Page 154 of Earthbound

‘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.’