Page 47 of Foundling

He certainly had the right of that. Just as none of the elders knew what to tell her on how to bond with the faelands, there was no one to advise her on how to bond with a dragon, either.

“I have a…friend,” she said, unsure if she still considered Ravenna a friend after all this, “a half-fae mated to the new orc king of Balmirra.”

Attalus’s brows lifted. “I thought I’d heard something about Far-Sight’s new queen. Well, I suppose we aren’t totally alone, then.”

No, they weren’t. But then again, their circumstances were still so different.

Before Leita could fall into another bout of melancholy, Attalus squeezed her hand. “Will you tell me what you hoped for in a mate?”

Her throat tightened, not wanting to let the words out. It felt too intimate to admit the truth, too vulnerable to confess that many of Attalus’s qualities—confidence, charm, humor—were traits she’d hoped for in her azai.

As though he could sense her wavering, Attalus whispered, “Truth for truth.”

Right. She wasn’t sure she liked the reminder of yesterday or their game, but she did at least believe in fairness.

“I’ve spent much of my life alone,” she said, unable to look up from their joined hands. “I was only a youth when my mother and sister were slain. Thalia found me, took me into her herd.” In careful words, she told him how, as she grew, Thalia became concerned that life in the wilderness wouldn’t be enough for Leita. So, the mare had found her a human family to join.

They had been kind, all of them. They were patient with Leita, never scolding her for eating hastily and with her hands, never teasing her for not speaking those first years. Her new mother had so gently untangled her hair and cleaned her skin. Her new father had taught her to read and speak the human tongue. Her new brother and sisters had played with her and laughed with her and given her a place to belong.

For ten years, Leita had tried to be human. She’d eaten with them, sang with them, loved them dearly. When her sisters grew up and took spouses, so too did Leita. A gentle, soft-spoken farmer named Jonathan who never asked her to be anything she wasn’t.

But Leita wasn’t human, and time passed differently for the fae. Although humans might feel a decade go by slowly, it was quick for a fae, and it’d been too quick for Leita.

Plague had come, and it took many lives. It took her family.

First had been her parents, old as they were by then. A sister went too, weakened already from a hard birth. Her brother and his family were next, one by one, even the baby.

Her gentle husband she’d kept alive with sheer will. Clumsy with her unused magic, all she could do was force it down his throat, demand he stay alive. For a while, he did. But just as it did to the fae who’d lived on it for centuries, her magic corroded him as surely as the sickness. His blood turned black. In the end, she pumped his heart for him, forced air in and out of his lungs, but couldn’t cleave his soul to his body.

He left her after four weeks.

Only one sister remained, and Leita had been determined to do what she couldn’t before. She practiced with her magic, used it to ensure her surviving sister lived a happy, safe life. And she did—for years and years, she did. She could’ve lived even longer, had she not begged Leita in the end to finally let her go.

Once again Leita was alone, her will not strong enough to bear her sister’s plea, her heart not strong enough to bear more grief. She’d returned to the wilderness and to Thalia after burying her human sister.

“So what is an azai for me?” she said, her voice sounding as though it came from far away. “A mate is supposed to be forever. Someone who won’t leave.” Although it pained her, she made herself look at Attalus when she said, “I can’t lose another family. I can’t bear it.”

His face was as serious as she’d ever seen it as he gazed back at her. With a gentle touch, he wiped away the tear she hadn’t realized fell down her cheek.

“If it’s any help, I’ve thus far proven difficult to kill.” If he’d said it with any amount of levity, she’d have smacked him clear across the border. Instead, his words rang resolute, as though grateful for it himself, too.

“That’s…heartening.”

“I must say, it does encourage me that you’re not a delicate human. They don’t seem to survive long with Savrakae.”

Had they…come to something of an agreement? Leita was startled and a little pleased to realize, yes, they indeed had.

“What is it for us, then, that you’re against? Have I truly been that horrid?” he asked without heat. From his open expression, he seemed to genuinely want to know.

“No, I…” Leita’s face dropped into her hands, and she scrubbed her palms across her cheeks, trying to make sentences out of scraps of feeling. “You do vex me, but I suppose…it’s the timing I dislike most.”

“Hmm. Well, there’s nothing I can do about the timing, but anything else, I’ll try. You have my word, agae. I can be whatever you want—an ally, a partner, a shield. Whatever you need, I’ll be.”

Rather than liking his promise, his words sat uneasily in her gut. She couldn’t say for certain he meant it the way she took it, but Leita didn’t want him to have to be whatever she desired.

“You should be whoever you want,” she found herself saying. Leita knew what it was to have a role thrust upon you, one you didn’t take to easily. She couldn’t bear to do that to someone else.

He didn’t immediately answer. She’d never seen him lost for words and couldn’t help peeking at him to see it for herself. An unfamiliar line had appeared between his brows, as though her statement troubled him. She bit back the urge to reach out and smooth the line away with her thumb.