”

I will never walk alone, she repeats, advancing even closer.

At the vow, I wait for something to happen, but I feel as I felt before, and she stands in front of me as she did before.

“Is it done?” I ask, her fur brushing gently against my forehead.

Yes.

“Okay. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that.” I laugh weakly.

Malkia, she whispers, turning to walk away.

“Pardon?”

Malkia. That is my name.

“It’s beautiful.” I smile.

You can call me whenever you need me.

“I will,” I say, watching her slowly walk away.

You must keep it to yourself.

“Okay.”

To give another my name is to give them control over us both.

“Of course. I won’t do that.”

And Eshe?

“Yes?”

Thank you. She smiles before she is out of my sight.

Chapter 24

Adeben

I keep watch over Eshe while she sleeps. Willing her to complete the bond as quickly and safely as she can. Forcing my mind not to dwell away from thoughts of the dangers ahead, the possibility she might not return from the dream the herbs have thrust her into. There is no space for failure. Success is the only option on the table for us now. She must find the soul, secure the bond with her and return quickly so I can begin to treat the ailment now shared between them.

My eyes never leave the vine on her ankle, willing it, begging it to grow. To show some sign of a bond fortified, so I will know. So I won’t have to wait for her to wake up first.

The herbs in her system are potent; they are meant to be. As a boy, I slept for days when I dream-walked to find my soul. Trapped in my own mind, I wandered to find my truest path. Eshe, too, will be seduced by the opportunity. I have yet to meet anyone who has slept for more than a few days, but the records the Elders hold say it is possible. It has happened before. She could be asleep for weeks. While she sleeps, no matter the duration, the illness will not lie dormant. The infection afflicting the lioness will only continue spreading into Eshe, too.

But if I begin to treat the illness, the one I know the lioness possesses, before the bond is secure and the illness not fully in Eshe, I will kill her. Timing is what everything now hangs on. My ability to read when to act and when to hold steady. And my only source of information is her ankle.

Hours pass, and I have almost begun to despair that nothing has gone to plan, when I see it. The vines I carefully wrapped around her ankle are moving, further intertwining into each other and transforming the two thin strands into one solid mass.

I wait still for them to sprout new vines that should travel down her foot, to create a stem that – as she grows – will create more vines until one day, it resembles the vine on my own foot and on the foot of every Lion Soul I know. But it does not. Instead, the new vines emerge and further intertwine themselves into the main branch, sprouting little yellow flowers to form a crown around her ankle.

I have never seen a vine behave this way. Never been told it was possible. Perhaps it has not been, until now. I feel humbled by the opportunity to witness the bonding of the first female Lion Soul. And my mind thinks nothing of the reason I am here to see it in the first place. It feels like an honour. It is one. To have known her, and in some small way to have been able to help her get here. No matter what happens from this point onwards, I will not forget this. Or what she has come to mean to me.

I hear her mumble in her dreams, and my heart stops. It is time.

Reaching for the mortar and pestle beside me, I grind the paste I have already prepared one last time. The mixture of herbs and roots was easy to find in the cupboard. This whole house was carefully stocked with everything a Lion Soul might need away from home.

She stirs in her sleep, wincing from the wounds beginning to show on her body. I know where they will be; I have seen them already on the lioness and have prepared myself to see them here as well. Now the bond is secure, they belong on Eshe’s flesh too. Yet, as I lift her shirt to expose her waist, I am not prepared for how much worse they have become.

I clean the wounds, smothering the paste over them, layering it over the discoloured flesh. She reacts to the paste sinking into her skin, she reacts to my touch, but I push forward. My only goal and focus are her, getting her better and ridding her body of the toxins transferred over.

After I carry her back to her bed, I place blankets over her and hope the herbs will provide her body with the tools it needs to launch its defence.

Days pass. I wait and watch her fight. I make promises to myself. I make promises to a god, any god. Bargaining for her safe return. On the darkest day, I offer myself up instead. My life for hers. But none of it does anything for the time I know she needs. All I can do, meanwhile, is wait, hope, and watch.

I let too many things fall to my vigil. I have barely slept, and I have continued to neglect my own Lion Soul. More than a few weeks have passed since I left Eshe’s side long enough to stretch my legs or let my soul be free. Since we left London, I have been glued to her, unable to transform. Already, I can feel the telltale banging in my chest at my soul’s restfulness.

Back home, I usually make sure to carve out a day, at least once a week, to go into the bushlands. Always early in the morning, before anyone else is awake. It’s time I look forward to.

Choosing to keep my Lion Soul a secret from Eshe has had many consequences. But physically, mentally, none are more punishing than being unable to transform, to run free. Even now, as she sleeps, I cannot transform. With no idea when she might wake up, I cannot risk her waking and finding me absent and a lion roaming the grounds instead. The trust we need, that I have only begun to build with her, would be too easily eroded by that sight alone.

But I know that not stealing this time for my soul carries a significant risk. Ignoring everything my training has instilled in me, the training I pass onto her, I plead with my soul to give me more time.

I know will not go over well, not here with my Lion Soul and not with the Leader. Because the long list of things I have neglected includes him too.

Deciding to face the inevitable, I call him, hoping to smooth over what my behaviours and the choices I have made has ruffled. But when he says my name, I already know that I have pushed too far this time.

I sit in the kitchen. Two cups, two mats, two full settings lie on a table large enough to seat twelve. Dust is collecting on one side, screaming of her continued absence. I sit quietly on my side. I always do.

The Leader’s voice continues in my ear, “You are a hard man to track down,” while his presence seems to fill all the emptiness around me.

“Sir, I have been meaning to call you.” I feel far across the ocean; his rage meets my Lion Soul’s restlessness.

“I see. How are things? I have not received any reports from you in a while.”

“Yes, things have been unexpected recently.”

“Are you well?” His tone betrays his words, but still I answer politely. “And the girl? I understand that she is unwell.”

“Yes, sir, the Lion Soul was injured, and she became ill from the injuries.”

“Are they bonded?”

“Yes. I bonded them myself.”

“You bonded them? Under whose authority?”

“Sir?” I ask.

“Who did you ask for permission before you bonded them?”

“I wasn’t aware I needed to ask for permission.” I cannot rise to his bait. I cannot allow his words to provoke anything in me that will raise the soul I have kept down for too long.

“I didn’t ask you to bond them. So who did? One of the Elders?”

“I didn’t tell anyone of my plans.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“Sir, I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I want the truth, Adeben,” he snaps. “I did not send you there to go there bonding whoever you want. There are rules. Perhaps in London, you have forgotten who you answer to.” His voice is so angry and venomous I can smell it, even through the phone.

“Sir. There was no other way. I acted in the moment based on the situation I found myself in. If I did not bond her, the Lion Soul would have succumbed to its injuries.” My hands trace lies in the dust collected on what should be Eshe’s glass.

“And you do not think the girl would have been easier to kill without the Lion Soul?”

“Sir, my mission. The Elders—”

“I am the one giving the missions, you hear? I sent you there to remove the threat.”

“But the Elders—”

“Do not speak to me of the Elders. I am the Leader. I have given you your mission. I will send someone else if you cannot carry it out.”

Energy builds in my chest that forces me up from the tranquillity of the table. As I rise, the chair underneath me falls, sending out a loud bang to echo in the house’s stillness and emptiness.

“I have not seen any signs that she would be a threat,” I say.

“So now you are the one who sees threats? Listen, I sent you because I need the girl taken care of. You were chosen because you said you had tasted her blood. Did you not?”

“I did.” My head falls in shame at the memory I have not forgotten, but buried deep.

“You have been chosen. You have dreamt it. You have seen it. Now you will do it. If I want someone to assess threats, I will send someone good at that, not you. Do you understand?”

“Sir, I am only trying my best to serve our tribe.” My eyes cast down to the fallen chair, all the unused crockery as I respond.

“I am the Leader of this tribe. Therefore, I am the tribe. Serve me and stop this foolishness.”

“If you could give me some time, I can train her. She could be an asset to us.” My hands reach for the cup. Her cup. I hold it gently against my chest, my shirt protecting it from any more dust.

He breaks out into a laugh. “So now you want to train her too. The girl that will be the end of us all is being trained by you.” Pausing for breath, he continues, “Well, if it is you who is training her, then I suppose she can never really amount to anything.”

“She is strong. She can help us. She is willing to learn our ways. If you could give me some more time to work with her, I am sure—” My grip tightens around the cup. Harder and harder. Protecting the only way I know how: forcefully. Until the cup can bear it no more.

“Enough! I have heard enough of your nonsense. She will not be an asset. She will not learn our ways. You will take care of this.”

“Sir,” I whisper, so much more concerned with the blood dripping from my hand, covering my shirt, the table, and every shard of glass.

“Adeben. I have given you more than most. I expect you back within the week, and I expect confirmation that your mission has been completed. Are we clear?”

He doesn’t wait for the answer he knows I am bound to give. But when he ends the call, I am full of fury. My arms are shaking, my pulse choking my neck. I am a Lion Soul. I swore allegiance to the tribe, to protect them and obey them, obey our Leader. But I can’t. There is no part of me that can carry out the task being asked of me. Not since the day they gave me my mission, and especially not now. Now that I have cared for her. How can I nurse her back to health, watch over her with as much care as I have for the last few days, and then destroy her?

It’s been there all along. Since the day I met her. The thought I have not wanted to face. I cannot do this. I cannot harm her. Not in any way. But for the first time, I can now fully consider the only thing I can do as I examine the bloody shards of the glass meant to be hers. I can protect her.

Chapter 25

Eshe

My strength returns much quicker than I could have hoped for. The memories of the dream do too. And while I am not fully myself yet, a little too light on my feet, covered in wounds that have not fully healed, I feel better. Better than I ever have before. Better now I am bonded with my soul.

I’m faster, too. Once Adeben is satisfied I am healing well enough, he begins training me. Tracking my speed, agility, and strength, it’s clear something has changed, improved.

I feel whole with Malkia’s soul securely bonded to me. I like this change. Even the vine now circling my ankle with yellow, sweet-smelling flowers. When I first woke up and saw it, it was strange. But I am already used to it in the little time that has passed.

Adeben told me it would stay on there for the rest of my life and only fall off when either my Lion Soul died or we both did. And there is a comfort in seeing it – a physical manifestation of the commitment I made to her and her to me. The choice I made in my dream, bold for all to see. Even if it might be hard to explain to others why I will come back from my treatment with foliage growing on my body.

“It is only visible to Lion Souls,” Adeben says, watching me play with the flowers.

“Only to Lion Souls?”

“Yes.”

“But you can see it?” I tease. He looks away before I continue, “So, it’s what, not there? To other people?”

“It will look static. Like a tattoo.”

“Good to know. I might have difficulty explaining it to—” I stop short, seeing his eyes trained on me, waiting for my next utterance.

“We should train. I’ll meet you in the garden,” is all he says when he rises from the sofa beside me.

Since waking from the dream, when he saved me, things have been a little charged between us. I feel guilty thinking of Tom or daring to say his name aloud. Each and every time, Adeben reacts. Not badly, but enough for me to see he doesn’t like hearing me say his name or knowing I think about him. I try hard and often not to care what Adeben thinks. He hasn’t ever been thrilled at my choice and has frequently expressed that he thinks my life, my relationship with Tom, is just me chasing something I cannot possess. Still, since he nursed me back to health, there seems to be more in his reaction. An undertone of jealously I would call it, if I didn’t know him better.

I want to thank him for helping me get here. For trusting that I could save both myself and the lioness. But every time I try to say the words, they get stuck. “Thank you” doesn’t feel like enough. Not to express my gratitude. I need to say something more, something that carries more weight. I want to show him how grateful I am. How much I value what he did and the chance he has given me. I want him to know I will not squander this opportunity.

“Eshe,” I hear him call as I walk into the garden, and I bury those thoughts so they cannot be read.

“Today, I want us to do more work on your bond,” he continues, avoiding my eyes still.

“My bond? I thought I’d done all I could do. We bonded, we spoke, we are one.”

“Yes, but like any bond, it requires maintenance. It can always grow stronger or weaker over time.”

“Weaker? And then what happens?” My eyes spring open wide.

“It can leave you both vulnerable. It could fail, and the two of you will be separated from each other, back to where you started.”

“I would have to re-bond with her?” The thought quickens my pulse, but as though he can feel it, he pulls his focus to me, his eyes warm and comforting.

“It’s not that simple. Once something like this is broken, it can rarely be put back together. If you work on maintaining the bond, it keeps it strong. If you carve time out for you both, in the middle of everything, always, it need not happen.”

“Okay, what do I do?”

“First, sit”, he says, lowering himself to the floor, “and close your eyes.”

He closes his own, breaking the hum between us, and quietly continues, “You must return to where you made the bond. Find your way to that place in your mind. Once you get there, you call to the Lion Soul. In your mind, you call the soul and ask it to commune with you.”

Taking in deep breaths, he smiles. “Close your eyes. I can feel you watching me.”

I close my eyes and try to find my way back to the field of flowers, where I met Malkia. But my mind is full of thoughts I assumed I had already put to bed. Taking a deep breath and overextending my shoulders, I try to force a calm in myself, but I still cannot reach where I need to be.

I give up. “I can’t. My head.”

“Just relax. You’ve been there before. Go there and call for her,” Adeben whispers, already deep into his own mind. Watching him makes me wonder if he is communing with his Lion Soul?

“I can’t get there, I can’t find her.”

“You just call her, and she will come. Your bond is fresh and so at its strongest. She will come if you call.”

“She’s not a big fan of being summoned or commanded.”

He smiles, still with his eyes closed. “I can imagine. If she is anything like you, she’s bound to be more fire than ice.”

“Oh, she is! She’s me on steroids.” I laugh.

“She won’t be any more or less than you are.”

“Yeah.” I smile, understanding that now more than ever. “When I saw her, she told me her name.”

“Yes, it’s part of the bond. You need to know her name to know her,” he says absentmindedly.

“She told me to never tell anyone else her name, that giving her name to someone else would give them power over us?” I ask cautiously.

“Yes. You must never share it with anyone else, especially another Lion Soul.”

“Why? I don’t understand.”

His eyes open slowly, deliberately, but they don’t reach for me. “It’s private. It is not your name to give out. The souls all have past lives filled with stories. To know a soul’s name is to know who that soul was before. Its relationships, its great deeds, awful deeds, its history. It changes things.”

“I’m not getting it. Why wouldn’t you want to know who my soul was before.”

“It’s complicated. It could complicate things. This is your life; at the end of the day, this is your story. Your soul can help you, influence you, but ultimately, all the decisions are yours. If people knew things like who your soul was, maybe that your soul was a great warrior, then suddenly that is the path that is chosen for you. You don’t get to choose who you are.”

I nod. “But if my soul was a great warrior, surely it’s very likely I will also be a great warrior?”

“Yes, it’s very likely. But it isn’t a certainty. You still get to decide what elements of your soul you portray.” I see him shift in the grass, something about our conversation prickling him.

“Okay, sure. But how does that give someone control over me?”

“If someone knows who your soul is, they can call your soul at any time. Call it forward, force you into the background, leaving you powerless over yourself and your Lion Soul. Only you should be able to call your soul forward.”

“Okay, so they can make me transform if they know her name.”

“It’s more than that. They take your place in the bond. I don’t fully understand it all myself, but when you give someone the name of your soul, you surrender yourself to them for as long as they live.”

“I think I understand,” I say, but I don’t.

“You must never give anyone that power over you. Your Lion Soul was right to caution you against it,” he finishes, closing his eyes again.

“She also cautioned me against you…” I search Adeben for a reaction.

“Did she?” he responds, opening one eye.

“She did. She told me to be wary of you.”

“Interesting. Did she say why?” he asks, sending his question where he won’t raise his eyes.

“Because you lie.”

“I have never lied to you,” he answers sharply, painfully pulling his gaze to meet mine.

Seeing him react brings a smile to my face. “The omission of truth is just as bad as a lie.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“I mean, it is, whether you think so or not.”

“I would never lie to you.” The sincerity in his words stokes a flame in me.

“But you do hide things from me?” He does not answer, looking away instead. “That thing I said I would ask you about one day? I have decided I will not ask you. I don’t know why you hide it from me or what else you have chosen to hide from me—”

“Eshe—”

“But I’ll wait. I’m trying to learn patience. So I’ll wait for you to tell me of your own accord.”

He smiles. “Your Lion Soul was right to tell you to be wary. You should be wary of all Lion Souls.”

“Are you wary of all Lion Souls?”

“Of course.”

“Are you wary of me?” I hear the suggestion in my tone but emboldened, I commit to it. I search him for a response,

“I am wary of you the most,” he replies, with a severity that surprises and delights me.

Chapter 26

Eshe

Every day for the next week, I train with Adeben, and our routine becomes second nature to me. I wake up to find that he has prepared breakfast, always something meaty and hearty to quench my Lion Soul’s cravings and support the morning’s physical regime. He’s a good teacher: harsh, but there is still a fairness in him that I respect. He wants me to be strong and the best I can be, and I want the same. So, as we go on, I complain less about the early-morning and late-night sprint drills he forces me into, and my questions about his methods subside. It is working, after all; each day, I become stronger, the lioness too. And together, as we double our strength, a new sense of self-belief roots in me.

In the afternoons, we have a light lunch and a different task to build my agility. Only then do we retire indoors. I have even started cooking, making our dinners, and though the first few were inedible, I am getting better at it, and he is growing more patient.

In our bubble, we build a quasi-life so real that I often forget it is only temporary. One day, Adeben will have no more to teach me and will return home, leaving me to return to my real life. I dread that day, pushing it further and further away in my mind. I’m completely unprepared to face any of the decisions that await me there, decisions about my future. Where do I go? Can I really just return to my office and pick up where I left off? And the life I have for so long coveted and forced into reality doesn’t seem to fit anymore. I don’t know that I want those things. I want more. And I don’t want to fade into the background, coasting through the world I’ve been born into.

The most significant decision awaiting me is about Tom. My feelings are changing after being away from him and spending more time with Adeben, whatever I had for Tom weakening in his absence. I no longer feel the love for him I was so sure I had. Thinking about him so rarely and returning his calls with even less frequency, the thing I thought we had, that I believed in, I am now not so sure of.

The closeness building between Adeben and me is partly to blame. In him, I find something different, someone I can be myself with, someone I don’t have to lie to. The way he challenges and meets my ferocity with his own. It’s hard to see it, feel it, know the person I am in his company and not want to be that person permanently. It isn’t that I want to be with him – he is great, and if I allow myself to look, I can see feelings growing with each day we spend together in this bubble – but there are walls that surround him. So high and so old, I don’t believe he will ever be able to truly let them down. And there’s a coldness that flares up, protecting him, keeping me out, whenever I venture too far or close. I don’t want that. But I’m not sure I want Tom either. In a perfect world, I want a mixture of the two: the intensity and passion of Adeben, with the openness of Tom.

Tom isn’t perfect, but neither is Adeben. I just need to decide if what Tom is offering is enough to sustain me, enough for my Lion Soul. Or if it is something closer to Adeben and what he gives me that I need. Then again, maybe it’s actually something different entirely, with someone different, that my greedy heart craves. Someone without any compromise.

I need to see Tom, I decide. I have to be near him, with him, to see how I feel now that everything is so different. I am different.

Having avoided most of his calls, I’m surprised to find nothing but warmth in him when I get in touch. A delight, pure, when I tell him I want to see him, that in turn creates a delight in me, reminding me it can be so easy to see someone happy to want you. It reminds me he loves me; and I love him. At least, I thought I did once.

Delight was the opposite of what Adeben met me with when I told him I was going into the city to see Tom. I hadn’t expected him to take it well. I expected him to tell me not to go, to construct some reason why I couldn’t. My training: I need more time, I need more control. But he didn’t say any of those things. He didn’t say anything. He simply got up and walked away from me again.

As I arrive at Tom’s flat, I tell myself I won’t let it bother me. I know my reasons for coming; I need to see how I feel in Tom’s company, away from Adeben.

“God, I’ve missed you.” Tom’s arms engulf me and pull me into him when he opens the door, swinging me around. Feeling him close, I remember what I saw in him from the start: the warmth, the uncomplicated, unconditional love he has the capacity to give. Adeben is not capable of this. He doesn’t know how to love with his whole being. Not the way Tom does. Not like this. And better still, Adeben has made no proclamations of love. I haven’t even seen any signs of interest, nothing to alert me to him having anything resembling feelings for me. He’s just there, following me everywhere I go, with his eyes, with his body, with his soul.

“I’ve missed you too.” I smile back, shooing all thoughts of Adeben and his cold behaviour that morning out of my head.

“You look good. Really good.” Tom kisses my forehead.

“Thanks,” I respond shyly.

Inside his flat, he caresses my face gently but kisses me fiercely. His touch, his kiss, it awakens desires I have forgotten I possess. At that moment, I want to be there and nowhere else. I want to be with him. It will be enough, this warmth, this openness. It will be enough for me. To know someone is out there, thinking about you, loving you, wanting you, and to have your own feelings, your own love, welcomed and accepted – this is what is important. Everything else, what I might feel for Adeben, is different. It is raw, fleeting, too unstable. It doesn’t make sense.

Tom is good for me. He has promise and shares that promise with me. He loves me, and I can trust his love to anchor me as I walk the path of a Lion Soul and of a woman. One day, when the time is right, I might tell him about it. Let him in, share the truth, and tell him about the time when I didn’t actually leave my own party but was instead locked away in a freezer. And we would laugh about it, one day.

Spending the whole afternoon with him, drinking him and who he is back into my mind, it’s easy to remind myself why it was him I chose, why he too was special in his own way, and I have fun. We laugh, we joke, we kiss like no time has passed. And he, too, can be deep. Our relationship isn’t as shallow as Adeben’s presence has tricked me into believing. He asks me hard questions. He asks how I have been, and about the distance I have put between us.

“Stay,” he whispers into my ear as I look up the train timetable.

“I can’t, I have to go back. My treatment,” I lie.

“It can wait. Stay,” he pleads.

And I want to stay. In this, our own bubble, our life. I want to stay with him. I don’t want to risk returning and discovering all the clarity I have gained today is only there when I am with him. I don’t want to fog over again, confused by Adeben, and be drawn into him. I also don’t want to see Adeben or deal with the mood I am sure to find him in. Will he be kind, softer than I felt him, or will he still be angry? I don’t want to fight, not again. I want peace. And here with Tom, I have that peace. I can keep that peace if I stay.

