Yeeran
We saw Golan yesterday, he seems to be enjoying life as a farmer. His land is the only place I can get mangoes.
I’m already counting the days until I see you again. Send my love to Furi, Amnan is penning his own letter as we speak.
Yours always,
Pila
‘Another letter from Pila?’ Furi asked.
‘Yes, they made it to Caperly. Golan’s there.’
‘Oh, good. Did she say anything of Amnan?’
‘She said Amnan was writing to you too,’ Yeeran said.
Furi shrugged. ‘Knowing him, it’ll take him three weeks to write it, and when it finally arrives it’ll be fifty pages long.’
She stood up from her desk and walked over to Yeeran, her hands snaking around her waist as her lips nibbled at Yeeran’s jaw.
‘I knew putting our desks in the same room would never work,’ Yeeran said.
‘What do you mean? We’re both working very, very hard.’
Yeeran caught Furi’s wrist as her hand tried to work its way through her blouse. ‘I didn’t realise my work today was going to be quite so vigorous.’ She pulled Furi onto her lap and kissed her.
They were finally home.
When Afa had said to Rayan and Furi that he had rebuilt their home, they had thought he had meant Mosima. But no, when the elves returned to the Bleeding Field, it was no longer the battlefield they had known.
From beneath the earth Afa had resurrected the cities that had once flourished there.
But the real work had not come in building the bricks, but in building the city.
First they had to prise the ownership of the land from the newly elected elven chieftains. ‘Ownership, what a ridiculous idea,’ Furi had seethed.
Mortah’s commandeering during Malak’s coup had gained her enough respect to nominate herself for the role of chieftain. She was a name many of the older soldiers recognised, and once her rank was reinstated, she was voted in with a landslide.
Partly because no one else wanted the job–the tribes were in turmoil. But either way, Mortah had proved herself capable of leading an army, and that gave her the support she needed.
Having Mortah as an ally helped the fae too.
She guided through the legislation about the Fae Lands within days.
It had also helped that the very thing they had all been fighting over–fraedia–could now be mined with ease from the fray, which Afa had pulled from Mosima’s ceiling and deposited next to the elven camp.
He had done everything with a purpose.
Meow.
Something furry jumped onto Furi’s back and she squealed, breaking the kiss.
‘Miller, I’ve told you before, you’ve got to stop jumping on my back! It brings back bad memories.’ Furi gathered the tomcat into her arms and gave him a kiss on the head.
He purred happily.
‘You know that’s why he does it, because you cuddle him afterwards,’ Yeeran said dryly.
Furi shrugged and gave him another kiss before putting him down.
‘Shall we go for a ride?’ she said.
‘I can’t. I’ve got to finish reading both these books before tomorrow. Jay is testing me on them.’
Though the fae had offered to retain Yeeran’s position as ambassador, she had gladly retired from the role. Mortah had also suggested she rejoin the Waning army, but Yeeran could never imagine donning a uniform again.
So instead, she had approached Jay. Yeeran had been nervous and had prepared a little speech about how her experience in the quarantine district had changed her. But Jay had just looked her up and down and said, ‘Pass the gauze.’
And that was it, she was a healer’s apprentice.
Furi picked up the books Yeeran was planning to study. ‘Phlebology: a healer’s art and Cartilage of the body. These look deeply boring.’
‘They’re not, they’re really interesting. This one is all about diagnosing and treating vein disorders—’
‘So you’ve read it already?’
‘Yes, but—’
Furi pulled her up from the chair. ‘We’re going for a ride. You’ve been studying for months, you need to take a break.’
The truth was, Yeeran loved studying about the body. She’d spent years learning to break it, and here she was discovering how to mend it back together.
But she also loved making Furi happy, and right now going for a ride would keep her smile shining, and that was worth it.
‘Let’s go.’
—
Their home was equipped with a stable that Yeeran had spent a month building. ‘They need to be comfortable,’ Furi had said, when she’d changed the plans for the hundredth time. Her beloved Happy couldn’t have anything less.
Furi had named the camels Happy and Sad, mainly because she thought it was funny. It was actually Sad who was the best spirited and Happy who was the feistier of the two.
They mounted and set off across the city.
Though it wasn’t quite yet a city. Anyah was doing her best, but she had been nominated to lead a very different home from the one she’d left.
Furi and Rayan had abdicated the moment they could. Neither of them had wanted the throne.
‘Let the people vote, like we did before, let them choose their leader,’ Furi had said.
And vote they did, for Anyah, the serving girl turned soldier turned commander.
The camels galloped across the field that had once been Yeeran’s livelihood and home.
Furi’s hair ran like golden thread down her back and she smiled as she passed Yeeran riding Happy.
Yeeran could never have imagined the world she now lived in. No dream or nightmare could have captured her tale in its entirety.
Her thoughts went to the little girl who had lived off the food she pilfered from the pockets of dead soldiers. From the very fields beneath her camel’s feet.
Would she believe the story of her life? All she had known back then was the Elven Lands, the Forever War and Lettle. And now she lived in a world of humans, fae, and Pila too.
But most of all, peace.
It would be temporary. It always was. War would come again in ten, twenty, a hundred years.
But for now, she revelled in the simplicity of silence.
Never again would she beat her drum.