Daleina carefully opened her eyes. At first, it was all an amber blur, and she felt her heart sink. Still not better, she thought. Against her will, she felt tears well in the corners of her eyes.
“Yes, that’s it,” he urged. “Let them fall.”
She blinked, and the tears washed her eyes and then slipped down her cheeks, a rivulet. She raised her hand to wipe them away with the back of her hand, and he caught her wrist.
“Good. Now look at me. Try to focus.”
The tears ceased, and she focused ahead of her, at the blur that was his face, caught in the amber light of the campfire. He had black hair and black skin that bled into the shadows. His lips were parted as if he wanted to speak, but he was silent. His eyes were gemstone green, bright against the whites of his eyes, blurred but visible. He was staring at her unblinking with those green, green eyes, and she thought that green was the most gorgeous color she’d ever seen in her entire life. Greener than a fern in springtime. Greener than the canopy at daybreak. Greener than her own eyes, which were staring at him, seeing him for the first time.
His lips—she could see his soft, beautiful lips!—curved into a smile. “You’re looking at me. I can tell you are. You see me.”
Yes was too small a word. There were no words. She couldn’t speak, think, or breathe. She could only stare. Her hand trembled as she reached up, gently, to touch his cheek. It was soft under her fingertips; even his stubble was soft, like the underbelly of a hedgehog. Where did that thought come from? She felt a laugh bubble up from her stomach and shake her arms.
She saw his expression shift into concern—his lips turned downward and a small crease appeared in his forehead, wiggling as she tried to focus on it. He was looking at her as if she was the most important thing in the world. Not like a healer looks at a patient, but as if she was special and cherished . . . and she realized she treasured that, the way he cared about her, the greatness of his heart and depth of his kindness. She also realized she hadn’t answered him yet. Leaning forward, she touched her lips to his, her eyes open. His lips softened, and he kissed her back.
Scooting closer, she wrapped her arms around his back. She felt his back through his shirt, the muscles from climbing, and he folded his arms around her and drew her in against him. She kissed him as if the rest of the world didn’t exist, and within his arms, she felt safe.
THREE MONTHS LATER, AT DAWN, THEY CLIMBED UP BEYOND THE wire roads so that Daleina could watch the air spirits tumble in the clouds—her sight was at last no longer blurred, and this was her reward. Hamon came too, though there was no specific reason for him to come. No reason other than to be close to her . . . a reason she thoroughly approved of.
He braced himself on the thin branches beside her, tossing a rope to secure himself. Ven didn’t use a rope, and neither did Daleina—Ven because he was Ven, and Daleina because he told her not to, despite Hamon’s objections. “She’s in training” was Ven’s answer, which convinced Daleina that he was going to push her off the tree. But for now she was free to watch the spirits.
At first, she didn’t see any, though she sensed them, high above the clouds. But then one burst through. Its white-furred, sinewy body undulated between the clouds. It spread black wings that spanned several feet on both sides and ended in handlike paws. Clapping those together, it plummeted, and then spread its wings and soared up. It looked, she thought, like a six-foot-long ermine—with bat wings.
She then heard chittering of laughter from a trio of tiny air spirits—they looked vaguely human in shape but with wings, like something a child would draw: sticklike arms and legs, broad smiles for mouths, and dots for eyes. They lacked noses but had hair that flowed into a feathery pelt down their backs. The trio danced on the tops of the leaves, hands clasped. Their laugh was as beautiful as a bell.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ven shift to turn to her, but she didn’t need to see to know what was coming—she’d felt the branches quiver. “Can you wait until they fly again before you push me?”
He scowled. “How do you know I’m going to push you?”
“You want to see if I can call the spirits fast enough to catch me.”
“Can you?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you push me and we’ll find out?”
Hamon wrapped his arm around her waist. “That’s a terrible idea. Are you two crazy?”
Ven turned his scowl on Hamon. “I told you: she’s training.”
“She’s been training nonstop. Give her a few minutes.”
“She doesn’t get enough free minutes when she’s kissing you?”