“Maybe for a day.” I smile, putting away my phone and everything else that awaits me back in Surrey.

“Let’s celebrate your return.” He jumps up and leads me into the study, where he keeps his best bottles of wine.

Before we even enter the room, all the hairs on my arms stand up. Everything in my body is alert, warning me of some danger, but I ignore it all, thinking it residual regret for my decision to stay.

It’s not until I am in the room, watching Tom open the cabinet, that I find the true cause of the rigidity in my body.

“What is that?” I ask, though my eyes can clearly see what it is.

“What?” Tom’s back is turned away from me, his focus on the bottles, so he misses the horror on my face.

“That!” I spit, my finger pointed directly at it.

It’s mounted on the wall, hung up like a clock or some piece of art. Like something that could provoke thoughts or feelings in a person, something that could spark conversation or that could inspire. But it does none of those things. It’s gruesome, it’s hideous. The only feeling it provokes in me is disgust. Disgust that it even exists, that someone has made it, someone would think to hang it on their wall. Disgust that of all the places something like this should hang, it’s on my boyfriend’s wall – the man I have just spent the day telling myself I love.

In Tom’s study, hanging, disembodied above the fireplace, is the severed stuffed head of a lion.

“Oh, yes. It arrived last week. I thought it would get stuck in customs or something.” He laughs, somehow missing all the cues my whole body gives off.

“You bought this?” I ask, struggling to breathe, my anger, my rage so palatable in my throat.

“No. I made it. When I went on that safari I told you about. We went hunting. The guy said if I got one, he would get it cleaned up, stuffed, and sent to me.”

“You went hunting?” I am now vibrating, and so few of his words are making their way into my mind.

“Yeah… Great… Proud…”

“You hunted it?” Bile begins to rise up my throat. At least, I think it’s bile, though it burns like fire.

“Yeah. Some of the partners thought they would push the boat out a bit further this year for the company retreat. It’s my first one.”

“You killed this lion for sport at your company retreat?”

“Yes. Do you like it?”

“Do I like it?” I can barely speak. “Do I like the carcass of the dead lion you have hung on your wall? That you killed. For no reason.”

“It isn’t a big deal. That’s what they do there. You go on the safari, and you go shooting.” He steps towards me, and I take double the number of steps he has taken away.

“It isn’t a big deal that you go around killing endangered animals in your spare time?!” Some of my words are loud screams. Some are barely audible.

“It’s not endangered.”

“I think you will find that it is. This poor lion, minding its own business, literally trying to survive, now hangs on your wall. And you don’t think it’s a big deal?”

“Look, I can get rid of it if you don’t like it.”

“If I don’t like it? Who would like this? Who? Do you like it?” I snarl.

“I am sorry if it’s offended you.”

“And that’s the only reason you are sorry. That it has offended me. Not that this innocent creature is dead at your hand, for sport.” I am screaming at him, my heart beating faster and faster. Inside, I can feel her, Malkia. She is my rage. She feels my anger. She wants to be let out. She wants to enter the room and destroy him. I want her to destroy him, too.

My thoughts are with the head that used to be a lion, the eyes that used to house a soul. Now, they are hollow, but I can still see: its pain, its fear, its sorrow. I can see the life stolen by my boyfriend. I can see the boy somewhere who was destined to receive a Lion Soul. Who is waiting to be awoken, who will never know the gift that was intended for him. Did he feel it? The life of the soul that was to be bound to him. Did he feel it as it left the world? Maybe he was struck by a pain he could not shake or find the source for. Maybe he already felt lighter, lost, unaware of what was stolen from him.

“You are a monster!” I scream as tears for the lion, for the boy, roll down my face.

Tom reaches for my hand, but I push him before he can connect with my flesh – harder than I mean to, harder than I should – and he goes flying backwards.

“Eshe,” he whimpers.

“Monster!”

“Eshe, I’m sorry,” he says, rising but keeping a safe distance.

“I will never forgive you. Not for this.”

“Eshe, I don’t understand.”

I look into his eyes and see someone else, someone I don’t know. Someone who has been there the whole time I have claimed to know him. I just couldn’t see it before. I didn’t want to see it, blinded by my own ideas of perfection and of who I wanted him to be. But now I can see clearly who he was, who he will always be, and who I might have become beside him.

Inside of me, the lioness rages, banging against my chest. She begs for vengeance, she begs to be let out so she can spill his blood the way he spilt her kin’s. But I don’t let her. Even though I know what she wants is what I want, and what she wants to do is owed to her, I keep her inside.

“I never want to see you again,” I choke out instead.

Tom reaches for my arm as I turn to leave the room.

“Do not touch me,” I cry with a venom in my face that scares him.

Chapter 27

Eshe

I’ve already missed the next train, and no part of me feels like waiting for another. I need to get out of London. I need to get away from Tom, putting as much distance as possible between us, before I change my mind and succumb to the vengeful call ringing in my heart. When I shut his front door, I left him and everything between us, anything that could have happened, behind. Now I want nothing more than to forget the image ingrained in my mind. I want to wash myself clean of his touch on my skin, of his lips on mine. I want to forget I ever came here, that I ever believed in him, in a future for the two of us.

Sitting in the taxi that I decide will take me all the way, costs be damned, I engulf myself in my quiet space, allowing myself to think before I am assaulted by the presence of Adeben and his confrontations. I am exhausted. Yet my mind will not stop raking over the whole thing: who said what, how it was said, the sight that brought bile to my mouth. But the thing my mind keeps catching on most is Tom’s surprise. He was genuinely surprised that I’d reacted so badly, had been so provoked. Did he not know me at all? Had he ever really seen who I was, even at the most basic level, the one the whole world got to see? Had he not even seen that?

I hadn’t seen him. That he was the kind of person who thought killing for sport was fun, acceptable. He had to have always been that person, from the moment I met him to the last glance I allowed myself to take of him. He hadn’t changed, so why did he feel so different to me in that moment? Why was I just as surprised as he was at the scene we had both been caught in? I’d planned on staying with him, being with him. I believed there might be a way of reconciling who I’ve become with who I was. And that was silly. I’ve been foolish.

By the time the taxi pulls up to the house, it’s late, but all the lights are still on, guiding us back to the place I should never have left. Paying the driver, I can already see Adeben hunched over the kitchen sink. I’d hoped he would be away, or in his room. Hoped we wouldn’t have to see each other again, not today. I need to not see him. But now, there is no way I can sneak back in to avoid him or the mood I know I am sure to face.

“I didn’t think you would be back,” I hear him call from the kitchen as I walk by, but I ignore him and continue to the stairs. “I was sure it would be weeks before I saw you again.” His tone is playful.

“I said I was only going for the day.” My attempt to hide the pain and tears from my voice produces a tone that, while it says nothing about my state, is harsh and cold.

“Still, I did wonder if you would be back at all,” he continues from the kitchen.

“Well, I am back now. So, I guess you were wrong.” I won’t come back down the stairs, but I can’t move much further away either, afraid to draw him with me.

“I guess I was. Have you eaten?”

“It’s late. I’m tired,” I whisper.

I hear him move closer. To the door, I imagine, because while I cannot see any part of him, I can feel him all too close once again when he repeats, “Have you eaten?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I made a pie for dinner. I left you some. In case you were hungry.” Something in his tone is different, softer than where I last left him, but it doesn’t work.

“I thought you said you weren’t expecting me for weeks.”

“I wasn’t. Still, I hoped you’d be back tonight.”

I feel him trying to connect, reaching for me. I can feel how sorry he is for the way he behaved. And it’s nice. I am pleased to see him trying, but it is not what I need. I need the other Adeben. The broody, moody Adeben, who will tell me it was ridiculous to go to London in the first place and that I was foolish for chasing Tom. Not this one, not the one hiding in the kitchen, offering me dinner and kindness and a glimpse of feelings he does not have the capacity to sustain.

“I cannot do this,” I whisper to myself, taking that moment to dash higher up the stairs.

“I am so sorry,” he says, rushing out and meeting the base of the stairs.

“I… I should have behaved better this morning. I—” He stops when he sees the tears in my eyes. “Eshe. Are you okay?”

“I can’t do this anymore.” I start crying, my feet rooted to the step, my soul divorced of the energy to do anything but sink down.

“I didn’t mean to upset you. I was… I was angry. Not at you. I was angry with myself.”

“I broke up with Tom,” I blurt out.

“You went to see him to end things?” I hear the hope in his voice, but I cannot meet it.

“No. I went to see him because I wanted to see him. I wanted to see if… No, I wanted to believe there was a chance that we could still be together. That I could be all of this and happy.”

“You are unhappy here?” he asks.

“No! Yes! I want… I wanted it all. Listen, this is great. The Lion Soul has been great. You have taught me so much. And I am so grateful. But that was also great. I liked who I was out there, who I was with Tom.”

“And you can’t be that person here?”

I look away from the hurt in his eyes and admit, “No. I can’t.”

“I see,” he whispers.

“I can’t be that person anywhere. She’s gone. If that person even ever existed outside of my dreams.”

“I don’t understand.”

“That girl, the person who was happy, normal, had this fantastic life. She was never really real. Just a little girl’s fantasy. Like Tom.”

Adeben frowned. “But he is a real person.”

“Not that Tom. My Tom, he didn’t really exist. I don’t know if I ever knew the real Tom. I mean, he didn’t pretend to be anyone else. I just didn’t look properly. I guess I wanted to see him as it suited me, but not who he really was.”

“What happened?”

“I do this all the time. I colour in the blanks in people and make them something greater than they are. And then, when I really see them for the first time, I don’t recognise them.” I don’t notice him moving until he is sitting on the step just below me.

“I think we all try to see the best in people.”

“No, it’s more than that. I pave over these great faults and erect ridiculous skyscrapers that can only come crashing down.”

“What happened with Tom?”

“He… He forced me to see the real him.”

“What did he do?” he asks urgently.

“He didn’t do anything to me. I’m fine. He just— He wasn’t who I thought he was.”

“People rarely are,” he whispers sadly as his eyes continue to search my soul.

“I feel so ridiculous. I thought I would be with him forever. I thought I was going to build a life with him. I… I thought I was going to have children with him one day.” The realisation of what I truly lost hits me hard, forcing a stillness in my tears.

“I don’t think it’s foolish to have dreams.” He smiles back at me.

“These dreams were foolish. Very foolish. I should have just focused on being a Lion Soul. Like you.” I laugh, but he doesn’t.

“You should focus on your Lion Soul and yourself. For now,” he replies with a strained tone.

“Speaking of. You would have been proud. I manage to leave him in one piece despite my Lion Soul’s blinding rage.” I shift, trying to break the familiar intensity.

“What did he do?” Adeben asks puzzled.

“It was hard enough holding her back, I’m not about to deal with you. He’s not worth it.”

And I do mean it. As much as I want to explain to Adeben what Tom did, as much as I want company in my sadness, in the hate that has entered my heart since seeing the lion’s head, I don’t trust Adeben to show any of the restraint I have only just found. Tom crossed a line, and there is a justice he deserves. But not blood; enough blood has been spilt. The creature he murdered will not return and killing him won’t give a life back to the Lion Soul he had robbed of a great gift. Nothing will change but the weight his executioner will have to carry. I don’t want that for myself. I don’t want that for Adeben.

“I’ll only imagine the worst in my head,” Adeben continues, following me down the stairs and into the kitchen.

“I promise you, you’re better off not knowing.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Sorry, are you struggling to process that there is something I am not telling you?” I tease, trying to manufacture a peace yet to come.

“No. It’s not like that. I just can’t. If he hurt you…”

“I am fine. I will be fine. Like you said, I just need to focus on myself and my Lion Soul.”

“Well, I should say, I am sorry you and Tom are no more.”

I laugh weakly. “You shouldn’t say things you don’t mean.”

“No, I mean it. In the sense that you wanted something, and now you don’t have it.”

“It’s fine. I never really thought I was the kind of girl someone would want to marry anyway.”

“Well, that is foolish.”

“That’s how I have always felt.”

“Well, then, you have always thought foolish things. Tom was a lucky man. Lucky you even considered him worthy of your time. Any man would be, to have you.” His words are followed by a trail of unspoken words that cloud the space between us, bringing forth more unspoken words. Some that don’t need to be said, others long overdue in being expressed.

Chapter 28

Adeben

I notice a change in Eshe after her breakup with Tom. Her focus and determination were never reasons for concern, but now they seem… more. She wants to learn more, know more, become more, throwing herself into the exercises I give. I am in complete awe of how far she has come. Suddenly, it’s clear she has been holding back, as though her mind, even after she bonded with her Lion Soul, still split itself. One self a Lion Soul and committed to this life, and the other still holding tightly on to the life she hoped to have outside of this. Now he is gone, she is whole. She is happier.

I cannot deny I am pleased Tom is gone. I never liked him or believed he was near good enough to sit next to her, let alone be with her. The day she left to go and see him, my heart sank. I thought I had lost her, even though I could not think myself bold enough to have had her in the first place. But when she left, I told myself it was for the best. That I, too, should prepare to return to my life. To try and carve out something of a life for myself in the isolation I once thrived in but now found myself unwilling to return to.

Eshe and her presence have awoken something in me. And now, I cannot imagine being alone – not now I know what this feels like.

She’s changed so much about me. Even my temperament. When I am around her, I find my Lion Soul is more peaceful, less wild, almost still. The Lion Soul I have tempered for years with meticulous work and careful bouts of expression needs less tending. She soothes it somehow, just by being near.

Still, I am not ready to admit the full extent of the changes she provokes or the feelings that rise, so unnatural to me. There is so much more I can dream of just by her being there. Things I long dismissed for myself, even before becoming a Lion Soul, seem within my grasp now. Things like happiness. I can now see myself, with her, together, in the future. Building something that resembles a life, and a good one at that.

The things I feel for her grow with each day we stay in our bubble. Every day, we dine with each other, we watch TV, we talk and walk together, and it becomes harder for me to see anything but the future I can have with her. So after she left and came back without the distraction of Tom, I let myself hope – a hope too big for someone like me, who has sworn off everything and everyone, someone so tethered to solitude.

But every now and then, when my mind wanders, before feelings take root, I remember myself. Who I am. Why I was sent here. All the truths I keep from her. And what they will mean for me and my alien dreams.

Too many times, I think of telling her. Showing her who I am. But I don’t. I can’t. Because telling her those things also means telling her I was sent to kill her. That I have seen it happen in my dreams. She has seen it too. And we both know how real the threat is.

Then there is who I am. Who I really am. I am not a guide. I am a warrior. One with a deadly skill. The Leader himself has reminded me many times over; it is no surprise I was the one chosen to meet the lioness in battle. I have thought about it, too. Everyone has their role in the tribe, every soul has a past that taints who they are now. No one is more coloured by their soul than me.

Hati, the soul that lives inside of me, that powers every part of who I am, is not like the others. He is feared. A warrior well-known throughout our histories. Fierce but also bloodthirsty. Stories are always told about him, his name used as a tool to scare young Lion Souls into submission. Even before coming to the compound, the stories about him reached my village. Only for me to awake and find myself already well acquainted with him. In me, people have always seen an unmistakable resemblance to the fearful Hati, a semblance only helped further when they learn the circumstances of my awakening and banishment from my hometown.

People suspected I was bonded with Hati, though no one has ever been brave enough to ask, not even the Leader. Most of them avoid me; Hati was well known to be short-tempered, and no soul desperate to see him in action. But because of it, I am given more freedom than most, the fear of Hati birthing a reverence. I go to meetings, eat with them, celebrate their successes, help where I can. But there is always a distance. I am their weapon. Sent when something needs to be done that most do not have the stomach for. I am their monster.

The way they look at me… always a worried distance. Even William, the closest thing I have to a brother, my only friend. We smile, we laugh, but the distance is still there. Placed by me for his safety. I need to do the same for Eshe. She does not know enough to keep her distance from me. How can she? But I want her there next to me, closer than most have ventured. I want to be with her, here in this bubble, away from outside forces, away from what I am. But there must be a distance. For her sake.

This is who I am. I have long accepted exactly who my soul is and the providence that led to us being bound. He was meant to be mine, and no part of me regrets the gift I have been given. I am happy with my place, living with the tribe. A part of them, all while being apart from them. I have never wanted more than I have. Until I met her.

There is no world where I can reveal who I am, what I am to her. I cannot risk her looking at me with fear. The same fear I first saw on the faces of my family, and then on my tribe members. It will happen eventually, I know. But it does not have to be today. With its delay, I can enjoy what I have now. A time when my soul and I are something different.

“So, your friend William will be the next Leader?” Eshe asks as we spend another evening closer than I know we should. Watching her cook badly again, I am enjoying myself much more than I have any right to.

“Yes. William will be the next Leader.”

“Because his father is the Leader now?” I nod, my eyes scanning over her hands as she slowly cuts into some tomatoes the way I have shown her. “Doesn’t that seem unfair? Just because he was born into the right family?”

“It is just the way it is. If anyone disagrees and doesn’t think he should be the Leader, they can challenge him.”

“They can?”

“Yes. They can make a challenge, and if they defeat him, they will be the new Leader.”

“I am surprised more people don’t challenge then.” Her eyes glance up at me for a second and it rejuvenates me. Pulls me headfirst into a belief system that threatens everything I believe in. Who I am, what I am. Her eyes tell me it does not matter. But those are the lies I am capable of telling myself when I am stood this close to her.

“Well, it is not without risk. You can’t challenge the Leader and then slink off when you lose. It’s a battle to the death. Only one person remains after the battle, and he is the Leader.”

“Oh. So, does that mean William has no choice? People can just challenge him and risk his life?”

“Yes, but no one does. It’s an antiquated rule. No one has done so for decades.”

“And your Leader gets to have a family?”

“It’s not like that. Lion Souls are wanderers. They do not settle down. The Leader has to find someone and build a family for the future.”

“You say it like it is the worst thing that could happen to a Lion Soul.” Her hands skirt around the chopping board, mirroring her words.

“I don’t mean it like that. I just mean, it’s a responsibility. For all Lion Souls, it’s what the Leader has to do.”

“Sounds a lot like Lion Souls are just a bunch of players.” She doesn’t look up, but I see her smile when I laugh.

“No. It’s not like that.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Okay, yes, maybe a little.” This time, her laugh joins mine. The mixture of the two, the symphony it creates, is the most beautiful sound I know I will ever hear.

“And meanwhile, William is the only one who gets to fall in love.”

“Love isn’t exclusive to the Leader. Most Lion Souls fall in love, some many times over. They just don’t settle down. They are human, after all.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

Her question freezes me. Looking back at her, I am grateful her eyes don’t come up to meet mine as I answer, “No.”

“Why am I not surprised? You don’t strike me as the giddy, falling-in-love type.”

“You know me so well.” I recover quickly enough that when she moves from the tomatoes to the pot on the fire, and her eyes cast my way incidentally, there is nothing for her to see. Nothing that will betray any of the things I can feel forcing their way to the surface.

Chapter 29

Adeben

Following my last call with the Leader, I resumed ignoring his calls. The deadline he gave for my return came and went with no new action from me. I did not intentionally ignore his calls. I was always too busy with Eshe. The excuses I might have been able to manufacture to get away were always far too clumsy to utter. More than that, I now knew what I would do, what I had the resolve to do. Even if the response I was due to give him still escaped me. How would I tell him I would not do what he had sent me to do? What even my dreams told me I would do?

I could not kill her. I knew it from the moment he had asked me to, from the moment I dreamt I had. She isn’t a threat. I know it in my heart. She has done nothing wrong save being born the wrong gender for the tribe.

She could live in harmony with them. She could be an ally even if not fully integrated into the tribe. When I return, which will not be long after my message is delivered to the Leader, she could return to her life too. She has already mastered control, and the soul within her is calmer since they bonded. She will be fine. She will have a chance at the life she so hungrily craves. As for me, I cannot know what awaits me. I cannot care. Best-case scenario, I am allowed to return to the solitude I once thrived in, but now do not know how to be content with. Maybe I can see her, from time to time. If she was open to it. It could be enough. Worst case, I am exiled from the tribe for my disobedience and I have no home to return to, but even that I can stomach. Even if it means never seeing her again, I can be okay with that too. If she is well, if I know she is safe and happy.

There is a slim chance I will be the one wiped from the face of the earth. The Leader has been known to exact such a punishment when thoroughly vexed. Still that is not likely to be the outcome of all this. Not with who I am, what I am. The tribe will always have a need for someone like me. For Hati. They will not easily give up their favourite weapon. They will not risk making an enemy of the Lion Soul bonded to Hati. It will all be fine.

All these scenarios run through my mind. Everything that might happen when I finally tell the Leader of my plan. Every morning, I tell myself I will act. I will move things forward. But each night has its own ritual. Each night, I think over the day, remembering the time I have stolen with her, and I resolve to choose to do nothing. To keep the little time I know I have with her.

So, when I see William approaching the cottage one day, my body shakes with a fear that is profound and honest.

The Leader’s calls have not been the only ones I have ignored. William has tried to contact me many times in the last few weeks. His messages beg me to make contact and make things right with the tribe. To come back into the fold. But I have not allowed his words to reach me. As much as I want to speak to him, to be reminded of home, and find out how my family are, I don’t want to hear the Leader’s words in my friend’s mouth. It is always him they send when I fall too far out of their grasp. But Surrey is a long way away, even for him and what they always expect of him.

I meet him outside the door, away from Eshe, away from what we have here.

“Adeben.” William smiles before pulling me reluctantly into a hug. “It has been too long, brother.”

But I feel uneasy in his presence. So many times before, he has come to pull me back, bring me back in line with the tribe at his father’s behest, but this is the first time that his coming has made me feel any guilt.

If I am the tribe’s favourite weapon, then William has always been the reins they use to control me. Putting William in a difficult position not just with his father but with the whole tribe. Growing up, this friendship was never encouraged, but it persisted. And it was not long firmly established before they began to use it for their gain. A few choice words from William and they could pull me left or right. We have both always seen it happening, known how they used us, but played along. Played our roles.

