Chapter 15: Chapter Fifteen

Florine sat with her back to the wall, staring at the drawing of brother. Her fingers were cramped from the cold and all feeling had long since left her feet.

Azghar had left with his army two days after Florine and Burn were allowed to leave, heading westward where likely he had a fleet of ships anchored. Now that he had taken Fortharnor’s considerable food supply, he was ready to lay siege against Erithor while her own people starved in the face of winter. Thalom remained with his own force of fairy soldiers, their exact number was unknown.

“We can't stay here forever.” Burn’s voice echoed in the hollow caverns.

Florine folded the parchment and returned it to her tunic. She would keep it for now—her father had many questions to answer. “What do you propose we do?”

“Would King Theodore send more aid if you requested?”

“Theodore would not spare more troops, not with the Legion knocking on his doorstep.”

“What about other parts of the Fairy Kingdom? Is there anyone who could aid us?”

Florine sighed and closed her eyes. Burn had talked endlessly in the days following their escape—it was his way of ensuring she didn’t succumb to madness, at least not completely. Her body was sound, with the exception of scars and minor injuries, but her mind couldn’t forget the horror Azghar had put her through.

Again.

“Fairy culture is highly political,” she said. “Reputation is everything, and with Azghar gone, I might be able to persuade Thalom to step down.”

He would have his own food cache meant to sustain his household and army, food that would better be redistributed to other citizens.

“Excellent.” Burn leaned forward and rubbed his hands together, partially from excitement but also to ward off the cold. His breath was visible as he spoke. “Let’s get started then.”

“I must go alone.”

Burn, a human, would make any negotiation difficult. Her own status as a half-human was difficult enough.

“Going alone nearly got you kill last time.”

“Fin, but you have to blend in.” She grabbed his cloak and wrinkled her nose in disgust. “A fairy would never let their clothing be so ill kept.”

“I haven’t seen many laundresses lately.”

Florine spent the next hour instructing Burn on how to clean his garments in Lake Veran—something met with great resistance given the frigid temperature of the water—and using magic to make small tailoring adjustments to the cloak. The more fairy he looked, the less he would be questioned.

She had hidden among humans for years.

Now it was his turn.

“This will have to do,” she said finally. The cloak, an earthy brown color, was now clean and embroidered with the shape of leaves along the edge. All frayed threads had been mended and it had a sense of elegance missing from most human garments.

“Wow.” Burn turned the cloak over in his hands, tracing the threads she had placed together with magic.

“Keep the hood pulled down and don’t speak unless I tell you to.”

They trudged upstream through thick underbrush toward the head of one of the larger streams flowing into the lake. A village was nestled between two rocky outcroppings, and the only way to reach it was by ascending a narrow stairway. Fairies—pureblood fairies with stronger magical abilities—worried little about such things when they could fly. Florine herself had two wings tucked firmly against her back, but they were useless and often caused her discomfort.

“Greetings,” Florine said in her native tongue as she reached the top. After years among men, the words no longer came easily. “I have come in my mother’s memory to seek aid for Fortharnor.”

Behind her, Burn was breathing heavily from the climb.

Hundreds of eyes peered out from behind closed shutters. While Fortharnor was a modern, bustling city before the Legion’s attack, the smaller villages in Necd uw rli Feribwenn tended to be more traditional and the inhabitants often spent time in their smaller fairy form capable of flight.

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A window closed and a gust of wind spun the top of a child’s toy left broken in the street.

“Azghar has left,” she continued, “but my cousin Thalom sits on my mother’s throne. It is my birthright and I request this matter be settled by way of debate.”

The village was small, but still one of the largest in the kingdom. Fairies did not congregate together in large groups, save for Fortharnor, and most did not assign specific names to themselves either. Yet villages talked to each other, and together they held great sway.

A tall figure stepped into the street. Muscular arms pulled back the hood his cloak, and his face was somber with black eyes. “You are the daughter of Lόthril,” he said after studying her for a moment. “Why have you come?”

“I wish to unite my people in the fight against Azghar, before it is too late.”

“I am Michyl, Son of Cherran.” He placed both hands on his forehead with a slight bow as was customary.

“I am Florine, Daughter of Lόthril.” She made the same motion.

Michyl turned to Burn, expecting the same introduction.

