Chapter 29 #2
ìyá-Idán continued. ‘Old magic needs two things to work. The blood of a scion of the old gods and the words of the old tongue spoken by the gods themselves. So do you know what happens when someone who is not a descendant of the old gods calls upon them? They die. A slow painful death. So to avoid that, the priests cut open our children and drink their blood to be able to call upon our gods.’
L’?r? felt sick, remembering the bloody chamber she had stumbled across when they’d broken into the temple. Could this explain its purpose?
‘They kill us for using old magic, but they would be nothing without us.’ ìyá-Idán was raging now.
Every word was like thunder striking against the earth.
‘Without the incantations they force out from our lips, and the blood from our veins, they would be nothing. Nothing! Agbára oru was supposed to be the great equalizer. Putting everyone on the same level. But the old gods did not abandon their descendants. So in addition to agbára oru, we the children of ìlú-Idán have the magic of our gods on our tongues. They fear what we might become if we are free to use the magic of our ancestors. The magic that built this kingdom. Every day, someone’s head is separated from their body, reminding us that without their permission, we are forbidden to use what is as much a part of us as the agbára in our blood.
Every girl here has felt the agony of watching someone they loved being punished with death for not following the rules of the Holy Order.
We hide because they have their foot on our necks, and we cannot breathe. ’
L’?r? noticed that the stern glares on the girls’ faces had now fallen into solemn looks as their gazes fell to the floor, and her heart broke for them.
She remembered the woman at the execution in the capital who defiantly died with her à?írí unspoken and wondered if any of them knew her.
ìyá-Idán was right. L’?r? hated the Holy Order.
But even now, on the run from them for being different, she hadn’t realized how much their ideas were ingrained in her mind.
‘I’m sorry,’ L’?r? said in a soft voice.
Old magic, forbidden or not, had saved her more times than she could count. Old magic was the only reason she was alive. And that meant somehow, she was one of them. A scion of the old gods.
L’?r? turned to the girls. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘We don’t need your apology. We need only for you to understand the consequences of your prejudice,’ ìyá-Idán said. ‘You come here with the oath-breaker’s son, and you think it is easy for them to see you together? Knowing his spineless father is why we are still bound in chains today.’
L’?r? turned to Alawani and his face was twisted in a mix of humiliation and fury.
‘My father –’ Alawani started to say, his voice low and hoarse.
ìyá-Idán turned on him. ‘Your father, the oath-breaker, promised to remove the ban on old magic. His words were nothing but rotten seeds, yielding nothing but lies.’
L’?r? knew that Alawani’s father had broken the oaths he swore on his coronation day to all six rings of the kingdom.
Much like he hadn’t judged her based on her father’s reputation, she’d afforded him the same grace.
Even back home in the inner rings, the people seemed to allow him the luxury of forgetting, but here, everyone mentioned the broken oaths as though there was anything a prince without authority could do to ease their suffering.
‘It wasn’t his fault he died before he could –’ Alawani started to say, but ìyá-Idán cut him off again.
‘He died knowing that his oath was not fulfilled!’ she shouted. ‘He had decades to fulfil his oath, but no, he allowed his father to control him. Even with the power of the crown, he was a coward. He broke his oath to us and may his soul rot in the dark beyond forever.’
The only sound after her outburst was the sound of Alawani’s frantic breathing, filling the room.
His eyes brimmed with tears, his gaze turning a fiery shade of red.
She’d never seen him so angry. He stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
L’?r? moved to chase after him, but ìyá-Idán shouted, ‘Let him go!’
L’?r? froze on the spot. ìyá-Idán dismissed her girls and slowly the room emptied. Márùn was the last to leave, turning her back only when ìyá-Idán gave her a firm nod.
When they were alone, ìyá-Idán faced L’?r?, who noticed for the first time the seven short vertical marks on her chest. The marks were similar to the five Márùn had on hers. L’?r? noticed ìyá-Idán watching her stare and quickly looked away.
‘The prince is on a different path from yours. You can’t keep chasing after him,’ ìyá-Idán said.
L’?r? looked at the door Alawani had left through, and it took everything in her not to go after him.
She forced her gaze back to ìyá-Idán and nodded reluctantly.
ìyá-Idán still needed to teach her how to control her powers.
She may not have them for much longer, but as long as they were inside her, she needed to learn to control them.
‘I need to show you something,’ L’?r? said quietly, pushing thoughts of Alawani to the back of her mind. ‘I don’t know what’s happening to me.’
