Chapter 40 Ìlú-Òdì, Sixth Ring, Kingdom of Oru
ìlú-òdì, Sixth Ring, Kingdom of Oru
L’?R?
Of all the stories Baba-ìtàn told the children under the tree, the story of Queen Aníwúrà – whose agbára filled not just her hands or arms but her entire body – was the most unbelievable of them all.
And L’?r? had always expected that he exaggerated for the sake of the children, who got excited at the prospect of one day being like the great queen.
So L’?r? was stunned at the human flame approaching her.
Tofa no longer looked like the person she’d met just a few moments ago.
His body glowed like the sun, every inch overcome with agbára oru.
It was spectacular and terrifying, lighting up the whipping sand until the storm haloed him in gold.
A blaze of fire ignited around him, leaving a trail in his path.
Nothing or no one could stand next to him.
His brown skin was no longer visible, completely transformed by a yellow light so bright that L’?r? had to avert her eyes.
He was still a few yards from them, but the heat that filled the air around them made her feel like the sun had left the sky and was standing before her.
How was that possible? She looked at Alawani, who was wide-eyed with shock.
They weren’t getting out of this fight alive. That much was sure.
Tofa formed an orb in his hands, his energy radiating through its unstable form.
He threw it at them. Alawani jumped in front of L’?r? and redirected it, his stolen guard’s uniform rippling in the wind.
He sent the orb spinning a few feet away, where it exploded.
Tofa looked at him and smiled as if accepting the challenge.
L’?r? noticed Milúà out of the corner of her eye but the maiden kept her distance from Tofa, trying not to get burnt alive in the crown heir’s flaming fury.
Soon, the storm blocked her from sight and L’?r? felt her heart race in her chest. She was glad for the cover the storm provided but Milúà had proven that she could always find them. Somehow.
‘Get back, L’?r?!’ Alawani shouted at her above the noise, sweat pouring from his forehead, dripping into his eyes.
‘No, I can help. I can –’
‘Get back,’ he said in such a distant tone that it was clear he wasn’t just trying to keep her safe. ‘Your agbára!’ he shouted, pointing at her hands.
She glanced down, noticed how white light continued to glow from her palms. Holding back her powers felt like rubbing scotch bonnet on a raw wound. It burned like the sun.
‘We only need to disarm him,’ Alawani said. ‘Whatever trouble we’re in will pale compared to what will happen to us if you kill the crown heir!’
So this was about her powers, after all.
L’?r? stepped back, her body stiffening at the harshness of his voice, but she respected his wishes …
for now. She found a sheltered spot far enough for Alawani and Tofa to have the floor all to themselves.
She combed the storm for Milúà, spotting forms and shapes shifting in and out of view as the sand whipped around the graveyard – but she couldn’t be sure of who or what she was seeing.
Tofa was laser-focused on Alawani, accepting the prince’s challenge as Alawani’s agbára lit up his skin.
‘Don’t do this, Tofa, I don’t want to hurt you,’ Alawani said.
Tofa scoffed, ‘If you couldn’t beat me when we were boys, what makes you think you can now?’
‘I’m begging you. If our friendship ever meant anything to you, let us go.’
‘We were brothers once, Alawani,’ Tofa said, his eyes lighting up with agbára. ‘Now you’re just in my way.’
L’?r? stepped aside as the ground beneath Tofa blackened under his feet.
He sent another energy blast at Alawani – the prince dodged it, sliding across the sand and picking up his sword, filled with his agbára.
The winds made it hard for Tofa to aim and Alawani took advantage of that, dodging and redirecting – perhaps hoping to tire the heir rather than overpowering him.
After all, his blade wasn’t going to do much against the god-like figure he fought against, L’?r? thought.
Try as she might, her agbára refused to dull, its white light glowing stubbornly from her hands. She couldn’t fight Tofa without agbára, but Alawani was right; without control over her powers, she was scared of what she might be capable of. Command’s face, cold and dead, flashed in her mind.
Tofa sped up his attacks, barely giving Alawani chance to breathe between blasts.
When he ducked, the next one met him on the ground, and when he jumped, he came falling with rock debris in the aftermath of Tofa’s attacks.
