The Queen of Blood (26 page)

It was a real question—from Fara, he sensed, not the queen. He blinked for a moment, trying to formulate an answer. He should be angry at her, for what she did to him, for what she allowed to happen to those villages, for what she was trying to do now, showing off her strength when she knew—had to know—that it was ebbing. But he wasn't mad. He wasn't sure what he was, but it wasn't angry. And so he answered the only way he knew how.

“You're my queen.”

Fara looked at him from across the throne room. “Leave us,” she told the guards again.

This time, Ven didn't stop them. She was his queen, and either he trusted her or he didn't. Given their past, he recognized that “didn't” would have been the more logical choice. He waited until the guards shut the door behind him before he said, “I know there aren't traitors in those towns. I know your control is slipping. The spirits are breaking your command, and you can't stop them, even when you can predict them. That's why I chose to take on a candidate. Not because I don't trust you, but
because I don't trust
them
. The spirits will kill you someday, and I won't let everything you've built and done be destroyed when that happens.”

“How long have you been wanting to say that?”

“Since you exiled me.”

“Touché.” She regarded him, a look somewhere between amusement and shrewdness. “So you are my faithful, loyal servant, fulfilling your duty for the sake of Renthia.”

“Always.”

“Then prove it. Show me how loyal you are.” She reached up behind her neck, and he heard a clasp unsnap. Her gown slithered off her shoulders, over her breasts, down her waist, hips, and legs, to pool at her ankles. She was naked beneath it, and her perfect body seemed to glow like the sun.

He crossed to her, cupped her breasts in his hands, and kissed her as if she was the most precious treasure in all of Renthia. Because she was . . . even though he spent every day and night preparing for her death.

A
FTER SURRENDERING THE LOVELY GOWN AND EXCESSIVE RIBBONS
, Daleina trudged out of the palace to where Hamon and Bayn waited for her, on the lower bridge. “Well?” Hamon asked.

Bayn growled, ending in what sounded like a question mark, as if he wanted to ask Daleina as well but lacked the jaw shape to form words.

Kneeling, Daleina put her arms around Bayn's neck. She noticed that people on the bridges around them were glancing at the two people and their wolf, but she didn't care. She'd passed! Barely. She should feel more victorious and less like she'd been gripped in the jaws of, well, a wolf and then shaken. “Ven's still in there. She wanted to talk to him.”

“But what about you?”

Daleina laughed, shakily. “I made a fool of myself.”

“Oh. Daleina, I'm sorry. I know how hard you worked—”

She waved her hand, shooing away his words. “I can do the trials. But it would have been nice if I hadn't turned into a mess of babble in front of the queen. It's only that . . . she's a person, like
me. She started as a student, became a candidate, then an heir, and then queen. Same path I'm supposed to be on. But the difference between her and me . . . Have you ever seen her, Hamon?”

“I've not had that honor.”

“You feel like you've been granted an audience with the sun. I won't ever be like her. She's as if you took every woman in Renthia, plucked out their best features, and compiled them into a single person.”

Hamon laid his hand on her shoulder. “Meeting the queen is
supposed
to be intimidating.”

She
knew
that. The palace, the throne . . . It wasn't so different from the show the headmistress put on when she welcomed students into the academy. It was all designed to reinforce the power hierarchy. But knowing it was a show and not reacting to it were two very different things. “I felt fifteen years old again, pretending I belonged in the academy, knowing I'd never measure up.” She buried her face in Bayn's ruff, certain that her cheeks were blushing a brilliant shade of red. “Hamon, what if I'm
not
meant to do this? What if I'm just stubbornly clinging to a childhood dream that I should have outgrown years ago?”

“Daleina . . .” He hesitated. “You don't have to go through with this if you don't want to. You have choices.”

She lifted her head. “This is not the talk you're supposed to be giving me. You're supposed to say I can do this, not to doubt myself now, I've come so far.”

“You
have
come so far, but that doesn't mean you can't take a different path if you wish.” He looked so earnest. With the sun streaming between the leaves from behind him, he was lit in a glow that made him look ethereal, as if he were imparting a prophetic message. Unlike the sun of the queen, his seemed to actually give off warmth. She loved that about him, even while he was spouting nonsense. “You have many choices before you, and you are not locked into one merely because you have trained.”

“Trained for
years,”
she pointed out.

“You could have years of a future as whatever, whoever, you want.”

She stood, slowly, her hand still entwined in the wolf's fur, and
wondered if she was hearing him wrong. “Are you trying to talk me out of doing the trials?”

