The heat in ìbàdàn was different from the Delta. It was dry, searing, smelling of molten iron and charcoal.

  T??yìn stood on the balcony of the Citadel of the Furnace. Below her, the city was a hive of industry. The rhythmic clang-hiss of the forges was the heartbeat of the Iron Hills. Smoke rose in thick, grey columns, staining the sky.

  "My Queen," a voice said.

  She turned. It was chief Adebayo, the head of the military council. He held a scroll case with the Imperial seal.

  "Another message from Abuja?" T??yìn asked. Her voice was as hard as the anvils below.

  "The Emperor demands our levies again," Adebayo said, nervous sweat beading on his forehead. "He invokes the ancient pacts. He says the Oyo wolves are at the gate. He demands ten thousand spears and twenty war mammoths."

  T??yìn took the scroll. She didn't open it. She held it over the brazier burning on the balcony railing.

  "The Emperor," T??yìn said, watching the paper curl and blacken, "is asking us to strip our walls so he can hide behind our bodies."

  "But the pacts—"

  "The pacts were made with men," T??yìn snapped. "Not with whatever sits on that throne."

  She turned to face the council members gathered in the solar. They were old men, veterans of the First Fracture War, scarred and cautious.

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  "If we march north," T??yìn said, her voice projecting with the low rumble of her Mammoth bond, "we leave ìbàdàn naked. Empress Oyin is not a fool. She will feign an attack on the center, then swing her flanks to take the iron mines while we are dying for Abuja."

  "Then we fight Oyo?" asked a younger chief.

  "No," T??yìn said. "We do not fight Oyo. We do not fight Abuja. We fight for ìbàdàn."

  She walked to the large map table. She placed an iron marker on the city.

  "Close all the gates this time," she commanded. "Recall the patrols from the outer villages. Bring the grain stores inside the walls. Seal the mines."

  "Isolation?" Adebayo whispered. "My lady, that is treason. That is a declaration of independence."

  "It is survival," T??yìn corrected. "The world is breaking, gentlemen. The old alliances are dead. When the storm comes, only the mountain stands."

  She looked at the empty chair where her husband used to sit. She felt the ghost of her guilt, sharp and familiar. She had killed him to save the House from his weakness. She would not let that sacrifice be in vain.

  "But my lady," Adebayo pressed, "what of your sons? Ade is in Abuja. Tunde is in the North. If we declare neutrality, the Emperor may take Ade's head."

  T??yìn’s hand tightened on the table edge until the wood groaned.

  "Ade chose his path," she said coldly. "He chose the Emperor. Tunde chose the Sarkin. They are men grown. They must survive their choices."

  It was a lie. Her heart screamed at the thought of Ade alone in the Titan Halls, of Tunde riding into the desert war. But she was the Queen of Iron. Iron did not bend.

  "Send a rider to the border," T??yìn said. "If Empress Oyin wants to cross our lands to get to the Emperor... let her. But tell her that if one Oyo soldier sets foot within ten miles of our walls, I will unleash the mammoths and grind her army into paste."

  The council stared at her. To allow an enemy army passage was madness. It was brilliance. It turned ìbàdàn from a combatant into a hazard—a sleeping giant that neither side would want to wake.

  "Go," she ordered.

  They left. T??yìn stood alone on the balcony.

  She touched the iron ring on her thumb.

  "I will hold the hills," she whispered to the smoke. "Even if I have to hold them alone."