L’?r? had seen this trick before, but energy balls generally took a while to form, and even then, not all were skilled or powerful enough to create them.
But as she watched the fight, Tofa seemed to create his in the blink of an eye, and as much as Alawani tried distracting him, it was just a waiting game, and Tofa was clearly in control.
Taunting. Soon, he would be tired of playing with his prey and launch an actual attack.
L’?r? flinched as Alawani redirected less and less, catching more than he missed and being tossed to the ground, into walls, against burning rocks.
The sky grew darker, and the thunder rumbled nearer; lightning tore a silver line across the sky and L’?r? felt panic flood her mind. This was it, this was how they’d die.
Tofa suddenly stopped shooting. L’?r? knew instantly that it was a bad sign.
He looked at his hands, and she could see the slightest shimmer grow in his palms. She saw the air boil and knew something terrible was brewing.
Alawani raised an arm, trying to create a shield with his agbára, but the simmering glow sparked out of existence. He was too weak.
Her heart stopped. The world slowed. Even the howling wind went silent, and she watched in slow motion as Tofa’s energy boiled the air and the sands, turning them from grains into shards of glass.
A sea of glass raged around him just as the winds did and L’?r? felt her agbára fight for survival with her.
Whatever part of her wanted to keep it down, the guilt of Command’s death, the fear of the unknown, the panic of losing herself to this curse – all of that was nothing in the face of certain death.
She tapped into the heat in the sandstorm around her. The hot desert sands filled her core and when she breathed out, she exhaled white mist. Summoning her agbára didn’t feel like ice freezing her insides. A fiery heat burned within her, and her arms flooded with silver light.
The first time her agbára had broken free, it had been something like an out-of-body experience, watching herself do something she couldn’t understand. But at this moment, she knew exactly what she wanted to do, she only hoped to not die in the process.
She unleashed a beam of light and frost towards Tofa.
As her light passed through the glass storm coming down on her, they froze and burst into soft flakes of ice.
L’?r? channelled her agbára at Tofa again, engulfing him in a dome of ice so thick she couldn’t see his figure within.
Alawani picked up a slow pace, limping towards her.
Within moments, Tofa blasted through the dome, sending ice shards flying in all directions.
The loud crash made her jump, and Tofa was panting heavily when she turned to him.
The dome was completely gone. Around her were sharp ice splinters littered across the ground.
Behind her, Alawani was on the floor, groaning in pain.
A shard of ice stuck to his side. She gasped, and then bolted to him, her feet flying across the floor.
Angry, L’?r? growled at Tofa, and sparks kindled at her fingertips.
Her screams were drowned out by the cracks of lightning and the roaring of thunder.
All she could think about was that if she could take energy from the sands around her, she could also channel the energy from the lightning that sparked nearer with each explosion.
Until this moment, L’?r? hadn’t considered that if the stories ìyá-Idán had told her were true, and she really was born before Tofa, then she would be not just as powerful as he was but more so.
She raised her hands and shone her light into the sky.
She reached for the energy in the storm, and when the next bolt of lightning struck, she felt an explosion inside her core.
It rippled through her in an incredible wave that made the hairs on her body stand.
The energy raged inside her, and when she pointed her hands at Tofa, the shock in his eyes showed that he knew what was coming.
Sparks flew, thunder roared around them, and the crown heir was blasted out of her sight.
Even in her anger, L’?r? felt the urge to check and make sure she hadn’t killed him but instead she rushed towards Alawani.
‘No, no, no!’ She fell next to Alawani and lifted him to sit up against her body. He groaned with every move. L’?r? reached for her blades and awoke the heat energy in them by speaking the old tongue. She placed it over the shard and melted it off. Blood and water oozed from the wound.
She winced as she pressed the blade over the wound to cauterize it, and Alawani let out an animal-like growl that made her shudder.
The haze got thicker with smoke and ash and a dark overcast cloud formed all around them.
L’?r? tried to breathe through it but every breath burned.
Tears streamed down her face as she struggled to stop a fit of coughing.
‘We need to go – now!’
L’?r? turned towards the voice. ‘Rmí!’ She had never been happier to see someone in her life. Rmí pulled up beside her and dismounted the mighty war horse he’d ridden into the graveyard. ‘Alawani is hurt. We need to carry him,’ she said.