“Daleina.” He took her hand. “Dear Daleina, I care about you, and I don't want to see you hurt again. Blame the healer in me. Blame my heart. But I want you well and whole.” He touched her cheek, gently, and then curled a lock of her hair around his finger.

“This has been my dream since I was a child.” She couldn't believe he was saying these words. He had to be testing her, testing her resolve, maybe even on Ven's orders.
He has to know how much this means to me
. “I can't turn away.”

“You can. You choose not to. But you can make a different choice. Daleina, dreams change. The future isn't fixed. You can come with me, help in the outer villages. I'll be a master healer as soon as I've taken my tests—”

“And I'll be your personal guard?”

“You'll protect the villages, the way you wanted. You'll still be using your training, and you'll still be doing good for Aratay. But you won't be a target. Heirs seldom have long lives.”

She shook her head. After all they'd been through, after all he'd seen her do, all the times he patched her up, all the nursing her through blindness . . .

“Daleina, my Daleina, you work so hard and so nonstop. Have you ever taken a minute before now to think about whether this is still what you want? You've told yourself it is, for years, but is it? Or do you do this because you feel you should? Because you've invested so many years already? Because other people expect it? Because of your sister and your parents and Champion Ven?

“Daleina, tell me, what do
you
want?”

She was saved from having to answer by Bayn's growl—this time, it wasn't a question; it was a warning. Instinctively, Daleina reached out with her mind, and felt the presence of six wood spirits. This close to the palace, it wasn't odd. There were hundreds of spirits of varying sizes. But these six felt different—older, wilder, stronger—and Daleina felt as if they were focused on her. She looked around—there weren't people around anymore. It was supper hour, and only a few people hurried along the bridges that crisscrossed above them. None were close by.
From where she was, she couldn't even see the palace guards.

The six spirits flowed out of the trees and linked hands, streaming in a row toward Daleina. Her skin prickled. She didn't like the way their eyes were fixed on her. Standing, she nudged Bayn behind her.

“What do you want?” Daleina asked.

She didn't expect them to answer—she'd never met a spirit that was intelligent enough for conversation. She'd never dared summon one that powerful.

“You,” they answered.

All of them spoke, in thin reedy voices, and the effect was like the wind itself.

“There are things you should know. Secrets. Yes, secrets.” The words bounded among them until she couldn't tell which was speaking. They didn't have mouths. The words seemed to emerge from them, spread around her, and then disperse.

Bayn growled, low, his hackles raised.

“For your ears, your ears alone. Alone, alone, Daleina, Dally-dally-dally-daleina. Only for you, a secret for you.”

Hamon pressed closer to her side.

“You know my name,” Daleina said. “How? Who sent you?”

“Who-who, the little owl asks. Oh, little owl, how we have a secret for you, only you, only you. Come.” They held out spindly hands, gesturing with their many-jointed fingers as if playing an invisible harp.

“Don't,” Hamon whispered.

“But they know my name. Someone sent them.” Someone with power. One of her friends, an heir—perhaps even the queen. She should hear what they had to say.

“I don't like it,” Hamon said.

“That may have something to do with the fact that they're extremely creepy.”

The six spirits continued to hold hands, hovering just a few inches above a branch. All their faces were blank and smooth like sanded and polished wood. Their hands had fused together like a single branch.

“How about we wait for Champion Ven—” Hamon began.

“Alone,” the six spirits chanted.

Bayn snarled. Snapping his jaws, he lunged forward toward the spirits. All his fur was spiked. Usually animals didn't react to spirits—they never attacked them—but Bayn had always been different, thanks to Master Bei's training. “I don't trust them either,” Daleina told him. “But I can handle this.” After all, she'd just claimed she could handle the trials. “Go wait for Ven. Bring him here when he's done.”

“Daleina—”

“I have to take risks.”

“Why? You don't know what they want.”

The six spirits whispered. “Secret. Tell you a secret. Nice secret. Secret for you. You. You alone. Only you.”

“The queen handles spirits like this all the time,” Daleina said. “I have to start somewhere.” And she was curious. Not just curious in the way a child who wants to taste chocolate is curious, but curious in a way that it burned through her body until her veins felt like they hurt. These spirits had come for her, before she'd proven herself, before she'd done anything. It had to mean something! Maybe this was the sign she'd been looking for, the answer to her doubts and questions.

“As your healer—”

“As my healer, you know I'm fine.”

