Only then did she cry out to them, No! Stop!
But it had no effect.
She pulled at her power, trying to draw it back inside her, as the throne room around her shook. She dropped to her knees. Dimly, she was aware of the others, crying out, falling. Tiles fell from the walls and shattered. A chandelier plummeted from the ceiling and hit the wood and shell table in the center—the table cracked in half.
I can’t stop. I don’t know how to stop!
She was hurting people. Badly. People could be dying. Innocent people. She pictured the papers that Daleina had shown her, lists she’d barely looked at. I’m attacking my own people!
I am worse than Merecot.
She felt the waves of rage inside her turn inward.
She didn’t deserve . . . Didn’t . . . Couldn’t . . . Before the thought could even be completed, she felt arms around her, warm and familiar. She felt Ven’s breath in her hair as he whispered her name, felt him stroke her back, felt him rock her side to side, as if she were a child who’d had a nightmare—the way she’d rocked Erian and Llor late at night, when they’d woken in a sweat, screaming out for her.
Just his arms and the whisper of her name, over and over.
With a shuddering gasp, Naelin pulled herself together enough to look around.
“What have I done?”
“Order them to stop!” Daleina snapped. “Help me!”
Beside her, she heard Headmistress Hanna, calm and no-nonsense: “You must construct a wall within you. Picture it as clearly as if it were in front of you. Every brick. Every chink. Pour the mortar. Smooth it.”
She did as the headmistress said.
“Think only of the wall. Feel the divots in the bricks. Smell the clay. Row by row, lay your wall around your mind. All your thoughts and feelings reside within. Allow no gap, no sunlight, no hint of wind—build it higher, as high as it takes.”
Naelin built, brick by brick, in her mind. It wasn’t difficult for her—she had the power—but it was still taxing, as hard as if she were doing it for real. She labored, and sweat poured down her face.
Ven was murmuring, but she didn’t hear him. Only saw the bricks. Only felt them beneath her fingers. She poured the mortar in her mind, thick so nothing would get through. She walled off the sunlight, she dammed up the flood, she sealed herself inside.
And then she opened her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
Ven kissed her forehead, which was damp with sweat. “If they’re alive, we’ll find them. Somehow. I promise. But you need to make sure there’s a home to bring them back to.”
Three minutes before the earthquake, in another branch of the palace, Queen Daleina’s sister, Arin, was measuring one teaspoon of ervo juice. She poured it into the test tube and then exhaled. Now for the tricky part. She had to add precisely three drops, no more and no less, with five-second intervals between each drop to allow the potion to mix at the correct rate. All the ingredients needed to be combined in a particular order with the proper timing, or else its potency would be reduced. She’d already mixed one subpar potion earlier, and now there was a frog in the palace garden hopping around with yellow and purple fur.
Done correctly, this potion should strip the skin off a spirit.
Incorrectly, and the results were . . . less impressive. And furrier. The potion was her own concoction, guided by Master Garnah. Arin had progressed quickly past the basics and was developing her own course of study. She had no interest in becoming a poisoner like Master Garnah, but she was interested in potions that could affect spirits.
“Slow and steady,” Master Garnah advised. “Consider it a dance, with a partner who might or might not kill you if you step on his feet.”
“Sounds like a sensible dance to decline.” Dipping the eyedropper into the distilled water, Arin prepared to add the first ingredient—water, harmless on its own but host to all the other more volatile components.
“Ah, but it’s the most exciting, beautiful dance there is! If you don’t dance it, you haven’t lived.” Positioning her arms as if she had an invisible partner, Master Garnah swirled around the room. She bypassed the other tables, the pile of supplies, and the stack of dead frogs. They’d started with rats as their subjects, but Master Garnah wanted the potions tested on non-mammals as well. “The dance with destiny! Or death. Or immortality. Whatever. Take your pick of something poetic.” Swishing past Arin, Garnah called out, “Three drops, my dear!”
