Although it could be useful, true sight wasn’t an ability she used too often. Since everyone around her had agbára oru in varying degrees, it could be overwhelming. But as she’d grown up, she’d learned to concentrate on only one person at a time. This made hunting easy because if the gods had blessed her prey with agbára oru, she could always find them. Their agbára appeared to her in threads of gold, leading to the glowing orb in their chests. Weaker people had a soft yellow glow in their core. Stronger ones had orange, and those who could make her sweat in a fight had a pinch of red, nothing more than a dot. Those were scarce.
Milúà was grateful she had studied Alawani’s heat energy the moment she met him. His red-tinged core made himstand out among the sea of yellow threads that filled her eyes as she opened them with true sight activated. Her eyes were on fire and stung as though she’d rubbed pepper in them. The light from the hundreds of agbára threads that appeared before her was almost too much to bear. But this was the quickest way to find him.
At first, everything was too bright, like a wash of sunlight, but as it filtered out, she could see a reddish-gold thread curving left and disappearing into the distance.
Got you.
He must be close. She followed the pull she felt, racing faster as the thread started fraying and shedding its glow. Her rhino galloped beneath her, feeling her urgency as she drove her legs into its sides.
The sky was dark, and the rain had started by the time the thread Milúà followed grew fuzzy like a cloud. She slowed, patting her rhino as he eased to a walking pace. No longer able to tell which direction to travel, she jumped off the rhino and strolled around. Alawani had to have spent time in the area she was in. She didn’t know why he’d stopped in a cornfield, but – she spun around again and saw something in the distance. The thread was nothing more than a fog now, like a puff of powder dancing in the air, but it clearly went through the house a few yards from her. Milúà moved towards it immediately. She stormed into the house.
Inside the house, in a small four-cornered room, she found an older couple seated on a mat having their evening meal. They rose to their feet immediately, bowing before her in greeting. Milúà ignored them and searched the two other rooms in the house before returning to them.
‘The prince was here,’ she said in a cool steel voice.
The couple looked at each other, and Milúà assumed that meant yes.
‘Where did they go? Where are they going? Why did they stop here?’ Milúà couldn’t decide which question was most relevant, so she asked them all.
The older woman spoke first. ‘Our son was Máywá, the chosen one from this land. They brought news of his death and his à?írí and left. We know nothing else.’
Milúà sighed and sat on the mat, squeezing the rainwater from her dress onto the floor. Even her thick braids sagged and dripped, making her hair feel twice as heavy. The couple sat back down opposite her.
‘What did they tell you about your son’s death?’ Milúà said.
‘Nothing,’ the woman said hurriedly.
Milúà allowed the silence that followed to stretch on.
Then the man shifted on the mat and said, ‘They said he died on the Red Stone.’
Milúà knew mothers well enough to know they knew everything. She turned to the older woman. ‘What else did they say to you?’
The woman looked at her husband and sighed. Without taking her eyes off her husband, she said with tear-filled eyes, ‘Our son didn’t die on the Red Stone.’
The old man frowned, his lips quivered, but he remained quiet. His eyes never left his wife’s.
‘What else?’ Milúà said.
The woman closed her eyes and let the tears fall. She shook her head. ‘That’s all. They didn’t stay long.’
Thunder boomed outside the house, and the old woman winced and shuffled closer to her husband.
‘Which way did they go? Are they walking or riding? How long ago did they leave?’ Milúà asked.
The woman’s voice wasn’t as steady as before. ‘They took our horse. They left a few light beads ago. Going north, I think.’
Lightning flashed outside the window, and a cool breeze rushed into the house.
‘Do you have anything else to say?’ Milúà said quietly.
The old man didn’t seem to get her meaning, but the woman did because she propped up and stared at Milúà, eyes wide with fear.
‘But we told you everything we know,’ she said, sobbing.
‘And for that, for your son, I’ll make it quick.’
Then the man got her meaning, and he grabbed on tight to his wife’s hand.
