BIRTHRIGHT OF THE BLADE Story

CHAPTER ONE

THE NEW PILLARS

———

KALI

The city held its breath at 5:47 AM.

Kali stood on the rooftop of TYMI's east wing—his wing, technically, though the words still felt borrowed—and watched REMCORA wake up beneath him. The Curve glittered in the distance, that serpentine stretch of coastal road catching the first light like a promise. Closer, the brownstones of Ashe Village emerged from shadow, their windows beginning to glow amber as the neighborhood stirred.

His neighborhood. His parents' neighborhood. His grandparents' before that.

The neighborhood he and Allen had saved from developers two years ago.

The neighborhood they'd built a hospital around.

We actually did this.

The thought should have felt triumphant. Instead, it sat in his chest like a stone he'd swallowed wrong—too heavy, too real, pressing against everything soft inside him.

He pulled his jacket tighter against the morning chill and let his eyes trace the X-shape of TYMI's four wings below. North: the Tafari Neuroscience Center, warm wood and curved glass, his mother's vision made concrete. South: the Yara Cardiothoracic Institute, steel and precision, Selene's legacy in every sharp angle. East and West: The Forge and The Citadel, training and living, the infrastructure of revolution.

And in the center, untouched, unchanged, protected: Ashe Village itself. Relevate Church's white steeple caught the rising sun, glowing like a beacon.

The community is the heart. The hospital is the body that serves it.

He'd said those words a hundred times in planning meetings, in grant applications, in late-night arguments with zoning boards who didn't understand why they couldn't just bulldoze the neighborhood and build something "efficient."

Today he'd say them again. In front of everyone. On a stage. With cameras.

His stomach turned.

"You're going to wear a hole in that railing."

Kali didn't turn around. He didn't need to. He'd know that voice in a crowded room, in a hurricane, in his sleep.

"Couldn't sleep," he said.

"Obviously." Allen's footsteps were barely audible on the rooftop garden's stone path. "You've been up here for forty minutes."

"You've been counting?"

"I've been watching."

Something in Kali's chest did a complicated thing he refused to name. He kept his eyes on the horizon. "Shouldn't you be running? It's almost six. You'll throw off your whole schedule."

"Already ran." Allen appeared at the railing beside him, close enough that Kali could smell the aftermath—clean sweat and peppermint and something underneath that was just him. "Five miles. Finished early."

"Finished early." Kali finally looked at him. Allen in running clothes was a particular kind of unfair—all long lines and controlled power, his braids pulled back, his jaw tight with the same tension Kali felt in his own shoulders. "You never finish early. You finish exactly on time."

"Today isn't exactly a normal day."

No. It wasn't.

They stood in silence as the sun crested the horizon, painting everything gold. Below them, the first staff members were arriving, tiny figures crossing the courtyard between the wings. In three hours, the ribbon would be cut. The doors would open. TYMI would stop being a dream and start being a test.

"Are you ready?" Kali asked.

Allen's jaw tightened further. "Are you?"

No, Kali thought. I'm terrified. I haven't slept more than three hours a night in weeks. I keep having nightmares about everything we could have missed, everything that could go wrong, everyone who's counting on us not to fail.

What he said was: "I have to be."

Allen made a sound—not quite agreement, not quite disagreement. His hand moved on the railing, brushing Kali's pinky finger for half a heartbeat before pulling away.

Neither of them mentioned it.

"Your speech," Allen said. "Did you practice?"

"Did you time it?"

"Seven minutes, forty seconds. You tend to speed up when you're nervous. Slow down at the middle section about the founders."

"You listened to me practice."

"The walls in The Citadel are thin." Allen's voice was flat, giving nothing away. "And you practice out loud. At 2 AM. Repeatedly."

Kali felt a smile threatening despite everything. "Any notes?"

"Just one." Allen turned to face him fully, and something in his expression shifted—the controlled mask slipping just enough to show something underneath. Something that looked almost like pride. "Don't forget to breathe."

Don't forget to breathe.

