Page 114 of Foundling

“Your kind need a Queen. You’d fight your very nature and doom yourselves to ruin.”

“We aren’t drones to be commanded, we have a will and a mind of our own! Everyone will see it—without a Queen, we will be free, untethered from her chain. Magic will flow through all of us as it always should have—”

Attalus slammed his hand on the stone above her, his wings and robes surrounding her on all sides. He blocked out the light so that only the whites of her eyes broke up the shadow.

“And what if you’re wrong?” he whispered into the darkness. “What if your blade had struck true and you’d condemned all your kind?” The questions dangled in the cramped air between them, and Attalus heard her shudder. Only after a long moment did Attalus straighten, little by little. In the rush of stale air that came between them, he asked, “What then, Ondra Doombringer?”

A tear slid from her eye, and Attalus smiled on his way out.

Marcades shut the door behind him with a resounding clang. Attalus noticed the distaste souring the captain’s already severe face.

“What?” asked Attalus. “She’s still got both her eyes.”

As they walked back through the corridor of cells, Marcades spat, “Hate this business. There’s no honor in it.”

“Honor is a luxury, captain,” Attalus quipped. “So long as my mate rests easy and safe, I don’t care how it’s done.”

He could hear Marcades’s silent but loud turmoil, but that was the captain’s own problem to wrest with. Honor was all well and good; it could sustain some when all else fled, and it sounded nice in songs and stories. But Attalus had seen far too many innocent throats ripped out as good, honorable people stood on and did nothing to believe in it anymore.

Attalus was glad to be out of that dark stairwell, able to stretch his wings. When he and Marcades made the landing, another metal gate was swung closed behind them. He had a feeling that that place had been far busier under Leita’s predecessor.

“Well then, captain, are you done with me or shall I take command of your training yard? I could do with some skull-bashing.”

Marcades huffed—his version of a laugh. “But you’re dressed so finely today, my prince.”

“That should hardly matter, unless you and your warriors actually mean to give me a sweat finally.”

“As though you—”

“Dragons!”

He and Marcades came to a sudden stop, staring at each other. But Attalus was right here…?

Attalus broke into a run, Marcades close behind him. Through the corridors they ran, Attalus sailing down one grand staircase with two flaps of his wings. He made the front courtyard first to the deafening thunder of great horns.

“Dragons aloft! Take cover!”

As the horns blared and alarms raised, Attalus looked to the sky.

There, stark against the blue summer sky, were a formation of dragons. Higher than birds but low enough that they meant to be spotted.

And they weren’t just the armor-clad gorgoroi. At their head, Attalus could discern the gleaming golden scales of a diadochos. Erastus or Tychon, most likely. Araxos wouldn’t leave the Droplets himself with a throne so shiny and new.

His shriek of outrage burst across the courtyard. Was there to be no end to the indignities? They refused communications to instead indirectly threaten the faelands? Even the mad king hadn’t been so mad.

Enough.

As Marcades skidded into the courtyard, Attalus threw off his robes. The shift began from one blink to the next, bones elongating, muscle growing. Marcades watched grimly as Attalus took on the beast, flame already spilling from his snarling mouth.

Up at the sky he roared, a sound every Savrakae would understand. Here I am, you twats. Come and get me.

Attalus took three great bounds, wings pumping, and launched himself into the sky.

He didn’t care which brother this was—only the warm crunch of a throat would satisfy him.

Wings working, he gained height, the dragons above banking. They’d seen him. Good.

“Attalus, no!”