Daleina loved seeing Hamon’s dark skin blush, even though she knew her own cheeks were afire. He was sputtering as he failed to come up with a response.
From across the canopy, Daleina heard drumbeats. The trio of air spirits looked at each other and scattered, diving down into the leaves, rustling them in their wake. A low voice sang out a clear tone that echoed across the sky. It was joined by a second tone, higher, but matching it, and then a third. The chord shifted higher and then lower, echoing as it was picked up by other singers, spreading across the forest.
I know this song . . .
“Now?” Ven’s frown deepened.
“It’s too soon,” Hamon objected. “She’s supposed to have more time.”
“The time isn’t codified. It can be called any season. It’s simply that Fara”—he corrected himself—“Queen Fara usually calls the candidates every third year. We should have had more time.”
Daleina listened to the music, trying to remember when she’d last heard it.
“She’s calling the candidates to the capital,” Hamon whispered. Releasing Daleina’s waist, he fiddled with the knot in the rope, preparing to climb down.
The trials. She felt as if her head were spinning. She wasn’t ready! She couldn’t—
Ven shoved her shoulder, hard. Losing her balance, Daleina fell to the side. Hamon’s fingers brushed her arm as he reached for her, shouting her name. Her arms pinwheeled, and for a second, she was too surprised to react. Branches slapped into her back, and she reached for them. She grabbed a branch, and her arm jerked in its socket as she snapped back—and then the branch broke from the tree.
She called to the spirits in the air, Dance with me!
Laughing, the little spirits dove toward her and beneath her, cushioning her fall, and then yanking her upward, higher, higher, higher, far stronger than they should have been. One held each arm, and the winged ermine spirit rode beneath her stomach, lifting her higher, above Ven and Hamon, into the white puff of the clouds.
She felt the mist brush her cheeks, and the world blurred into whiteness, and for one instant, she panicked—she knew she hadn’t lost her sight again, it was only the cloud, but it felt far too much like it—and in that second, the air spirits spun her in a circle, laughing. The three little ones pulled both arms and one leg in opposite directions.
She focused on the winged ermine spirit. Fly.
It shot forward, and its force knocked the others away from her, sending them somersaulting across the sky. Daleina clung to its shoulders and felt its powerful wings move beneath her.
She felt its joy in its power. Carefully, she framed images of Ven and Hamon. Return me, she thought. She pictured the ermine spirit setting her down on the trees behind them, and it laughed, a deep sound that vibrated through her. It didn’t want to return her.
She could force it, overpower it and guide it in. But that wasn’t what she’d been working on for the last three months. Instead, she told it, Amaze them.
It liked that.
Soaring up, it burst out of the clouds, and Daleina saw a field of hills spreading in every direction until they melted into blue. Above, the sky was unblemished and felt as if she were looking at an expanse of pure paint, thick and liquidy. The sun looked as if it had burned away part of the sky, searing away the blue and replacing it with white. Her eyes stung as she drank in the blue. It felt as if s
he’d never seen sky before. Daleina took a breath of impossibly pure air, and then the ermine spirit dove into the clouds again, faster and faster.
She held tight to its neck. It twisted as it burst out of the clouds above the forest canopy, and then it rotated upside down. She squeezed tight with her thighs as she felt gravity pulling her. It soared upside down inches above Ven and Hamon’s heads. Hamon ducked, calling toward her. And she laughed—the look in Ven’s eyes. She could see the surprise etched on his face.
You’re amazing, she told the spirit.
Twisting right-side-up, it spiraled down to the canopy. She slipped off, and Hamon caught her waist. Ven, she saw, had a knife held casually in one hand, ready. She knew how far he could throw it, though hitting the spirit while he carried her above the clouds would not have been helpful. She was glad he’d resisted.
The ermine spirit turned its bright eyes toward her—and then bit her arm.
Knife in hand, Ven lunged forward, but Daleina stopped him as the ermine spirit flew up and pierced the clouds. Hamon pressed his lips together in disapproval—she loved that she could read his expression instead of guessing his mood from his voice and the length of his silences—and pushed her sleeve up and began cleaning the wound with liquid he carried in his medicine pack.
