Chapter 29
Leita had to give it to Araxos Anax—his timing was exceptionally horrid. Not two days after Ondra’s execution, a lone dragon was spotted soaring over Fallorian again.
Before Attalus could shift—and Leita stop him—the dragon dropped its charge and banked hard, flying swiftly south again.
Down through the air careened a flaming mass. “Fireball!” cried the guards, warning everyone to take shelter.
Leita caught it midair, slowing the worst of its velocity, and guiding it down into the front courtyard of the palace. Its impact crater still spattered dirt and stones, the surrounding lawn left scorched.
The fireball wasn’t a weapon of war, per se.
Not the fodder one might expect to come hurtling from trebuchets—or dragon claws, as it were.
Instead, it was a great hunk of wood, perhaps a tree trunk once, reduced to charcoal.
It smoldered with residual flame, the words carved into its face glowing orange.
GIVE UP TRAITOR. SPARE CITY. THREE DAYS.
To the point.
Nothing but cold rage burned inside Leita. With a nod, she bade Attalus set the message alight. It burned beneath his flame, incinerated to ash. The message blew away in the breeze, only the impact crater and scorch marks left to show for it, and those were soon cleared away, too.
All those gathered looked to Leita, their faces grim.
The fae hadn’t been to war in centuries—and not with the Savrakae in millennia.
Both sides knew what it meant for such powerful folk to meet on the battlefield: total destruction.
Magic and wings, unicorns and dragonfire, the risk was far too great.
What the Savrakae didn’t understand, what some of her own people might not either yet, was that Leita would risk everything for her azai.
Best everyone learn that sooner than later.
The palace sprang to action; Lady Idrisil was sent into the city to reassure the people while Charis quickly convened the council. Within less than an hour, Leita, with Attalus looming behind her, sat before them.
Worry permeated the room, but not outright panic. Not yet, at least.
“It goes without saying that we’ll refuse,” said Leita, brooking no discussion on the matter. Attalus would not be handed over.
“Of course, my Queen. We’d never ask you to give up your azai,” said Charis, offering a determined nod.
It doesn’t matter if you did. He’s not yours to give up. Charis’s phrasing stuck in Leita’s mind even as the meeting commenced around her.
“It must be made clear to the Savrakae court that Prince Attalus isn’t just an azai, which should already be respected, but the consort of the Queen,” said Tamerlan.
He always was pedantic; was it because of Araxos Anax’s flouting of customs and diplomacy that Tamerlan was so heated, or was it truly out of concern for Attalus?
Leita pushed at her chest, trying to relieve the pressure making her throat and ears throb. The weight seemed worse whenever her heart beat too fast, but there was no way to keep herself calm when it was the safety of her dragon they discussed.
“And just to be completely thorough, you weren’t the one who poisoned the anax, Prince Attalus?” asked Lady Eilean.
Even if he was, it wouldn’t matter.
“No,” Attalus seethed. “I stood with Araxos against our father. If I wanted him dead, I’d have let the mad king do it.”
“That was two, three years ago now,” argued Eilean. “Much can change.”
“Not this. Besides, I’d never be so stupid as to poison wine from my own stores.”
“Indeed,” Eilean conceded.
“Then perhaps we offer to help find who did try to poison the anax,” Inara suggested. “We could provide objective arbitration.”
Attalus snorted. “No anax would suffer the insult of arbitration, especially not from outsiders.”
Inara glowered, clearly not liking her idea being cut down so mercilessly, but she dropped the expression when she noticed Leita watching.
The time for diplomatic solutions was over. It might never have even begun at all. This was the first written word sent from Highhome. Otherwise, it was dragons flying overhead being generally ominous and scaring people. Hardly diplomatic.
Leita had let Charis try to solve this with her information networks and diplomacy.
Still the anax refused to talk. This lizard king, so far away on his island fortress of glass, made demands of her that couldn’t be borne.
Perhaps he was testing her, judging her mettle.
Perhaps he was testing the good will of the fae, to see if they would follow their new Queen into ruin as they did her predecessor.
Perhaps Araxos Anax was really very stupid.
She somewhat doubted that, given what she’d come to know of him, but little else explained his actions. He certainly didn’t have his own fated one to protect—if he did, he might respect that Attalus was hers.
