Page 3 of Foundling

Leita had never meant to be Fae Queen. Never wanted it at all, never dreamed of ascending the throne. Not when she’d been one of dozens of prospective daughters and nieces of the sitting Queen; not when she fled Fallorian into the wilds after the slaughter began. Not when the summer rains drenched her skin nor the winter snows blackened her fingers.

Only a seer’s promise had lured Leita here, within the very walls she’d fled from almost five centuries ago.

Ravenna, a half-fae seer and mate to the orc king of Balmirra, had promised Leita that she would have what she wanted most—a family, an azai, children—should she take the throne.

They wouldn’t replace the one she lost. Nor the second. Perhaps she shouldn’t have wished for another; the pain of losing a third would surely be her end. Still, she couldn’t keep her heart from yearning. And so it was for this promise that she listened with at least half an ear to the arguments.

Since taking the throne, Leita had declared that the fae must return to the old ways. Too long had they subsisted on magic, relying on it to pump their blood and fill their stomachs. Fae blood had turned black, fae bodies into skeletons wrapped in skin. To Leita, so many looked like walking dead.

Many fae, while relieved to be freed of Amaranthe’s tyrannical cruelty, weren’t keen to follow their new Queen’s edict. Many fae either had never lived without magic or couldn’t remember a time when they hadn’t. Food and drink were for the other races, those without magic.

To back her efforts, Leita had opened broader trading networks, particularly with her new allies in Balmirra. Grain, dried fruits, and fish now steadily flowed into the faelands, most of it bound for the capital.

Except, much of it stood rotting in barrels, untouched.

Leita hadn’t meant to feed and lord over the gulls and crows that swarmed the food instead—although, she found them far more reasonable than her own kind.

Focusing on the discussion, she discovered it at its natural halfway point. These meetings always began civilly, with open debate on the merits of every plan. Soon, though, tempers would flare.

One camp thought it best for Leita to remain in the capital and keep a watchful eye over the people: Lady Eilean and the elders; Lady Idrisil Meringor, the acting duana-daín of Fallorian; Tamerlan, the new castellan of the palace; and, of course, Marcades, the head of her Queen’s Guard.

The other party agreed with Leita that it was time she got out to tour the wider faelands, to see more of her people: Allarion Meringor, who’d been acting as castellan and Leita’s closest advisor; his elder sister Charis, serving as chancellor; Inara, the head of the exchequer; and, though their votes didn’t count to the council, she had the support of her attendants, Ondra and Carenza.

Leita couldn’t pretend wanting to get out of Fallorian didn’t come from selfish motivations. Really, she just wanted out of the city by any means necessary. The palace, the people, the magic…they all seemed to be conspiring against her.

Particularly the magic. Although no one dared say it, as though putting it into words might make it worse, Leita struggled to connect to the inherent magic of the faelands. Imbued for millennia with the power of their people, the faelands was positively steeped in magic. It flowed through the ground, into trees and buildings and hills and rivers alike.

Such powerful magic required an outlet, though. Lady Eilean liked to call it the spoke of a wheel. The center from which everything else grew. The Queen was that center.

Not just any fae could be a Queen, however.

Leita’s line had been chosen to rule when the first fae ships arrived from the west. The most powerful, they were able to harness the fae’s magic and anchor it to their new home, creating the necessary conduit. Left too long without such a link, fae magic turned inward, corroding its very host.

As the fae’s magic continued to grow and bind to the faelands and its intrinsic power, so too were the Queens inexorably linked within this cycle. They formed a circuit now, one that couldn’t function without all parties.

So it wasn’t truly a surprise that the faelands began to wither and the magic turned acrid when the previous Queen, Amaranthe, usurped the natural order. Queens could only serve so long. Fae weren’t immortal, just long-lived. When it was time, a Queen chose her successor from her sisters, daughters, or nieces, and then sailed to the Twins, a pair of islands off the faelands coast, where she settled into the stone sleep and finally the afterworld.

Instead, when Amaranthe’s time came, she slaughtered her heirs, ensuring the fae could have no Queen but her. She was herself usurped by Leita and Ravenna some months ago, but by then, so much damage had been done.

Leita wasn’t confident she could repair such damage.

To escape the carnage her aunt wrought, Leita had fled the faelands, severing her connection to it. She’d stayed sane and alive by forming circuits with her unicorn Thalia, a stretch of land to the south, and, for a time, a human family.

Now, when her magic touched the faelands, the latter retreated. Leita was foreign, different. She wasn’t fae to the magic and this land—certainly not their Queen.

But, as Lady Eilean had so graciously put it, “You’re all we have now.” So it had to work.

Uninspiring, to say the least.

Leita couldn’t help a sigh, her soul longing to fly from the open window and catch a stiff sea breeze up and away from here.

“Oh dear, we seem to be boring our sovereign,” Lady Eilean grumbled.

“Not boring,” Leita muttered, “exasperating, maybe.”

“Speak up, lor-lein,” said Lady Idrisil, at least more kindly than her fellow elder. “A Queen shouldn’t mumble but speak clearly.”

Just tell them, argued Thalia from outside in the crystal pavilion, where she no doubt lay sunning herself. You’re the Queen, so act like it.