Page 100 of Earthbound

From Lettle’s rough calculation there were fifty soulless obeah in the sanctuary, maybe more.

‘And they follow your every command?’

Afa reached out a hand for one of the obeah to nuzzle. It did so with little affection.

‘Yes, it appears free will is also tied up in a soul. The only frustrating thing is I have to inform them when to eat and drink. Unlike him.’ He pointed to Ajax, and Lettle’s heart began to pound. She didn’t like Afa’s attention on him.

‘He cannot harm me, and though I can enforce a modicum of control, he is capable of making his own decisions.’ Afa laughed. ‘At least I do not have to tell him when to defecate.’

Lettle worried at a seam in her tunic. She had pressed a hole through the fabric without realising.

‘You said you figured this out a few hundred years ago?’ she said.

‘Mayhap three hundred years? Give or take a century. I stopped counting the years long ago, so I am relying on your tale to situate me in time.’

Lettle moved into magesight, her gaze lingering on the darkness within the obeah’s chest. It was lightless, without the spark of a soul. Her mind stuttered on a thought.

‘The Lightless,’ Lettle whispered. ‘That’s how there are fae without obeah bound to them.’

‘Lightless.’ He rolled the word on the tip of his tongue. ‘An interesting term.’

She didn’t like the way he savoured it. ‘They’re the unbound fae who have been ostracised all these years.’

Afa tapped his chin in wonder. ‘Fascinating. That suggests that those in Mosima are predestined to bind with certain creatures. Ha! Even after a millennium of study I can still be surprised.’

Lettle wanted to throttle him. ‘How many obeah have you exorcised from their souls?’

He shrugged. ‘Some I used for future experiments, others died of old age. So I truly could not tell you.’

Lettle balled her hands into fists. Afa didn’t care that he was the reason for a seismic shift within the fae’s society.

‘Besides, didn’t you tell me that the elves have been killing obeah for weapons? I wasn’t the only one to contribute to the Lightless. ‘He seemed to enjoy saying the word, so he repeated it three more times. ‘Lightless, Lightless, Lightless.’

Each time he said it, some of Lettle’s anger ebbed into weariness. He was right, she too was to blame for the Lightless. She had killed many obeah to talk to the Fates over the years.

She rubbed at her temples and looked at the soulless obeah with new understanding.

Was Golan’s obeah among them? He had blamed himself as though it were a shortcoming, a lacking, but that burden of guilt was not his to bear.

But neither did it seem to affect Afa. His mouth curved upwards with a half-smile. She hated how he used her friend’s face to twist it into something different.

Alder, how I miss you. He was the last piece of the puzzle that hadn’t slotted into place.

‘If Hady bound you here, how is it you can go outside?’ What of my friend?

Afa splayed his arms wide as he pointed to the sanctuary walls. ‘I told you I have perused every book that has ever been written in the human language. I knew I could not break the spell of my prison, especially one this intricate. But I could leave as someone else.’

His gaze snapped to Lettle’s and he adopted the teacher’s intonation that was so similar to the Alder she knew. ‘Did you know that it isn’t the soul that makes us who we are, but our past? When I discovered this truth, I was finally able to grieve for my family. They died the day they lost their memories.’

‘So you found a loophole?’

He frowned at her turn of phrase.

‘A way to subvert your prison,’ she explained.

‘Yes, in a way. Thirty years ago, I wove a spell that strips me of my memories as I cross the threshold from the sanctuary to the world beyond. It is a loophole, as you put it. It allows me to leave the boundary Hady put in place.’

That must be how Alder can get into Mosima too.