Chapter One Lettle #3
He was an adequate cook, though his repertoire was limited and even Lettle had taken to experimenting with new recipes–much to Alder’s chagrin, when she nearly killed them all with poisonous mushrooms.
‘They looked like greycaps,’ she huffed.
‘Greycaps don’t grow this far east,’ Alder said as he threw the stew into a bush. ‘Check with me before you cook again.’
So she didn’t cook again.
‘We have about an hour until it snows,’ Alder said, bringing her back to the present.
Farhan trotted up to them. ‘We’re stopping here for the night?’
‘Yes, though I think we’ll need to build a shelter,’ Alder said.
Lettle nodded and got to work collecting branches and logs. Farhan had to be prompted to begin weaving the roof–despite it being the hundredth time they’d done this–but he soon got to work, his long fingers moving deftly.
Soon they had built a lean-to at the base of a large oak tree.
Lettle took the first watch as she always did.
Alder was prohibited from taking watch because of his tendency to sleepwalk, which meant Farhan and Lettle had survived on very little sleep over the last few months.
If Alder began to speak, Lettle would wake up Farhan and he would in turn wake up his obeah.
The translated words would make it into her prophecy journal which she pored over every night.
Not that there was much to be gleaned from his talking, which seemed to mostly be riddles:
‘The curse will end when freedom is spoken.’
‘A meadow in a cave is what I call home.’
‘The obeah will guide your path.’
At first she had put significant stock in the phrases, trying to parse them like a prophecy. One day she’d even insisted they follow Shera, but the obeah just kept returning to a plum tree, so she’d abandoned that suggestion. Alder was not a god, he was not the Fates, he was simply a man lost.
Besides, I spend enough time trying to dissect prophecies without spending even more on Alder’s gibberish, she thought.
Every night, once the two men were asleep, she would gently remove her prophecy talismans from the pouch at her waist. The wood, made from the Tree of Souls in Mosima, was imbued with the same power as obeah.
But instead of reading their entrails, and killing a fae, Lettle could simply throw the talismans.
Under the light of the moon, she would cast her tokens out and ask the same question: How do I avoid killing Rayan?
The Fates sometimes answered, but like the gods themselves, they were flighty things and told her what they chose.
Sometimes the foretelling benefitted their journey, like a warning about flash floods.
But most of the time the prophecies were obscure and unhelpful to her–or to Rayan–and so she would record them in her journal and await clarity.
But still she tried. Every single night.
Tonight, the talismans clacked against the frozen ground at the shelter’s opening.
She looked behind her to see if the noise had woken Alder or Farhan, but neither turned to the sound. Even Shera lay content, tucked up against Farhan’s back.
Lettle drew her furs tighter around her as a snow squall swirled around her, obscuring the mountainous landscape.
She couldn’t see a thing, but she didn’t need her vision to read the Fates, only magesight.
Though it wasn’t reading, not really. It was more complex than that.
Each pearl of silver magic, each curl of fallen moonlight, denoted a different meaning.
Once she was satisfied with her reading, she drew out her journal and wrote it down.
You will fall once, twice, thrice. Then fall again. Each will be greater than before. The last will reap rewards.
Lettle wanted to strike her head on the hard ground in frustration.
‘What does this even mean?’ she whispered to herself.
Her blood went cold with fear. What if it means I’m to fall in love again?
She shook her head, snowflakes melting like tears on her cheeks–or was she crying?
I could not love again. If I cannot be loved by Rayan, then I choose no one.
She clutched the journal to her chest for a few minutes, imagining that instead of its pages she held Rayan. Only when that mirage became too painful to bear did she continue on to her next routine of the night–Afa’s grimoire.
She’d been painstakingly translating what she could of Afa’s writings from the fragments of Alder’s sleep talking. She didn’t have a lot, and most of it was missing words–but there was one complete sentence that she had returned to time and time again.
What I did was for the sake of humanity. Remember that in the end.
‘What did you do, Afa?’ she murmured, her breath steaming in the cold air. The night answered, sending another gust of snow towards her, leaving her cheeks stinging.
Then all of a sudden, the air was still. Even the animals were silent. Lettle held her breath, scared to interrupt the silence. She began to shiver, not from the cold, but from some deep instinct within her that told her: someone is watching.
‘Hello?’ she called out.
But then the moment passed and she hugged her knees to her chest, knowing that the only person who could ever answer her was long dead.