Page 138 of Firstborn of the Sun
He held her face and kissed her so passionately that the sour tang of blood blossomed in her mouth, and she pulled him even closer, welcoming the taste of him, holding on to him like he would vanish before her eyes. Desperate for that moment to last forever.
‘I love you, Tèmi,’ he said, panting and wiping at his sand-filled tears. ‘I love you, and Iamfighting for you; I am putting myself between the gods and those who want you dead.’ His voice broke, and he put his head to hers, ‘But I am Àlùfáà.’
‘You self-righteous bastard! You swore loyalty to me. To me! I am your queen! I am the firstborn of the sun!’ L’?r? shouted. She wasn’t sure if she even accepted it herself – she just didn’t know what else to say. Every word was a desperate act to bring him back to her.
As she looked at the boy she’d built her life around, the uncanny resemblance to his grandfather flickered across his face again and she recoiled. He was lost to her. She screamedand launched herself at him, but Rmí caught her, holding on to her waist and pulling her towards the tunnel. She fought him off; her elbow crashed into his nose and she heard the crack but kept fighting. His grip on her didn’t loosen. In her rage, her eyes turned blue, and she grabbed his hands. Ice seeped into his skin, and he screamed. He dropped her, and she fell in a slump. It lasted only a moment, but her fingers still left a brand on his hands. L’?r? felt her chest tense up. Horrified and desperate, her thoughts swirled like the storm around her. She couldn’t take her eyes off Alawani. She couldn’t understand who she saw standing next to the maiden.
At that moment, she heard her father’s voice:Remember the daughter of whom you are.Even though he was miles away, Baba-Ìtàn always found a way to say the right thing at the right time. Her shoulders slumped as she released a deep, sorrowful sigh. She went to Alawani, close enough to feel his breath if it weren’t for the wind, and she shifted his shirt to reveal his tattoo. Their bond.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I release you from your blood oath.’
L’?r? placed her hand on it, weeping and sobbing. ‘I don’t.’ She summoned her agbára in a flash and burned it off. Alawani screamed at the pain and shoved her hand away.
‘I never want to see you again. Let your heart burn to dust, oath-breaker,’ she spat in the sand.
When blood-oaths are broken, both parties eventually go mad as penance to the gods. She tried to remember the exact wording of the oath.Us against the world. Till the sun falls from the sky. Hand to flame, we burn the same.L’?r? could already feel her mind fraying but in this moment, her fury was greater than her fear of losing her mind.Let him see if the temple won’t spit him out when his mind crumbles.
‘Let’s go,’ Rmí shouted, ‘the storm is getting worse.’
L’?r? ignored him and kept her eyes fixed on Alawani. Her best friend. Her lover. Her everything. In her mind, her fortress and prison – the platform she’d stood on her entire life, protected by the pillars of her father and best friend – shattered in a single explosive burst, throwing her into the storm that raged within her. It was nothing compared to the storm that raged around now, which started to graze away layers of her skin. She felt her world break open, and she sank deep into the darkness of the sand, consumed by everything she’d ever been afraid of.
Tears streamed down her face as her sobs wracked her body, making it difficult to breathe. How was this what her life had become? She’d started with so little. Desperate to keep her family together, she’d lost it all; lost her father, her friends, and her – Alawani. She hadn’t realized how much she had to lose. Maybe if she had, she wouldn’t have stormed that temple. She’d have had a better plan. She’d have avoided all the pain and death that followed her like an evil spirit. And all that for what? For Alawani. Alawani, who had broken his oath to her. Alawani, to whom she’d given her life and body. Alawani, whom she’d held on to like the breath in her lungs, fighting to keep him in. Still, she had lost him. Still, he was leaving.I am not enough.
She turned towards the tunnel, the pitifully small opening Milúà had created. If she was to leave, she would leave standing, not crawling. With trembling hands, a broken heart and an anguished howl, she raised her hands to the sky and pulled on the energy around her. She channelled the core of everyone around her. As the energy rushed into her, she could see and feel every inch of her body light up as bright and brilliant as moonlight. Ignoring their screams, she reached for the lightning that flashed in the sky and with a loud cryshe blasted her agbára at the hole Milúà had created. The great wall shook and groaned as nearly half the stonework came crashing down and blasted out, creating a huge tunnel, large enough for a building to pass through. Without looking back, L’?r? walked through. Rmí followed closely behind her, and together they left the kingdom of Oru.
