Page 121 of Foundling

Leita caught it midair, slowing the worst of its velocity, and guiding it down into the front courtyard of the palace. Its impact crater still spattered dirt and stones, the surrounding lawn left scorched.

The fireball wasn’t a weapon of war, per se. Not the fodder one might expect to come hurtling from trebuchets—or dragon claws, as it were. Instead, it was a great hunk of wood, perhaps a tree trunk once, reduced to charcoal. It smoldered with residual flame, the words carved into its face glowing orange.

GIVE UP TRAITOR. SPARE CITY. THREE DAYS.

To the point.

Nothing but cold rage burned inside Leita. With a nod, she bade Attalus set the message alight. It burned beneath his flame, incinerated to ash. The message blew away in the breeze, only the impact crater and scorch marks left to show for it, and those were soon cleared away, too.

All those gathered looked to Leita, their faces grim. The fae hadn’t been to war in centuries—and not with the Savrakae in millennia. Both sides knew what it meant for such powerful folk to meet on the battlefield: total destruction. Magic and wings, unicorns and dragonfire, the risk was far too great.

What the Savrakae didn’t understand, what some of her own people might not either yet, was that Leita would risk everything for her azai.

Best everyone learn that sooner than later.

The palace sprang to action; Lady Idrisil was sent into the city to reassure the people while Charis quickly convened the council. Within less than an hour, Leita, with Attalus looming behind her, sat before them.

Worry permeated the room, but not outright panic. Not yet, at least.

“It goes without saying that we’ll refuse,” said Leita, brooking no discussion on the matter. Attalus would not be handed over.

“Of course, my Queen. We’d never ask you to give up your azai,” said Charis, offering a determined nod.

It doesn’t matter if you did. He’s not yours to give up. Charis’s phrasing stuck in Leita’s mind even as the meeting commenced around her.

“It must be made clear to the Savrakae court that Prince Attalus isn’t just an azai, which should already be respected, but the consort of the Queen,” said Tamerlan. He always was pedantic; was it because of Araxos Anax’s flouting of customs and diplomacy that Tamerlan was so heated, or was it truly out of concern for Attalus?

Leita pushed at her chest, trying to relieve the pressure making her throat and ears throb. The weight seemed worse whenever her heart beat too fast, but there was no way to keep herself calm when it was the safety of her dragon they discussed.

“And just to be completely thorough, you weren’t the one who poisoned the anax, Prince Attalus?” asked Lady Eilean.

Even if he was, it wouldn’t matter.

“No,” Attalus seethed. “I stood with Araxos against our father. If I wanted him dead, I’d have let the mad king do it.”

“That was two, three years ago now,” argued Eilean. “Much can change.”

“Not this. Besides, I’d never be so stupid as to poison wine from my own stores.”

“Indeed,” Eilean conceded.

“Then perhaps we offer to help find who did try to poison the anax,” Inara suggested. “We could provide objective arbitration.”

Attalus snorted. “No anax would suffer the insult of arbitration, especially not from outsiders.”

Inara glowered, clearly not liking her idea being cut down so mercilessly, but she dropped the expression when she noticed Leita watching.

The time for diplomatic solutions was over. It might never have even begun at all. This was the first written word sent from Highhome. Otherwise, it was dragons flying overhead being generally ominous and scaring people. Hardly diplomatic.

Leita had let Charis try to solve this with her information networks and diplomacy. Still the anax refused to talk. This lizard king, so far away on his island fortress of glass, made demands of her that couldn’t be borne. Perhaps he was testing her, judging her mettle. Perhaps he was testing the good will of the fae, to see if they would follow their new Queen into ruin as they did her predecessor.

Perhaps Araxos Anax was really very stupid.

She somewhat doubted that, given what she’d come to know of him, but little else explained his actions. He certainly didn’t have his own fated one to protect—if he did, he might respect that Attalus was hers.

If only he had one himself; I could threaten them and see how he liked it. How he’d respond.

It was a cruel, vicious thought, but it made Leita feel better as the debate raged around her.