Page 144 of Foundling

“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!”

Epilogue I

Although the fae were long lived and set in their ways and nature, Leita hoped the past months had proven to her people and to herself that change could be helpful. Good. Healthy.

Most every fae enjoyed their own small tie to the faelands’ magic now, and while the first days had had their snags and worries, Leita knew it was the right decision. With their newfound connections, the fae explored using magic in ways never done before; imbuing silks with magic to resist stain and improve sheen, enchanting wine to bring out the subtlest notes of flavor, and moving machines to print sheaves of paper. She’d even seen Charis enchant a quill to help her take notes during meetings.

Leita hoped it harkened a new age of ingenuity. With their magic free from the vicious cycle of subsistence, the fae could turn it to whatever they set their minds to. A new golden age had dawned, just as Attalus had once said.

She also hoped they remembered their newfound enthusiasm for change today.

Fae from across the Queendom gathered in Fallorian—in the palace courtyard but also on rooftops and down in the harbor. All eyes trained on the citadel, no doubt wondering if this would truly happen.

Attalus stepped forward, waving to the cheering crowd. She’d yet to understand how her handsome azai managed to charm people near and far, but she looked forward to puzzling over it through the centuries.

With a dashing grin, he shrugged out of his fine robes, leaving him in a short kilt. Leita had insisted upon it, even if the thing was about to be shredded.

“I know what a jealous thing you are,” Attalus said that morning, “and I know better than to flaunt what’s yours.”

Even still, that kilt left the lower curves of his backside exposed. Every eye within the courtyard fell there, what with the sultry way his tail swished.