Descendants of Fire & Water

Essien, a young woman in her last year of secondary schooling, comes of age with a dark curiosity for military life, weaponry and mystical prophecies after militant rebels raze her father's fields and leave him crippled for life. Raised in a village where traditional gender roles are strictly enforced--where women are bred to tend to their husbands and bear children--Essien signs up for military enlistment in the Soja without her parents' permission or her village's approval, threatening the fabric of her familial relationships and testing the limits of her mental and physical strength. But when Essien starts seeing the akukoifo around her, mythical beings of Alkebulan folklore whom no one else seems to be able to see, she follows them to the fabled river she never believed existed. When she emerges from the river, something about her has changed--why do her hands burn as if containing their own flame, and how has she become physically stronger than the men around her? As Essien finds her world unfamiliar to her without the presence of her family and friends, surrounded by male Soja who want her dead and powerful forces seeking to awaken her inner magic for evil, she must learn to harness her superhuman abilities, even as she fights her destiny to become the goddess her country has long awaited. When she learns that the President she protects, Gabriel, is the embodiment of the other half of her country's dangerous foretelling of a god and goddess who will rule the world, she must decide if she will step into her destiny as Goddess of Alkebulan or make a decision that will alter the course of Alkebulan history forever.