Page 118 of Foundling

Yes. Ondra hadn’t been blackmailed or coerced or enthralled. The choices she made were her own, and so were the consequences.

Leita stepped forward, her breathing shallow. She feared anything deeper would make her vomit. Only at the last moment did she unclench her trembling hands from behind her back. One gathered in a fist at her side, the other reached out for Ondra’s head.

“Don’t make me do this,” she whispered.

“If you want my secrets, you’ll have to take them,” Ondra growled.

What little air remained in Leita’s lungs escaped in a shudder. Leita fought tears, her hand visibly shaking as she laid it upon Ondra’s head.

“You’re just like her,” spat Ondra.

No, she wasn’t. She was nothing like Amaranthe.

Leita’s eyes slid closed, not wanting to see what happened.

Her magic touched Ondra’s mind, hotly burning with anger and terror. An animal backed into a corner, she swiped and hissed at Leita’s invasion, horrid yowls a haunting warning.

Perhaps, with practice, Leita might have been gentler. There was likely a way to finesse secrets and find what was sought without trampling over every memory and synapse. Leita didn’t know how, though. She didn’t want to. She didn’t want to do this.

She tried to be quick, ramming through Ondra’s mind in a horrible battering. Leita’s own consciousness quailed and shrunk at the horror, trying not to feel the threads of sanity snap around her own fingers.

“They number in the hundreds, but there’s seven who lead,” Leita said, her eyes clenched shut. “They meet up the coast, where they keep their storehouse. Where they make—”

“NO!” Ondra thrashed beneath her, and the guards held fast. Ondra screamed and screamed, sounds pulled up from the dregs of her soul that echoed through the hall.

“They make weapons. Magic items, spelled to…” Leita’s throat clenched shut. The group pooled their magic to spell chains, manacles, and daggers, items that when used on fae, mantii, Savrakae, harpies, or orcs would sap their strength, siphon their magic, and prevent their shift.

Leita herself had been a prisoner of such manacles. The horrid memory, of being so weak, her stolen magic echoing around her like a phantom, withered limb, threatened to suffocate her.

A warm tail wrapped round her ankle, and a steady hand rested on the small of her back.

She forced herself to breathe. “They sell the weapons to fund their cause—they’ve found steady clients in Pyrros. But the strongest they keep back for when the time comes to strike.”

“No, no no nononono…” Ondra wailed.

“They’ve sold arms and secrets, whispering to other courts about Fallorian.”

“Noooooo!”

“They would kill the Queen, imprison her court and any who oppose them, and take command of Fallorian. Lycea and Highhome would recognize their rule. They would bring a new age, freedom to all fae who join their righteous—”

“Enough,” Attalus whispered.

Leita gasped, pulling back from the mire of Ondra’s mind. She came back to herself in increments; the sound of Ondra’s pitiful wails, the smell of blood, the burn of tears on her own cheeks. Leita was afraid to open her eyes.

Finish it, Thalia insisted. Dying beasts should be put out of their misery.

Leita opened her eyes, staring in horror as Ondra ripped at her own hair, blood spilling out her nose. She wailed and thrashed, her sclera bright red from all the little vessels bursting. Sanity had fled, and in its wake, there was nothing to do but scream.

Leita wanted to scream, too.

Shall I do it? Thalia offered.

A unicorn horn aimed true was a quick way to die, but Leita could make it faster.

Tears blurring her vision, Leita swept a shaking finger through the air. The bolt of magic pierced Ondra’s temple and obliterated what remained of her mind, ending her life and suffering.

Ondra’s body slumped to the side, and the hall resounded with silence.