Chapter Six Lettle #2
Alder on the other hand wore something a little different.
Just as lovingly preserved, but from a different place entirely.
Made from naghla leaves, a palm-like frond native to Mosima, it was overly adorned with chains and charms in gold and silver.
An opulent item that looked entirely out of character on Alder, who rarely wore shoes, let alone jewellery.
Lettle knew it was Golan’s make-up bag, and it made her grin every time she looked at it. Even now, during the blizzard, it brought a smile to her face.
Her gaze was tugged to the left as she thought she saw something move in her peripheral vision, and not for the first time she felt as though someone was watching her. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.
She hated snow, how it fell silently, leaving a hush across the landscape. The silence meant she had only her thoughts to listen to.
‘Is it downhill all the way—’ Lettle tripped on a tree root, stubbing her toe.
‘Three gods,’ she swore, clutching her foot.
‘The path is arduous, it only gets worse,’ Mortah said unhelpfully, walking briskly past her.
Alder was by her side in moments. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ Lettle said through clenched teeth, waiting for the pulsing pain to abate.
‘And to answer your earlier question, yes, it is all downhill. We are headed to Raven’s Valley, east of here,’ Mortah said.
Lettle groaned again. Going down meant going back up, and she’d just spent two weeks climbing the mountain.
‘Raven’s Valley was made by glacier erosion,’ Alder said, his eyes lit up with excitement. ‘It’s not often that you have such a deep valley on a mountain. It’s fascinating—’
‘Is it?’ Lettle gave him a flat stare and he laughed.
‘I’ll tell you later when your toe stops hurting.’
‘I think it’ll be hurting for a few years yet.’
He gave her a wry smile and continued on.
The ice on the trail was treacherous and it was Mia who slipped next, her feet skidding forwards. Dart caught her before she fell. ‘I wish you had stayed in Caperly,’ he muttered.
Mia had refused to be left behind. The friction between the two of them hadn’t eased since they’d argued about it.
‘I do not grant wishes, Dart,’ Mia said with tight lips.
Lettle enjoyed listening to the two of them bicker. It was a strange sort of comfort to her.
If she hadn’t been eavesdropping maybe she would not have slipped on the exact same patch of ice as Mia. But there was no one to catch her.
She fell face first, scraping her chin. The pain was sharp and stinging.
Alder offered her a hand. ‘You’re getting clumsier.’
She could feel her blood dripping into her scarf.
‘Twice in an hour,’ she scolded herself.
Twice… Her blood ran cold.
‘What is it?’ Alder said. ‘You look like someone’s walking along your spine.’
Lettle removed her prophecy journal and read her last foretelling: ‘You will fall once, twice, thrice. Then fall again. Each will be greater than before. The last will reap rewards.’
‘You’re a diviner?’ Mortah said, retracing her steps until she was beside Lettle.
Lettle nodded, wary. Few elves put much trust in the Fates. ‘I am.’
Mortah sighed. ‘I’m afraid it sounds like you’ve got to fall two more times before we find anything that will benefit your quest.’
‘It does sound like that, doesn’t it?’ Lettle said, relieved she wasn’t going to have to prove her power.
‘Are we really putting trust in the Fates?’ Dart said.
There it is. There’s always one.
Lettle girded herself for the confrontation, but Mortah stepped in before she could respond.
‘Yes, we are. The Fates cannot lie and if this elf has communed with them, then absolutely we will be trusting her.’
Dart raised his eyebrows but said nothing further–which was probably due to the look Mia was giving him over anything Mortah had said.
Mortah rummaged in her pack. ‘Here, take this. If each fall will be worse than the one before, then we should be prepared.’
The rope was well worn but the weave was still tight and strong.
‘Thank you,’ Lettle said, and she meant it.
‘I knew a diviner in Gural. That was many decades ago now.’
‘You were from Waning?’ Lettle asked.
‘I was. Once.’ Three words had never sounded so brittle.
Lettle noted that Mortah’s ears did not have the cut that indicated she had been dismissed from the army. She must have left Waning by choice.
Lettle had so many more questions but Mortah clearly did not want to discuss it.
‘The snowstorm is getting worse,’ Mortah said. ‘We should pick up the pace. Lettle, you stay in the middle of the group so we can keep an eye on you. Do you have a bandage for that graze? Good. Then let’s keep going.’
They moved more slowly after that. Even though they knew Lettle’s next fall was inevitable, she wanted to minimise any pain.
