They simply echo forward—changing shape, changing voice.
Six years had passed.
Amaka stood barefoot on a wooden stage at the opening of the Reflections Gallery—a hybrid space she and Tunde had built on a stretch of reclaimed land in Lekki. It wasn't a museum. It wasn't a lab.
It was something else entirely.
Here, art responded to your pulse. Stories glowed to your touch. Photographs whispered when you leaned in close.
The future was no longer a thing to chase.
It was a thing you could hold.
She wore a simple black dress. No brand. No sharp lines.
Her name was no longer a hashtag or headline.
It was hers again.
Tunde stood in the crowd, notebook in hand, their son beside him—five years old, curly-haired and stubborn as dawn.
Amaka watched them.
Then turned to the crowd.
And spoke.
"We always say the sky is endless," she began. "But I think we confuse endlessness with freedom."
Murmurs.
She smiled gently.
"Freedom isn't the absence of limits. It's knowing what you'll protect when you're tested. It's who you'll become when everything falls away."
She paused.
"I used to think success was about building high enough to touch the sky."
She pointed up.
"But now I know—it's about knowing when to come down, and what to bring with you."
After the applause faded, she found Tunde leaning against a pillar, their son curled asleep on his chest.
"You didn't fall asleep," she teased.
"I've heard better," he replied, grinning. "But you've aged well as a revolutionary."
She laughed. "We made it."
"No," he said. "We kept going."
And above them, the sky stretched—quiet, alive, and finally theirs.
End of Chapter Thirteen.
Let me know if you'd like:
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