Author's notes: After re-reading the Song of the Lioness, I decided to write this. It's different, it's kinda new, and I have to wonder how many would be interested in this. Be open-minded as you read. I haven't written anything really Tortallan since the conclusion of Free Falling, and rather than write another Kel/Neal piece...I decided to write this. Any distasteful comments left about the unlikelihood of any of this occurring will be routinely deleted, because what is fanfiction but the scripting of events that have the remotest possibility of happening?

Additionally, Maleah was sent to Cythera when she was five, and she was never formally adopted because her silence never indicated to Gary and Cythera she desired otherwise. Her birthday is in December of 439, and our story begins in January of 450, which places this piece at the beginning of the Immortals quartet.

Fallen Leaves on the Ground
Maleah

Everyone said she looked just like her father.

Lady Maleah of Elden possessed none of the features that would typically link her to her aunt Cythera: no soft blond hair, no dazzling blue eyes or fair skin, no willowy height. She was the daughter of Cythera's younger sister, Jeynna of Elden. For all intents and purposes, Maleah could have passed for the Lioness' daughter.

Sitting still with her shoulders back, hands resting in her lap, with her violet eyes focused upon the floor, Maleah allowed her nanny, Niema, to braid her hair. Since Jeynna's passing when Maleah had turned five years old, the young woman had been living with her aunt Cythera in Corus, then with Cythera and Uncle Gareth alternatively between Naxen and Corus. Maleah did her best to remain out of sight of the eyes of the court, not wanting the attention her looks brought upon her.

Her father had died around the time of King Jonathan III's coronation. Aunt Cythera had told her that her father was Lord Thom of Trebond, making her paternal aunt Alanna of Olau and Pirate's Swoop. Maleah often kept silent, an orphan who was nothing but a burden upon her aunt and uncle. As Niema finished braiding Maleah's hair, finishing them off with silken violet ribbons, Duchess Cythera breezed into her niece's chambers.

"Thank you, Niema," Cythera said graciously, giving the K'miri woman a bright smile. Niema curtseyed and excused herself from their presences. "Maleah," Cythera began, taking the barely ten-year-old girl by the hand and urging her to stand, "your uncle and I have been talking."

Maleah kept her eyes steadily upon the floor.

Accustomed to the child's almost unnatural silence, Cythera began to smooth the wrinkles from the girl's white dress trimmed in violet. She really was an adorable child, Cythera mused silently, and under the right tutelage she would break many hearts at court. "Uncle Gary and I have been talking about where you are to be now," she continued. "I think I know the answer, but your uncle insists that I ask: where would you like to be sent, little one? Would you prefer to stay here in Corus and learn to be a knight like Uncle Gary and Aunt Alanna, or would you like to learn to be a lady at the convent in the City of the Gods?"

At last, Maleah raised her gaze to her aunt, her amethyst gaze sprinkled with flecks of emerald green. The first glimpse of the young girl's full visage always brought back images of Jeynna for Cythera, and she could never help but cupping the child's face in her hands. She had the delicate jaw and high cheeks of her sister, softening the hard lines that marked Baroness Alanna, but the familial resemblance was undeniable.

"But I am no lady," Maleah whispered. "I am an orphan, Aunt Cythera; I have no fief I belong to, no family--"

Cythera frowned. "Maleah, I've told you repeatedly that you're as much a daughter to me as my own. Uncle Gary loves you just as much as I do. Would it make you feel better if he had you formally adopted? That would make you Lady Maleah of Naxen just as much as your cousins."

"But why?" Maleah asked, her voice barely audible.

"Because we love you, Maleah," Cythera explained. "We love you, copper hair and all. In fact, I'm going to tell your uncle that we need to formally adopt you. We've been talking about it, but your uncle has been quite busy with everything Jon has piled on him and Thayet and her social calendar..."

Maleah's gaze dropped back to the floor.

Pursing her lips, Cythera took Maleah by the hand again and said, "Let's go find your uncle."

