Chapter 16 #2
Attalus knew that, knew he needed sustenance.
He’d managed to fill a water skein yesterday—or perhaps a few days ago?
—to keep by his side. When Slinky brought him nuts and berries, he did his best to chew them, even though his jaw quickly grew tired.
She’d brought him minnows, frogs, small birds, crickets, and a vole that wasn’t quite as dead as she thought, apparently attempting to find something he’d eat.
It wasn’t for lack of variety. All right, that was a lie—Attalus would never eat a cricket. Or frog. Or vole.
It was for lack of energy. He couldn’t keep his eyes open long enough to eat more than a bite. He’d dozed off halfway through a raw hazelnut, only to choke and cough up the dry, half-chewed mush.
If it wasn’t for Slinky’s heroic efforts, Attalus might not have woken at all. Every joint ached to the point of true pain, every movement taking effort and willpower that’d begun to fade.
Part of him wished to sleep endlessly. To enter torpor like the bears did for winter.
At least then, he wouldn’t feel his own body dying day by day, succumbing to the venom poisoning his blood.
Then, the next time he woke, it’d be to find his mate finally returned.
Or if not, he’d never wake again and not know the difference.
Another, smaller part understood that it was for the best Slinky woke him.
Her efforts alone kept him not only fed but alive.
What he was able to choke down between bouts of unconsciousness seemed just enough to sustain him.
He might be a husk if his mate ever bothered to come back, but he’d be alive.
At least, he hoped.
As the days passed, Attalus lost count of them. He marked time by mouthfuls of water and food. There was no other way to deal with the venom but go through it.
He thought perhaps it should’ve subsided by now, but he’d also come to suspect that Leita’s magic had subdued the venom, allowing it to build in his system. Now, with her magic gone with her, it wreaked the havoc it’d been denied.
Attalus tried to let Slinky worry for the both of them, but even he was becoming uneasy in his fleeting moments of lucidity.
The marten nudged him again, incessant. She squeaked irritably when he laid the decently large fish—some sort of trout, maybe?
—alongside him. His vision blurred in and out of focus, but he managed to slice open the fish’s belly and pull out the slimy, nutrient-dense liver.
He popped it into his mouth, chewing mechanically.
The bloody, briny flavor burst across his tongue, making him grimace, but he swallowed it down.
He managed to cut a few chunks of raw flesh away before his bloody claws became too lethargic to use.
“You eat the rest,” he muttered.
Slinky trilled unhappily, licking the blood from his fingers before nudging his face.
“Sorry,” he sighed, “I know I’m bad company.”
The marten cooed, scrambling up his chest to lay herself over his neck to keep him warm.
“Thank you, my friend.” Attalus nuzzled her soft underbelly as his eyes slid shut. Just those few bites and words were enough to threaten oblivion.
Before he succumbed, he thrummed along the tenuous bond pulled taut between him and Leita. He didn’t know if she could feel it, so very far away, but he hoped she did.
He had to beat this cursed venom. He had to be strong, for her. But damn did he wish she’d come back soon.
Leita’s chest twinged just below her heart. It was a strange sensation, not quite pain, not really an ache. It made her want to take a deep breath, expand her chest, and walk forwards.
Well, she had been sitting for a while.
Taking the excuse, Leita abandoned her desk, littered now with maps, charts, and tomes of numbers about various mining plans. She’d dedicated most of the morning to deciphering it all but with little understanding to show for it.
Would it be wholly unreasonable of her to defer to Inara’s opinion on the matter?
She knew she’d asked to have things brought to her in the beginning, but that was before Leita understood the true scope of both the faelands and its Queenship.
She didn’t know a thing about finance or mining or running an economy.
While she did her best to learn, she wasn’t discovering any latent talents in the subjects.
Bending at the waist, Leita tried to stretch out the discomfort. Perhaps it was something she ate.
Her tour of the new eateries of Fallorian had been—well, Leita thought it a success, but Charis had been tepid, her smile forced. Unsure what she could’ve done wrong, Leita had merely shrugged and considered it a job done.
On Charis’s suggestion, the palace had begun serving the same food as that offered in the city.
Leita had thought this was always the case; never one to stand on ceremony, it was usually just Charis, Tamerlan, and a few elders who’d taken to formal dinners in one of the bare dining rooms. “The palace should lead by example,” Charis had said upon her first plate of food some months ago.
Leita herself was happy with a handful of nuts or a cluster of grapes. She rarely bothered with full meals, heading down to the kitchens to grab a quick something whenever hunger found her.
So, she’d been unenthusiastic to find that the food being prepared in the kitchens had changed, and most of it was indeed quite bad. Tasteless gruels, gritty breads, overcooked squash—all of it was edible but unpleasant. Even Charis, polite to a fault, grimaced through each meal.
Leita had to remember not everyone had spent their life in the wilds, subsisting not on magic but whatever they could find.
“We must convince them that consuming food and drink can be a pleasant experience. The better it tastes, the more they’ll eat.” Charis’s logic was sound, as usual. And so Leita had agreed to spices and other more expensive foodstuffs being added to their next shipments from Balmirra.
Inara had huffed and puffed. “And how will we pay for these spices?”
Grinning evilly, Leita had replied, “The Queen of Balmirra owes me.”
She had to hope that as better, tastier food flowed into Fallorian, the matter would resolve itself. Leita couldn’t shove sustenance down every fae’s throat. At least, not without considerable effort.
That should’ve been one less weight on her shoulders. One more problem solved. Just a few more now and she could finally go back for—
“My Queen…”
Leita looked up in alarm, more at Carenza’s tone than words.
Her attendant had been sitting comfortably, reading as Leita studied, but her fearful gaze now fixed on something out the open double doors, past the bedchamber balcony.
Leita looked too, past the billowy gossamer curtains and marble balustrade, out to the sparkling sea and the horizon.
Not that far out, dipping and banking on an updraft, flew a formation of dragons.
Without thinking, Leita strode barefoot across the chamber to the open doors, standing in the threshold to watch the blatant display.
The fae didn’t claim the sea. Its magic was too deep, too tumultuous. When fae had to sail, they clung to the coast, and the border didn’t project out into the water.
Even barely out at sea as they were, the dragons were able to fly low. In full view of the palace and Fallorian’s harbor.
The chamber doors flew open, Marcades and several guards rushing inside. Charis and Tamerlan followed close on their heels.
“Back away from the open air, my Queen!” cried Marcades.
She couldn’t. Not with the cold, vicious rage burning in her belly.
These fucking fire-spitting lizards wanted to threaten her? Her mate, her city? It couldn’t be borne.
Before Marcades could reach her, Leita took a running leap off the balcony, her wings bursting from their bundles on her back. She zipped through the air, the salty sea spray buffeting her cheeks.
The dragons spotted her immediately, but she wasn’t trying to hide. They hovered in their formation, assessing the lone fae flying at them, and that was their greatest mistake.
Leita swept her arm forward, thrusting it and a great wave at the dragons. Blue water tipped in seafoam rose in a tempest, reaching high for the lizards as they scrambled to dodge. The wave caught one on its rump, weighing it down before the beast was able to spiral out of the breaking swell.
Now that they were dripping, she had their attention.
She cupped her hand around her mouth, her magic carrying her demand across the water in a booming concussion. “Begone! Tell your king the next dragon spotted will be shot down!”
Leita didn’t know what she expected—a response perhaps, an explanation of why they’d come, even their own demand to hand over Attalus. Nothing came, however. The formation merely loitered there, like oversized bumblebees floating on the breeze.