Arin held the dropper over the test tube and added three drops. She then went for the next ingredient, which was known for its explosive qualities. Five drops. Almost done.
Last ingredient.
She felt the tremor through her feet, and then the table began to shake. Her hand, with the final ingredient in the dropper, shook.
Glass tubes and bottles rattled together. A bowl slid off the table, and the liquid spattered across the expensive carpet. Arin felt a yank on her arm as Master Garnah pulled her back. She turned and ran as the floor rocked and shook.
Master Garnah shoved another table over and pulled Arin with her behind it. “Down!”
Arin obeyed, crouching down as the world shook and shuddered. Cracks ran down the walls and sounded as if the whole palace were breaking apart—
Boom!
The potion exploded, and shards of glass shot into the walls. She saw them embed in the wood, above where they hid.
And as suddenly as it had begun, the earthquake ended.
Everything was still.
Arin stared at the shards of glass stuck into the wall.
Standing, Master Garnah dusted off her knees. “Invigorating,” she commented. “Come, you must learn faster. There are many more potions you need to know.”
“But the quake . . .” She had to see if Daleina was okay. Had spirits caused it? What happened? Had there been an attack? Semo again?
“Potions,” Master Garnah said, climbing over a fallen chair. Glass crunched under her shoes. “There’s no time to waste. Don’t you understand?”
“Understand what?” Climbing out from behind the table, Arin began to clean up the broken bottles. Powders had spilled on the floor—they’d be useless now. I need a broom.
“A queen is supposed to keep us safe,” Master Garnah said. “And a content, stable queen will do exactly that. But with a queen of sorrow . . . You must learn quickly, girl. Sooner rather than later, you will need to be able to keep yourself safe”—she plucked a bit of glass from the wall and shook it at Arin—“or you will find yourself in pieces.
“Now—leave the mess, and learn!”
Chapter 9
“You must be drenched in diamonds, my queen, per tradition,” the courtier said. Merecot hadn’t bothered to learn her name, but the lady wore a row of jewels in the curve of her ear and gold strands laced in her hair. “If you will permit me . . .”
Merecot waved her hand. “Drench as you please.”
Cautiously, the lady approached her, and Merecot wanted to bare her teeth and growl to see if she’d flinch. But she resisted the urge, because she wasn’t five years old. Oh, but it’s tempting! Suppressing a grin, Merecot held herself still in front of the mirror as the courtier draped necklaces around her neck, fastened bracelets all the way up her arms, and wove jewels into her black hair. As she decorated her queen, the courtier began to prattle about the jewels with increasing confidence. “The Crown was given this necklace by the town of Erodale, during the reign of Queen Eri of Semo. It was carved by the master jeweler Hoile, in his final year of life. It is said that his blindness cleared, and he regained the strength in his hands for the length of time it took him to carve the thirty-six petals into the shape of a perfect rose. When he finished, he carried his masterpiece to the queen and presented it to her. As she clasped it around her neck, his blindness returned, his hands shook again, and his heart gave out. He died at her feet.”
She had a story like that for every single bauble.
Merecot w
ould have demanded silence, except that she had a more effective way to skip the history lesson. So instead of listening to the courtier’s prattle, she sent her mind sailing out of her chambers, out of the palace, and across the mountains, skipping from spirit to spirit like a rock across the surface of a pond.
She pushed her mind farther, beyond the border, into Aratay. Most queens wouldn’t even have had the strength to reach this distance. But then most queens are not even close to me. There was something strangely soothing about the unpleasant sensation of spreading herself so thin and wide that she could brush against the forests of Aratay.
Not that I miss the forests. She didn’t. Shadows everywhere. Always having to worry about the stupid bridges breaking. She’d climbed enough ladders and swung on enough ridiculous ropes to last her several lifetimes. Besides, she’d left behind her worst memories between those branches, and she didn’t regret that for one second. But she had spent the majority of her life above the forest floor, with leaves overhead, and sometimes it felt strange to feel her feet on the ground and see the open sky with nothing brown or green to obscure the sun. And the mountains—oh, the glorious mountains! They were why she had chosen Semo, as opposed to the flat farmlands of Chell or the icy glaciers of Elhim or the ever-present salty stickiness of Belene.
