Chapter 26 Ìlú-Opọ, Third Ring, Kingdom of Oru
ìlú-p?, Third Ring, Kingdom of Oru
L’?R?
L’?r?’s dream was always the same. Pillars on both sides of her.
Winds that moved in a loop. The same fixed line across the horizon.
The same sand dunes and hills and the blistering sun above that burned her skin raw.
Once, she’d been terrified of this dream, but now, all this was normal.
So when a figure appeared in the distance, a black spot floating towards her with what seemed like many arms floating in the wind, and she started to sink into the sand beneath her, she screamed and forced her eyes open.
They were heavy, and it felt like prying open old heavy doors whose hinges hadn’t been oiled for ages.
She tried raising her hands to her face when she realized she couldn’t move; she couldn’t feel her arms, legs, or any part of her body.
Panic seized her breath, and her mouth wouldn’t open when she tried to speak.
She forced her eyes closed and opened them again.
Easier this time, but no other part of her body could move.
She tried shifting in the bed to wake Alawani, but it was as though the part of her mind that made her body move was gone.
Her breaths came in short bursts of white mist, and her mind flooded with terror and panic.
What in the gods’ names was happening to her?
Move. Move. Move, she commanded her body, but it remained stuck to the bed.
She tried to relax, but her breathing was shallow, her chest refusing to rise.
She would die in this bed beside Alawani, and he wouldn’t even know.
There was no calming her now. She tried to scream, but the voice in her mind couldn’t break through her frozen lips.
Suddenly, Alawani stirred, and hope flared in her chest. He shifted towards her and placed his hand over her stomach but didn’t wake up.
She strained her eyes in frustration. The only movement she could make.
She kept struggling to move, to break out of this cast, but despite the battle raging in her mind, her body didn’t hear her pleas.
A few agonizing moments later, a tingling sensation spread over the area where Alawani’s hand rested.
His arm seemed to thaw whatever had frozen her in place.
She flexed her torso, and it moved. She focused on every part of her body, every limb, and every movement she wanted to make in her mind, then fought with everything in her to move.
Finally, something shifted, and slowly, her body came back to life.
Every stretch and crack ached, but she was glad to feel anything.
She was glad to take a full breath again.
She sprang and crawled on her knees. Her legs were still recovering from their stasis.
She stretched to wake Alawani but the black lines that had disappeared the night before were re-forming across her hands.
Was this what dying felt like? Watching your body rot from the inside?
She’d have gotten off the floor and run home to Baba-ìtàn if she could run fast enough.
She placed her hand over her face and groaned, ‘Help me.’ She wasn’t sure who she was talking to.
Definitely not the gods of the sun and sands.
Not the old gods, either. She didn’t know them enough to dare.
Still, she whispered again to whichever one of them would listen, ‘Help me.’
Alawani stirred again and sprawled across the bed.
He couldn’t help her. There was no point worrying him about what had happened.
He was losing his own agbára. He had enough to worry about.
She realized how often she chose not to bother him.
She supposed she’d been so happy to have a friend that over the years she’d decided it was best not to overwhelm him with things he couldn’t do anything to change.
Or maybe it was so that she didn’t scare him off.
Whatever the reason, as she sat on the floor deciding not to tell him she was dying, she realized how much she’d kept from him since they became friends.
Somehow, they’d managed to avoid any difficult conversations, never having to confront the hard truths of their life.
Not about Baba-ìtàn’s sentence as an outcast and not about àlùfáà-àgbà, his grandfather, who was responsible for her mother’s death and was the one sending them into this exile.
All that was too much for what she was now seeing as too fragile a bond.
She realized the man she loved, with every breath she had, might only know the side of her she’d revealed to him, and she couldn’t help but wonder what parts of himself he might have kept from her too.
She jumped at the bang on the door, followed by a loud cry, ‘Prince Alawani!’
At that moment, everything around her seemed to come into focus.
The smoke seeping in from beneath the door filled her nostrils and started to choke her.
Outside she heard faint cries of people and hooves of animals as they raced out of the building.
