Page 52 of Firstborn of the Sun
18
The Sun Temple, Royal Island, Kingdom of Oru
TOFA
As Tofa and his father walked through the gates of the Sun Temple, the Lord Regent’s jaw clenched tight, and the veins in his temples bulged and throbbed beneath the scorching sun. Tofa felt exposed without his shadow. His sister hated when he called her that but she was always at his side. Except when he went into the Sun Temple. She’d made it clear that she’d rather face death than ever again walk into the building where they’d been born. So here he was without her, on edge, unable to stop checking to see if she’d appear.
‘I can’t imagine why Àjànàkú would keep something like this from me. I shouldn’t have to rely on spies for information in my own kingdom.’ When the Lord Regent was displeased, he didn’t call Àlùfáà-Àgbà by his title, choosing the priest’s first name instead. Àjànàkú – the name the Elder Priest bore before his position in the Order. Of all the people alive in Oru, only the Lord Regent had the authority and the guts to do such a thing.
Tofa didn’t respond. He instead sped up to match his father’s quick angry strides. Around them, the people walking the temple grounds noticed their presence and bowed.Whispers of the Lord Regent’s appearance in the temple spread like wildfire as a crowd blossomed out of thin air.
From the day Tofa knew what the word ‘father’ meant, he knew that the man called the Lord Regent was his. As he grew older, he realized he was born for a life more extraordinary than most. Tofa was the firstborn of an Àlùfáà and crown heir to the kingdom of Oru.
‘That I should leave my palace and come here is an insult. That man thinks he can do as he pleases in my temple. Keeping secrets from me? Am I not still the High Priest of this temple or will Àjànàkú lay claim to that as well? It’s my fault. I should have put him in his place a long time ago,’ the Lord Regent said, shaking the horsetail in his hand angrily as he spoke.
Tofa knew he was walking into a fight he didn’t want to be a part of. His father slowed his stride and sighed deeply as a group of children ran to prostrate themselves before him. The Lord Regent didn’t smile, but he paused long enough to ease the tension in his temples. They took in the sight of him as though they were in the presence of a god. His father’s full-length gold embroidered agbádá glistened in the sun, and the many layers of the ensemble made him look much larger than he really was. He wore layers of gold and red coral beads draped around his neck, wrists and ankles, signifying his royal position, and waved at the crowd before picking up his pace again.
Watching his father was often like watching two sides of a person fight for dominance. One side was the person his father wanted to be: kind and compassionate. And the other was the person the crown compelled him to be: ruthless and unyielding. As Tofa’s coronation day drew nearer, he felt the pull of the throne, the heaviness of the crown and the call of duty that he had to yield to. His whole life, he’d seen howthe weight of the kingdom turned his father from the man who taught him how to love into the man who taught him how to be broken.
‘I thought they said the temple grounds were damaged?’ the Lord Regent said.
Tofa scanned the grounds. The temple compound looked as it did on any day. There was no evidence of the incident his father’s spies had revealed to them. The crunch of his father’s heavy steps on the cobbled stones rang in Tofa’s ears, and he quietly fell one step behind him as they walked on.
‘If I wanted to talk to myself, I wouldn’t have brought you along,’ the Lord Regent said without looking back.
Tofa quickened his stride to match his father’s. ‘? má bí’nú, Bàbá.’ He apologized for his quietness but didn’t add anything; he was too worried about saying the wrong thing. His father was never more unlike himself than when he was in the Sun Temple. The Lord Regent despised the days he had spent locked up in the temple towers watching his fellow chosen ones die like flies one after the other, following each stripping ceremony. Tofa had snuck into the temple to see for himself the nightmare rituals that had haunted his father for many first suns. He’d watched his old friend climb the Red Stone, and he’d watched others like him die upon it. It was a sight he knew would forever be burnt into his memory. But for all its horrors, Tofa felt a new understanding for what and who his father had become.
‘Surviving was a cruel joke that the gods played on me,’ his father had always said.
The scowl on the Lord Regent’s face deepened with each step as they walked through the maze. The man moved swiftly through the corners, avoiding every dead end as though he’d built it himself. Only then did Tofa notice the fading marks of old magic inscriptions on the walls of the maze. Spells writtenin the old tongue always gradually disappeared after they’d accomplished their goal. Since the temple looked untouched, and Tofa had heard that several walls across the maze had been crushed down in the escape, the restored walls were evidence that the Order had worked hard to hide the truth about the invasion before the sun reached the sky. He wondered what else the Elder Priest was trying to hide from his father with the fading spells he couldn’t read from a distance.