As Mortah predicted, the blizzard worsened as time wore on. The snowflakes became as fat and plump as cotton flowers, the wind blustering around them until Lettle could barely see in front of her face.
‘The visibility is too poor, we need to find shelter,’ Mortah shouted back at the group.
Lettle pointed towards a copse of conifers by the cliff’s edge, their leaves laden with snow. The little group began to move towards them. Inch by inch they shuffled until they were beneath the trees’ boughs.
Lettle released a breath of relief. ‘No fall yet…’
But even standing still Lettle couldn’t prevent the inevitable.
One of the drooping branches snapped beneath the weight of the snow, dumping ice straight onto Lettle’s head. She cursed as snow fell down the back of her scarf and instinctively stepped back–onto nothing.
The cliff’s edge was far closer than she had anticipated and down she fell.
Despite acknowledging somewhere in her mind that this was likely the third fall, she was still utterly convinced she was going to die.
Rocks tore at her clothing, and branches scratched at her skin. She tried to grab hold of a tree root, but her hands were slow from the cold. Eventually, when she no longer believed she would ever stop falling, her head struck a tree and she was able to cling onto its trunk.
‘Lettle!’ Alder’s voice sounded distant over the ringing in her ears.
‘Lettle, are you all right?’ he shouted down to her.
She touched a hand to her head and drew it away. No blood at least.
But that didn’t mean there wasn’t any damage. She’d seen enough impact injuries creep up on soldiers on the Bleeding Field. One second they were fine, only a headache to complain about. Then they’d go to sleep and never wake up again.
She groaned as she stood.
‘This is the worst prophecy I’ve ever foretold,’ she muttered. But she knew that was a lie…
You will grant them their death—
‘I’m all right!’ she called to the group above her. ‘I’ll need some help back up though.’
She silently thanked Mortah’s foresight for giving her the rope as she tied one end to her wrist. Shera picked her way down the cliff to retrieve the other end of it.
‘Thank you, Shera,’ Lettle said as the obeah began to drag her back up the steep slope.
Though the blizzard had begun to ease, the amount of fresh snow it had left made the rescue more difficult and despite Shera’s claws, she struggled to find purchase, slipping downwards and causing Lettle to fall further.
For a frightful moment Lettle thought she was going to tumble halfway down the mountain, but then something soft pressed against her back, nudging her forwards.
Shera regained her balance with the help of Farhan, who had sent a thread of magic to pull Shera up.
As soon as he was also able to see Lettle, he manipulated his thread to wind around her waist too.
It took both of their strength to haul Lettle back onto the trail, Farhan pulling on his magic and Shera dragging up the rope.
When Lettle crested the edge, she collapsed to the side, panting along with the others.
‘That was not fun,’ she said. She rubbed at her wrist where the rope had left friction burns.
‘Thank you, Farhan,’ she said breathlessly. The fae nodded, his own breathing laboured.
It was then that she noticed he was lying crookedly, his leg twisted unnaturally in front of him.
‘Farhan, are you all right?’
He pursed his lips. ‘I will admit to a sharp pain in my ankle.’
Mortah muttered something about being an idiot before demanding he take off his boot for her to inspect.
The whole group recoiled as Farhan brandished his broken ankle, the bone pressing unnaturally against the skin as though it might break through with the slightest breeze.
‘We need to go back,’ Dart said. ‘He can’t walk on that.’
‘I’ll ride Shera, I’ll be fine,’ he said.
‘No, that needs setting, or you might never walk again,’ Mortah said.
‘Go back to Caperly, Farhan, we’ll find you afterwards,’ Lettle said.
Farhan shook his head. ‘I can’t leave you, I promised the king to protect you.’
Lettle felt her lips begin to lift with the beginnings of a laugh, but she held it back. The idea of Farhan protecting anyone was enough to make her chuckle. The royals had only sent him because he was so clearly a hindrance to the faeguard.
‘We’ll be all right, don’t worry,’ Lettle said as gently as she could.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, go back to Caperly.’
It took all of them to help him onto Shera’s back, and it was only after he had gone that Lettle recalled the feeling she’d had when she’d fallen.
It was as if someone helped me, she thought.
Lettle peered over the edge. But there was nothing except Shera’s footprints in the snow and the muddy track marks Lettle had left where she had been dragged.
‘What is it?’ Alder asked, joining her.
‘I’m not sure. I thought I felt something, but I must have imagined it.’