Chapter 15
Six days later, Leita rode into Fallorian.
A sprawling city of spires, towers, and basilicas all gleaming white in the sun, Fallorian sat in a coastal valley between two hills, one gentle and one steep.
The palace stood atop the steeper hill, its towers spearing the sky like a crown over the city below.
Between the valley and gentler hill, thousands of buildings—homes, shops, markets, warehouses, and more—as well as dozens of city squares, pavilions, arched colonnades, and tree-lined parks made up the pattern and fabric of the city.
Suburbs started over a league away from the city center, grand estates set back into the countryside with the tallest spires of the palace just visible on the horizon.
More fae lived here, on the outskirts, than did inside the city proper.
So many had been driven away during Amaranthe’s reign for fear of her wretched gaze turning upon them.
The main road that led right to Fallorian, through the city, and up to the palace, had been carefully paved, Thalia’s hooves clattering on the cobblestones.
Leita and Thalia drew plenty of attention on their sojourn, but they didn’t stop until making the palace. Marcades met her at the gate.
“Welcome home, my Queen,” he said in his formal way, bowing his head.
Leita couldn’t offer pleasantries. This wasn’t her home, she wasn’t happy to be back, and she was damn tired.
Thalia had borne the brunt of their journey, galloping through the countryside to bring them back several days faster than if Leita had flown.
Yet, Leita felt every league, every hour that separated her from Attalus.
Marcades, thankfully, had never proven the chatty sort. He fell into step behind her as she climbed up into the palace.
Go and rest, Thalia. I’m grateful for your fleetness.
Take your rest, too. You’re no good to anyone dead on your feet.
Leita agreed, although she wasn’t certain what awaited her.
She’d managed a few hours of rest on Thalia’s back, but it wasn’t the true long sleep she needed. Leita’s stinging eyes yearned to close in the comfort of her needlessly large bed. Or, even better, within the warmth of scaled arms.
If her chancellor Charis and her attendants Carenza and Ondra noticed her bad mood, they were too well trained to show it.
All three bowed to her, and Leita had to bite her tongue to keep from barking at them to get on with it.
She wore a good part of the road and hadn’t slept in days—no one needed to be bowing to her.
“It’s good to see you returned, my Queen,” said Charis. “Fallorian has missed you.”
Leita highly doubted that, but it wasn’t worth the argument. As she watched, Charis leafed through the many papers she carried, and Leita had to hold back her groan.
“Who is it that commands whom?”
Attalus’s taunt rang in her ears. Like most of what he said, they were just words, but tired and dirty as she was, their sting was acute in her chest.
Before Charis could get started—she could and would stand there for hours lecturing if allowed to—Leita began walking at a measured pace.
“My Queen…?”
“You have until I reach my room to give me the important bits.”
To her surprise, Charis caught up quickly, Carenza and Ondra falling in behind them, as the chancellor did as instructed. Leita, in turn, did her best to listen as they navigated through the barren palace, trying to keep her steps judiciously between unhurried and hasty.
There’d been dragon sightings throughout the eastern hinterlands, even down the Lune River. The fae of Fallorian refused to eat the palace-funded food made throughout the city. The northern mines reported low yields, so low they may not have enough to cover another shipment from Balmirra.
“And speaking of…” Charis pulled a sealed parchment from her stack to hand over. “This arrived from Balmirra just the other day.”
Leita immediately recognized the purple wax sealed with a crow stamp. She broke the wax, unfolding the soft paper only to find a short, infuriating note.
I told you so.
Love, Ravenna
The sound of pure outrage that came out of Leita could be heard throughout Fallorian, perhaps across the faelands itself. The other women gasped and asked after her; even Thalia checked in via their mental link.
Is a bird dying a horrible death or was that you?
Not caring about her pace anymore, Leita marched for her chambers. Thrusting open the finely carved double doors, she fell upon her unused desk. Every drawer was thrown open until she found what she required—a fresh quill and sheet of paper, as well as an unopened inkwell.
So furious was Leita, she didn’t even care that her penmanship was more atrocious than usual nor that she left great globs and spatters of ink in her wake.
You conniving bitch.
You knew it would be a dragon, didn’t you. Your future is set in flames, that’s what you told me. You’ve known all this time.
What in this world or the next am I supposed to do with a dragon?