Easy for him to say. Kali had been forgetting to breathe since he was fourteen years old, every time Allen walked into a room.

"I should go," Kali said. "Get ready."

"You should eat first."

"I'll eat after."

"You won't. You'll forget, or you'll be too busy, or someone will need something. You always do." Allen reached into the pocket of his running jacket and pulled out a protein bar. Held it out. "Eat."

Kali looked at the bar, then at Allen's face, then back at the bar. "Did you... bring that specifically for me?"

"I brought it for whoever needed it." Allen's voice was even flatter than before. "You need it. Eat."

Kali took the bar. Their fingers brushed again, and this time Allen didn't pull away immediately. This time there was a moment—just a moment—where they were both very still.

"Thank you," Kali said quietly.

Allen nodded once, sharp. "Don't be late." And then he was walking away, long strides eating up the rooftop garden, disappearing through the door to the stairwell.

Kali stood alone with the sunrise and a protein bar that felt like something more complicated than breakfast.

We actually did this, he thought again.

And then, quieter: What else are we doing?

He ate the bar. He watched the city wake. He tried not to think about the way Allen's voice had softened on don't forget to breathe.

In three hours, everything would change.

He just didn't know how much.

*

The ceremony began at ten.

Kali stood backstage—if you could call the supply closet they'd converted into a green room "backstage"—and tried to remember how to be a person instead of a collection of anxiety responses wearing a suit.

"Stop fidgeting." Jay Richardson appeared beside him, resplendent in her white coat over a cream dress, gold jewelry catching the light. "You look like a nervous groom."

"I'm not nervous."

"Your tie is crooked, you've checked your phone sixteen times in the last four minutes, and you're doing that thing with your hands."

Kali looked down. He was rubbing the back of his neck, the tell he'd never been able to break. He dropped his hands. "It's a big day."

"It's a huge day. It's the day we've been working toward for six years. It's the day your impossible dream becomes an actual hospital with actual patients and actual—" Jay stopped, studying his face. "Oh, honey. Come here."

She pulled him into a hug before he could protest. Jay gave excellent hugs—fierce and warm and entirely unapologetic.

"You're going to be brilliant," she said into his shoulder. "You'll stand up there and remind everyone why we built this. Then we'll save some lives. Then we'll drink champagne."

She pulled back. "And maybe—if the universe behaves—you and Allen will finally get your timing right."

A flicker in her eyes. Not teasing. Something wistful.

"Not that I'm projecting or anything," she added, dry.

Kali blinked. "Jay—"

"Go. They're calling you."

Kali pulled back. "What does Allen have to do with—"

"Nothing! Nothing at all. That was unrelated. Go. They're calling you."

She shoved him toward the door. He went, because arguing with Jay was like arguing with weather: theoretically possible, but ultimately pointless.

The courtyard was full.

Kali had known it would be—they'd sent invitations, tracked RSVPs, arranged chairs—but knowing and seeing were different things. The entire Ashe Village community had turned out, filling the seats and spilling onto the grass. Miss Rae was in the front row, wearing her Sunday hat despite it being Thursday. Pastor Williams stood to one side in his robes, ready for the blessing. Mr. Coleman, who had to be pushing ninety, sat in a place of honor with a blanket over his knees and a look on his face like he was seeing something sacred.

Behind them: TYMI staff, family, press, hospital administrators from other institutions who'd come to witness the impossible.

And on the stage, four figures Kali knew better than his own reflection: his parents, Adrian and Mari Tafari, standing beside Quinton and Selene Yara.

The founders. The first pillars.

His mother caught his eye and smiled—that smile she'd given him since childhood, the one that said I see you, I believe in you, you've got this. His father nodded once, a precise acknowledgment. The Yaras watched with their characteristic composure, though Kali could swear he saw something soft flicker across Selene's face.

And there, at the edge of the stage, not quite with the founders but not quite with the staff either: Allen.

He'd changed out of his running clothes into a suit so dark it was almost black, his silver chain a subtle gleam at his collar. His braids were immaculate, pulled back with surgical precision. His expression was controlled, composed, unreadable.

