Page 3 of Earthbound

Eventually Yeeran’s excited chatter faded into shocked silence.

‘Did you say obeah were once humans?’ Golan said beside Yeeran.

For the first time Lettle looked around the room. Alder was staring bleary-eyed into the distance, as though he had just woken. Pila sat watching him, her paws resting on his feet–which would have struck her as odd if she wasn’t wholly invested in sharing her news.

‘Yes,’ Lettle said triumphantly. ‘Obeah were once humans.’

‘How?’ The voice behind her turned her nerves to ice. There was no warmth in Rayan’s voice and the single word was spoken like a command and not a question.

I am just a subject to him now. Not a consort. Not a lover.

Lettle swallowed the sob that lurched up her throat and turned to face him.

‘The Fates told me.’

There was a snort and Furi walked past Rayan’s shadow into the room. Yeeran took a step back, as though Furi’s presence had pushed her to the periphery. Lettle knew what that felt like. The king and queen were a presence to behold. Both astoundingly beautiful, both tall. And each dangerous in their own way. Furi held the tension of someone poised to strike at any moment. Rayan held himself like a soldier…but he was most dangerous beneath the sheets.

Lettle tugged at her braids until her scalp grew painfully taut. The pain distracted her from her breaking heart.

‘Well? Tell us everything,’ Furi prompted.

And so Lettle did. She explained how Sahar had swapped her talismans to prevent her from speaking to the Fates. Then she told them of the prophecy.

‘Don’t you see? Humans made low no longer. Cursebound to centuries on four fleet feet. ‘She pointed to Pila. ‘Four feet!’

‘Many things have four feet, Lettle,’ Furi said dryly. Lettle felt the mood in the room shift to disbelief.

‘Look at them in magesight, then look at Alder: they have the same bronze hue.’ Lettle was getting exasperated. Rayan refused to meet her eyes, so she looked to Yeeran.

Her sister was mumbling the prophecy to herself. ‘Soon their freedom beckons…’

‘Yeeran?’

She looked up when Lettle called her name, her violet eyes wide and imploring. ‘You’re right, the obeah are humans.’

‘Of course you would side with her,’ Furi muttered, but Yeeran didn’t rise to the bait.

She spoke to Lettle alone. ‘While you were gone Alder spoke in his sleep again.’

Alder gave a tired wave.

Yeeran continued, ‘And Pila understood him.’

‘What?’

‘What?’

Both Rayan and Furi exclaimed in tandem, but Lettle was not surprised.

‘What did he say?’

It was Alder who answered, his voice deep and distant. ‘The time for the curse to end is fast approaching.’

Silence. But the silence wasn’t empty. It was full of questions. They bristled along Lettle’s skin, leaving the hairs raised.

She knew that the faebound were conversing with their obeah. But she also understood from Yeeran that the creatures knew very little about who and what they were.

Finally, when she could stand it no longer, she asked, ‘Well, what now?’