Page 17 of Earthbound

‘No.’

‘They need to—’

‘No.’

‘Furi!’ Yeeran grabbed her wrists. A flush of rage ran from her neck to her collarbone. Her eyes were blazing, her touch hot. ‘We cannot go on like this. Something needs to give.’

Furi let herself be bound by Yeeran’s grip for a second longer than she needed to before she shrugged her off, her shoulder knocking into the cavern wall. Whether it was that slight vibration, or the gods themselves, something creaked in the rock above them.

When Furi looked up, it took her mind a moment to register the obeah-sized boulder falling directly where she was standing.

I’m going to die, she thought. She’d never been frightened of death–only of leaving things unfinished: the treaty with the elves, reclaiming the Fae Lands, ending the curse…Yeeran. As Yeeran’s face filled her mind, Furi felt sure hands grip her waist and pull her backwards.

The red stone landed in Furi’s shadow, making a dense thud and blowing up a plume of dust. A few smaller rocks followed the first until the cavern walls were once again still.

You wouldn’t even be able to see my body beneath all that, she thought as she looked at the mound. She shuddered.

‘You’re all right,’ Yeeran said, squeezing her waist before releasing her.

Yeeran is always there, even now. The realisation sent her thoughts into turmoil.

‘Thank you,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Rock slides are so rare.’

Yeeran waved away her actions as though they were inconsequential and picked up the conversation from before. ‘You know I’m right about this. Bringing the elves into Mosima will also prove to them how essential the fray is. At the moment they have no reason to believe that we are not hoarding fraedia to spite them.’

Furi shook her head wordlessly. She was still thinking about her near death. They were not far from where her cousin, Nerad, had fallen and died.

Another traitor in her family. Another’s trust squandered.

She glanced at Yeeran. But what if I’ve been wrong, what if Yeeran is the only person I can trust?

She shook her thoughts free and tried to recall the thread of the conversation. ‘It’s too risky letting the elves into Mosima.’

‘We’ll have precautions in place, no weapons, a small party only. Let us at least discuss this with Rayan; I think you will come to see reason in this matter.’

‘Rayan has not left his chambers all week,’ Furi said tonelessly. ‘He is lovesick for Lettle. He cares not for this war.’

‘That is not true, and you know it. He bleeds.’

Furi looked at Yeeran, the words tumbling out of her before she could stop them. ‘We all bleed.’

Yeeran’s head jerked as though startled.

Furi knew the words laid bare the depth of her pain and she did not like feeling vulnerable, so she turned on her heel and called behind her, ‘Let us go then and find the king. See if you can both change my mind as you so clearly think you can.’

—

It turned out to only take two hours to change Furi’s mind. It wasn’t anything that Rayan had said that made her pivot; if anything, it was what he didn’t say.

Over the last few months, they had resorted to meeting in his royal chambers. At first, they had been fearful of being overheard in the forest–they hid so many secrets now–and Rayan suggested they talk in his rooms. It went on like that for many weeks, until Furi noticed he rarely left them. She had then proposed they go to the war room where their map of the continent was, for easy reference. The next day Rayan had had the entire map and all its tokens brought into his living room. The chambers barely resembled their previous function. The sofas were lined with books as Rayan continued to research the humans, obsessively, some might say, and the walls were covered in notes. He had no reason to leave the chamber now, and he rarely did, preferring to eat amongst his work too.

‘Rayan? Are you listening?’ Furi asked him. He had sat passively staring into the distance as Yeeran had presented her case for why they should welcome the fae into Mosima.

‘I’m listening,’ he said quietly. Though Furi wasn’t sure he was. He was only ever half-present, his mind beyond the walls of Mosima, out in the wilderness with Lettle.

She didn’t know what had happened between them, only that it had soured when Sahar uncovered Lettle’s lies.

The one born of a storm’s mist shall be your beloved. But when the waning moon turns, you will grant them their death.