Page 163 of Earthbound

‘Alder!’ Lettle shouts. I love Lettle. The other me didn’t, he sought to trick her, but the one I am now loves her like a sister.

Leaves fall around me, each one a soul of the Jani dynasty. Each one a descendant of the children I had with Hady.

I remember them now. I smile. I see their faces through the years. I never meet them, but I know them through Hady’s eyes.

Layla and Anis. They have Hady’s curly hair, but the golden streaks are all mine.

I wonder what Mia’s twins will look like.

‘Uncle Alder,’ I whisper. But I will never be that, I know that now.

I send my awareness far from here and hear the conifers swaying. Their roots remember the bones and skin they cradled.

I will call on you soon, I whisper, and I feel their branches shiver in the breeze.

Centuries of memories stack like books in my mind, a library of the years. Some are ancient, the words faded, while others, though worn from frequent handling, are still vibrant–like the tome that carries my memories of Hady.

There is another volume on that shelf now. A recent edition to my collection of loves and loved.

Golan.

He watches me now from the edges of the woodland.

I love you, I want to say. I have loved you with every footfall, with every breath. Your love tethers me to the world more than magic ever could.

But I know he cannot love the person I am now. He might not have changed, but I have.

I see the shadow of the Tree of Souls shift as it splits in two. It is falling, one half going backwards to crush the bones of the palace, the other falling forwards to crush the bones of me.

Cursed to endure, cursed to survive. The sentence is shorn in half. The words are written in a language I will never understand. Hady was smart like that. But I know the words of the prophecy like the creases on my palm.

Forever the war will rage, until united, the three shall die.

Humans made low, then fae made lower,

Then elves in ignorance, gone is their power,

Cursed to endure, cursed to survive.

All shall perish lest all three thrive.

I had thought I had understood it. But no one can ever truly understand magic.

Until united…

Afa and Alder.

I am more than I was a moment ago. Neither villain nor hero. But the person I am now, was foretold millennia past.

It is possible to feel like a token on a board, even with all the power of the earth at your fingertips.

I think all of this in the time it takes for a leaf to land at my feet. The tree will come next. But I will not let it break me.

With a thought I harness the wind and alter the tree’s path of destruction. The split trunk falls on the barren branches of the woodland. One side falling to my left, the other to my right. The pieces carve two valleys into the earth, sending shockwaves through the city. There is silence, in the aftermath.

‘You’re him, aren’t you?’ Only Lettle is brave enough to approach me.

‘No,’ I say. ‘I am both.’