Chapter 31 #2
He’d destroy any idea that she could leave him behind again.
Right after he destroyed these fucking magic restraints.
A little head poked up from the pillows scattered across the bed. Slinky had fled beneath their shelter while Attalus raged, and he hated how her whiskers twitched in fright. He felt a beast then, caged and irrational, his anger a writhing thing inside him that needed out almost as much as he did.
Attalus hardly sensed the passage of time—it was long into the afternoon before he took any real notice that the sun had begun to head for the horizon.
All he had to show for his day of futile protestations were singed clothes, sore arms, and an empty stomach.
He sneered at the niceties Leita had left.
As if he’d sit around in comfort while she tried to solve everything on her own.
Stubborn, reckless, insufferable woman!
If Leita had departed soon after confining him, she was likely at the border by now. That had to be where Araxos would come if he meant to parley in a civilized manner.
That’s what Attalus would’ve imagined, at least, but Araxos pursuing this at all had been unexpected. And he couldn’t get Tychon’s ominous words out of his head. “Our father’s blood is strong in his veins.” Could Araxos’s sanity have slipped?
It’d explain a lot—and reaffirmed Attalus’s drive to break free. He hated the idea of Leita facing a normal Araxos alone. But a mad Araxos? It couldn’t be borne.
Attalus knew exactly what his father had been capable of.
Araxos was younger, wilier, and just as large as their father had been in his shifted form.
Getting leverage with one foot in front of the other, Attalus pulled again, his tail thrashing behind him to give him more momentum. He strained against the invisible bonds, teeth bared and gnashing as he pulled and pulled and pulled.
There was no creak, no give. The bonds held no matter what he did or said. He couldn’t even feel them around his wrists; he only knew they were there because they kept him immobile.
“Fuck!” he bellowed, finally stopping before his arms popped out of their sockets.
Stubborn, reckless, insufferable, arrogant woman!
As he stood there panting, his arms trembling with useless effort, Attalus reached down their bond. Spanning the distance between them, the golden threads had pulled taut, Leita’s apprehension coming to him clearly. It wasn’t that but her morbid determination that worried him.
He had to hope she’d at least taken Marcades and the bulk of her Queen’s Guard with her. Gods above and below, please let her not literally be facing Araxos and whatever forces he certainly brought alone.
Even his feral, untrusting Leita had more sense than that. Right?
Impotent worry knotted up his insides, and there was nothing to do for it but keep trying.
He begged the faelands to release him, making promises and threats in turn.
He tried to negotiate, offering whatever the faelands wanted of him for his temporary freedom.
He’d fly right back—with Leita clutched in his claws—and then the magic could do whatever it wanted with him.
Of course, he hadn’t a clue what the manifested entity of the entire faelands might want, but he’d let it decide that.
The door to their chamber flew open, surprising Attalus out of his bargaining and sending Slinky back under the pillows. Charis came barreling inside, her expression formidable, with a more wary Tamerlan trailing behind.
“You know we can’t,” said the castellan, shutting the door behind them.
“The situation has changed.” Hurrying to stand before Attalus, the chancellor looked him up and down before informing him, “A whole flock of dragons is flying toward Fallorian from the sea. No doubt looking for you.”
“Easy pickings while the Queen is away. Fuck!” It was a simple ruse, one they’d fallen right into.
“We must make ready the defenses, we don’t have time for this,” insisted Tamerlan, hustling over to the balcony and flicking back the sheer curtains.
“Come to hand me over to them, chancellor?” Attalus shrugged. “I’d happily give myself up, but our Queen has ensured I stay right here.”
“Yes, I’ve heard. The whole palace has.” She stopped looking him over—searching for any sign of the magical bonds, he realized—to frown up at him.
“And I wasn’t intending to hand you over, thank you very much.
You’re the consort.” She said it as though that fact negated any other argument, no matter how reasonable or important.
“We need you to defend Fallorian in Leita’s stead. ”
Attalus’s brows rose in surprise. “I’m touched, Lady Chancellor. But I can’t do anything from here.”
Charis resumed searching the empty air, perhaps probing it with her own magic.
“We’ll have to break the binding enchantment. Tamerlan, come help me.”
The castellan huffed in frustration but came to join Charis more readily than Attalus expected.
Hope swelled in Attalus’s chest, his twin hearts beginning to race as the two powerful fae set their magic upon his restraints.
