Page 73 of Foundling

But he might also be too far gone to support him in more basic ways, with water and food. He had to be at least minimally awake for that.

Leita had discussed all of this with Charis, finding some comfort in the back and forth with such a sharp mind. Looking at it from every angle they could think of, Charis came to agree with her that a pact might be the only way to ensure Attalus lived through this. Bound soul to soul, he’d have no choice but to stay with her—not just that he lived, but for his whole life.

She appreciated that Charis too saw past the moral quandary of it. “If it were my azai, I’d do anything, moral or not, logical or not,” her chancellor had said. Leita hadn’t needed Charis’s permission, but having her support offered valuable encouragement.

And so, as her magic wound its way inside Attalus, flowing with his blood through veins, seeping into his lungs, and boring down through the bone, Leita not only began to fight the venom, she tried to wake him, too.

She didn’t need express agreement for a pact, although it certainly strengthened one. She could force it.

But if she could give Attalus the choice, she would. Even if she only accepted one answer.

I won’t lose you.

Leita gasped to feel just how insidiously and widely the venom had spread. It attacked his joints and gnawed away at his tendons, breaking down the very cartilage that held him together. So voracious was it, so determined to fulfill its destructive purpose, that it even began to champ at her magic.

Wherever her magic met the venom, the putrid intruder gnashed and burned. Leita could almost hear its wail of outrage—it didn’t want to be rushed, it wanted to savor its ruinous cycle. It was meant for but one thing, and while Attalus had denied it thus far, it didn’t want to give in. It wanted his life.

But that was Leita’s. For better or for worse. The gods, the wind, maybe the fates themselves had brought him here, to the faelands, where Leita ruled. Everything within this domain was hers, and she wouldn’t be denied.

Let her be a despot. So long as she had her dragon beside her, so be it.

Attalus spasmed, his face a hard grimace of pain. His lips pulled back from his fangs, blood and saliva strung between his sharp teeth as he howled.

“I’m sorry,” she told him, “I’m so sorry, but I have to get rid of it.”

“Agae,” he groaned.

“Promise me, Attalus, promise me you’ll stay with me. That your life is mine. Swear to it, and I’ll help you overcome this venom.” With every word she spoke, Leita began to glow. She couldn’t see it herself, but the blue of it cast strange, ethereal shapes on the cavern walls that bent and danced as gracefully as an aurora.

His eyelids split apart, although Leita doubted he could truly see.

“I’m here, azore,” she promised him, “I’m here with you. Let me do this for you. Swear to me.”

After another grimace, a single word hissed from his dry lips. “Yessssss.”

A ring of light appeared round his throat, and his chest caved, the breath whooshing out of him in one great gust. He gasped to refill his lungs, his beautiful body left shaking in the aftermath of their pact.

You’re mine now. You’ve promised.

Not a mate bond, although that too strung around them in its own glowing bind. Instead, their pact tethered him to her, the link round his neck terminating at her palm. Bound but not quite bonded.

They would solidify that bond, too. Leita swore it to him. It wouldn’t matter that he was her sworn subject first, for more important would be their matehood. All she had to do was give them the time.

Where his tether ended at her palm, Leita felt how she held his very life essence in her hand. His soul was warm, bright as a will-o’-wisp and sweeter than wine. It curled round her fingers lasciviously, as though even now part of him needed to flirt.

The thought threatened to dredge up more tears.

Instead, Leita put her back into driving out the venom.

The acrid poison fled through his body, from head to toe and back again, attempting to avoid her. She chased it down, forcing it along its lifecycle everywhere she found it until it was nothing but dead matter.

She cleared his lungs and heart first, then his stomach and guts. His muscles and tendons were where the most venom pooled, eating away at his very flesh. It fought her at every turn, sending great aches and spasms through Attalus. He writhed beneath her, sweat pouring from between his scales. He cried out for her, for mercy, but she held his life tight in her palm.

Leita would not forfeit.

She threw a volley of magic at the old wound, where the venom was most concentrated. It killed what it could in its own dying throes, putrefying his blood and paralyzing his muscles. The mass at his side pulsed angrily, as though it meant to burst.

The life she held in her palm shuddered, and the longer Leita fought, the heavier her hand became. His life was draining away from his overwrought, abused body; she kept a firm hold of it rather than let it drift toward the afterworld.