ìyá-Idán raised an eyebrow, and L’?r? lifted her sleeves to reveal the black marks like vines growing from her wrists to her forearms.
ìyá-Idán sighed. ‘That man really didn’t teach you anything about these powers, did he?’
L’?r? knew she was referring to Baba-ìtàn. She shook her head.
ìyá-Idán sat on a bench and patted the space next to her. ‘Tell me everything.’
L’?r? started from the first moment, when she felt a strange sensation in the temple, and described every time she’d used her agbára since that moment.
ìyá-Idán listened carefully, her face unreadable as L’?r? described even the most terrifying parts of her experience with agbára òtútù.
She told her about the temporary paralysis she’d experienced in ìlú-p?.
All the while, ìyá-Idán’s expression remained blank, almost like she’d heard it all before.
‘When did these start?’ ìyá-Idán said, referring to the marks on L’?r?’s skin.
‘I don’t know,’ L’?r? said. ‘They burn every time I use my agbára. They aren’t too painful, but I’m scared.’
‘You should be. You’re killing yourself.’
‘How do I stop this?’ L’?r? asked, frightened.
‘Show me your agbára,’ ìyá-Idán said, stepping back from her.
L’?r? sighed. ‘I – I don’t like to use it,’ she said, then noticed the woman’s raised eyebrows. ‘Uh – I don’t know how to control it,’ she added. ‘I just point and shoot.’
ìyá-Idán gestured towards the wall as if to say, Go on.
‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ L’?r? said.
Noticing the smirk on the woman’s face, she added, ‘Or anyone else.’
ìyá-Idán chuckled. ‘You couldn’t hurt me even if you tried, my dear.’
L’?r? felt like she’d stepped on a stage and could feel her audience’s anticipation, eagerly awaiting her performance.
She steadied her breathing and tried remembering how she felt with Alawani in the room back at ìlú-p?.
That was the only time she’d used her agbára but hadn’t felt like she was being consumed from the inside.
The convergence of fire and ice clashed in a storm that raged on constantly inside her.
She couldn’t explain where the heat was coming from, but she felt it as hot as she felt the ice that bled out of her fingertips.
She didn’t have to reach far for her agbára.
It took more effort to keep it in than to use it.
Her agbára was always there. Always just a deep breath away, waiting to be called, summoned, unleashed upon the world.
She opened her eyes, and they burned. This, she now knew, meant they’d turned blue.
She raised her hand, and out of it came rushing a mix of white light and a flurry of black smoke.
In a heartbeat, the wall froze over. All four walls of the room glittered with ice.
Then they crystallized and started to grow.
Immediately, ìyá-Idán summoned her agbára and sent a wave of heat energy around the room, consuming every last bit of frost, leaving nothing behind. Not even a drop of water.
L’?r? watched with admiration as the woman demonstrated her incredible power. ‘Does it hurt when you do that?’ L’?r? asked.
‘No,’ ìyá-Idán said. ‘Because agbára oru creates energy.’ ìyá-Idán spread open her palms. A glowing orb buzzing with energy formed in her hands, filling the room with her light.
‘Agbára oru creates light and heat. I create this energy from my own being. Of course, the downside of that is that if I use more than the gods have blessed me with or stretch beyond the boundaries of my own powers, my agbára will burn me from the inside out until I turn to ash. Your agbára is the opposite. Agbára òtútù is the power of darkness, cold, void and shadow. You cannot create energy. Your agbára manipulates everything around it to provide the energy it needs. In your case,’ ìyá-Idán said, holding L’?r?’s hands, ‘you’ve been taking energy from your own body.
Killing yourself every time you use it.’
‘Curse the sun!’ L’?r? blurted out. ìyá-Idán eyed her, and she sighed. ‘Is that what happened with the rhino?’
ìyá-Idán nodded. ‘You said Alawani’s light also dimmed when you touched him?’
L’?r? nodded.
‘You were siphoning his energy. That’s why the next morning, the black marks on your skin were gone,’ ìyá-Idán said. ‘I suppose this means you can take someone’s agbára as well as their life force.’
L’?r?’s eyes widened.
‘If you keep using your own energy, you’ll die. It’s that simple.’
‘Help me, please?’
‘I don’t know enough about your agbára to help you survive having it. I can only show what I know based on agbára oru, which might be the wrong way to go about this.’
L’?r? clenched her fists. ‘Then I don’t want this agbára.’