“As your friend—”

“As my friend, you'll respect my choices.”

The spirits continued to wait, hovering in the air, as they discussed this. A few people passed on the bridges. Daleina noticed the spirits had positioned themselves to be out of sight, blocked by branches.

“Stay near the palace,” Hamon told her. “Stay where we can find you again.”

“Of course. Ask about Champion Ven. I'm concerned that he hasn't come out yet. He should have followed me soon after.”

“All right. Come on, Bayn.”

Bayn didn't budge.

Daleina knelt in front of the wolf. “Find Ven for me. Bayn, find Ven.”

The wolf loped away, and Hamon hurried to follow. Daleina turned to the six spirits. She felt for them—there wasn't anger or rage. She planned a command to redirect them, if she had to. “I'm alone now. What secret?”

The six drifted toward her. They began to melt together as they circled around her. She turned in a circle to see all of them. “Only you,” they whispered. “Today. Maybe more, another day? Maybe more, but only one. A secret. A secret, only you.”

“What's the secret? Tell me. I'm listening.” She spun the words into a command and pushed it gently toward the spirits. They wanted to tell her anyway. It wouldn't be difficult to push them.
Tell me the secret
.

“Death,” they said, and they fused into a sphere around her.

T
he spirits spread, their arms melding into one, legs flattening as if pounded or mashed. Daleina shoved a thought at them,
Grow
. The image in her mind was of them rooting in the ground far below and blossoming . . . but they didn't. Instead, they merged faster, their bark smoothing together into one spread of wood.

Quickly abandoning trying to command the six spirits, Daleina reached beyond them, to the dozens of other spirits, weaker ones, who surrounded the palace. She called them to her. She felt them fly toward her as the wood closed in a sphere around her, cutting out the light. But darkness didn't scare her. She knew darkness.

The six were strong. Scratching against the wood shell, the little spirits weren't hurting them enough—the little spirits didn't want to badly enough. But she knew one thing they did want.
Hurt me,
she told them.

And the little spirits went wild.

They tore at the wood, ripping away the bark, burrowing through it, burning through it. The six spirits shrieked, high, and she heard other voices: cries, shouts, human voices and the shrill pitch of spirits in a frenzy. As soon as a crack was in the wood, the tiny spirits dove through. They attached to her arm. Their tiny teeth plunged into her skin, and she cried out.

But she didn't stop them—she wasn't free yet; the six spirits were still trying to close in on her.
Hurt me more
. More spirits came, dozens more, plastering themselves onto the sphere, tearing at it as the ones already inside tore at her.

Her concentration shattered as pain pierced her from every side, but she saw a sliver of light strike in, and then the sphere shattered away. And the tiny spirits flew inside to her, and feasted.

She felt pain radiate through her, shaking through her, erasing all thought, erasing the entire world. She heard shouting, distantly, and she saw a flash of steel.

And then the piercing stabs ceased as a gray mound of fur leaped onto her body, knocking her away from the teeth and claws that were trying to shred her.

She heard Ven shouting. Her name.
Daleina
. She latched on to her name, let it pull her out of the swimming pain. She felt hands, broad hands, Ven's hands, scooping her up and heard Hamon's voice, “Lay her here. Let me close!”

Other voices too, but those were the ones she focused in on, clung to. She felt cool liquid pour onto the points of pain. “So many,” Ven said.

She tried to focus on his face, but her vision swam.
Not blind again,
she thought. She closed her eyes and spread her awareness out, beyond the pain, but her mind fragmented, filled with the buzz of a thousand bees. “Breathe,” Hamon said in her ear, his voice calm, deep, still as an untouched pond in the center of the forest.

She breathed.

“Daleina, what happened?” Ven asked, his voice urgent.

She opened her eyes. There. She could see him. She felt herself smiling. She'd survived, and she could see!

“Why are you smiling? Hamon, why is she smiling?”

“Shock,” the healer said. “Daleina, I've applied painkiller. Is the pain fading? Tell me if you need more.”

Slowly, she pushed herself to standing. She ached but it was bearable. Around them was a crowd, a mix of palace guards and overly coiffed city people, whispering to one another. The guards looked ashen. “Six spirits,” she told Ven. “Strong, smart ones. They said they had a secret for me, only me, and then they tried to kill me.”

Ven dragged one of the palace guards closer. “Inform the queen. The spirits who killed Sata are still free and still hunting.” He released the guard's shirt, and the guard bowed before running toward the gate of the palace.

