The night held its breath.
Blades rang and struck. Men grunted and cursed. The dust rose around their feet like a shroud, and the moon watched cold and white. Sola's hands shook so hard she could hardly stand. Her voice had been torn out of her—gone with the first scream—but her eyes saw everything: Ola's savage swing, Kunle's desperate parry, Ade's face pale and ashamed in the crowd.
For a moment the world narrowed to the two of them—Ola and Kunle—woven together by rage and blood. Kunle lunged, driving the broken hoe with a savage, honest strength. Ola answered with feral blows, his face a mask of hatred and grief. Each strike was a question and an accusation: who had the right to love her? who had the right to take her life?
Then something shifted. Ade, who had confessed his betrayal, tried to step forward as if to stop them. He reached for Kunle and said, "Stop—please…" but his hand shook. In his eyes Sola saw the small, raw thing she had once trusted. That smallness made her stomach twist.
Ola, seeing Ade, howled. "You—" He turned his fury on Ade and swung.
Ade dropped the dagger in surprise. He fell to his knees, crying, "Forgive me! Forgive me, Kunle!" His voice was tiny against the moon.
Kunle hesitated. A single beat, and the fight might have ended. For that breath, everything held — the men, the women, the trees. Mama Teni's warning echoed in Sola's head like a bell: blood under the full moon calls spirits we cannot drive away.
But pride is a hard thing to thaw. Kunle struck again, not at Ade but at Ola, and the two men slammed into each other anew. Ola's machete flashed, and it found a rent in Kunle's shoulder. Kunle stumbled, dropping the hoe. He pressed his palm to the wound, and red flowed between his fingers like a slow river.
Sola could not stand it. She burst forward, cutting through the circle of onlookers like a wind. She threw herself between them, arms out, an impossible shield.
"Stop!" she cried, voice raw, echoing off the huts. "Stop it now! You will all be cursed! Do you not hear Mama Teni?"
Ola's eyes found her. For a moment the world narrowed to Sola and the space between them — the only thing that had ever been true. He hesitated, blade mid-air. Kunle sagged, blood slicking his wrapper. The men behind Ola murmured; some lowered their eyes.
Then a shout came from the far side of the path. "Soldiers! The magistrate's men! They're coming!" Someone had already run to fetch them, or perhaps the commotion had alarmed a neighbor who knew the law.
Fear snapped like a thread. The men with Ola's machetes cursed and melted away into the darkness, leaving Ola with the blade in his hand and the moon on his face. The village steps back as if the ground itself might swallow them if they stayed. In minutes the path was a scatter of fleeing bodies and hurried whispers.
The magistrate's men arrived with torches and official voices. They pushed through the crowd with a cold efficiency that cut the heat from the night. The taller of them called out, "What happened here? Who started this?"
Ola, still breathing hard, lifted his chin. His face was streaked with blood—some of it his, some from Kunle. He looked like a man who had spent his life being pushed into walls and had finally pushed back. A moment later the taller officer's eyes flicked to the machete in Ola's hand and, with a quiet cruelty, reached for it.
"By order of the magistrate," the officer said, "we take anyone found carrying a deadly weapon during disturbances. You will come with us."
Sola's knees buckled. "No—" she began, but the officer had already cuffed Ola's wrists with a rough rope. Ola did not fight the binding; he looked at Sola once, and in that look was a storm of apology and triumph, and something like love. He pressed his forehead to her palm for a brief, impossible second, then was turned and pulled toward the torches.
Kunle staggered forward, voice hoarse. "He killed men before," he said, though his tone trembled with more than accusation. "He brings trouble. Let the law take him."
Ade sobbed on the ground, hands clutched to his face. "I am sorry," he repeated like a prayer.
Mama Teni stood to the side, her face pale but grave. "The land has seen blood," she muttered. "The moon has sat witness." Her voice was small but the words felt like a verdict.
They led Ola away with ropes creaking. The villagers parted like reeds, faces turned away or leveled in hard judgment. Sola reached out and grabbed Ola's wrist—one hand slipping between the ropes. Her fingers closed on him. For a heartbeat he stopped, as if hearing an unheard song. He squeezed her hand once, fast and fierce, then was pulled on.
"Wait," she whispered to the dark where they took him. "Wait for me."
The magistrate's men marched them down the path, torches throwing long, wobbling shadows. Sola stumbled home, legs like water. Kunle stayed behind, leaning on a post, his wound wrapped in a torn cloth. He watched the road until the torches disappeared over the ridge.
Inside her hut, Sola pressed her forehead to the wooden doorframe and let the night swallow her tears. The moon slid behind a cloud as if embarrassed to witness the frail shape of a woman whose life had become a ledger of other people's debts and desires.
That night, the village slept in a brittle hush. Rumors would bloom in the morning—who had struck hardest, who had blood on whose hands, whether Ade would be forgiven or cursed, whether the magistrate's men would return with greater force. But those were tomorrow's winds.
Sola stayed awake until the embers died. She whispered Ola's name until the words thinned like smoke. She thought of the city's harsh lights, of factory floors and the emptiness between the machines. She thought of Kunle's blood and of Ade's betrayal, of Mama Teni's warning and of the magistrate's rope. Her life felt like a rope wrecked against rocks—torn in pieces but still in place.
And one truth settled soft and stubborn in her chest: the road ahead would not be simple. The city and village both had claims on her; love and shame both dragged hard at her heart. She had chosen once. She would choose again. But now, the choice would be paid for in ways she could not yet imagine.
Outside, the moon came out again and washed the path in a gray light. The night kept its secrets, but the dawn would have questions. Sola cupped the small warmth left in her palms and held on to it, bracing herself for whatever would come when the village woke.