Having an ally in William, our friendship is something I hold dear. He does too. Not only does he have a friend and a brother in me, but he has a reason for no one to dispute his leadership. A strong friendship with the man everyone believes to be bonded to the infamous Hati places him in a position of power – it did even when we were younger – providing him with a shield so dense that not even the toughest of Lion Souls dare cross him. Above all, our friendship provides both of us with a relaxation of the strict rules that govern our people. I can be left alone. William can be who he wants, speaking out and pushing for the change we both want to see without much objection.

But this time feels different. This time, I know I have pushed too far. Both my missions have been forsaken, all communication ceased. All while I am still here, in their house, living off their money. Even for me, this will not go unpunished. I will pay for this, I am sure. What I am unsure of is why they would send him. Why now if there is no way back? Why not send one of the others?

“Why are you here?” I ask him, holding my body as a shield against him for the first time in our history.

“Adeben, is this how you will greet me?”

“William, why are you here?” I persist.

“I came to see my brother. You have been ignoring me.” He smiles easily, as he has always done. That is his secret weapon. The toothy grin that usually succeeds in an expert diffusion.

“I have been ignoring everyone.”

“I am aware. I was concerned. I came to see if you were okay.”

“Your father sent you?”

“No, I told him I planned to come, and he agreed it was best that I was the one who came,” William says with a cool tone he knows I will struggle to read.

“He sent you here. I know that much. To what end, I cannot think. It is not you they would send to end me.”

“Adeben, my brother. No one wishes you harm.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Look, have you annoyed them? Yes. But you are one of us. We just want you to return home.” William’s gentle brown eyes say he is sincere, but they too are well trained.

“I tried to explain to your father. I am almost finished training her. Once she has completed her training and is safe, I will return. I do not mean to stay here.”

“Yes, I heard you were training her. How is she doing?” His eyes now wander past me into my lair.

“She is learning very quickly. She has greatly improved.”

“Good. Is she here?” His words pull his whole body to my left, then my right, taking bold glances past me. Searching.

“No. Why do you ask?” Suspicion, that is all I feel. For him and for those I cannot see, standing at his back.

“Ah! I want to see her. I want to meet this lioness that I hear so much about.”

“I do not think that would be a good idea. I have not told her about myself.”

“You didn’t tell her about other Lion Souls?”

“No, I have told her about the tribe. She knows of our brothers. I have not told her that I am—”

He cuts me off, a severe expression pulling his brows close together as he asks, “She doesn’t know you are a Lion Soul?”

“No. I have not told her, but she knows it. I am sure of it.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell her?”

“The dreams. She has had them too. I do not want her to know that it was me. The one who killed her.”

“Adeben!” His voice is slow and disappointed, pulling on my name for longer than I want to hear.

“I could not secure her trust,” I say. “I could not train her. How could I teach her our ways if she feared me?”

“But that was then. You do not mean to complete your mission, so why not tell her?” William asks, and his words are the very ones that run through my mind in the morning. When everything is so much more black and white.

“I came here with two missions. One from your father and the other from Elder Botkin. He asked me to learn about her, to find out if she was a threat to us or our world. She is not. I have seen in her a strength that I have not seen in any other. She can be our ally.”

“She wants to join us?”

“She wants to live her life. She does not mean anyone harm.”

William doesn’t speak for some time, taking in my words, deciding how much our friendship is worth. How long will he stand beside me? What is the true cost of having a friend, a brother, like me?

“Then I must see her for myself,” he announces.

“Why? Do you not trust my judgement?”

“Of course, brother. It is your judgment of her that intrigues me. I must meet this girl, who has clearly caused a change in you.” He laughs, and it makes me feel foolish. Self-conscious. Too exposed, even to him, who I trust with my life. “I thought for sure that when I arrived today, you would rip my head off and send it back to my father in protest. Yet I stand here in one piece.”

“And yet you came?”

“You would have come for me. It was a chance I had to take.”

I smile back brightly before I take a deeper breath than I need to say, “You cannot stay, William. It will provoke too many questions in her.”

“I must stay. If she is as you say, I can witness it, and your report back will be much stronger with my account too.”

It would be useful. His words, his weight behind the report I plan on making to the tribe. As the next in line, everything he says means more than any words I can pull together. To the Leader, and to the Elders also. Still, I am apprehensive. Not of him. But of what his presence might mean for me. The things I have not told Eshe. The rhythm of our quiet life together that he might jeopardise.

He doesn’t wait for my words in return. Instead, he beams. “I will stay and see this lioness in action. Then we can both return. I can help with your training of her. So what is she like? Is she beautiful?” He pushes past me and enters our home while my guard is down.

“Beautiful?” I answer far too quickly.

He turns around and raises an eyebrow at me. “Yes. Is she beautiful?”

“What does that matter?”

“Do you mean to tell me you’re naïve enough to think that it won’t change the situation if she is pretty?”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t think a tribe of all-male Lion Souls will be more likely to accept an unknown lioness into their tribe if she is beautiful? Perhaps a match can be secured for her.” William smiles still.

“You mean… you?”

“If I am to take a wife, why not a beautiful lioness?”

“She won’t agree to that.”

“How do you know? Many women find me irresistible.” He laughs, but nothing is funny.

“I know her. She would not—”

“I am joking, brother. Relax.” He holds my gaze, laughing still, searching me. I try to force myself to laugh too, but my body is unwilling. He is not wrong. The easiest way to secure her acceptance is beside him. And William is better than most. He is my friend. I can trust him. But the idea makes me feel sick. I can already feel the contents of my stomach circling in a whirlwind of panic. She should not have to – I will not let her – marry for convenience. Be some pawn in the Lion Souls’ world. I will find another way for her.

Chapter 30

Adeben

I was right to be wary of William coming into our home and changing things. He did so as soon as he stepped through the doors.

Eshe is delighted to meet him. She enjoys his company. Enjoys getting to know him. Getting closer each day. For hours she sits talking to him. Her hunger for knowledge about the tribe plays into William’s ego. He is all too happy to indulge her questions, to train her, pushing me aside. In truth, he is better at it than I ever was. His patience is endless, his skill set greater than mine. William has always been the better all-round Lion Soul. Even if he were not in line to be the next Leader, he would pose a threat to whoever was. He is charismatic, and his words carry weight. When he tells a story, when he speaks, he captures a level of attention I cannot even dream of.

Too often, he speaks to her. About the compound and about things I have hidden from her, things she does not need to know. There is an openness about him that draws her in. And she reacts to him. She likes him. I can tell even from the outside. She gets excited when he walks into a room, and she follows when he leaves.

William, in turn, has told me how beautiful he thinks she is. How amazing he sees she is. He’s on my side. At least I have his support now. Together, we can make a report to the tribe on her behalf. Push for acceptance. Protect her. For that, I am grateful. She will be safe. I have managed that, at least. I should be pleased, proud I have successfully completed the mission that no one gave me. I, Adeben, the blunt instrument, have mastered something delicate, skilful. But I am not pleased or proud. I am the opposite of what I think I should be.

Eshe has fallen for him, I can tell. And why should she not? I am not the only Lion Soul in the world – even if, for the short time when I was, I felt important to her. I felt like I mattered to her. Like some of the feelings I could feel might not just be my own.

In a way, I am glad William came. His arrival, and the subsequent transfer of her attention to him, reminds me she is not mine. She never has been. She was Tom’s, and now she is William’s. And William is a far better match than Tom ever was. He can offer her things. Beside him, she can be great. Together, they can make us all into something better than we are now. The changes William and I have long spoken about, dreamt about, could be made real with her by his side.

And me. My ties to them. If they were useful before, with William’s friendship securing my brute force, they are doubly so now, with my feelings for Eshe hitching me to them forever.

Sitting in the kitchen, watching them “train” in the garden, I am acutely aware of this. William is in his lion form, Eshe too, walking side by side. The lioness and the lion. They suit each other. They look like a whole. With me on the outside, where I belong, greedily looking in.

All morning, they have been in the garden, and I haven’t left this spot at the window. I should walk away. It is too painful watching them like this. Their closeness is not only emotional; they brush up against each other as they pass. The way they are… I want that. I want to be in the garden with her. In lion form, in human form, in every form possible.

I need to look away. It’s too much. But I don’t. I drink in the pain. And deep inside, something breaks. A roar escapes my control. Loud and so full of aggression. It blasts through the kitchen and flies into the garden.

I look away when they cast their eyes back towards the house, ashamed by the lack of control, the blatant expression of jealousy.

They know where it came from. They know the sound, the exact part of me that is breaking. They feel the focus I am losing. It is so clear to them.

I wait for them to run back to see it up close. To check. But they don’t come.

When I summon the strength to look again through the window, I see them still. Taunting me, spurred on by my pain, moving even closer to each other. William’s form is now undistinguishable from Eshe’s. One of them pushes the other. And Eshe, I think, rolls on the grass. She pushes him when she rises. Once he meets the grass, she falls to join him. Rolling, embracing each other. There is so much suggestiveness to take in, all while nothing unclear remains.

That sight, the final blow, fuels a fire that has long been lit. Rage coats me, pushes through me, and all control I once thought myself in possession of is gone.

All at once, a roar tears out of me, and my legs carry me through the window. The glass shatters across my frame. And by the time my feet touch the ground outside, my human body is gone, my lion form moving quickly towards them.

Once I reach them, the speed of my movement transfers seamlessly into an assault that hits William’s body hard, knocking it off Eshe and into the grass a few feet ahead.

He rises, only provoking me further. My body launches another attack, leaping into the air toward him. He quickly pulls me into a tumble so different from the one I have just witnessed. Aggression and rage spill over. My roars continue to fill the air. I mean to kill him. I mean to destroy him.

Why is he here? Why is he here with her? So close, too close. He already has so much. He has everything he could ever want. He cannot have her. Not Eshe too.

I tower over him. This is where I excel. This is where I am the champion. And no one can match me. No one can come close. Not like this. Others are smarter, more skilful. But I am this. The ultimate hunter. The speed with which I have come for him is unmatched. They don’t even have the time to react.

I roar over him again. Caught underneath me, he is powerless to stop any of my desires. My head falls back, preparing to charge into William’s exposed neck. I will end him. That’s all I want now. I don’t care who he is. I don’t care that it will spark trouble with the Lion Souls. I don’t care that he is my only friend. I can just about see the pain it will cause me afterwards. But I cannot feel it.

“No!” I hear Eshe before she charges at me, knocking me off William and then rushing back for him. Checking him for wounds. Something in the look she casts back at me, her eyes piercing my own, disarms me, waking me from my trance. And I see where I am.

“Adeben,” William calls as he rises back up. But it is too much to bear. Seeing them now, together. Knowing what I have just done. What I almost did. The shame moves me onto my feet and carries me away from them. Fast.

***

It’s hours before I return to my human form. The run has done me good. It has cleared my mind.

So long overdue. Those months of hiding my Lion Soul from Eshe, caging it, were reckless. It was foolish. Everything I know, everything I have taught Eshe, forsaken in favour of a mission I did not need to undertake.

It could have ended terribly. I could have killed William. I might have, had Eshe not stepped in. It all got messy in my head. In my heart. The feelings I told myself to bury were never gone. They only transferred deeper into my soul – so deep that I shared them with him.

I know better. I should not have allowed myself to fall into the well with her. I should have built up better walls to surround myself with, better controlled myself, my Lion Soul. Hati is not like other souls. The rage that flowed through his veins when he was alive is only magnified in his soul, coursing through me. I am usually careful. I have trained myself to be. I cannot take risks. I cannot fall into feelings. Not ones powerful enough to incite him.

“Adeben.” William approaches me as I walk back to the house.

“William, I am sorry.” Regret, shame, and pain drip off my tongue and into my words.

“It’s fine.”

“No, I lost control. I attacked you.”

“I am fine. You’ve done worse during our training exercises.” William laughs weakly.

“I don’t know what came over me.” I lower myself onto the ground and he joins me.

“I think we all know what came over you. Jealousy!”

“No. I don’t feel that way,” I lie, looking away, my fingers using the cool grass to strip my body of the burning heat brought on by everything.

“I don’t understand you, brother,” William says. “You clearly have feelings for her.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“So you attacked me because I was close to her, and you think you can deny that you have strong feelings for her?”

“I can’t have feelings for her.”

“I don’t think feelings care about which of them you can and can’t have. You have feelings for her. Can you just admit it?”

I shake my head furiously.

“Say it,” William teases.

“Maybe I do have feelings for her.”

“Strong feelings for her.”

“I can’t. They are nothing.” He rolls his head and sighs before I continue resolutely, “She is better off with you. You can protect her. You are good for her.”

“Me? I don’t have feelings for her!” he shouts, almost jumping off the ground in protest.

“The two of you are good together. It is better this way.”

He waves his hands in my face, breaking my calm and shouts, “Are you listening? I do not have feelings for her.”

“But… The two of you.” I understand nothing. Not anymore.

“We are friends. I like her. She is a good woman, and a great lioness. But I don’t love her like that.” He laughs a little too easily considering where we have just been.

“I didn’t say I loved her.”

“Oh, so you just have weak feelings that cause you to lose control and almost kill your only friend, but it’s not love? Do you see how ridiculous you sound?”

“I cannot have these feelings.”

I try to rise back up, but he grabs my hand, holding me steady. “Why? Because you’re a lone wolf?”

“You know what I am.” My eyes hold his gaze, saying words my mouth must never utter. Not even to him.

“A great Lion Soul,” William says. “One of the few people I respect. Someone who has put everything on the line for this woman. This woman that you clearly love but cannot admit it. You can’t even show your true self to her.”

In the midst of it all, it seems I forgot a lot of things. Like who William is to me. And the Lion Soul I have been keeping from her, I forgot him too. “Oh. She saw me.”

“Yes, she saw you and what?”

“Did she say anything?” My heartbeat sets off a reaction that takes hold everywhere. In the sweat running down my neck, and the way all the moisture is pulled from my throat, transforming my mouth into a desert. Panic, fear, shame.

“She’s furious!”

“I really messed up.”

“Yes, you’ve been messing up for some time now, Adeben. Just be honest. That’s all she wants.”

“I can’t. She thinks she wants to know the truth, but believe me, she doesn’t want to know this.”

He laughs. “Yes, you decide what she does and doesn’t want to know. I can see her loving that.”

He gets up, and I follow him, saying, “I don’t mean it like that.”

“Look. What’s wrong with you? You know she cares for you.” I shake my head, but he moves his whole body before me, squarely blocking my retreat, to continue, “You know she does. I have been here for, what, a week? Two? And I can see how she looks at you. She’s always asking about you. Trying to find out about you.”

“She is?” The old hope tries to surface.

“Yes, she is trying to get to know you, and we both know you are not the easiest soul to get close to. Just be honest with her, let her know you. She shouldn’t have to ask me about you,” William finishes.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“It’s not rocket science, Adeben. Just go and be with her.”

“Even if I could, if I knew how to do what you are telling me. It is forbidden anyway. We couldn’t be together.” The house slowly comes into view as we walk. And I stop.

“Really?” William says. “You, of all people, will talk to me about the rules. When have you ever let the rules stop you from doing something?”

“This is different. You know I cannot be with someone like that. What, a fling, and then we go our separate ways? I don’t want that.”

“So don’t do that.” William’s hands cuts the air, punctuating his words.

“Says you. You will be the Leader, you will have a family. You will have those things. It is not so for the rest of us.”

“Adeben, you are just making excuses now.”

“They are not excuses. They are truths. I may be content to live on the outskirts of the tribe, but I will not bring that to her door.”

“Brother, you do what you want. It is your life to spoil. I will not get involved. Believe me, I have learnt my lesson.” William smiles, gently touching his shoulder.

“You are hurt?”

He turns to look at me. He should be done with me. He should be angry; I would be. But instead, he says, “Of course I am hurt. You attacked me. How I managed to forget how formidable you were, I will never know.”

“I am sorry I hurt you.”

“As I say, I have learnt my lesson and been humbly reminded of your superiority in battle.” He pulls my arm, and we walk back to the house. I cannot enter, not without his support.

“We should train together more often.” I try to laugh, to break the tension in my body when we reach the door.

“No,” he says, laughing too now, “I have seen too much of you in training already. I never want to train with you again.”

Chapter 31

Eshe

I didn’t sleep, my mind unsurprisingly busy running over everything that happened, showing me his image every time my eyelids fell.

Adeben was nothing like I expected him to be. He was bigger, broader, more ferocious, his mane more magnificent, darker than I had dreamt. I was stunned, more than I thought I would be, by the sight of him. Seeing him for the first time in front of me… it was nothing like my dreams, but I still recognised him. I may have done long before that.

He is a Lion Soul. I’ve known for a while. But seeing it with my own eyes, it felt like all the images I had before, in my mind, in my dreams, were on a tiny screen. My mind was unable to comprehend the true proportions of him, the awe he inspired. He took my breath away, honestly. Left me struggling to replenish what he stole. It launched my head high into the clouds, being so close to him. His presence set all my nerve endings alight.

Right in that moment, I didn’t believe I had ever seen anything as captivating as him in all his glory. In his true form. I knew him more by seeing him whole. I loved him more for seeing him fully. The place in my heart occupied by him, already full, somehow grew with his essence: what I think about him, how I think about him. In that moment, all I could do was observe him, my greedy eyes marvelling over all the tiny imperfections that came together to make him perfect.

But those moments were just that: moments. Mere seconds. My mind came back to just in time to witness him over William, the violence so clear in him. I didn’t consciously make the decision to act before my body charged for him. I was furious. Enraged. All those months, I had waited to see him, for him to let me in and show me everything he was. All those questions he side-stepped, leaving me to wonder if I was pushing for something that could never happen. I’d even told him I would wait until he was ready. I curbed my impatience, used all of my newfound restraint. And yet all it had taken for him to do what I wanted, what I pushed for, was stupid jealousy.

I know it was wrong to agree to play along with William when he suggested we put on a show for our watching lion. It seemed so harmless, playful, and just another one of the games carefree William often dreamt up. I didn’t think it would provoke him the way it did. William can’t have either; he wouldn’t have put himself in danger like that.

And then, to make matters worse, Adeben just skulked off. Once again, he had no words for me, no explanation. He just left.

I am so furious with him. The way he consistently behaves. The way I let him behave. All these feelings, clouding my judgement, making me bend too far. I let him get away with so much, things I would shoot anyone else down for. Some part of me, who I am, is getting lost, falling away in my chasing him and hunting for his truth. Searching for the real Adeben.

After Tom, I promised I would focus only on myself, that I would take leave from all the things I allowed to take my place in the drive to my future. But I didn’t. Instead, I invested in Adeben far too much. Even before ending things with Tom, I can see now that I had already started liquidating my assets in a bid to search for more capital for Adeben. Nurturing the feelings I could feel for him. Watching him, waiting for him, following him with my soul. Longing for him in a way that felt very reckless.

All the while, I pined for him, with no encouragement from him at all. He made no effort to return any of the intentions or hopes I threw his way silently. He refused to open up. And the walls I first caught sight of so early on were stronger, higher, more impenetrable than before. Still, I persisted in knocking at them.

William’s arrival was a relief. It punctuated the closeness I was beginning to enjoy – the routine we built that fooled me into thinking we were something more than we were. Meeting another Lion Soul forced me to remind myself of my place in it all, and Adeben’s place as my guide. He is, after all, just doing the job he was sent to do. There is no “us”; we are not together, no matter how much it feels like it sometimes.

And I like William. There is something so easy about being in his company. He speaks to me like we have known each other for years. He is warm, kind, and open. He is a lot of things Adeben is not. When I am with him, it feels simple. My heart is steady, my mind is clear. From him, I am able to learn things about the other Lion Souls, about Adeben.

When I asked him if I could see his lion form, he showed me. When he tries to teach me things, he is a lot more patient than Adeben has ever been. William shows me how to do things I need to learn, and it’s easier then to mimic him, to replicate it, to grasp it. Everything about him I appreciate. Everything he teaches I am hungry to learn. And the friendship he offers up so easily, I reach for with the same ease.

With William’s arrival, Adeben drew back. He fell into the shadows, watching us but rarely engaging. His words to me are sharp, only speaking to me when I ask him a question directly. It makes me feel unimportant, as though now William is here, he can have a break from my training and from me. He doesn’t want to be around me. And I can’t help but wonder if he asked William to come so he could take a break from the task he has clearly lost all interest in.

It stings, feeling like I am nothing but a tedious task to him. A project he hadn’t asked for; he was just the one unfortunate enough to be assigned me and, owing to his commitments to the tribe, he would see it through. But more so, it hurts how much I miss his company, his impertinence, and the simple smiles that sometimes sneak out when I speak to him.

Seeing him transformed, being face-to-face with his lion form and recognising him from my dream… Reliving those nightmares awake, yet feeling a closeness, that I have always known him, is unsettling. Unsettling enough to threaten to quash my anger.

The trivialness of his jealousy, if that was what it was. Because I can’t find any basis for why it would be there in the first place.

He didn’t want me, so why should he be concerned about what I did or who I did it with? Why did it bother him to see William and I so close? All there was between us was friendship; anyone could see that. William was his friend, and now he was mine. Why should it bother someone who had so easily offloaded me and my training? Someone who clearly wanted nothing to do with me.

Tiredness is all I can feel. Tiredness from it all: being a Lion Soul who was so ill-equipped, and being here with Adeben. My mind is tired of processing too many damn processes. Trying to decipher it all. Trying to decipher him.

I heard him in the night outside my door. It’s still so easy to feel his presence. I waited for him to knock, to come to me, to explain himself and everything that happened. At the time, I was even ready to hear him out and to give him the benefit of the doubt. I was far too ready to accept whatever excuse he gave, whatever apology he offered, this time too.

But he didn’t knock. He just hovered outside my door for an hour. And I waited for that hour.

William tried to explain it when I helped him up after Adeben attacked him. Adeben had lost control. Seeing us together, close as we were, had flipped something in him, and he failed to control his jealousy.

“Jealous of what?” I spat angrily at him, my heart still racing from both my assault on Adeben and my delight at finally seeing him.

“Of you and me.” My face must have lost some of its control and contorted in a way that told him of the absurdity of it all, before he replied, “Obviously, you and I know that there is nothing there. But he can’t see that.”

“Why would he care anyway?”

“Because he cares.”

“Cares about what? About me?” I scoffed. “I think you must be confusing him with some other Lion Soul.”

“Of course he cares. He cares very deeply for you.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“You don’t see the way he looks at you?” William asked, with a puzzled smile.