They found Tortall's Prime Minister in his office off of King Jonathan's. Gareth the Younger of Naxen barely noticed when his wife and niece entered the open door, buried in paperwork quite literally to his eyeballs. He made a sound of greeting and motioned to the chairs placed at the anterior of his desk and placed the royal seal on a row of five documents. "I'll be with you in a moment," he said absently.

Cythera cleared her throat. "Gary," she said, mildly amused.

Gary stopped what he was doing and stood, looking over the stacks at his wife and niece. A flash of confusion and resignation passed over his face. "What did I forget now?"

"Nothing, dear," Cythera answered, steering Maleah around the corner of the desk to stand before her uncle. "Young Maleah here feels she doesn't belong in our family, that neither of us love her as a parent does a daughter."

His brow knit together in worry as her gathered the little girl in his arms. "You may have come to us unconventionally, 'Leah, but you are just as much a daughter of Naxen as your cousins. The Conte's all consider you their cousin." Suddenly, he went searching in the stacks of parchment on his desk and finally procured a document. "Ah, here we are. I knew I'd gotten most of this completed. Cyth, all I need is your signature upon this and it will make Maleah officially a Naxen."

Without hesitation, Cythera provided her signature and watched Gary call for a servant to take the document to Jonathan. "There, Lady Maleah of Naxen. Now, where shall we send you? The convent, or are you staying here in Corus?"

"The convent, please," Maleah breathed, her purple eyes swimming with tears as she clung to her uncle's--no, her father's chest. "If it pleases you, Mother."

Cythera and Gary exchanged smiles over Maleah's head as Cythera said, "It pleases me just fine, daughter."

News of the new addition to the Naxen family spread throughout court like wildfire. The great, feared sorcerer Thom of Trebond's and Jeynna of Elden's orphan daughter had just been formally adopted by the King's cousin! What madness was this? They had expected this sort of bold move from the King's Champion, but for Gary to do something so irrational!

That evening at supper, when they entered the royal banquet hall, Gary and Cythera decided to bring Maleah along so that she would be able to eat with her new cousins Roald, Kalasin, and Liam. Additionally, the Lioness was actually in Corus that evening, and it would give her an opportunity to interact with her strikingly different niece. Gary knew he would hear from Alanna regarding the hoarding of her only niece, but he felt it was worth it. Maleah needed a family more than she needed more aunts, uncles, and cousins.

The herald at the banquet doors proclaimed, "Presenting Prime Minister of Tortall, Duke Gareth of Naxen; Social Secretary to her Majesty Queen Thayet, Duchess Cythera of Naxen; and for the first time, Lady Maleah of Naxen."

Gary and Cythera firmly held one each of Maleah's hands, walking down the length of the hall as the conversations died around them and blossoming in earnest in their wake. Thayet's eye rolling wasn't lost on her secretary, who hid a smile with all of her conventional training. As Gary and Cythera took their respective seats at either side of their royal overseers, Jonathan rose from his chair and knelt to get a good look at his second cousin. He had seen the girl once or twice in passing before, but had never seen her very closely.

"Incredible," he murmured to himself. "You're just the mirror image of Lord Thom and the Lioness."

Maleah struggled to keep her eyes upon her king, but her cheeks flushed a deep crimson.

"Jon, you're scaring my niece," said a gruff voice from behind her.

The Lioness!

Hearing the woman's voice made Maleah begin to tremble and she whimpered, looking frantically for her parents. Seated closest, Gary swept her up and let the small child tuck herself against his chest with one broad hand comfortingly upon her back. "You'll have to excuse my daughter, Alanna," he said quietly, his brown eyes dancing. "Where cousin Jon may strike little fear in the heart's of children, the roar of the Lioness shakes them to the core."

"Preposterous," Alanna declared.

Maleah's arms curled around Gary's neck, who just looked smug. Suddenly, a saffron nimbus obscured the child's form, her Gift attempting to protect her without any proper training.

Wincing, Gary slowly set Maleah upon the floor and said, "I can't hold you when you do that, 'Leah, it hurts."

Jon raised an eyebrow and looked to Alanna, then to Gary. "Has she had any formal instruction with her Gift?"

Shrugging, Gary looked to Cythera. "Cyth?"

