Chapter 17 #2
Although some Queens had taken second, even third lovers or consorts, Leita had only ever wanted the one.
A mate is supposed to be forever. That’s what she’d told Attalus.
As she’d roamed the southern wilds alongside Thalia, surviving for a time she might truly live, the hope of an azai, a forever love, a family, had kept her going.
She’d already eaten bugs for him, scratched the earth for roots for him, forded rivers and battled boars and been taken prisoner for him.
She’d helped kill a Queen and taken her throne for him.
Leita hadn’t known who, couldn’t have imagined Attalus’s face as she blasted her rage and magic into Amaranthe’s guts, but it’d been for him.
Now, because of her folly and his lie, she might very well sit the throne alone.
A future lay before her more barren and dreadful than she could bear.
No one to share her life, her bed, her burden.
There would be no hope, just endless duty until the faelands sucked the life from her and she outlived her usefulness.
“I don’t want to be alone.”
“You’re not alone,” Carenza said with some vehemence. “You have all of us in the palace. The rest will come around, you’ll see.”
Leita wasn’t so sure, and in that moment, she would’ve traded all the fae outside the palace for the life of her dragon.
Carenza rubbed Leita’s shoulder before helping her stand. “Let’s sit down a moment before Chancellor Charis comes.”
She let herself be led back to the bed, where Carenza sat her at the edge. Although Carenza was there with a kerchief to catch them, Leita couldn’t stop the tears as they rolled down her cheeks.
By the Twins, what a mess she’d made.
It wasn’t long before Ondra reappeared, followed by Charis.
Leita couldn’t quite meet the woman’s eye, not just because of how they’d last parted, as Carenza succinctly explained what she and Ondra had seen.
“I see. Leave us, please.”
Her attendants hesitated, Carenza swaying closer to her, but Leita nodded in assent. If she was to be scolded again, best do it without an audience.
When the door clicked shut behind the attendants, Charis moved on light feet to stand before Leita. With a gentle touch, she lifted Leita’s head by the chin until she had to meet the chancellor’s gaze.
Charis’s eyes searched hers, and although Leita desperately wished to look away, the woman’s quiet solemnity kept her still. Whatever Charis found, she didn’t give it away in her expression.
Finally, a small sigh escaped her, and she released Leita’s chin. To Leita’s surprise, Charis stalked away to grab the chair at her desk, bringing it over to sit before her.
Even with her long hair down in a braid and clad in nightclothes, Charis was the picture of poise. Elegant hands folded in her lap, Charis said, “Tell me what’s going on, Leita.”
The small shock of hearing her name from the usually formal chancellor grabbed Leita’s attention.
“Bad dreams,” she said through stiff lips.
Charis’s own mouth thinned, an expression Leita was growing too familiar with.
While she expected the coming lecture, she didn’t expect the compassion at its root.
“Leita, I want to help you. We all do. But I can’t fight against a problem I don’t know about.”
Throat dry, Leita let her gaze fall away, tired all over again. She drew her knees to her chest and covered herself in her blanket. From this shelter, she felt just safe enough to admit, “Nothing’s gone right.”
Charis didn’t immediately answer, instead gauging Leita as she considered. “Your reign thus far has been difficult,” she agreed, “Your predecessor should have been the one to teach you. While the elders try, it isn’t the same.”
Leita wanted to accept the easy escape Charis offered. So much of this was still Amaranthe’s fault. So much of Leita’s life and suffering could be laid at her aunt’s feet.
But not everything.
“The magic doesn’t like me. If I can’t get it to accept me…”
Charis didn’t offer platitudes. “It will take time. The faelands and the magic suffered under Amaranthe, too. That trauma can’t be healed in a few months. All we can do is keep trying.”
This was all true; Leita knew it, told herself these things many times. Yet, these truths offered little comfort in the face of her continued failure.
“I…” The words she had to stay stuck in her throat, for she knew the effect they’d have. “I have to leave again.”
Charis’s fine brows arched—she’d clearly surprised the chancellor. “Leave?” Charis repeated, her tone markedly sharper.
“There’s a wrong I must right,” Leita said, her resolve strengthening with each word.
“My Queen, I…” Charis sighed. She pinched the bridge of her nose in a clear show of consternation.
Back to ‘my Queen,’ is it.
“What?” asked Leita. When Charis remained resolutely quiet, Leita said, “I didn’t give you the position because of your name. I gave it to you because you’re the most qualified and will tell me the truth.”
“Fine.” Drawing in a breath, likely knowing Leita wouldn’t like what she said, Charis stated clearly, “You cannot leave. Not again and not so soon. The people here need you, need to see your effort and consistency. The more you run off into the wild, the less they trust you.”
The sting of her words didn’t make them any less true. No, indeed, it only sharpened their veracity.
“I know. But I have to do this.”
“Why?” Charis’s elegant hands opened, palms up, in an exasperated plea. “Tell me why, Leita. I need to understand. I’m trying to help you, but I can’t understand you.”
“I hardly understand myself,” she muttered.
It wasn’t the right thing to say; Charis’s shoulders fell in a sigh. “We worry for you. Me, my mother, the whole council. We want you to succeed. We see your efforts and your struggle. We wish to help. Please, let us.”
Leita held her next wobbly breath, teetering on a decision.
It wasn’t just her secret or safety at stake.
“I appreciate your supporting me. Truly, I do. But I have to do this.”
“Leita…”
“It’s…Charis, it’s my azai.”
The word was a whisper, but it may as well have been a shout with how Charis sat straight up in her seat, eyes going wide.
“Your…?”
Leita nodded. She had to be brave now, had to accept the truth. If she was to bring Attalus here, she couldn’t keep him hidden—at least not from Charis and the others in the palace. If she couldn’t find an ally in Charis, then she wouldn’t find one at all.
Drawing up her courage, she told Charis some of what had really happened out in the hinterlands, of coming across a shifted, wounded Attalus and healing him. Of his tangled situation and good humor. Of how…Leita had left him behind.
Charis listened, and already Leita could see the complex workings of her brilliant mind churning.
“I dreamt of him in my long sleep just now, and I…I fear it wasn’t a dream. So I have to go back. And,” Leita said, determined to arm herself this time, “I need all the literature Fallorian has on dragons.”