“I don’t think you see him the way I do.”

“As his only friend, I know him. I know how he feels about you.”

“If he cared about me, why did he offload me onto you? No offense.”

“He’s just sulking.”

I shook my head. “It’s obvious now that he never wanted to do this assignment. He was forced into coming here to train me.”

“He was never assigned to train you. He did that by himself. This isn’t mine to tell you. But if you think he is staying here with you now because someone is making him, then you don’t know him. No one, and I mean no one, could force Adeben to do anything he didn’t want to do.”

The words he spoke confused me then. They still do now. I don’t know what to make of them.

So I left him outside, too angry to engage with either of them anymore. I carved out some time to be alone with my thoughts. And I was still there when Adeben came to my door, waited outside for an hour, and then left. Left me there to mull it all over again and again, feeling disappointed and angry he had just gone. I’d gone to bed to secure the very thing I could not grasp: sleep. And I was once again left alone to dissect everything Adeben had done.

Chapter 32

Eshe

I’m dreading going downstairs when morning comes. I don’t want to see Adeben and I don’t want to see William, but I am too hungry to stay holed away. The training session Adeben rudely interrupted left me weakened, and the meal I skipped while I hid in my room hasn’t helped. So now I am famished enough to let my stomach lead me into the lion’s den.

“Morning!” William greets me cheerfully when I walk into the kitchen, dispelling the conversation he has been having with Adeben.

“Hello,” I reply quickly and politely, to avoid Adeben’s eyes.

“You look tired,” William continues, a smirk plastered on his face.

“Thanks. I didn’t get much sleep.”

“Something on your mind?”

“No, I could hear something outside my door. It kept me awake.”

“Well, I slept very well. Better than I have since I got here. Did you sleep well, Adeben?” he jokes pointedly, though Adeben doesn’t respond. Instead he only buries himself deeper into the bowl of porridge before him.

“Shall I take your silence for a no?” William half laughs before Adeben drops his spoon into the bowl and shoots him a look. “Okay. I will leave you two to it.”

After William leaves, creating as much noise as he can on the way out, I make my way around the kitchen, avoiding Adeben, though I can feel his eyes following my every move from behind my back.

“What?!” I bark when I have had enough of it.

“I didn’t say anything,” he mumbles.

“You have nothing to say?”

“I don’t know what I can say. I suspect you have grown tired of my apologies,” he continues sheepishly.

“Your suspicions are correct.”

“Nevertheless, I hope you know I am sorry. My behaviour yesterday is not something I am proud of.”

“That’s all you have? Another, ‘I am sorry’?”

“I don’t know what else I can say. If I could do better, I would.”

“You transform after months of hiding your Lion Soul from me. You attack William, run off, and then take up a post outside my door in the middle of the night, and that’s all you have?” My eyes somersault in their sockets.

“I don’t know what came over me. I acted badly. I hope you know I would never harm you or William.”

“I don’t know why you think that would be something I would know.”

“Eshe, you know me, I would never—”

“Do I know you? I thought I did in some small way, but after yesterday I’m not sure.”

He sighs defeatedly. “Do we need to talk about what you saw?”

“Is there a world where we don’t?”

Adeben draws a deep breath in and tries to look into my eyes. But I will not give his access, not this time. “I know you must have questions now, having seen my Lion Soul.”

“Oh, I have questions, all right. I have a million questions. But chief of them all is why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you lie to me?”

“I have never lied to you.”

It’s my turn to sigh now. “Is that a distinction you really should be making right now? Sure, you never said the words ‘I am not a Lion Soul’, but you might as well have. Even when I knew, when you knew I knew, you kept it from me.”

“I am sorry for that. It’s complicated.” His shoulders, already hanging low, find a new level to drop to.

“Complicated? Adeben, do you trust me?”

“Of course I do.”

“Really? You trust me? Truly trust me?” A chuckle, so alien to my feelings and thoughts right now, escapes me.

“With my life,” he says earnestly. “There is no one on this earth I trust more than you. Do you not see that?”

Regaining my composure and control, I try as carefully as possible to project calm when I say, “A while ago, you told me that of all people, you were most wary of me.”

“Yes. I meant it. I am most wary of you. The impact you have on me. The way I feel. The way I behave when I am near you. The things I become capable of. The mistakes I make. Like yesterday.”

My tone slips, carrying more anger than before. “Yes, yesterday. What the hell was that?”

“I lost control.”

“You, of all people, lost control?”

“Yes. Me, I know. I am only human.”

“No, you do not get to ignore me for over a week, actively avoid places I am in, then lose control and launch a full-scale attack when you see me training with William while you are hiding, watching us from a window.”

He looks down at his food again. “I don’t recall seeing much of any training going on.”

“How William and I train is none of your concern. Especially when you have clearly decided that you want rid of the stupid assignment you were given.” My voice is raised, my heart faster, but it isn’t anger I feel. Not fully.

“Nothing about what you have been doing with William could ever be seen as training,” he shouts back.

“Oh, what you saw wasn’t training?”

“No, it was not. I don’t recall ever training you like that.”

“Well, I guess you two have different styles.”

“It’s obvious we do, just as it’s obvious which style of training you prefer.” His anger takes me aback.

“Why do you care anyway?” I whisper, forcing a break from the frustrations surrounding me.

“Do you think I don’t see how close the two of you are becoming, the way you smile when he enters the room? Call it whatever you want, but do not lie to my face about what’s happening here.”

“Are you jealous?” The words are intended as a joke, but there is a seriousness in them that I didn’t think I was bold enough for.

“What should it matter if I am or not?”

“I didn’t say it mattered. I just wondered.” I give up on him, turning away from the kitchen and making my way out.

A beat, then two, passes. My breath slowly returns to its base level, but then he says quietly, “Of course I am jealous. How could I not be? I saw the two of you together, and for a moment, I lost control of my feelings and allowed jealousy to take root in my soul. I acted on it. That was wrong. I apologise to you, and I have apologised to William. I am not perfect. I, too, have much to learn.”

I turn back to him. “There was nothing to be jealous of. William and I are friends.” My tone drops the passion and ferocity it was previously coated in to meet him somewhere else.

“I had no right to be jealous of what there is between you or what I thought I saw. In a moment of weakness, I forgot that. I forgot my place, who I am, and who I am to you.”

“And what place is that?”

“No place. As I said, I had no right to react.”

“Let me guess, you are sorry?”

Adeben nods, and I have to leave. I cannot be here, not with him. He follows me, begging, “Eshe, wait.”

“Wait for what? More apologies that hold no currency? More lies and half-truths? I think I’ll pass on those today.”

“Please. Tell me how I can make this right,” he pleads.

“Make this right? Adeben, you don’t want to make this right. If you did, you wouldn’t keep lying to me, hiding truths you know matter to me. You just want this all to go back to what it was. Me here, trapped in this house, hanging on to your every word, hanging on to you for dear life like some hapless, lovestruck doll.”

“That’s not true. I don’t want that.”

“You do. You all do. You like the idealised version of me, but not actually me. Just like Tom.”

“I am nothing like him,” he spits.

“You are exactly like him. You just want a cardboard cut-out of me you can claim as yours, show off to all your friends, hang on your wall. Something that never shouts back, never wants too much. Something you can keep close enough to make sure no one else takes it from you, but far enough away that you don’t actually have to touch it, let it in, or engage with it in any way that might be meaningful. Something dead.”

“How can you think that? That isn’t what I want.”

“Do you even know what you want, Adeben?”

He takes a step away, drawing a line underneath another classic Adeben conversation. And I’m grateful for it. I refuse to be drawn into the hurt I can see on him, not when I have plenty of my own to carry.

But he surprises me, stepping forward again, bridging the space between us and anchoring himself to the place he claimed only seconds ago. His face is softer than it was, than it has been, a haze of sadness flashing in his eyes.

“Of course I know what I want. I wasn’t jealous because I saw my friend playing with something I believed belonged to me. No, I was jealous because he had your attention, your affection. Because he has the opportunity to do something with that attention and affection. He has the opportunity to be with you.

“To build a life with you, have a family, grow old beside you. I was jealous because he can be open with his feelings. He can tell you he loves you, he adores you, that his life has meaning because he was lucky enough to meet you.

“He can tell you that sometimes at night, a dreadful darkness descends over him when he thinks about any situation that might pull him away from you, and in that moment, he wants nothing more than to be bonded to you, so that wherever you go, he will go too.

“Because he loves you. All of you. Not some phantom or idea of you. You. He sees your soul, where you have been, where you are now, where you might go. When you smile, and he can feel happiness swell in you, he loves you. When you’re angry, furious at him, he feels it too and somehow loves you more.

“Don’t presume that because I know I can never have it, I don’t know what it is that I want.”

Chapter 33

Eshe

My mind struggles to process his words. I heard them, I saw them come out of his mouth, and I felt their sincerity. I know they are truths. He feels that way. About me.

I know now the connection I felt wasn’t imagined; it has been there all long. Still, the seriousness of his words shocks me. He hasn’t ever said a thing, never given any indication, or shown me anything that might have made me aware of any feelings in him for me. Yet now, he’s standing there, telling me these things. Things that are amazing.

I am so excited. I want to go to him. I want to tell him I feel the same. Tell him I want to be with him and have everything he has just said we can never have. Most of all, I just want him.

But something deep in me, deeper than the place where Malkia lives, cautions me against it. Against him.

“I don’t know what to say,” I say, fighting competing feelings.

“You don’t need to say anything. I just wanted you to understand.”

A breath rides up my throat and pulls my face down, my eyes away from him, giving me a moment to collect my mangled desires from the floor.

“I don’t understand,” I say eventually. “I don’t understand how you can say you trust me, how you can say all those things, and continue to lie to me.”

“I have never lied to you. I didn’t tell you I was a Lion Soul because I knew it would complicate things.”

“Complicate things? You don’t think things are already complicated?” My voice is hoarse and strained against the deep breaths my soul needs to stay alive, to stay steady in all this madness.

“I mean further. I knew about your dreams.”

“Yes, I told you.”

“No, your aunt told me before we met. I knew you had seen the lion.”

I step back and steady my mind. It’s a futile exercise, but I have to try. “You?” I ask carefully.

“I knew you had seen me in your dreams and would recognise my lion form.”

“How did you know it was you? Did the Elders tell you?”

“No, not exactly,” he says, still so guarded.

“Not exactly? What does that mean?”

“It’s complicated.”

“This is you giving me the truth?”

“It’s not important. I did not want to frighten you, so I chose to hide my Lion Soul from you. I realise it was wrong, but it was a choice I made.”

“So why were you in my dreams?”

“I don’t know.”

“You… In my dreams, the lion kills me.” He cannot look at me, though it’s all I want from him. I need to see him, the him that I know.

When my hand absentmindedly rises to my neck, to the spot that holds meaning for both of us, he winces and chokes out, “I would not, could never hurt you.”

“William said you weren’t sent here to train me. Are you even a guide?”

“William should not have told you that,” he pushes back.

“What, he should have lied to me like you are still doing?”

“No. That’s not what I am saying.”

“Well, what are you saying other than it’s complicated?”

“It is not my fault the situation is complicated.”

“Why were you sent to find me?” I ask.

“I do not want to lie to you, but I also cannot tell you that. You have to trust me.”

“So, in summary, you didn’t tell me you were a Lion Soul because you knew I had a dream about you. You knew, but you can’t tell me how you knew. You aren’t a guide, and you weren’t sent here to train me, but you can’t tell me why you were sent here. But you want me to trust you?”

“I know how it sounds.”

“Do you? Do you see how ridiculous this is?” I want to laugh, but it’s too painful.

“Yes.”

“Good. Well, I see now too. You were right. You had no right to be jealous of something you can never have. I appreciate you trying to explain your feelings to me. They would have been useful to me if I were dealing with someone capable of being honest and open with me.”

I don’t wait to see his reaction or hear what he might have to say in response. I walk away from the hall, away from him, leaving the air coloured with frustration.

Every time I think I have gained a foundational understanding of who he is, what he thinks, he transforms again leaving no manual to decipher this new person he has become.

This isn’t the conversation I wanted to have with him. It’s so very different from the one I should have had with him. One where I walked away knowing him fully, where I describe in great detail the hold he has over me, professing the depths of my feelings for him, meeting those shared truths and starting a path that leads to an “us”. But I don’t get that conversation; I cannot have that conversation with him, not while there is still so much he hides from me. Not while I have offered up freely, more freely than I might have thought I was even capable of, so many of my own truths to him.

It felt great, still does, hearing him say those things to me. I feel guilty that I took it, everything he had said, the moment I have been waiting for, and turned it into something neither of us wanted.

My mind is so split. One side wants to go and redo the whole thing, say the things desperate to come out of my mouth and leave with a better feeling in my chest. But the other side wins out, and I am committed to my stance and the words that came out instead. Adeben himself said he didn’t believe there was anything worth pursuing, despite the feelings he so easily, so suddenly proclaimed. So why should I believe any differently?

I call my aunt, desperate to get some clarity and backing for my chosen words. It’s been so long since I have managed to take time away from everything Lion Soul–related and catch up with her. I miss her. Everything she will say to me, the hugs she will give me. I want to see her, and while I know I could push the matter, I am still embarrassed that the one time I left was to see Tom instead of her.

In our conversation, I hope for a grounding, some sure footing that has disappeared since my conversation with Adeben.

“Wow. So, he just transformed right there in the kitchen?” She laughs, and though it is breaking the promise I made to myself immediately after leaving that I would not dwell on Adeben or rehash the conversation anymore, it’s worth it. It’s exactly what I have been missing.

“Yes, he just came crashing through the window and attacked William.”

“But I thought William was his friend.”

“Yes, he is. He lost control and got so jealous that he attacked his friend.”

“It sounds like a lot has been happening in that lion’s den.” She laughs, and I join in, her perspective providing a much-needed insight into how ridiculous my life has become.

“It feels like it too. And yet no one is willing to give me the answers I need.”

“I have to say I am surprised at Adeben. He lied to my face. I asked him when I met him,” my aunt says.

“Exactly, all he does is lie. I’m so fed up of it.”

“He lied to you too?” Her voice is heavy with something I can’t quite place.

“Yes. Well, no. He did not lie to my face. But he kept it from me.”

“Well, that’s definitely a distinction.”

“Not really. The absence of truth is just as bad as a lie.”

“It’s never that simple, Eshe.” She’s soft and her whispers too kind for my ears.

“It should be.”

“So, you’ve been lying to your mother?”

“That’s different,” I huff, taken back.

“Is it? You haven’t told her. You have been keeping it from her.”

“Not because I am trying to keep things from her, just because I know she couldn’t handle it.”

“Careful there, your excuses are beginning to sound a lot like his.”

Why would she think that? Why would she compare this whole thing with Adeben to anything between my mother and me? I have my reasons. She knows that. She, more than anyone, should understand them. My mother will not be able to process the information. She won’t be able to fathom a world where I, her odd little daughter, am anything more than a stunning accessory on the arm of some wealthy man.

Everything is worse now in terms of the relationship with my mother. Since I broke up with Tom, somehow an attack on her, we’ve reached breaking point, and she outright refuses to speak to me anymore. I couldn’t exactly explain what had happened, and I didn’t need to; she should have been on my side. I am her daughter, and Tom is just a guy. But she wasn’t. She doesn’t understand me, or why I was still in treatment for a breakdown she believed I should have been over by now. She doesn’t care about the things I’m missing, not really. All she cares about is how it was all beginning to look, what it said about my mental state, and how the gossip-mongers were having a field day.

“Are you on his side now?” I ask my aunt.

“It’s not about sides, dear. I am just concerned you are letting your fears drive your decision-making.”

“I am not afraid.”

“I would be. You have been thrown into a world that is alien from the one you grew up in, learning things about yourself that a year ago would have certainly gotten you confined in a mental asylum. And now you find out that the man you have trusted to guide you in this storm is the same man you dreamt killed you. I would be very afraid.”

“I’m not afraid of him. He wouldn’t hurt me.”

“So you trust him?” she asks.

“Of course.”

“Then why are you obsessing over these things that he won’t tell you?”

“But why should he keep them from me?” My breath explodes out of me in a sigh that’s heavy with hot condensation.

“I am sure he has his reasons, the same way you have yours.”

“That’s different. I keep this from her because I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t want her to look at me and see something that scares her.”

“He might feel the same way.”

“But I know who he is. I know he is a Lion Soul, and knowing that pulls me closer. It doesn’t repel me.”

“I think you are doing yourself and your mother a disservice in imagining how you think she will react,” Aunty Grace declares.

“You know her.”

“I do, have done for longer than you, and I know she will not react the way you think. You keeping this from her; this will be the thing that she reacts badly to.”

“I cannot take that risk. She is my mother. I may disappoint her, and she may not be speaking to me but at least she cares still. I cannot risk losing that,” I whisper into the phone, holding back so many fears.

“It is not my place to tell her, so you know I will not. But I have to caution you against this. Whether you choose to listen is your concern. And I think you need to give Adeben a break. Secrets are not always kept in malice, as you well know. He may have good reasons for not being as forthcoming with information as you would like. And besides, he told you what mattered, how he felt about you.”

“It’s not enough,” I whisper, holding tightly onto the phone in my hand, onto her.

“Well, what would be? You clearly have feelings for him.”

“I didn’t say that.” My voice is strong.

“You didn’t have to. You care for him. He cares for you. I don’t see why you are making this hard for yourself. Stop letting your fear hold you back.”

“I am not afraid,” I try against her, but she persists in her probe.

“Then why did you shoot him down?”

“I didn’t shoot him down!”

“Eshe, the boy told you he loved you but didn’t think he deserved you. And you, in turn, told him you could not be with him. Did I miss something?”

“When you put it like that, you miss out on the nuances of the conversation.”

“You have never been good at allowing others to love you, and he got a taste of that. I, of course, support you; if you don’t want to be with him, then don’t be with him. But be honest with yourself about why you don’t.”

So much of what is collecting in my chest is dispelled by her, and so I grumble, “This was not the support I needed today.”

“Well, it’s the only support I have for you today.” She laughs softly. If her words are the only support on offer in this vast expanse of confusion, I hungrily gather them all up.

Chapter 34

Adeben

I can still feel the sting of Eshe’s words on my face.

I didn’t expect much. I did not allow myself to expect anything at all. But never in a million years could I have foreseen that my apology, our conversation, would go down the path it did. What she said left me wounded. The expression I saw on her face, the one I will never forget, acting as a stark reminder of how foolish I have been. In losing control, in attacking William, mainly in the words I said to her.

I don’t blame her. If anything, I am proud of her. Proud she has managed to learn a lesson I do not recall teaching her. She has mastered the art of mistrust and it is only fitting that she does; Lion Souls are not to be trusted. It took me many years to learn it the hard way, but ever the quick study, she has grasped it in record time. It will serve her well, not trusting any of them. Not trusting me.

In between the stings of rejection, I feel regret, too. Regret I could not give her the answers she desired or share myself with her fully. It was not too much, what she asked for. It makes sense, what she wants. But I can’t. No matter how much I want to tell her everything about the Lion Souls, my missions, and who I really am, I cannot. It would be impossible for me to look into her eyes and see the possibilities that thrive there, only to destroy them with my toxic truths. Truths sure to change the way she sees me, what she thinks about me, and how close she will ever let herself be to me.

I saw something break for myself when she pressed me and found my defences already engaged. She did not like the person she briefly observed through the shutters and was repulsed by the glimpse she stole. What then would she think if she saw the whole horrid thing? If she actually found the truths she was driven to seek out?

My skin feels heavy on me, weighing me down with too many thoughts of her, so I shed it. And with a lightning speed I run through the garden, happily back in lion form. I need this space to process all that has occurred.

I have missed it – the freedom to roam wherever the mood takes me. Hiding from Eshe has prevented me from being free. Kept me too long in one form alone. Now I have one less thing to hide from her, I can be free, even if I still worry about what she might think.

I reach the centre of the garden before I realise I am being followed. When I stop to look, her scent fills my nose and coats the air around me, trapping my mind with thoughts of her, only her. It overwhelms me, to be so near to her, so soon after she cracked my heart and my head with her words alone.

I run faster, opening the distance between us, but she catches up. Hovering behind me, never allowing herself to be seen. She knows I know she is here; she wants me to know it. This game she is playing, delighting in my continued torture.

I run again, pushing my legs to their absolute limit, widening the gap between where she is and where I am. Until I am at last alone.

I am weaker than I should be. Months of not exercising my legs fully have left this frame atrophied; it’s a miracle I have been able to get away as far as I have. I will pay for this overexertion soon and for a while. But it is worth it. It has given me the space I am in desperate need of.

My heartbeat soon settles to an acceptable pace, and I calm the soul that has come alive during the run. It’s hard pushing back the doubts, the shame, and Hati’s disgust. It is not his way, these declarations and fits of passion. They betray who I am, the warrior. I have no business trying my hand at being the lover.

I hear the bushes behind me rustling, and a growl escapes, provoked by her intrusion.

“I come in peace,” I hear her voice say, though I still cannot yet see her.

“What do you want?”

“Just to talk.”

“If I were in the mood for talking, I would not be in my lion form.” I growl again, hoping she will go away.

“It’s a wonder you are ever in human form then.” She laughs, emerging from the bushes to stand before me.

Seeing her brings it all back, the feelings I so clearly expressed. I have to fight the urge to go to her, to touch her, to be with her, and instead hold my place a few feet ahead of her. But she moves towards me, forcing my body to slide closer to hers.

“I wanted to see you.” She smiles, looking me up and down.

“See me?”

“Your lion form. I wanted to check your form,” she teases, breaking me more.

“You saw me the other day.”

“Yes, but I was slightly preoccupied then. I waited a long time to see you like this, and then you ran off.” Her eyes, as they take me in, flicker with something, but I cannot even allow myself to speculate what it might be. My wounds are too fresh.

“Are you done?”

“Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, you are.” I walk away, but she follows.

“Good. Now you might have an idea how I felt.”

“I really didn’t come out here to engage in another conversation with you. I came to be alone. With my thoughts.”

She ignores me and instead asks, “How strong are you?”

I roll my eyes. “I am strong.”

“Stronger than me?”

“Definitely.”

“You seem very sure of yourself.”

“You would be, too, if you were me.”

“I think I could take you,” she jokes, smirking, happy.

