Forest Born (22 page)

Isi inhaled deeply, lowered her head, and knelt. With deliberate show, she bowed her body to the floor, her forehead pressed to the rug, her arms stretched out.

It caused Rin an almost physical pain to watch Selia’s satisfaction then, her glory in victory. Rin knew how Selia felt—strong, unique, special, sure that others could not comprehend it, but at the same time, frantic that they know. Rin was sickened now to remember her own rush of elation when she realized how much she could affect Wilem’s actions. She had glowed with the heady sensation that she understood everyone—she could do whatever she desired. How that desire had burned!

Rin was still doubled over from the slam to her gut. Perhaps she’d been wrong to stifle her desire to speak all those years. If she had not fought it, she would be stronger now. She might stop Selia, instead of cowering shackled in a corner, Razo dead, Isi prostrate.

Seeing Isi beside Selia set them into sharp relief. Selia spoke like a queen, ruled and commanded and moved like a queen. But Isi
was
a queen—even captured, even prone on the floor. It stung a little, to see in Isi what Rin wanted but could not be. But it was liberating too, just to recognize real power. Knowing Isi, Rin did not believe she could ever be tricked into buying Selia’s crooked kind of queenship.

I don’t want to be Selia,
Rin thought.
Maybe I’m weaker for that,
but so be it. I don’t want to be her.

Selia gazed at Isi for some time, then sighed as if regretful to end the moment. “That’s incredibly sweet, Crown Princess, but the submission I requested included your signature on the paper. No more questions. No more stalling. I will see you sign.”

Isi returned to her knees, her eyes glancing at the paper on the table. Her lips were white and trembling, but still she said, “And I will see my son.”

Selia spoke as if to a naughty but adorable child. “Here, I will compromise. That is what a good queen does. I will show you some token of his well-being, all right? Nuala, go request something of the boy’s from Cilie.”

Nuala hurried to the winding stairs, her head bowed. Since her careless and failed killing of Isi, she had lost her self-assured bearing. It made Rin wonder what Selia had done to the woman. Or surely Selia need only speak a few words to tear the confidence from her previously proud follower.

The sounds of Nuala’s footfalls climbed down. So Tusken was not behind the locked door. In the garrison then? Rin wondered if Isi would strike now that they had a better idea of her son’s location. But Selia kept talking, her voice sliding over Rin, slithering into her ears, filling her head. Isi’s eyes were closed as if struggling against the noise. She plugged her ears for a moment, but Selia’s voice was high and became even louder, and she soon gave up.

Rin did not bother trying. Her middle still ached as if she’d swallowed herself, and she stared at the thick clamps around her wrists. While she looked, the single metal link joining the two shackles glowed red, then faded. Rin blinked. Again it glowed red, then orange before fading. Isi was working on her chain, sending heat into that ring to weaken it. Trying to help her escape. The thought made Rin sad. For once she did not want to run away—she wished to stay and help.

The ring glowed yellow, then white, the heat burning through the cuffs to Rin’s wrists, and Rin pulled her hands away from each other, the cuffs biting into her skin, the link thinning, lengthening just a little. One of the hearth-watchers muttered something to another, both alert now and looking at Rin. The heat vanished, and Isi ducked her head. The hearth-watchers looked at Selia and whispered to each other, as if trying to decide whether to interrupt Selia. But no fire had erupted to cause alarm, and Isi sent no more heat, though they watched her now with hawk eyes.

Nuala returned with Cilie. Isi’s former waiting woman hurried to Selia’s side, taking in the sight of her mistress with wide, hungry eyes. She handed something to Selia, and when Selia touched her hand to take it, Cilie’s eyes wetted with joy. The display enraged Rin. That pig-eyed woman had betrayed Isi and conspired to kidnap Tusken so she could be Selia’s lap dog? Rin should have pummeled her when she had the chance.

Cilie curtsied deeply and began to walk out of the room backward, never looking away from Selia.

“Wait, Cilie.”

Cilie froze. Selia’s tone had not been pleased.

“How is the boy?”