Together, they placed him across the horse, then L’?r? jumped on, and Rmí climbed behind her, firmly gripping the reins. L’?r? felt his body tense around her as he struggled to stay saddled on the horse.
‘Hold on,’ Rmí said into her ear and kicked the horse, sending them racing towards the final wall out of the kingdom of Oru.
The graveyard had stony terrain and large red rocks, which only got bigger as they rode the half-mile between them and the wall.
The wind picked up, and much of the sand got into L’?r?’s eyes as the horse raced on, but she didn’t care.
She was determined to reach that wall. Her best friend wouldn’t die, not on her watch.
One way or the other, they were leaving the kingdom.
They reached the base of the wall by some miracle and as soon as they jumped off the horse, it ran away in a frenzy, frightened by the lightning that struck the wall.
‘You came back for us?’ L’?r? said as she put Alawani to rest against the stone wall. The north wind blew from the other side of the wall so the closer they stayed to the base on this side, the less sandy it was. Just enough to keep their eyes open.
Rmí shuddered as another bolt of lightning struck the wall. He looked up and closed his fist in the air as if catching the wind. He opened it to gaze at the sand in his palm. ‘You were losing. Quite terribly too,’ he said plainly. ‘What’s the plan to get to the other side of this wall?’
L’?r? gazed at the heavy stones that formed the wall all the way up to the sky. ‘He was supposed to blast through,’ she said, looking at Alawani, leaving the rest unspoken.
‘What happened to him?’ Rmí asked.
L’?r? exhaled a deep, heavy sigh. ‘He was impaled,’ she breathed, holding back the sobs that burned in her throat.
‘Why did you take it out? You could have killed him,’ Rmí said, walking towards Alawani, who now lay flat on the ground.
‘There’s nothing you can do. He needs a healer …’ L’?r? hadn’t finished speaking when a thought crossed her mind. She did know a healer.
‘What is it?’ Rmí asked.
‘I just remembered something.’ She quickly loosened her braid and reached deep into her sand-filled hair until she found it. The vial ìyá-Idán had given her.
Alawani groaned as she emptied the contents of the vial into his mouth. Holding his head up, she forced him to swallow every last drop, ignoring the pain that hummed in her own body.
His wound began to close, and her eyes widened at the sight. The blood stopped flowing. And in a few moments, his breathing was already less laboured. A scar remained, but soon the wound was fully healed.
Rmí didn’t seem surprised in the slightest. Perhaps he had seen the effects of such a potion before. ‘We still need a way out,’ he said, squinting into the storm. ‘I can’t get caught again. Could he do it, now his wound is healed?’
‘I doubt it – he’s been fighting for ages; I don’t think he has much power left. Can you do it? Blast a hole in the wall? It’s literally the only thing between us and freedom at this point.’
Rmí shook his head. ‘No. I have no agbára oru.’
L’?r? froze. ‘What? What do you mean?’
His words sent a pang deep into her chest. She felt a tightness and seemed to hold on tighter with every breath.
Until that moment, she believed she was the only one in the entire kingdom without agbára oru.
And here, this boy was claiming the same.
She looked back at Alawani, who had regained consciousness and now sat upright against the wall.
‘I’m not from this kingdom,’ Rmí said slowly, as if cautious.
‘Are you from the north?’ she said, her words pouring out quickly.
‘From the ice mountains? òtútù?’ he scoffed. ‘Definitely not.’
‘Then who gives you life? The old gods?’
‘My gods are not of the sands and storms, nor are they your old ones. They are the ones you’ve long forgotten,’ he said as he swung his bow across his chest. ‘Why can’t you?’
L’?r? placed a trembling hand on the stone wall. Every time she used her agbára there was a risk that she’d hurt herself or someone else. Even while she tried protecting him, Alawani’s wound had still been from her agbára. ‘I don’t know,’ she said finally, unwilling to discuss her powers.
Rmí’s shoulders dropped in disappointment as he let out a sigh. ‘So we are dying today, then. I really didn’t think the storm would be the thing to take me out.’
Alawani slowly rose from the ground, leaning against the wall, but he still didn’t look at her. He pointed in the direction they had come from, ‘They’re coming!’