“Just because I said you were strong for a new Lion Soul doesn’t make you strong.”

“No, I think I could.”

I laugh, so easily shaking off the cloud that hung over me. “I’d like to see you try.”

“Come on then.” She smiles before walking backwards away from me.

I hold my ground, watching her while suppressing another laugh. When she is a dozen metres away, she looks me in the eye and runs straight for me. Her frame leaps into the air, flying through it like an arrow. Stretched out above me, her arms reach to grab me, just as I move out of her path. Without the target, her body goes crashing, tumbling, into the ground.

“Nice try.” I smirk, walking away. She rises up, charges at me again but misses completely, falling hard against a tree trunk.

“Are you okay?” I ask, with no real reason to be concerned.

“Yeah, I’m just warming up.”

“I would have thought the run was warm up enough.”

She smirks. “It takes more than a leisurely trot to warm me up.”

“So now you think you’re faster than me, too?”

“I don’t think. I know,” she says before moving with lightning speed.

She catches me unaware, and pushes my frame to the ground with a force that shakes both me and the earth around us.

“See.” She smiles over me, trapping me against the ground.

“I wasn’t even paying attention.”

“Your mistake for underestimating me.”

I smile back, and then, with one quick move, I spin my body out from underneath her, pinning her instead to the ground. She retaliates from the position I have her in, and soon, she has manoeuvred herself back into the position of power.

“You are stronger than I thought,” she laughs.

“You are weaker than I thought.” And in one final swing, she is back down and trapped underneath me.

My heart is beating fast, too fast.

I can feel the adrenaline rushing through my blood, pounding in my ears. I’ve let it go too far. I have once again let myself fall into her well.

A roar escapes over her. I can feel it all, I want too much. I want to kiss her. I want to be with her always. I want to kill her. I want to destroy her. All the emotions hit my conscious mind simultaneously from different parts of my soul, threatening to overwhelm me.

Until there is just fear in my heart, fear of her and for her. I am dangerous and can decide between the two things at any moment, leaving her powerless against either of those desires. I look down on her, expecting to find the fear I feel reflected in her, but there is none. She is smiling. Laughing. “Okay, you win.”

And I release her, feeling far too wary of myself.

“Best of three?” she asks as she rises back up.

“No. I’m tired.”

“No stamina. That’s what you get for hiding your lion form.”

“Yeah, I suppose,” I answer, still struggling to regulate my heartbeat.

She changes back into her human form, and I follow suit. After we put our skins back on, a silence falls between us – a shyness that has never been there before.

It’s her who speaks first. “I didn’t come to find you just to try and take you on. I wanted to talk to you.”

“I think we have both said plenty already, don’t you?”

“I know, and yet I feel like there is still so much we haven’t said.”

“Eshe, please, let’s not do this again.”

“I know. I’m not trying to get into it again. But I don’t want to leave things the way I did earlier.”

“There is nothing—” I start, but she cuts me off.

“Look. You said some stuff, I said some stuff. There are things that I should have said instead of what I did. Things about how I feel about what you said, and how I feel about you. I wish I had said those things. But I couldn’t. I can’t. It doesn’t mean I don’t feel that way, I’m just not ready.”

“Forget what I said, I didn’t—”

“No. You can’t take back what you said.”

“I’m not. I am just saying it does not matter. I should not have said anything.” My head falls and her hands pull it back up. Her hands on me, the gentleness there, the fire, it’s a spark I do not need.

“It mattered to me.”

“Eshe…”

“Did you mean the things you said?”

“Of course. But—”

“No buts. You either meant it or you didn’t.”

“I meant it,” I concede.

“Okay, great. Like I said, I have some things to say myself, but I need more time. I also understand that you have more things to say, that I have been asking you about. And I see now that you need more time, too.”

“Right.”

“So, we are just going to be fine, and each take more time to say the things we need to say.”

I try to smile. “Great plan.”

“Good. Because I didn’t want you to think I had heard what you said and was shooting it down.”

“Why wouldn’t you want me to think that, when that was what happened?” I don’t know why I laugh, but it’s the only reaction I have to her that feels safe.

“No.” She grabs my hands, sending charges up my arms. “That wasn’t what happened. I just explained to you what happened.”

“Is that what that was?”

“Yes. I said I have things to say about it, but I can’t say them now. I thought you were following me?”

“Eshe, let’s just go back to the house.”

“No. You can’t think that was me shooting you down. What you said mattered to me… a lot. I just can’t talk about it properly now. And I’m having this conversation with you now because I don’t want you to assume that because I haven’t said anything about it, or me, that I don’t also have feelings.”

“Okay. But I didn’t say what I said to provoke something from you. I shouldn’t have said anything in the first place. It doesn’t matter. It cannot matter.”

“It matters to me. Say you understand that it matters to me,” she pushes.

“I understand.”

“Good.”

“But—”

“No.” Her hands fly up, holding my thoughts, controlling them and turning them into something else. “This conversation is over. Let’s not argue. I’ll race you back.” She smiles and then escapes me by transforming into lion form and racing ahead.

I stand smiling as I watch her go, wondering how it can be that words from the same girl who left me heavy-headed and heavy-hearted not hours before could now lift my spirits so high. How it is possible that in one body, one girl, resides the power for unimaginable destruction, alongside the power for incredible creation?

Chapter 35

Adeben

Everything in our home settles into a predictable pace I enjoy. And I find a new happiness in William’s and Eshe’s company that surprises me. Everything about how easily I have taken to living with others shocks me, and I can no longer imagine living in the solitude awaiting me.

With Eshe, I find in myself a calmness of my temperament. I find myself relaxing into whatever exists between us. And the regret I felt after telling her how I feel, the shame and hopelessness of my disclosure, fades as though it was never there. All since she came to find me in the garden to tell me, in her own convoluted way, there was something there. It was not a rejection. I wasn’t the only one who fell into something alien. I have found a new sense of hope. Her assurances, her rambles, are apparently all I needed to keep alive what I doubt I could put aside even if I really tried.

We train most mornings, while William sleeps. Even that feels better. I am able to assume my lion form when I show her new techniques. I see how much she appreciates and enjoys the disclosure. How much it means to her. For so long, I was afraid she would fear me in recognising my lion form from her dreams, seeing me as the threat, as an enemy. But she does not. Instead, she somehow uses the dream and the familiarity and pulls me closer. Ignoring its ending and focusing on the bond so apparent, even to me, since the first night I woke from it.

I secretly hope for better circumstances. I sincerely wish I were someone different. Someone who could pursue her, win her over. But I am not. And because I am not, it is only a matter of time before everything – the quiet solitude in our home, the warmth of her glances, the possibilities hanging on her lips – will be gone. And I am alone once more.

It will be difficult, and each passing day only makes it more so. I might not be able to stand it. I might not survive it, finding myself at the end of it all with nothing and no ability to rebuild anything resembling a life. I should distance myself now. I should start to withdraw early, to lessen the inevitable pain of when it’s all done. But I cannot stop myself from doing anything but leaning further into her, believing that if this time is all I will ever have, even if it will end as soon as tomorrow, so much sooner than I hope it will, then I will enjoy every moment of it. I find myself caught so absolutely by the thing that continues to grow between us.

William and I spend plenty of time working on the report for the tribe about Eshe, trying to help them see she is not a threat, trying to save her life. We both see it. We both believe we can reach the Elders, even if not the Leader. If only they could meet her too, see her, it would be so clear to them that she can be an ally.

Days after the report was sent, the news we hoped to receive is still yet to come. The Leader wasted no time in coming back with his response. He saw nothing in what we meticulously explained to change his mind. Eshe was a threat, and his original orders stood firm.

In his exchanges with William, he made it clear he expected his orders to be followed; she had to be removed. He was angry, furious, that I had not yet completed the task. Incensed that his own son, too, was now bordering on insubordination. The relationship between William and me, once useful to him, was now a problem. Now, he screamed that William was too keen to follow my lead. He was a Leader in waiting and he would assume the throne one day, so he should act like it. The Leader does not believe that the Lion Souls should be led in any way other than the way he and his father led them before. At first, he was restrained in his approach, reminding William of what needed to be done; he did not want to lose him while he was still in my company. But as time passed and he found his orders still uncompleted, he lost any softening and ultimately returned to his natural aggression: shouts, unveiled warnings, and threats. In turn, William had dramatically reduced the number of conversations he had with his father about Eshe, focusing his energies instead on convincing the Elders.

But the Elders are still silent, impossible to reach. In their silence, I fear the worst. William, at first, was able to offer comfort: “Their silence is a good sign. It was not a rejection. They are taking the time to think.” But the longer it persisted, the harder even William found it to keep his usual levels of optimism high.

“Still nothing from the Elders on Eshe,” William says when he meets me after my morning training session with Eshe.

“I am beginning to think we won’t ever hear from them. Perhaps it is time we moved Eshe on from here.”

“No. You should stay here. I will go.”

“You are leaving us?”

William gestures to the bags he has ready by the front door. And I cannot stop the panic that runs through my body at the thought of losing an ally. The only one in our corner.

“I will return,” he says. I need to go back to the compound and speak to the Elders face-to-face. Then they will have to hear me.”

“I don’t think that is a good idea.”

“What? You think it will be unsafe?”

“Yes. We are actively disobeying the orders from the Leader, and now you want to walk back into the compound like nothing has happened?”

“My father will not do anything to me. I am his only son, his only heir.”

But I am not so sure. “That doesn’t mean he will not silence you or stop you from returning.”

“You worry too much. I will be fine. I will meet with the Elders and return shortly with good news.” Nothing in him betrays the lightness of his words.

“You cannot believe it will be that easy.”

“I do believe. The Elders, as you said yourself, never confirmed they thought Eshe was a threat. And that was when she was just a vision in Botkin’s dreams. Now we have met her, and you have trained her, they will be willing to give her a chance. Extend an invitation to her. She can come to the compound and meet them for herself.”

“I do not think her going anywhere near the compound is a good idea.”

“Are you worried she will fall for another Lion Soul?” William laughs, patting my shoulders.

“It is none of my concern who she does or doesn’t fall for.”

“This again. It is none of my concern, except for when I see her talking to another Lion Soul and lose my cool and try to kill him.” His laugh persists.

“It is not like that.”

“Adeben, you are my friend, the only Lion Soul whose company I genuinely enjoy, so I say this with love. Stop this nonsense, and be with the girl. Do it quick, or you might find your oldest friend has stolen her for himself.” He smiles as I roll my eyes.

“It cannot be. You know why.”

“I know the many excuses each of you use to hold up this foolish idea that you cannot be together.”

“See, she knows it too.”

“No, she is simply waiting for you.”

I shake my head. “For me? Was it not me, as you say, who lost his control, showed my jealousy in all the colours of the rainbow and told her the extent of my feelings? It was she who told me she was not ready.”

“Yes, because she is waiting for you to tell her your truths.” He smiles gently, and I wish I could be him. I wish I could see the world the way he does. But I will never be him. I am not the son of the Leader. I am the son of a worthless tailor. I am the one carrying a demon in his chest.

I sigh. “You know I cannot do that.”

“I know nothing about it. All I know is you like the girl. The girl likes you. You spend half your time following her around and the other half telling this woeful tale of how you can’t be together.”

“It is not that simple.”

“You, my friend, do not know how to be happy.” William smiles, a small, sad, stretched line, tasting the bitterness of his words.

“My point is that the compound is not where our kind are their best selves. And Eshe is not exactly the type to see something she thinks wrong and let it go.”

“I think some of her fire might help shake things up.”

“Not when we are trying to convince them that she should be welcomed into the tribe.”

“Well, I think she should see what she commits herself to before making promises.”

I look at him occupying the space in the doorway, the same spot where I tried to block him from entering those weeks ago, with the opposite wishes for him.

“But we are getting ahead of ourselves. We can discuss this further once I return with an invitation.”

I don’t respond. I cannot when I do not carry any of the belief that he does.

“Stop this,” he continues. “I will be back within a week. It’s not like you won’t enjoy the time with Eshe by yourself while I am gone.”

“She will not be happy to see you go.”

William smiles. “She will get over it, I am sure.”

“You will say goodbye?”

I watch William pick up his bags before answering, “Why? I will be back before she tires of you and truly feels the void of my absence.”

“You will be careful. Do not go into this jovially. I have defied my orders; it will not be taken lightly. And you have sided with me. There will be enemies in the compound, brother.”

“No one who will dare challenge me. I am to be the next Leader. Those young and able enough will not want to lose favour with me. And those old enough not to care about getting on the wrong side of me are too weak to be of concern.”

“You know there are those in the tribe who don’t believe in that certainty,” I say, a cold seriousness coating my words as they try to reach him.

He will not, maybe he cannot, hear it as he continues, “You mean Kojo? He is too busy chasing Isabel to be of concern.”

“Yes, but your father could promise him Isabel in order to get his compliance on this.”

“You think my father could promise Isabel to anyone. My sister? You know she would never agree to anything that crass. And everyone knows she only has eyes for you.”

“Well, your sister’s wants are not often considered.”

“On this, she will be heard. Trust me. Of course, she will be disappointed when I tell her that your heart is taken.”

“You will do no such thing. The last thing Eshe needs is to be linked to someone like me, not while we continue to smooth things over.” Sometimes, I admire his vision, the way his eyes see the world. Other times, it prickles my skin. The lack of consequences. The absence of foresight. The naivety.

“I do not think being linked to you will do her reputation any damage. Quite the opposite. It has always served me well.” And just like that, he makes me question the naivety I so often project onto him.

“Exactly. This is why it could never be.”

“Adeben, I will not argue with you on this again. I’m going.”

“Travel well.” I offer him my hand, but he pushes it aside and pulls me into a hug.

“Try not to piss her off in my absence. I cannot help you from the compound.” William laughs, and so do I.

“I make no promises. She seems to find me particularly vexing.”

Chapter 36

Eshe

I was disappointed William had left to return to the tribe on urgent business with his father. But what was more concerning was the nagging feeling I couldn’t shake that Adeben was hiding things from me again. He and William were very secretive in the days before William left, talking in low tones and ending their conversations abruptly when I walked into the room.

Initially, I wanted to confront him, question him and demand the truth, but I knew I would get nowhere with it. Whatever it was, he would keep it to himself, like he did with everything else. No polite request from me has done anything to get me the truth; not even my forceful demands have. He’s his own person, with his own secrets, and though it’s hard to swallow, I am trying to accept it. Trying my best to live with him, love him, know he is entitled to his secrets, and hope he will one day share them with me – but not a day before he decides he wants to.

It’s hard to know, harder still to put into practice. I try because everything I feel for him is intense, more intense than I have ever felt, and in my wish to be close to him, I am willing to adjust plenty, and make anew my whole self, even the parts that have been set for years.

In exploring my feelings for Adeben and the secrets he keeps, I find myself continuously coming back to what my aunt said, finding for the first time a sadness in my own secrets, the ones I have kept from my mother. We haven’t ever been close, and there has always been plenty I have kept from her, so she can maintain the façade of her daughter. But this time, the gulf between us has increased dramatically. Ever since I first felt the effects of my Lion Soul, we have both been thrown into different worlds.

Feeling for myself the anguish caused by secrets and lies, I can’t help but think of the pain I might have unconsciously caused my own mother. And I can’t stop pondering what might happen if she ever came to find out about my secrets on her own.

The thoughts are incessant enough that I decided to reach out to her to try to reopen the lines of communication she herself severed. It was not easy – talking to her never is when she’s angry, and she was still very angry with so much about me. But I persisted and invited her over to the house to talk, to meet Adeben and share something of my truths with her.

Adeben dismissed the idea the minute I told him, which didn’t surprise me. He who holds secrets in such a key location of his heart would never see the benefits of exorcising them. But my mind was made up; it was the right thing to do. Still, moments before she arrived, I did find myself rethinking my decision and crippled by fear.

What lies between us is fragile; it has always been. Telling her I’m not just a girl anymore, perhaps never had been, is dangerous. I worry. I am afraid she will not understand. Her world was always so different from mine, and now it is even more so. She might reject it, reject me. She has already put up with so much from me: my wilfulness, my temper, my path. Now, there is a real chance that this news, this new thing in me, might be what destroys our already weakened bond.

“You look well.” Her hair is down, tiny curls framing her face in a much looser fashion than she would usually tolerate. She looks softer, even if her tone is cold when I meet her in the garden.

“It’s good to see you,” I reply, because it’s true. Seeing her here, in this new world of mine, gives me some strength, some belief that maybe there is a way for me to merge these two places after all.

“You’ve known where I have been all along. You could have seen me anytime.”

“I know. I needed to be here.”

“Here? This where you have been this whole time?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it doesn’t exactly look like any facility I have seen before.” She looks judgingly around the garden, and I try to not rise to the look of disdain I see on her.

“I haven’t been in a centre. I didn’t have a breakdown.”

“Oh.”

“Well, I guess I kind of did.” I smile weakly at her frozen face, hoping to melt some of what is there. Seeing just how much more it would take, I continue, “I want to be honest with you.”

“Well, that would make a change.”

“I know I haven’t been the best daughter.”

She looks almost offended. “I have never said that. I have never said you were not a good daughter. I would never say that. You push me, you always have done. Even when you were little. You were very trying.”

“I can imagine.”

“But I have never wished you were anything else.” There’s a softness in her I haven’t seen before. Maybe she hid it away until now, or maybe I couldn’t see it, not while trying to be something so different from what she wanted. So different from her.

“I appreciate you saying that.”

“I just wish you—” She stops herself.

“What? That I would marry some rich guy and have rich babies already?” I snort back.

“No. I didn’t try to set you up with Tom because I wanted you to marry a rich man. We have enough money. You don’t need any more.”

“Then what?”

“I wanted you to be happy. Just like every mother out there.”

“And you thought marrying a rich man would make me happy?”

“Yes.” She hesitates. “No. I want you to have opportunities and have the world at your feet. I want you to have the means to do whatever makes you happy. Someone like Tom has means, he wouldn’t have trapped you. With him by your side, you could excel and be greater than you are now. That’s all I ever wanted for you. For you to be able to be who you are.

“You spend so much time trying to blend into the background, trying to hide the light inside of you, trying to be like everyone else. But you aren’t. You are special. You have always been special. You weren’t made for a mundane life; you will never be.

“I get it, more than you think. When I was sent by my father, away from everything I knew, to marry this man I knew nothing of, save that he was rich and could help our family. I hated it. I hated him for farming me off like that. But I came, I met your father, and in time I realised he had done it for me. To give me more, to give me a freedom he never could. Now I have this great life, I have you, I have everything – all because I married well.”

“And you think that’s what I want?”

She shakes her head. “No, of course not. It’s not very modern or cool to want to marry for wealth, but I can tell you it’s not a case of marrying for wealth or for love. I loved your father. I grew to love him. I grew to respect everything about him and his world.”

“Don’t you think you could have found that yourself?”

“No, not with what I had. I didn’t love his money. I loved the opportunities he gave me. But make no mistake, I worked hard to turn those opportunities into what I have now. I made those things happen.”

“But you said you hated your father.”

“Yes, for a time. It was a sacrifice I believe he made. My love for him in exchange for my happiness, and there isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t wish he were here today to see me. To see Grace, you, what came of his sacrifice. I don’t want you to hate me, but it is a sacrifice I, too, am more than willing to make.”

“So you would’ve married me off like you were?” I search her for familiarity, but her face will not connect with mine. Her hands are quietly crossed against her chest, her guard up.

“No, of course not. It was barbaric. I was torn away from everything I loved. But that was what I had to go through to be here today. In order to present you with opportunities. I did not force Tom on you. I arranged a meeting, you met him, you liked him. You accepted him all on your own. You loved him. You told me you did.”

I sigh. “I thought I did.”

“Then one day you wake up and, what, that’s gone?”

“Yes, pretty much. I realised he wasn’t who I thought he was.”

“What do you mean, he wasn’t who you thought he was? Did he hurt you?” Her concern is genuine, and it warms me to know she still has the ability to care for me after everything.

“No. Nothing like that. I just realised when I was with Tom, I was pretending to be someone else – who he wanted me to be. And he was doing the same. It never would have held for long.”

“We all do that. We wear who the other person needs us to be.” There is hope in her eyes that still will not be quashed. It elicits a stern glare from me before she continues, “I am not saying you should get back with Tom. I just want you to be realistic in your choices. No one is perfect.”

“I know that. But I have to be true to who I am. I can’t keep hiding because it doesn’t fit what the narrative should be.”

“I don’t want you to hide. I have spent your whole life trying to convince you of that.”

“Well, it worked then. I know who I am now, and I am not afraid to be it.”

“You do seem different. The air here clearly suits you.” Her eyes watch me intently.

“It does. A lot here suits me.”

“You’ve met someone?” She smiles knowingly.

“It’s not about that. I have found myself.” She rolls her eyes. “No, I really have. When I left, I was struggling with some things. Some changes that were happening to me.”

“Are you sick?”

“No, I’m fine now. But yes, in a way, I wasn’t well.”

“Eshe, you didn’t tell me?” Somewhere in the middle of this, her hands fall from her chest. I don’t notice until they are reaching over to my shoulder and resting there gently with so much concern and love.

“I know. I am sorry. I have kept quite a bit from you, and I realise how wrong of me it was. I want to tell you. I want to explain, and I hope you will hear me and still feel the way you do about me afterwards.”

“Eshe, what do you mean?”

I draw a breath in, meeting her eyes for a second. I try to hold them, but I’m not strong enough when I finally say, “I am a Lion Soul. It’s—”

“What?” she screams, as I try, “Let me explain.”

“No. You can’t be.” She jumps from her chair, placing as much space between her and where we were as she can.

“Mother, please.”

“No, you cannot be one of them!”

“You know what they are?”

She ignores me like I am not even standing there with her, screaming into the sky at some unseen force, “It cannot be. It’s not possible.”

“How do you know about them?”

“Eshe, listen to me. You cannot deal with those people. They cannot know you exist.” The dramatics fade, and her eyes focus. She grabs my arms tightly, too tightly, and I can feel the fear in her. “They are dangerous. They cannot be trusted.”

“I don’t understand. What do you know about them? How do you know?”

“I can’t believe this is happening. Have you changed?” She lets go of me, and I check my arm for the bruise her grip should’ve left behind.

“Yes. That was why I had to leave. I was dangerous. But how do you know about this?”

