She was rewarded by seeing him blush at the praise. Still, that didn’t stop him from chiding her. “My queen needs to take better care of herself. Your evening activities will be canceled tonight, and you will rest after you meet with Queen Naelin.”
If I can, she thought. “I will,” she promised him.
“Rest now.”
Obediently, she laid her head on the table with her arms curled beneath her cheek. She closed her eyes. What seemed like only a moment later, she felt a warm hand on her shoulder, and she blinked her eyes open—her eyelids felt crusty, and her mouth tasted like it was stuffed with spider webs. Hamon was beside her, crushing herbs into a goblet. “This will keep your head clear, but then you’ll need to sleep.”
“My seneschal tells me that’s on my schedule.” Daleina ran her tongue over her teeth and patted at her hair. Accepting the goblet from Hamon, she drank. It tasted like pine tree with a hint of apple cider and cinnamon, not at all like medicine. “Nice.”
“My mother’s concoction.” He held up one hand to forestall any comment. “I tested it myself, and there are no unusual side effects. All it should do is clear your head, and perhaps slightly improve your eyesight and bone density—it has a few vitamins.”
She drank the rest of it. “How is she?” What she really wanted to ask was: how are you with her? Hamon had a strained relationship with his mother. And that’s putting it mildly. If she hadn’t saved my life and Arin’s . . .
He smiled, though it was a bittersweet kind of smile. “She hasn’t killed anyone lately. Or if she has, she’s become more skilled at hiding the bodies.”
“You don’t believe her promises that she’s reformed.”
“No more than I believe a spirit will become my best friend.” He took back the empty goblet and then, after a hesitation, leaned over and kissed her cheek.
She laughed. “That was a kiss?”
“You’re on the throne. More seemed inappropriate.”
Grabbing a wad of his shirt in her fist, Daleina pulled him closer so fast that he dropped to his knees, and kissed him thoroughly. He slid his hands around her and over her, until both of them were breathing fast and she didn’t feel the least bit tired anymore.
She heard the seneschal clear his throat from the entrance, and Hamon jumped to his feet. He straightened Daleina’s skirt and smoothed her hair, tucking loose strands behind her ears. She grinned at him, drinking in his handsomeness. “Thank you for your ministrations, Healer Hamon. I feel better already.”
He kissed her lightly again. “You said the seneschal cleared your schedule tonight?”
Her smile widened. “Yes, isn’t that lovely?”
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “You are lovely.”
“Charmer,” she murmured. And then her good mood drained away as she thought of what had to happen before she was free to be with Hamon again.
He saw her shift in mood. “Daleina, what is it?”
She reached out with her mind briefly and touched the thoughts of the spirits in the palace. She felt them churning, like water in a waterfall. “I have a meeting.”
“About what?” She heard the concern in his voice.
She judged the other queen to be only a staircase away. She felt, rather than saw, the candles in the hall blaze as the fire spirits reacted to Naelin. “I have to tell a mother not to care so much about her missing children.”
Missing, and nearly certainly dead, she thought.
He left her with one more kiss, and Daleina waited on her throne. She was aware of the second throne beside her, one that Naelin had sat in only a handful of times, since their unusual co-rule began. There was no known protocol for how to deal with such a situation. According to all records, such a situation had never occurred before, and before recent events, Daleina had thought they were handling it well—double the queens should have meant double the protection for Aratay.
Now she wished Naelin were merely a powerful heir that Daleina could order to stand down, rather than a queen. She was going to have to rely on Naelin’s willingness to cooperate, and she couldn’t count on that. “Seneschal, could you please help me display the damage reports, as well as the requests for assistance?”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” He scurried forward and placed the stack of papers in front of her. Standing, she began to lay them out side by side on the wood and mother-of-pearl table. Homes, schools, shops, libraries, fields, orchards, bridges, marketplaces . . . Outside the door, she felt Naelin arrive—tree spirits crawled over the door as if they wanted to tear it apart. She heard their claws scrabble at the wood.
