Federal Register / Ratified Lines
Twenty-one nations hold the lexicon between them. Four are named here. The rest are still being ratified, which is its own kind of power.
Water / Grief / The Boundary
A tiered water district where the river hands back what it takes. You are served what the water gave that day, at communal tables over running channels, with a bowl set for the dead. Rich homes weep clean water on command from a cistern that never empties. Poor homes share a channel that reaches them last.
Mande Griot + Aksum Lineage
A street where the truth about you is sung before you arrive. A door-griot sings you in, deeds good and bad, and seats you by your reputation. The rich pay to be sung up a tier and everyone knows it. The Archive sits here.
Fire / Consent / Concealment
A court of pure light. The unseen ruler sits always one breath from the dark, his life tied to a flame the keepers can cap. The Oyo empty-calabash sanction, blended with divine concealment.
Igbo Acephalous Governance
The nation with no throne. They guard the right to disappear. The check against the lexicon becoming total, the most feared and least trusted line in the federation.
The Wake
Water, grief, the boundary. Both hold the same domain and neither was asked.
Capped Flame
Fire, consent, concealment. The flame that stays, and what the nation rests on.
The Unsaid
Silence, un-naming, refusal. Affiliated, not a member. They guard the right to disappear.
The Telling
Memory, reputation, record. The Archive sits here. No being has been filed against it.
Unaligned
Cross-line, or older than the federation. They answer to a domain, not a nation.