The gates of State Lodge didn't swing open with the usual mechanical grace. They groaned, the lack of maintenance during the week of the "Capital Flight" already showing. The guards, usually stiff and silent, looked at Zazu with a mixture of confusion and relief. He was no longer "The Prince," but he was the only one who looked like he knew where he was going.
Leya walked beside him, the instrument case strapped to her back.
They found Mwansa Tembo in his study. The room was dark, the heavy curtains drawn against the chaotic reports of the falling Kwacha. He was sitting behind his desk, staring at a static-filled television screen.
"I heard about Mulenga," Mwansa said, his voice sounding thin. "She was the smartest of us all. She knew that people don't want freedom; they want to know that the lights will stay on."
"The lights are off, Dad," Zazu said, stepping into the center of the room. "The Consortium pulled the funding. The banks are failing. And you're sitting in the dark waiting for a miracle."
"I am waiting for the inevitable," Mwansa replied. "The Board has voted to dissolve the Academy. They're selling the land to a South African conglomerate to pay off the immediate debt."
"They can't," Leya said, her voice echoing in the gloom. "I own the land. And I'm not selling."
Mwansa finally looked up. "Then you own a graveyard, Miss Kapiri. Without capital, that soil is just dust."
"We have the capital," Leya said. She reached into the cello case and pulled out the vellum strip and the map of the lithium deposits. She laid them on the rosewood desk. "This is the lithium reserve in the Copperbelt. My mother and your wife found it in 2011. They didn't hide it to steal it; they hid it because they knew the Consortium would strip-mine it and leave us with nothing."
Mwansa's eyes darted over the coordinates. He was a businessman before he was a politician; he knew exactly what he was looking at. Billions of dollars in "green gold." The solution to every deficit on his books.
"If I announce this," Mwansa whispered, his hands shaking as he touched the map, "I can stabilize the currency in an hour. I can buy back every bond the Consortium sold."
"You can," Zazu said, his voice dropping to a warning level. "But only if you sign the **National Resource Transparency Act**. No shadow accounts. No 'stabilization' funds that only you can see. This belongs to a National Trust, governed by the Heritage Society and the Ministry of Finance. Together."
Mwansa looked at his son. "You're asking me to give up the only power I have left. I'd be a figurehead. A servant to a Board of students and bureaucrats."
"You'd be the man who saved the country," Leya corrected. "Instead of the man who let it drown because he wanted to keep his hands on the wheel."
The silence in the room stretched. Outside, the sound of a distant protest—people demanding answers for their frozen bank accounts—drifted through the window.
Mwansa looked at the map, then at the photograph on his desk of a younger himself and Lombe Kapiri. He picked up his gold fountain pen.
"Lombe always said I was too fond of the shadows," Mwansa murmured. He looked at Zazu, a flicker of something like pride finally breaking through the coldness. "I suppose it's time to see if the sun is as bright as you say it is."
He signed.
The scratch of the pen on the paper felt like the closing of a door. The 2012 Debt wasn't just paid; it was liquidated.
"Go," Mwansa said, handing the papers to Zazu. "Get to the national broadcaster before the 6:00 PM news. Tell them... tell them the Exile has returned, and she brought the future with her."
As they ran out of the study, Leya paused at the door. "Mr. Tembo? My mother didn't hate you. She just wished you were as brave as your son."
Mwansa didn't look up, but as the door closed, he finally pulled back the curtains, letting the setting sun flood the room with a deep, defiant orange.
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