Ready to rush to the door, the seneschal hopped away from the table, but Daleina laid a hand on his shoulder to stop him. “I suspect she’ll make a dramatic entrance. I’d rather you weren’t harmed, Belsowik.”
He waited beside her, tense.
The door, a heavy oak door, blew open and slammed against the wall. Chittering like squirrels, spirits ran across the walls and onto the ceiling. Daleina let them—she had no fear they’d harm her; they were her spirits too, no matter how strong the other queen was, and she could stop them if she had to.
I’m almost certain I can. . . .
Lizardlike fire spirits scorched the wood ceiling and then dove into the cold fireplace. Embers smoldered as the lizard spirits writhed in the grate. An ice spirit, lithe and tall, slipped along the ceiling. Shaped like a human, it ran its long fingers over the edge of the table, causing frost to spread in flower patterns, then drifted to the window. It curled its body onto the sill, bending into itself in a tighter coil than any human body could bend. Dozens of tree spirits, each no larger than Daleina’s hand, skittered around her feet.
“Go,” she told Belsowik.
He scurried out the door. She knew he’d stand just outside with the guards until she called for him again. Gathering her inner strength, she faced the new arrivals.
Ven first: he looked weathered, as if he were an old shirt that had been scrubbed in the wash too many times. She wondered if he’d slept in days. Probably not.
Daleina crossed to him first and embraced him warmly. “Champion Ven.” She then turned to Naelin. Usually, the other queen was unremarkable. Usually, she looked like the motherly woodswoman she used to be—sturdy, steady, rational. But now she looked wild, almost feral. Her eyes flickered around the room, at the spirits, at the papers on the desk, at the fire that now, suddenly, roared in the hearth, fed by the fire spirits. Her uncombed hair floated in a halo around her head, and she had a streak of soot on her cheek. She still wore one of the voluminous gowns from the palace courtiers, but the skirt was ripped—intentionally, Daleina thought, so it won’t impede her movement. She’d clearly come straight here from the village without another thought.
I hope the people didn’t see her. She’d cause a panic. It wasn’t that Daleina cared about the gown or Naelin’s hair. It’s just that sometimes the role of queen is reassuring people that they aren’t going to die today.
Right now, nothing about Naelin was reassuring.
“Queen Naelin, I am deeply sorry for what you have endured. Please know that we will do all in our power to determine the fate of your children.”
Naelin began to bow, then stopped as if suddenly remembering she wasn’t required to bow anymore. “Thank you, Your Majesty. I am counting on that.”
Daleina wasn’t precisely certain what to say next. She didn’t know the other woman well enough to guess what she wanted to hear, though she could guess what not to say. “All of Aratay sorrows with you. Indeed, all of Aratay has felt your pain.” She took a breath—Naelin’s expression was as blank as stone. If it weren’t for the agitation of the spirits, Daleina wouldn’t have been able to tell she felt anything at all. “I know you have suffered a tremendous loss—”
“I’m not in mourning,” Naelin snapped. “There’s no ‘loss.’ They were kidnapped.”
Daleina had witnessed enough spirit attacks to know they didn??
?t kidnap children. They killed. But if she needed to be in denial, that was fine. After all, the message Ven had sent described the children as “missing,” and she intended to respect that. “If the situation were any different, I wouldn’t dream of asking you to—”
From the doorway, Headmistress Hanna said in her clipped no-nonsense voice, “What our polite queen is attempting to say is: you must knock it off.”
Perfect timing, Daleina thought.
Naelin looked startled.
Daleina shot a grateful look at the headmistress as the seneschal wheeled her in, then retreated again. The headmistress had lost use of her legs in the battle with Merecot and now traveled in a special chair. It was designed to clip onto ziplines and pulleys for travel between trees and had wheels that unfolded to traverse floors and bridges. In it, Headmistress Hanna looked as if she could crush several dozen spirits beneath the wheels while calmly lopping off the heads of multiple others. Daleina knew for a fact that Ven had insisted on several hidden blades in the armrests. Times are difficult, was all he’d said.
