Imbangala

She takes a further step, one that unsettles even some of her own advisors, who have followed her since Kindanga.

She undergoes rites associated with the Imbangala's warrior initiation herself, not as a formality, not as theatre, but as a genuine claim to the authority those rites confer.

Word travels fast through the camps of the region.

The Queen of Ndongo has become, in the eyes of the Imbangala, a warleader in her own right, entitled to command their loyalty, not as a foreign monarch borrowing muscle, but as a fellow initiate of the Kilombo.

It is a scandalous thing, in the eyes of many who knew her father's court.

It is also, she understands with the cold clarity of a strategist who has lost everything once already, the only path forward.