‘No. Captain Méjìlá is Twelve of Twelve. He is the LordGeneral’s right hand, loyal to the crown heir, and he will never accept your claim. And no one has seen his partner, Mkànlá, in too many first suns to count,’ Márùn said firmly.
A dot of sunlight cracked through the sky.
‘Start climbing,’ Márùn said, straddling her horse. ‘May your heart burn like the sun, bright, hot, and undying, Queen of Oru.’
Then she was gone.
L’?r? reached the top first. She climbed onto the roof and realized that it was so vast that calling what they had climbed a wall felt too insignificant. Behind her, she heard the rope slip from the hook it was tied to and rushed to stop it from falling. She held on with all her might. ‘Alawani, climb faster! I can’t hold on.’
She strained as the rope burned her palms, slipping further down.
‘L’?r?!’ Alawani shouted from below. ‘L’?r?!’
L’?r? bent over and reached for him. ‘Closer, Alawani, I can’t reach you. Grab my hand!’
The last of the rope slipped from her hands, and she felt the world slow around her. In the time it took her heart to beat once she saw him falling into oblivion, the darkness consuming him.
‘L’?r?, help me up!’ Alawani shouted, pulling her back to consciousness. Hanging off the side of the wall, he groaned as he struggled to hold on. Her ears rang with blood, and her entire body strained against Alawani’s weight as she tried to lift his body over the wall. She could feel his weak grip as he held on to her with one hand. The stripping he endured was causing him to lose more and more of his strength with every passing day. Her hands were slick with sweat, and he was slipping again. She leaned over the wall, inching closer to her fall as she tried to pull him in.
‘L’?r?, let me go!’ Alawani said. ‘You’re going to fall over!’
‘No!’ L’?r? shouted, gasping as her body started to spasm as she struggled to keep her feet grounded. ‘I can do it. Come on, climb!’ She couldn’t hold him. She couldn’t pull him in. She was falling. He was falling. They would die.
Suddenly, someone ran to join her on the wall top. She hadn’t even heard the footsteps. The stranger leaned over and helped her pull Alawani onto the battlement. They all fell flat on the floor, heaving and gasping for air. L’?r? crawled over to Alawani, who was hunched over, holding his arms. She froze as the sharp edge of a blade dug into her side.
‘Turn around. Slowly,’ said the stranger.
The man wore a uniform different from any L’?r? had seen before. The black leather outfit was layered, making it look like it had serpent scales etched into its design. He wore a squared helm with a rounded face guard reaching just below the eyes, with two openings for his brown eyes.
L’?r? held her hands up in surrender as the soldier now pressed the knife to her neck. Alawani stood next to her holding his hands up as well.
‘Please, we mean no harm,’ L’?r? said softly.
‘Who are you?’ the soldier asked in a baritone voice.
By this time, dawn had broken, and it was significantly lighter on the wall top, and with that came sounds of chatter from the levels below.
‘We are just trying to get out of the kingdom,’ Alawani said, hands still up. ‘Let us go and you’ll never see us again.’
The soldier scoffed, ‘There’s no getting out of Oru without permission. The graveyard will be your resting place if you dare to try.’ But despite his words, his expression was curious.
‘Then it doesn’t matter if you let us go,’ L’?r? said.
‘You won’t be able to get out,’ the soldier said flatly.
‘We have a plan,’ L’?r? said. ‘No one has to know you let us go.’
The soldier tossed a pair of handcuffs to Alawani, continuing to hold a knife to L’?r?’s throat. ‘Put those on. And don’t try to escape; the old magic in these cuffs will turn your agbára against you and you will burn.’
As a second pair of cuffs closed around L’?r?’s wrists and the guard manoeuvred them both towards a set of stairs, she realized their journey was far from over.
As agbára oru flooded the hearts and cores of the people their hands glowed bright like the sun and without having to speak the old tongue they had the powers of the sun at their fingertips.
The celebrations on the day of the First Sun lasted an entire blood moon, for whatever darkness loomed beyond the ocean the light of agbára would extinguish.
37
Ìlú-Òdì, Sixth Ring, Kingdom of Oru
