Cajara seemed as stuck as those stones.
She can do this. I know she can. And I can help her. Daleina always said she became queen because of Arin—to protect Arin. I was Daleina’s motivation. I can be Cajara’s too.
“You don’t have to stop them,” Arin said to Cajara. “All you have to do is keep me safe.”
And then, before she could lose her nerve, she ran into the grove.
She heard Cajara call her name, but she didn’t stop until she was within the circle of stones. Unlike the Aratayian grove, the grove in Semo was a bowl of smooth, black stone. Granite pillars lined it, and the mountains towered above.
Looking up, Arin saw hundreds of spirits.
One of them saw her and shrieked, “Intruder!” Others took up the cry. “Traitor! Defiler!” They whipped faster in a circle, and the air around the stone circle cyloned. Pebbles were lifted into the air. Arin blocked her face with her hands as dust and gravel pelted her.
Maybe this was a bad idea. “Cajara?”
“There are so many,” Cajara said. Standing in the center of the stone circle, untouched by the cyclone, she looked so lost. “And they . . . I can hear them . . . They don’t want you here. You’re not an heir. They . . .”
Pushing against the dust-choked wind, Arin crossed to her. She took Cajara’s hands in hers. “Don’t think about them. Look at me. Focus on me.”
Lowering her gaze from the spirits, Cajara met her eyes.
“Good.” Arin shuddered as an ice spirit grazed her arm, the cold shooting down to her fingertips. She kept her voice calm, as if this were a pleasant summer day. Behind Cajara, she saw an earth spirit, a stone giant, rise out of the ground. It held boulders in its fists. “Now all you have to do is tell them to choose you.”
Cajara shook her head. “I’m no one. Why would they choose me?”
“I choose you,” Arin said, and then she leaned forward and kissed Cajara. Cajara’s lips tasted sweet, like strawberries just ripened in the summer heat. She pulled back, but not too far. Foreheads touching, she whispered, “Tell the spirits to choose you too.”
Cajara’s eyelids fluttered closed. Still holding on to one of Cajara’s hands, Arin reached into her pocket for another potion-laced charm . . . and felt nothing. Her supplies were gone. She looked up at the sea of spirits filling the sky, and at the stone monsters closing in on them.
“I choose you,” Arin repeated.
Far to the west, in the untamed lands, Ven hacked his way through the wild spirits. There were so many of them, diving, charging, tunneling, biting, fighting, in a whirlwind of talons and claws. He was bleeding from dozens of wounds.
I will not fail, he promised himself. He kept the people clumped tightly together as they moved forward, bit by bit. He couldn’t see the cave or even the rock formation where it was, but he knew it was ahead.
Naelin was clearing a path for them—a narrow one, but he could thread it. He ran up and down the line, protecting the children, the men, the women, the old and the young. He didn’t see the faces. But he did see the eyes, full of fear. And full of trust.
He fought for them, widening the tunnel through the mist as they pressed on toward the cave where the body of the Great Mother of Spirits lay. Inch by inch, he won ground. Until at last he reached them: Naelin with Bayn and the children, outside the mouth of the grave.
“In,” he ordered the people.
They touched him as they passed—his face, his hand, his arm, as if they were blessing him or seeking his blessing. He kept his eyes trained on the spirits, but he felt them.
“Can you clear a path to Aratay?” he asked Naelin.
“I can try,” she said. “But . . .”
“But what?”
“My spirits will die.”
Naelin felt the spirits suffering.
Don’t leave us, the spirits whispered. Don’t let us die.
The untamed spirits were pressing in, gaining ground with every strike. All she had to do was call enough spirits to carry her, Ven, her children, and the villagers, as well as Bayn if he wished to come. They could fly for the border of Aratay on the backs of a handful of spirits while the rest of her spirits defended their retreat. Her spirits were strong enough to keep the untamed spirits at bay for at least a while. Long enough for us to escape.
The people would live.
But her spirits would die.
