Chapter Ten Yeeran
Chapter Ten
Yeeran
Yeeran dressed as she ran. She’d picked up Furi’s cloak knowing she wouldn’t have even considered clothing before she’d followed the scream.
It was easy to trace the queen’s steps–she had pulled a horde of star gliders to her and they illuminated a path through the woodland to where she had stopped ahead.
Furi’s head bowed low as she spoke quietly to someone. Yeeran picked up the tail end of the conversation as she drew near.
‘…she just died in his arms,’ Anyah said. Furi’s second-in-command had arrived before them. She had shaved her hair since Yeeran had last seen her and it sharpened her petite features which would have otherwise been deemed cute.
Anyah had been an unorthodox pick to replace Berro after she died.
She was an indentured servant in the palace, finishing her sentence as a food taster, when Furi chose her.
That would have been controversy enough if she wasn’t also Lightless.
It had surely been a hard battle for Anyah to instil authority over the far more experienced soldiers of the faeguard.
But from Furi’s reports she’d been doing well.
Yeeran went to the queen and laid her cloak around her shivering shoulders. Furi didn’t seem to notice.
‘What happened?’ Yeeran asked her. She was surprisingly out of breath; her months of sitting behind desks had taken a tithe on her stamina.
‘One of the faeguard is dead,’ Anyah said grimly. She moved out of the way, revealing the scene beyond.
A woman lay supine on the ground, her blonde hair fanning around her like the petals of a sunflower. Yeeran’s heart began to race as she recognised Cely.
Her mouth was parted in a soft smile, serene in death.
Less than two hours ago I was touched by those lips.
But how did she die? Yeeran could see no wounds on Cely’s naked skin.
‘She was off duty,’ Furi said quietly. Her eyes were shimmering with unshed tears. ‘She was so excited to end the night with Zayed.’ Furi pointed to the man keening on the ground next to Cely’s body.
The queen took a small step forward, then another and another until she was by Zayed’s side. The grieving fae turned and sobbed onto her shoulder.
Anyah watched Furi with a compassion that surprised Yeeran. ‘It must be so hard for her, especially since this time last year…’
Furi had been gifted with a very rare and invaluable thing in the world of a soldier–Anyah’s unquestioning loyalty.
A crowd was gathering, drawn in by Zayed’s scream. The fae parted as Rayan pushed his way through.
‘Yeeran? What’s going on?’ Rayan’s eyes were wide and hollowed, like he hadn’t slept in the four months he’d been apart from Lettle.
Anyah answered him, pointing to Cely. ‘A faeguard was killed.’
Yeeran instinctively reached for Pila. Where are you?
Amnan and I are on our way. We’re crossing the neutral zone now.
You are topside? Yeeran hated when Pila left the city. It was risky to venture beyond the boundary, especially with an army at their door.
Yes, we were chasing moonbeams.
Yeeran’s anger softened. Though she had only been in Mosima for a short time compared to the fae, she had come to understand how stifling a world without a sky could be.
‘I’m going to call on more of the faeguard. We need to disperse the crowd,’ Anyah said.
Yeeran’s memories of the night the queens died were still fresh–it had been so easy to ignite the flame of the crowd’s anger and they had quickly turned from an audience to a mob.
And their ire had been directed at her.
‘Identify where Motogo and Malak are, too, we don’t want this to escalate,’ Yeeran said.
Anyah nodded before slipping away.
‘Were they lovers?’ Rayan asked. All the blood had drained from his face as he watched Zayed weep.
‘Yes. But I don’t know how she died, she has no wounds.’
Furi was whispering soothing words in Zayed’s ear.
‘Could it have been poison?’ Rayan asked.
‘Perhaps, though I’m not—’
Yeeran, look. Pila’s words were urgent. At the same time, Furi gasped and Yeeran knew whatever she was about to see, the queen was already viewing in Amnan’s sight.
For a dizzying moment, both realities presented themselves in Yeeran’s mind: Cely lying dead in Mosima and her obeah lying dead topside.
‘No,’ she uttered as the trees of the woodland fell away and she saw the obeah in its entirety.
Its side was pockmarked with wounds. Not one or two, but dozens of them. Yeeran had caused enough deaths to know the tell-tale signs of drumfire.
Pila’s gaze moved suddenly upwards as she noticed something by the edge of the elf side of the neutral zone. The flash of a figure, a uniform, a drum. Then they disappeared into the night. But not before Yeeran had seen the silver thread stitched into their back. A single symbol of a waning moon.
Shall I go after them? Pila asked.
No, you need to stay safe, come back to Mosima. Now.
‘You did this?’ Furi said, the ire in her voice pulling Yeeran straight back to the woodland.
Motogo and Malak had been brought forward by two faeguards, and Furi was rounding on them.
