Page 84 of Earthbound

Afa watched her, his gaze discerning. ‘I know you must be hungry. It matters not if I do not eat for a day or two. But you need nourishment.’

He acts like he cares for me.

She began to laugh.

‘What is it?’ he said, a tentative smile on his lips.

She wiped the mirth from her eyes. ‘I think your madness is catching.’

His smile was gone in an instant. ‘I am not mad.’

It was a lie, and they both knew it.

‘Come,’ he said, leading her and Ajax towards a grove of trees. ‘It is not a vineyard, but an orchard.’

He touched the bark of each tree as he passed, his magic calling forth their fruit until their branches were laden: apples, pears, pomegranates, oranges. Ajax jumped into the branches of the nearest mulberry tree and began gorging himself on the berries.

Afa waited for Lettle to pick what she wanted before selecting a single apple.

‘There are chairs this way,’ he said. The orchard opened out into a clearing where ivy had run rampant through the shrubs and plants. In the centre of a patch of overgrown grass were two gold and silver thrones.

‘When you said chairs, I didn’t think you meant thrones.’

‘Once, but now they are just chairs of uncommon discomfort.’

Lettle sat down gingerly.

Never has my ass been cradled by something quite as opulent, she thought. Then she bit into a pear and groaned as the sweetness burst across her tongue.

‘Good, is it not?’ he said.

‘Yes.’ Afa had been right, she was starving.

His thumb absently polished the red skin of the apple, not eating it.

‘Is it your connection to the earth that sustains you?’ Lettle asked.

‘It sustains my life force, not my body.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘When I starve myself my mortal body wastes away, my muscles desiccate, until I become more skeleton than human. Like a tree in the throes of winter.’

‘But you still do not die?’

‘I enter a comatose state, somewhere between life and death. I can remain that way for many years, barely breathing, barely thinking.’

She realised he had said ‘when’, not ‘if’. ‘So you’ve done it.’

‘Yes, frequently,’ he admitted. ‘Once, I remained asleep for two hundred and eighty-two years. And I still did not die.’

‘But you bleed, I know you do. I’ve seen Alder hurt himself.’

‘Yes, but I heal quickly too.’

‘Too quickly to cause serious damage?’

An expression manifested that Lettle hadn’t seen on his face before: embarrassment. She wondered how many times he had tried to end his life.