The skyrunner lifted before Esiri could brace herself for the motion.

The city fell away in fragmented visuals. The barricades shrank into lines of light. Drones peeled off, returning to their patrol routes as the craft climbed into the emergency corridor. Rain streaked across the canopy, blurring Idanre into a white smear.

Esiri pressed against the glass despite the harness.

“You’re just leaving it,” she said.

Kosi did not look at her. His attention was on the forward display where sky-routes redrew themselves in real time. “We are no longer useful there.”

“People are still trapped.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re fine with that?”

“No,” he said. “But staying would not help them.”

The skyrunner banked abruptly as an air-traffic directive flashed across the display.

PRIORITY LANE ENGAGED. MANUAL OVERRIDE AUTHORISED.

Esiri glanced at him. “You didn’t even request that.”

Kosi tapped the console once. “The system anticipated it.”

“That’s not how they work.”

“They do that when something interferes.”

They surged forward, threading their way through a narrow corridor between emergency vehicles and civilian traffic. Below them, evacuation carriers crawled along surface routes, slowed by traffic and bad weather. Above them, medical drones cut through restricted airspace.

It all made Esiri’s chest tighten.

“You are very calm,” she said.

Kosi’s mouth curled slightly. “And you aren’t?”

“My city is on fire.”

“I know that.”

“My family was in it.”

“I know.”

“And you’re acting like we’re late for a meeting.”

“I know where we need to be next.”

She turned to face him fully. “You always do this.”

“Do what?”

“Call the shots and expect everyone to do as you tell them.”

He finally looked at her then, those brown eyes a bit more curious than they usually were. “Isn’t that what it means to be a prince?”

Esiri exhaled her irritation and looked away, back at the shrinking horizon.

They flew in silence for several minutes, broken only by the hum of the engines and the clipped tones of the navigation AI issuing periodic updates.

ROUTE STABLE.

CROSSING INTO REGIONAL AIRSPACE.

AKURE MEDICAL DISTRICT ETA: TWELVE MINUTES.

Esiri broke first. “What exactly are the police calling what happened in Idanre?”

“A non-standard energy event.”

She scoffed. “That’s meaningless.”

“It’s meant to be.”

The skyrunner jolted slightly, then slowed. A new alert blinked across the console.

DATA DESYNCHRONIZATION DETECTED. AWAITING CONFIRMATION.

Esiri leaned forward. “What does that mean?”

Kosi placed his thumb on the panel. “It means too many systems are talking at once.”

“That doesn’t sound reassuring.”

“It isn’t,” he said, and authorised the override without looking concerned.

The skyrunner resumed speed.

Esiri stared at him. “You didn’t even ask what caused it.”

“I already know what category it falls under.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?”

“It bothers me,” he said. “It doesn’t surprise me.”

She studied him in silence. “You’ve done this before.”

“Not this,” he said. “But similar failures.”

“Did it involve cities?”

“Thresholds.”

She frowned. “Thresholds of what?”

He glanced at her, then back at the sky. “That’s not a conversation we’re having now”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll argue like you always do,” he said calmly, “and I need you paying attention.”

“To what?”

“To the things that keep going wrong.”

Esiri paused as she thought about it. So much had been failing and recalibrating since the morning and it was quite odd considering how well programmed most of the systems and infrastructures were.

The cityscape below them changed as they crossed into Akure’s outer grid. Green zones and solar arrays replaced dense sprawl. The lighting changed, cleaner and more controlled, as emergency protocols gave way to institutional order.

Esiri watched medical drones rise from the hospital complex ahead, lifting patients between wings like the city next to it wasn’t literally on fire.

“This place looks untouched,” she said.

“For now.”

She turned to him sharply. “That’s not comforting.”

“I know.”

The skyrunner angled downward, aligning with a private landing pad marked by soft blue indicators.

“Your grandmother is stable.”

“So she’s alive,” Esiri said, as if repeating it might make it real.

Kosi nodded once. “Alive.”

“What about my parents?”

“I need you to understand something,” he said finally. “If I had confirmation of anything, I would give it to you.”

She nodded, no matter how strained their relationship was, she knew that about him.

The skyrunner touched down with minimal impact, and Esiri remained seated for a moment longer, her hands clenched together in her lap.

“You’re not rattled at all by that strange fire,” she said quietly.

Kosi unfastened his harness and stood. “I am,” he said. “I just learned a long time ago that showing it doesn’t help anyone.”

She looked up at him, searching his face.

“That doesn’t make you feel better though,” she said.

“No,” he agreed. “It makes me useful.”

The doors slid open, revealing the bright, controlled interior of Akure’s central hospital.

Esiri rose slowly and followed him inside. How she hated hospitals.