“He’s well, Your Majesty.”

“Are you sure? You aren’t with him at the moment.”

“I left him with many protectors and only just to answer your summons.”

“I ordered you never to leave his side, did I not?”

Cilie’s eyes went wide at Selia’s icy tone. She stared, unblinking, unmoving.

“Did I not very specifically tell you to never leave his side? Why, here is his worried mother. What must she think of me, seeing that the caregiver I assigned to Tusken would leave him so readily?”

Cilie’s mouth opened and closed, until she finally stammered out, “I was only . . . you called me—”

“I asked for tokens, not for you. You could have stayed. I need to show his mother how seriously I take this, Cilie, so she can rest assured her son is in safe hands. You failed me. I hope it is only a part of you that is unreliable and not your whole being. You are made up of pieces, Cilie. You would be better off without them all. Give me one.”

Selia opened a drawer in the table, pulled out a pair of long, thin scissors, and handed them to Cilie. The girl’s eyes were wide, her lips trembling, and she stared at the scissors as if at her own death.

“My lady, Your Majesty, I don’t—”

“Do you question me?”

Cilie broke into sobs and fell to the ground, petting Selia’s skirt. “No, please, I will do whatever you ask, mistress. What ever you want of me.”

“You have such lovely hair. Haven’t I always told you so?”

“Y-yes, yes, you have.”

“Give it to me.”

Cilie’s hand flew to her head. Rin had seen Cilie brush that hair for an hour at a time, her beautiful thick hair that framed a plain face, wide cheeks, and small, close-together eyes. Beautiful hair that all of Isi’s waiting women had envied, that the palace women had admired whenever she’d walked past. Fat tears began to drop from Cilie’s eyes, but she did not blink.

“My hair?” she whispered.

Selia nodded matter-of-factly. “A fitting sacrifice, I think. But I am all benevolence. If you wish, you may choose some other piece.”

The scissors trembled, but Cilie did not hesitate as she lifted her left hand and let the silver blades slide over her smallest finger. Her right hand squeezed, and the scissors bit through bone.

If Cilie screamed, Rin did not hear it. Everything in Rin went out like a smothered candle. Suddenly she was crumpled on the floor. The soldier still had a firm grip on her arm. He hauled her back on her feet, and her brain seemed to roll around in her head like seeds in a dried gourd.

Cilie’s face was white and she looked up at the ceiling as Nuala approached her. A flare of heat struck the stump where Cilie’s finger had been and the bleeding stopped.

“You may go, Cilie, but take the scissors with you back to Tusken . . . just in case.” Selia’s gaze rested on Isi as the waiting woman gripped the scissors in her undamaged hand and, trembling, crossed the room to the stairs.

Selia examined the object Cilie had brought from Tusken, her smile adoring, then she held it up—a cut lock of hair in Tusken’s unmistakable tawny hue.

Isi’s breath shuddered with a tense sob.

Rin bent over, her head feeling airless after her faint. Close by her feet lay a shard of ceramic, perhaps from a broken pot. Rin could imagine Selia throwing things in a rage. It was too small to use as a dagger, but she palmed it anyway.

“So you see, he is quite well and whole.” Selia rubbed the lock against her cheek. “Just missing a bit of hair, that is. He is such a good boy. I don’t think there will be any need to use those scissors on him. No, I’m sure there won’t. As long as his mother behaves.”

Rin fingered the shard and daydreamed about throwing it at Selia. With her wrists clamped, she could not get enough of a swing to do any damage. She did not think even Razo would be able to hit a target with his hands cuffed. So what would Razo do? Something ridiculous, she thought, something to get a laugh. Make sport of Selia. Pull a prank.

Selia’s droning was making the whole room seem dark and cramped, and Isi looked ready to collapse into a heap. Rin had to do something.

In a low, quick movement, she tossed the shard across the room. It struck the wall under one of the windows with a distinct
clack
. Everyone looked toward the noise.

Selia frowned. “What—”

Rin made a startled scream.

