Zeila hadn't seen this much noise since the height of the old sultanate. Every morning started with hammer blows, shouts from builders, carts rolling over dusty roads, and the occasional argument between craftsmen who still couldn't believe they were taking orders from a boy who barely reached their shoulders.
Kafi walked through it all like he owned the sky. His guards followed behind, confused but loyal, still wondering how a kid could hold more meetings in a week than most elders did all year.
He stopped at the first construction site: the new storage houses.
Thick walls. Reinforced wood beams. Proper ventilation.
Not the flimsy mud structures merchants used before.
Master Builder Qalanjo wiped sweat from his brow.
"You want three more of these, my prince?"
Kafi nodded. "Frankincense doesn't store itself. We'll need clean inventory, counting rooms, and guards. Not chaos."
Qalanjo blinked. "You're… eleven."
"I'm working on it," Kafi replied, deadpan.
Next, he visited the harbor. The new docks stretched farther than the old ones, and workers were already laying a stone foundation for a shipyard. The smell of fresh-cut timber mixed with the salty wind.
Captain Nuru approached, impressed for once instead of talking like a storyteller possessed.
"You're building for a fleet you don't have yet."
"Not yet," Kafi said. "But when the ships come, Zeila must be ready."
The captain chuckled. "You're planning twenty years ahead."
"Only twenty?" Kafi murmured.
Across the city, the markets were being reorganized.
Stalls moved into neat rows.
Drainage channels dug to stop flooding.
A shaded square carved out for long-distance caravans.
The merchants complained at first. Humans always complained when you moved anything even two steps from where it used to be. But once they saw the clean lanes and the new system of guards protecting the goods, their protests melted into admiration.
"Trade grows where order lives," Kafi told them.
It sounded like something from his old life.
He didn't explain. He never explained.
Later, he walked toward the hills above Zeila. Workers were preparing terraces for coffee plants, even though most elders had scoffed at the idea.
"Coffee? What is that, medicine? Who will even buy it?"
Kafi only smiled.
If they didn't understand yet, they would.
As the sun dipped low, the city glowed with the soft light of torches and the constant hum of labor. Zeila was changing. Not loudly. Not all at once. But every day, it stretched a little farther, stood a little taller, breathed a little deeper.
And the people were starting to notice.
An elder approached him in the evening.
"You dream too big, Kafi."
Kafi looked at the city below, the cranes, the scaffolds, the docks, the markets.
"No," he said quietly. "I dream correctly."
The elder shook his head and walked away, but not with the dismissal of before. More like someone trying to understand something that didn't fit into the old world.
Kafi stayed until night swallowed the sky.
Zeila was no longer just a port.
It was becoming a center.
A hub.
A spark.
And he hadn't even started yet.