The moment she stepped inside, the noise of the city cut off as if sealed behind glass. The air was cooler and filtered, and carrying the sterile scent of antiseptic. Light panels adjusted automatically as they crossed the threshold, responding to biometric scans she hadn’t consented to but no longer had the energy to question.

A medical drone drifted past, its chassis projecting triage data onto a transparent screen that hovered before dissolving. Bots moved in straight lines, ferrying supplies, redirecting foot traffic, recalibrating routes when humans hesitated too long in doorways.

A nurse intercepted them almost immediately.

“Prince Kosi,” she said, inclining her head. “We weren’t expecting—”

“I know,” he replied. “She’s with me.”

The nurse’s gaze darted to Esiri, then back to him. “We’ll need authorisation.”

“You have it,” Kosi said, already lifting his wrist.

The clearance symbol pulsed once, and the nurse nodded and stepped aside without another word.

Esiri stopped walking.

“You didn’t even ask my name,” she said quietly.

The nurse froze, startled, then looked back at her with something like embarrassment. “Miss—”

“Esiri,” Kosi supplied, already moving again. “Adolo.”

Esiri glared at his back as she followed. “I can speak for myself.”

“Now isn’t the time to assert independence,” he replied.

“There is always time for that, you control freak,” she shot back.

He glanced over his shoulder, the corner of his mouth tightening. “That’s why you never liked me.”

She let out a dry laugh. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

They passed through another set of doors into a restricted corridor where human staff outnumbered machines. A doctor hurried past them, speaking urgently into a comm, eyes never lifting. A service bot stalled mid-motion near the wall, its limbs locking for half a second before its lights cycled and it resumed its route as if nothing had happened.

Esiri slowed. “You see it too,” she said.

“Yes.”

“The machines are lagging.”

“I can see that.”

“And that doesn’t concern you?”

“It happens,” he replied evenly.

She shook her head at him as they were led into a private waiting space overlooking the inner courtyard.

The room was quiet in the particular way places designed for bad news always were. The lighting was soft, the walls sound-dampened, with a glass panel that displayed nothing unless activated.

Esiri sat down, but Kosi remained standing.

“She’s sedated,” the nurse said gently. “Stable, but resting. We’ll notify you when she can receive visitors.”

Esiri nodded, but the words slipped out before she could stop them. “How long?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“Her response to treatment, miss.” The nurse hesitated, then added, “She asked for you before we administered the sedative.”

Something tightened in Esiri’s chest. She looked down at her hands and focused on the familiar lines of her palms until her breathing steadied.

When the nurse left, silence pooled in the room.

“You don’t have to stand like that,” Esiri said at last. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know.”

“Then sit.”

“No.”

She glanced up in irritation. “You just like to hover over me.”

“Only when it’s necessary.”

Her head snapped up. “Excuse me?”

“You’re barely holding yourself together,” he said calmly.

She stood. “You used to do this in school too. Following me around like I was a problem you needed to solve.”

“I followed you because you ran headfirst into things you couldn’t understand.”

“I ran away from you,” she countered.

“Yes,” he said simply. “You did.”

The honesty caught her off guard.

She turned away, staring through the glass at the courtyard below. “You always acted like you knew better than everyone.”

“I often did.”

She scoffed. “There it is. The classic Kosi arrogance.”

“But not always,” he added. “And never about you.”

She faced him slowly. “Then why are you here, Kosi? Really.”

He hesitated, just long enough to draw her suspicion. “You’re not as invisible to the world you reject as you think,” he said. “And if anyone is going to try to manage what happened in Idanre, I want it to be someone who still believes accountability matters.”

She let out a quiet hiss of laughter. “You picked the wrong person to groom to be your lackey.”

“No,” he replied. “I picked the only one who hasn’t started lying to herself yet.”

She folded her arms. “So this is you protecting me?”

“Yes.”

“Save it,” she said. “I don’t need you. And I certainly don’t need you and yours lighting candles in your shrines and whispering my name to your gods.”

That got his attention.

Kosi stepped closer. “The royal houses of Aiyilẹ̀yìnàbà didn’t build shrines for spectacle, Esiri. Long before sky-routes and civic charters, the crown existed because it kept faith with the Òrìṣà when no one else could. Devotion isn’t performance.”

She smiled thinly. “You make ancestral worship sound like a covenant.”

“It is,” he said. “An old one.”

Outside the glass, a drone paused mid-flight, its stabilisers faltering with a weak whir before it recalibrated and continued on its route. The lights in the waiting room flickered, casting erratic shadows across the walls before settling down.

Esiri watched. Machines were failing, systems were stuttering. And somehow, it all seemed to orbit her.

Her eyes shifted back to him slowly. “But that’s not all this is.” She studied his face, and the pauses between his breaths. “There’s something else you’re not telling me,” she said. “What is it?”