Selia turned her slow, icy gaze to Rin. “You interrupted me.”

“I’m sorry, I just can’t believe what I saw. A huge stone cairn walked by, and one of its littlest stones fell through the window.”

Some of the Kels looked at the window nervously. A hearth-watcher made a sign over his chest as if to ward away bad luck.

Selia snarled. “What are you talking about?”

Speaking was making Rin giddy. “Maybe the gods sneaked out of the wood, and the cairns are looking for them. Selia, have you seen any gods running about your castle? We could go look in the kitchen—they might be hungry. Or maybe they’re out playing stones with your mercenary army. The cairn is probably on its way to join them—I bet cairns are naturals at playing stones.”

“You have lots of pieces too, girl, and it’s time you earned your right to be here. I think I’ll start taking pieces of you until your timid royal friend signs.”

The soldier yanked Rin’s arm up and held a knife under her finger.

“No, don’t!” Isi yelled.

Rin’s whole body clenched, and she found herself standing on her toes, trying to get away from that sharpness. The soldier looked at Selia for permission.

“Yes, I think I will,” said Selia. “I’m going to carve her up piece by piece for you to watch, so you can imagine what will happen to Tusken. I wonder what he’ll think of his nurse-mary then. She’ll have trouble carrying him home with her fingerless paws. Cilie is surely back with Tusken now—I wonder if he’s noticed her missing finger. I wonder if he knows he could lose his own so easily.”

Distantly, Rin knew she should be terrified, but her mind was reeling with a realization. She had been looking at Selia as she spoke—really looking to understand. The laugh, the prank, had made Rin feel more like herself, like Forest born, like Agget-kin. Made her forget to be afraid, forget that she’d let Razo die and would soon be killed too. She’d been so certain she would fail, she had not questioned the failure. But now she watched Selia speak and saw what she had not looked for before.

Selia is lying.
Realization flowed through Rin, so hot and sure that she barely noticed the sharpness of the knife against her finger. Selia’s guards had not caught Tusken, had not killed Razo. They must be out there in the wood, safe, hidden. Alive. Far from this viper’s hissing voice, far from soldiers and hearth-watchers and cages and dungeons. Of course she was lying. Rin could see it now etched in every line of her face, in the darkness under her eyes that belied her forced calm, in the twitching corner of her mouth.

Razo must be alive! And Tusken . . .

Enough,
Rin thought.
That’s just plain enough.

Isi was standing at the table. She picked up the pen.

The soldier’s knife bit a little harder against Rin’s finger, teasing the skin almost to bleeding. There seemed to be no energy left in her that had not been doused by grief and exhaustion and doubt. But she found some, hidden pockets of will she did not know she had. She did not hesitate as she gathered all that energy together, pushed it into words, and sent them at Isi, quick and strong as a crossbow bolt.

“She lies,” Rin said. “Razo lives. Tusken is safe.”

In one moment, Isi’s aspect completely changed—her eyes widened, her back straightened. The pen dropped from her hand.

All she said was, “Rin, get down.”

Chapter 25

T
he knife under Rin’s finger became red hot, burning her skin before the soldier flung it away. Rin dropped to the floor, though her guard still kept hold of her arm. The other soldiers and the hearth-watchers leaped toward Isi, but a windstorm had begun.

Then the room exploded.

First fire burst through the roof, so hot and quick the timber burned up in an instant, raining chunks of ash and stone. Now the room was open to the day. Wind gushed through the hole, a stiff cord of air, strong as a rampaging bull. It struck the soldiers and hearth-watchers, shoving them into a heap in the corner. The shriek of wind was loud enough to silence Selia’s voice.

The air began rippling, so dense Rin could actually see the deadly columns of heat shooting from the hearth-watchers toward Isi. But Isi’s wind thickened, pouring past Rin in great syrupy gusts. The wind ravaged through the waves of heat, breaking them apart and sending them swirling away. Sometimes the heat crashed against a wall and found a tapestry, and fires burst to life. But just as suddenly the fires died as if the wind had sucked the air out of them.

