Of Her Own - Tales from Aleyi: a short story about Lallie

Excerpt from A Fistful of Earth

Her Majesty looks more the battered woman than the enslaved queen she is, though her captor hasn’t touched her in months. The violet-tinged light from the street’s faelanterns don’t do the dark circles and gullies in her features any favors, though she’s not nearly as haggard and worn-out as she was.

Still too thin, though. Always too thin.

She lets the curtain fall from her slender fingers, and the dark fabric blocks the street from view. Her hair loses its auburn tint in the dim firelight. The darkness don’t bother her sight much, thanks to her elfin mother.

Her Majesty waddles to her chair, her unborn child low in her womb. Even I know that means she’s soon to birth.

“Most think it best to be born something, someone special,” she comments, a wry smile tugging her lips. Enslaved by her father—whose his legitimate son then murdered him to be free to get a child on her, his half-sister, and keep her realm enslaved—and Queen Endellion Yunan can still smile.

I don’t think I’d be the same, in her position.

She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, with a wince that says her back be hurting her again. Her Majesty waves me off before I can try to fix it for her. She don’t want to lose all the pain, she’s said; she can’t afford to, not with it only a matter of time before her half-brother finds and tortures her, again.

Her Majesty keeps her gaze averted from me when she says quietly, “Whereas those of us who are special often wish the Creator had gifted someone else.”

Queen Endellion’s dark eyes shimmer in the low firelight as she studies me. “We felves would have welcomed you in Marsdenfel, Nonsire—but don’t expect that of our telfin cousins. We have more differences than just our magic.”

She’s the only person I’ve ever trusted with what I am, and she’s the only one who’s never terrified me with her knowledge. “Want some tea?”

Her Majesty shakes her head, brow furrowed, and draws a quick breath. Something shifts within me, warning me of foreign magic that be trying to enter the room.

I quickly shut the windows and toss a handful of seaweed on the fire to refuel the wards, which were set up by the building’s owner, a water elemental.

The sensation dissipates, and I somehow hear the rough caw of a frustrated gryphon looking for this queen. Or maybe that be the something in me that hears it. My magic don’t always listen to me.

Her Majesty’s eyelids droop. She hasn’t been sleeping well, as the nearly black crescents under her eyes admit. Felves need more sleep in winter, she’s said, and her mostly human child keeps her from getting it. “Thank you.”

I don’t acknowledge her thanks and return to my seat at her feet. The fire is loud tonight, in the small room. The below tavern is closed—presumably for ‘renovations’, to match the specifications of the new owner, but Barun be smart like that.

He doubtless wishes he were here, guarding against a human mage’s servants instead of having to protect Wight from his fellow ondine. Wight and I aren’t sure which of us be older, but she’s the only one of us that’s human.

“I first met my father when I was about your age. Eleven?”

Close enough.

She absently rubs her full womb. “I hope to be among the dead, by the time my daughter is your age. Is that wicked of me?”

The headmistress of my old orphanage would’ve said yes, but I’m not Headmistress Darra. “No, Your Majesty.” I bite my lip and stare at the floor. “If I had a brother, an’ he tried to hurt me like that, I’d kill him or die trying.”

Queen Endellion don’t take offense. “Your kind is harder to kill than mine—and you’re better at fighting.” She swallows and continues, voice hoarse: “Humans are stronger than elves.”

And despite being a girl of not quite eleven, I be stronger than most humans.

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