But he was watching Kali.

Kali climbed the stage stairs on legs that felt borrowed. He took his place at the podium. He looked out at the crowd—his community, his family, his team, the people who had believed in this when it was nothing but a conversation at 2 AM.

He found Allen's eyes.

Allen gave him the smallest nod. Almost imperceptible. You've got this.

Kali took a breath.

"Good morning," he said, and his voice came out steady. Warm. The voice he used when he was pretending he wasn't terrified. "Thank you all for being here. Thank you for believing in something before it existed. Thank you for trusting two kids who said they could build a different kind of hospital."

A ripple of laughter through the crowd. He saw Jay wipe her eyes. Saw Miss Rae nodding like she was in church.

"Twenty-five years ago," Kali continued, "four doctors met in medical school. They were brilliant. They were Black. They were women—" he gestured to his mother and Selene—"and they were partners to those women, in medicine and in everything else." His father and Quinton. The foundations. "They spent their careers fighting from inside a system that didn't want them there. They won battles. They lost wars. They came home exhausted. They got up and did it again."

He paused, letting the weight of it settle.

"We watched them. We learned from them."

He could feel Allen's eyes. Could feel the word trying to push out of his throat.

He didn't say it. Not yet.

"And somewhere along the way," he continued, "we decided we didn't want to fight from inside a system that was designed to break us. We wanted to build something outside it."

He looked at Allen. Allen, who had been there for that 2 AM conversation. Allen, who had said tell me the plan without hesitation. Allen, who had spent fourteen years standing beside him without ever naming what they were to each other.

Their eyes locked.

The moment stretched.

The crowd noticed. A few whispers. A knowing look exchanged between the aunties in the second row.

Kali looked away first.

"TYMI exists because of family," he said, his voice slightly rougher than before. "Our families." He gestured to the founders. "And yours." The community. "When developers tried to destroy this neighborhood—when they came for Ashe Village with lowball offers and sudden code violations and 'generous' buyout packages—we said no. We didn't just say no. We bought the land first. We renovated the homes and gave them back to the people who've lived here for generations. We restored Relevate Church instead of bulldozing it."

A ripple of applause. Miss Rae was full-on crying now.

"We built this hospital AROUND this community, not ON TOP of it. Because the community is the heart." He found the rhythm now, the words he'd practiced, the truth he believed in. "The hospital is the body that serves it. We will treat patients regardless of insurance status. We will integrate specialties instead of siloing them. We will put nursing leadership at every level of decision-making. We will open-source our research. We will train the next generation differently."

He took a breath.

"They told us it was impossible. They told us we were too young. They told us the system doesn't change."

His eyes found Allen again. This time, he didn't look away.

"They were wrong."

The crowd erupted.

*

ALLEN

He makes it look easy.

Allen stood at the edge of the stage and watched Kali command a crowd of three hundred people with nothing but words and conviction and that inexplicable warmth that made everyone want to follow him into whatever battle he was fighting.

It wasn't easy. Allen knew that better than anyone. He'd listened to Kali practice that speech until both their voices were hoarse. He'd watched Kali wear grooves in his apartment floor pacing through the structure. He'd seen the dark circles under his eyes that makeup couldn't quite hide.

But the crowd didn't see any of that. The crowd saw Dr. Kali Tafari, neurosurgical prodigy, co-founder of TYMI, the heir of empathy and thunder, standing in the morning light and making the impossible sound inevitable.

They saw a leader.

Allen saw... everything else.

The slight tremble in Kali's left hand that he'd hidden by gripping the podium. The way his voice dropped half a register when he was fighting emotion. The moment—that moment—when Kali's voice had caught, when something unspoken had flickered across his face before he looked away.

Allen had felt that moment like a cardiac event. A missed beat. An arrhythmia in the steady rhythm of denial he'd maintained for fourteen years.

They were partners. In the hospital. In the mission. In the dream they'd constructed together piece by impossible piece.

That was all.

That had to be all.

