Page 58 of Earthbound

‘Oh yes? You?’

Furi flashed her teeth. ‘Always, but not this night. Tonight, I’d like you to find Yeeran O’Pila.’

Cely was surprised. ‘Your consort?’

‘Not consort…’ They had broken the thing between them too quickly for the title to be formalised like it had been for Lettle and Rayan.

Cely’s smile was sly. ‘I’ll spread the word then…I know a few who have been circling her. There’s a rumour that elves are the best to bed. Something about desperation because they don’t live as long—’

‘No,’ Furi growled. She’d taken an inadvertent step towards Cely, who startled backwards. ‘Your vultures can keep their distance.’

‘Yes, my queen.’

Furi winced inwardly; she hadn’t meant to enforce her rank. ‘Of course, if Yeeran approaches someone there is nothing I can do to stop her.’

What if she is already bedding someone else? Maybe Jay? She has been spending lots of time with them.

Furi went cold at the thought.

‘But you would like me to pleasure her?’ Cely asked uncertainly.

‘Yes, no, I mean…’

Furi regretted bringing Yeeran up at all.

Cely laid a gentle hand on Furi’s wrist. ‘How about I entice her to a secluded part of the woods where you and me and maybe a few friends will be?’

‘I—’ This was the moment to lie and say that she hadn’t meant that at all, that this hadn’t occurred to her the second she called on Cely. She looked at her former lover’s fingers on her wrist and thought of all the ways they had brought her pleasure in the past.

But Cely’s was not the touch she craved.

I yearn for one person alone.

So Furi did not correct Cely and allowed her to carry out her plans for Yeeran, leading her to Furi’s corner of the woods.

It had been an evening of pleasure, and then once again a night of pain.

‘Alder is Afa? You are sure?’ Yeeran asked for the third time.

Rayan ran a hand through his dishevelled hair, also for the third time. ‘Yes.’

They were still sitting by the daisies that marked Motogo’s grave. The fray was lightening around them; it heralded the start of a new day that was entirely different from the one before.

Alder was Afa. It confounded her mind.

Did you know Ajax was with Lettle? she asked Amnan. He was on his way back from delivering Cely’s body to her home.

I knew he was not in Mosima these last few months, but many obeah spend their days enjoying the real sun.

Furi had thought Rayan’s malaise had been from missing Lettle, but in fact he’d been with her every step of the way. She was too tired to be angry at him, and the intelligence he’d just brought could change everything.

‘But Lettle’s safe?’ Yeeran looked so anxious, her fingers tearing at the daisies, pulling them out by the root.

Rayan looked away, a glaze going over his eyes which Furi now understood meant he was looking through Ajax’s eyes. ‘Yes, I think so. They’re still talking, though it’s turning night there.’

‘Good, that’s good.’ Yeeran was speaking as though to reassure herself.

‘Yes, that is good,’ Furi said. She was never very adept at comforting people; she communicated best through touch.