Chapter 19 The Home of Maidens, The Capital City, First Ring, Kingdom of Oru #2
When ìyá-Ayé didn’t speak, they bowed deeper until their heads touched the floor and chorused, ‘ìyá-Ayé, mother of life, we greet you. May your reign be like the sun.’
‘Now tell me, my children, why you’ve brought disgrace to this house that has never been seen or heard of since the birth of our beloved kingdom.’
Bùnmi jumped in first. ‘ìyá, it wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t even there. The boy in my charge, the foolish boy, tried to escape the temple and got himself killed.’
‘Got himself killed?’ ìyá-Ayé tilted her head and asked, ‘Where were you, his maiden, his shadow, when he was,’ she chuckled, ‘getting himself killed?’
‘ìyá, please,’ Bùnmi tried begging, getting her pleas in as quickly as possible.
‘You interrupt me,’ the older woman hissed. Her tone didn’t change, but Milúà felt a chill run down her spine.
‘Ah! w – gods forbid. ìyá, I just –’ Bùnmi said.
Milúà grabbed Bùnmi’s hand, pulling her back and stopping the words from pouring out. Bùnmi still didn’t know ìyá-Ayé well enough to know when she wanted words and when she wanted subservience.
ìyá-Ayé rose, and the maiden guards that stood behind her followed suit.
These were sisters of the House who were not assigned temple duties.
The role of house maiden was one they all prayed not to have growing up.
The black-clothed maidens never got to wear red or gold.
They moved from white to black, sealing their fate and swearing allegiance not to priests or the Holy Order but to ìyá-Ayé and ìyá-Ayé alone.
Who in the world wanted to be trapped at home with their mother?
With this mother? Her ever-wandering eyes were always watching, piercing, burning.
ìyá-Ayé walked straight to Bùnmi and lifted her chin with a single finger, staring right into her glassy eyes.
‘My child. Bùnmi ?m? ìyá mí.’ Child of my mother. That was what ìyá-Ayé called all the girls she trained because she was once like them, answering to a woman she’d also called mother.
‘I can’t show you mercy, my child. The Order has called for blood.
Of course,’ ìyá-Ayé said, pulling out a cowrie shell from her cleavage and placing it in Bùnmi’s open palm, ‘while you did the right thing avenging the death of your àlùfáà, you still killed a daughter of mine. So you see that your sin is unforgivable.’
Bùnmi let out a loud cry and held on to ìyá-Ayé’s feet, begging.
ìyá-Ayé bent over and lifted the crying girl up to her feet. ‘Wipe your tears, my daughter. Your sisters will take you now, but I give you my strength. Whatever happens, don’t die – I am especially fond of you and will welcome you back with open arms,’ she said, smiling.
Milúà closed her eyes to the screams as they dragged her sister out of the room.
‘Now you,’ ìyá-Ayé said as she returned to her seat, and a new set of maiden guards dressed in black stood behind her, replacing the ones who dragged Bùnmi away to the place no one speaks of.
Milúà, still on her knees, bowed again, ‘ìyá.’
‘Tell me your side of the story. I am particularly interested in how you defied the abomination.’
Milúà smelt the trap. She chose her words carefully, telling as close a story to Bùnmi’s version as she could. As she spoke, Milúà tried to read ìyá-Ayé’s face for any sign that she believed the words she heard, but nothing. The priestess hid all her emotions behind the wrinkles on her face.
‘Now, tell me about the ice crystal,’ ìyá-Ayé said, leaning forward. The older woman’s grey hair shone brightly against her warm brown skin, adorned with gold trinkets and red rubies. ‘What did it feel like? What did you feel as you brought it down with your bare hands?’
‘I only did what any daughter of Oru and this noble house would have done.’
‘Yes, but they didn’t, or couldn’t. From what I heard, you weren’t even afraid to touch it,’ ìyá-Ayé replied.
Milúà shifted uncomfortably, not knowing how much of the truth to tell.
‘You taught us that fear was the enemy. To be afraid is to be weak, and we aren’t weak. We are maidens of the Holy Order. We burn like the sun. The ground beneath us will crumble to dust before we crack.’
ìyá-Ayé smiled as Milúà quoted her own words back to her. ‘Come closer.’
Closer now, Milúà saw ìyá-Ayé’s dark brown eyes that looked like they held centuries of secrets.
She wondered how long it would take for her mother to pass on all she kept hidden when she reached her deathbed.
Why was ìyá-Ayé more interested in this debacle with the ice structure than the fact that the prince was missing?
She could feel herself walking into a trap but didn’t know how to avoid it.
‘Tell me,’ the older woman said, ‘did you see the face of this mysterious girl at the temple?’
‘No, ìyá, she wore a hood over her head, and in the dark of night, none of us could see her face.’
Milúà hadn’t meant to lie, but there was no turning back now.
She didn’t know whether the girl’s face was seen or not because she wasn’t there.
She’d used the distraction to dig out information in the temple library that was forbidden to maidens.
However, any recanting on her part and ìyá-Ayé would find out exactly where she’d been.
‘Hmnnn …’ ìyá-Ayé muttered under her breath. ‘Show me.’
‘Ma?’ Milúà asked. ‘Show you what?’
ìyá-Ayé leaned forward. ‘Do you mean to tell me that a maiden of this house, trained by my hands, came in contact with a new kind of magic and didn’t bring the evidence of it home?’
Once again, ìyá-Ayé proved no one could outsmart her. Milúà sighed and brought out a piece of the ice crystal. A small black mist still churned within the clear shard.