Blue and purple sparks leapt into the air, the two fae striking their magic against the faelands’ in a powerful clatter.
Attalus couldn’t say he understood what he looked at or whether Charis and Tamerlan made any difference, but it seemed like they wielded their magic as blunt battering rams more so than a finessed weapon.
They poured sheer force into their attack, the ephemeral outline of bonds flashing in the momentary light of dozens of eerie blue sparks.
Attalus threw himself backwards, fighting the bonds with all his strength. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought there might be a little more give than there’d been before, as though his wrists might slip through the nonexistent manacles if he got the angle right.
“Is it working?” asked Tamerlan, a bead of sweat running down his temple.
“Attalus?”
“I’m not sure, it’s—”
“Fae of Fallorian!” The three of them stopped suddenly in surprise, looking between one another as a great—familiar?—voice boomed from outside. “Araxos Anax, Sovereign of the Droplets, demands the return of Attalus Princeps. Surrender him now and spare your city.”
Tamerlan peered around the doorway and cursed—possibly the first time Attalus had ever heard him do so. “There’s at least fifty of them out there.”
Attalus recognized the voice. Chrysanthe led this force. He told the two fae as much, perhaps foolhardy to hope, “I might be able to reason with her if I can just…”
Attalus pulled at the restraints.
“Keep trying,” Charis encouraged, getting back to work with her magic. Tamerlan joined them, and together the three battered the magic chaining Attalus.
His arms screamed in protest—almost louder in his head than Leita’s sudden distress. Utter shock reverberated down their bond, and Attalus went tumbling backwards with the force of his own pulling. The magic holding him snuffed out, leaving nothing behind.
His bond with Leita warbled.
Something had changed, and it wasn’t good.
“Did we do it?” Tamerlan said.
Attalus didn’t know or care. Throwing off his singed robes, he ran for the balcony. “I’ll delay them, draw them off if I can. Make ready the defenses!”
He launched himself off the balcony, leaping from the railing into the sky.
The warm afternoon air rushed past, the bright daylight saturating the coastline and catching on the myriad of colorful scales of the Savrakae hovering just offshore.
Units of black-armored gorgoroi but also many blue, green, and yellow dragons.
A single one remained unshifted, Chrysanthe at the head of the party in armor that matched her blazing bronze scales.
“Chrysanthe Principida!” he called, swooping upright so that all might see him. “I’m here.”
“Attalus. You’ve become quite the problem.”
“Why aren’t you south, treating with Queen Leita?”
“Insurance.” Drawing off the main force to attack from the vulnerable flank. Perhaps Araxos wasn’t as mad as Attalus feared. “Give yourself up and face the charges against you.”
“We both know I didn’t poison our brother. I wouldn’t be so stupid!”
“A guilty man would say that,” Chrysanthe growled.
“So would an innocent one! Chrysanthe, you can’t possibly think—”
“I have my orders, Attalus. You’ll come willingly or in chains. It’s your choice. Don’t make more suffer for your stupidity.”
He snorted. “The fae have no qualms with the anax, yet he’s disrespected their borders and attacks their capital.”
“Because of you, brother.”
The truth stung, but Attalus put it aside. He had to hope his plan meant Fallorian wouldn’t need to use any of the loaded ballistae currently trained west.
In a voice less commander and more sister, Chrysanthe told him, “The anax isn’t in his right mind. He must have his justice, Attalus, and the only way to ensure the safety of the fae and their city is for you to come quietly.”
“There are dozens of war machines pointed at you right now. Although without their Queen, every fae can wield magic. How many of you wish to die for an insane, meritless charge?”
More than a few Savrakae exchanged looks between them. A yellow dragon shoved forward—Damianos or Demetrios, he couldn’t tell which—and roared at him, fire glowing in his throat.
“Don’t make them die for you, Attalus,” Chrysanthe called.
“I’ve no intention of anyone dying today, sister. Certainly not for anything so pointless.” Gauging the forces amassed behind Chrysanthe, Attalus decided, yes, he might just make it. “You have your orders. Come get me.”
He loosed a great volley of flame, buying himself a few moments. The smoke offered cover while he shifted, his limbs lengthening and scales stretching. Attalus flipped in a backwards arc and plummeted toward the sea.
Shrieks of rage echoed behind him as Attalus leveled out just above the water. I’m coming, agae, he sent down their bond.
If Chrysanthe and her forces wanted to bring him to Araxos themselves, they’d need to catch him first.