Chapter Twenty-One Alder #2
‘Alder?’ The call came from up ahead. Dart stood in front of a resting room, his arms laden with sticky cardamom pastries.
‘I hope Mia’s willing to share,’ Alder said as they drew level with him.
Dart looked haggard; his beard had grown out in long, silver streaks, his face heavily lined with exhaustion.
But the wrinkles smoothed as he smiled and let out a cry of happiness.
The pastries tumbled to the ground as he embraced Alder.
It was good to be held.
Ajax weaved past them and began to eat the pastries on the ground.
‘Save me one!’ Lettle said.
The noise drew Mia to the door, and she opened it bleary-eyed. ‘Dart, what’s–Alder?’
A second pair of arms wrapped around him and Alder felt their love settle on him like armour.
Lettle was right, there are other ways to have a family beyond blood.
The embrace was briefer than he would have liked, but Dart quickly rushed Mia back into bed.
Farhan lay on a pallet by the fire, his leg raised up on Shera’s back. She opened her eyes to greet Ajax, before going back to sleep.
Farhan sat up as they entered. ‘You’re back!’
‘We are,’ Alder said.
It took a couple of minutes for everyone to get settled. The room was smaller than their previous resting room, but Alder suspected they had chosen it because it was closest to the waterfall.
‘So, what happened?’ Mia asked.
It was the question Alder had been dreading. He didn’t want to listen to it again, but when Lettle looked at him, he gave her the nod to begin.
Alder looked into the flickering flames of the fire and tried to drown out Lettle’s voice.
A touch on his shoulder startled him. He looked up to find Dart’s tear-streaked face. Time had passed and he hadn’t even noticed. Once more he was enfolded into Dart’s arms.
‘You are the best person I know, don’t forget that,’ he whispered.
Mia reached for his hand from her bed. ‘You are not Afa. OK?’
Alder’s mouth parted in wonder. Their loyalty was unshakeable. They didn’t blame him for any of Afa’s cruelty.
‘But how can I ever separate my deeds from my person?’ he said.
It was Mortah who answered. ‘Because you are not him. You may have his body, but your mind has been moulded by different people. Your memories make you who you are, and you do not have his–and he does not have yours.’
There was a snort and everyone looked to Farhan. The fae had fallen asleep.
‘Oh, to have no curiosity, how simple life would be,’ Lettle said dryly. It drew out a laugh from Alder but it dried up in his throat when he remembered what came next.
‘We have to leave, we need to go back to Mosima,’ he said.
‘Farhan can’t travel with you. We’ll send him back when his ankle heals,’ Mortah said. ‘And I presume you’ll be wanting to leave swiftly. Here, give me your packs, I’ll go resupply them.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Lettle said. ‘Alder, I’ll meet you at the entrance to Caperly?’
He nodded, recognising he was being given precious time alone with Mia and Dart.
‘Thank you for everything,’ Lettle said to them both, before following Mortah out. Ajax trailed in her wake.
‘So that obeah followed you the whole way?’ Mia asked. ‘The king must really love her.’
‘Yes.’ He understood that love, or perhaps the promise of it. He had the beginnings of it with Golan.
And, of course, Hady.
‘Come, sit,’ Mia patted the bed next to her. He lay down and Dart squeezed on the end.
‘Maybe I should stay?’ Alder said. ‘Lettle has the spell, she need only teach it to Rayan.’
‘And what of Golan?’ Mia said and Alder winced. She was always so perceptive.
‘He’ll be scared of me once he knows what I’ve done.’
‘No, he won’t,’ Dart said firmly. But Alder wasn’t so sure.
Farhan snored into the silence.
‘Will you tell Farhan we’ve gone?’ Alder asked.
‘Yes, of course. We quite like him, though he sends Mortah mad,’ Mia laughed then sobered. ‘I think it was partly why she insisted on sleeping at the foot of the waterfall.’
That surprised Alder, as Mortah had said that Mia had insisted on it. He smiled.
She may feign ambivalence, but Mortah feels more than any of us.