The mountains were fists punched at the sky, fabulous “you don’t own me” gestures at the world. Her favorites were in the west, with their sharp ridgelines and sheer cliffs, but she also admired the southern mountains, with their boulders that could crush a town. And she admired the people who lived in them, carving out lives on the stone faces, eking out their existence from the plants and animals that were hardy enough to live there.
I fit well here, she thought.
If only there were no spirits trying to destroy everything that’s beautiful and good.
Merecot rode with the wind above a snowcapped peak and then soared down the other side. She was only dimly aware of her body, back in her chambers, as the courtier rebraided her hair to hold even more diamonds, plumbed from the depths of the mountains.
Shivering, Merecot strained harder, sweeping her awareness over the strange other feel of the spirits of Aratay. They moved like bugs through her consciousness, making her itch, until at last she brushed against the minds of spirits that felt familiar, hidden in the shadows where the Aratayian spirits wouldn’t see them—touching them felt like breathing in fresh mountain air.
Her spirits, the ones she had sent into the forest.
The ones she’d sent with a purpose.
She touched their thoughts. Did you succeed?
Images were blurred—golden trees, blue sky . . . and then a wolf, running with the queen’s children . . . and then a wolf, running alone . . .
Did you catch them?
Did you kill him?
From across the border, it was difficult to sort through the tangle of the spirits’ memories. But then she saw an image, as crisp as if it had happened in front of her: the wolf running alone into the untamed lands.
Merecot laughed out loud. Distantly, she heard the startled courtier speak, but her mind was too far away to hear words. She felt the spirits’ confusion, then disappointment, then fear. Fear of her anger at their failure.
She consoled them. But you didn’t fail! Granted, the Protector of Queens wasn’t dead, as she’d ordered, but he might as well be. Given what he was, he couldn’t return from the untamed lands, not on his own. He’s as good as dead. But what of the children?
The spirits milled in confusion. They didn’t know . . . They . . . She suddenly realized she was touching only four minds. Where are the other two?
North was the answer.
Merecot issued a command to her four spirits to return home, secretly and carefully, and then she drew her mind back across the border, across the mountains of Semo, toward the castle. Casting her mind out wide, she found the two missing spirits. They, along with their prizes, were not only in her land, but they were drawing rapidly close.
Nearly here!
Yanking her mind back, she crashed into her body. She swatted away the hands of the courtier. “That’s enough,” she snarled at her. Merecot’s eyes fixed on the mirror. Glittering, she looked as if she’d fallen into a vat of glass shards.
“Go. And send Jastra to me.”
She paced, which was not an easy feat in the layers of formal skirts. The voluminous fabric swooshed and swished as she paced in a tight circle in the center of her chambers. Am I ready? I must be ready!
Moments later, the guards swung open her doors, and Jastra entered. She too had dressed for the Harvest Festival, festooned with rubies, emeralds, and sapphires—precious stones were considered fruits of the earth, appropriate to the celebration of the literal fruits of the earth. She wore no fewer than six necklaces, as well as a sapphire the size of Merecot’s fist nestled on top of her head. It was brilliantly blue against the thin white of Jastra’s hair.
“My dear, you look lovely,” Jastra said. “You honor our people.”
“Leave us,” Merecot ordered the courtiers and the guards.
Bowing, the courtiers scurried out, and the guards shut the doors behind them. Jastra clucked her tongue. “You seem nervous. Don’t be. You’ll have one of the court historians on each side of you, and they will feed you all the ritual lines. They know it backwards, forwards, and upside down. Sometimes I think they’re born knowing—”
Shaking her head, Merecot beamed at Jastra. She wasn’t nervous. She felt like dancing! Seizing her mentor’s hands, she squeezed them in excitement. “The Protector is gone, and our guests are nearly here!”