"Niema never mentioned she had the Gift," Cythera murmured. "And we hired Niema particularly because she was highly Gifted, with the thought that she would be Gifted too..."

This was what Maleah hated most: when the adults spoke of her as though she didn't stand in the room, as though she had no ears with which to hear their remarks about her. Considering the untimely demise of her biological father and his unnatural resurrection of Duke Roger of Conte, Maleah often found herself the subject of court gossip, and Lady Jeynna had done her best to shield her small child from the unabashed stares and cruel commentary of the masses. Often, they neglected to remember that Maleah shared genes with the Lioness as well.

Prince Roald, a scant nine years of age, beckoned to Maleah while the adults talked, urging her to come sit with him. He, too, was the very image of his father, with some of the more delicate features of his K'miri ancestors. His sister, Kalasin, was just as beautiful as he, and their young brother Liam looked more closely like his grandfather--or so people said. "Come here, cousin," Roald said, pushing the chair next to him.

Silently, Maleah took the seat and folded her hands in her lap as Lady Jeynna had shown her so long ago.

"I'm Roald," he continued. "This is Kally, my sister, and Liam, our brother. Someday, I'll be king, and next year I'll be a page, Father says."

Kalasin studied Maleah closely. "You look like Sir Alanna."

Blinking in surprise, Maleah looked up at the princess, the first to say she looked only like the Lioness and not like Thom of Trebond. "I do?"

"You do talk," Roald said with a note of triumph. He glanced over at Alanna, engaged in animated conversation with Gary, Cythera, Jonathan, and Thayet. "You look an awful lot like her, Kally's right. Is she your mother?"

Maleah shook her head.

"Of course she isn't, brother," Kally said airily. "She's cousin Gary's daughter."

Even the royal heirs were talking about her as though she didn't exist. Suddenly, Maleah wished fervently that Lady Jeynna was still alive and well, and that she was at Elden with her and Grandfather.

That night, Maleah dreamed. From time to time, the girl would suffer prophetic dreams that would frighten her and end with her screaming in the middle of the night. The Gods gave her one of those dreams.

In her dream, a shining, golden blade thrust savagely up from the ground beneath her, rendering a gaping schism in the earth. The crack swallowed her and a shaggy blond dog and closed up, when a brilliant white and silver winged horse descended upon her. The winged horse scooped her up and placed her at the feet of a noble eagle, behind which flames engulfed her surroundings. Suddenly, the winged horse turned to ash, and the eagle looked more like a phoenix. "A single step," echoed the bird's voice before it flew away, leaving her in the circle of fire, alone.

Maleah woke, screaming.

Globes of pale yellow light encircled the bed, casting dim shadows around her. Panicked, Maleah threw her bed covers over her head as Niema parted the curtain hanging around the child's bed. "Lady Maleah, ye havin' another of them dreams?"

"Why haven't you told Aunt Cythera of...of my Gift?" Maleah wanted to know.

"Ye've no need fer it," Niema said quietly. Instantly, the yellow globes above Maleah vanished. "Aside, ye've only gotten dreams 'til this eve."

"That will be all, Niema."

"Yer Grace!" Niema sounded startled.

"You have been dismissed," Gareth continued. Maleah heard more than saw Niema scurry away and felt Gary's weight upon the edge of her bed and peered over the edge of her quilt with her purple eyes. "You've been having dreams, Maleah?"

The blanket went back over her head.

"This is important," he said softly, turning the blanket back down so he could see her. "What kind of dreams are they, little one?"

At last, Maleah admitted, "I See things..."

"Like what?" he pressed. "It's very important that you tell me what you See, Maleah."

A few moments of silence passed before Maleah recounted the events of her dream to her adoptive father, gazing up at him with guarded eyes. When he said nothing, she whispered, "No Trebond Saw things."

Shaking his head, Gary tucked her back into bed and kissed her forehead. "It isn't that, little one. The events in your dream could mean anything--although the message clearly indicates...worrisome events to transpire. Go back to sleep. Cyth and I are just down the hall."

Obediently, Maleah closed her eyes, but sleep refused to come.