Chapter 35 #2
‘Your maiden, Milúà,’ Tofa said, ‘how do I get to her?’
ìyá-Ayé pulled out a set of obsidian beads from her breasts.
‘I’m sure àlùfáà-àgbà taught you how to use time beads with old magic.
You can cross all six rings in a single day but remember that with every sleeping moment you will walk back the real distance you’ve skipped past. I recommend very little sleep until your mission is complete.
The last message I got from Milúà, she had clashed with Command, whom your father sent to retrieve the girl. They are in the fourth ring.’
Tofa took the beads and slid them onto his wrists. ‘You were expecting me. You knew I’d come here. How?’
‘You are a wise man. You know where the real power is.’
‘When I get back, we have much to discuss.’
‘As you wish, my king.’
‘One more thing,’ Tofa said. ‘Go to K?ni, and pray to the gods known and unknown that your fire heals her and she wakes. Because if she doesn’t, I promise you in the name of all that burns, I will destroy this house, and every maiden who ever stepped foot in it. As the words have left my mouth.’
‘So let it be done, my king,’ ìyá-Ayé said, giving one final bow to him, then she walked over to a large box by the foot of her throne and brought out a map.
She spoke in the old tongue and blew on it.
A bright line appeared and she handed it to Tofa.
‘This will take you to Milúà. It’ll burn out when you reach her. ’
Tofa had woken up unsure of his place in the world, unable to recognize his own reflection.
Now, he was sure that he would not rest until he had destroyed anything and everything in his path that tried to take his birthright from him.
He snatched the map from ìyá-Ayé’s hands and walked out into the world, to hunt his blood, his sister, his enemy.
Tofa had seen ten first suns when he had his first taste of palm wine.
The sweet milky liquid went down with ease and he keenly remembered the feeling of going home in a drunken stupor, the world around him slow and fast at the same time.
That was what using the obsidian beads to quicken his steps felt like but without the throbbing headache.
With every step he took, the world seemed to pass by him in a quick haze; the houses, streets and people blew past him, and in blurs.
He wondered how they perceived his movement, if they could see him speed through or if they couldn’t see him at all.
All he knew for sure was that after four light beads of walking the King’s Road north, he found himself at the border wall of the fourth ring.
A warm glow snaked across the map ìyá-Ayé had given him, and he followed its trail until he reached a clearing surrounded by rocks about a mile or two out from the border wall leading into the fifth ring.
There on the ground, hunched over a crystallized body, was Milúà, maiden of the Holy Order.
As ìyá-Ayé had said, the map burned to ash the moment he laid eyes on her.
Milúà didn’t seem to notice him as he walked nearer to her.
Her long braids fell loose around her face, accentuating her long features and sharp chin.
This couldn’t be the fearless maiden he’d heard so much about.
Her reputation had well preceded her but this wasn’t what he’d expected to find.
Her armour was scathed, and charred, her white dress torn and burnt, her body scraped and bloodied.
But even with scrapes and cuts and a wound across her forehead, Tofa had never seen anyone more beautiful than the maiden before him and he suddenly became keenly aware of his own heartbeat.
Something about the way her shoulders hunched over in despair when he found her made him want to hold her in his arms.
‘Milúà,’ he said softly.
Milúà jumped to her feet and turned her back to him. She moved her hands over her face and he assumed she was wiping tears she didn’t want him to see.
‘Crown Heir,’ Milúà said firmly. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Turn around,’ Tofa said, and flinched at the commanding tone in his own voice.
Milúà stood straighter and turned in a single move.
Tofa looked down at the body on the floor, completely covered in a thick layer of crystallized ice. ‘Who was this?’ he asked.
‘Command,’ Milúà said. ‘Commander Títí, leader of the –’
‘I know who she is,’ Tofa said, eyes wide. ‘Who did this?’
‘L’?r?. The one who attacked the temple and stole the Prince àlùfáà.’
‘My father told me that Command trained her for Ogun. That was why he sent her to retrieve the girl in exchange for her life. Was he wrong?’
‘I suppose this is how L’?r? repaid her.’
‘Where is this L’?r? now?’ Tofa asked.
Milúà pointed towards the border wall, ‘She’ll have crossed over to the fifth ring by now.’
‘And why didn’t you follow her in there?’ Tofa said.
Milúà glanced down at Command’s frozen body, and then back at Tofa. ‘She trapped me with her dark magic and by the time I summoned the strength to break out, she was gone.’
Tofa watched as her face morphed from sadness to something else, more like the maiden he’d actually heard about. She spun and packed her hair into a tight bun. She whistled and the ground began to shake, and out from behind the rocks, a battle rhino came crashing in.
‘I know how to find her,’ Milúà said as the rhino came to a halt in front of them.
She pulled out a set of fresh clothes from the bags attached to it.
Without looking back at him, she pulled off her armour and undressed completely.
Tofa turned around, clearing his throat.
Milúà didn’t say a word. He glanced back and saw her wearing a fresh set of robes and putting her charred armour back over it.
She wiped her hands clean of blood and climbed onto the rhino.
‘Follow me,’ she said.
‘Wait, stop,’ Tofa said. ‘We can’t just leave her here.’
‘I don’t care what happens to her,’ Milúà said.
Tofa sighed, ‘Obviously you do.’
Milúà glared at him, and just as he was about to speak, she said, ‘Command knew a secret that I wanted – that I needed to know.’
‘What secret?’
‘She knew who my father was,’ Milúà said, glaring at the body on the ground, ‘and she knew who killed my mother. Or at least I think she did.’
Milúà’s words triggered Tofa’s memory, and he remembered overhearing ìyá-Ayé and àlùfáà-àgbà whispering in the palace.
Milúà was the daughter of àdùnní the temple maiden.
The one ìyá-Ayé had promised to kill the moment she discovered who her father was.
Tofa might not know who her father was but he remembered clearly as ìyá-Ayé confessed to killing her mother and the deal the mother of maidens had made with àlùfáà-àgbà.
Tofa was certain that if Milúà discovered the answers to those questions, either or both would get her killed.
Tofa couldn’t explain why he felt protective of this maiden he’d only just met but he immediately decided that he would never tell her what he knew about her parents.
‘Tell me everything Command said. Tell me her à?írí,’ Tofa ordered.
Milúà nodded and stretched her hand to him. He raised his hand to hers, and she pulled him up onto the rhino. He held on to her waist as she kicked the rhino’s side, and they began the hunt for L’?r? of òtútù as she spoke the commander’s last words to him.