Stabroek News Sunday

Behold the Saviour Empress in Redemptor by Jordan Ifueko

- By Nikita Blair

Last December, I had the pleasure of reviewing a gift: Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko, which sits on my bookshelf as one of the best books I have ever read, and I was happy to share it with my readers last year.

Thankfully, Ifueko herself is a gift that keeps on giving. For my final review of the year, I’m happy to cover Redemptor, the sequel to Raybearer and the final book in this brilliant debut young-adult fantasy duology. Readers be warned: this review will contain spoilers for Raybearer, so if you haven’t read it yet, do proceed with caution. If you don’t mind, come on in and behold what has arrived.

I told the abiku, “I offer you a true prize. A flavour you have never tasted, blood previously forbidden you. In exchange for permanent peace—for a treaty requiring no renewal and no more wars—I offer you the soul of a Raybearer.” I swallowed hard. “I offer the soul of an empress.”

- Tarisai’s bargain, Raybearer Chapter 33

In Raybearer, we learned that Tarisai was born and raised to fulfil her mother’s wish-curse: to kill the crown prince of Arisar – Ekundayo Kunleo – as soon as she was anointed to his council. To prepare for this, Tarisai was meticulous­ly coached to be the perfect council candidate to infiltrate the prince’s inner circle.

Tarisai foiled The Lady’s plans by using her memory manipulati­on abilities to delete her early childhood memories. After all, when she met him, she judged him unworthy of The Lady’s homicidal intentions because he was just an innocent child. The Lady eventually regained control of Tarisai, and she almost killed the Ekundayo, but once she regained control of herself, she set off to find a way to break her curse.

She learned that a purpose is more powerful than a wish and focused her energies to end the redemptor treaty between the surface and underworld. 500 years before, the founder of the Arit Empire - Enoba “The Perfect” Kunleo - made a deal with the abiku to end their assault on the surface. Every year, the empire sends 200 children to the underworld to appease the abiku. These children were originally born all over the continent, until Enoba found a way to rig the treaty, forcing all redemptor births to concentrat­e in Songland, the only non-empire nation on the continent.

After witnessing the Songlander’s despair and the abiku’s terrifying power first-hand, Tarisai vowed to make the Enoba treaty fair. Along the way, she discovered that she and The Lady are Raybearers, and that Enoba and his descendant­s have exiled female raybearers for generation­s. Armed with this knowledge, she made a new bargain with the abiku. She offered herself, an empress raybearer, to be the empire’s final redemptor. The abiku accepted her offer but demanded that she anoint the twelve vassal rulers of Aritsar as her council within two years. If she fails, the abiku will raze the continent once more; but if she succeeds, they will be banished from the surface forever.

When we see Tarisai again in Redemptor, she is busy. She must charm the twelve rulers to form her council, and work within her capacity as the empire’s High lady Judge and rule the continent alongside Ekundayo as an empress.

While she does her best to balance everything on her plate, life in the capital quickly sours. She discovers that Ekundayo and her original council siblings were not fond of her impulsive treaty reforging, nor her self-sacrificia­l intentions. Before she can work out her difference­s with them, the council is forced to split up when a new threat appears in the empire. A revolution­ary calling himself The Crocodile begins rallying the commoners of Aritsar to free themselves from noble oppression. In doing so, he also risks awakening vengeful nature spirits, and forcing the starving commoners to fight well-fed and better armed nobles. When Tarisai shows that she is sympatheti­c to the commoner’s cause, her council siblings aren’t present to defend her when she earns the ire of the nobles as well.

But worst of all are the ojiji, dark spirits that stalk Tarisai as she tries to get her work done. While they do help her in rare instances, the ojiji spend most of their time taunting her for her ideals, shaming her for being too happy when she has little victories, and demanding that she works harder and faster to get justice for the past redemptors and save the world. Little by little, the beings break Tarisai down both emotionall­y and mentally.

As her mind begins to fray, and with so much on her plate, Tarisai struggles to find balance, accept help, and come to terms with the vast and often heart-breaking Kunleo legacy. Once she overcomes these difficulti­es, she prepares to battle the forces of evil threatenin­g the empire, discoverin­g that the underworld is the best secret keeper of them all, and the surface is in more danger than she thought.

Redemptor was not quite what I was expecting. Given the set up from the last book, I thought that it would have been a road-trip kind of adventure, with Tarisai and her council siblings running, navigating sticky diplomatic situations and gathering rulers along the way. Instead, most of the story takes place in the capital, Oluwan city, where Tarisai works to anoint the twelve rulers and the Queen of Songland, all of whom never left the palace after Tarisai highjacked the Enoba treaty renewal and forged a new one.

Neverthele­ss, it was interestin­g to see how Ifueko used the vassal rulers to showcase each of the twelve realms, their cultures, and priorities. For example, we see how anxious the king of Sparti becomes because of the prolonged stay in Oluwan. He lords over sea-faring peoples, and several

Jordan Ifueko

important ship launches have been delayed by his absence. We also see regional eccentrici­ty, like the fashionabl­e king of Nyamba, whose people constantly strive to outdress each other, and who judges Tarisai on her cloth choices.

While each ruler gave us an idealistic insight into the realm, Tarisai and Ekundayo’s interactio­n with The Crocodile gives the reader glimpses at the world from a grassroots level. Together, they learn about how the legacy of the Kunleo dynasty affected the people. Increasing wealth and military power were great when defeating the abiku, but the imperial systems were not serving the people as well as they thought. Again, the pair are forced to unpack the myths of the empire’s creation, and strive to make the world fair, even when those around them want things to remain the same.

“How can you celebrate? the creature repeated, hovering closer. How can you smile and throw parties, when so many of us have died? The child Redemptors that your empire murdered will never dance or sing again. Don’t you care?

“DO MORE, Do more.” (p. 55)

it said.

Raybearer establishe­s that the underworld is a terrifying place, but Redemptor shows us why. As Tarisai prepares herself to face the underworld, she enlists the help of a redemptor survivor to help her. She goes through gruelling tests that push her willpower to the limit, all while enduring a terrifying ojiji haunting.

Watching Tarisai struggle against the ojiji was heartbreak­ing at times. While she is strong, she’s still only a seventeen-year-old and carrying the fate of an empire on her back while also juggling her political responsibi­lities. In her moments of happiness or vulnerabil­ity, the ojiji slip through, chanting invalidati­ons of her hard work at her, and isolating her from her motley family. They become a living, omnipresen­t form of burnout and anxiety that drives Tarisai past her exhaustion point.

While this was one of the unhealthie­st parts of Tarisai’s life, I loved the way Ifueko showed the steps of her recovery. She reached out for help several times. She rested. She took care of herself and gathered a support system around her, even though she had to endure her final tasks alone. But most importantl­y, she learned to stop listening to the voices telling her that she was worthless and not doing enough. From that darkness came a beautiful, pro-mental health progressio­n that served to

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