Page 19 of Foundling

There’s something strange about this blaze, Thalia said.

It isn’t wholly natural, agreed Leita, her throat too irritated to speak.

Pushing up from the ground, Leita looked around what had once been a lush valley. Everywhere her gaze touched had been razed by fire, only smoldering coals and carcasses left behind.

The fire had grown large enough to create its own weather, and high winds battered her scalded cheeks. The sky had gone gray, but not with the promise of rain; no, it was tinged a sickly brown, polluted by smoke.

It moved so quickly—too quickly. She’d only ever seen a fire move so fast through drought-ridden prairie, where there was nothing to stop it. The forest here had been dense and healthy, though. The trees should have slowed the blaze, some even resisted it with their thick bark and waxy leaves.

Instead, the flames jumped from treetop to treetop, burning from top to bottom rather than bottom to top.

Someone set this fire with magic, she couldn’t help suspecting. But why?

It couldn’t be a mistake that it was so near the border. Could it have been to weaken it? To what end? No one had come through—which left only that someone had tried to leave.

Leita’s stomach clenched anxiously. The orcs were their allies now, at least in Balmirra under King Vallek Far-Sight; there were sanctioned, official ways to travel to orcish territory.

Why, then, create a weak spot in the eastern border and sneak into the Griegens here? Unless…they meant to continue east. To human lands.

The implications gave Leita no comfort. The council will want to know about this, she feared.

First things first, Thalia said, regaining her hooves. Shaking out her coat, a cloud of soot exploded from her body, leaving her a lighter shade of gray. We need a new strategy.

Leita was dreading it, but she had to agree. For the past two days, she’d been using her own magic to throw water from every stream and creek onto nearby hotspots. She’d tried to coax the waterways to help her, to overflow their banks and seep into the land. She’d tried to reason with the faelands, to offer her aid. She’d shot magic into the sky, trying to bring the rain.

Nothing so far had worked. Wary of her already, the faelands was spooked by the fire, unable and unwilling to listen.

Taking in a deep breath, tasting the smoke on the back of her tongue, Leita widened her stance. The faelands couldn’t help her, but she had her own well of magic. What kind of Queen would she be if she couldn’t defeat a wildfire?

Focusing on the nearest blaze, Leita reached for the flames, beckoning them to her. The licking orange fires bent toward her, but they wanted to resist, clinging to the branches. They didn’t want to go, they wanted to feast.

Gritting her teeth, Leita poured her magic onto the ground below her, pooling it in a great deluge over the earth. In an enormous wave she cast it at the blaze, overtaking its heart in one swift volley.

The fire hissed and sizzled, an angry scream as it fought to stay alight. Its will was strong, stronger than Leita had guessed, but hers was stronger still.

Shouting her own scream, Leita thrust her arms back, pulling the trees down and the fire and all the air with it. Without air, the fire snuffed out in a haze of smoke.

That was one.

Turning to face the next, Leita shrugged to loosen up her shoulders. Brute force wasn’t what she wanted to do. It would take time, energy, but if she had to do it herself, then it was the only way.

I asked for your help and you refused, she warned the faelands. So don’t blame me if this hurts a little.

The world Attalus woke to was so barren and gray, he was convinced at first that he’d ended up in the afterworld. Surely, though, if he was truly dead, he wouldn’t ache so terribly?

His groaning exhale sent whorls of ash into the air, making him sneeze.

A little squeak caught his ear.

Curving his long neck, his chin dragging through the ash and charcoal, he peered hazily down his body to one of his collapsed wings. Something tickled the sensitive undersides, and with effort, he raised his wing a few feet off the ground.

A dozen pairs of wide eyes stared back at him.

There was a good chance he was still in the throes of venom delirium, but he thought a collection of woodland creatures huddled under his wing. Although fireproof himself, the animals must’ve been truly desperate to seek shelter with a dragon.

Blinking the soot from his eyes, a look around his landing site told him, yes, the situation had been desperate. The fire had moved on from the area long enough ago that the land and air retained an eerie coolness. Gray particles hung in the still air, and what was left of the forest stood charred and silent.

A mother deer and her fawn were the first to flee, bounding away and kicking up ash in their wake. Next out ran a mother fox and her three kits, her bright orange coat stark against the gray landscape. Then came a badger and a little family of hedgehogs, slower in their escape and eying him warily.