Chapter 34
Leita was glad the day had come, if only to finally get it over with. Standing on the shallow steps leading up to the palace from the front courtyard, she could see quite literally most of her Queendom spread out before her.
Under a mild early-autumn sun, the whole of Fallorian gathered to witness Queen Leita’s announcement.
The gates of the palace had been thrown wide, and every fae of Fallorian, the surrounding villages, and duana-daín of the hinterland settlements, crowded inside.
Thousands peered curiously from where they stood in the shade of the palace wall; some youth had climbed trees or the battlements themselves for a better look.
In the one clear space left, a rectangle before the palace steps, knelt a dozen of Ondra’s co-conspirators, chained in their own spelled creations.
Some looked up at her defiantly, their hatred written in their scowls. Others hung their heads, either in shame or resignation, while a few others wept.
It’d take some time to root out the conspiracy against Leita, even with the information plumbed from Ondra’s mind.
As they waited for Charis’s spies to do their careful work, Attalus had been formally declared as Leita’s azai and consort.
Matters with the Droplets had settled, and Attalus had even made a swift trip south to retrieve his mother’s hoard.
Their chambers were now decorated with artefacts and pieces of his own life, many of which Leita liked to pick up and admire when alone, letting them speak to her of the princeling Attalus had once been.
Finally, with enough information gathered and confirmed, a plan had been implemented to root out the conspiracy.
Charis and her spies waited until most of the leaders came together for a meeting upon hearing what’d happened to Ondra.
Marcades himself had led the raid that captured most of them, and his forces had soon found the few missing from the meeting.
Attalus had, of course, dearly wanted to participate in the apprehension.
However, they both knew he couldn’t be trusted not to incinerate the little shack on the coast where the meeting took place—with everyone inside it.
He did, however, get to loom over each of them, and the threat of dragonfire did loosen a few lips.
In the end, Leita and her council had decided charging this dozen was enough. There were others, sympathizers, but Leita hoped that without the head, the conspiracy would die away.
But that wasn’t her main announcement today.
Glancing at Attalus beside her, she took heart from his lopsided grin.
He stood with her on the palace steps, dressed in full regalia to match Leita’s own.
She’d replaced the horn caps Araxos Anax had removed with gold filigree pieces inset with amethysts.
A belt of tooled silver shimmered over his fine linen kilt, embroidered with silver thread.
A sash of braided silver and pearls wound over his silk robes from right shoulder to left hip, pronouncing his status as consort.
He looked utterly dashing and regal, even if the effect was ruined a little by his living fur collar. Slinky yawned from where she lay dangling around his neck, the importance of the day lost on her.
Under the shade of Attalus’s right wing, Leita herself sparkled. With just as many jewels, silver, and silk as Attalus, with a crown of silver, pearls, and sapphires glittering on her head, Leita looked a Queen—and today, she felt one, too.
She’d been dreading today for the sentences she must pass down, but at least there was hopeful news to balance it.
“Can you feel it, agae?” Attalus whispered.
“Feel what?”
“The dawn of a new age.” His grin widened when he saw her fight a smile.
“Feeling poetic this morning, are we?”
“Indeed we are. It’s a momentous day. And, starting the day with my tongue stuck up my mate’s juicy cunt always—”
She smacked his backside and pressed on his lips with her magic, willing her cheeks not to darken too much in a flush.
“You’ll be heard, my love,” she reminded him in a fervent whisper.
“Let them,” he murmured, “so that those lingering doubters may know what a devoted consort I am.”
There really wasn’t any fighting her blush—not when her azai seemed determined to always keep her smiling, laughing, flushing, or, ideally, all three at once.
Nerves dulled by Attalus’s audacity, Leita turned once again to all those gathered. She took a deep breath, remembering what she and Charis had practiced the past few days.
“My good people, thank you for accepting my invitation.
I asked you here to thank you for your strength, your patience, and your resilience.
These have been dark centuries across the faelands, and each of you has borne that darkness bravely.
The rebuilding and renewal of the faelands have taken both time and courage, and I want everyone to know, I see and admire your efforts.
“Today, I want to reward those efforts and return to you what is yours to have.”
The crowd looked amongst themselves, puzzled by what she could mean.
“In times past, the immense burden of the faelands’ magic was borne by the Queen and her family.
Chosen for their strength and aptitude, the line of Yvenna the First has shared in this immense power.
However, my predecessor proved the flaw in this cycle.
She usurped the balance and brought misery to the faelands in her greed.
