L’?r? trailed behind them through the hallway to the main doors, where the royal guards kept the crowd at the bottom of the stairs from breaking the barrier.
Milúà glared at her as she led Alawani to the balcony overlooking the cheering crowd. ‘We’re witnessing history today!’ she began, and the crowd quietened to hear her speak. ‘Our gods cannot lie. They see everything and have called our prince as one of the six who will go through the trials to become Àlùfáà. Today, our ?m?’ba begins his journey to the sun!’
Loud cries filled the surrounding air.
L’?r? stood behind them, watching from the shadows. She didn’t want the world to see her break, but the tears didn’t stop falling, and her lungs burned for air. She placed her hand over her mouth to muffle the sound of her sobs.
The crowd roared, and Milúà raised Alawani’s hand above their heads. ‘Send forth your prayers!’
‘May your heart burn like the sun, bright, hot, and undying!’ the crowd yelled back.
Milúà smiled at him and led him down to the heap of weapons, trinkets and jewellery that the people had brought to be blessed. ‘Your people have brought these that you might bless them with the last of your strength.’
L’?r? could feel her heart breaking inside her chest. Poking her with its sharp broken pieces, taking her breath away.
Alawani looked back to find her, but even though she could see him, she’d hidden herself too well for him to see her.
The people took hands full of sand and tossed them into the air, spraying it over themselves and everyone who stood around them. Alawani picked up a sword and held it over his head, releasing his agbára into the weapon. It turned fiery red. He raised the sword higher and yelled as it got hotter and brighter until it looked like it was in a blacksmith’s fire. The people cheered as the blade grew hot and glowed but did not melt. Then, he fell to his knees, panting and sweating intensely.
In her mind, the bloody pillar cracked at its side as though someone had taken an axe to it, chopping it down like a tree, and she flinched as the phantom pieces flew at her. L’?r? felt the urge to run to him and hold him up. But when she saw Milúà do precisely that, she remembered the temple maiden’s words.
Where he is going, his past cannot follow.
And here are the rules that bind the kingdom:
Any priest can become a High Priest
Every High Priest must become the Lord Regent
Every firstborn of a Lord Regent must be Sovereign
Every child of a Sovereign must be no one
The call for Àlùfáà is the highest honour of a man’s life and the gods’ decision is final.
8
The Sun Temple, Royal Island, Kingdom of Oru
ALAWANI
Later that night, Alawani stood quietly in a straight line with the other boys chosen to represent each ring of Oru in the stripping ceremonies. His terror rose with every breath, and he kept his eyes fixed on his feet as the temple maidens’ eerie songs filled the room. The stripping chamber was deeper within the temple’s gilded halls than Alawani had ever dared venture before.
The cold air filled his nostrils with the smell of rain, and he inhaled deeply. It didn’t rain very often, so he knew the sky wouldn’t weep that night, but still, he looked up. The hole in the dome-shaped chamber let in the moon’s warm red light. Every thirty days, the moon shed its silver glow for this reddish tinge, the same colour as the sand beneath his feet.
A few paces from him were members of the Holy Order. Each priest of the Order stood alongside his assigned maiden. The maidens wore blood-red garments similar to Milúà’s, with sheer veils covering them from head to waist like brides. He looked at Milúà and noticed hers was different. Her gown had gold-tipped sleeves that reached her heels, and she wore a gold belt across her waist – these signified she had not yet been bound to a priest. She was to bebound to him if he survived his journey – and she’d made it clear how she felt about that.
Earlier that evening, Milúà had prepared him for the ceremony.
‘I didn’t know the first stripping was tonight. I thought I’d have more time to prepare,’ he said when she broke the news.
She looked him dead in the eye. ‘You can never be prepared for a stripping ceremony. Keep your head down when you get in there, and for the love of all that burns, do not speak until spoken to.’ She fussed over him, making sure his robe was white, spotless, and perfectly arranged across his bare chest.
When he tried to ask her more about what to expect from the ceremony, she glared at him and said, ‘You have one job. Survive. That’s all you have to do. When you feel like giving up, and death feels like a way out of your suffering, remember the sound of my voice and know that if you die, I’ll find whomever you care about most in this world, and I’ll send them to you in the life beyond.’
Alawani didn’t doubt that she meant every word, but still, he had to ask, ‘Why do you care? Don’t you just get assigned to another chosen one if I die?’
She shot him a dirty look. ‘Let me make this clear. I do not want you, I do not want to be bound to you and you have no right to be here. When you climb that Red Stone and the gods see their mistake, they will burn out your core and leave you for dead. And I will be …’ She sighed. ‘Do you know what happens to a maiden whose Àlùfáà dies? I curse the day the Order asked me to be your maiden but that does nothing to change my fate now. We may not yet be bound in flesh but our lives are linked forever now. So don’t die!’