Rin spotted a soldier coming up the stairs, not caught in the corner with the others. He was making his way around the room, behind Isi’s back.

“Isi!” Rin yelled, just as the soldier hurled a heavy metal box. Wind gushed between them and the box was knocked aside, missing Isi’s head but thumping against her leg. She faltered, and the wind died for just a moment, but it was enough. The hearth-watchers jumped to their feet and split apart, and the soldiers ran forward with swords. Heat and steel were coming at Isi from every direction, seven fire-speakers and three warriors, all looking at Isi, all set on her death.

And Selia was still speaking, now in a high, piercing noise that barely cut through the wind. “Stop fighting, Crown Princess. It’s useless! You’ll get your little friend killed!”

Rin’s guard still gripped her wrist. She wished she was in the dungeon, locked away in darkness where she would not have to see the queen of Bayern die. If only Enna were here instead of Rin—Enna would wipe out the entire room instead of cowering on the floor.

Isi kept pushing back the hearth-watchers and soldiers with her wind, occasionally letting small fires ignite a sword handle or scorch someone’s boots. But they were gaining ground, and the closer they stood to Isi, the harder it was for her to blow away their shooting heat in time. The hem of Isi’s skirt was smoking, her face was strained, her eyes sad. Rin believed Isi was holding back somehow—for fear of hurting them, or from the heavy strain of Selia’s voice. Or perhaps knowing that Tusken was safe took the will to fight out of her. She defended herself with wind but she did not attack back with fire, and she left Selia alone.

Rin’s hands tightened into fists. It was not right. Selia should not win. She had not been playing fair. Anyone who had ever so much as met Ma knew that you play fair or you do not play at all. People-speaking was no excuse for being a bully.

Rage crackled inside her, at Selia, at Isi. At herself. Why did she have to be so weak? The anger roiling through her limbs did not feel weak just then. And she thought of that tree, hacked away and assumed dead, yet still growing through stones, taking a chunk out of a fortress wall. Wind tears down trees, and new ones sprout again. Fire destroys forests, and they grow back. People chop them down to build their walls, and the trees reclaim the land. The thought made her feel wild—dangerous. If Isi could not take care of Selia, then she would.

Rin stood, meeting eyes with her guard. She had failed completely with the guard in the cell. She had asked too much—she could not wield such power as Selia, to make others believe the impossible. She did not have the will to speak lies or commands—it reminded her of what she’d done to Wilem, made her feel dark and greasy and used up. She could only tell what truth she had. What did this soldier want more than anything? To please his mistress. Rin could see that yearning in the faces of all her followers.

“Your mistress is very powerful, but so is the queen of Bayern. I’m holding you back. You could show Selia your devotion better if you didn’t have to guard me. Why don’t you join the fight?”

He blinked.

“I’m not going to run, I promise. I’ve nowhere to run. You can’t help your mistress holding me. Let me go and I won’t leave this room. Besides, I’m still shackled. What harm could I do?”

Her words seemed to make sense to him. He released her, drew his sword, and moved toward Isi.

Rin covered her mouth with her hands.
It worked. It worked.
She wanted to shout out in relief and weep in shame. Both would have to wait. She sat, grabbed the cooled knife off the floor, and holding it with both hands, sawed at the metal link. It was thin and a little misshapen from Isi’s heat, but still intact. She twisted and bent, the effort making her sweat. Isi was at the center of a maelstrom, soldiers and hearth-watchers pressing in from all sides, Selia bellowing threats.

Come on,
Rin thought.
That’s your queen out there. Show Selia
that Isi’s subjects are stronger of their own will than her pack of fire-singed
babies.

Rin angled the knife again, scratching the link between blade and floor. The knife blade bent, slipping into a groove in the metal, a brittle spot that gave. Rin twisted her hands and her cuffed wrists separated.

Selia was screaming commands, and the anger in Rin bunched and quivered, eager to scream back.
No, not like Selia,
Rin told herself, pushing her anger to merge with her quiet places. Her thoughts twisted into ideas of aspens at the end of winter, done with resting and ready to move again. The burst of spring in a previously sleeping tree was as dramatic to Rin as the explosion of fire. She felt ready to spring.