Bayn nudged Daleina's hand, and Daleina automatically buried her fingers in the wolf's fur. She heard a squawk, and looked down to see a spirit dangling from the wolf's jaws, its wings limp. “Let it go, Bayn,” she told him. “It was helping me.”

“Helping you?” Hamon's usually calm voice shot up an octave.

“I called them.” Her head throbbed. She wished they didn't have to discuss it right now. She wanted to curl into a ball and wait for the pain to fade away.

“Good,” Ven said.

“Not good,” Hamon said. “Are you insane?
Not
good. Very not good. Daleina, you can't compete in the trials. Look at you.”

“Hamon, hush,” Ven said.

“I will not stay quiet! This is suicide. She can't—”

Ven leveled his sword, slick with the saplike blood of spirits. “I said hush. Not here. Not now. Maybe not ever.”

The steel point at his throat, Hamon quieted. His eyes flickered to Daleina. She straightened her shoulders. Ven was right—she couldn't curl into a ball and let them take care of her, as much as she wanted to. She was a candidate, approved by the queen herself, and she had survived this attack.
I'll survive the trials too
. “Let's go,” she said.

“Where to?” Ven asked. Interesting that he was giving her the choice, she thought.

“The academy. They have baths. I'd like to look less bloody for at least the start of the trials.” She strode down the bridge, past the gawkers. Every step shot pain through her as her clothes rubbed against the wounds. But she wasn't going to show it, not in front of these people, not in front of those she wanted to trust her to be heir.

Hurrying to catch her, Hamon said, “Wait, we need to bandage you. Daleina, let me help you. We can take the baskets—ride to the academy. It's not that close.”

She looked up. “Ven, are there wire paths within the capital?”

A smile played on his lips. “Yes.” He pointed to a ladder ahead.

She'd show them she could do this. She would not be beaten. She would not be broken. “Excellent.” She mimicked Queen Fara's imperious tone as best she could. “Come with me.”

H
EADMISTRESS
H
ANNA KNEW SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO FEEL PRIDE
. Eight of her most recent students had been chosen for the trials: Airria, Revi, Linna, Marilinara, Zie, Evvlyn, Iondra, and Daleina. It was a record, as Master Klii had pointed out, one she planned to gloat about for months. Concrete proof that their methods worked. It would draw new students and inspire current students. She'd prattled on about it until Hanna had excused herself from dinner. In truth, Hanna wished the queen had delayed the trials, or even refused to admit the newer candidates until they'd had more time to train with their champions. But Queen Fara hadn't bothered to ask for the headmistress's opinion. She was clearly taking advice from elsewhere these days.

Outside, in the practice ring, Hanna walked between a batch of trees that a class had grown. Their trunks were spindly, and their branches mere twigs—they'd been grown too fast. There was no undergrowth beneath them, not even moss, just bare dirt. She stopped by a rock, half formed into the shape of a bear. Sitting beside it, absorbed in her own thoughts, was a girl. Young woman, now.

“Candidate Daleina?”

The girl—woman—raised her head, and Hanna noticed her cheeks were wet, even though her eyes were clear. The tears lingered on the dozens of light scratches that crisscrossed her cheeks. “Are you here to give me words of encouragement?”

Briefly, Hanna considered saying yes and giving the young woman what she needed, but she didn't have the energy to lie tonight. “I was seeking solitude.”

Daleina scrambled to her feet. “I can leave.”

Hanna waved her back down. “Champion Ven believes you were attacked by the same spirits who murdered Sata. He's blaming himself, of course, since he's the connection between the two of you, and frankly, it's not impossible. He's angered many spirits
over the years. You may have noticed he is a bit brusque with them.”

“It's in his nature to protect people,” Daleina said. “He was probably born with a sword in his hands.”

Hanna felt her lips twitch. “That would have been painful. For the mother at least, though having met his mother, it wouldn't surprise me.”

“You've met his mother? He doesn't talk about his family.”

“She was a driven woman,” Hanna agreed. “One of our best.” She remembered Ven's mother, a humorless girl who treated her muscles like horses that needed to be broken. She'd had minimal affinity for spirits but incredible instincts. The first time Hanna had met Ven, back when he was an idealistic new champion, she'd seen so much of his mother in him. “He has had to contend with high expectations. You two have that in common.”

“My parents aren't pushing me. They just expect me to succeed, as if it were a matter of course. But it's always been my choice.”

“Are you wishing you'd made other choices?” The night before the trials struck all of them this way, forcing them to examine their lives. Hanna suspected it made ordinary citizens feel that way too. The trials were reminders of the fragility of their lives.