If only he had one himself; I could threaten them and see how he liked it. How he’d respond.
It was a cruel, vicious thought, but it made Leita feel better as the debate raged around her.
She let them talk and plot, if only so that they would feel they contributed.
In truth, Leita’s mind was made up. There would be no surrendering Attalus.
That was a nonstarter. What she was willing to do to keep her dragon…
well, best they each find out when the time came.
She suspected knowing now the lengths she’d go to would only distress them.
The more the weight of the faelands’ magic bore down upon Leita, the harder it compressed her resolve. Attalus was her one happiness, her one reward for this. He’d not be taken from her.
Finally, it was Marcades who raised his hand and stood, silencing the multiple threads of debate at once. “This all depends on how we respond to their demand.” Looking to Leita, he asked, “How do we respond, my Queen?”
Without hesitation, she said, “We deny them. They won’t have Attalus.”
“And what will we do when they demand him still?” asked Charis. “They aren’t likely to back down yet.”
“We offer something in exchange for him. A bride price, the humans call it. His weight in gold if we must.”
“And where will that come from?” Inara grumbled. “We haven’t such capital.”
“It will be found,” Leita said firmly. “If they name a price, I’ll meet it.”
“What if they don’t?” pressed Charis.
“Then I will settle the matter with my brother,” Attalus insisted. “He’s proven himself capable and cunning. There must be something he wants more than me.”
Leita’s breath caught in her throat.
“If there is, then I’ll find it. Sovereign to sovereign,” said Leita. “But if we must meet on the battlefield, so be it.”
Her council looked on, stricken by her words. Their concerned gazes flitted amongst themselves or between her and Attalus.
They could be concerned if they wished, so long as they remained loyal.
Leita wouldn’t suffer another traitor, not with the life of her azai hanging in the balance.
“You can’t fight him, Leita. Not on your own.”
She looked up to find Attalus’s hand on the back of her seat, his expression severe.
He smiled so rarely these days, and Leita hated that.
She might’ve thought his smiles cheap, easy before and taken them for granted.
Now, she understood how precious they were—and just what she would do to get them back.
Standing to face him, she took his chin in her hand, holding him fast so he’d listen when she said, “I’ll do whatever I have to, azore.”
Attalus spent the days given to them ensuring Fallorian could meet a Savrakae assault. The palace itself was fortified, its high walls offering protection from the ground, but that meant little when the enemy could and would attack from the air.
The city itself relied on the fortified palace for its defense. Not ideal, but the palace would likely be the target anyway. With the city still underpopulated, everyone could fit into the palace should the need arise.
So that we all might burn together. Attalus shook off the morbid thought.
All of this planning and fortifying and training was to prepare Fallorian, yes, but Attalus had no intention of letting the palace or anyone in it come to harm. The faelands was his home now, its Queen his mate, and he’d pledged his troth to them both. His loyalty was to Leita.
Attalus set out to prove it in everything he did.
He inspected the war machines with Tamerlan and Marcades, advising which materials would be best for the trebuchets and ballistae.
He worked with the marksmen on how to aim the wicked weapons, shifting to show them where to strike and bring a dragon down.
He sparred with triad after triad as others watched on to learn how to most effectively fight a Savrakae on the ground.
“The wing membranes are delicate and will be guarded viciously,” he told them, his right wing stretched out to show all the bones and the membrane stretched between each.
“Cut them enough and the dragon is grounded. Go for sockets and orifices, they’re easy ways in past the scales.
If close enough, smaller weapons like daggers or pike heads are most effective and can wedge between the scales.
Major arteries are here low on the throat, here beneath the front legs, and… ”
The fae warriors listened intently, their grim resolve to defend Queen and capital writ on their serious expressions.
It wasn’t lost on him that in these days, he truly became the traitor he was accused of being.
Nothing he said was much of a Savrakae secret, but to say it at all, to invite another race to kill his own, was surely enough to earn the name traitor.
He also wasn’t ignorant of how he was instructing the fae in subduing and killing him, too, should they ever need the knowledge.
Attalus took that risk. It might mean he had to be more vigilant, but if it meant Leita’s warriors could better protect her, it was a price worth paying.
By daylight, he made the palace and city ready. By night, he held his mate close, wishing somehow to make the days pass both faster and slower.