The Queen of Blood (22 page)

The owl woman twitched the feathers on her shoulders, and one of her game pieces shifted to the left. “Still . . . The young woman must have been very strong, to have placated my spirits. I am curious why you allow yet another to grow in power, knowing she will only hunger for your death.”

Fara stood and crossed to the table behind the divan to pour herself more tea. Her cup was already three-quarters full, but the owl woman reeked of churned mud from a marsh in summer. She should have known the conversation would shift this way. It was her own fault for opening the door to the possibility. This spirit was far more intelligent than any other she'd encountered—
and ambitious,
Fara thought. Unnervingly so. “It's tradition.”

The owl woman twisted her head more than one hundred eighty degrees to look at Fara. “You're the queen. You set tradition.”

Fara tried not to show how disturbing she found the owl woman's statement. Bound by their own instincts, most spirits would never think to question tradition. Spirits weren't supposed to be aware enough to question the way things were. “An heir must always be ready. If I should die—”

“They would rejoice, but I would mourn my dearest friend.” Without any obvious signal from the owl woman, one of the game pieces shifted two spaces diagonally, blocking Fara's move. “Truly, if you must have heirs, why must it be one trained by the very man you hate and who hates you?”

Fara bit back a bitter laugh. “Be honest, dearest friend: you're trying to manipulate me.” She considered the game board again. In three moves, she could capture the spirit's token. Two, if she risked exposing her own token. She wondered if the owl woman would predict the maneuver. Hidden from the sight of the gardeners, she didn't have as clear a view of the garden. Fara made her move.

“They are simply so very eager, always meddling where they shouldn't. You and I have an understanding, dear heart. The heirs are like bumbling babies. It would be simpler and safer for you and for us if they weren't in the game.” The owl woman took Fara's token, sliding another game piece in from the side. “You left yourself exposed.”

“As did you,” Fara said, taking her token as well, tying the game. She told the spirits on the board to unroll the vines, and they did, snaking them around the pieces in the pattern that her moves had laid out. The longest unbroken vine would win.

Other vines chased across the board, tangling and twisting around Fara's. For a moment, they were both silent, concentrating, and then the owl woman said, “She will plot against you. They all will.”

“If they do, I will act.”

“Ahh, but then it may be too late. You must know they are only waiting for you to die. Until then, they must taste the drink of unfulfilled destiny, and it is bitter, my love.” The owl woman flicked her finger, and a game piece that had been tucked to the side swept forward to corner Queen Fara's token. The queen's token fell.

Fara smiled, though it felt like her cheeks would crack to smile at this monster. “Well played. But I believe you distracted me with talk of business, despite your love of the full moon.”

The owl woman laughed, a sound like talons scraping against rock. “Perhaps I did. But I spoke only truth. You will see. Call for the trials, and he will bring her, the woman he has trained to replace you. Call them now, and then judge for yourself who is a danger. If you wish it, I will swear to protect you from her and all those who covet your crown, as would every spirit who answers
to me.” Opening her hand, the owl woman sliced her own palm with her talon-like nail and let three drops of blood fall onto the floor, a sign of her sincerity. The blood sank into the floor as if the wood were drinking it. A rose blossomed from between the wood tiles. With a sweep of her wing, the owl woman plucked it and handed it to Fara. It was an unsubtle reminder of the way to make a blood oath: drink three drops of blood to seal a bargain.

Fara inhaled the rose's scent. “Lovely. Another game?”

T
raining intensified.

“You do best if you don't try to control them,” Champion Ven said outside the village the night they left, after the funerals and the celebrations and the wretched attempts to immortalize the events in song—Daleina sincerely hoped everyone forgot the lyrics by morning—“which explains your test results at the academy—they teach students to command, control, and coerce, but your strength is in redirection, as you so clearly demonstrated in North Garat. So tell me, what do the spirits most want?”

“To grow, and to kill.”

“Douse the fire,” Ven said. “Your way.”

