MYSTERY OF SAINT HILLER DORMITORY

I was only seven the year the road-builders came. 1907—burned into my memory like the midday African sun that beat down on our backs and turned the village roads to shimmering rivers of dust. That year, the world tilted. That year, my life—until then a silent stream in a forgotten corner of Nigeria—was swept into the roaring current of history.

Most boys my age were busy chasing birds in the rice fields or flinging handfuls of mud at each other near the riverbank. But I? I was drawn to the clang of metal against stone, the grumble of wooden wheels, the sharp smell of cut wood and wet cement. Something about building things—real things—captured me. Roads, bridges, wheels, and steel. The bones of civilization.

When the French arrived to help the Nigerian government lay roads through our region, it was like watching giants descend from another world. Soldiers, engineers, and laborers flooded the dusty pathways of our village. And I—small, dark-skinned, barefoot—became a silent shadow at the edge of their world, sitting cross-legged by the roadside as they worked.

Every morning, I returned to the same spot, watching them map the land, dig trenches, and arrange massive stones with surgical precision. Among all the noise and movement, one figure held my gaze: a tall, pale man with sharp grey eyes and a voice like cold iron. His name was **Jacques Arieu Montana**, the lead engineer and foreman of the project.

He didn’t notice me at first. Why would he? I was just another village child hanging around, offering no use to the world. But I was stubborn. Day after day, I appeared—offering water, carrying hammers too big for my small hands, scrubbing tools I didn’t yet know how to name.

Weeks passed. Then one morning, as I struggled to lift a heavy water canister, Mr. Montana turned. His accent was thick, but his words were clear.

“Why do you keep coming here, little boy?”

“I want to learn how to build roads,” I said, plain and sure.

He studied me for a long moment, as if weighing the honesty of my words against the dust on my face. That moment changed everything.

From then on, I became his assistant. I followed him wherever he went—helping him measure land, mixing cement, cleaning tools, and eventually learning how to read sketches and blueprints. He taught me words in French, told me about places far beyond our dusty village. In those three short months, Mr. Montana became more than a teacher. He became my first real friend, a guardian, a kind of father.

Then one night, beneath the vast arms of a baobab tree, he asked me, “James, do you want to come with me to Europe?”

I didn’t hesitate. I had nothing to stay for. My parents were long gone—taken by sickness. My home was a crumbling shack of palm leaves and rusted tin. He offered me something I never imagined I'd have: a future.

We sailed to **Paris**. For a village boy, it was a dream so absurd I thought I’d wake up at any moment. The towering buildings, the flicker of gaslights at night, the smell of warm bread curling through the alleyways—everything shimmered with magic. But Paris was only a brief chapter. Within a month, Mr. Montana received a new assignment that would lead us far east, to a place cloaked in fog and legend:

**Blandenbergh.**

The kingdom of Blandenbergh sat hidden among dense pine forests and icy valleys, its castles looming like ghosts above mist-covered lakes. Mr. Montana was tasked with building a crucial road there—one that would connect the kingdom’s isolated regions and elevate his name even further in the engineering world.

It was there I first encountered true power—and danger.

Mr. Montana quickly became a trusted advisor to **King Roman Alexandrovich Pavlov**, a stately monarch with a snowy beard and deep, thoughtful eyes. One day, I was summoned before him. My heart thundered as I walked into the marble hall. I expected cruelty, or cold indifference. But King Roman smiled, listened to my story, then let out a booming laugh.

“A boy like this is worth more than ten lazy advisors,” he said to Mr. Montana.

When the day came that Mr. Montana had to leave—politics, he said, always a storm waiting to rise—I thought I would be sent away too. But the king had other plans. He took me in. He offered me a place in his home, in his court, in his world.

And so, I found myself in the royal castle, a towering structure carved into the cliffs overlooking the Kingdom’s great lake. I trained with the palace staff, learned court customs, how to speak and move in the presence of nobles. But my mind worked faster, my hands steadier. I rose through the ranks until I became assistant to the one man who would change my fate again:

**Prince Silvester Alexander.**

Silvester was like no one I’d ever met—nineteen and already a general, a poet, a philosopher. His swordplay was legendary. His command of language, even more so. And yet, he treated me not as a servant, but as an equal.

“Nobility,” he once said, “is not in birth. It’s in how you think, how you act.”

We became inseparable. I followed him on diplomatic visits, watched him train in the courtyard until midnight, listened as he whispered doubts and dreams on the castle balcony. And for a while, I believed the world could be good.

But then came the war.

The First World War exploded across Europe, and Blandenburgh stood in the eye of the storm. King Roman tried to keep us neutral, but great empires don’t take kindly to silence.

Then, one winter night, the king died.

Whispers filled the stone halls. Poison, they said. Rare. Exotic. Delivered through food. The palace kitchen was turned upside down. And that’s when they caught him—**Tunde**, a black servant from the lower kitchens, trying to escape into the woods.

Without trial, without inquiry, **Prime Minister Dmitri** cut him down with a sword.

Emeka, my closest friend, and I were ordered to carry the body to the crematorium. But when we arrived, Tunde gasped. He was still alive—barely.

With his final breath, he uttered a name: “Dmitri.”

Hidden in his clothes, we found a small pouch of rare poison.

I knew then that the gossip was true—Tunde had been a pawn, nothing more. The hand behind the murder was Dmitri. Cold. Calculating. And now, dangerous.

Silvester was shattered by his father's death, but had no time to mourn. He was crowned acting ruler, a king without a throne. Meanwhile, Dmitri moved like a shadow behind every curtain. No one dared confront him. He held the loyalty of soldiers, cooks, spies—everyone.

Silvester began to withdraw. He became silent, watchful. The smile faded. The sword grew heavier in his hand.

Then one night, while I brought tea to the training hall, he looked up at me with haunted eyes.

“James,” he asked, “what do you think happened to my father?”

I hesitated. Then I said, “I think someone in the palace wanted power too much.”

A voice echoed from the shadows.

“Prime Minister Dmitri.”

It was Emeka. He stepped into the light and told the full story—Tunde’s dying words, the poison, everything.

Silvester erupted.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I needed more than a dying man’s whisper,” I said. “I needed proof.”

His fury was instant. He stormed out, sword drawn. I followed behind as he hunted Dmitri through the corridors of the castle.

They clashed inside **Lady Galina’s chamber**. Steel met steel. Blood spilled.

Silvester was wounded.

I dragged him from the palace that night—wounded, humiliated, but alive. We disappeared into the forests, leaving the castle behind.

As dawn broke, Silvester turned to me, gripping his side, his voice burning with resolve.

And so we vanished into the mist, toward another chapter neither of us was ready for.

James Nkono ended his story.

With words filled with anger Brian said: "I must go to Belgorov,"