Chapter 14 The Sun Temple, Royal Island, Kingdom of Oru
The Sun Temple, Royal Island, Kingdom of Oru
L’?R?
L’?r? opened the door representing ìlú-?ba, which was marked with a single line.
The mark reminded her of a cat’s eye; sharp at the tips and wide at the middle.
She stepped into the warmth of the room to find an empty bed, the largest piece of furniture in what felt more like a confinement than a room.
The room was warmer than she’d expected, and she was grateful for the heat since every breath still brought out mist from her mouth and nostrils.
She let out a frustrated sigh. Where in the world is he?
Her heart sank like a heavy stone dropped into water. ‘You don’t think he’s –’ She couldn’t bring herself to say the word.
But Kyà knew what she meant. ‘We’ll keep looking,’ he said.
L’?r? threw her head back, forcing back the rise of panic and nausea that threatened to overwhelm her. ‘We can’t be here when the sun comes up. This was our only plan. He should be here!’
The door handle turned, and L’?r? ran behind the door faster than she thought possible.
She wouldn’t allow whatever had happened before to take over her again.
Kyà ran underneath the bed and pulled the sheets down to cover the gap.
L’?r? put her hand on her blades, ready to wake them at a moment’s notice.
The door opened, and an older boy walked in.
L’?r? waited for him to close the door before kicking the back of his knee, sending him to the floor.
She pounced on him, sat on his back, and covered his mouth with her hand.
He wriggled beneath her, and she pressed her blade against his neck.
‘Pleeease,’ he muffled out, kicking the air.
‘L’?r?, wait! I think – Máywá, is that you?’ Kyà asked, slipping out from under the bed.
The boy nodded vigorously.
L’?r? leaned in closer to him. ‘I will take my hand off. You scream, and it’ll be the last thing you ever do.’
The boy nodded again.
L’?r? got off him, and the boy scrambled to his feet, and ran to embrace Kyà.
Kyà welcomed him with open arms, and they held on to each other for a moment before letting go. ‘He’s the chosen one called to represent ìlú-p?, the third ring. His parents’ farm is close to mine back home,’ Kyà said, stepping between L’?r? and Máywá. ‘I can’t let you hurt him.’
‘Thank you. ?m? ìlú mi – son of my homeland,’ Máywá’s voice came as a soft whisper.
The six horizontal dashes that they bore connected them to each other.
Tribal marks signified the long-standing generational vow to protect all from one’s home state, no matter where in the world they found themselves.
‘What are you doing in this room?’ L’?r? asked.
‘I came to check on –’ Máywá stopped, and for a moment, he looked like he was trying to remember something. He rubbed his hand over his head. ‘Wait, did he call you L’?r?? Are you Alawani’s L’?r??’
L’?r?’s eyes darted to the floor, and she took a step back from him. Máywá clearly took that to mean yes because he went on, ‘He told me about you.’ Máywá smiled. ‘You’re exactly as he described.’
L’?r? frowned, fighting back the smile that wanted to creep onto her face at the thought that Alawani hadn’t lost his entire mind and still knew who she was.
‘Where is he?’ Kyà said.
Máywá shrugged, ‘I don’t know. I came to check if he’s here, but I haven’t seen him since before evening prayers.’
‘Where could he be?’ L’?r? said.
He paused, thinking. ‘Perhaps the old ruins?’
‘Take us there,’ L’?r? said.
‘What? No. You can’t be here. The maidens will kill you. You need to leave now.’
L’?r?’s blade was back at Máywá’s neck before he could move out of her way.
Kyà was beside her in a flash, a firm grip on her hand. L’?r? kept her eyes on Máywá. Did Kyà really think she’d hurt an innocent person?
Máywá held his hands up, a quivering smile on his face. ‘He did say you liked to fight.’
‘So you know I’m not afraid to use this if you don’t help us,’ L’?r? said. ‘I need to find him, and I’ve come too far to give up now. Take us to the ruins.’
‘Just tell us where the ruins are. We’ll find them ourselves,’ Kyà added.
Máywá shook his head. ‘You’ll never make it out of this tower.’
‘He’s right – we need him to show us,’ L’?r? said. ‘We can’t trust his directions anyway. At least if he’s with us, we can kill him if he leads us astray.’
‘L’?r?!’ Kyà hissed.