“What did you do to it?” Ven asked.
“I complimented it, and I meant it.”
He snorted. “There have been queens that have tried to parlay with the spirits before. Many times, in fact. You’ve heard the stories?”
All of them ended badly, very badly.
“Instinct wins over all else,” Ven said. “But in the more advanced spirits . . .”
“It just wanted to fly,” Daleina said. It was easy to see how much the air spirits loved the air, just as the fire spirits reveled in fire.
He studied her for a moment, then asked, “Do you think your new friend will fly us all to Mittriel?”
“Unlikely.” At least, not without wanting to drop one of them. She didn’t think she was up to wrestling the ermine for the entire journey. “But I’m glad I got to see above the clouds.” That statement seemed inadequate to how it had felt. The teachers never talked about how beautiful working with wild spirits could be. She thought of some of the worst romantic village songs, of young men who fall in love with wood spirits who look like beautiful young girls, and of the widow who hurled herself from the top of a pine tree for love of an air spirit. Always those tales ended in tragedy, but she didn’t doubt that they sometimes happened. Some of the spirits looked so close to human, and so many, human or not, were beautiful. They could make even death look beautiful, if you were the kind who swooned over bad poetry. You couldn’t ever forget they were the enemy. Don’t trust the fire, for it will burn you. Don’t trust the ice, for it will freeze you. Don’t trust the water, for it will drown you . . .
“Wire paths, then?” Ven suggested.
Daleina smiled and drew her clips out of her pockets, thankful that she no longer needed anyone to shout out when to use them. She could do this herself now. They climbed to the wires. Ven first, then Daleina, and last Hamon. Before clipping on, she pulled a smooth round rock out of another pocket and dropped it. It tumbled down the trunk toward the forest floor, a signal for Bayn that they were traveling again. The wolf had an uncanny ability to follow them, even from far below.
Daleina clipped on and pushed off. The trees blurred around her, and for an instant, she felt fear well up in her, like bubbles in her throat—she knew it was only because she was flying fast, but she couldn’t seem to make her heart believe. It thumped faster and harder. She squeezed her eyes shut. There. That was better. She only opened them again when she heard Ven clip on to the new wire, then she switched wires as well and closed her eyes again.
By nightfall, they’d traveled many miles, and Daleina would have kept going—traveling at night was still easier than traveling sightless. “We have three days to answer the summons,” Ven said. “We can stop here. Perhaps even find hospitality?” He turned to Daleina.
“Sorry, but I don’t . . .” she began.
“Threefork. Your family’s village,” Hamon prompted gently.
Daleina felt her cheeks flush. She hadn’t recognized it, possibly because she’d never taken the wire paths here before. Looking down, she tried to orient herself. The village her family had settled in had a trio of thick trees at its heart. This—ahh, there they were, the triplet trees, split around a platform.
“At last, beds! Or cots. Or whatever your family has, I’m sure would be fine,” Hamon said. “Shall we go down?” He began climbing before Ven and Daleina agreed.
Following, Ven told him, “You lack the heart of a woodsman.”
“But I pretend at one so excellently,” Hamon said.
“Wait, are you a city boy at heart?” Daleina asked.
“He is,” Ven said seriously.
“I think I’m appalled.”
“Excuse me?” Hamon said, pausing.
“Revolted,” she amended.
“Definitely revolted,” Ven agreed. “Rejecting good, clean air and values.”
“I’m not sure I can keep talking with him,” Daleina said. “Do you think he’s been faking woodsmanship the entire time?” He didn’t talk about his own family much—only child, father dead, mother unkind, other relatives uninterested—but she knew he was from one of the northern cities. He was more comfortable in the forest, though, happily gathering his rare plants and berries, as at home as if he were from one of the outer villages.
“I think he slides silk pillowcases over the rocks at night when he thinks we aren’t looking,” Ven said, climbing too.
“No!” Daleina gasped in mock horror. “And he wears a cravat hidden under his shirt.”
