Page 10 of Earthbound

‘I will request an audience again.’

Malak clasped his hands together. ‘That is all you can do.’

‘You’ll report all this back, won’t you?’

Malak shrugged. ‘Just doing my job, Colonel Yeeran.’

‘Ambassador,’ Yeeran corrected him, like she did every time he said it. He didn’t do it with malice; if anything, it reminded her of when she was his colonel.

‘Ambassador,’ he said. His smile was wolfish.

She smiled back. Malak was one of those people that it was impossible not to like.

‘See you in three days?’

‘Same time, same place,’ he replied, like he always did. Like they had a choice. But they were just pawns on a board. Their lives used as collateral for their rulers.

They crossed paths, returning to their respective homes.

Pila, alert Furi that I need to be let through the boundary.

Pila grew distant for a second then she said, Furi is already there.

Yeeran took a deep breath and braced herself for Furi’s wrath.

But if she was truly being honest, she was looking forward to it too. Being the subject of Furi’s emotions, even if it wasn’t love, was exhilarating.

‘Is it possible to ever truly move on from her?’ Yeeran had asked Jay, Furi’s former lover, earlier that day. Yeeran was sitting at Jay’s kitchen table nursing a hot mug of tea.

‘I wouldn’t know. I never really moved on to her,’ Jay said as they righted their healer uniform. One of the positive changes implemented by Golan and the Free the Light Initiative meant that Lightless healers could now work in Mosima’s hospitals. Jay had been one of the first to sign up. ‘We were never in love like you were. Only lovers.’

Lovers in love. Is that why it hurts so much?

Jay had opened their home to Yeeran one day when the loneliness had become too much. They had listened attentively, offering advice and a place of solace.

‘She looks at me so passively now, like she looks through me.’

‘A defence mechanism. You know Furi as well as I. She will be hurting too.’

Jay’s words had brought her some strange comfort. At least she and Furi were joined in one thing: pain.

Yeeran was nearing the end of the tunnel now. No matter how hard it is to be around her, I still yearn for it.

A drug, Pila said unhelpfully. She is like your drug.

Yeeran’s steps faltered and she scraped her palm on the tunnel wall as she righted herself.

It was times like these that Yeeran found herself wondering what Pila would be like in her human form, how her inquisitiveness would manifest through expression.

The thought was followed by an overwhelming sense of grief. If Lettle is successful in uncovering the truth, she might be able to undo the magic that keeps Pila in this form. And I will lose her.

As always, Pila was listening to Yeeran’s thoughts.

You will never lose me, Pila said gently. I am who I have always been.

Yeeran sniffed, realising she was crying. She wiped at her eyes.

A pain in my ass? Yeeran said, laughing. Pila huffed out a laugh somewhere in the Royal Woodland.