The sheet over Mia’s stomach rippled and Alder gasped with delight. ‘Was that the twins?’
‘Yes,’ Mia said, patting her stomach. ‘They’re strong. Here, feel them.’
Alder put his hand against her swollen belly and felt the movements within. ‘So strong,’ he said. ‘It’s the first time I’ve felt a baby move beneath skin…’ his words petered off once he realised that was not true.
He sat up. ‘I wish I had known my children, I grieve for that,’ he admitted. ‘The rest I do not need to remember, but the babes, I would have liked to have known them.’
Mia was crying silently. ‘You will know these children,’ she promised. ‘They will be as though they are your own. Uncle Alder.’
He smiled. ‘Uncle Alder.’ It sounded good.
‘You’ll come back to us, won’t you? Bring Golan too,’ Dart asked.
‘Of course, the Nomads are my home, you are my home. I’ll be back when this is all over,’ he promised.
All over. It felt like a premonition of something more. They embraced for a final time, Alder holding on for longer than was necessary.
‘I’ll see you soon, take care of my nephews,’ he said.
‘How do you know that?’ Mia asked, and Alder hadn’t realised he did until he had spoken it.
He shrugged. ‘I just know.’
Because I am earthbound.
He closed the door of the resting room behind him and began to sob.
His tears had dried by the time he reached Caperly’s edge where Mortah, Lettle and Ajax were waiting.
‘I’m coming with you,’ Mortah said. She held a hand up. ‘Do not try and stop me. I’ve already decided, and I’ve spent the last fifteen minutes convincing her.’ She tilted her head sharply to Lettle. ‘Do not make me do the same with you.’
‘Are you sure?’ Alder asked. ‘It’s a very long walk.’
‘We’re not walking,’ Lettle said. ‘We’re riding. We’ll be back in Mosima in six weeks.’
Alder looked at Ajax. The obeah was big, but he couldn’t carry three. In addition, the fae had a strange custom about touching obeah.
‘I’ll ride Ajax,’ Lettle said. ‘You need to call on more obeah. The soulless obeah answer to you.’
‘How?’
‘Speak the words, or even just think them,’ she said.
Alder felt like a fool as he said, ‘Obeah, come to me.’
Nothing happened for a long moment. Then he heard them. He looked back through the city streets and watched as one, two, three, a dozen, fifty obeah ran through Caperly towards him. Their pelts were wet and dripping from the waterfall spray they had passed.
They surrounded him in a circle, their bodies a mass of corded muscle, their horns glittering pearlescent in the morning light.
But their eyes were uncomfortably vacant, like glass marbles in a pool of ink.
Their movements also unsettled him; they were too uniform, too rigid–without a will of their own.
It was an uncanny sight.
Mortah took a step back, her face bloodless. Lettle, however, looked relieved, almost as if she hadn’t been sure it would work.
I wish it hadn’t. I have never sought power like this. It felt inhumane to manipulate a creature so completely.
Alder walked towards one, and it didn’t even blink as he gently ran his hand through its fur.
I wonder if it’s capable of memories too.
‘You are not the same,’ Lettle said, as though reading his thoughts. ‘The obeah has no light when I look at it in magesight. No, it’s more than that, there is an absence of light, almost like a spark has been extinguished. Whereas you, Alder, you shine.’
It comforted him some.
He tightened his fists in the beast’s scruff as he pulled himself up and onto its back. Mortah followed his lead, selecting an obeah of her own, and Lettle mounted Ajax.
Years ago he had imagined what it would be like to ride an obeah. He would have never been able to guess the circumstances he now found himself in.
I made the very flesh beneath me, he thought. No, not me, Afa did.
He corrected himself for the first time. Like the obeah, he’d had no choice in his creation, he was simply brought into being.
But unlike the obeah, he had free will. And with it, he was going to undo all the wrongs that had come before.
‘Take us to Mosima,’ he said to the obeah. As one, the pack pounded forward, a black mass against the white snow of the mountain. It was time to fix it all.