Foundling (Monstrous World #6)

Prologue

In the darkness, the border of the faelands glowed faintly purple, an ominous shadow of light streaking through the wilderness.

Leita’s breaths came in heaving pants, her hand trembling in her sister Lilibet’s hold. This night was the strangest of Leita’s young life, so strange that her belief hadn’t quite caught up to them.

That was all right, so long as the Queen’s guards didn’t catch them up first.

“Where’s papa?” Leita whispered. He’d said he would meet them here.

Even in the gloom of night, their mother Morena’s pain was clear on her face.

It was their papa’s idea to leave Fallorian some weeks ago.

Leita hadn’t known why, just that all the royal children were being watched over by the looming guards.

One by one, royal families had left for the countryside or hinterlands, not liking how the Queen suddenly wished for all the royal children to stay in her quarters, where she could protect them.

“He’s bought us the time we need,” Lilibet explained, squeezing Leita’s hand. “And now we’re going to do the same for you.”

“What?” Leita’s heart and magic clenched inside her. Although twenty, she wasn’t so young that she didn’t understand how Lilibet’s words placed her and their mother together—and Leita by herself. Across the border.

“It has to be here,” Morena said, her white hair stuck to her skull with sweat and blood. “The border is weaker at streams and other natural features.”

Leita looked down at the dark, churning water, recoiling from the idea of stepping into it.

“I don’t want to…”

“You must.” Kneeling before her, Morena took hold of Leita’s shoulders, her ashen face starkly serious. “It’s the only way, love. You must get beyond the border, where she can’t reach you.”

“Let’s all go,” Leita said, although her mother and older sister didn’t seem to hear.

They both led her by the hands to the stream, pushing her in. Cold water cut through her boots to sear her ankles, and Leita couldn’t help a yip of surprise.

“Shh!” Morena urged.

Leita bit her tongue as all three crouched in silence, waiting for any small noise.

She didn’t know how many guards followed them from their estate—just that many torches had lit the lane approaching their gate. She’d been trying to count them all when Lilibet pulled her away from the window and shoved her feet into sturdy boots.

When not even the forest animals stirred, Morena began to move. Over Leita’s shoulder she looped a heavy pack before knotting a cloak at her throat.

“This should be enough for…” Morena’s smile was aggrieved. Grabbing Leita’s face, she kissed her forehead and hair.

Leita could smell the salt of her mother’s tears.

Lilibet was next, kissing her cheek and squeezing her tight. “Run,” she told Leita, “never stop running.”

Leita blinked back tears. “Why aren’t you coming?”

They turned her round and urged her upstream, toward the eerily glowing wall of magic. Leita leaned backwards into their hands, not wanting to go.

“Wait…”

“Get ready,” Morena told Lilibet.

“Wait!”

Morena slapped her hand on the border, purple ripples flashing across its face and on down the wall. From somewhere else in the forest, a unicorn screamed and indistinct voices cried out.

Leita’s hands and cheek pressed against the border, caught between it and her sister’s pushing hands. Smushed against the barrier, tears welled in Leita’s eyes as the pressure pushed at her from either side.

“Stop,” she wailed, “you’ll squish me!”

“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.