Everyone in the kingdom of Oru is born with agbára — the ability to draw magic from the sun. Everyone, that is, except Lọ́rẹ. When the gods call for her best friend’s life, the home she grew up in becomes the prison she must escape. The Holy Order sends their deadliest assassin after her, but she just might be her own worst enemy. She must choose who needs saving: her family, her kingdom or herself.
Read on for an extract from Marvellous Michael Anson’s epic fantasy novel, Firstborn of the Sun...
PROLOGUE — The Sun Temple, Royal Island, Kingdom of Oru · Mọ́rèmí
Nine blood moons and one day.
That was how long Mọrèmi hung in the balance between life and death.
The cool evening breeze sent shivers down her spine. This was the night she had feared — the one she realised with every passing moment that she was wildly unprepared for. Searing pain washed over her, she shut her eyes firmly, forcing herself to breathe through it until the intense sharp pain dulled into an ache. Thoughts of her mother raced through her mind as she lay on the floor over layers of mats and wrappers, wishing more than anything that she wasn’t miles away from home, scared and alone with only the older midwife by her feet shouting at her.
Mọrèmi glanced around the empty room. No matter how beautiful, a building was no place for a child to be born. Her child ought to be born into the ocean like she was — like her mother was, and her mother before her. At home, she’d be kneeling in the wet sands at the edge of the sea, feeling the saltwater rush in and out of her, stinging and cleansing, preparing to greet the child whose first cry would be born of the cold, born of water, born of Tutu.
Most of all, Mọrèmi could hear her mother’s voice pouring her strength into her. She needed that voice, but with every wave of contraction, it seemed farther and farther away, and a wave of heat consumed her. Her lips trembled as she cried for the mother she feared she’d never see again.
‘Calm down, Mọrèmi. I can’t hear your child’s heartbeat if you keep screaming down the temple,’ the midwife’s shrill voice cut through her thoughts.
‘Oh gods, help me, please!’ Mọrèmi prayed and lifted her gaze to the reddish-brown walls that seemed to close in on her. On them were sand portraits of the women who had given birth in that same room. Their dark eyes peered into her soul. Hundreds of them. Had they been as terrified as she was? Most importantly, had they left that room alive?
A few moments later, the midwife’s eyes locked with Mọrèmi’s, and her shoulders dropped. ‘I hear nothing.’
‘Ah! Gods forbid! Ọmọ mi ò lè kú — my child can’t die!’
‘There is nothing to be done,’ the midwife’s voice shattered through her mind. ‘You’ve lost too much blood, Mọrèmi. Let the child come out.’
The bargain was simple. Her life for her child. She was nothing without her child, so she drew a deep breath and began to chant: ‘Child of my womb, take from my blood, child of my womb, take from my life, come back to me.’ She pitched forward and cried hysterically, ‘Ọmọọ̀ mi, gba agbára à mi — my child, take my strength!’
Mọrèmi ignored the midwife. Her gods didn’t sleep at night. Her gods didn’t rise with the dawn. She reached for the darkness enclosing the room and allowed the void to fill her mind. Hands and knees on the ground, she cried out to the gods of her people: ‘Ẹ̀yin Òrìṣà àwọn bàbá babá nlá mi, ẹ má ṣe ṣe báyì sí mi — gods of my ancestors, please don’t leave me.’
Mọrèmi’s agbára ignited inside of her. The familiar warmth of her magic rose to the surface of her skin. Her pupils turned an unnatural shade of blue. No — not yet. She needed her agbára flowing into her child, not bursting out of her.
With a loud cry, Mọrèmi pushed the baby out, wet and wormlike, into the hands of the midwife crouched at her feet. She crashed to the floor and lay on her side. As soon as she caught her breath, she asked with a shaking voice, ‘Is it alive?’
Swaddling the child in a cloth, ‘It’s so cold,’ the old midwife said, shaking her head. ‘It’s a girl.’
The midwife turned to speak but froze. ‘Yo— you… your eyes!’ she stammered and stepped back. ‘You’re not from here. You’re not of the sands!’
‘Give me my daughter!’ Mọrèmi winced as she yelled, stretching her arms towards the woman. The people of Oru were utterly ignorant of powers that weren’t of their gods and were taught to fear everything not of the sands and sun, but she wasn’t going to let that keep her from her daughter.
A faint cry.
Mọrèmi felt her heart ease, the tightness in her chest releasing her as she realised what had happened. ‘I didn’t do this. You did. You warmed her with your agbára. My child lives. Your Queen is alive.’
‘Go and tell your High Priest that his daughter lives. Tell him that his firstborn is alive. Tell my husband that the Queen is born!’
The midwife grew hysterical. ‘Irọ! You lie! This thing will never be our Queen. The Holy Order will hear of the evil that runs in your blood.’
She’d seen people burnt alive for merely saying the names of the old gods, let alone possessing the blue, glowing eyes of Mọrèmi’s agbára — and as a wife of the High Priest, too. When the midwife took her first step towards the door, Mọrèmi launched at her, grabbing her by the arm. Her agbára burst out of her.
Mọrèmi stopped at the doorway, pausing to breathe. The birthing chamber was in the east wing of the temple — the birthplace of Kings and Queens. She closed her eyes, and tears formed in them again. Her daughter deserved to claim her birthright.
She raised her baby to her face, feeling the warmth of her breath, and sighed. She peeped into the next room, checking that the coast was clear. Relieved, Mọrèmi made to run, but a loud cry stopped her short. ‘It’s a boy,’ a voice said from inside the room.
Àlùfáà Àgbà swiped slowly at the space before him, moving from right to left, only stopping when the new mother called out to him and the courtyard flooded with people: ‘Àlùfáà, come and meet your King.’
Her chance was gone — the midwife would live. Mọrèmi would later think back to this moment so often that it’d drive her to the edge of madness. But now, at that moment, Mọrèmi ran as fast as she could, breaking the illusion, emerging from the cocoon of ice she’d hidden herself in, leaving behind a crash like that of falling mirrors. Never again would Mọrèmi choose restraint when death could be claimed.
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