Spear and the Heart

Untitled Episode

“Did you hear she performed uzazi last night?” Luvahle whispered to Kori who was waiting to take her seat in the dark-lit assembly room. She put her papers in front of her and looked up to Luvahle who was standing a few steps from the round table with three other empty chairs.

“Who did Uzazi?” Kori asked innocently.

“Who else is looking for a new heir, the emperor, of course.” He got closer to her, assuming her interest might grow with the new information.

“I believe whatever Sato does is her business and we should not be pryng, we all know how the uzazi is sacred.” She looked around to see if there was anyone eavesdropping. She leaned closer to Luvahle, who was ready with all the juicy details she wanted . “Who told you this?’ She asked with some concern in her voice.

He leaned back into his chair, “I have my birds all over the country, my beautiful Kori, there is nothing or no one that can escape these big round ears of mine.”He proudly pulled in on them for emphasis.

“What gossip did your birds bring you this time?” Mambo walked in with her staff in her right hand. Her face was unsmiling as usual.

Luvahle cleared his throat, switching his topic. “ Yeah, I found out that one of the refugees that came back is of upper blood.”

Everyone, including Selia, who was walking into the room, stopped in his tracks and all shared a disoriented look. One could see how hard they were trying to figure out if what Luvahle said really was sincere.

“Are you sure of what you're saying?” Mambo asked, taking his seat in the middle of the table. Selia walked to his side, caught in between Kori and Luvahle. “ How come I have heard nothing of the sort?”

“Oh Mambo, first you have to know where and what you are looking for. Plus, when has the ear that the motacillidae landed on ever lied to you?”

“Who is it? Do you know them?” Kori was now intrigued by the new information.

“My birds still haven't gathered all the information and we don't want to get people emotional. The last time something like this happened led to the worst day in Kringa’s history.”

“But that is an interesting new story that holds a lot of history of and for our land, we should definitely share it with Sato.” Selia broke the silence that had fallen in the room.

“You are right, the right hand of the emperor,or is it Mambo?” he looked between the two of them with a knowing face. ‘But we can not take a half-baked story to her. I need a few more days to get all the information that I need, then tell you,” he turned his body towards Selia, “She will react better when you tell him.”

“Why can't it be you? I mean you found the story, you are verifying the story and you and she trusts you too. That's why you are at this table at this moment.”

“I do not have a problem with sharing what I have gathered with her, I just didn’t want to skip the order of how we do things.

They all scoffed at him and dismissed it.

“Can we move on to things that are important?” Mambo spoke once everyone was settled in their seats. She went through her pile of papers looking for something, ‘I trust your shipment came undisturbed?” to Luvahle.

“Yes, it was all intact.”

“What are your tech samples, Kori?” Her tone, though as rough as it always is, you could tell she went on easy on her.

Mambo kept on asking questions about the shipments that came in or would leave on the next shipment day and Luvahle was visibly uneasy.

“Are we here to talk about the doc or do we have serious issues we need to deal with?”

“I don’t think at this moment there is anything bigger than the story you just told.” Selia spoke while in deep thought. “I don’t know if I believe you or am just in shock.”

“What could I accomplish by bringing up a lie like that ?”

“I do not know but we can’t sit here acting as if the last time a story like this came up you ended up being one of the lords of Kringa.” Mambo did not hide her growing anger.

Luvahle chuckled lightly, he always knew that people talked about his rise up to the lordship. He knew that he would forever defend his position and he knew one of the days would reach where he would have to defend his position to his fellow lords.

“So you think someone new is trying to join our government? You think this was a plan?” he pointed at his chair, maintaining his low voice. “I worked hard to be in this seat that I deserve. I have experienced things that you only hear in stories about Iron blood.” he took his elbows on the table, resting his head on his palms, looking at his fellows. “If there is anyone that deserves to be here it is me. I have seen the bad and the good, I have seen both sides and, by god, I managed to get recognized there and here, I am better than any of you that inherited these seats.” nostrils all flared up.

“Listen, all I am saying is that the discovery that one of the royal bloodlines was living with the iron blood caused a huge uproar, we lost a lot of people on both sides and all for what? So that you could get to taste the lordship's life ?” Mambo stated to him with her own definitive judgment. “It was your people, your family in particular, that stirred the pot and left it…”

“Don’t you dare.” His eyes were bulging out of his sockets while being grim and toneless. “Don’t you dare blame the empire’s corrupt and barbaric ways it still chooses to follow to guide its people, not my family and fight for what is mine. You have no idea of what I had to put up with to just be here and what I do to still keep my seat.” His chest was moving up and down erratically. “What happened was all your fault, you are the ones with the fancy weapons. What did the ironblood have?” You keep on evading what happened without calling it what you did. It was a g******e. Innocent people and thousands were displaced. It was chaos, a one-sided chaos just in the name of preserving the emperor's view.” He walked up to Mambo, she was slightly taller than him, making him look up to meet her gaze. “So Mambo, do not go around pointing fingers on who is a bad guy and doing bad things while we all know who the real villains of this land are.” He stomped his thick heels out of what now felt like a small room.