“Splendid!” Jastra said, beaming at her with a beloved parent’s pride. “You do realize they’ll most likely cry. Or even scream. Children often do.”
“I’ll make sure they’re happy here,” Merecot promised. “Semo is the most beautiful land in all of Renthia. Full of delight. They’ll enjoy their stay.”
Jastra patted her hand.
And Merecot added, “And if they’re lucky and both queens of Aratay see reason, I may not even have to kill their mother.”
“I do admire your optimism,” Jastra said fondly.
Erian was terrified.
Or, at least, she had been at first, when the spirits with vicious beaks attacked her and Llor, chasing them as they fled on Bayn. When they’d plucked her away from the wolf, she thought she’d die from fear. She’d screamed so hard that she’d scraped her throat and lost her voice. She was left merely whimpering as the spirits carried them north.
But she couldn’t stay terrified forever. Oh, she was still scared. She wasn’t stupid. She knew what rogue spirits did to people they caught.
Except that the spirits didn’t tear her and Llor limb from limb.
Or eat them.
Or skin them.
Or squeeze them.
Or drop them.
And after a few hours, being afraid became . . . well, boring. She began to notice they were flying between mountains, extraordinary mountains, with peaks so high they vanished between clouds and cliffs so steep and sheer they looked like petrified waterfalls. And the colors! The stone wasn’t just grayish, like on the forest floor. It was shimmery black or as red as the sunset or streaked with glittering white sparkles.
Snow clung to the ridges and peaks, and far below, she saw rivers—great, gushing, white foam rivers—battering the walls of canyons.
The two spirits carried them between the canyon walls, and the only sound was the rush of wind. But that sound was so loud that it was like a steady scream. Erian wondered if, when the flight ended, she’d be able to hear anything else.
Eventually, the flight did end.
As the sun sank, so did the spirits, gliding down into one of the canyons. She saw a dark blotch on a canyon wall, which grew as they flew closer—a cave. And her terror returned as they flew inside, into the darkness.
Now they’ll kill us!
She was dropped a few inc
hes above the rock floor and landed with a thump. It hurt for an instant, but she hadn’t fallen far. She scrambled, trying to get her feet underneath her to run away—she didn’t know where to. The cave was halfway up a cliff. But everything inside her screamed, Away, away, away!
She smacked into a cool leathery body—the spirit!
Screaming, she ran in the other direction and then tripped over something soft. She sprawled forward, scraping her hands on the rocks as she tried to catch herself.
“Erian?”
She’d tripped over Llor. Crawling to him, she wrapped her arms around him tight. He was crying, big heaving sobs that shook his body. “Shh,” she said into his hair. “You’re okay. We’re okay.”
“Are we going to die?”
“No,” she said instantly.
“I don’t want to die. It’ll hurt. And I’ll miss you.”
She agreed with that with all her heart.
“Is Bayn all right?”
I don’t know, she thought. But what she said was: “I’m sure he is.”
They held each other in the dark cave for hours. A few times, Erian tried to crawl toward what she thought was the mouth of the cave, but the two spirits blocked the way. Eventually, the children slept, curled around each other.
At dawn, the spirits pried them apart, lifted them in the air, and flew on. After the initial burst of fear, Erian began to feel numb. And hungry. And thirsty. And she had to pee.
She cried when she couldn’t hold it any longer, as the pee dripped down her leg. But by sunset, she didn’t care anymore, and all she could think about was how thirsty she was. She barely looked at the mountains as she hung from the spirit’s talons.
The two spirits cawed to each other, and at last she raised her head.
And saw the castle.
It was beautiful: all white stone, carved into the side of the mountain, with turrets and towers and bridges and fantastic waterfalls. It sparkled in the setting sun. Erian blinked at it, unsure if she was imagining it. I could be seeing things. That could be what happens before you die of thirst.