Kali's eyes found his again, and Allen's carefully constructed fortress developed another crack.

Stop, he told himself. Focus. The ceremony. The ribbon. The first patients. The work.

The work was what mattered. The work was controllable. The work didn't make his chest feel like it was being reconstructed without anesthesia.

The speech ended. The crowd rose to their feet. Pastor Williams stepped forward for the blessing, his voice resonant and warm in the morning air, speaking of healing and hope and the sacred space where medicine met mercy.

And then it was time.

The four founders took their places behind the ribbon—a broad satin band the color of surgical teal, stretched across TYMI's main entrance. Mari and Selene held the ceremonial scissors. Adrian and Quinton stood behind them, hands on their wives' shoulders.

"On behalf of the Tafari and Yara families," Mari said, her voice carrying across the courtyard, "we declare TYMI—the Tafari-Yara Medical Institute—officially open."

The scissors cut. The ribbon fell. The crowd roared.

And then Kali was beside him—Allen didn't know when he'd moved, hadn't tracked the trajectory, had just looked up and Kali was there, close enough that their shoulders almost touched.

"We did it," Kali said, barely audible over the applause.

Allen looked at him. Kali's eyes were bright, his smile incandescent, his whole being radiating a joy that Allen had watched him suppress for weeks under the weight of preparation.

Something in Allen's chest cracked a little further.

"We did it," he agreed.

"First patient arrives in thirty minutes."

"I know."

"Allen." Kali turned to face him fully, and his expression shifted—became something softer, something Allen didn't know how to categorize. "Thank you. For the protein bar. For... everything."

Everything. Fourteen years of everything. Of rivalry that was really devotion. Of distance that was really fear. Of silence that said more than Allen had ever managed to put into words.

"Don't thank me," Allen said. His voice came out rougher than he intended. "We're partners."

The word hung between them.

Kali's smile changed—became smaller, more private, aimed directly at Allen and no one else.

"Yeah," he said softly. "We are."

The moment stretched. Allen's hand twitched at his side, wanting to reach out, to touch Kali's shoulder or his arm or his face, to close the distance between partners and something more.

He didn't.

He couldn't.

Not here. Not yet. Not when he still didn't know how to want something this much without destroying it.

"The patient," he said instead. "We should prepare."

"Right." Kali's smile didn't falter, but something in his eyes flickered. Disappointment? Relief? Allen couldn't tell. "Let's go save some lives."

They walked into TYMI together, side by side, shoulders almost touching.

The first patient was a child—eight years old, there for a routine follow-up, but wide-eyed at the newness of everything. Kali crouched down to meet her at eye level, his voice warm and gentle, making her laugh within seconds. She was from Ashe Village. Born two blocks from TYMI. One of the lives the system would have bulldozed without a second thought.

Allen watched from the doorway.

This is why we built this, he reminded himself. For her. For every patient the system would have turned away. For the community. For the mission.

Not for the way Kali's face softened when he smiled. Not for the sound of his voice saying partner. Not for any of the thousand small devastations Allen had been cataloging since he was fourteen years old.

The work. Focus on the work.

But as the day unfolded—first patient, then second, then third, the hospital coming alive around them like a heart beginning to beat—Allen kept finding his eyes drawn back to Kali. Kept noticing the way he moved through TYMI like he belonged there, like he'd been born to stand in these halls. Kept feeling that crack in his fortress widen every time Kali caught his eye and smiled.

We survived Day One, Kali texted him at 6 PM, when they'd finally found separate corners to collapse in.

Twenty-nine more this month, Allen replied.

Together?

Allen stared at his phone. One word. A question. An invitation. A door he could walk through or close.

His thumbs moved before his brain could stop them.

Together.

He pressed send.

In his office, Kali's face lit up with something that looked like hope.

In his office, Allen pressed his phone against his forehead and wondered what the hell he was doing.

On the rooftop between their wings, REMCORA glittered into evening, and Relevate Church's steeple caught the last light like a promise.

Day One was over.

Everything else was just beginning.

———

End of Chapter One story