I don’t care, she told herself.
But she did care. Yes, she hated spirits as much as they hated her. Yes, they filled the world with fear. They forced all of humanity to lead brief, frightened lives, always expecting an arbitrary death at the whim of a spirit. Bridges snapped. Ladders broke. Trees fell. Winds blew hard at the wrong moment. Fires broke out while people slept. And then there were the direct attacks, from spirits who dared.
But they also felt fear. They felt hope and anger and joy. They felt, therefore they were worthy of care. She didn’t have to love them. She didn’t have to stop being scared of them herself. But she did have to protect them. Serve them, as they served her. Because she had promised them. If they helped her find her children, she’d said, she wouldn’t leave them.
While Ven herded the people inside to the relative safety of the cave, Naelin looked at Erian and Llor. They were her primary responsibility. Her children.
We are yours too, the spirits whispered. And you are ours. Our destinies are linked.
The Great Mother is dead, she thought back. There are no destinies. There are only choices.
Erian’s face was streaked with tears. Llor wiped his cheek and nose with the back of his hands. Naelin drew her children close to her as she kept her mind within the swirl of spirits. Beside her, the wolf watched her with yellow eyes.
“I know what you want me to do,” she said to Bayn.
He, as always, said nothing.
It was her choice. It had to be. And it was a choice. She could escape, return to life in Aratay. She could shed the remaining spirits at the border and become what she was before: a woodswoman, with children. She could begin a new life, perhaps in Redleaf. Ven would return to the capital—he had duties, and she knew him better than to think he’d forsake them, even for her—but he’d return when he could. She had no doubt of that. He loved her, and he loved Erian and Llor. He’d come here, risked himself, for the three of them.
Because you risk yourself for those you love, she thought. You choose to do it.
Standing, she wrapped her arms around her children and led them into the cave. The people buzzed around her, talking and whispering, but she didn’t speak to them. She walked straight between them to the mossy body of the Great Mother—they parted to let her through.
She didn’t know what had happened long ago, whether the Great Mother was murdered, died by accident, or died by sacrifice. It didn’t matter. What mattered was what they did now, the humans and the spirits.
We live. Together.
“We aren’t leaving,” she said.
And then she sent her thought outward: Live. With me. I am your queen, you are my spirits, and this is our land. She plunged her mind into her own spirits and then into the land, tying them to it with threads that she saw as glowing lines. Eagerly they dug in, thanking her in their own way, even as they started to shape the land around them.
Then she reached out farther into the tangle of untamed spirits.
She claimed them, as many as she could. And she claimed the land.
Knowing there was another way, knowing she could have saved herself, knowing she could have returned to Aratay and lived happily ever after with her family around her—if only she had been willing to let the spirits die—Naelin chose to become queen of the untamed lands, as far as her mind could reach.
Chapter 35
In Semo, outside the grove, Hanna closed Champion Havtru’s sightless eyes. “You were an excellent champion,” she told him. “Greet your wife with pride.”
She sat slumped beside his body for a long while, before she found the
strength to drag herself to the earth spirit. It hadn’t moved since Arin and Cajara had entered the grove, and Hanna doubted she had the ability to control it. Her affinity was for air. But she rested her tired body against the spirit anyway, willing it to stay while she watched the stone circle of the Semoian grove.
At last, she saw two figures walk out, hand in hand: Arin and Cajara . . . Queen Cajara, with a crown of diamonds and other precious jewels dug from the mountains of Semo. The girl was stumbling as she walked, weaving between the stones in the path, but seemed unhurt. Arin was helping her, keeping her from falling. Hanna wished she could go to them but could only wait until the two girls reached her.
“Your Majesty,” Hanna said.
“They want . . .”
“I know,” Hanna said as kindly as she could. This had to be a shock to the poor girl. “You must control them. It’s on you now. Tell them do no harm.”
“That’s all?”
“For now, it’s enough.”
Cajara closed her eyes.