Chapter 37

Adeben

I make myself scarce while Eshe and her mother are in the garden talking. I don’t want to intrude; I don’t want to be anywhere near the conversation they are having.

I don’t understand. Why would she want to open up those kind of wounds? Wounds I know very well. And while I did try explaining to her that it is a mistake, that sharing this with her mother will only hurt them both, I am willing to give her the space, even if it is to make her own mistakes.

It’s from the window that I see them both become agitated. Eshe’s mother begins screaming, flashing me back to my own mother. She screamed when she found out what I was, just before she asked me to leave. Against my better judgement and because I cannot stand by and watch her come to harm, I venture into the garden to see what is happening.

“Is everything okay?” I glance at Eshe.

“Who are you?” her mother asks angrily.

“This is Adeben,” Eshe tells her. “He has been helping me since I transformed.”

“You are one of them?” she shouts at me.

“One of who?”

“Yes, he is a Lion Soul. He came to train and help me learn to control it.”

“So, they know about you?” Turning away from me, she shakes as she faces Eshe. “Oh god, Eshe. You are in terrible danger.”

“I don’t understand,” Eshe replies.

“More of them will come. You have to run.”

“Run where? Run from who?”

“From your kind!” she spits at me. “Now they know you exist, they will not stop until you are dead. Do you hear me?” she pleads, holding so tightly onto Eshe’s hands, her fingernails leaving tiny crescents deep through the layers of protection.

“What do you know?” I dare to ask the distressed woman, who will not even look at me.

“So you do not deny it?” she replies.

“Mum, please. What do you know?” Eshe pleads with her mother.

“Eshe, please, we must leave here immediately. You cannot trust this man, these people.” I feel Eshe’s eyes on me, and in that moment, I feel my own distress rise up. The world we have enjoyed, the life I am trying on for size with her, is falling apart precisely as I imagined it would, albeit much sooner than I had ever feared.

She breaks through the silence, surprising me. “I trust him. Please tell us what you know.”

“Eshe, they are dangerous.”

“I am not disputing that. I don’t know them. But I know Adeben. He means a lot to me.” She looks straight at me, deep into my eyes.

“I would never betray her,” I say firmly.

“And you would betray your tribe to protect her?”

“Mother!” Eshe snaps.

“I would betray anyone and everything in this world to protect her,” I affirm. I see a flash of recognition in her mother, a sign she understands what I mean, what I would do for Eshe, and what I would risk for her.

She stills herself, carefully releasing her grip on her daughter and lowering her body into the chair. “My brother, your uncle. He was one of them, a Lion Soul. When we were young, he started showing signs, and not long afterwards, they came for him.

“They said they would train him to be able to control his abilities. My father was hesitant, but he let him go. We did not hear from him, and for weeks, we were sick with worry. Then, one day, they came back and told my father he had not survived the training.”

“What happened to him?”

“They said the training was intense, and it was rare, but sometimes people didn’t make it through” Eshe’s mother says, and I think I understand.

My head falls, and I tell her, “It can be too much for a person, if not undertaken with care. It does happen.”

“My father was heartbroken. His only son was dead. He was beside himself and soon became suspicious of what had happened. He dug further; he was still a very powerful man at that time, and respect for him was wide-reaching.

“It was not long before he found out the truth: they had killed him. Our family, unbeknownst to us, had a lineage not only as royalty but also as Lion Souls. Within that lineage had been the line of succession, their leaders. At some point, a Leader from our line was overthrown, and the succession followed the victor. Over time, our line lost this heritage.

“My brother was the first in a very long time. Once he had turned, their Leader became afraid that our line would overthrow theirs, and had my brother killed.”

“You know this for certain?” Eshe asks, because words are failing me.

“Yes. They had him killed and then set about destroying our line. Our small but powerful kingdom was decimated, and all my father’s allies were killed. I told you how he sent me away to marry your father. My sister came too, and not two weeks after I was married, I heard they’d killed him too.”

“Aunty Grace never told me this…”

“My father was a very proud, old-fashioned man. There was plenty he did not think concerned women. He only told me the truth because he knew I had no intention of marrying your father; I did not know the man he was then. He learnt that after arriving here, I planned to run away, to return home. He confided in me to save the lives of my sister and me, to get me to stay, to ask me to commit to the life he had secured for us.

“Of course, when I fell pregnant, I worried. I worried I might have a son, carrying on the curse that claimed my brother and destroyed my family. The happiest day of my life was the day I learnt I would be having a daughter.”

“Because you didn’t think girls could be Lion Souls.”

“No, they cannot. I was assured of this. But now, somehow, this curse has found you, too.” Her mother weeps. “Of all the things I hoped for you, for your life, I never thought I had to worry about this.”

“I cannot believe this. Have you heard of this before?” Eshe turns to me, breaking the cold silence that has frozen my soul.

“No. Never. But Lion Souls can be ruthless, and if there were anything that would make them behave this way, it would be power. Still, this is barbaric.”

“You must protect yourself,” Eshe’s mother tells her. “If they know you exist, they will come for you too.”

“Do you think the Leader that had my uncle killed was William’s father?”

“Yes. It must have been him or his father before…” I whisper absentmindedly, while my mind overheats.

“Eshe. You must run. They are ruthless.”

“If that’s true,” Eshe says, “then I cannot run. They know I have transformed. They sent Adeben to train me. I have been training. I am stronger now. I will fight.”

“We will fight,” I break in. “What you have told us is very troubling. I doubt many of the Lion Souls in my tribe know about this. If they did, they would never follow such a man.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know my brothers. They are many things, but this is not one of them.”

“Your brothers, you say?” her mother asks. “You will stand against your brothers to protect her?”

“Mother,” Eshe says, “I can protect myself. I have been training, and I will train harder. I can defend myself.”

“You are much stronger than any Lion Soul this new to it,” I say, “but you will not have to defend yourself. I will destroy anybody that dares to touch you.”

There is so much in my mind brought to the surface by Eshe’s mother’s revelation. A part of me refuses to believe, cannot fathom a world in which my tribe could behave this way. They can be ruthless, and I have never been a big admirer of William’s father, but they would never act this way. They wouldn’t send me here to kill Eshe simply because they want to decimate her line.

Another side of me knows it to be all true. The Leader is callous and has been single-minded, right from the beginning, in his wish for Eshe to be destroyed. It is all falling into place.

I can’t help but think of William, my only friend working hard to sway the minds of our brothers back home. He won’t know anything about this. He will not stand for it or continue to live alongside anyone who did. When William assumes the throne, things will be different. They will be better, because in him I see something incorruptible, something true and fair.

There’s a reason why leadership is better suited to men like William and not people like me or his father: men who have a blood lust in their souls. Men who have an unending capacity for kindness, who are firm but fair, will always lead better – will always protect everyone, and not just their own interests.

Once again, I have been used. Their weapon, aimed and fired upon Eshe for ill gains. If I were less of a man, or her anything less than she is, I might already have completed the task with no mind for the real reasons behind it. The thought alone angers me: my naivety, my willingness to obey.

No more. No longer will I allow myself to be used in the same way. I have a soul, my own true soul, and it cannot continue to carry the sins that the tribe or my own Lion Soul force upon it.

I will fight. I will fight them all for my freedom, for my brothers’ freedom, for Eshe. I will do everything in my power to protect her from the danger I, too, have played a part in putting her in. Whatever she needs, whatever I have to do, I will do. For her.

Chapter 38

Eshe

My mother refuses to go home after learning I am a Lion Soul. The revelation sparks a worry within her, which I now know she has long been afraid of. Still, there is a lot to think through, and I want to be alone – to process the death of the family member I have only just learnt was killed, the crimes committed against my family, and the danger I am only now aware of being in. But I push that aside because in her eyes I can see how afraid she is. How close she needs me to be right now. Even when she slips back into her usual biting tone, I let it be.

Learning about my uncle and the threat my family faced changes the way I see my mother. I have dismissed her as trivial, shallow, and all too obsessed with the world we live in. Knowing what I do now, I see more. I see someone strong, someone who took a gamble to protect her family, sacrificed a home she longed to return to, and lost a brother and a father but still managed to withstand the decay surrounding her enough to rebuild. To rebuild a life that, while it mightn’t have been the one I would have chosen, is a life that has served its purpose in keeping us all safe. I am grateful for the sacrifices she and her father made.

At the same time, I long for the quietness that has been interrupted. Since the news, Adeben has been quiet. He too is struggling with it all. I try to find him, to speak to him about it, to see how he is processing the fact that his tribe and the people he calls family are capable of this cruelty. But finding time to speak to him alone has been challenging. Between my mother’s doting and her distrust of Adeben, there is never an opportunity to carve out that space or time.

She spends a lot of time speaking harshly of him. Her frequent rants start off with his first crime – taking her daughter away – and end with his final crime, thrusting me straight back into the danger she worked hard to protect me from. I try to explain he is not like that; he has done none of those things, and I am the one who has been driving my future, but these retorts only fall on deaf ears. She wants him gone so we can all be safe again, never mind that safe is the last thing we would be without him.

In a last-ditch attempt to smooth over her rough treatment of Adeben, I invite my aunt over for a visit. Hoping that my aunt’s presence will help me on all counts: to distract my mother, so I can find some time to speak freely to Adeben, to shed some light on her knowledge of the horrific truths my mother has shared, and to – as always – provide me with strong advice on what I should do next.

I hoped my mother would be pleased to see her sister, but that is so far from the case. She is still raw I kept my Lion Soul from her, but more furious I did so with the knowledge of my aunt. It is a bitter pill for her to swallow and I understand to a degree why she is upset, but it and her feelings about it are the least of my worries.

“You invited this hell into our lives. You brought him and that tribe here. You put Eshe in danger,” my mother shouts right at the start of lunch.

My aunt usually is careful and quiet as she ignores the venom in my mother, playing along for my benefit or maybe because she too is well-schooled in this behaviour.

But today, there is a fire in her weary, bloodshot eyes and her own face hardens as she replies, “I did no such thing. I sought to find people who could help Eshe. I did not know that they were the very people I should have been protecting her from. Because neither you nor father thought it wise to share the truth surrounding Henry’s death with me.”

“It was not my story to share.”

“It was. It affected us all. It affected me. You had no right to keep it from me.”

“And you had the right not to tell me what was happening to my daughter?” My mother will scarcely look up from the table. The gulf between them, only two seats wide, is vast.

“That was different. I told Eshe she should confide in you. I begged her to, but I was not about to go behind her back. Not with this.”

“The minute you contacted the tribe, you should have told me.”

“Mother,” I break in, scanning them both while I struggle to find my voice. “I asked her not to. She told me I should tell you, but I was not ready.”

“All the while, you let her run off with one of them.” My mother’s lips purse, her eyes widen to give a full view of the suspicion and hatred nestled in there. I quickly search for her gaze, only to find it all directed at Adeben.

“Adeben has been nothing but helpful to me since he arrived.”

“To what end? I do not believe for one second that he was sent here to train you,” she shouts, shooting daggers at Adeben, who sits completely still in the middle of our chaos.

“I asked him to come,” my aunt says. “I asked them to send someone to help Eshe learn to control the thing that was happening to her. She was beside herself. She wasn’t sleeping. The stupid pills you were giving her were only making things worse.”

“I wouldn’t have given her any pills if I knew what was really wrong with her. The two of you had no right to keep this from me,” my mother shrieks.

“I am not disputing you should not have been kept in the dark. But you let me hold out hope that somewhere, Henry was alive, doing well. You let me believe that our own father had grown tired of us and sent us here, so you could marry, and I simply follow you around.” The tears spill out of my aunt, and it’s clear she has cried this pain before. Too many times already.

My mother softens, and for the first time since she arrived, she looks at my aunt. “I am sorry. I truly am. When father confided in me, it was only to keep me here. You know how he was, he never would have told either of us.”

“They killed our brother and our father.”

“Yes. All these years, I have carried that truth alone. Looking over my shoulder, wondering if they would find us and finish what they started. When I was pregnant with Eshe, I was sick with worry. I was assured that it would only affect a male.”

“You were not deceived,” Adeben chimes in. “The Lion Soul only chooses men.”

“Why, then, is my daughter capable of transforming?”

“I do not know. The Elders from my tribe were as surprised as you are. Never has there ever been a female Lion Soul before.”

“Which only makes things worse,” my mother says to me. “Not only are you powerful and descended from our line, but now you are also rare. They can have nothing good planned for you.” She turns, whispering to her sister. “You should not have brought them here.”

“I did not know. Of course, if I had any idea, I would have behaved differently.”

I speak to my mother now. “If you had told Aunty Grace about your brother, she would have known about this and been able to make different decisions. If I had confided in you from the beginning, you would have been able to help us navigate this whole mess. These secrets, see what they do. Untold pain and suffering.” I look pointedly at Adeben and watch him shift from the weight of my words.

“Yes. There are too many secrets in this family,” Aunty Grace adds, her hands reaching over to my mother. “We have to be honest with each other. We have to share because somewhere in our shared knowledge are perhaps the answers that can help us all.”

When my mother flinches away from her kind touch, her hands fall back disappointedly into her lap, pulling at the soft satin fabric while she breathes in deeply. Her pause becomes everyone’s. No voices, no shouts, escape as we all sit, trying to find a way through the pain and concern.

“But what now? Adeben, your tribe is must now be aware of Eshe and her skills?” my aunt says after a few minutes have passed. Her body is now erect and purpose-filled.

“Yes.”

“I wish I hadn’t exposed us to them.”

“You cannot blame yourself,” Adeben says. “They have been aware of her for a while now. The moment she changed, our Elders became aware of her. Usually, they know about all Lion Souls when they are born. It’s recorded, and only when they begin their transformation are they watched and trained. But, for some reason, they did not see Eshe until she transformed that night in the garden.”

“So, no one knew of her until then?” my mother asks.

“I was aware before then.”

Adeben refuses to meet my eyes and shifts in his chair. I won’t let him hide, and so, forcing my way through the guard he is raising, I ask, “What do you mean?”

“For months before the tribe knew you existed, I was plagued by dreams. Dreams of myself and a lioness.”

“Me.”

“Yes, I shared the same dreams for months, knowing that you existed and suspecting our paths might cross.” Shame hangs off him, his secret prised open, but in there, on top of it, there is a humility that calls to me.

“And you told them of her?” my mother asks.

“No. I kept my dreams to myself, afraid of what they might mean. Unbeknownst to me, one of the Elders was aware of my having these dreams. He, too, kept it a secret; he wanted to understand more. But when you changed, he had to tell the other Elders and the Leader.”

“And that was why they sent you? Because you had seen me in your dreams?” I hold his eye when I ask, even though his forced expression tells me he will continue to protect his secrets.

My mother urges on when I accept defeat. “What did they send you here to do?”

I cannot take my eyes off him, watching his every move, searching for a sign, searching once again for him, until I find it when his head falls into a shamed silence.

It’s Aunty Grace that jumps in. “He’s already said. He was sent here to train her. And I am glad he did. Now, at least, she can control it. She can defend herself against them.” I watch relief form on his face, delight at knowing his secrets are blessed to live another day.

“There is a whole tribe of them,” my mother says. “I don’t care how strong she is or isn’t. The only thing to do, as I have said a million times already, is to run. Run fast and run now.”

“You are right,” Adeben says, “there is a tribe, but I do not believe many people know about what happened to your brother. The evil that was done. They will not stand by and watch it happen again when they find out.”

My aunt sighs. “I hope you are right.”

“My friend William has returned to the compound already to speak to the Elders of Eshe’s skill, to gain their acceptance. I am due to speak to him this evening and I will relay the story you told me. With him over there, we can make sure all the Lion Souls know what happened to your brother and your father. Once they know, no one will stand with the Leader.”

“Your friend William?” Mother asks, showing an interest that I am wary of. “The same William, I understand, who is next in line and son of the Leader who killed my brother? You don’t think he will stand with his father and betray you?”

“William is the best man I have ever met. He has integrity and honour. He will not stand beside his father once he hears of this.”

“Adeben is right.” I say. “I know William, and cannot believe he would ever condone this.”

“He will not let us down. He cares about Eshe,” Adeben adds.

“He cares about her like you do?” When my mother picks at him, I feel my own fire rise before I respond, “I trust him, Mother.”

“I didn’t say you did not. But I am not blind. I see the way you look at my daughter, I hear the things you say about her.”

“I care about her deeply.”

“Of course you do. Anyone can see that, but what do you mean for her? What can you or your people offer her? More pain? You have already ruined her life.”

“Mother,” I say, trying to halt her attack. “Adeben didn’t make me a Lion Soul.”

“No, that was from my genes. But this doesn’t have to mean the end of your life. You do not have to bind yourself to them. To him. What can he offer you? Nothing.”

“It’s my life,” I reply to her piercing stare.

“Yes, and you want to throw it away. I have also seen the way you look at him. Nothing good can come from this. He has nothing to offer you.”

“What makes you think you know what I want?” I test her, finding familiar frustrations surrounding me.

“I am your mother, of course I know what you want! It may not be exactly what I want for you, but I know you. You want to be happy. You want to build a life with someone. Have children. He cannot give you that. Even if they accept you, you will always be something different to them. Even if he can protect you and you find a place where you can live in peace together, start a family. Between his genes and yours, your children will almost certainly be afflicted with the same curse as you, be in the same danger you face now.”

“Is that how you see me? Cursed?”

“No. Of course not. You are strong, you have always been. This thing will not beat you. But you cannot tell me you would wish this upon anyone else. I know full well the fear, the prayers you make to protect your child from this. A girl, please, a girl. But if you choose this path with him, you won’t even have that.”

“So if you had known then what you know now, about who I would become, you have done things differently?” I struggle to keep the words steady.

My aunt speaks instead. “Of course not. Your mother loves you and everything you are.” I hold my gaze on my mother, though, waiting for her to say something. But she does not.

Chapter 39

Adeben

I leave lunch, my mind working overtime to process all that’s said. My skin is prickly, heart uneasy. Everything I heard Eshe’s mother say, I know to be true. There is nothing I can offer Eshe worth offering. The feelings I have for her are overwhelming, yes. Not a day has gone by that I have not delighted in her proximity or dreamt of her being closer. I am happy. For the first time in a long time. But happiness is not for me. It isn’t why I have been put on the earth or why I have this Lion Soul inside of me, and it isn’t something I can allow to drive me.

I have to be realistic. She is better off back in her own life. This make-believe thing we have here is not a life. I cannot stay here any more than she can join me in another village only to be anonymous.

Her mother was right; she deserves all the things she said she wanted for her. A partner, a place to call home, children. Even when I am functioning at my very best, with all my demons carefully locked away, I cannot catch the light I believe her life ought to be surrounded by. I have never even wanted children; my own childhood was a sorry enough experience to leave no space in history for a sequel. Everything I know about being a father I learnt from my own. And none of it is anything I will ever want to inflict on another.

Her mother’s words don’t just affect me. They also affect Eshe, and I see a change in her. The words we both heard touched her, and I hope that in that touch, she found the truth I have been neglecting to tell her: that whatever there is, unspoken, unacted upon between us, it should stay that way. She can do more, be much more without me by her side. The life she so fiercely held on to when I first met her, is still available to her. All she must do is move forward, away from me, and leave behind any hopes she might have carried for me.

Removing myself from Eshe and her orbit, I throw myself into William. More than a week has passed since he left, and promised to be in contact with some good news from his conversation with the Elders. I have tried reaching him a few times, leaving messages on his phone, but have yet to receive a reply. William, I know, is capable of great diplomacy and can protect himself, but I am still worried.

Had it not been for Eshe I would have accompanied him myself, and stood by him against any danger. Instead, I am here, left wondering if he even made it to the compound safely. And with nothing else to do, my mind cannot stop ruminating over all the unfortunate incidents that might have befallen him.

For the first time in a long time, I feel alone. I cannot distract myself from the path I foresee ahead of me in Eshe’s company, not when I am trying so hard to wean myself of her. I have nothing to go back to. I am no longer a part of a bigger story. No longer have the security of being with my brothers, being a Lion Soul, not now that I am so apart from them both geographically and ideologically. If William is gone, too, I will be nothing once again.

The tension and pull in my mind are reaching their climax quickly. So wild with anxiety I have become, caged up in my room, afraid to see Eshe or her mother’s hateful stare.

I decide to go for a run – never mind that my lion form will only further provoke Eshe’s mother – when my phone rings, finally displaying William’s number.

“Brother,” I answer all too quickly.

“Adeben. How are things back in the house?”

“William, you have been gone for over a week. What happened? You said you would call?” I cry, dropping hard onto the crease in the bed I left only a moment before.

“I know. I know. Father was not as welcoming as I would have liked.”

“Are you okay?”

“I am fine. He locked me up to teach me a lesson, but you know me. I have always enjoyed the forced solitude.” His tone, though light, carries the strain of the truth and memories we both hold from all the former times William has been locked up to be taught a lesson.

“William, I—” I start, but he quickly cuts me off, making clear the conversation will not venture anywhere near the topic.

“I am his only son. His heir. What can he do but throw his weight around?”

“I suppose there are some perks to being his son.”

“But a few.”

“How are things over there? Have you spoken to the Elders?” I shake off the cold breeze pulling in through the window.

“No. I was only released this afternoon, but I have been looking for them.”

“Elder Botkin did not come to find you?” I ask.

“No, it seems no one has seen Botkin or any of the other Elders for some time.”

“Where have they gone?”

“No one knows. I fear father has been intercepting my messages to them. My sister tells me the Elders were removed from the compound a week before my return.”

“How could they have been removed? Has no one else asked of their whereabouts?”

“Father told the others that they have gone to the north.”

“All of them? That is ridiculous. They would never leave the compound unprotected like that.” The cold builds, and a shiver runs down my back as I thinking of home, my old home, and what could be happening there while I sit in my room, hiding from things I have no business with.

“That is what I thought,” William says. “I know he is the one who orchestrated this. I just hope that they are alive.”

“But why would he harm them?”

“My sister says their discussions had gotten quite heated recently. Father, as you know, has his own mind and has never taken their guidance very well.”

“But he would not kill them. The tribe would crumble,” I whisper, suddenly aware of all the ears in the house, next door, downstairs, and how little they need to know of our troubles back home.

“Perhaps he has just hidden them so we cannot reach them. Either way, this is low even for my father.”

“From what I have been hearing, it is just like him.”