The pounding on the door got louder until eventually, the door rattled against the bed.
The bed wasn’t strong enough to withhold the force and as the door gradually opened, the smell of smoke and the crackle of fire filled the room.
L’?r? shrieked as Alawani leapt off the bed, allowing the door to crash open.
The figure in the doorway moved quickly. ‘Get up. Now!’
‘Who are you?’ Alawani said. He groaned as he channelled his agbára, a dull orange glow lighting his outstretched hand. L’?r? imagined how much it’d hurt to pull on his waning powers.
The figure removed their hood and L’?r? immediately recognized the young woman from the night before. ‘It’s you,’ L’?r? said, ‘from the bar. You were with that man, Mfà.’
‘There’s a fire downstairs and the royal guards are nearly here. I imagine you don’t want to be here when they arrive.’
Alawani reached for his blade and L’?r? did the same, as they moved closer to the woman who raised her hands in surrender. ‘Gbk called those guards and while I don’t know what kind of trouble you are in, I know that you,’ she pointed at Alawani, ‘are supposed to be in the Sun Temple as àlùfáà.’
Voices shouted from beneath them. The royal guards were in. The fire was just a distraction; most people in Oru could control the intensity and movement of flames as well as the smoke they produced. They’d be on their floor in no time.
L’?r? smashed her blades together and sparks flew as they crashed against each other. The woman looked at them and scoffed. She channelled her agbára and formed an energy orb, and threw it at the brick wall, blasting a hole through it.
The woman jumped and L’?r? watched as she used short bursts of hot air to slow her falling speed until she gracefully landed on the ground. L’?r? looked back at Alawani. She couldn’t do that.
‘Just go!’ Alawani shouted, going back for his sword.
A royal guard grabbed on to his hand and held on like a feral beast as Alawani thrashed, trying to get free.
‘L’?r?, jump. Now!’ he shouted through the chokehold.
L’?r? grabbed on to a pole hanging out of a window a few feet below her before landing on the ground.
She looked up, hoping to see Alawani at the hole in the wall, but instead, a royal guard sneered at her, and as soon as he stretched his hand to blast them off, the woman pulled L’?r? behind her and shot at the room.
Smoke and dust filled the hole which had doubled in size and the sounds of screams from within the building made L’?r?’s heart ache with every beat.
‘What are you doing?’ L’?r? shouted at the woman. ‘Alawani is up there, you could’ve killed him.’
‘That guard would’ve killed you,’ the woman replied sternly.
‘I’m going back for him,’ L’?r? said, trying to climb in.
‘No, you’re not,’ the woman said, holding her in a locked grip.
‘Don’t touch me!’ L’?r? said. ‘I don’t know you.’
‘Okay, calm down,’ the woman said, raising her hands. ‘My name is Márùn, and I’m here to help.’
‘Why? What do you want?’
Márùn sighed and turned her back to L’?r?, raising her hair to reveal the back of her neck. There at the base of her skull were three tongues of flames, dark as coal, inked into her skin.
L’?r? gasped, ‘Life debt.’
‘Yes,’ Márùn said, facing her again. ‘I owe a life debt to the prince’s mother, so I promise you, I can and I will get him out, but not with you running around in there.
’ She glanced around the building and pointed at the barn in the corner.
‘Take two horses, wait in the tree line and we’ll meet you there. ’
‘I can’t,’ L’?r? said, ‘I can’t just leave him.’
‘We need a way to get out of here fast once I get him. So go!’
L’?r? looked towards the barn. ‘Tell him to light up the sky if you can’t find me in there, I’ll find you both.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘He knows what to do,’ L’?r? said and ran for the barn.
‘Run!’ Márùn shouted as the guards started shooting blasts of energy at them.
L’?r? rode her own horse and managed to lead Alawani’s by its reins as she made her way through the chaos of animals that raced to the tree line for shelter from the fire.
Behind her she saw Alawani and Márùn fighting the royal guards on the ground, and so much of her wanted to go back but Márùn was right.
If they made it to where she was, they could be out of the third ring long before the royal guards caught up with them.