“Not exactly. Just wondering what those other choices would have been like.”

“Don't,” Hanna advised. Such thoughts had never helped her. “Whether you made your choices with your eyes open or closed, they're made. It's not time to regret them; it's time to live with the consequences.” Hanna thought that sounded sufficiently encouraging, the kind of statement that a headmistress was supposed to make to a candidate on the eve of the trials, regardless of her personal feelings. As a rule, she wasn't allowed to have
feelings
. They were for children and artists.

“Do you ever regret becoming headmistress?”

“Every day, my dear. Every day.”

T
HE FIRST DAY OF THE TRIALS WAS LOVELY
:
A QUINTESSENTIAL
autumn morning with crisp apple-cider air and leaves so golden
they looked painted. Daleina breathed in the air and tried to ignore the way Ven and Hamon were fluttering around her. The night before, Hamon had insisted on examining every single cut, bite, and gash and slathering each of them with the healing salve he'd made himself. She had to admit that it had worked far better than anything she'd ever used before. She felt fine. This morning they'd both showed up in her room with new leather armor, fitted for her, as well as supplies she might need: a knife, a rope harness, clips for the wire paths, a canteen for water, strips of jerky, a bedroll. “The trials might last a while,” Ven explained.

“Any rumors on what the challenge will be?” Daleina asked.

“I don't listen to rumors,” Ven said.

A familiar female voice rang through the room. “I do.”

Zie stood in the doorway, the same cheerful smile on her face but a scar above her eyebrow. She was flanked by Linna and Revi. Daleina broke away from Ven and Hamon and crossed to them, embracing her friends. Others joined them: Mari, Airria, Evvlyn, and Iondra. She waved away their concern over the fading cuts on her face and arms. “Tell me: the trials. Do you know what's coming?”

No two trials were the same. Sometimes the candidates had to prove their worth in challenges like the maze, where the queen set spirits against them. Sometimes they had to demonstrate their ability in real-world situations, such as growing a new grove of trees or cultivating a new orchard. Sometimes the candidates were pitted against one another in a contest of strength. Daleina hoped they'd be able to build: new bridges, a library, a farm.

But none of them had any idea. Even Zie, who ate gossip for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, didn't have any concrete clues as to what Queen Fara had in mind for them. “All I know is that we will have ‘unusual' escorts to the palace.”

“Caretaker Undu said to gather in the practice ring,” Mari said.

“You still aren't calling her Mother?” Revi shook her head in disapproval, and Daleina noticed her friend had honed herself, muscles on her arms that had never been there before, a readiness to her movements as if she were coiled to react to anything.
All of them had that same air of readiness, and she wondered if she appeared that way to them. “She should be proud of you.”

“She is proud of me. It's you she despairs of.”

Zie broke out in a peal of laughter. A little of the tension, and the coiled readiness, drained out of the room, and Daleina caught a glimpse of her old friends under the new hardness.

Iondra shooed them all toward the door. “We cannot be late.”

“It would be dramatic if we were,” Revi said. “Imagine if we made a queen wait for us.”

“We cannot disgrace Headmistress Hanna or the others,” Iondra scolded.

“Calm yourself, Iondra, I wasn't serious. I know my duty,” Revi said. “You know, time outside the academy tree was supposed to unwind you. Didn't any of you have fun in your training?”

Daleina wasn't sure the word “fun” was applicable. “I rode the wire paths.”

“See? Someone had—wait, really? On purpose?” Revi shuddered. “Glad my champion preferred the forest floor. We worked a lot with earth spirits, which was fine by me. Give me a nice muddy earth spirit over an air spirit with a bad sense of humor any day.”

Daleina decided not to mention that she'd flown with an air spirit and it hadn't been terrible.

Or that it had, in fact, been extraordinary.

All of them fell silent as they headed down the spiral staircase. They were swept up in a flow of other students, masters, and caretakers. As they descended, Daleina caught glimpses of the places that had once been her whole world: the classrooms, the baths, the dining hall. She remembered her first day here, seeing the oldest students, their seriousness and their silence, and she knew the younger students were now seeing them the same way. Glancing at her friends, she saw the hardness had returned to their faces, overlaid over all the old laughter she knew was there. She also felt the weight of the stares of the students from her year who hadn't been chosen—Cleeri, Keshili, Tridonna . . . and she met the eyes of Andare, the caretaker boy. He raised his hand in a wave of luck.