Page 54 of Earthbound

Mia let out a whimper and Dart said, ‘Please, whoever you are, just let us out.’ The Wayfarer was crying as he cradled Mia’s stomach.

Alder frowned then turned to Ajax and said, ‘Maun’aant farjav a’ant galur?’

Ajax growled low in his throat before dipping his head.

‘Turfaan al’hudah la eeftah.’

Again Ajax nodded.

Lettle’s mouth hung open. ‘You’re speaking the human language, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

She rummaged in her pack and withdrew the grimoire, thrusting it under his nose. ‘Can you read this?’

Her heart beat so fast she thought he must be able to hear it.

Alder’s expression changed from guarded to frenzied and he reached for the grimoire, but Lettle snatched it back before he could touch it. ‘Where did you get that?’ he asked.

‘It doesn’t matter. Can you read it?’

‘Tell me where you got it.’ His mouth had twisted into a snarl, his eyes widening in horror or fury, Lettle couldn’t tell.

Mia’s heavy breaths were like a ticking clock in the background and it gave Lettle an idea.

‘Let them go and I’ll tell you everything,’ she said.

Alder looked at Mia, his eyes wild, but Lettle wasn’t sure he was actually seeing her.

‘Do you really want to have the death of twins on your hands?’ Her question seemed to permeate his mania and he jerked, his eyes filling with sudden tears.

‘Twins?’ he whispered.

‘Yes,’ Mia said with the fierceness of a protective mother.

He turned on his heel as quickly as his emotions had changed and beckoned to them. ‘Come.’

Lettle was the first to follow, Ajax matching her pace. Despite her trepidation, she couldn’t deny she was a little excited about finally getting answers.

Mia leaned heavily on Dart, with Mortah by her side. The three of them shuffled after Lettle.

She smelled the wildflowers before she saw them. Sweetpea and camomile, mint and hemlock; the aromas of their blossoms reminded her of meadows on the Bleeding Field where the war had long passed by. The bodies that had once fallen fertilising the battlefield into something far more beautiful than the bloodshed that had come before.

The light was what she noticed next. With her fraedia crystal behind her now, the warmth of a new light source filled the cavern the deeper they went. The moss on the rockface turned to ferns the closer they got to the light, until the pathway opened up to a whole new cavern.

It was large enough to steal the breath from Lettle’s chest but small enough to see the entirety of it. A glade of blooming flowers basked in the fraedia light that hung in pockets around the ceiling. Bees and butterflies moved between each blossom, some startling into flight as a rabbit pranced through the meadow.

She immediately looked around in magesight and what she saw confirmed her suspicions.

‘You have a magical boundary here too, just like Mosima,’ she whispered.

‘Mosima?’ Alder said, his eyes narrowing. ‘You have been there?’

Lettle pinched her lips shut, making clear that she would only speak again when he showed them the exit.

Alder gave her a sly smile that was so unlike her friend’s. ‘This way,’ he said.

An obeah slunk out from under a plum tree. He murmured to it in the human language and it moved away.