ADEBIMPE (Episode 10)
Sade
I had to be sure.
The palace was already uneasy. If anyone checked records, they might find my name too close to the seal room that morning. I needed to correct it move things, change times, confuse the truth.
That’s how investigations worked. You buried truth under noise.
I slipped into the record room quietly, my lamp low. My hands shook as I reached for the scrolls.
That was when the door slammed shut.
Torches flared.
Guards.
My blood turned cold.
Prince Adewale (POV)
They brought her before me before dawn.
She knelt where Adebimpe had knelt days earlier. Same stone. Same fear.
But not the same innocence.
“Sade,” I said calmly. “Why were you in the record room at night?”
She bowed deeply. “My prince, I...
I was sent.”
“By whom?”
She hesitated.
Silence again.
That silence told the guards to step forward.
One produced a small cloth bundle.
Inside it my seal.
Her breath hitched.
“Found hidden in the laundry quarters,” the guard said. “Under her sleeping mat.”
The room fell still.
Sade collapsed forward, shaking.
“I didn’t mean to,” she cried. “I just wanted her gone!”
I leaned forward slowly. “Why?”
She raised her head, tears streaking her face. “Because she took what was never meant for her. She walked in and the palace bent for her. She was nothing and suddenly she was everything.”
My jaw tightened.
“You framed her,” I said.
“Yes!” she screamed. “Because no one looks twice at slaves like us. If she fell, no one would care.”
I stood.
“You are wrong,” I said quietly. “Someone did care.”
Adebimpe (POV)
They called me to the hall just after sunrise.
My legs shook as I walked in.
I saw Sade kneeling. I saw the seal. I understood everything before a word was spoken.
Prince Adewale looked at me.
“Come forward.”
I obeyed.
“Sade,” he said, “tell her.”
Sade turned to me, eyes red, voice broken. “I lied. I used you. I hid the seal and blamed you.”
The hall spun.
All the fear, all the shame, all the nights of wondering if I would disappear—it rushed out of me like breath I had been holding too long.
I said nothing.
I didn’t need to.
Prince Adewale (POV)
“In this palace,” I said, my voice carrying, “envy destroys faster than rebellion.”
I turned to the guards. “Remove her from palace service. She will work the outer farms until further notice.”
Sade sobbed as they dragged her away.
Then I faced Adebimpe.
“You are free of blame,” I said. “Return to your duties.”
She bowed, but I stopped her.
“Look at me.”
She did.
“You endured injustice with dignity,” I continued. “That is not weakness. That is strength.”
Her eyes glistened.
The palace watched.
They always watched.
And that day, they learned something new.
Adebimpe (POV)
When I returned to the servants’ quarters, no one whispered.
They moved aside to let me pass.
Some nodded. Some looked away. Some looked afraid.
Iya Morounkeji met me at the doorway.
“You stood,” she said quietly. “That is how women survive this place.”
That night, I slept deeper than I had since arriving.
Not because the palace became kinder.
But because truth had spoken and it had spoken for me.
And somewhere in the palace, I knew Prince Adewale understood something too:
I was no longer just a servant caught in palace games.
I was a woman who had survived being broken.
Continue reading Episode 11
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