Women Of Steel | ✔

XLV

I jolt awake, my body soaked in sweat and my throat hoarse with screaming. I blink slowly, as my eyes focus on the dying fire in front of me. Omolara lies across me, still fast asleep and snoring. My brown horse nuzzles me, peering into my face, I push myself away from its warmth.

Sleep has never come easy for me, if I could do away with it then I would have, it is a case of losing control too. Now, I fear falling asleep because of what I see, I dread nightfall and the moon above and I hate that I cannot fight it.

I sit still, the sorrowful tune of the flute wafting to my ear and drawing me like a beacon of light. I sit and listen for a moment before standing and walking deeper into the forest, stumbling blindly in the dark.

The prince sits atop a rock in a clearing as the moon shines down, painting him ethereal. I had wondered once if he missed playing the flute, and days ago, he got another from the Igbo kingdom. Tobiloba is a different person while he plays, his fingers moving with precision, in an absentminded grace, eyes shut and features relaxed in an expression of bliss. The scheming and frowning face is gone now, this Tobiloba, I like.

The music stops the moment I settle on the ground to listen, my lips turn down in a frown of irritation and my eyes fix on him, but he is staring at me already.

"Another nightmare?" He asks.

"I have no wish to speak of it." I say, the void in me returns and the sinking weight of guilt dawns upon, never quite leaving only fading to the background sometimes.

"You never speak of yourself, you only tell what you think might benefit you, only scratching the surface and never going deep." He muses, his hair is longer now, and strangely curly, our hair is almost never curly but thick mane of black hair that is hard to tame into a braid and the rare cases of dreadlocks. "Sade knew a different version of who you are, and I know a version you have let me believe. It is hard not to wonder who the real you is."

My heart skips at the mention of Sade and I open my mouth to rebuke him for speaking her name but I shut it. "The monster I am is something that no mortal should know of. Someone like me should not exist."

The father of my future child is a naive man, still radiating the warmth of his mother. "I don't believe you are a monster."

I don't laugh, I don't smile that he thinks so highly of me because I know he is deluded. "Have you ever seen an apple before, perhaps red and shiny, juicy looking even but you bite into it and it's inside is rotten to the core," I say, shifting to the side, sore and stiff from horse riding. "I am what they call a nightmare wrapped in warm silk as a daydream."

"I don't believe you are a monster." He repeats.

This time, I do laugh, condescendingly and harshly.

"When I was seven, I broke the wrist of a playmate who called my brother a bastard, my mother applauded me. By eleven, I was setting fire to farms of people who spoke ill of my family," I say. "When I was fifteen, the village knew not to mess with me, I had no friends only my family and the night I knew of my betrothal to the king, I razed his poultry farm to the ground, he never found out it was me but three men were banished for my deeds, three men and their families paid for my sin."

I look him in the eye while saying it. "The night I saved Sade from three men who tried to rape her, I went back to their houses and crushed their groins with a hammer."

"Don't be foolish and say I am not a monster, because I am and I am far from sorry. I will continue to wreak havoc on anyone that stands in my path."

Tobiloba's eyes bulge in wide surprise and I almost laugh again at his face, it is then I decide that I will not tell him about the child I carry, the child he fathered. Tobiloba is a soft man, still viewing the world in black and white and such a man has no place by my side or in my life, let him go back to his mother and preach of good and evil.

***

By afternoon the next day, we arrive in Ile Wura and I almost feel pity for my people, the river is a light red colour and the crops are withered and dead but my people still toil under the unforgiving heat of the sun. It is the idling children that notice me first and soon, fingers begin to point at me and wild murmurs rise in the air.

"Oloori ti de!"

"Eshe Eledumare!"

"Iya wa ti pari. . ."

I listen to their cries of thanks and hope go up in the air like an offering to the gods, some of them raise their expectant gaze at me, half expecting me to perform a miracle and heal their damned lives. But none of them follow me, they don't chase after my horse in jubilation like they would do to a returning hero because no matte who sudden and strangely they have begun to think of me as their savior, they still fear me, they still gaze up at me and hide their children in fear that I will scatter whatever rubbles is left of their lives.

The palace is no different from when I left, the fire is long out but it continues to burn, the missing buildings are yet to be restored, except for a few builders that loiter around the throne building. I doubt they will restore it to it's former glory. The guards at the gate shift on their foot as they bow clumsily.

I cast a glance at Omolara who watches with wistfulness, even the princess knows that things will never be the same. I hide my surprise as I see Tara step out of the same chambers that were once mine, a small smile graces her lips as she stares at me, a different Demilade would have smiled back, I don't even notice Ifatunji by her side, only the seven wrinkled men that step out simultaneously out of the war room and line themselves before me like a formation in battle.

The kingmakers.

My heart jolts, they are here for me.

"Demilade, omo Adegboyega. Ekabo."

Welcome home.