Chapter Thirty Lettle
Chapter Thirty
Lettle
Blood sprayed across the clearing and Lettle knew instantly: Ajax was going to die.
‘Ajax!’ she cried and fell to her knees beside the obeah. There was a gasp behind them and Lettle turned to see Rayan standing in the tunnel entrance. The king had been the one to strike Malak with his magic, but he’d been too late to stop the drumfire meant for Lettle.
Rayan’s mouth parted in a small smile as his eyes met Lettle’s. He was dressed in an embroidered purple cloak; his crown, a copper vine set with fraedia, was something she rarely saw him wear. A distant part of her mind wondered where he had come from to be dressed so formally.
The darkness of the tunnel blurred his edges, but his face was cast aglow in a single ray of sunlight. The sky seemed unaware that this was not a moment for sunshine and blue horizons. This was a moment for rain and thunder and lightning.
For this was the moment Rayan was going to die.
He fell to the ground with a sigh.
‘No!’ Lettle screamed. She closed the space between them and pulled Rayan into her arms.
Rayan looked up at her, his eyes glistening as he took her in. ‘So beautiful,’ he whispered. ‘More so with my sight than his.’
Lettle’s tears splashed onto his cheeks as she pressed her forehead against his. They shared the same shallow breaths.
But only one of them was dying.
‘This cannot be how it is,’ she sobbed. She brought her hands to Rayan’s face, leaving smears of Ajax’s blood.
Lettle looked back at the obeah lying in an ever-growing pool of crimson. Alder was by his side, his face ashen. He had torn a strip of his shirt and tied it around Ajax’s wound to stem the bleeding.
But Lettle knew a killing blow when she saw one. Her father had taught her that much.
‘Take me to him,’ Rayan whispered. ‘Let us be together in the end.’
Despite having built up her strength, now she was weakened by grief, she struggled to pull Rayan much further than a foot.
She cried out in frustration, sobs racking her chest until she was heaving on the ground next to her dying love.
Gentle hands touched her shoulder and Lettle looked up into the violet eyes of her sister.
Yeeran gathered her into her arms. But Lettle could not linger in her comforting embrace for long.
‘He’s dying,’ Lettle said. She didn’t recognise the voice that came out of her. It was coarse and felt as though it came from beyond her body. ‘Help me take him to Ajax.’
Tears began to make tracks down Yeeran’s face as she picked up Rayan’s weak form.
‘The bandage is sodden through,’ Alder said as Yeeran lowered the king next to his obeah. ‘I don’t know what else to do.’
‘Nothing,’ Lettle said, her voice still raspy and unfamiliar.
Rayan’s hand reached out and grasped Ajax’s paw. The obeah let out a slow whimper.
Lettle sank to the ground and pressed herself against the curve of Rayan’s body, her cheek against the cold earth. She wrapped her arms around his chest, feeling his breath rattle in his lungs.
‘The one born of a storm’s mist shall be your beloved. But when the waning moon turns, you will grant them their death.’
The prophecy tumbled out of her mouth, over and over again.
She had always thought that the waning moon was indicative of time and not the tribe itself. Malak’s coup had been her only clue.
For the first time, she lost all faith in her god.
Why, Bosome? Why do you punish me so?
All of a sudden Rayan’s chest went still, and Lettle braced herself for the piercing pain of his death. But then he shuddered in another breath.
He is not dead yet, she thought defiantly. It was the small spark she needed to feed the flames of her hope.
Lettle sat up. ‘Who is the best healer you know, Yeeran?’
Yeeran shook her head. ‘There’s no point, Lettle, they don’t have the time.’
‘Then answer faster, who is the best healer you know?’
‘Jay, but—’
‘We need to take Ajax to them.’ Lettle stood up, her face set with a fierceness that dared anyone to deny her.
Yeeran met her gaze, her eyes still filled with tears, but Lettle’s had begun to stop flowing, with the truth she now told herself: Rayan and Ajax will not die today.
Her sister nodded once. ‘Jay may be able to help, or at least ease their passing.’
Lettle chose to only hear the first part of Yeeran’s sentence.
Pila and Amnan moved out of the shadow of the tunnel.
‘The obeah will carry Ajax,’ Yeeran said.
The two obeah moved in unison, not like the soulless obeah, but like two animals dancing.
They sidestepped and dipped their noses until they were level to the ground, then pranced forward to cradle Ajax between their horns.
Then they walked with gentle steps, Ajax held aloft, his head tipped to the blue sky, his green eyes closed.
Lettle watched them disappear into the darkness of the tunnel to Mosima.
Will that be the last time I see Ajax alive?
She quashed the thought and turned back to Rayan.
Yeeran and Alder already had him in their arms. He had fallen unconscious, his body a dead weight. Lettle lent what strength she could as she took hold of Rayan’s shoulders and head.
She looked down at his peaceful face and noticed he’d grown gaunt in their time apart.
‘When you’re well again, I’m going to cook you all your favourite meals,’ she promised. Then she laughed and shook her head sadly. ‘Not that they would be edible.’