‘Is that fae dead?’ Motogo’s performance–if that’s what it was–would have convinced Yeeran of Waning’s innocence, if she hadn’t seen the obeah’s body.
‘What else would you expect? You killed her obeah,’ Furi spat.
Malak took a shocked step back. ‘How? I don’t understand.’
‘Her obeah was killed by drumfire in the neutral zone,’ Yeeran said quietly.
The gasp rippled through the crowd. There was no containing this secret. Furi had already accused the elves, and the citizens of Mosima would have eventually demanded answers.
Zayed started to stand, and Rayan went to help him up. His shaking legs found strength as his grief hardened into something more powerful–vengeance. ‘Why did you do this?’
The crowd growled as one, fangs gleaming in the star glider light.
Malak’s gaze shifted left and right as he took in the fae around him. His hands trembled by his sides. Motogo, on the other hand, didn’t recognise the danger they were in.
‘If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been here all night. We had no hand in this!’ Motogo shouted.
‘Are you not the chieftain of Waning, responsible for all soldiers under your jurisdiction? Is it not true that your tribe favours drumfire most?’
Furi looked to Yeeran for confirmation. Malak’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, waiting for Yeeran’s response.
She nodded once, and for some reason it felt like betraying Salawa all over again.
‘But I told my soldiers—’ Motogo’s voice had risen an octave.
‘Do not kill obeah. That was the final term on the treaty that you were yet to sign,’ Furi said quietly. ‘You were invited here as guests—’
‘Guests?’ Motogo said in disbelief. ‘You invite us to the heart of your battlefield to flaunt your riches in the sky.’
‘Mosima is no battlefield,’ Furi’s voice dripped with venom. ‘No one here wields a weapon.’
Motogo seethed, ‘You are the weapon!’
‘You would do well to remember that,’ she said, her eyes flashing.
Yeeran and Malak exchanged a glance. Their hopes for this encounter had been dashed the moment Cely died. It lay with them to salvage it.
‘Queen Furi, you are of course right,’ Malak said sincerely. ‘The responsibility for the fae’s murder should be laid at the feet of my chieftain. But we did not order her death; our only crime is not signing the treaty sooner.’
Furi scoffed. ‘If we killed one of yours, would you have pardoned us on such a technicality?’
Motogo began to speak, spittle glinting in the star glider light. ‘You already killed one of ours—’
Malak cut them off with a sharp glance. ‘Perhaps not at first, but we would give you time to investigate the crime thoroughly before reaching a conclusion.’
The crowd had gone silent, and Yeeran took her own opportunity to smother the flames. ‘Furi, I don’t think they would have intentionally targeted the obeah.’
‘There must be a penance,’ Zayed said to Rayan and Furi. ‘We disrespect her legacy if we do not take what was taken.’
His words were mead poured over a dying ember. The fae began to shout, ‘Penance! Penance! Penance!’
Furi raised her voice to be heard above the cacophony. ‘Was this all a ruse, to distract us from the violence beyond our borders?’
‘Why would I accept your invitation and then order the killing of an obeah?’ Motogo’s lips curled in scorn.
‘You have never wanted peace with us; you came here to browse your bounty. Admit it, you have no intention of signing the treaty.’ Furi had stepped forward until she was less than a foot from Motogo’s face. Only now did the chieftain realise the threat.
‘T-t-that is not entirely accurate,’ Motogo said, their gaze flickering to the boundary. ‘Let me speak to the coalition, find out how the obeah died—’
‘Murdered!’ Zayed screamed. ‘She was murdered.’
‘What is the sentence for murder in your land?’ Furi said so softly Yeeran almost didn’t hear her.
Motogo took a tentative step backwards. ‘A trial, we always set a trial.’
‘There are no trials on battlefields, just one soldier facing the other. And you have already stated you think Mosima a battlefield.’
The crowd began to close in on the elves and Yeeran found herself pushing through the mob to stand in front of them.
How has it come to this?
‘Stand aside, Yeeran,’ Furi said.
Yeeran’s gaze was pleading. ‘There’ll be no going back,’ she said.
‘We have no choice,’ Furi said. Rayan, who hadn’t seemed present for the encounter, now spoke.
‘She’s right,’ he said quietly. ‘They will do it anyway.’ He nodded to the undulating crowd.
Yeeran’s shoulders drooped in defeat and she stepped aside.
‘Yeeran, wait—’ Those were the last words Motogo ever said.
Furi’s magic wound tight around Motogo’s neck. The crowd began to cheer as the elf’s face grew red, then purple, then blue.
Malak looked on, his expression one of utter horror. He couldn’t use magesight, but if he could, he would have seen more threads join Furi’s.
One by one, those who were faebound wove their magic around Motogo’s neck, each partaking in the death sentence.