“He is single-minded, yes, and at times cruel, but I cannot believe that he would place our tribe’s Elders in harm’s way. After it all, he means the best for our people.”

William’s words, the thorns in them, catch my ears, forcing out my words. “I cannot believe that anymore.”

“Why? What has happened? Is Eshe well?”

“Yes, she is well. But since you left, we had a visit from her mother, she tells quite the tale of the wickedness of your father.” I tell him what Eshe’s mother shared about her brother, her father, and her entire family line. It pains me to have to tell him the awful things his father has done, our people have done.

I can tell he is moved by what I say. His voice is shaky when I finish and he says, “I cannot believe he would be capable of that.”

“I did not want to believe it, but it all makes sense now. Why he was adamant that I come here and kill her. Why he has now hidden the Elders. He is drunk on power and has remained unchallenged for too long.”

“But if that is true, then Eshe herself would be a threat to his leadership. He would not have left you to train her.”

“I didn’t give him much choice. I suspect very few people know of Eshe’s uncle or what was done to him. If he had come with more force, people would have asked questions. The Elders would have become suspicious.”

There is a short pause while William seems to take this in. “I know my father is not the best of men, but I cannot believe this of him.”

“He is not my father, and I have not had the best relationship with him, but as our Leader, I still respected him. I still went when he commanded me to go. I allowed myself to be used by him, for what I thought was the greater good of our tribe. Now, I am not so sure anymore.” My fists clench as these bitter words are drawn out.

“But you know him,” William says. “I know him. Maybe Eshe’s mother was confused.”

“She was very convincing, William. She knew things that she would only know if this were true.”

William doesn’t speak for a while, and neither do I. I cannot find words enough to reach across the ocean between us and save any of his distress.

“I have never heard of him before,” he says eventually. “Have you?”

“No, but we wouldn’t if they did not want us to know.”

“So you believe my father killed this man, Eshe’s grandfather too. And now he means to kill her?”

“I know he does. He sent me here. He pushed me, even when the orders from the Elders were clear. He wants her dead.”

“I don’t know, Adeben. This is a serious accusation. If I bring it to the Elders, you know what will happen.” His voice is harder than it has been against me, and I fight back the Lion Soul’s aggressive response. I know too well where he is.

“The Elders that he has already hidden, you mean? I don’t say this lightly, William, but your father has gone too far. And he has been like this for some time.”

“And what do you mean to do about it? Of all the things he is, he is still my father. I cannot—”

Breaking into his shout, I reply, “I am not asking you to. But we cannot stand idly by. I cannot stand by and wait for him to make his move. We must tell the Elders. We must tell everyone what he has done.”

“But you know what they will do. If I do that, it is the same as if I were to kill him myself.” William’s voice drops octaves down, until it is barely audible.

“It is not the same. Believe me, they are not the same thing.” There’s a recognition in his silence that neither of us wants to see. “You cannot do nothing, William. I know you. You will not be able to live with yourself if any more innocent people die to maintain his grip on power.”

“I know. I wouldn’t do that. I just need time. If this man was indeed taken in as a Lion Soul and killed, there would be some records. I will search for them.”

“And then?” I push him even though it’s uncomfortable.

“And then we will see what they say. If these claims are true, I will inform the Elders when I find them. But I have to be sure before I do anything.”

“I understand.”

“I will do whatever I can to keep Eshe safe. I just need some time to investigate this. Once I find out more, I will be back in contact.”

“Okay. Stay safe, brother.”

“And you.”

I end the call feeling the heavy burden I have placed on my friend. I, more than most, know what I am asking him to do, know the toll it will take on him. And something deep inside of me hopes William finds some new information contrary to what we have heard, something that will absolve his father. Something that will absolve him of what threatens to stain his soul also.

Chapter 40

Eshe

So much tension hangs between my mother and I, and everyone can feel it. Throughout my life, she has often felt unhappy with me and some of the choices I have made. And we argued constantly. But in those arguments, there was always an understanding: though words were said, they weren’t meant. We both excelled at picking ourselves off the floor, even after the harshest words had been levelled at us. It was something my mother learnt early in life, not to carry the weight of other people’s words on her back. A skill she passed on to me. So, in the past when we argued, we always had that, and could always find our way back to each other with everything forgiven – truly forgiven and forgotten, the slate wiped clean, ready for the next argument.

It’s one of the things I love about her. One of the few things we have in common: a shared capacity for forgiveness, unconditional and true. Even after breaking up with Tom, when she refused to speak to me, I wasn’t really worried. I knew we would find a way to repair that too.

But this is the first time there is something between us I cannot forgive, I cannot forget. A falling out, a real one, and over something unspoken.

It hurt to hear her speak so poorly about Adeben and my feelings for him, but of course, I could forgive that. She doesn’t know him, not like I do. She does not understand the all-encompassing way he swallows me whole. And I do not worry; I know in time, if she sees us, if she knows him better, she will find her way to that too. She will see how happy he makes me, how much we belong together, and she will be fine.

I am so used to her expressing her wishes for me and those being at complete odds with what I want for myself. In that, now more than ever, I can see that she and her wishes come from a good place. Even if it’s a nuisance when she won’t let them go, I know her; and I know she will, in time, come back from that. I might even find that her wishes were very close to what I wanted all along.

But the words she failed to utter when I asked if she would still want me as a daughter, knowing all that I am, all that she knows now… Those unspoken words are too much to bear. I am not perfect; I know that. I am far from being the best daughter in my mother’s group of friends, let alone the world. But I have always relied on a simple truth: no matter how strained our relationship becomes, no matter how difficult she finds me, she is proud of me. She is pleased that her life has me in it. I offer her meaning in a way so different from all the other things she fills her life with.

Of course, knowing her history with the Lion Souls, I can understand her fears. I can even understand that she might be wary of me, afraid of me, now she knows what I am capable of. I prepared myself for this. Though what she said and what she didn’t say still caught me unprepared. Never, not in a million years, did I think I would find regret in her.

“She did not mean it like that,” my aunt says as she accompanies me on a walk through the garden.

“I think she was pretty clear in her meaning. Believe me, her silence said plenty.”

“Just because she said nothing doesn’t mean you know what she would have said, had she spoken. Your mother is a complicated woman; do not reduce her.”

“I, more than anyone, am aware of how complex she is. I see her harsh words and nitpicking, and I am still able to find the love and care that sprouted them in the first place. I can decipher her every meaning and still find something kind in there. But this…”

My aunt pulls my hand, holding me firm. “This is nothing. She reacted badly, I will give you that. But you know her and I know you. The two of you will find a way back.”

I shake back, releasing her hold and propelling myself forward with a pace she struggles to keep up with. “Not from this. She basically said she wished I hadn’t been born.”

“She did not say that. As you said yourself, she said nothing.”

“Her silence said it then. Very loudly and very plainly.”

“This whole thing has really affected her,” my aunt says. “She spent years afraid this would happen, and now it’s happened, it will take her some time to be able to process this fully.”

“Even when I was afraid to tell her, I could never have imagined that this is how she would react,” I whisper to her.

“Well, no. Of course not, but neither you nor I knew the whole story. We didn’t know about Henry.” Aunty Grace stops mid-pace, frozen to the spot. After realising the weight of the words, I walk back and hug her. “I cannot believe they killed him and our father all because they were worried we would want a throne. For years afterwards, I would look for him, Henry. Everywhere I went. I thought, hoped, he might be alive somewhere.”

“I am so sorry. I wish I could have met him,” I say, pulling her closer into me.

“You would have liked him. Everybody loved him. He was so kind. He would have made a brilliant uncle to—”

She barely finishes her last word when the hairs on my skin prick with an anticipation I cannot place. I search our surroundings for the thing that has made my Lion Soul react but see nothing.

“What’s wrong?” My aunt searches my face.

“I don’t know, I can feel something. Stay close to me. Please.”

As she draws closer, placing her hand in mine, I still cannot settle my heartbeat. My body has sensed something and entered fight-or-flight mode, with a firm emphasis on “fight”. From the garden we can just about make out the roof of the house in the distance, and my eyes train on it, shift into focus, scanning the area around it.

When my phone rings, I hastily drop my aunt’s hand to answer it. “Adeben,” I say, as calmly as I can muster.

“Eshe, they are here.”

“Who?” I ask, though I can feel who.

“The Lion Souls. Where are you?”

“I am in the garden with my aunt.” My breath hitches as I speak quickly.

“I’m coming for you.”

“No! My mother is still in the house, you need to get her out of here. Please. We will follow.”

“I am not leaving you,” he shouts back, the Lion Soul at the forefront of his voice.

“Please, you have to get her out of here. We will be right behind you.”

He pauses, and I feel sure he will retort back, but: “Fine. I’ll meet you behind the train station. Hurry!”

I lower the phone and reach to grab my aunt’s hand, but before my fingers can touch hers, I feel a crushing weight upon me, and I’m thrown to the ground.

Shaking off the daze quickly, I see three lions surrounding us, as large as Adeben and William, with manes black as night. My fear spikes, but I ignore it and look for my aunt. When my vision finds her, she is caught between a tree and one of the lions.

“Run, Aunty Grace!” I scream before the lion closest to me smacks me into the ground again.

My aunt looks down at me, and her fear wafts through the wind and fills my nostrils. The presence of it wakes Malkia, and my skin sheds seamlessly as I rise from the ground in lion form.

The second lion laughs. “So this is what a female Lion Soul looks like.”

“Not bad for an abomination,” the first one adds in.

I roar at them, using everything I have learned from Adeben and William to intimidate them, but my roar is immediately drowned out by a much louder one from the lion closest to me.

All my training floods my mind; I have to defeat them if my aunt or I have any hope of making it to the train tracks to find Adeben and my mother.

I leap into the air, and plunge towards the lion like a bullet, but he jumps up in a straight line and drags me down so fiercely that the force pushes me back into my human form.

“Is that it? I thought you were trained by the great Adeben.” They laugh collectively. “You can’t even protect your own.”

The lion next to my aunt taunts her, pushing her back against the tree and then to the ground. I feel so helpless. I wish I were stronger. I wish I had half the power Adeben has.

“This is too easy,” he continues, placing his paw over my aunt’s leg.

“No, don’t!” I scream, but he ignores me. He brings his weight down on, and I hear the bone snap before her screams reach my ears.

The sound richochets through my body, awakening every cell. Pure rage courses through my blood. I can hear nothing but my roar over the bodies of the lions before me.

I struggle to quieten my breathing, and inside I can hear Malkia, begging for vengeance. Begging to be let loose to do as she pleases to them.

I feel myself loosening something inside, something deep, and as soon as my mind is off that task, as soon as I give Malkia what she wants, she springs from my chest.

Larger than she has ever been.

Larger than all the lions in the garden.

She roars and the thing that comes out of her throat is no Lion Soul roar. It shakes the ground beneath us, and I look up at her. Here, in her full glory, untethered, she is something else entirely. My hands reach out in front of me to touch her, her soft fur between my fingers.

I look at the lions, knowing now they stand no chance. I watch them disbelievingly run their eyes over Malkia and then dart back to find me in my human form still standing next to her.

Not a part of her. Not merged, but separate.

“How?” the lion closest to my aunt asks moments before Malkia tears him down. Her body, her mass, crushes him like he is nothing but a twig.

Her mouth engulfs his head, and in one swift movement, she removes it and throws it to the floor. As it rolls away, the sight distracts the lion next in line. She attacks him, strong and with the force I had hoped to muster. His screams fill the air, and I look away, no longer afraid but vibrating with anger. My eyes, molten, carry me forward to the first lion I saw.

“How did you—” is all he manages to get out before my hands reach out for him of their own volition.

They land on his chest before he can act, and a force runs down my arms, onto his body, against it, into it. I feel something catch the force. It pulls back, fights me, but I pull it loose, out of him, unseen and back into me.

He falls to the ground in his human form, scared and confused. Now he, too, clouds the air with fear. Tasting it, Malkia turns to face us. She makes her way over slowly, casually stepping over the carcass of the second lion. There is no haste in her movement, not anymore.

“No.” I raise my hand up against her and bend down over his trembling frame. “You will go back and tell your fearless Leader that he now has plenty to fear.” The words are mine, and I mean them, but they come from a place so different to the place where I keep my other words.

He rises up, already running at the same time, tripping over his legs over and over again as he slowly disappears from view.

I look back at Malkia, majestically over me. She brings a smile to her face. She bows her head. And I return the honour.

It feels like I blink, but my eyes remain open. Then she vanishes before me. And I can feel her inside my heart once more.

Chapter 41

Adeben

I never thought they would be so brazen as to attack us. Not at the house intended to offer refuge to all Lion Souls.

It was foolish of me to have allowed us to stay here as long as we have. Time away from my brothers and the ferocity of the compound has made me forget the viciousness lurking there, has left me believing they are better than they are. But my lapse in judgement has been happily exploited, seeking to remind me of exactly who it is I am dealing with, who it is I am choosing to stand against.

We made it out alive. And that was in no part due to me.

I panicked. I was afraid for Eshe and her safety. For the first time in my life, I had something to truly lose and as soon as I sensed them, she became my only concern. Everything I knew from my training, all the patterns they would use for an attack – patterns I had been a crucial part of – everything that mattered in battle went out of the window, replaced with a burning desire to see Eshe safe.

She asked me to take her mother and run. Leave her behind. I was wary; I could sense enough to know we were about to be attacked, but by how many Lion Souls, my senses weren’t sharp enough to read. We were about to be ambushed. She was. It is how I would do it, after all. Yet something in me, something I keep encountering with her, heard her when she told me what she needed me to do. I found the strength to push back down the Lion Soul, hungry for battle, to do as she asked, as she trusted me to do.

Taking her mother away proved difficult, not only because of what I felt but because of who her mother was. She did not want to leave her sister and daughter behind. She thought I was mad to be doing anything but running in there to save them. That’s what I, the warrior, should have done. But I’m more than that now. I’m a guide too, a friend, a man, a person. And all those other things I am demanded I respect what Eshe had asked me to do. That for once, I not be the warrior.

Ferrying Olivia away, we made it to the train tracks, where I told Eshe to meet me. It was too easy a journey, and after waiting for all of five minutes, I knew something was wrong. Eshe and Grace should have arrived long before Olivia and me. So, I put her mother on a train, kicking and screaming, to London. She would be safe, even if I was sure she would hold this against me for the rest of my life, along with everything else.

It wasn’t hard to locate Eshe; I heard her roar before I even reached the threshold of the property. That roar was so new to me, but so familiar. I could recognise it anywhere. In a sea of roars, hers I would always know.

It took longer to actually reach her. She was much deeper into the garden than the resonances in her roar spoke of. Finally, from afar, I see her.

Her and her Lion Soul.

Separate.

Two bodies stand beside each other, as though they are not one, are not bonded.

I watch the lioness approaching her, bowing her head in submission. Eshe’s own head falls in the same manner.

And then I see the lioness re-enter Eshe’s body.

I am shaken by the sight. Her soul separate from her… It isn’t possible. Should not be. Everything in our histories says the Lion Soul is not solid, not physical. It is an essence, a memory of something that once was. It has no form. It is dead for all intents and purposes – and what we are gifted are the remnants of a life, the skills, the attributes, transference.

But I saw what I saw.

Had I not been battle-ready and my vision at its very best, poised to see much more than usual, I might have doubted my human eyes.

But I cannot, I know what I saw.

My eyes relayed a message, an image, that my mind tells me is untrue.

In truth, what I see provokes a fear deep within. Words I do not want to remember from a man I do not respect resound in my head. Abomination.

But that, too, cannot be true. I know her. I love her. She is none of the things he claims she is. He is the one who is a threat. He is the one who is dangerous.

I stay back awhile with my thoughts. Trying to bury what I have seen. The questions I have for her, the things I need her to explain. I cannot confront her. I cannot demand to know anything. Not me, who has so many secrets of his own, who knows all too well the sacredness of those things.

“Eshe!” I call her name when I am sure I am ready. When all traces of that fear, so alien to me, have been locked away.

“Adeben.” She runs screaming into my arms, and in that moment, I feel foolish for giving any space to any fears about her. I know her. I will always know her. What I think I have seen does not matter.

“Where is my mother?” she asks, pulling away.

“I put her on a train back home. She will be safe there.”

“Oh, good. My aunt, I think they hurt her.” Eshe runs back to a tree where her aunt is lying.

The moment we reach her, we see she is breathing. She is alive, but unconscious. Her leg is broken, badly. I don’t need to see the blood to know that. I don’t need to ask why. I understand enough of what happened here.

Eshe tries to move her, but I make her call an ambulance instead.

She goes with her to the hospital, and I follow them. I wait with her while the doctors see her aunt. I stand there tall when her mother arrives and has only harsh words for me about her abandonment on the train. I am not the one she is angry with, I just look very much like those who are the cause of her pain.

We wait there all night for some news. And when her aunt’s condition is reported as stable, I take Eshe back to the place that used to be our home.

I look at her and see that everything has changed. The world is not the same one it was the day before. I am not the same person I was. Eshe is not either. Too much has happened. Too much has forced her to change, shed the skin of the person she was before, the person she knows now she will never be again. Looking at her quietly, I try to find the pieces of the person I knew. I try to fight away flashes of what I think I saw.

“How did they find us?” is the first thing she says to me when we enter the house. Her eyes are wide and awake. The sleep I had hoped we could both steal before a time of action was upon us, I see in her face, will not happen.

“They know all the places I would have taken you. It’s my fault. We should not have stayed here for as long as we did. I am just glad you are okay.”

“I very nearly wasn’t,” she replies absentmindedly, playing with the edges of the coat I draped over her hours earlier.

“I should not have left you.” I say the thing I have been thinking since I saw her aunt.

“No, I asked you to go. I am grateful you did. My mother, they would’ve only hurt her like they did my aunt.”

“Your aunt will be fine. It will heal.” I try to smile at her, but even that is too much of an ask from my weary body.

“This time, perhaps,” she says, “but what about the next time? They won’t stop coming, will they?”

“No, but we will be ready. You defeated them this time. And you will again.”

“I’m not even sure how I did it this time. There were three of them, and it very quickly became apparent I was nowhere near as strong as I thought I was. If my Lion Soul hadn’t… It came out of me. She wasn’t just within me, pushing me forward, she leapt out of me. She was alive.” She looks up at me, an openness in her gaze I don’t deserve to receive.

“I know.” I smile, shocked once again at her capacity for openness.

“You know?”

“I saw her. And I saw you. Detached. Separate from each other.”

“I don’t know how I did it. One minute, she was there, inside of me, and the next, she was standing in front of me, tearing their heads off.” Her hands wave in front of her, wild and free.

“It is strange,” I manage, my own hands held tightly to my sides.

“Have you known this to happen before?” She is afraid, and I can see it all over her. But not of them.

“No. I didn’t think it was possible, but somehow you did it. It should not have been possible, but then your very existence as a Lion Soul should not have been possible, and yet here you are. Who knows what else you are capable of?”

“Great, so now I’m a freak because I’m a Lion Soul, and I am also a freak even amongst the Lion Souls.”

“You should not want to be like them anyway. They are nothing you should aspire to be,” I say, pulling closer to her, while still maintaining a distance appropriate to where we are.

“You seem alright. You can’t all be monsters.” She smiles weakly, looking up at me. Her irises are almost liquid, so alive, so warm.

“Even I am not the hero you paint me to be.”

“All you have done is help me, protect me, keep me safe. You’ll have to excuse me for the high regard I hold you in.”

I shift uncomfortably. I cannot have her thinking I am something I know I am not. “Eshe, I wasn’t sent here to train you or to help you. Those were not my orders.” It’s finally here, and I feel a relief in meeting the darkness that has loomed over me.

“Well, yes. That much I figured out a while ago. What was your mission?”

“Eshe, you have to know I would never hurt you.”

She sits down on the stool in the kitchen, but I don’t dare move any closer. “You were sent here to kill me?”

I can only nod. We both wait in silence for someone to say something, and it is me who pushes through. “Of course, I would never have gone through with it.”

“Why? Why did they send you here to kill me? Because of my uncle?”

“No, I had never heard of your uncle until your mother told us. I, too, had my nights plagued by the same dream you did. I kept it to myself, though I wasn’t sure why at the time. Still, once you turned, the Elders had to act. The Leader told us that he saw a great evil, and because in my dreams I—”

“You killed me in the dream, so you would be the one to kill me in real life.” She’s silent for a moment. “So, is it a premonition? The dream?”

“No. They didn’t understand it. And after the Leader had given me my orders, I spoke to one of the Elders, who told me they did not know enough about you to have you killed. He asked me to find out more.”

“But you did more than that.”

“Yes, once I met you, I knew they were wrong. They were all wrong. I had to stay and help you, train you, so you could gain control over your Lion Soul and live a life of your choosing.”

“So why now? Why have they attacked us? You are still here.” She gestures to the stool beside her, and I slink down.

“That is my fault. I have made it clear that I do not intend to carry out any of the missions they have for me. I have been ignoring them for some time, while William and I attempt to change their minds about you.”

“But the vision. We have both seen how this all ends.” She stares me dead in the eyes, leaving no place to hide, nothing she cannot see clearly.

“No, it’s not a vision. It’s just a dream. I would never.” I reach out to grab her hand but think better of it.

She catches the movement, and her eyes land on the space where my hand might have met hers. “But maybe it is true. The great evil that your Leader told you of, how do you know it’s not true? You’ve seen the things that I can do. What if that was what he meant?”

“You are not a great evil. I know you.”

“I don’t even know what I am fully capable of. Like you said, who knows what else I can do that I should not be able to do?”

“I know you!” I reassure her. “I know who you are, and you are not capable of the destruction that he believes.”

“Well, I do not share in your belief in me.”

“Then I will believe enough for us both. You do not need to be afraid. Not of yourself.”

“But I am. I am terrified that every time I catch my breath and think I understand all of this, the carpet is pulled from underneath me, and I realise that I know nothing.”

“Then know this. I will never let anything happen to you. I will protect you always.”

She looks right at me again. “Even from myself?”

“Even from yourself. Even from me.” My words are firm, true, projecting an intensity that once again betrays my feelings for her, speaking of the overwhelming single-mindedness of everything I will do for her.

“Do you think they will send more?” She shifts back, my words too heavy, too bold, to be that close to.