Daleina shifted to kick dirt on their campfire but stopped when she felt his hand on her wrist. “Oh, we're done with the magical theory discussion? Of course we are.” Settling herself, she considered the task—he didn't want her to reach for fire spirits the way she'd been taught: fire to handle fire. Instead, she reached into the earth and located a small earth spirit burrowing under a nearby root. She invited him to come, showed him what she wanted him to do, and then watched as he crawled from beneath the fire and covered it with dirt, creating a mound in its place.

“Exactly,” Ven said.

He set her to tasks: seeking out the nearby spirits and guiding
them to tasks that they
wanted
to do. It didn't feel like commands, not precisely. More like suggestions. In truth, it wasn't so different from what she'd always instinctively done, but now she studied and honed her skill instead of treating it like a backup plan or a kind of shameful trick. Soon, she began to have a feel for which spirits would be guided and which resisted. The younger, smaller ones were eager for direction. Older, stronger spirits ignored her, and at Ven's direction, she let them, for now, focusing instead on the ones that she could influence.

“Power won't always be a problem,” Ven said. “When you're crowned queen, the spirits will confer power on you. You need to master technique.”

“It won't matter how much power I'll have afterward if I don't have enough before. To be crowned queen, you need power. The spirits always choose the heir who projects the strongest command. But even before the coronation ceremony, the queen will expect me to command at the trials.”

“She'll expect you to survive.”

Hamon was puttering nearby. She heard him chopping herbs and mashing them into his various medicines. It was a familiar sound. All the rare plants he collected while they trained—he crafted them into salves and poultices that he traded for bread and other items in the surrounding villages, except for those he kept for his own studies, like the nightend berries and the clippings of glory vine. “You must. I didn't go through the effort of putting you back in one piece just for you to be torn apart again.”

“You will survive,” Ven said, “but you'll do it your way. Even a handful of gravel is a useful weapon when thrown at the right time. My mother embroidered that on a pillow.”

“She did?”

He shook his head. “You are still so naïve.”

“It's only that you never talk about your family.” She couldn't picture Ven as a child. He seemed as if he'd been born in green armor, a knife in his hand. “Plus my mother embroiders sayings all the time. Every pillow bears a platitude.”

“Our mothers are nothing alike. Start a new fire. I'll be back
with dinner.” She heard his boots hit the ground as he stood, and then she heard branches and leaves rustle and knew he was climbing up, higher from their midforest camp.

“Don't mind him,” Hamon said. “He enjoys being an enigma.” She felt his hands touch the bandage around her eyes and begin to unwind it. “Let's check on how you're doing. The sun is down, so it shouldn't hurt to try. If you face me, you won't be looking directly into the fire.”

She sat still as he unwrapped the bandage. Her eyes didn't hurt anymore, or maybe their pain was overshadowed by the pain of her scrapes and bruises from clambering around the forest.

“Ven's mother used to be a champion,” Hamon said.

“Really? Used to be?” She hadn't known anyone ever quit being a champion. Most kept the title until they died.

“Do you know ‘The Song of Sorrowfield'?” Softly, in his baritone voice, he sang:

It was about an elderly queen and the champion who helped her end her life. Her power was fading, and she wanted to choose the time of her death—it had a soaring melody leading to the moment she drank the juice of a dozen deadly nightend berries while lying on a bed of flowers in a field. The new queen caused a forest to grow where the field had been, to honor the old queen's courage in dying before she was killed. It was one of those songs that was seldom sung but everyone knew.

“That was her, the champion?” Daleina asked.

“She quit being champion after the queen's death. But she raised her children with the expectation that one of them would follow her footsteps and serve Aratay. One became a border guard, one a canopy singer, and then there was Ven, the youngest. When
he was disgraced . . . Suffice it to say that he has not seen his family in a long while.”

She felt the last piece of bandage fall from her eyes. “How do you know this?”

“My former teacher, Master Popol, researched him thoroughly before hiring him. Master Popol liked to talk.” He shrugged, and she was close enough that she could feel the movement. “Open your eyes and tell me what you see.”

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.

T
HREE 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
.