Chapter Thirty-One Lettle
Chapter Thirty-One
Lettle
‘Rayan,’ Furi gasped as the king came into her view. She stepped forward, trying to lend her strength to Lettle and Alder, but her legs trembled and she stumbled. Golan caught her.
‘Ajax’s wound was grave. How is it he still breathes?’ Golan asked, clutching onto Furi.
‘Jay’s going to heal them both, all will be well,’ Lettle said.
All will be well. All will be well. All will be well. It was a constant chant in her mind.
‘Lettle, I don’t think—’
‘Don’t, Golan,’ Alder said with a shake of the head.
Furi craned her neck past Lettle. ‘Where’s Yeeran?’
‘Malak got away,’ Lettle said by way of explanation.
‘She’ll be fine,’ Lettle added after seeing Furi’s worry deepen.
The queen dashed at the tears that had spilled onto her cheeks with frustration. ‘Let’s get Rayan back to the palace. I’ll call on some soldiers to help carry him.’
‘No!’ Lettle shouted, her fear of losing Rayan temporarily rising to the surface. ‘We can do it.’
‘I’ll help,’ Golan said.
They made their way quietly through Mosima. The city was much changed since Lettle had been here. Dozens of fields were burned, the smell of smoke thick in the air. Scorch marks of small fires could also be seen at the end of some of the streets.
They passed a section of the city that looked like it had been cordoned off. Empty vials littered the cobbled lanes. What she had first thought were cornerstones marking the roads, were grave markers. There had been too many dead for their graveyards.
‘What happened here?’ Alder asked.
‘Locusts, disease, poison,’ Furi said. She walked up ahead, her legs stiff as though they pained her.
The words didn’t permeate Lettle’s mind. It was as though in rejecting Rayan’s condition, she had also rejected all negativity.
‘It’s been busy then,’ she said brightly.
Furi snorted, perhaps taking Lettle’s words for sarcasm.
Whispers of Rayan’s injury had rippled throughout the city, and fae stood by their doors as they passed by. They held up brightly coloured gloves in salute, their faces grave.
Lettle caught the eye of a young boy whose tears annoyed her.
He doesn’t even know Rayan. The child nodded in her direction before he began to sing with a sweet-sounding voice.
‘We endure, we survive
Mosima together, Mosima our home,
In our lands we will strive,
To be together, to create a home.’
The melody was quickly joined by a chorus of other fae, raising the hairs on Lettle’s neck.
‘What is that song? I’ve never heard it before,’ she asked.
Golan cleared his throat. ‘You wouldn’t have. It’s a funeral song.’
‘Why are they singing it, then?’ she asked angrily. ‘They’re putting him in the ground already!’
Furi shook her head, and if she did reply Lettle couldn’t hear her over the song. As the tune rose in volume, so too did Lettle’s rage.
‘Shut up!’ she screamed. ‘He’s not dead! He’s not dead!’
Lettle lunged towards a particularly loud tenor on the path beside them, her hands raised as if to shut his mouth.
But she didn’t think through her actions and Rayan tumbled from her grasp.
His head hit the cobblestones before Alder and Golan were able to readjust his weight in their arms.
Lettle cried out as though the pain blossomed across her own temple. She fell to the ground and cradled Rayan’s head in her lap.
She searched his skin for any blood or bruising, but he appeared unharmed.
‘What did you do that for?’ Furi hissed. Her anger was frightening but nothing could permeate Lettle’s self-made shield.
She rocked back and forward on her heels. ‘I just wanted them to stop singing,’ she said numbly. Then she looked up at Furi and said, ‘Everyone thinks he’s going to die and they’re wrong.’
‘He is going to die, Lettle,’ Furi shouted. Lettle watched a vein in her neck bulge and pump blood as she spoke. ‘Literally any second now, and I’d rather the king not die surrounded by strangers in the dirt.’
‘Leave her be, Furi,’ Alder said.
Lettle bit on her tongue until she felt the salty tang of iron in her mouth. She knew that when she spoke her teeth were now red.
‘Rayan is not going to die,’ she said.
All anger ebbed from Furi in a single exhale. She seemed to be watching Lettle with new understanding. The queen nodded once, then with much effort began to help raise Rayan up again.