Next to him, his father marched on, his gaze focused on the gilded doors that led into the temple. Tofa often questioned what would become of his father once he ascended the throne. Would he return to the Sun Temple and focus on leading the Holy Order as the High Priest, like Àlùfáà-Àgbà? In truth, the one thing his father wanted was the thing he couldn’t have. To return to the life he lived before he was called Àlùfáà. Tofa glanced at his father and eyed the tribal marks etched into his temple. Three short vertical lines over three short horizontal lines. Ìlú-Idán. He wondered if there was anything left of that old life to return to.
They walked the length of the courtyard, approaching the main temple doors, as priests, servants and maidens alike gathered outside to sing his father’s praises. Talking drums beat to the rhythm of his name – Babátúndé – and the women used his oríkì – his praise name, Àdìo?, the righteous one – to sing blessings to him. A cloud of dust surrounded them as they moved to the beat of the drums. Their shoulders rolled effortlessly. The beads clinging to their waists danced like snakes swimming along their bodies. The men jumped high in the air and fell flat on the ground. It wasn’t every day this High Priest of the Sun Temple visited his home. The people used their agbára to shine beams of light onto the path, creating a trail of gold across the ground leading to the temple doors. The Lord Regent held his head high as they parted the way before himand fell to their knees as he walked by. His agbádá crunched with every step. The glowing fabric was starched firm to avoid the risk of wrinkle, and glittering silver threads formed delicate embroideries that ran the full length of the outfit.
The temple doors swung open, and the Lord Regent stormed in through the gilded entrance. Tofa walked in after his father, surveying the carved walls, decorated pillars and painted ceilings that filled the temple hallway. ‘Do you think they’ll find the prince?’
The Lord Regent slowed his steps and Tofa matched his father’s pace again. ‘For his sake, I hope they find him,’ the Lord Regent said. ‘It’s better to die on the Red Stone than be hunted down like an animal in the street. At least here, his death would mean something.’
Tofa considered the fate of his old friend. Truth be told, it had been many first suns since he deserved to describe Alawani as a friend. And until the day Alawani broke into his chambers, it had been even longer since he laid eyes on the boy who had played with him in the palace courtyards, teaching him the way of the sword. Perhaps more importantly, ways to talk to girls. Once, he’d have given anything to switch places with the prince. To have a life with no apparent responsibility and no expectations. How unfortunate his friend’s life had turned out to be in the end. For who could say no to the call of the gods? He couldn’t.
The hallway got brighter as they walked further in.
‘There are others. Can’t they just let him go? Can’tyoulet him go?’ Tofa asked, knowing his question was on the edge of what was appropriate. It made no difference that Tofa was heir to the throne until the crown was on his head. He was subject to the Lord Regent’s authority just like the people outside the temple, still singing his father’s praises.
‘If running away was an option, don’t you think we’d allhave run?’ the Lord Regent said before turning a corner and walking into the first room on his right. ‘Only cowards run.’
Àlùfáà-Àgbà was already inside, waiting for them. The older man bowed his head but not his knees. ‘Lord Regent,’ he said with an exaggerated groan as he shifted his body back upright. The law demanded that anyone who came before the crown had to lie flat on the ground with their foreheads touching the ground until they were permitted to stand. This half-hearted half-curtsy the old man had done was an insult and they all knew it. Àlùfáà-Àgbà had himself held the dual position of High Priest and Lord Regent before Lord Regent Babátúndé and it seemed as though the old man used every opportunity to remind everyone of this fact, especially in the way he spoke to the Lord Regent. Tofa wondered if his father noticed it as keenly as he did.
Lord Regent Babátúndé only nodded in Àlùfáà-Àgba’s direction and walked towards the raised dais, and sat upon a replica of the palace throne. Tofa hated watching the power struggle between the two men who raised him – his father and the man he had turned to when his father’s heart had hardened. For that reason alone, he couldn’t wait to be king.
For a certain period in every cycle of life and death of sovereigns in Oru, the position of the High Priest of the Holy Order and Lord Regent was held by a single person. But sometimes, the new Regent ruled while the former was still alive and well. When that happened, conflict was unavoidable, Tofa thought.
‘Tell me what happened,’ the Lord Regent said in a single breath.
Tofa stayed a safe distance away, keeping quiet and hoping they wouldn’t notice his presence. He could feel the fight brewing in the air.
‘I don’t like this, K?ni,’ Tofa said to his sister, then glanced back when she didn’t respond. Of course she didn’t respond. She wasn’t there.