“She took power by eliminating her rivals and successors but also from you, the fae. I wish to return that power to you. I may be of Yvenna’s line, but I am all that’s left. The power of the faelands was never meant to be carried by one fae alone. So I ask you now, will you share in this with me?”
Her question stunned the fae, no one having expected a Queen to dilute her power.
In the weeks leading up to this day and decision, Leita had begun sharing the faelands’ magic with more than just her guards.
Her council, the palace staff, each received their own thread linking them to the magic.
To forge their own personal connection to the faelands’ magic.
The flow of power wasn’t as large as it might’ve been for another royal, but many more smaller threads were enough to alleviate the worst of the weight in Leita’s chest.
“It’s remarkable,” Charis had said when Leita shared a thread of power with her. “I can feel the faelands’ magic—under my feet and in the air. It’s like my own magic flows from me to it and back.”
Leita couldn’t say why the connections could be made now.
Perhaps the faelands understood the need to adapt.
Perhaps enough generations of Yvenna’s line, through her sisters and daughters and nieces, had married into other families.
Perhaps it’d always been this way, but the Queens before didn’t see it—or didn’t want to see.
Whatever the reason, Leita wished for all fae to benefit. That it would create a cycle within themselves to renew and fortify their own magic. With this connection, never again would magic rot and corrode inside them.
The crowd began to realize all that she asked—and offered. Scattered cheers sprang up, followed by clapping and calls of her name. The applause grew, until the whole crowd clapped and cheered, their joy hitting the backs of the conspirators.
“I encourage everyone to come here when they feel ready, and I will help them establish their own connection to the faelands’ magic.
All duana-daínya are encouraged to bring word back to their villages and send those who also wish for their own link to Fallorian.
” She nodded fondly to Glenys and Narinda Berengion, standing to the side of the steps and beaming.
“The faelands is home to us all, and so we must share in this together. A Queen may be the center, but without you, she stands alone.”
“You’re not alone!” someone cried.
“We stand with Queen Leita!”
She allowed the crowd to applaud, biting back her wish to get through the speech and the sentencing. Attalus’s tail deftly rubbed her lower calf, offering assurance.
Taking another breath, Leita raised a hand to continue.
“There are some, however, who wish to do away with the Queenship. To forge a new fate for the fae without this center. This conspiracy has been rooted out to its core. Those kneeling before me are the culprits, and today, they will answer for their crimes against me and the way of our people.”
Gasps and unhappy murmurs passed between the fae listening. The air shifted, attention falling on the conspirators. Most could feel it, the weight of disapproval falling upon them, their shoulders sagging and heads bowing.
“I understand wishing to kill a tyrant. But I am not my predecessor. Our kind has always had a Queen, a center. It is our very nature. However, that doesn’t mean I must be your arbiter, too. You deserve your own connection to your home.”
The mood shifted back to excitement, more applause filling the air.
Leita hoped, with this decision, to not only spread the weight, taking it off her own shoulders, but also to ensure that a tyrant such as Amaranthe would be far harder to make in the future.
A Queen must be central to the fae, there was no escaping it, but that Queen didn’t have to hold such immense power.
It benefitted them both, really, Leita and her people. Which, to her, made it all the more worth doing.
“These traitors, however, will not share in this nor the glorious future of the faelands to come. They desired to live without a Queen, and so they shall. I sentence each to two-hundred years’ exile. Their connection to the faelands is forfeit.”
Whether or not that proved a death sentence would be up to them. Fae could live outside the faelands if strong and patient enough to create a new cycle, bonding with a new home and new people. Allarion had done so in Eirea, on his estate with his azai. That had been his choice, though.
The conspirators had made theirs, and as Attalus liked to say, “They should count themselves lucky not to share in Ondra’s fate. And that I’m not melting them to fatty puddles.”
Leita didn’t phrase it like that, however. Lifting her hand, she felt the faelands on her other side, watching on. With a nod from Leita, the faelands severed its connection, the one formed while a fae child was still in their mother’s womb.
The traitors yelped and gasped in pain, mouths gone wide in horrified gasps. Leita remembered how losing that connection was like a tendon breaking, the snap before a terrible sensation of loss.
Leita didn’t let herself feel sympathy or pity for them. She didn’t snort with approval like Attalus, either. Instead, she felt…nothing, really. These fae weren’t hers anymore. Their fates were their own.
What concerned Leita were those who remained. The victims and the survivors. The elders and the heirs. All those who’d suffered, lost, but come out the other side.
Her reign and the faelands were for them.
“Will you join me and meet this new age?”
“Yes!” they cried. “Long live Queen Leita!”