Baba-Ìtàn ran his hand through his greying hair. ‘That’s why this happened. I put a protection spell on it. Your agbára forced itself out once the necklace was gone.’
‘It felt like lava on my skin! I thought it was going to kill me.’
‘It couldn’t have killed you. The necklace was to protect you, L’?r?!’
‘She was still wearing the necklace when she became invisible. She took it off after she reappeared,’ Kyà said, his voice nearly a whisper as he stared at L’?r?.
Baba-Ìtàn’s eyes widened even further. ‘You turned invisiblebeforeyou took it off?’
‘But whatever she did, it wasn’t agbára,’ Kyà said. L’?r? hated the note of fear in his voice.
‘No, it wasn’t agbára oru,’ Baba-Ìtàn said, then turned to Kyà and Alawani. ‘Go to L’?r?’s room, pack what you can. Take only what can fit in a single bag. Do not return until I call for you.’
‘What about the Order?’ Kyà said. ‘There’s a growing number of guards in the city. We barely escaped in time.’
Baba-Ìtàn shook his head. ‘They won’t risk a public chase and capture. They know better than to do anything to expose things they want to keep hidden. To do so is to risk the people of this kingdom learning about your powers or that their prince was taken from their temple. It’s much harder to explain your kind of agbára to the people.’ He sighed bitterly. ‘They’ll come quietly.’
Alawani shot one last glance at L’?r?, a hand across his chest. Telling her that was where she was. In his heart, always. She gave a slight nod, and he walked out of the room. Until that night, she’d never had a reason to doubt this. Butsomething had shifted. He’d left. He’d sworn to her, sealed his vow in blood and left. Even now, miles from the Sun Temple, it still loomed between them.
Baba-Ìtàn placed his palms in hers, and L’?r? pulled her hands back to her sides. ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’
‘You won’t. Do you feel anything now?’ Baba-Ìtàn asked.
L’?r? shook her head.
He stretched out his hands to her. ‘You can touch me, you won’t hurt me.’
L’?r? reached for his hands, and he flinched at how cold they were but held on and squeezed. She looked into her father’s eyes, and tears welled up in hers.
‘What am I, Bàbá?’ L’?r? asked with soft sobs.
‘You’re my child,’ Baba-Ìtàn said, taking his hand from hers and wiping the tears from her face. ‘A child of Oru,’ he said, squeezing her hands tighter. ‘This is a gift, not a curse. You don’t need to be afraid.’
His words told her to be brave, but the way his deep voice gave way, exposing the well of pain he must be feeling, made L’?r?’s heart break. She’d completely ruined the life they had together. She might have resented their solitary life, being stuck in their house for days on end, hiding from the world that hated them. Now, all she wanted to do was shut the door and never leave. She’d do anything for the life she’d desperately tried to run from.
L’?r? held her father’s gaze. ‘Bàbá, Iamscared. What’s happening to me?’
Baba-Ìtàn let out a deep sigh. His hundredth since she had walked in through the door that morning. His brows furrowed, and he whispered words in a dialect she didn’t understand. Then he said, ‘I will tell you the history you don’t know. You got these powers from your mother.’
‘My mother? But she was a maiden of the Sun Temple.She was a child of the sun. How could she pass on powers she didn’t have?’
‘I need you to be quiet, L’?r?, and listen to what I’m saying.’ He paused and raised an eyebrow, waiting for her acknowledgement. She nodded, and he continued, ‘You know the history of our kingdom as I’ve told you, the origin of our agbára, the first High Priest and the king who built this kingdom. But there are parts I’ve left out. The parts the storyteller oath binds us from speaking of, the part that demands to be forgotten.Yourhistory. In the days of the First Sun all those years ago, after the High Priest Àlùfáà Àkanní, the first Àlùfáà, blessed the people with this agbára, something unexpected happened. The gods played a fickle game with us, and this was perhaps the cruellest of them all. While almost everyone in the kingdom could summon the powers of the sun – agbára oru – a few others had what we now know as agbára òtútù.’
‘Agbára òtútù?’ L’?r? asked.
‘These people were different,’ Baba-Ìtàn continued. ‘The story doesn’t say why this happened or how, but these few couldn’t summon the sun; instead, they could bring forth ice, and some could vanish into shadows like the sun in the night sky. The Holy Order grew afraid of them and made the choice to remove them from this earth, remove their stories from our history, and cleanse them from existence.’
‘They killed them all?’
‘Not all,’ Baba-Ìtàn said. ‘Your mother wasn’t a temple maiden of Oru. She had served as a handmaiden in the Sun Temple for a while; that was where I met her. But no, she was not of this land at all. She was a descendant of those people, and through her, you got these powers.’
L’?r? turned on him, ‘You knew all this time who and what I was, and you let me grow up thinking something waswrong with me, feeling even more like an outcast everywhere I went? You used that necklace to trap my powers? How could you?’
Baba-Ìtàn struggled to his feet. In her anger, she still helped him to get off the floor. ‘Listen to me, L’?r?, there is no time to be angry – now is the time to listen. I wish I had more time to tell you everything about your people, your mother, your true home –’
‘What home? My mother died because she was –’ Realization hit her, and she stopped. ‘The Holy Order didn’t only kill her for having me, did they? They killed her because she had this agbára,’ L’?r? asked with her arms outstretched.
‘I couldn’t tell you the truth about her because it would have gotten you killed. Protecting you has been my life’s mission. I failed to protect your mother and won’t make the same mistake twice. You’re my priority. You’re more important than anything else. When your mother placed you in my hands, I swore to her to keep you safe. She didn’t want you to use these powers. She put that necklace around your neck, keeping your agbára hidden and her child safe.’
