Oyo Moba, Day of Departure
It began before dawn.
The moon still hung in the sky, low and crimson, like it, too, had been weeping through the night.
The wind carried the scent of burning sage, camwood, crushed kola, and palm oil. The entire palace compound was alive—not with chaos, but with reverent stillness.
The day had come.
The day the Omoaanre would leave her motherland.
The day the Promise would walk into the prophecy.
The day I, Princess Yétùndé Morounkeji, born under the blood moon, would step from Oyo Moba and cross into a destiny older than kings.
They washed my body in river water brought from Osun herself—two hundred and one calabashes of it.
Seven women in white, bare-footed and veiled, sang my oríkì in low harmony as they bathed me. The water was cold, but their voices were warm. Familiar.
"Yétùndé, ọmọ aláàfin, ọmọ orò, ọmọ ajé, ọmọ èrìndílógún…"
As they poured the final calabash over my head, a dove flew into the sky.
That was the sign.
The gods had accepted the farewell.
I was dressed in coral silk from Ife, my body adorned in gold, red rubies, and waist beads charmed by the high priestess herself.
My head was wrapped in a gele spun with silver thread said to repel betrayal.
My feet, as always, never touched the ground.
Instead, I was carried—on a platform of ivory and leopard skin, held up by six palace warriors who hadn't smiled in a decade. Their faces were painted in ash. Their eyes never blinked.
I looked like a bride.
I felt like a sacrifice.
All of Oyo Moba gathered that day. People pressed their foreheads to the ground as I passed. The palace drummers played a rhythm older than time—the Farewell to the Moon Daughter.
The wives of the king followed behind me, singing songs of honor, mourning, and hope. Their voices quivered. Not just from sadness.
But fear.
They knew the stories.
The Omoaanre always left.
But not all returned.
---
We stopped at the Great Stone of Oranyan, the place where kings whisper to gods.
There, Baba Olóyè, the high priest, circled me three times and placed seven cowries into my palm.
"Speak your heart into the earth, Yétùndé. Let your spirit bow before it leaves."
I knelt on the velvet mat placed just for me and pressed my forehead to the earth, trembling.
"I do not know the land I go to," I whispered, "but I carry this one within me."
"Let my ancestors go with me. Let my name never dry up. Let me return, even if as fire."
The cowries flew from my hands and landed in a perfect crescent moon shape.
The gods had answered.
---
As the carriage was prepared to carry me to the border, he appeared.
My father.
The Aláàfin himself.
Clothed in full royal regalia—white agbada embroidered with gold suns, coral crown heavy on his head, his face unreadable.
He dismissed everyone with a single wave.
Only I remained.
And him.
He stepped close. For the first time in years, he held my hand.
"Yétùndé, ọmọ mi…"
"Yes, Baba?"
"You are not leaving us. You are fulfilling us."
He was not just my father.
He was the keeper of the prophecy.
"I called you 'Promise' because your life was written before your breath, when I first saw you I was displease, because I wanted a male child " he said, brushing a tear from my cheek. " But I know you're not like my other children."
"The man you are going to meet—he is not worthy of you. But your spirit will make him so."
"And when the world burns… may it burn in your name."
Then he did something no one had ever seen.
The Aláàfin bowed.
To me.
---
The crowd sang as I was lifted into the golden carriage. Tani was already crying, hiding her tears in my lap.
The palace gates opened.
And for the first time in my life, I saw the road.
Real dust. Real sunlight.
The kind of freedom people pray for.
I did not cry.
I held my chin high.
I was not just a princess anymore.
I was the bridge between worlds.
Leaving Oyo-Moba was like walking out of my own skin.
The scent of roasted plantain and incense faded behind me. The rhythm of talking drums was replaced by the unsettling silence of foreign terrain. The heat I had always known—the sticky, sun-kissed kind that made your skin glow—was gone by the second week of our journey.
Instead, there was wind.
Mean, disrespectful wind that sliced through layers of silk and honor like it had a personal vendetta.
---
We traveled by litter, then by river barge, by sea, then finally by horse-drawn carriages that smelled like damp leather and old politics. Each change in transport came with a new rule, a new set of silent stares, and a new insult disguised as "diplomatic courtesy."
At every border, I and my maid_Tani was looked at—not like royalty, but like a curiosity.
"The exotic bride," one whisper said.
"She's darker than I thought," said another.
"Do you think she understands Lioran customs?"
"Does she even speak properly?"
"Will she try to hex him?"
I pretended not to hear. My spine stayed straight. My earrings swayed like they had their own pride.
Let them stare. Let them wonder.
The gods who walk with me don't need translation.
---
By the time we reached Saint Liora, my lips had cracked, my nose had frozen, and I was ready to fight the next person who offered me cold cheese as a snack.
And Tani looked worse, scared and nervous. Silently hoping we could get there faster or just go back to the familiar heat.
"We've arrived," the carriage driver announced in a bored tone, as if I hadn't just left behind an entire life.
The city rose ahead—tall spires piercing a grey sky, streets slick with ice, people wrapped in more fur than dignity. Everything was… muted. As if color itself had decided this land wasn't worth the effort.
Even the palace was pale. Ivory stone. Silver gates. No music, no welcome drums. Just silence and snowflakes.
I missed the sun immediately.
---
My First Fall (Literally). They told me Saint Liora was "temperate."
A gentle climate. Mild, they said.
Liars. All of them.
The moment we crossed into Lioran territory, I stopped feeling my nose. And by the time we reached the capital, my bones were negotiating a labor strike.
"This isn't weather," I muttered. "This is witchcraft."
Wrapped in ten layers of fur and irritation.
The moment I stepped out of the carriage, I slipped.
Gracefully, I should add. Like a queen toppling in slow motion.
Before I hit the ground, a hand caught me—gloved, firm, and colder than the wind.
"Careful, Princess," came the voice.
"We don't want you broken before the wedding."
I looked up into blue-gray eyes. Cold, unreadable. The kind of eyes that had seen too much—or just didn't care to see anything anymore.
This was him.
Lord Marcus Valerian.
My husband-to-be.
He looked exactly like the brooding male lead in a tragic romance novel. Tall. Pale. Handsome. Perfectly sculpted frown. The kind of face that could command armies… or ruin brunch.
"You're taller than I expected," I said.
"You're… smaller," he replied.
He looked like a man carved out of winter. Tall, pale, with sharp cheekbones and a face built for disapproval. His cloak was lined with black fur, and his boots were polished enough to see my future (which, at the moment, looked icy and joyless).
"You're… steadier than you look," I managed.
"You're lighter than expected," he said.
"That's a strange way to call someone small."
"Is it?"
"We're going to get along so well," I said, deadpan.
---