Women Of Steel | ✔

XXVIII

“Did you really think that you could hide from me?”

I gasp, she is standing above me, peering down at me with barely concealed disdain that it makes me flinch. I sit up and cough as I brush sand coating my body, my skin is slick with sweat and the grains of sand sticks to my body. I stumble to my feet, half wondering why the sword Remilekun grips onto isn’t halfway into my stomach.

I look up, the sky is a gloomy red and I look at Remilekun, watching me carefully. Tara is not in sight but this feels very real, I can feel the sweltering heat of the desert, I can hear my blood thrum in anger and fear but still, something still feels off.

“This is not real,” I say, although I am not sure if I say the words to myself or to this vengeful woman.

She nods, nonetheless.

“This is merely a reality that I have created, although I suppose I should have chosen a much more suitable environment for this meeting.” Remilekun tells me. A beat later, she adds, grudgingly, “It is not easy to infiltrate the mind of a god.”

It takes an even slower second for me to realize that she is talking about me. I want to laugh, it is the first time she has acknowledged me as a threat or as anything even worth acknowledging. I wonder why, she has this war dancing to the beat of her drum, she has an army and she has another that she did not even have to lift a finger for. She has beaten everyone at their own game, I realize. Then why is she here?

I raise my eyes to meet her blank gaze. There is something she must want from me.

“Do you ever wonder about fate?” She asks swiftly, I blink, taken aback by her question. Of all the things I expected her to say or do, she does none and I feel like I am losing a battle I don’t even know how to fight. When I was old enough to speak, I was handed off to a governess who taught me etiquette. While she believed that all the power in the world belonged to men and that a female royal was only meant to rule beside their male counterpart, she also liked to tell me that women are wiser than given credit for and that their power laid in the words they spoke and how they spoke those words. Wit, she called it and this meeting feels like one.

I mull over Remilekun’s question with a honesty that surprises me. My eyes sweep over her, frightened at how easily she stands still, face mould into a permanent  look of blankness. Her high arched brows remain raised and her youthful mouth is a flat line that reminds me of Tara and I curse myself for not seeing the resemblance earlier. If this is a battle of wits, I have to learn how to play fast. I recall how all my attempts at fighting back at anyone are always quick actions, like a dive into the cold ocean without thinking things through.

I try to watch for a change, a look of anger, slight shifting or anything at all.

“No.” I say, trying to sound as unaffected as she sounds. My answer is not a lie, the concept of fate is not something I wake up mulling over, neither is it the last thing I consider before laying my head to rest. In fact, I am not sure anyone I know mulls over fate, far unreachable from us.

Remilekun gives a regal jerk of her head as if pleased with my answer. “No one considers fate and neither do I.”

I am surprised by her answer, as a woman with the gift of foresight, a woman who can peek behind the curtain of time I expected her to have more belief in something considered sacred.

She stabs her sword into the sand and despite myself, I flinch. She sees this and shakes her head.

“I know what you are thinking, that as a seer, I should believe more in fate, but I do not, because I seeso many outcomes, so many threads that I realized that fate is nothing. Choices made wound these threads together to create a possible future and as powerful as I am, I can only see one future, the one most likely to happen.”Remilekun says softly.

She glances down at her clothes, plain white tunic and trousers. They look almost absurd on a woman like her and I know she is dressed to fight, to kill maybe.

“Every possible future of this war today deems me the victor, until this morning.” Remilekun says.”Now I can see nothing but darkness.”

Her words chill me and give me hope at the same time. I fear the unknown but in that unknown lies a winning chance for this world.

“Tell me, little one, when did you last glimpse your father?”

I startle but I catch the stiffening of this woman’s shoulders. She does not know either, I realize and she thinks that he must be our secret weapon or maybe she has not seen any attack from him and is scared. I remember her words about not being able to infiltrate the dreams of a god and I know she is in the dark. The last words Esu said to me when the camps burned was, “I have to find it.”

For the first time, I wonder what.

“My father’s whereabouts are none of your concern, and if I were you, Remilekun, I would be very afraid.”

I begin to wonder how much she really knows when she turns her head away. I glance at the hem of her tunic where there is a dark stain, powdery like dust but darker than sand.

“I am coming for you,” I tell her, even if she already knows.

The woman smiles a slash of a smile, it is proud and wicked.

“You would have to find me first.”

***

Tara is fast asleep when I jolt awake, she mumbles to herself and I shake her twice. She stirs and then goes back to mumbling as I stop. With growing irritation, I slap her gently on the cheek and soon regret it when she jolts and deals a hard blow to the side of my face. I swear and she looks at me, flustered.

My face throbs with pain and I ignore the urge to cry out like a baby. I ignore the voice inside that reminds me that I have no skin for fighting and no tolerance for pain and yet I am going after a woman who has years and years of preparing for her revenge. I have a plan, I force myself to remember, I just need to be smart enough to execute it.

“Time to walk,” I tell Tara plainly. She only glances at me as I stumble to my feet, cradling the skin of water to my chest.

“I cannot find my mother for you,” She deadpans. “I cannot feel her, usually, our connection is like a tether, tugging me in her direction, but as we walk, it is like that bond is gone.”

“Something has changed, Remilekun does not want us to find her anymore.” Tara finishes.

But I know where she is. The dark, powdery stain on her white tunic, not dust, ashes from the settlement she burned to the ground, she is still in the desert.

“I know where she is,” I tell Tara.

“But you don’t know how to find her,” Tara counters.

“No, but they do, listen.”

She does and the neigh of horses draw closer, carried by the wind and then closer in the distance, half hidden by the night. I expected them, but the sight of a dozen men carrying oil lamps still scare me and a future where this is the end flashes through my eyes.

“Gbo gbo ise e, wo bo se di opin nibi,” Tara tells me as Remilekun’s men seize us and force us atop a horse, their jeers in broken Ede and their lack of a Yoruba accent tells me that they are most likely from the other kingdoms. I ignore Tara’s words. I wanted a path to Remilekun and she has given me one by herself.

All I must do now is escape whatever hell we are being taken to, and hope my plan of escape is willing to help us. I remember how for many years, Demilade tried to see the good in Tadenikawo even though he never did anything to show her that he was good and I hope there is enough of that good in Arewa.

*****

I wrote this chapter in less than one hour, I just finished a few minutes ago and decided that you guys deserve to have it. Hope it doesn't suck too much.