ìyá-Ayé’s wide smile lit up her fair skin. She clapped to herself, ‘That’s my girl!’
Milúà cringed. When she’d stolen a piece of the ice shard, it hadn’t been to please her mother. At that moment, she couldn’t remember why she’d taken it. It somehow felt important. Maybe it was her mother’s training that took over.
ìyá-Ayé walked over to Milúà and took the crystal from her.
She observed it, peering inside it, cursing it, and then burning it with her agbára.
Dark mist oozed from it, the way steam rose from a pot when its cover was removed.
It cracked, and she screamed, throwing it to the ground.
Milúà ran to help her mother, but the woman shoved her off.
ìyá-Ayé’s palm was trembling, the centre of it blackened as though it was diseased.
‘ìyá! Are you okay?’ Milúà asked, surprising herself at how concerned she was, but at the same time, Milúà wanted to be the thing that hurt her.
‘I’m fine, child, stop shouting,’ ìyá-Ayé spat back, wincing in pain. ‘Move out of my face.’
‘ìyá, please,’ Milúà said. ‘Let me help you.’
ìyá-Ayé summoned her agbára, and a soft red glow radiated from her palm. The same healing fire had scorched and healed her many times before. A skill she taught none of her girls.
ìyá-Ayé exhaled slowly as the pain seemed to ease, and the dark spot disappeared. She turned to Milúà with a smile back on her face as if the last few moments hadn’t happened. ‘Now show me what you did.’
Milúà wanted nothing more to do with the ice crystal. She wished more than anything that she’d never taken it. The pain that surged through her as she brought down the wall still thrummed in her bones. It’d taken everything in her spirit and body to fight against the magic in the crystal.
‘Show me or meet the same fate as your sister,’ ìyá-Ayé said, all smiles wiped off her face instantly.
Milúà swallowed slowly, trying to dispel the thickness in her throat.
Gently, she picked up the ice shard from the floor.
She closed her eyes and stretched out her hands.
Her agbára burned brighter with every breath she took.
Her eyes remained closed the whole time.
All she could hear was sizzling, and then she felt the viscous liquid smear over her palm.
An icy shiver ran through her, and she felt as though the liquid in her hand also smeared over the agbára in her core, dulling its light and chilling it.
In a few heartbeats, there was nothing left of it.
Milúà inhaled, breathing deeply for the first time since she held it in her hand.
Milúà opened her eyes, and locked her gaze on ìyá-Ayé, whose eyes were wide in awe. The room was silent, waiting for ìyá-Ayé to speak first.
‘Your stupid mother! How could I have missed this? Even from the grave, her recklessness haunts us all.’
Milúà took a step back from ìyá-Ayé. Then another, feeling the sudden need to sit or hold on to something. Her mouth went dry, and nothing came out when she tried to speak. The room suddenly felt small, the fire from the lanterns suffocating her.
ìyá-Ayé’s eyes were like the depths of a well, dark and hollow. She reached for Milúà’s face with cold hands and said, ‘I don’t know how àdùnní managed to conceive or birth you, but you are my little miracle from the gods.’
A few days before, Milúà hadn’t even known her birth mother’s name.
As she rummaged through the temple’s hidden library during the temple break-in, she had learned that her mother, àdùnní, had been born to a family in ìlú-Idán.
àdùnní had volunteered herself to ìyá-Ayé after seeing ten first suns and was one of the first temple maidens who attained gold status even before being matched with a priest. That was all the information Milúà got from the library before the alarms were raised and her chosen one was stolen from her.
The papers she saw said nothing of death, and so for a period that perhaps lasted longer than it should have Milúà had hoped her birth mother was alive.
Now, it seemed àdùnní of ìlú-Idán was dead.
It took every ounce of strength Milúà had to hold back the tears that pricked at her eyes.
Somehow, she had desperately wished, prayed even, that among those musty scrolls lay a trail that would lead her to her mother somewhere far from here.
That hope crashed as quickly as it had blossomed, leaving her breathless.
The words ‘from the grave’ kept echoing in Milúà’s mind, and she felt her head nearly explode with grief.
‘My mother –’ Milúà started to say.
‘You need no other mother but me,’ ìyá-Ayé sneered at her.
When Milúà was younger, she’d asked ìyá-Ayé about her birth mother and could still feel the burn of the backhand slap she received that day. Milúà bit her tongue to keep from saying anything she might regret.
‘Leave me. I will deal with you later,’ ìyá-Ayé said.
Milúà bowed and left the room without saying a word.
When she got to the room she’d grown up in, she closed the door and fell to the ground, weeping quietly.
In a little corner of her heart, Milúà had hoped that she too might one day stumble upon the woman who birthed her in the market square, the way Bùnmi had found hers.
It was a long shot – but she’d hoped. But now she knew her mother was dead.
Maybe she didn’t even abandon her, perhaps she wanted to keep her, but death had other plans. Someone had other plans.
She still had so many questions. No maiden could bear a child.
They all drank the same herbs that made them barren from the moment they saw their first blood.
To seal their bonds, maidens gave their bodies to their priests.
Her birth mother shouldn’t have been able to get pregnant – how did she?
And how did she hide being pregnant long enough to give birth?
Milúà’s head throbbed as she cried into her palms. The Holy Order could never allow a maiden that bore a child to live.
Milúà gasped out loud as the realization hit her. Her gaze fixed on the wall towards ìyá-Ayé’s throne room. Only one person could permit the killing of a maiden of the Sun Temple – the woman she called Mother.