Page 47 of Earthbound

Yeeran, look. Pila’s words were urgent. At the same time, Furi gasped and Yeeran knew whatever she was about to see, the queen was already viewing in Amnan’s sight.

For a dizzying moment, both realities presented themselves in Yeeran’s mind: Cely lying dead in Mosima and her obeah lying dead topside.

‘No,’ she uttered as the trees of the woodland fell away and she saw the obeah in its entirety.

Its side was pockmarked with wounds. Not one or two, but dozens of them. Yeeran had caused enough deaths to know the tell-tale signs of drumfire.

Pila’s gaze moved suddenly upwards as she noticed something by the edge of the elf side of the neutral zone. The flash of a figure, a uniform, a drum. Then they disappeared into the night. But not before Yeeran had seen the silver thread stitched into their back. A single symbol of a waning moon.

Shall I go after them? Pila asked.

No, you need to stay safe, come back to Mosima. Now.

‘You did this?’ Furi said, the ire in her voice pulling Yeeran straight back to the woodland.

Motogo and Malak had been brought forward by two faeguards, and Furi was rounding on them.

‘Is that fae dead?’ Motogo’s performance–if that’s what it was–would have convinced Yeeran of Waning’s innocence, if she hadn’t seen the obeah’s body.

‘What else would you expect? You killed her obeah,’ Furi spat.

Malak took a shocked step back. ‘How? I don’t understand.’

‘Her obeah was killed by drumfire in the neutral zone,’ Yeeran said quietly.

The gasp rippled through the crowd. There was no containing this secret. Furi had already accused the elves, and the citizens of Mosima would have eventually demanded answers.

Zayed started to stand, and Rayan went to help him up. His shaking legs found strength as his grief hardened into something more powerful–vengeance. ‘Why did you do this?’

The crowd growled as one, fangs gleaming in the star glider light.

Malak’s gaze shifted left and right as he took in the fae around him. His hands trembled by his sides. Motogo, on the other hand, didn’t recognise the danger they were in.

‘If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been here all night. We had no hand in this!’ Motogo shouted.

‘Are you not the chieftain of Waning, responsible for all soldiers under your jurisdiction? Is it not true that your tribe favours drumfire most?’

Furi looked to Yeeran for confirmation. Malak’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, waiting for Yeeran’s response.

She nodded once, and for some reason it felt like betraying Salawa all over again.

‘But I told my soldiers—’ Motogo’s voice had risen an octave.

‘Do not kill obeah. That was the final term on the treaty that you were yet to sign,’ Furi said quietly. ‘You were invited here as guests—’

‘Guests?’ Motogo said in disbelief. ‘You invite us to the heart of your battlefield to flaunt your riches in the sky.’

‘Mosima is no battlefield,’ Furi’s voice dripped with venom. ‘No one here wields a weapon.’

Motogo seethed, ‘You are the weapon!’

‘You would do well to remember that,’ she said, her eyes flashing.

Yeeran and Malak exchanged a glance. Their hopes for this encounter had been dashed the moment Cely died. It lay with them to salvage it.

‘Queen Furi, you are of course right,’ Malak said sincerely. ‘The responsibility for the fae’s murder should be laid at the feet of my chieftain. But we did not order her death; our only crime is not signing the treaty sooner.’

Furi scoffed. ‘If we killed one of yours, would you have pardoned us on such a technicality?’