Hanna wasn’t powerful enough to sense how far the new queen could reach, but Cajara’s expression eased, and she opened her eyes.
“They hate me,” the girl reported.
“Of course they do. They hate us all.”
“But they want me too.”
“You’re bound, for better and for worse,” Hanna said. “Think of it as a marriage.” An unhealthy marriage in which you’re only staying together for the kids.
Arin grimaced. “Or not.”
Cajara let out a little chirp of a laugh, frowned, as if surprised to be laughing, then laughed again. She sobered quickly, though. “I wasn’t ready.”
“No one ever is, when the future comes.” Hanna held her arms up, hating that she needed to ask for help. A world filled with so much power, and she couldn’t stand. Stop it, she told herself. You’re alive. That’s power enough. “Help me mount? We can’t stay here. The Semoians must meet their new queen.”
Over her shoulder, Cajara asked, “Champion Havtru, can you—” and saw her champion’s lifeless body.
Poor girl. First to lose her homeland, then her mentor. Hanna spoke gently. “He kept them from the grove until you could claim the crown. And he kept me alive.” She wondered if the girl had seen death up close before. There were few in Renthia who hadn’t. Still, it was a shock if the death was someone who was supposed to keep you alive. She braced herself—this shock piled on top of all the others of the day could prove to be too much for the young queen.
But Cajara simply said, “We can’t leave him here. Not like this.” There were tears on her cheeks, but she was a quiet crier. And more important, she didn’t collapse in despair or fall apart in panic. Perhaps she will handle the crown just fine, Hanna thought.
“You have the power,” Arin said. She was holding Cajara’s hand again. Hanna approved—the new queen of Semo was going to need as much support as she could get. “He can be buried here.”
Cajara shook her head. “No, he’d want to be home.”
“Then send him there,” Hanna suggested. “As far as the border. From there, the Aratayian border guards will take care of him. And when we’ve left here, perhaps you could send my four guards as well. And the woodsman Renet to his family. They all deserve to be buried with honor, at home.” Searching through her skirts, Hanna located a piece of parchment. She’d kept it for her next message to Daleina, but it would be better used for this. While she wrote a note to the border guards of Aratay, explaining who he was and how he died and to expect five more bodies to follow, an air spirit spiraled down from between the stone peaks. It was a bird-shaped spirit with a body as soft as clouds. A tree spirit scurried down from the tree and lifted Havtru’s body onto the spirit, nestled on the bird’s back. Hanna handed the note to Cajara, who affixed it onto Havtru’s leather armor, threading it onto the straps. She then crossed his arms over his chest and whispered to him.
Hanna couldn’t hear her words, but she didn’t need to. She bowed her head in respect until the air spirit lifted off, carrying Havtru skyward. They watched him until the bird spirit was indistinguishable from the clouds.
For several minutes, there was silence. Then Cajara spoke again. “I don’t know this land. I don’t know these people. What if the Semoians don’t like having another Aratayian as their queen?” Hanna heard the quaver in her soft voice. Fear.
Hanna smiled. “We’ll make them like it.” Now, that sounded like a challenge worthy of her skills. She hadn’t had a challenge like this in . . . well, not since she’d taken over at Northeast Academy.
“You’ll stay with me?” Cajara said, her young eyes brightening.
“Of course we will,” Arin said firmly.
“But what about your family, your home, your bakery . . . your dreams! And you, Ambassador Hanna, your academy—it’s your life’s work!”
Arin shrugged, as if this were a minor decision. “I’m allowed to have new dreams.”
“And making queens is my life work,” Hanna said to her. “We will both stay.”
Naelin buried Renet in the untamed lands, beside the cave of the Great Mother. Quietly, the villagers helped her dig—they’d lost two of their own as well in the spirit attack, and they lined all three graves in a row.
On either side of her, Erian and Llor clung to her hands. Both of them were silent.