The elderly woman was dressed seriously, with a black robe that clasped at her throat. Her white hair was pinned into a bun. She looked every inch the strict schoolteacher-warrior that she was. “Even in your dreams, you have left yourself open to the spirits,” Hanna continued, “and your emotions have leached into the spirits. All of Aratay is suffering with you. As queen, you are connected to the spirits in a way unlike any heir—the spirits fuel you, giving you a queen’s special strength, but you also influence them. You must close yourself off from them before you cause more harm. I will show you how.”
Straightening her shoulders, Naelin seemed to be steeling herself, and Daleina wondered if she was going to refuse. She can’t, Daleina thought, and she won’t—not once she’s seen what’s happened. To ensure that, though, Daleina gestured to the table before the other queen could speak. “I have collected reports from across Aratay, Naelin. There have been spirit attacks. Lives lost. Homes lost. Harvests damaged.” She tapped her finger on the list, indicating the areas worst hit. “If we work together, we can repair much of it, but we have limited time before winter. I know you didn’t intend for these consequences—”
Naelin interrupted her. “I intended to save my children, and I might have done so, if you hadn’t interfered.” Every word was clipped, as if she were holding back a landslide worth of anger.
Daleina flinched. She hadn’t looked at it that way—she’d been trying to prevent a disaster, not keep Naelin from saving her children. She glanced at Ven. He looked worried, which wasn’t good.
“You know as well as I do that those spirits were from Semo,” Naelin continued—if she noticed the glance between her champion and Daleina, she didn’t acknowledge it. “Six air spirits from Semo—they’d have no reason to cross into Aratay without orders. Spirits stay with their queen. Which means Merecot forced them to attack . . .” Her voice faltered, and she swallowed and continued on. “They acted under her orders, which means that she has Erian and Llor.”
That . . . was possible, she supposed. “All I could glean from our spirits was that they felt ‘other,’” Daleina said, bemused. She had assumed they were rogue spirits—it happened sometimes, albeit rarely, that a spirit was able to throw off the will of its queen for a brief period of time and cause deaths. Rogue spirits often had to be eliminated, regardless of the damage it caused to the land. And she might have done just that if Naelin had been here to help her, and she said as much. “I’ve searched for them without success.” The fact was, she hadn’t had as much time or energy to devote to the search as she might like, given all the other crises she’d been presented with—crises that Naelin had, however inadvertently, caused. “The thing is, we don’t know they’re from Semo. In fact, I very much doubt—”
Naelin shook her head. “They don’t matter. They’re puppets with teeth. Only the one pulling the strings matters. And if we work together, we can bring her down and save Erian and Llor, but I need your help to—”
“No,” Daleina said, as gently as she could.
Naelin reeled back as if Daleina had struck her.
Daleina reached out toward her, then let her hand fall. “Naelin . . . Queen Naelin . . .” She searched for the right words. I have to make her understand! “I know you’re in pain, but we have to think of the whole of Aratay. To wage a war against Semo—”
“Only its queen.”
Shaking her head, Daleina tried to sound as firm as she could. “You can’t attack a queen without attacking her country. Innocents will suffer, and you don’t have any proof that she was responsible.” And, as she’d said, Daleina very much doubted there was such proof. If Merecot had sent spirits to attack the queen’s children, it was a stupid move—and Merecot was many things, but “stupid” wasn’t one of them. She was subtle and devious and ruthlessly ambitious but never stupid.
She hated to say it, but the only one being stupid right now—
“Of course she was responsible!” Naelin shouted. “She had motive! Plenty of it. Revenge and ambition.” With each outburst, the spirits on the ceiling gnawed through the wood with gusto. Vines shot out of the moldings and twisted around the sconces. Fire spirits whipped in circles within their flames, tossing sparks onto the floor.
Sending soothing thoughts, Daleina tried to calm them. It wasn’t easy, though, as she had to keep her thoughts quiet and unobtrusive, not wanting to agitate Naelin any further. “Motive isn’t proof, and I can’t condone an attack—”
“You cannot prevent it,” Naelin warned. Or, rather, threatened.