“I heard he secretly keeps a pocket watch,” Ven said.
“And his boots have heels,” Daleina said.
“My boots have heels,” Ven said. “Better to catch the branches.”
“Ahh, but yours aren’t lined with fur to keep your toes soft.”
Hamon rolled his eyes at them. “I’m going to throw my fur-lined boots at you.”
They laughed and were soon on the bridge outside the village. Daleina felt her heart beating faster, and she couldn’t explain why. This was her home. She should feel as if she were walking into a familiar embrace. Instead, she felt as if she were intruding. She felt both Ven and Hamon watching her, waiting for her, and briefly closed her eyes, resting them. She breathed in, steadying herself, and reminded herself that she faced spirits on a regular basis. Normal humans in a normal village should not make her nervous. Plus these were people who knew her, loved her, and were proud of her.
Except this is the first time I’ve visited without warning. . . .
Opening her eyes, she told herself to stop dithering, and she marched forward into the center of the village. Everything was the same as she remembered, but also a little different—same enough that the differences were disconcerting. The baker’s shop had grown and now sported tables and chairs that extended onto the center platform. Families were sharing dinner together outside, a touch of city life that had spread to the village. The bookshop boasted a new sign, and the door was festooned with ribbons. Daleina didn’t recognize any of the books in the display. Nor did she recognize any of the people moving around the town center. Children, laughing, ran through, on their way home from either school or their apprenticeships. She saw the hedgewitch’s shop, where she had been an apprentice for five years, and she hesitated again.
Not that it did much good.
“Little Dally, is that you, all grown up? Bless me.” The hedge-witch, Mistress Baria, bustled out of her shop. Daleina realized with a shock that she’d aged—her hair was thin and white, her face was creased with wrinkles. She tottered back and forth on plump legs as she crossed the platform to enfold Daleina in a hug.
“Little Dally?” she saw Ven mouth. Oh, great, she wasn’t going to hear the end of this.
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Being enveloped by the hedgewitch made her feel ten years old again. The last few visits her family had come to see her, rather than the other way around. She hadn’t seen Mistress Baria in a long time. “You’ve come for a visit? Oh, this is such a delight! And who are your charming friends?”
“Champion Ven and Healer Hamon,” Daleina introduced them, and tried to figure out how to phrase that she wasn’t here for a visit, just for a place to sleep.
“A champion, here! And a healer too. I must show you some of my charms. I make the finest concoctions for three villages. Ask Dally. She knows. I taught her everything. She’s my shining star.” The hedgewitch pinched Daleina’s cheek. “I always knew she’d go far. Why, the very first time I met her, she marched into my shop and demanded that I teach her. Yes, she did. I told her no, no, you’re too young, your parents should be asking for you, not you.”
“That was Arin, actually,” Daleina corrected. She felt as if her cheeks were fire-red. It was her sister who had marched into the hedgewitch’s shop and informed her that she had to take Daleina for an apprentice. Daleina had been with her parents, shy in the face of a new village. She remembered she’d been looking into the window of the bookshop, wondering if she dared to go in and touch the new books, when Arin had come back, pulling the hedgewitch with her.
“Oh, it was? Truly? No, no, you’re remembering wrong. It was you. I know. So precocious so young. I could see the power shining through. You were my prodigy. I was the one who taught her to summon, but she might as well have been teaching me. Such a natural!”
She hadn’t been. She’d failed for the entire first year to summon anything. She thought she must have been wrong about her power, until Arin had fallen into a stream and a water spirit had knocked the branches out of her reach, taunting her. Daleina had forced the spirit to release the branches and divert the stream, and the hedgewitch had yelled at her for it, saying she could have killed them both, could have killed them all, if the water spirit had been angry enough. She then assigned Daleina to mashing herbs in the back of the shop for a week, not letting her out until she’d finished and night was falling. Still, Mistress Baria hadn’t been a bad teacher. Just cautious. Her first priority was to protect the village as best she could, and Daleina, with her half-formed power, was a danger.