If this ends in disaster, it’s entirely your fault.
We may need to pay for the next grain shipment with goods as well as silver.
Your worst enemy,
Leita
Not even waiting for the ink to dry, she ripped the page away from the desk to hand to a wide-eyed, unnerved Charis.
“Make sure this is dispatched today for Balmirra,” Leita growled.
Charis blew on the page, and with a whiff of magic, the heavy ink dried in an instant. “Please spell it, my Queen. Royal correspondence must maintain the utmost security.”
Leita took the paper back, folded it up, sealed it messily with her red wax, and stamped it shut with her own thumb, imbuing the wax with a spell to only break under Ravenna’s hand.
As Leita handed it to Charis again, she wondered if she could put a curse on the missive that, when opened, Ravenna would be doomed to an unreachable itch at the center of her back for all eternity.
“Your Majesty…Leita…what happened out in the wilds?”
She turned at Charis’s question to find her chancellor looking disturbed. Or thinking Leita was disturbed.
She certainly felt a bit more feral than she had in a while.
“Everything and nothing,” Leita sighed. Charis opened her mouth to ask, but Leita waved her questions away. “I need to take a long sleep. Keep the counsel at bay, then I’ll hear all the reports.”
Charis nodded, seemingly comfortable again now that clear commands were being issued. “Of course. You’ve had a long journey. We’re just relieved to have you returned. Please, rest well.”
The chancellor left, taking all of Leita’s energy with her.
Leita watched lethargically as Ondra brought in the copper tub while Carenza heated stones in the fire. Water was piped in, then the hot stones placed in the bath to heat it nearly to boiling.
For once, she let Carenza and Ondra see to her without a fuss, scrubbing her body, combing her hair, and massaging her limbs. Leita hovered in a doze through it all, amenable and pliant as they worked.
Charis and the council would have their time. Now, though, it was Leita’s time to rest, and she relished climbing into her ridiculous bed. Carenza and Ondra tucked a blanket round her before leaving on quiet feet, shutting the door behind them.
The cool quiet of the room lulled her, and even heartsick as she still was, Leita shut her eyes and drifted away, cursing Ravenna’s name one last time.
When her council reconvened two days later, Leita had the itchy feeling that her time away was but a fleeting dream. All the same faces, all the same problems. Nothing had really been resolved on her tour—if anything, she’d only added to her issues. Even if she wouldn’t be telling the council that.
Doing her best to sit still in stately circumspection, she listened as Charis went into detail over the main issues she’d summarized earlier. First, the dragons.
“The sightings have been concentrated in the eastern towns and estates; they seem to be the same formation each time. A few have traveled toward Fallorian following the Lune River. Yet, we’ve received no word from Highhome,” said Charis.
“I fear they may be testing our new young Queen,” Lady Idrisil suggested.
“Hmph. They’re ones to talk,” grumbled Lady Eilean. “Their new king is barely two-hundred. Has his father’s blood even dried?”
“Araxos Anax did send official envoys when he first took the dais, as the dragons say,” Charis explained. “However, no channels were reopened with Highhome at the time.”
“It was hardly worth talking to the old king. Mad as a badger and even more vicious.” Lady Eilean stressed her point with an emphatic nod.
“They made quite the pair, the old dragon king and the old Fae Queen,” Lady Idrisil noted darkly.
The council rumbled and groaned in agreement.
Leita shifted in her seat, all this talk of dragons inevitably leading her thoughts to her own lizard.
She couldn’t help wondering how he was, what he was doing.
He’d be bored, no doubt. She should have gotten him a book or a game, at least. She supposed he could scratch out a board on the ground with a claw and use rocks as game pieces or dice, but she doubted Slinky would make a very good opponent.
The comical idea of her dragon princeps playing dice with his pine marten nearly had Leita smiling in the middle of the meeting.
“My Queen?”
Leita looked up, realizing from Charis’s expectant expression that this wasn’t the first time she’d asked something.
Right. Deal with the other dragons.
“Send an official message to Highhome telling them to cease all flights over the faelands unless they can provide a compelling reason for it.” She was curious whether they’d admit to losing an accused fugitive, not that she’d accept it either way.
“Otherwise, we’ll consider it an attack on our border and retaliate. ”
Marcades’s mien somehow drew even more serious. “I will ensure the guards train double in archery and javelins.”