Page 160 of Earthbound

Yes. I was lucky the soldier didn’t recognise me. How are Ajax and Rayan?

They live, but not for long.

Yeeran squeezed her eyes shut against the torrent of grief that threatened to choke her.

And Lettle?

She…she is a broken thing, Pila said softly.

Yeeran couldn’t imagine the pain of losing Furi. Just the thought of it undid the seams of her heart, and she felt herself bleeding.

A sound brought her back to the deserted camp. She crept towards the tent entrance and gently lifted the flap.

A figure shuffled out of the tent opposite her. They looked left and right, checking the street was clear before venturing out. As they stepped into the daylight Yeeran could see who it was.

Malak.

Blood seeped from a wound at the back of his head, dyeing his blond hair crimson. His face was set in a snarl of determination as though he could defy death itself.

She slipped out of the tent after him. When she was within firing distance she said, ‘Malak.’

The chieftain paused, his shoulders tensed. Then he continued walking.

She struck the mud by his feet with her magic. A couple of staccato beats. Ba-dum.

He stopped again but still didn’t turn to face her. ‘Leave me be, Yeeran,’ he said.

‘Leave you be? You just tried to kill my sister,’ she said. She unravelled a thread of magic with her drum and coaxed it to wind tightly around his ankles.

Rata-dum, rata-dum.

The act caused him to fall forward, his chest striking the ground first.

As she rounded on him, he began to laugh. A simple sound full of mirth.

‘I don’t see anything funny here,’ Yeeran said.

‘Look, can’t you see, we’ve just crossed the old neutral zone,’ he laughed. ‘The neutral zone, what fools were we?’

Yeeran followed his line of sight and spotted the old coalition flag that marked the elven territory hanging limply from its pole.

‘I was a fool, that is true,’ Yeeran said. ‘I should have never trusted you.’

‘I told you that,’ he said. ‘But if it helps, I really did want to change things.’

‘But kill as many fae as you wanted along the way? The siege, the rats, the locusts? Even the obeah that was killed, that was all you, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

At least he didn’t lie.

He smiled sadly, his cheek in the dirt. ‘And I would do it all again.’

‘You have no empathy. All you wanted was glory.’

Abruptly he bucked up from the ground. ‘All I wanted was peace!’ he shouted, spittle and mud flying everywhere. His eyes were wild and red.

‘I don’t know if we even know what peace looks like,’ Yeeran whispered. ‘We lost sight of what it means a long time ago.’