‘The Lord General won’t make any deals with you,’ Ìyá-Idán said. ‘So your job is to not get caught. The sixth ring also has the highest number of guards and soldiers in the kingdom since it’s the first ring that any invaders would encounter when entering Oru. With Márùn you will get far, but there’s a sparse mile-long stretch of land called the graveyard. The graveyard sits between the last fortress in Ìlú-Òdì and the border wall leading out of Oru. It’s heavily guarded and littered with the bodies of people who try to enter or leave this kingdom without the crown’s permission. That is where this comes in,’ she said, picking up the hourglass.
She turned it upside down, and the sand still flowed in the other direction, flowing upwards. Ìyá-Idán carefully placed it before L’?r?. ‘There’s a sandstorm that rages through theouter rings not protected by the magic barrier. It comes without warning and is as spontaneous as the will of the gods. But I’ve enchanted this hourglass to predict it. When the sand runs out, the next storm will reach the outer ring. The soldiers will go underground to protect themselves from the hailstorm that follows, so that’s your chance to run. Keep running until you find somewhere to hide in the caves beyond the wall. The storm will build slowly, from heavy winds to sandstorms then hail. Don’t be caught in the storm in its peak. You won’t survive that either.’
L’?r? felt as though she should’ve been writing notes as the woman spoke instead of staring endlessly at the magical hourglass that dripped sand before her. No matter which way Ìyá-Idán held it, the sand always trickled slowly in the same direction. There was just about a quarter of sand left in the upper chamber. ‘How much time do we have?’ she asked, finally considering that Ìyá-Idán might have been right about what Baba-Ìtàn would have wanted, and that if there were truly a relatively safe path for her to freedom, maybe she ought to take it.
‘Two days,’ Ìyá-Idán said, pointing to a series of delicate marks in the side of the glass. ‘See these markings? Each one represents half a day. You should go as soon as you can to catch this storm – the next one may be too late.’
For the first time since she had left home, it felt like a path out of the kingdom had been carved for her. She closed her eyes and remembered her father’s words, urging her to keep going no matter what happened. No matter what she heard or saw. He wanted her to keep going north until she found her mother’s people. Her people. Tears filled her eyes. Her heart ached in her chest, throbbing without rhythm.
Ìyá-Idán brought two bead bracelets from the box. One was a time band similar to the one L’?r? wore. But where hertime beads were red and gold, these ones were obsidian and white. The first row was all black with a single white bead and the second row was all white with a single black bead. ‘This belonged to your mother. Everything in this box did.’ She paused and closed the box.
L’?r? couldn’t take her eyes off the beads as Ìyá-Idán placed them in her hand. She slipped the beads on her wrist onto the table and replaced them with the ones Ìyá-Idán had given her. Immediately, all the beads glowed. The white ones glowed like the moon, the dark ones looked like a starless night.
‘The obsidian beads will help you walk through time,’ Ìyá-Idán said. ‘I think the white ones are time beads that your people use.’
L’?r? couldn’t believe her eyes. Time beads that worked without agbára oru, words or spells. Her hands trembled as she stared at the lights until they dimmed. Only one bead glowed. Four to noon. She looked around the table, glancing from Alawani to Márùn, who gave her a firm nod and the hint of a smile. Then her gaze settled back on Ìyá-Idán and the beads. ‘She – my … my mother? How? When?’ L’?r? didn’t know what questions to ask, but she wanted to ask them all. Her words just refused to be coherent, and she kept asking, ‘How?’
Ìyá-Idán sighed. ‘I wish ?niìtàn had told you the truth. I wish I didn’t have to be the one to sit here and break your heart, dear child.’
‘I thought you hated my mother?’
Ìyá-Idán gave a subtle nod, her lips lifting slightly in a sombre smile. ‘Mremí was my best friend, my sister. I loved her once. But like everyone else in her life, I was a means to an end.’ She stared L’?r? in the eyes. ‘You’ve been running blind, and it’s time for you to know the truth.’ She brought out a small scroll from inside the box. ‘Many years ago, whenwe were just girls, the woman who built this house – the Ìyá-Idán before me – created this spell for your mother when she needed to return home. She never got to use it.’
L’?r? opened the scroll. It was written in a dialect she could not read. ‘I don’t understand the words. What is this for?’
‘I’ll teach it to you. You’ll need to learn the words and commit them to memory. Pronounce them exactly as you hear them. The scroll activates the obsidian beads, but it cannot leave this house. The spell and the beads will quicken your steps and hasten your journey. Whenever you say the words, your every step will be like a hundred steps, and a week’s journey on foot will only take you half a day.’
L’?r? tried to take in what Ìyá-Idán was saying. The hourglass before her kept pulling her attention, the slow dripping of sand making her stomach churn. They were already running out of time.
‘What’s the price?’ Alawani asked Ìyá-Idán. ‘Old magic always comes at a price – so what is it?’