Ven handed out shovels, rotating them among those who wanted to dig. He then came to stand beside Naelin and the children. Releasing her, Llor flung his arms around Ven and buried his face in Ven’s stomach. Ven stroked his hair.
Softly, Ven said, “They never had graves before. Not that stayed.”
She nodded. Others in the village had told her that. They’d tried to bury their dead with honor and dignity, but the markers would be swallowed by the earth. Or the hill they’d chosen would be transformed into a lake. “These will stay,” Naelin promised. “And we will stay.”
Bring me stones, she asked the earth spirits. As beautiful as you can find.
She felt the spirits burrow deep into the soil and within the rock of the mountains as she watched the villagers lower the three bodies, wrapped in white cloth, into the fresh graves. She could have had the spirits also refill the dirt, but she didn’t—the people wanted to do it themselves. Not “want,” she corrected herself. Need.
As the first shovelful of dirt landed softly in the hole, Erian turned away. Naelin knelt and wrapped her in her arms. Erian began to cry into her shoulder.
Pressing her lips against Erian’s hair, Naelin wished with all her heart that she could take the pain away. She felt spirits cluster around her. Rain began to softly fall, and she didn’t try to stop it. Air spirits thickened around them—she felt their curiosity, as well as a mirror of her sadness.
Like with the rain, she knew she could control it now—if she wanted to, she could block that sadness away, keep it from spilling onto the spirits, but she didn’t. Not today. Today we all mourn.
For those who died. For those who are left behind. For futures we could have had.
As the final shovelful was added to the graves, Naelin felt the earth spirits return. She called to them, and the earth disgorged jewels:
Opals that glittered with a hundred colors.
Rubies with fire-red hearts.
Diamonds, cloudy and rough.
Also, beautiful shards of tiger-striped stones, pink-laced granite, pure white marble, and mica-flecked basalt. Swarming, the earth spirits laid the gems and rocks over the three graves.
“Will you make the white flowers bloom?” Erian asked, muffled against her shoulder. “Like in the forest?”
“Yes,” Naelin said, stroking her hair again. “And I can make them bloom again every time you miss him.”
“I’ll always miss him,” Erian said.
“Then they’ll always bloom,” she promised.
She then called to the tree spirits, and white flowers spread over the graves and over the Great Mother’s cave. They bloom
ed all around the feet of Naelin, her family, and the villagers.
Within the palace in Mittriel, Hamon changed his mother’s bandages. These had less blood on them, which was a nice improvement. She was beginning to heal. Her hand closed on his wrist.
“You won’t look at me, Hamon. Why not?”
He looked at her, then looked away, fixing his eyes on the rolls of bandages and tubs of ointment. He’d saved her. His tormentor. The murderer. She’d be free and healthy and ready to hurt more innocent people whenever the whim struck her. “I want you to leave, when you’re well enough.”
He expected her to argue, to say he was her beloved son and of course she had to stay by him and make up for the time they’d lost, or some other nonsense that he’d never believed. She hadn’t stayed for him; she’d come and she’d stayed only for herself.
But she didn’t argue, which was a minor miracle. “I have been thinking that a journey would be nice. See the world while I still can, after your wedding, of course. Perhaps Semo, the land I’ve heard so much about. Or Belene. There are some fascinating potions that I’m told come from the islands.”
He did look at her now, fully, to see if she was lying. It would be like her to raise his hopes then laugh when she dashed them, but she had a contemplative look on her face. Perhaps the brush with death has changed her. Then he dismissed that as impossible. His mother would never change.
She patted his hand. “It’s enough that I know you do love me after all.”
“I don’t,” he said.
“You saved my life, after I saved yours.”
“It was only right,” Hamon said. “And I am a healer. It’s my sworn duty.”
“No one would have known. And if they had, they wouldn’t have blamed you. Queen Daleina wouldn’t have, and I know that’s what you care most about. Don’t worry, Hamon. I won’t speak of it again. It’s enough to know that deep down, you do love your mother.”