“I don’t know, but we must leave here, go somewhere they will not find us. They can never know what you are capable of. You must keep it to yourself.”

“Well, that’s kinda already out of the bag. I let one of them go.” She winces awkwardly.

“What?”

“And I basically told him to go and tell the others what I was capable of.”

I roll my head back and try to take a breath. “Why? Why didn’t you just let the Lion Soul finish him off?”

“I don’t know. I did something to him. I could feel his Lion Soul, and I knew he was no longer a threat. I wanted him to be just as scared as we were.”

“What did you do to him?”

“I don’t know, maybe I did nothing. I just knew he was no longer a threat at that moment.” I watch her carefully, searching for a truth she may be hiding but can find nothing.

“Well, it’s done now. They will know about your Lion Soul. They will be coming back for you, harder, stronger than before. They will send the very best.”

“Who will they send? Who do they usually send?”

I let out a bitter laugh. “Me. But as I am otherwise engaged, that will be one thing in our favour.”

“Because you are the strongest?” She is hesitant, and it reminds me of all that she still doesn’t know.

“Something like that. They will send Kojo next, and he will show you no mercy. We must leave tonight.” I rise abruptly from the stool, ready to engage in our departure, but then she pulls my arm back to her.

“But my mother, my aunt?”

“They will be fine. The further away they are from us right now, the better.” I try to turn back to my task, but she holds me steady.

“I will not leave them undefended. They attacked my aunt. How do you know they will not use them again to get to me?”

Looking into her eyes, I already know I won’t change her mind; it is set, and any plans I have for protecting her will have to include those she cares about. Those I find myself caring about too.

Chapter 42

Eshe

Adeben agrees to help me protect my family, and I am pleased. I cannot leave them. I cannot leave him. I cannot leave my aunt, not when she is still healing from the attack by the Lion Souls, which she only endured because she was with me. Still, I hear his words, and I know that my being here only adds danger to their lives. I know I will have to leave them. But not now, not until I can be sure that the Lion Souls will limit their target to me alone.

Finding somewhere new to hide out was relatively easy while my aunt recovered. What was hard was leaving behind the place I had come to think of as home. The gardens are where I found myself, met William, and learned so much about Adeben. Walking away from that quiet solitude, I already know, as clear as night or day, I won’t ever find the peace I had here again. The time I spent here, the joy, the tranquillity, it stays behind, frozen in time, along with my dreams and hopes, my plans, my future. I have to give them up to move forward.

At least Adeben has confided in me, opened up and shared something true with me. It was a big step for him, I know. And I appreciate the gesture, along with all the other ones he has been making. It’s almost like now he has opened up and released the weight on top of him, he is easier in his step. More tender, more kind, easier to fall into, easier to imagine being with. Everything I wanted from him is there now, ready for me to take, ready for me to jump into. But I can’t. Not now. Not when there is so much still pulling us apart and destroying the hopes I once held.

I am different. I feel a difference in me, and I see that same difference reflected on his face, on my mother’s face, my aunt’s face. I am not the same girl I was. I feel troubled and can’t seem to quiet the storm inside me.

If I didn’t know any better, I would say my Lion Soul is raging inside of me. Banging on the walls of my heart once more, trying to force her way out and pushing against boundaries we have long made peace with. Stranger still, when I am alone – which is seldom between my mother’s silent gaze and Adeben’s hovering – I hear the old familiar cries of a soul in despair. Unbonded, untethered, pushing forth flashes of rage that threaten to overwhelm me.

But I am bonded. I have met my soul and communicated with her. Looking down at my ankle and seeing the vine intact, it is clear that Malkia and I are one. We are aligned in our thoughts; we are, in fact, closer than ever.

All of that is clear. All of it I know. But it does not help explain what I feel brewing inside me. Or the darkness I can feel edging closer to my heart.

I can’t help but wonder if what Adeben was told by the Leader is true after all. Maybe I am the great evil they have been told to fear. The one who will cause destruction and put all their lives at risk. These thoughts will not fade. They are too real. They and they alone explain the rotten feeling inside of me. This hunger, this thirst for something unnatural, can only be described as evil.

I try to speak to Adeben about it, to hear his thoughts, but every time I broach the subject, he is unwilling to hear it, reluctant to believe I am anything other than what my surface speaks of. He tells me I must be tired. That projecting my Lion Soul out of my body must have taken a lot out of me, and I need rest. But rest is the last thing I feel in need of. I feel refreshed, anew, buzzing with more energy than ever. I feel stronger and faster too. And with every new day, it only increases, soon close enough to rival Adeben’s. How, then, can I be tired?

The house we are hiding in, procured by my mother and the many assets she seems to have at her disposal, is nowhere near as large as the cottage I called home for a few months, and everyone is on top of each other. It isn’t small, but it clearly wasn’t built for four people in desperate need of space. It’s only been a week, and already I feel so wary, so tense at the thought that we might be here for longer than the two weeks we each committed to.

The amount of space seems to be a particular issue with the tension still persisting between myself and my mother. Since my aunt’s attack, we have spoken often but only to relay information, both preferring to actively avoid the space the other is in.

Even as she recovers from the break that might never fully heal, my aunt tries and fails to push us back together. She speaks to me and begs me to bury the hatchet, especially with everything that has happened. And I want to, I want to be able to shrug off what she said, what she didn’t say, but I cannot. Too much has happened since then, it is true, but this matters. What she thinks, how she feels about me, it means more to me than what a group of Lion Souls think. If she cannot love me, if she thinks so poorly of me, then how can I hold on to any belief that I am not what the Lion Souls fear me to be?

After she has exhausted herself talking to me and talking to my mother, I believe she has given up on us. Moved on, realising how unlikely the whole thing is, but she proves me wrong by merely changing tactics, enlisting Adeben to help in luring us both into the pantry.

“Grace!” my mother calls out when she hears the door lock engage from the outside.

“Talk! This thing has gone on for too long. Now is not the time for petty squabbles,” Aunty Grace shouts back from behind the door.

“Great, very mature of you,” my mother answers.

“I would not have to stoop this low if you two weren’t so hard-headed.”

“For goodness’ sake.” My mother concedes, falling to the ground, all while avoiding looking at me as I stand silently against the wall.

Neither of us has anything to say, and the first hour goes by slowly. Feeling anxious energy rippling through my skin, I busy myself with the contents of the pantry, rearranging the jars of peas, while my mother grows more uncomfortable, and her sighs get louder.

“Could you not do that?” she shouts, just as I start on the tins of beans.

“What? Is this bothering you?”

“Yes. It is. Can you not change or something and break this door down?”

“You find my company so repulsive you would rather I change into the lioness and break this door down, possibly injuring you in the process?” I shoot back at her.

“No, of course not. I just think this is stupid. Locking us in here like it’s some great drama. We are fine, we always are.”

“I don’t think we are fine.”

She rolls her eyes. “Oh, so now you’re being dramatic too. Great!”

“I am not being dramatic. Nothing between us is fine. I wouldn’t be trapped in a cupboard again if it were.”

“Again? Do I even want to know?”

“At least this one is warm.” A small smile creeps up onto my face.

“Let me guess, another story you decided to keep from me.”

“It is not like that.”

“Whatever. I don’t care anymore. I have nothing more to say.”

“Oh yeah, you’ve made it clear in your silence what you think.” This time, I turn away from her.

She sighs. “You know I can never win. When I say something, you’re angry because I’ve said something. When I say nothing, that annoys you too. I give up, Eshe. I actually give up. You do what you want. I am tired of all your secrets.”

“It’s not a secret. Not everything is a secret.” Turning back to face her, I see something in her that I haven’t seen before: tiredness. And it softens me.

“The last time I was in a cupboard,” I explain, “was at my party. I got pretty worked up when I saw Tiffany talking to Adeben, and it was before I learned to control the Lion Soul, so I exploded into a fit of rage. Adeben, afraid I would hurt someone, lured me into the walk-in freezer and trapped me in there until I could gain control of myself.” The memories of a much simpler time widen the small smile on my face.

“Oh god. He trapped you in a freezer. For how long?”

“A while.”

“He trapped you in a freezer, and still you keep him around?”

“He did it to protect me and everyone at that party – including you,” I snort back. “And I don’t keep him around.”

“So even then, at your party, with Tom, you were chasing him.” She looks back at me as though, for the first time, she gets it; it was never going to be Tom.

“I don’t chase him.”

“But you don’t deny that you have feelings for him.”

“No, but that doesn’t mean I chase him. He has been nothing but good to me. He helped me, even when his orders were to do the exact opposite. I am literally only alive because of him. Even you, you have the use of all your limbs because he listened when I asked him to take you away, to protect you. Your hatred of him is so misplaced.”

“I don’t hate him.”

“Well, you could have fooled everyone.”

“I have no problem with him,” she says. “He seems nice enough on the surface. But I cannot pretend to like the path he is taking you down.”

I walk closer to her, standing an arm’s length away, afraid of her reaction to my proximity, and say, “He isn’t taking me anywhere. The path I am on, the path that you keep going on about, is one I have chosen. Adeben himself would rather I was back in London at some party or another. But that is not who I am. It never has been.”

“Because of your…”

“My Lion Soul. You can say it. Or does who I am disgust you so much, you can’t even utter the words? Don’t worry, saying it won’t make you cursed like me.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yes, you didn’t say anything. Believe me, I remember how much your silence said.”

“You claim I don’t know you, and yet you presume to know my every thought, know what my every word, even my silence, means. How great it must be to be you, unknowable to everyone while you know all.” She sighs heavily. “I didn’t say I wish I had never had you. I would never say that. It could not be further away from the truth.

“I was lonely when I left my home and married your father. I had your father, of course, but I didn’t really know him. And your aunt had just met John; I could see how in love they were, how the lines blurred between them being separate beings, how whole they were. I wanted that; I wanted to feel complete, to have something of my own, someone that would fill the void left by Henry and Father’s death. But I did not think I could ever have that. I had my path, not the one I had chosen for myself, but I had accepted it. I was content, and that was enough for me, I told myself.

“Until I had you. Of course, I worried the entire time I was pregnant whether you would be a boy. Even when they said you were a girl, I still worried that they would come for you. I would not allow myself to love you, to form any bond with you, not while there was still a chance I could lose you. And so when you were born, and I saw you for the first time, everything I had been afraid of, all those walls I had put between you and myself while you were still inside of me, came crashing down. All I had was hope, a hope that your life would exceed mine, that you would be the best of me and more. And love. So much more love than I thought I was even capable of.

“The minute I saw you, I fell in love with you. I found that void gone, filled with you. I felt complete. Like everything I had been through was fine; it was all okay because it had brought me to that point. It had brought you to me.

“And when you told me about the Lion Soul, everything came rushing back. All I had been afraid of. The pain of the loss of my brother, of my father. It was like I was back there again, afraid to lose you. Afraid of the devastation that might destroy me this time.

“And all the walls I had put up to protect myself, were long gone. There was nothing that could stem the tide.”

I don’t look at her, but I hear a sob that tells me I don’t want to. “Mum.”

“So, no, of course I don’t wish I had never had you. You have been everything in my life, the only good thing. The only thing that has ever mattered. Do I wish I had known, so I could have kept the walls up and prepared myself for all of this? Yes. But also no, because then I would have missed out on all the happiness you have brought me. I would have missed out on loving you, arguing with you, frustrating you and being frustrated by you. It wouldn’t have been much of a life without the chance to love you.”

“I am sorry.” I slide down to her and swallow the space between us. These things, these secrets and lies, with them gone, it takes no effort to reach for her and let her arms engulf me.

“Don’t be. Just know I won’t lose you too. I do not have the capacity for that kind of loss.”

“You won’t lose me.”

“I understand you are a Lion Soul. But I don’t have to like it to love you. I understand you have a fight ahead, but I don’t have to like it either. I even understand that in Adeben, you have found a love I always hoped for you, but I don’t have to like it to love you.” And my tears meet hers.

Chapter 43

Adeben

I didn’t want to get involved in the thing between Eshe and her mother. I have my own experiences, my own memories of a fight with a mother, that tell me carefully to stay away. But Grace insists they need to talk, begs for my help. Perhaps it’s because I feel so much of the blame that rests on my brothers for her situation that I concede and help repair what had been damaged between them.

Once they emerge from the cupboard, happily re-engaged with each other, I am pleased the plan did not backfire. But more than that, I am pleased she still has her mother in her life, that the gift we have did not take this from her too.

I hope that with things repaired with her mother, I might see a change in Eshe. Since we arrived, she has been different. Distant, moody, prickly. She’s tired, I tell myself. And I hope for a time that is all that is happening.

After I told her about my missions, I had hoped we would turn a corner together. That the truths we now shared could facilitate a new closeness, the beginning of something. Of us. It was hard to tell her. Harder still to quiet the doubts in my head about my suitability – that I, being all that I am, could be something more to her. I felt myself open up. For the first time I felt like I made a choice to be happy, to believe in someone and believe I would be enough. Could be accepted.

Seeing her Lion Soul and feeling the power that emanated from her didn’t scare me, didn’t make me turn away from her. It sparked a new connection for me. She is like a kindred spirit. Different from the other Lion Souls. Greater. But with that greatness, there is also a capacity for something worse. Seeing her, knowing how she felt, I imagined we could help each other. Tether ourselves to each other, something much more powerful than anything inside. And that tether could keep us strong against the darkness, could make sure we remained on the right side of our power.

Yet when I go to her, I find a fear in her blocking me. Rather than turning into something new, turning toward me, I watch her turn away. Slowly placing distance between us. I try to push against the wall in her, knowing myself how easily they form. I try to show her she is not alone, that I am here, will always be here, but it’s hard to do that without overwhelming her with feelings that already do the same to me. Each time I try to reach her, she buries herself further away, nestles into the mass of her family.

In the days after the attack, I managed to reach William to tell him what happened. He, as I imagined he would be, was horrified. Devastated he had not been here to help. Disgusted with the new level of depravity his father had sunk to.

Having investigated the claims made by Eshe’s mother, he had already found plenty to corroborate what she told us. There was no solid proof – the Leader had been careful – but there were records that told of how Eshe’s uncle had been taken in as a Lion Soul only to die mysteriously days later. Moreover, William had uncovered documents indicating a campaign waged against an enemy only months later, in a location that could only have been Eshe’s grandfather.

It wasn’t a smoking gun, but it was enough to convince William of his father’s guilt and break his heart. He is not perfect, and his relationship with William had always been strained. Still, William has always believed that at the core of his father, every hard word, every cruelty done, lay a genuine dedication to his people. With everything we know now, that is all gone, leaving behind a power-hungry tyrant, leaving William the choice to rise up against it.

I feel for him. The pain and burden upon him is so real, so familiar to me. He knows I do too, that if we are successful in our task, if we can truly see him removed, then William will be forced to never look at himself in the mirror again without seeing the stains of his father’s blood upon him.

We don’t speak of that, though, when we decide to move forward with our plan, working to secure support from as many Lion Souls as we can in secret. And William promised to be in contact a week later.

It’s troubling then, when I see his name flash up on my phone only two days after we last spoke, knowing he could not have completed the mammoth task in this time alone.

“Brother,” I answer, with a tightness already descending on my throat.

“Adeben.”

“What has happened?”

“Adeben, I am sorry.”

“William, what has happened?” I ask as quietly as possible, hoping not to alert Eshe or anyone else to my discomfort.

“Your family. They were attacked.”

My heart skips a beat.

He adds, “Last night. I heard just this morning.”

“Are they…? Are they dead?” They are my words, but they come from another place in my body.

“No, your sisters are fine. They were beaten, but are fine.”

“And my mother?”

“She was taken. I don’t know where.”

Everything in the room zeroes in on me. I can feel them pull in towards me. I can see her face, the smile I have not seen for years. “Is she alive?”

“Yes, as far as my sources know. She is alive. Brother, I am so sorry. I didn’t think they would be in danger.”

“He means to force my hand. He knows now of Eshe’s power and does not want to risk sending anyone else.”

“I suspect so.”

“You must move my sisters immediately,” I tell him. “They may return.”

“I have tried. They have refused to go. They said they will not go until your mother has returned. I have men posted in your village. They will keep an eye out on them.”

“Thank you. I did not see him making this move, I will admit,” I grit out.

“No, I didn’t either. He will come for her again when he realises it won’t work.”

“Yes. He will not stop coming until I bring an end to this.”

“Adeben, please,” William begs.

“William, what would you have me do? He has already attacked Eshe, injured her aunt. Now he has my mother. I cannot continue to play at this diplomacy. I must act.”

“I believe I can still make the plan work,” he says. “I have already recruited several Lion Souls for our cause. There will be even more when they learn of this.”

“Meanwhile, my mother is captured and at his mercy. I am sorry, but I cannot wait anymore. I will return immediately,” I confirm.

“You will leave her unprotected?”

“She is more than capable of defending herself, and if I am successful, nothing will be left to threaten her.”

“I will support you, of course,” William says. “But I cannot have a hand in the revenge you plan on taking…”

“I understand. I would not ask it of you.”

“I will arrange for a flight for you. When you get here, please come and see me, let us work out a plan. Charging into this is not the answer.”

Inside of me, a storm rages, full of contempt, full of an anger I can barely hold inside. “Thank you, brother.”

“Adeben, promise me you will come to me first.”

“Goodbye, brother.”

When I left my village, my mother made me promise I would never return, that I would take with me all the business of the Lion Souls that I had brought to her door. And now another promise lies broken on the ground. My sisters attacked, my mother taken. Because of me. I cannot stand here and let that be. I know his intention. He means to provoke me. He means to force my hand. To once again load up his favourite weapon and take aim at Eshe. To destroy her. But I won’t. This time, this weapon that he so thoroughly enjoys loading up will be fired. But it is not Eshe I will be aiming for. I run into the room where I have been staying and throw all my belongings into a bag. Searching under the mountain of socks, I find the open-ended ticket I still have, paid for by the man I intend to kill. I must leave immediately and make my way back home before William or his father have an opportunity to cancel it.

“Adeben.” Eshe’s voice enters my room. I had hoped to be gone before she noticed, to have packed my life up and left before I could be drawn into anything different. I don’t want to talk to her. I don’t want to see her. I don’t want to feel the pang of loss, not until I am already too far away to do anything about it.

“Are you packing?” She stands over me, watching me silently, but I refuse to stray from my task. I might never see her again, and I will be okay with that. I will have to be content with the memories of her face I hold so close to my heart. It will have to be enough to sustain me.

“Are you leaving?” She speaks louder, but I don’t respond, having no words for her. No goodbye will be enough to dissolve what has always been there between us, what will always be there.

She continues pacing around me. “Are you ignoring me? Have I done something?”

And it is too much to bear. It is too much to think of leaving her, to leaving her like this. She might never forgive me. But I can bear it. What I cannot bear is for her to think that any part of my leaving is due to her, or due to some reduction in what she knows I feel. So, reluctantly, I reply, “No.”

“Then what? Why are you leaving?”

“I have to return home,” I whisper.

“Has something happened?” she asks, and when I ignore it, she grabs my arms and pulls me in to face her. “Adeben. What is going on?”

“I have to leave. I am sorry.”

“Why? What has happened?” she asks gently, and then much more harshly shouts, “Adeben, please do not shut me out! Not after everything we have been through!”

“The Leader. He has attacked my village,” I reply, turning away from her, but she pulls me back.

“Oh god. Your sisters, were they hurt?”

“I don’t know. But they took my mother.”

“The Leader, the Lion Souls?” I nod, before she continues, “He wants you to kill me?”

“Yes. Which I will not do. So, I have to go back. I am sorry. But I have to go.”

“Of course, I understand. I just need to get my mother and aunt somewhere safe.” She releases me and turns towards the door.

I stop her. “No. I must go alone.”

“What?”

“It is not safe. I must go alone and find her,” I say, moving quickly away from her and back into my tasks, my mind wincing at the coldness I must project.

“Sorry?”

“I know you want to help, but it is my problem.”

“Are you serious?” She stomps back over to me.

“Yes. I have to go now.”

“You think after everything we have been through, everything you have done for me, I will let you face this alone?”

“Eshe. Please.”

“No, Adeben. Do you think so little of my feelings for you?”

“I don’t think this is the time…”

“No, of course. We have flights to arrange. But know this…” Pulling me close to her, she takes both my hands in hers. “Where you go, I will always follow. There is no place in this life or the next, where you can go that I will not go with you. If you smile, I smile. If you cry, I cry. If you die, I die. I am bonded to you, do you understand?”

Still with my hands in hers, she raises my right hand and holds it over her chest, her heartbeat prickling at my palm.

“And here lies your mark. Just as bold as the one on my ankle. Do you see?”

I see it.

I feel it.

In my head, in my heart.

The bond.

The tether, the thing I feared I was losing. There it lies on her. There it lies on me. Rooted in the system that controls every part of my being. She is there.

I lift my head to look at her, silently expressing everything in my heart.

“Good. Let’s start making these arrangements then.” She smiles, releasing my hands.

But even after she has let go, I can feel her hands on mine. Even after she leaves the room, even after I finish packing, hours later, I feel it still.

Her hands on mine.

Warm, electric, strong. I draw strength from it. I know I can. I know she can. Because of our bond, our beautiful exchange of love.

I will never walk alone.

Acknowledgements

Ahhhhhhhhh!

Words cannot solely express what it means to me to be on this page. The last one!

This book has been a journey – from the very start, almost four years ago, when it started as a way to keep sane while in the middle of lockdown, to the countless times I told myself I would edit it and do something with this one. It’s been a journey, but one I’m glad I embarked on.

And during that time so many people have come into this story, read over it, edited it, and most importantly motivated me to continue.

There aren’t enough pages to adequately take the time to thank everyone, not to the level they truly deserve. But I am so grateful and thankful for all the people that showed me writing really isn’t a solo task – it takes an entire village.

Thank you.

To my family, for tirelessly putting up with my first ever dream, to be an author, and not ever once laughing in my face.

To my friends, for long suffering my ups and downs, and never wavering in their encouragement.

To my “enemies”, for giving me something to prove and providing the much-needed fuel for my dreams.

To the lions that stalk my dreams, unrelenting in their desire to have their story told, I’ll keep trying to do my best.

To my reader, who I hope I haven’t disappointed. Your eyes being here means the world to me. I hope I’ll see them again.

I love and appreciate you all so much more than you could ever know.

Thank you.