Lettle smiled and patted Rayan’s cheek as they set off once more. ‘Sorry about that tumble. But not long now, Rayan, then you can sleep it off in your own bed.’
No one replied.
They crossed the Royal Woodland together. Once, Lettle would have remarked on the skeletal branches, but now they were the least of her concerns.
Or perhaps she had no concerns at all.
Jay was waiting for them by the Tree of Souls, holding gauze over Ajax’s wound. Pila and Amnan watched with worried eyes.
They lowered Rayan on the ground next to his obeah.
‘He looks so peaceful, don’t you think?’ Lettle said.
Again, no one answered her.
‘Ajax is not going to make it,’ Jay said quietly. The words sounded like a faint buzzing to Lettle.
‘Is there truly nothing you can do?’ Furi asked, her voice quaking as she began to grieve.
‘He’s lost too much blood. The wound has penetrated three major organs. I’m surprised he’s lasted so long.’
Lettle wandered a little distance away as though she could also distance herself from the truth. She circled the Tree of Souls until she found the words engraved in the bark. ‘Cursed to endure, cursed to survive.’
The fae always thought that was about them, but it’s a reminder of Afa.
Someone laid a hand between her shoulder blades, and for a second Lettle thought it was Rayan. ‘Lettle?’ It was Alder. ‘It’s time to say goodbye.’
‘I can’t,’ she said. Her breath caught in her throat and she struggled to breathe.
Alder wrapped his arms around her until her lungs steadied. ‘I’m so sorry, Lettle.’
She was too scared to face the lie she had told herself.
All will be well. All will be well.
‘He loved you deeply, and you him,’ Alder said. With every word he cleaved at the armour around her heart.
All will be well. All will be…
‘He would be proud of what you’ve accomplished. Helping me with my memories, the spell? You did it all, Lettle.’
All will…
The spell. The thought was lightning against her chest and she pulled away from Alder to remove the grimoire from her pack.
‘Lettle, what are you doing?’
‘We can save him, Alder.’ She clutched the grimoire to her chest and could feel her heart pound beneath the pages of the ancient tome.
Alder looked back at Jay and beckoned them towards him. ‘I really think you should speak to Jay–maybe there’s a tincture or something.’
‘No, Alder, I’m not insane. I’m talking about the spell Afa taught me.’ She was breathless, but not because of grief.
‘The one to bring back the humans? How will that help save Rayan?’ Furi asked. Concern had brought her and Jay to Lettle’s side.
‘The spell contains an unravelling of all of Hady’s bindings; it’s why it must be spoken by one of her descendants.’
Everyone still looked at her blankly.
‘And what did Hady make?’ Lettle said slowly. ‘The boundary and the binding to the obeah. It will unravel Ajax’s soul from Rayan’s so they won’t be joined in death.’
Alder’s gaze turned guarded. ‘It will also turn all the obeah into humans. Lettle, we’d be making them vulnerable in the middle of the war.’
‘According to you, there should be no more war if Yeeran is successful,’ Furi said.
‘Yeeran will be successful,’ Lettle said.
Alder shook his head. ‘We’re saving one soul but still putting many more at risk. None of the obeah even know what’s about to happen.’
Furi hesitated. There would be no spell without her consent, as she would be the one to speak it.
Ajax whined behind them and that swayed Furi’s mind.
‘Teach me the spell,’ the queen said.
They kneeled on the ground and Lettle opened the grimoire.
Her fingers ran over the ink that coated the pages.
Afa’s whole life bound in paper. He had called it a map; the pathways that would lead Alder back to who he was.
But Afa hadn’t realised that once pen touches paper you cannot control who owns those stories.
There are no borders or boundaries to a tale.
And his story would not end with Alder, but with Lettle.
‘How does it work?’ Furi asked.
‘You have to repeat the words after me. Put intention behind it.’
Furi’s lips quivered. ‘How?’
‘Think about the way you call on magic, imagine it like that.’
Furi nodded sharply. ‘I’m ready.’
Fingers gripped her shoulder and Lettle looked up. ‘I have a bad feeling about this,’ Alder said. Fear had bled the colour from his cheeks. ‘What are the consequences of the spell? The sacrifice?’