The woman eyed him, her mouth set in a tight line, then turned to L’?r?. ‘Time cannot be cheated. This is only a loophole. If you use this, your physical body will get you where you need to be. But your dream self will walk that entire journey. Every time you close your eyes to sleep, you will walk back all the steps you stole from time, and you won’t rest until all the steps are accounted for in the spirit realm. You can go about your day as you wish, but until your steps are collected, every sleeping moment is where you repay the debt you owe time. You will wake with the exhaustion from covering back your distance, so whatever you do, best not to use this when going to battle because you will wake even more tired than before you lay down to sleep – until your debt to time is repaid.’ She added quickly, ‘This will only work for one person at a time.’
‘That’s terrible magic,’ Alawani replied.
L’?r? watched as the two of them glared at each other. Alawani was wary of old magic. She’d have felt the same way if it wasn’t the only thing that had kept her alive her entire life.
‘There’s more you need to know,’ Ìyá-Idán said as L’?r? studied the words on the scroll. ‘When I was young, I was betrothed to my life’s greatest love – your Baba-Ìtàn. And just like your prince here, when the gods came calling, he welcomed them with open arms. It was his duty, he would say then. It broke my heart. I lost the will to live. This man I had built my whole world around chose death over me. And even if he didn’t die, you know the responsibilities of the priest. He would be forbidden to marry anyone. And if by some grace he survived and was chosen as High Priest, he would be duty-bound to his maiden. Inseparably joined in body and spirit.’ She darted a glance at Alawani. ‘He would also have to go through the marriage ceremonies. He would marry a wife from each state, bed them and sire the next heir of our kingdom. It was all too much for me. The thought of all those women being with the man I loved – I could not handle it. Even after his duties, even if he had become regent and then handed the crown over to his child, even then, the gods would never let him go. He would never again be mine.’
L’?r? felt her heart pounding, the tightness constricting her chest with each beat. As she listened to Ìyá-Idán, it was like hearing someone speak her worst fears. This was a glimpse of what her future would be like – or would have been like if she’d not saved Alawani from the Sun Temple. The woman’s reddened eyes made L’?r?’s heart ache. Of all the people in her life, even Alawani, only Ìyá-Idán seemed to know what L’?r? felt on the inside. What she’d felt since the moment she saw Alawani bowing before the fire, praying to the gods and accepting their call.
‘So I ran away from home. I ran here, and this is where I met your mother for the first time. We lived together in that room for six blood moons.’ She pointed to L’?r?’s room. ‘This is where we learned the magic of the old gods. Then one day, she volunteered to be one of the handmaidens who lived in the temple and taught the priests the magic of Ìlú-Idán. At the time, all we knew was that she desperately wanted to get close to the priests of the Order. My Ìyá-Idán was furious and forbade it, but your mother was relentless. You have the same look in your eyes that she did the day she left. By then, ?niìtàn was already a priest in the temple, so I sent her to him. I wrote to him, asking him to protect her and keep her safe.’ She laughed wickedly. ‘That was my greatest mistake.’
‘What happened?’ L’?r? asked slowly when Ìyá-Idán’s silence stretched.
‘So many things happened in this kingdom the night the king died. Some are still a mystery to me. The king died at sunset, and by midnight a new High Priest was chosen. In the few light beads between the death and the announcement, the state leaders cast their lots and pitched their daughters to be the wives of whoever would be chosen. There’s no moment more chaotic in our land than when a king dies. Those moments before a leader is crowned are as sensitive as the moment a child’s head crowns in labour. I received a message from my father that evening to say I’d been chosen as the bride to represent Ìlú-Ìm, the second ring, where I was born.’ Ìyá-Idán paused, then explained, ‘My father was a high-ranking member of the scholar’s guild in Ìlú-Ìm. My mother was from here in Ìlú-Idán. My father’s order was easy to follow because I hoped that if the gods willed it and the odds fell in my favour, ?niìtàn, who was already an Àlùfáà representing the second ring, would be chosen as High Priest,and we’d get to be together. I knew I would have to share him, but I didn’t care anymore. I just wanted him. But when morning came, the night after the king’s death, Àlùfáà Babátúndé was announced as the High Priest, and ?niìtàn was nowhere to be found.’
Ìyá-Idán paused again, and stared blankly at the box before her, lost in thought. Of all the stories Baba-Ìtàn had told L’?r? in her lifetime – hundreds of stories and tales, old and new – this was the one she’d have killed to hear.
‘Ìyá-Idán,’ L’?r? probed quietly, reaching for the woman’s hands.
That shocked her back to life, and she let out a deep breath. ‘Hmnn … I never thought I would tell this story again.’
‘Please, I need to know,’ L’?r? replied.
Ìyá-Idán nodded silently, and continued. ‘Sometime between the king’s death and my wedding to the new High Priest, I learned ?niìtàn had broken his oath and returned home. Whatever heartbreak I thought I felt when he accepted the call was nothing compared to the shattering feeling of betrayal when he left. Something made him leave the Order, and it wasn’t for me that he left. It couldn’t have been; he didn’t even tell me before he did. He just left, and I was trapped. I had no choice but to marry the chosen High Priest.’
‘You married the Lord Regent?’ L’?r? blurted out.