L’?r? noticed that Máywá was no longer afraid. He looked at her like he knew her well enough to know when her threats were empty, and it unnerved her.
‘Alawani told me how you feel about the call and how you tried to stop him,’ Máywá said.
‘You can’t save him or anyone from the call of the gods.
We’ve all accepted our fate. If he leaves, they’ll kill him.
You know that. If he stays, he stands a chance to be a priest of the Order, to be a vessel for our gods. How can you deny him such honour?’
‘I’m not leaving this temple without Alawani. So help us find him or feel the burn of my blade!’ L’?r? slid the knife slowly across his neck, showing him that her threat was real.
Now he looked afraid again. ‘Please. It’s too dangerous – you should leave. My maiden will know I’m missing. They check on us every light bead,’ Máywá choked.
Kyà pulled her hands off Máywá. ‘Stop. We’re wasting time. He’s right: we have to leave now. We tried our best, L’?r?. I don’t want to die at the hands of the priests!’
L’?r? ignored him and leaned in closer to Máywá, standing on the tip of her toes to reach his height.
She wasn’t giving up. ‘If you don’t show us the way, I’ll kill you.
I’ve got nothing to lose. So, what’s it going to be?
’ She wanted him to know just how desperate she was and what that meant for him.
Máywá didn’t struggle or fight. He just stared at her, searching her eyes with a long calculating look. After a few moments he said, ‘I’ll take you to the prince.’
He led L’?r? and Kyà out of Alawani’s room, up the stairs and back to the hole in the wall of the dining hall that led to the tunnels beneath the tower.
They crawled out the same way they’d come in.
Máywá led the way to the ruins behind the temple.
The only way L’?r? knew to describe what she was seeing was as if someone had split the building in half, raised it to the sky and crashed it into itself.
Around the ruins were giant blocks of what were once beautifully decorated stones spread in all directions, some covered in creeping thorns, others piled in a way that suggested that the slightest breeze would send them crashing to the ground.
There wasn’t a soul in sight. Despite that, L’?r? moved quietly through the cracked blocks, stopping every time something crunched beneath her feet.
The unique smell of chalky dust and ewé-efinrin – the local scent leaves – filled the air.
L’?r? had read about the temple that housed the old gods in her history books.
They said that one day the earth trembled, thundered and fractured, leaving cracks in the ground.
The chaos brought down the mighty temple.
But now, seeing the evidence before her eyes, the sculpted archways stained by mould, the blast marks on the weather-worn stone pillars, and the deformed statues all told a different story.
It looked like there had been a war. But that wasn’t possible.
There had never been a war in all of Oru’s history.
Not since long before the day of the First Sun.
Máywá and Kyà went off in opposite directions around the corners of the fallen temple, quietly calling for Alawani.
L’?r? had been too stunned to speak, entranced by the destruction before her, wondering how anyone had survived such carnage.
Finally, she inhaled and spoke Alawani’s name.
As her voice filled the night air, the temple bells rang in a loud clash, sending shock waves through her body.
The long, deep sound of metal hitting metal vibrated the ground she stood upon.
The temple was awake, and this had officially become a suicide mission.
L’?r? could no longer count how many times tonight her heart had stopped in her chest. Her fingers raced to her neck, searching for her pendant, and she only remembered that she had tucked it away when her fingers roamed over bare, sore skin.
In the distance, she could see someone running towards her.
At first, she thought it was Kyà or Máywá.
But then Kyà was next to her – he followed L’?r?’s line of sight and saw the figure too.
Impatient, he awakened his agbára, and a beam of light shone from his palm.
The darkness gave way, and there in the distance was the man she’d defied everyone and everything for.
Like a shadow running out of darkness and towards her light, he appeared in full view.
Alawani. He stopped and even with the hundreds of yards between them, she could feel his gaze on her like a fire that set her skin ablaze.
He moved. Quickly. Jumping over broken walls, bending under cracked arches, and running towards them.
Alawani stopped in his tracks when he got to them.
His eyes were fixed on L’?r? and hers on him.
He had lost weight since she last saw him.
He had dark shadows beneath his eyes, and his once brilliantly bright eyes were bloodshot as though he hadn’t slept at all, his cheekbones sunken.
He looked dehydrated, sucked dry – like he was withering away. How could this happen in just two days?