Convinced that agbára òtútù was the prophesied darkness come to wipe out the continent the Aláàfin of Oru ordered a swift and merciless massacre of his people.
What he had not known was that his daughter, the princess, had concealed her agbára òtútù.
In the dark of night, the princess of Oru gathered all her people, those with powers of the darkness and void, and they fled their home.
They ran deep into the mountains, never to be seen or heard from again.
Until now.
42
Ìlú-Òdì, Sixth Ring, Kingdom of Oru
ALAWANI
Alawani and Milúà rode back into the city with Tofa nearly passed out in between them as they raced to the Lord General’s keep. The battle rhino thundered through the graveyard, its heavy steps slowed by gusts of strong wind. The sandstorm had worsened and it blocked their vision, and grated against their skin, filling every part of their clothes with sand.
Curse you, oath-breaker. The wind carried L’?r?’s last words as Alawani raced away from the wall. Tears stung his sand-filled eyes, and he wanted to go back and hold her, and tell her he loved her. Had he really done the right thing? His heart broke as he remembered his grandfather’s words:Remember the son of whom you are.He knew he was bound never to forget the destiny he was born for.
Àlùfáà-Àgbà. The man who changed his life. The Elder Priest who called him Àlùfáà. His father’s father. The one with a plan to change the world. Alawani wished more than anything that his grandfather had devised a plan that didn’t include him. But fate was never so kind.
He’d only seen four first suns when he met his grandfather for the first time. It was shortly after his father’s death. He’d been in the king’s chambers crying at the foot of hisfather’s bed when a tall man dressed in white linen came and sat beside him. Alawani recalled those words he’d put out of his head: ‘Wipe your tears, my child. The king is gone, but you will be greater than he ever was.’
He had done his best to block those words, mostly because as he grew to understand his true insignificance as a prince in the kingdom of Oru, it felt like a cruel thing to say to a grieving child. So, while he had been unaware of the true nature of his grandfather’s plans, the moment he had seen L’?r? in the temple of the gods, he had determined to rescue her. He knew that if he did not go with her, if he didn’t keep her safe from the wrath she’d unleashed for such an unthinkable crime, she would not see the following dawn. For the Àlùfáà-Àgbà of the Order of the Sun Temple was not a kind or forgiving man.
So it was not a surprise when the Elder Priest plagued his dreams every time he lay to sleep. Àlùfáà-Àgbà invaded his mind in a storm of rage, instructing him to return, revealing the plans he and his father had made. Alawani had considered telling L’?r? some of the things his grandfather said to him as they raced towards the edge of the kingdom. But how would she have trusted him to lead her to safety, if he did?
On the first night after their escape, Àlùfáà-Àgbà had come to him at the farm inn with a story Alawani could not have imagined in his wildest dreams. ‘A long time ago,’ the old man had begun, ‘there was a young boy from Ìlú-Oní?nà – home to the weak and poor, the fifth ring of servitude – who thought his entire world would begin and end in the thatched mud pile he called home.’ Àlùfáà-Àgbà had smiled down at Alawani as his image cleared to show his true form. Alawani knew he was dreaming, but it felt so real – his grandfather’s face and voice were as clear asif Alawani truly stood in the old man’s presence. Terror kept him frozen, listening, and unable to escape whatever magic the Elder Priest used to tether him to the realm. ‘The gods called that boy Àlùfáà.Iwas that boy,’ his grandfather said proudly.
‘The greatest day of my life was when your father, my son and your king, was born. The kingdom rejoiced. We threw a party like never before. The people did not sleep for seven days, and the talking drums didn’t stop beating. A new king, a new era, a new kingdom. I had great plans for this kingdom and for my people, and as Lord Regent, I wanted to fulfil them all. But like every regent, I had to yield the throne to my son.’ He sighed. ‘Your father started well, but he had his demons. Then the gods gave me a vision. He wasn’t the son to bring glory to our kingdom. That son would be you and every subsequent son born to our family.’
Alawani hadn’t understood what his grandfather was talking about. That wasn’t the way the throne of Oru worked – the crown did not pass from father to son, as it once had before the day of the First Sun. It always went to the firstborn child of the next High Priest. A new child born of a gods-chosen Àlùfáà. He wanted to ask, but he could not – when he tried to speak, pain jolted through him, as if the priest was holding him down, keeping him silent.