Lettle shook her head. ‘There are no sacrifices with unravellings. We are not creating a knot in the magic, simply pulling it free.’
Alder shook his head, his hand reaching forward as if to snatch the grimoire away.
‘So this spell will unravel the bindings to Mosima, to obeah, but what of the humans? How does it bring them back?’
The truth was Lettle didn’t know. Afa had taught her the words, but not their meaning.
‘I did not have the luxury of centuries like Afa did, I learned what I could.’ As fast as she could, because every second had been time with Afa and not Alder.
Golan was looking at Alder’s distraught face. ‘Lettle, perhaps we should consider this some more,’ he said.
Ajax shuddered and Lettle held her breath.
Was this it? Was this the end?
Then Ajax’s chest moved once more.
‘We have no time,’ Lettle said. ‘It’s now, or…’
Furi wiped a tear from Lettle’s cheek. ‘We do this, you and me. The consequences will be our responsibility to bear. But we’ll do it together.’
Lettle couldn’t recall when Furi had become family to her, but in that moment she realised she was, and always would be.
A hush fell over the woodland, as though the very trees listened in.
Then Lettle began to speak. ‘Ruhi ya’tini gah ba’al’ra…’
Furi repeated the words haltingly but grew in confidence as she got used to their rhythm.
As they chanted together, Lettle’s mind became eclipsed with thoughts of Rayan.
His brown eyes that crinkled in the corners when he smiled.
The feeling of his hand on her lower back just to let her know he was there.
How he preferred Lettle to cuddle him in the bed from behind, his large body cradled in her arms.
The way he loved her.
The way she loved him.
Please, Bosome, let this work.
The spell came to an end and Lettle looked around. Rayan lay unmoving on the ground. Amnan and Pila, still in their obeah forms, flanked Ajax’s dying body.
Lettle squeezed her eyes shut, spilling tears onto her cheeks.
It didn’t work.
Then Furi gasped.
Lettle’s eyes flew open. It took her a moment to realise what she was seeing. At first she thought it was snow, fluttering down from the ceiling. But then one landed on the grimoire. She picked it up. It was a leaf, white and skeletal.
‘The Tree of Souls,’ Furi whispered.
The ancient baobab tree was shedding its leaves. One by one they were falling. Amnan howled behind them and Furi’s eyes widened. ‘I can’t feel Amnan, he’s not in my mind any more.’
Did the spell work after all?
‘Lettle?’ Rayan coughed and sat up. ‘What’s going on? Why can’t I feel Ajax?’
Lettle ran over to him and pressed her head to his chest, listening to the comforting thump of his heart.
‘I’m here,’ she sobbed. ‘I’m here.’
‘Where is Ajax?’
Lettle keened quietly as she pointed.
Rayan tensed, his eyes widening as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. ‘So much blood,’ he whispered. ‘Why won’t he get up?’
‘He’s dying, Rayan,’ Jay said. They removed the gauze, ending his torment quicker.
Rayan crawled across the bloodied earth to Ajax. His cry was animalistic, full of a pain few would ever understand. His soul had been ripped from him and Lettle knew he would never truly be the same again.
But at least he was alive.
She wrapped her arms around him as he cried, and when Ajax’s final breath came, Lettle said, ‘Look in magesight, watch him fly free.’
They both watched as Ajax’s soul, a swirl of bronze, was carried upwards by a breeze no one of this earth would ever feel.
‘Where is he going?’ he asked.
‘I do not know.’
‘Somewhere without bloodshed,’ Rayan said, his voice rough.
‘Somewhere without pain,’ Lettle added.
Rayan’s heart beat against hers as they watched the edges of Ajax’s soul blur and fade until it was gone completely.
Crack.
The sound drew them out of their grief and they spun, searching for the sound.
A fissure crept up the trunk of the Tree of Souls, cleaving it in two. The ground began to shudder where the baobab’s roots strained to hold it upright.
‘It’s going to fall!’ Rayan shouted.
They began to run, but Lettle noticed that Alder wasn’t moving. And he was standing directly in the pathway of the falling tree.
‘Alder!’ she shouted.
He looked up at her, his face a mask of confusion. Lettle felt as though someone had winded her and she gasped for air.
Because that wasn’t Alder any more.