Daleina stood up straight at that, chin up, posture as regal as she knew how to make it. She may not be as powerful as Naelin, but she knew what it meant to be threatened, and she was not about to let anyone presume such a tone with her.
Sensing the tension, Ven laid his hand on Naelin’s arm. “Naelin, don’t do this. You’d throw Aratay into civil war. Innocent people will die.”
Stepping back from him, Naelin pulled away. “You too?” she whispered. “You’d abandon all hope of saving them? Just because you fear the consequences?”
Daleina wished she could comfort her. This must feel like betrayal, all of us against her. But she couldn’t let the other queen start a war. We haven’t even recovered from the last battle. The forest bore the scars.
And, because of Naelin, they now bore even more.
Headmistress Hanna clicked her tongue in disapproval. “You’d kill other people’s children in a doomed quest to save your own. You have no proof your children are even alive, much less with the queen of Semo.”
“They are alive! And we can keep our people safe if we work together,” Naelin said, her voice shrill. Daleina shot a worried look at the spirits on the roof, who were still agitated. “You can defend Aratay while I attack Merecot.”
“Say you attack, and say you win . . .” Ven said. “What if Merecot wasn’t responsible? What if you kill her, and she doesn’t have—never had—Erian and Llor? What if attacking her distracts you from finding whoever was truly responsible?”
Continuing to send soothing thoughts toward the spirits, Daleina pressed on. “You need to stop, assess, and then—when the immediate crises are over and when we’re sure who’s to blame—then we’ll act. Together. I swear it. Your children will not be forgotten. But we have a responsibility to all the children of Aratay first.”
Ven took Naelin’s hands. “If this wasn’t a random attack or a rogue spirit, we’ll find out and we’ll catch whoever was behind this. I swear it too.”
Headmistress Hanna rolled forward, halting in front of the two thrones. Her back was straight, her chin lifted, and Daleina felt, for a moment, the same way she had years ago, before she entered the academy—as if the headmistress had all the answers. “After I’ve given Queen Naelin the training she needs, I will go to Semo, as ambassador. It’s past time for a healthy dialogue between Semo and Aratay to be opened. While I’m there, I will search for any
evidence that Queen Merecot was involved in the attack on Bayn and the children.”
That was not what Daleina had expected her to say. She stared at the headmistress, the woman who had devoted her entire life to her students, to training future heirs—the woman who had been wounded permanently while defending them. “You’d do this? Leave Aratay? But the academy—”
“Will function fine without me,” Hanna said. “And I would appreciate a change. Add to that the fact that I knew Merecot as a student, and I believe I am the ideal person to go.”
Considering it, Daleina ran quickly through the pros and cons—Hanna was valuable here, both for her experience at the academy and for her always-wise advice. She was one of the few allies who knew everything that Daleina had done, both the good and the bad, and Daleina trusted her absolutely. She’d miss having such a trustworthy friend so close. In addition, if Merecot did mean to hurt Aratay, Daleina would be sending the headmistress directly into harm’s way. On the other hand, Merecot knew and respected the headmistress, at least as much as she respected anyone, and Headmistress Hanna had no illusions about the flaws in Merecot’s character. Hanna knew the history of the countries, was even-tempered and diplomatic, and, in short, would make an ideal ambassador.
This might be just the thing to begin a peaceful dialogue between—
Leaving the hearth, the fire spirits crackled as Naelin cried, “My children are alive! And in danger! And you talk about ambassadors and harvests and—don’t you understand? We must act now, before it’s too late!”
Daleina felt the pain radiate out and pour into the spirits. She tried to stem the flood, thrusting her mind into the spirits’ swirling thoughts. Calm! Stay calm! Don’t—
But they howled, from deep within the bowels of the earth.
She felt them shift, reach, claw, scream.
And the earthquake struck.
Stop!
Naelin heard the word well up inside her—but she couldn’t say it. Once the power began to flow out of her, it gushed faster and faster until it was a flood that shuddered through her body. She felt it ram into the nearby spirits, felt their screams, and felt the earth shift as every earth spirit beneath the city bucked and writhed at once.