Page 1 of Earthbound

Chapter One

Lettle

Lettle couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t tired. The soles of her feet were cracked and bleeding. Her boots were packed with tarrow root to help ease the pain, but the herb’s lingering smell–a bit like decomposing fish–made her feel nauseated.

Four months the three of them had been walking. Farhan’s faeguard uniform bore signs of every step they had taken, the seams coming apart, the gold thread splattered with mud. Even Alder’s frequent smile had tarnished, growing duller each day.

Though I think it is less the trek and more his distance from Golan.

Jealousy blossomed behind her eyes in the form of a headache, adding to her list of ailments. But she would rather feel the pain of it than linger in her thoughts. In one thought in particular: Rayan.

‘We might love each other, Lettle, but without trust we cannot live for each other.’

His words had grown blackened roots in her heart, poisoning her soul, so that day by day she felt a little less like living. She looked sidelong at Alder beside her. It was only her curiosity that kept her going now.

‘Will we make it to Caperly tonight?’ she asked him.

He hesitated before replying. ‘…No.’

It was her, she was holding them up. But she couldn’t go faster, no matter how much she willed her body to move.

The quicker we get to Caperly, the sooner we can uncover the truth.

She stumbled, her attempt at speed failing, and fell heavily on her left elbow. She cried out in pain, the shortened muscles in her atrophied arm straining from the fall. The wasting pox had stolen all the strength in that limb and she struggled for a moment to sit back up.

Alder grabbed her by the shoulder, easing her into a sitting position. In his other hand he held out the jar of owen tree sap. Lettle swallowed a mouthful of the sticky liquid and sighed when it took effect, easing the pain.

She looked over the cliff edge. They were far from sea level now. The foliage had long become unfamiliar to her. The conifers, which Alder fondly called ‘Asase’s children’, lined the trail. When she’d asked him why, he shrugged and said that was just what the Nomads called them. Their pine cones scented the air with a fresh, citrussy smell that would have been pleasant if Lettle wasn’t thoroughly sick of it.

She plucked the fruit from a nearby juniper bush, the berry bursting on her tongue with a bitterness she’d come to appreciate. She offered one to Alder, who shook his head.

‘Are you all right now?’ Alder asked.

‘No,’ she answered honestly.

He nodded and looked to the horizon. Neither was he. That was the thing about travelling together for so long; she now knew his moods as intimately as her own.

‘It will be sunset soon,’ he said. ‘Let’s stop here for the night.’

Lettle should have felt relief, but the nights were harder than the day. The further they trekked up the mountain, the colder it had become.

She looked to the sky and her dread deepened.

‘Snow clouds,’ she said.

Alder’s smile was proud, despite what she’d surmised. He’d spent many days teaching her to differentiate between the blurred edges of a snow cloud and the sharp outline of a rain cloud.

‘It will snow more frequently now,’ he said. ‘Soon the village pass will be blocked by ice and snow.’

‘What if it’s already blocked?’

‘It isn’t,’ he said with certainty. Lettle had come to trust Alder’s word on everything relating to the environment. He simply knew things. Neither of them understood how he did, but they had begun to understand why.

He was human. Or partly human at least. A race not seen or heard of for a millennium. And the only tool that she had to understand how he came into existence was another reason why she hated the nightfall–his sleepwalking. It was then that Alder was able to access the memories seemingly lost to him and he would talk in the human language.

It didn’t happen every night, but she had to keep watch for when it did.

Not that she could speak the human language.