Binti

The next morning, Binti wakes to find Okwu floating by the fire, its body entirely healed. With an hour until dawn, Binti, Mwinyi, and Okwu begin heading towards the meeting point. Binti notices that Okwu is glowing slightly; it explains that it absorbed some of the glowing snails’ genetic coding and made it its own. With its glow, Okwu leads Mwinyi and Binti towards Osemba. Okwu rushes ahead and leaves the other two in the dark. Binti begins to tree and calls up a large ball of current to light the way. The Root has stopped burning and is now just a mound of ash. While they wait for everyone to arrive, both Mwinyi and Okwu dig in the remains of the Root, much to Binti’s annoyance. The Khoush arrive before the Himba with hundreds of soldiers. Just as the sun rises over the horizon, the Meduse arrive in their own ships as well.

Binti stands between the leaders of both the Meduse and the Khoush. The Khoushs’ delegation includes their king, General Staff Kuw, and a woman named Lady. The Meduse chief arrives with its first and second-in-command. Both groups wait for Binti to speak, but she finds herself suddenly nervous. Both King Goldie of the Khoush and the Meduse chief will not wait much longer for the Himba council. The Khoush continue to demean and speak poorly of the Himba. Binti begins to tree to calm herself down while lightning flashes overhead. The King calls Binti a “foolish Himba girl” (288). Binti, enraged, falls out of the tree. As she feels the lightning overhead, Binti reaches for its current. The electric current surrounds Binti, and she begins speaking to the heads of both groups.

Binti tells them that the reason for their fighting has been lost for so long, that the Meduse should go to the parts of the Earth covered in ocean, rather than “fight and die and kill for a drop of water in a dry land” (289). Binti scolds King Goldie, pointing out the hypocrisy and prejudice of the Khoush people. Instead of waiting for the Himba council, Binti incites the deep culture of the Himba herself. Binti pulls current and mathematics from the ground and air around her, pulling Himba deep culture within herself. The sight of Binti’s power makes King Goldie awestruck, and he agrees to the truce, as do the Meduse. Binti brings her hands together, the balls of current in her hands extinguishing.

Down the road, Binti sees the Night Masquerade dancing in a way that only Dele does. The sight distracts Binti until she hears a shot; a ball of fire hits the Meduse chief, and all the Meduse, including the chief, are suddenly encased in replicas of the armor Okwu made at Oomza University. General Kuw tries to grab Binti to go with him, but she punches him in the face. Okwu attacks the general before trying to rush towards Binti to keep her safe. Binti notices the surprise on King Goldie’s face when the Meduse chief was shot; she does not know who fired the first shot, but both sides have forgotten the truce. Binti is shot in the chest and in her left leg. Okwu holds her to try and keep her safe as both sides take to their ships to fight in space. Binti closes her eyes and dies.

Chapter 6 continues in Mwinyi’s point of view. By the time Mwinyi had reached Binti, it had been too late. Okwu continues to touch Binti’s wounds, telling the Meduse in space about how “the one who’d become family through war had been killed” (295). They fight harder. Okwu stays for Binti because it feels for her. Mwinyi wails, mourning Binti. The Night Masquerade runs over and throws Mwinyi off Binti to hold her.

The Night Masquerade is a ceremony held by a secret group in the council of Himba. They discuss and then choose someone worthy of seeing the Night Masquerade; they then dress up as the creature. Although Dele is initially furious that a girl has been chosen to see it, he has a change of heart at the council meeting. As he listened to her speak, Dele realized that she was the same Binti he had always known. The morning of the truce meeting, Dele realizes that the Himba council planned to “forgo brokering a truce and to sacrifice Binti instead” (296). Dele stole the Night Masquerade costume and stood by the Root to encourage Binti. Dele saw Binti succeed, but he also saw her die. Dele holds Binti close, even as he rips the Night Masquerade costume off.

Mwinyi and Okwu want to take Binti to space, to give her body to the thing she loved most. Mwinyi is heartbroken, in love with Binti and devastated by the loss. Mwinyi kicks off his shoes, inheriting an ability called “deep grounding” that occurs when one has “walked far enough” (298) in life. Binti’s death triggers this new inheritance in him. Mwinyi walks to the Root and places his hands on the mound of ash. Okwu watches, intrigued and mesmerized by the human who reminds it so much of Binti, while Dele yells at him to stop.

Mwinyi speaks to the root of the Undying Tree underneath the Root. He tells it to let go, before ordering Dele to go to the cellar. The Undying Tree is relieved and soon, Mwinyi collapses with relief as he hears every single one of Binti’s family members, alive and well. Binti’s family dances with joy, all of them grateful to be alive. The Root had enclosed around the family when they fled into it, protecting those within it, supplying them with food and pods of water. The news spreads quickly, and the Himba people come to Binti’s father to offer them their condolences for Binti’s death.

Binti’s mother stays by her daughter’s corpse, mourning her. Mwinyi tells everyone of Binti’s bravery and of the council’s betrayal. Mwinyi and Okwu walk away when the council arrives. They go and speak with Binti’s mother. She tells them that she was the one who woke the Root, even while her husband thought she was delirious with panic. Binti’s mother had given the Root some of her life force, and the tree closed around them. Mwinyi tells Binti’s mother that they want to take her into space, to the rings of Saturn.

Okwu is adamant that Binti did not fail, that it was the Khoush and Meduse who did. Binti’s mother agrees for her to be taken into space. The woman prepares Binti’s body carefully, bathing her, massaging oil, and applying otjize on her skin. They then place her on the cloak of the Night Masquerade; both Chief Kapika and Dele believe it belongs to her. The Himba gather around to mourn Binti. Mwinyi and Okwu are on the outskirts of it all. In the evening, after boxes of food and snacks have been left with Okwu, Mwinyi calls for New Fish, Third Fish’s baby. Mwinyi had called Third Fish the night before, and she had promised Mwinyi help if he needs it. Binti’s body is placed in one of New Fish’s breathing rooms, filled with plants. Eventually, everyone leaves her there alone.