Yeeran watched Lettle with pity.
Lettle knew she was deluded, but what else could she do?
She patted Rayan’s cheek fondly, her tears drying on her cheeks. ‘You’ll be OK,’ she said. ‘All will be well.’
‘Oh Lettle,’ she heard Alder say. His voice hitched as though he too had started to cry, but Lettle refused to look at him.
Yeeran let out a laboured sigh and then they set off after the obeah.
Just as they were about to cross into the fae’s territory, Yeeran’s gaze flickered to the right, then to Lettle and back again.
Alder noticed her sister’s inner conflict first. ‘What is it?’
‘Malak, he’s gone,’ Yeeran said. ‘He fell right over there, but he must have got away.’
‘Go after him, Yeeran,’ Lettle said. ‘He is the poison in the centre of it all; the chieftains are gone.’
Yeeran’s mouth parted in shock. ‘The chieftains are dead?’
‘Yes, Malak killed them. There is only him left.’
Yeeran looked to the swampland behind her then back to Rayan in her arms.
Lettle smiled. ‘Go, we’ll be fine. Alder and I can carry him alone.’
‘But Rayan—’
‘He’ll be fine,’ Lettle said sharply.
‘Lettle…’
Yeeran exchanged a glance with Alder. It was filled with worry, but Lettle gave her a reassuring smile.
‘Jay will stitch Ajax up and all will be well.’ It was a lie and everyone knew it. Deception masqueraded as hope.
Alder looked at Lettle’s smile with horror. He seemed about to speak, but Yeeran shook her head at him.
Lettle ignored the exchange.
‘Go, Yeeran. We have no time to waste.’ Lettle spoke quickly before Yeeran’s sorrowful gaze could pierce the armour of her delusion.
Yeeran squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them they were blazing and full of grief. She shifted so that Alder and Lettle took the bulk of Rayan’s weight. Then she pressed a kiss to his forehead. ‘Goodbye, Rayan.’
Lettle wasn’t sure why she was saying goodbye.
Then Yeeran was gone, her feet quickly carrying her towards the spot where she’d seen Malak fall.
‘Let’s go,’ Lettle said cheerfully, picking up the pace.
Alder watched her with a perturbed expression on his face until the darkness of the tunnel consumed the light completely.
Lettle moved into magesight to guide them forward. The moss around them gently glowed so she could pick out the outline of the tunnel. She was careful to keep her gaze averted from the flickering soul within Rayan. It was as though his soul knew its moment for release was near.
Ajax, Pila and Amnan were a beacon of light up ahead as they crossed into Mosima.
‘Fly fast, obeah, take Ajax to Jay,’ she murmured.
Rayan twitched in her arms and Lettle tensed before letting out a small laugh. ‘I wonder what he is dreaming of.’
She could hear Alder opening and closing his mouth as though he were considering his words before speaking them. Finally he spoke. ‘Lettle, no one expects you to be fine right now. It’s OK to struggle.’
‘Rayan’s not too heavy, to be honest, and all that climbing you made me do has really helped—’
‘You know that’s not what I mean,’ he said softly.
She stumbled, her heart stuttering in her chest as it skipped a beat. For a second she saw herself as Alder did: her body covered in blood and dirt, a manic smile on her lips, her eyes as deadened as the soulless obeah’s, her lover’s body dying in her arms as though he were simply sleeping.
She felt pain swell within her and the inevitable horror of guilt that would come with Rayan’s death.
Her lips trembled, and her breath shortened into quick hisses that drew spittle from between her teeth.
She fought to regain her composure; time was not an unlimited resource.
‘The first time I walked down this tunnel I was with Rayan. We were prisoners, bound with fae magic.’ The memory helped ground her and she spoke on with a clear voice.
‘We didn’t know about magesight then, so we were plunged into total darkness.
I was so terrified.’ Echoes of the memory left her trembling.
But then she thought of Rayan and smiled.
‘Rayan was behind me, and so I began to count his breaths.
They steadied me without him even knowing.
‘And that’s what it’s like to love Rayan. He is the tiller to my boat; I cannot navigate these waters without him.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper as she begged her friend, ‘So allow me this illusion.’
Alder’s breath hitched in his throat and when he spoke again, his voice was thick with emotion. ‘Well, we better get Rayan to Jay, then, so we can watch Ajax be healed.’
Lettle smiled with relief. ‘Exactly.’
They continued on, quicker this time, despite the effort. Soon the light from the fray glowed up ahead.
As they reached the threshold of the boundary into Mosima, Lettle heard a voice.
‘Is that them, can you see them?’ It was unmistakably Golan.
Alder inhaled sharply at the sound of Golan’s voice.
He loves him, like I love Rayan.
‘Are we not lucky? To have our loves?’ she said to him.
Alder didn’t seem to know what to say, but the silence was quickly broken with a single word.
‘Aiftarri. ‘The queen opened the boundary and they walked into Mosima for the final time.