With her thoughts stilled, her core strong, she was able to think clearly. She had to keep moving. Go forward. Stop Selia. There was a roomful of soldiers and hearth-watchers who would try to stop her. She could not let them.

Rin faced Selia and took a step. Isi’s wind tangled in her skirt and whipped her dangling sleeves. Rin thought of how trees move in the wind, making small circles, bending. Roots moved too, so slowly that a root never bruised itself on a rock or scraped another root.

Warm, dark, wet soil,
she thought.
Open sky above.

Rin took another step.

No tree nearby to cling to, so instead she sank into herself as if into a tree’s thoughts. But her eyes were open, she was still Rin, still aware. As she had done on her walk to the cage, Rin felt as if she existed in two places at once—safe inside the green world of a tree’s thoughts, but still aware and moving in the human world. And this time panic did not eat at her. She felt perfectly balanced, half in, half out, and alive in both.

Everything seemed slowed, like a drip of sap fixed by cold weather. She had the time to see what was happening—the wind about to sweep back a lock of Isi’s hair, a bead of sweat dripping down a soldier’s cheek, Selia’s mouth opening to cry out.

She was aware of Selia speaking to her, the words rising in pitch. Orders to stop, to obey. They slid off her like rain off a leaf. At Selia’s command, the four soldiers turned to Rin. The sounds of their boots seemed loud and distant at once. Rin took another step. One soldier aimed an arrow at her and released. The arrow was zipping toward her chest. In the time it took to lower her foot midstride, she watched the arrow, saw the gleaming point growing in size as it came nearer. She began to lean to one side, as those tall pines lean with the wind to keep from breaking. Rin would not break. On her chest she could feel the narrow push of air coming at her before the arrow. She kept leaning. The cold spot of air moved along her collar bone, her shoulder. Her body tipped just a little farther, and then the arrow itself whisked past. With a crack it lodged into the wall. Rin righted herself, faced Selia, and took another step.

Now she could feel new movements coming at her, the cool breath of air changing into heat. She could see the air ripple with bursts of fire-making heat from two hearth-watchers. This time she crouched, bringing her head against her chest, until she felt the tops of her hairs sizzle and heard the heat whoosh away into nothing, having found no fuel to turn into fire. Another blaze, and she leaned, just enough, rolling to her side and back onto her feet. Outside herself, she could feel the sting of pain across her leg. But such a little thing did not matter—a tree is not disturbed by the loss of a few leaves, the snap of a twig.

She took another step. Selia was yelling, but Rin did not hear a word. Another arrow came. She could see at a glance that the angle was wrong and would only scratch her shoulder, so she ignored it, the sliver of pain feeling as distant as home. Another column of heat and she bowed beneath it, and then the opposite of the heat—a cold tug as one of the hearth-watchers tried to pull her own heat out of her. But the tug could not find her or hold her, perhaps unsure if she were girl or tree, and she slid out of its pull. Now she was at the table, the false queen close enough to touch.

Selia’s mouth was wet with rage, her eyes wide, surprised that her voice and her followers were failing. Her lips formed the word
stop,
but Rin had chosen not to hear.

I’m Forest born,
she thought.

She pulled back her arm and punched Selia in the nose.

Rin meant to jab her in her throat to stop the talking, but Selia jerked away, and Rin’s fist hit her nose instead. All the same, it had been a nice, firm strike, just as Razo had taught her. She had never punched a person before, and was surprised at the give beneath her knuckles as Selia’s head moved back from the force. There was a tiny crunch under Rin’s fist, a burst of pain in her knuckles. Selia bent over.

A hush of silence. Rin could feel everyone staring, the whole room twanging with tension.

“Ow,” Selia said with a pathetic whine. She cradled her bleeding nose, stomping her foot for the pain.

Rin looked at the soldiers and hearth-watchers—they gaped, frozen by this action, surprise and confusion on their faces, as if they had believed Selia was untouchable, as if they had not known her body contained any blood at all.

