Chapter Thirty-Three A Man Called No One
Chapter Thirty-Three
A Man Called No One
The ground is shaking beneath me.
I am not the man I was a moment ago, nor am I the man I was a century ago.
One was called Afa, and the other Alder. Now I am both but neither.
‘Alder!’ Lettle shouts. I love Lettle. The other me didn’t, he sought to trick her, but the one I am now loves her like a sister.
Leaves fall around me, each one a soul of the Jani dynasty. Each one a descendant of the children I had with Hady.
I remember them now. I smile. I see their faces through the years. I never meet them, but I know them through Hady’s eyes.
Layla and Anis. They have Hady’s curly hair, but the golden streaks are all mine.
I wonder what Mia’s twins will look like.
‘Uncle Alder,’ I whisper. But I will never be that, I know that now.
I send my awareness far from here and hear the conifers swaying. Their roots remember the bones and skin they cradled.
I will call on you soon, I whisper, and I feel their branches shiver in the breeze.
Centuries of memories stack like books in my mind, a library of the years. Some are ancient, the words faded, while others, though worn from frequent handling, are still vibrant–like the tome that carries my memories of Hady.
There is another volume on that shelf now. A recent edition to my collection of loves and loved.
Golan.
He watches me now from the edges of the woodland.
I love you, I want to say. I have loved you with every footfall, with every breath. Your love tethers me to the world more than magic ever could.
But I know he cannot love the person I am now. He might not have changed, but I have.
I see the shadow of the Tree of Souls shift as it splits in two. It is falling, one half going backwards to crush the bones of the palace, the other falling forwards to crush the bones of me.
Cursed to endure, cursed to survive. The sentence is shorn in half. The words are written in a language I will never understand. Hady was smart like that. But I know the words of the prophecy like the creases on my palm.
Forever the war will rage, until united, the three shall die.
Humans made low, then fae made lower,
Then elves in ignorance, gone is their power,
Cursed to endure, cursed to survive.
All shall perish lest all three thrive.
I had thought I had understood it. But no one can ever truly understand magic.
Until united…
Afa and Alder.
I am more than I was a moment ago. Neither villain nor hero. But the person I am now, was foretold millennia past.
It is possible to feel like a token on a board, even with all the power of the earth at your fingertips.
I think all of this in the time it takes for a leaf to land at my feet. The tree will come next. But I will not let it break me.
With a thought I harness the wind and alter the tree’s path of destruction.
The split trunk falls on the barren branches of the woodland.
One side falling to my left, the other to my right.
The pieces carve two valleys into the earth, sending shockwaves through the city. There is silence, in the aftermath.
‘You’re him, aren’t you?’ Only Lettle is brave enough to approach me.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I am both.’
‘How?’ she says. I don’t know whether she knows she’s crying.
‘Remember I told you I was once foolish?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I was foolish again.’
‘Alder—’
‘I am not he.’ But I am, and in that is the irony.
‘Explain,’ she pleads.
I am weary and I will need my strength for what is to come but I speak. ‘The spell was an unravelling and it undid all that Hady once bound. The obeah, Mosima, the Jani dynasty: all are unbound.’
‘Yes, I knew that—’
I hold up my hand. I know that if given enough breath, Lettle will not stop her interrogation.
‘The unravelling also unbound me from my sanctuary. And that was my singular purpose here.’
My words condemn me, I know that. But Afa, the person I was, had little time for guilt. His plan had been to free himself only–he thought so little of the person he was beyond the walls of his prison that he did not think about the consequences of what would happen to Alder’s memories.
I should say, I didn’t think of the consequences. We are one now.
Lettle looks betrayed and it breaks my heart. ‘You had no intention of saving the humans?’
‘I had all intentions,’ I admit, ‘but that purpose faded long ago.’
‘So the spell was simply an unravelling? Be free of your prison, and then what?’
‘Live,’ I say, then I laugh. Because how could I expect to live without love? ‘I did not consider that in freeing myself, I would become Alder and Afa both.’
I am changed. For good. For bad.
‘Alder?’ Golan steps forward. Dirt and tears leave muddy tracks down his face.
I raise my hand to wipe them away and he flinches. It is like a serrated knife against my heart. He must see the hurt in my eyes for he gently reaches for me.
‘Do you remember me?’ he asks.
‘Yes.’ All of you.
Golan’s hands grow more confident and I let his fingers trace the lines of my face.
‘You’re really in there, aren’t you?’ he says.
‘I am.’
He smiles, and I think, I am glad to have lived free, to see his smile again.
The ground trembles beneath me, but I am not the cause. The Tree of Souls’ roots run deep, and every inch of it is dying.
‘Lettle, we need to move,’ the king says. Though I wonder if he is still the king. He is no longer tethered to the haven Hady built.
The web of roots below the city is decaying and the earth begins to fold in on itself. I wonder if that is how I shall look when I die.
For die I must.
‘Alder,’ Lettle calls me by that name again, though it no longer fits. ‘Are you doing this?’
I shake my head. ‘I am not. Mosima will fall without the magic and the tree that bound it. I cannot bring life where there is none.’ I look at the obeah. They are the result of my last attempt.
Cracks are opening up by our feet, swallowing trees whole. Lettle stumbles then falls into a crevice, her legs disappearing beneath her.
‘Help me,’ she screams.
And I am reminded of two things at once.
Cold water at my back, and a harness at my waist. My hand reaching up to her in fear. ‘Help me,’ I cry. I am Alder, and she is my friend.
The second memory is even more disturbing than the first. I churn the soil up under Lettle’s feet and I watch her fall. We are in the sanctuary. I am Afa, and she is no one to me.
It is hard remembering not loving someone. The vacuous space of feeling is there when it should not be.
That is how I know I am not Afa and could never be Afa again.
For Afa would let the people of Mosima die. And Alder would not.
So I call on all the parts of me: the soil and the rivers, the wind and the sea. I am all things that have grown with this world.
But a god I am not.