Page 2 of Foundling

“Lilibet…” At their mother’s call, Lilibet pressed a hand to the border, too, adding her own magic.

With a hand at Leita’s back and the other on the magic wall, Morena and Lilibet ripped a momentary hole into it—and pushed Leita through.

The border sucked at her pack before she tumbled to the ground on the other side.

Leita scrambled to her hands and knees, trembling to feel her bond to the faelands withering inside her. She groaned, her chest threatening to cave in. Like all fae, she shared a bond with their homeland, able to feel its benign presence in her heart.

That connection weakened with every breath, even as it tried to pull her back.

“Go, Leita,” her mother said. “Go where she can’t find you.”

“Come with me!” Leita wept. “Don’t leave me out here.”

“We can’t,” said Lilibet, “we must—”

Another unicorn whinnied, somewhere closer this time.

“We’ll draw them off.” A sadness so deep it left Leita numb shone in her mother’s eyes when she said, “Your family loves you, Leita. Remember that.”

“Run fast, sister.”

And before Leita could protest, her mother and sister turned away, disappearing back into the darkness.

Wait, she wanted to scream, don’t leave me! But her voice wouldn’t work.

The shadows closed in around her, the unfamiliar feeling of the land beyond her own nipping at her already.

She jumped when a man’s voice bellowed through the forest. “In the name of Queen Amaranthe, you—ack!”

A burst of blue magic exploded, and the sound of fighting hit Leita’s ears. Scrambling backwards, she pushed herself into the cover of nearby brambles, not feeling when their thorns cut her cheeks and sleeves.

When dread-mounts and their knights ran past, none saw her hiding there, deep in the shadows.

There were more knights and unicorns in the days to come. Two bore the limp forms of her mother and sister across their saddles. Patrols went by, but still none realized she sat there in the shadows, watching them with the owls and the rabbits and the deer.

Just beyond the border, the faelands called to her. Called her home.

But Leita couldn’t move, and she knew she couldn’t return.

It would be days before she could face the new world at her back, though. A world she didn’t know, full of strange people and strange magic. A world in which she was all alone.

I

Five Centuries Later

Only a few months living amongst her kind again, and Leita could already see the futility of organized government. Perhaps, to be generous, the daily failings she witnessed were confined to her own council, but she somewhat doubted it.

It wasn’t that her councilors weren’t capable. They were. It wasn’t that they weren’t dedicated. They were. But it seemed, more than anything, their talents lay in arguing.

Scrubbing a hand over her face—for which she earned a disapproving frown from Lady Eilean, one of the elders brought to Fallorian to instruct Leita in history, magic, and manners—Leita stood, needing to move her legs. Sitting so long made her knees ache.

Lady Eilean’s wasn’t the only scowl that followed her as she strode across the sparsely furnished council chamber. Ensconcing herself at one of the tall windows, Leita gently pressed on the ancient iron lever to open the stained glass and let in a sea breeze.

The tang of salt that lifted her hair from her shoulders was a welcome respite. The arguments ebbed and crashed around her as surely as the waves against the cliffs far below. Just as the ocean’s tide, this argument seemed interminable, unescapable. That they’d been having it for over a month without resolution was driving Leita to madness.

Although fae herself, and of the royal line no less, Leita hadn’t lived within the faelands, amongst her kind, for centuries. Losing herself in the safety of the southern wilds to save her own life meant she was more accustomed to the cycles of forests and seasons. Months were marked by nests and burrows, snowmelt and flowers, frost and decaying leaves.

Within the walls of fae capital, trapped within the royal palace, Leita’s time was instead demarcated by lessons and lectures, meetings and minutiae. And, lately, this all-encompassing argument over how to proceed with her new reign’s most important policies.