Rin twisted to see Isi, who was a few paces behind, her stare as bewildered as the others. Why wasn’t anyone doing anything? Rin had not thought through her actions farther than the strike, but clearly that was not going to be enough.

The stunned pause lasted only a moment before Selia began to screech so loudly it made the insides of Rin’s ears stretch.

“Dem,” Selia sputtered through her bloodied hands, gesticulating madly at Isi and Rin. “Kih dem!” And the hearth-watchers and soldiers sprang for Isi again.

“You need to stop talking!” Rin shoved Selia, knocking her down. She kneed her in the lower back, grabbed a fistful of hair, and yanked with all her strength. Selia shrieked wordlessly. This was dirty grappling that would earn a paddle with Ma’s wooden spoon back home but Rin was enjoying it. When Selia tried to squirm out of her hold, Rin kicked the back of her knees and kept hold of her hair.

Rin looked up at the scene. All seven hearth-watchers and four soldiers had their eyes on Rin, straining to get to their mistress. The soldiers no longer held weapons, the bows burned to ash and the swords too hot to hold, but they were bullying their way through Isi’s windstorm while the hearth-watchers attacked the wind with heat and tried to set fire to Isi herself. The hearth-watchers fought as if especially crazed, their expressions grotesque in their delirium to protect Selia. The attack pushed Isi back until she was standing directly in front of Rin and Selia.

Selia bawled as Rin pressed her shackled wrist against the back of Selia’s neck, shoving the woman’s face to the ground. Rin could not let Isi lose. She stared at the door, wishing Enna and Dasha would come bursting through.

The reminder of her own uselessness struck her like a blow, and Rin’s grip on Selia loosened for just a moment. Selia lurched out of her hold and sprang to her feet. Rin reached to tackle her again but hesitated, her attention straying to Isi. Selia was insignificant beside the true queen. Letting Selia flee to her hearth-watchers, Rin put her hands on Isi instead.

Tell her the truth.

“Isi, you’re stronger than the lot of them. Isi, you’re the queen. Selia’s nothing. Her lies can’t shackle you. Tusken needs his ma, and so does Bayern. You have a right to live.”

Isi’s eyes widened.

Rin nodded. “You can end this.”

Selia positioned herself behind Nuala and the others. “Kih hah!” she yelled thickly, her hands over her nose and mouth.

But Isi shook her head once. Outside, a sizzle of lightning, a gush of rain. And in the chamber, everyone fell, clutching their throats and chests as if desperate for air. Then the wind struck.

This was a storm that could uproot trees and tear houses from the ground, and it ravaged inside that one small room. It pushed at the people on the ground, rolling them over and over, sending them sprawling back into the corner. The furniture followed, tables and chairs and sofas banging against them, trapping them against the wall. As the small ornate table took flight toward the others, the document Isi had not signed rose into the wind, its corners flapping as if it were a white bird on the wing. It dissolved into flame and ash.

Rin should have fallen over too. But she felt the wind weave around her, pass through her fingers, arch over her as if she were made of leaves. She bent and flowed and did not fall.

The soldiers and hearth-watchers were packed into the corner, chairs and tables pinning them down and back. But Selia had slipped away. She sprang for the stairs.

Isi’s wind slammed the door to the stairs shut, then fire poured into it, burning any escape. Selia fled to one of the four inner chamber doors, screaming hysterically, but then that door was blazing too.

The fire in the door to the stairs extinguished, and someone from the stair side kicked through, shattering the charred wood like glass. Through the rising smoke rushed Enna and Dasha, looking for a place to attack. From behind them soldiers clambered up the stairs, shouting a battle cry in Kelish, the high lilt bringing goose bumps to Rin’s arms. Before the soldiers reached the landing, they dropped their flaming weapons and tripped over their now-sodden clothes.
That was Enna and Dasha’s doing,
Rin thought, but as the soldiers stumbled into the chamber, it was Isi’s wind that shoved them into the others.