The Gates of Zvongombe
The walls of Zvongombe rise before you in dry-stacked stone, curved like the spine of some sleeping animal — no mortar, no seams, just granite fitted to granite by hands long dead and still remembered. Dande has walked three days to reach this gate, a sealed message pressed flat against her ribs, meant for the court within.
The line to enter is short. The guards are not.
A Boy Without a Token
A boy, perhaps nine, crouches at the base of the wall where the guards can’t easily see him. His feet are bare and cracked. He catches Dande’s sleeve as she nears the gate.
“My mother is fevered,” he says, too fast, the words tripping over each other. “The healer is inside. I have no seal — they turned me back twice already. Please. I only need someone to say I belong to them.”
Behind him, a gate-guard watches with the flat patience of a man who has heard every kind of lie at this exact spot, every single day, for years.
You Have Entered Zvongombe
The city opens around Dande — terraces of stone climbing toward the royal enclosure, smoke rising from a hundred hearths, the low murmur of a place that has stood for centuries and intends to stand for centuries more.