Florine raced to give an excuse, but Burn spoke first, using the fairy tongue.

“I am Burn, Son of None.”

Florine buried her surprise and continued the meeting. “Normar had barely won victory against the Legion when I received news of my mother’s death,” she began. Winning Michyl’s support was the first step to gaining the village’s help.

Michyl thoughtfully ran his hand over the wood grain on a large table in the center of the room. “You showed no interest in following your mother’s footsteps when she was alive,” he said. “It has been decades since you were last in the Land of the Waterfalls.”

“My mother was a fine queen. I had no desire to replace her while she was alive.”

“If I was to lend you the support of my village, it would be because I see the best future for my people in you.” Michyl’s eyes narrowed. “As queen, what would be your first course of action?”

“I would send aid to Erithor so that we might stop Azghar before he does further damage to our own people.”

Michyl rested his chin against his hand in deep thought. “Your people are human as much as they are fairy.” He shook his head and sighed. “It does not matter. Azghar must be stopped.”

“I will honor my mother’s legacy.”

“My decision is but one of many, and you will have to convince others if you are to be successful.”

“The Legion stole most of Fortharnor’s food reserves,” Florine said. “I am certain some remains under Thalom’s soldiers, and I promise to distribute it evenly among every fairy who joins me.”

“I will tell my village.”

Florine rose and bowed. “Your aid will not be forgotten, Michyl, Son of Cherran.”

Dusk was falling and there was more villages Florine wanted to visit in the morning, so they made camp somewhere east of the village. It was uncomfortable, with no bedrolls to keep out the chill, but they made a small fire.

“I didn’t know you spoke fairy.” Florine lay a little more than an arm’s length from Burn, with her hair spread out around her as a halo while she looked up at the sky.

“My mother taught me,” he said. “There’s fairy blood in my family somewhere, but it’s been so many generations it’s more of a tradition to pass on the language.”

“What did you mean when you said you were the son of no one?”

“My father was never a father to me.”

“Mine left when I was three, and I’ve spent my entire life since hating him for it.” Florine closed her eyes. “Now that I know Azghar is my brother, I think the truth is more complicated than I imagined.”

Burn exhaled, and she looked over to see a wisp of breath in the moonlight. “When I was fourteen, he pushed my mother and her unborn child down the stairs. I found them, and then I found my father and killed him.”

It was late in the season, but moths still flittered in the air, drawn to their fire. Some drew too near and died with poof of smoke.

“Killing Fredgar isn’t the worst thing I’ve done,” Florine said. “King Theodore tasked me with killing his son eighteen years ago.”

“Prince Marcus? The boy who died in the fire?”

“The king was worried Marcus would one day dethrone him, as Theodore had done to his own family. The sins of our king our many and I helped him commit them.”

Florine couldn’t read Burn’s face in the dark, but she imagined it was some mix of disgust and fear now that he knew the truth about her.

“Why?” he asked.

The question was simple, but it was one she had wrestled with herself for many years. “I grew up being abandoned by my father and neglected by my mother. Tallon’s death took the last shred of hope I had, and Thedore knew how to weaponize my pain.”

“There is still hope.” There was a sense of decidedness to Burn’s voice. “The past can’t be undone, but you can decide what you will do in the future.”

Florine pretended to fall asleep to escape the conversation she had started.

They spent the following days as they had with the first village, speaking to leaders gaining support where they could—it was far from unanimous. Florine pretended to ignore what she had told Burn about her past, but it gnawed on her in secret.

­How can I be queen?

She was a liar, a murderer, and judging from her brother, it ran in the family.

What if Burn told anyone? That would ruin her chance of gaining enough to support to defeat Azghar. She had killed others for less on King Theodore’s behalf.

No. She banished the thought. She would be a better leader than him, one who cared about her people, even if the idea of opening herself to others was terrifying.

Burn’s hand brushing her arm took her attention away from her internal conflict. “Look.”

A valley of swamps lay below them, a place she recognized instantly as the boogies’ homeland. The smell was far more putrid than usual. She remembered what Fredgar had told her about leaving— “they filled it with bodies”—and her heart sank.

What she had first taken as branches and swamp reeds was a tangled mess of limbs. Fairies, killed by the Legion and disposed of without care.

“This is far enough,” Florine said. It was time to return to Fortharnor and confront Thalom.