She followed the thought into the mass of spirits. It was from a little air spirit with a thin humanlike body and delicate wings. Feeling the touch of Naelin’s mind, it flew closer and alit on the deer’s head. It held on, wrapping its long fingers around a feather.
Why?Naelin asked. Aloud, she said, “You hate queens. In the untamed lands, you’ll be free. No humans. No queens.”
The little spirit shuddered. “Stupid human, you don’t understand.” Her voice was as shrill as a whistle in the wind. “Beyond the borders of Renthia lies the chaos of the world beginning, unfinished. Do not send us back to the beginning.”
“But you can’t stay here,” Naelin said. “You need your own home.”
“Not home,” the spirit said. “Never became home. Long, long ago, it began.”
All around, the other spirits echoed her:Long, long ago.
Long ago, longer ago, still longer ago, back, beginning, before beginning. Yes, before the beginning...“Before the beginning, we were called by the Great Mother of Spirits to shape this world, seed this world, breathe this world to life.”
We came. We shaped. We breathed.
We did not finish.
“We did not finish. We should have shaped this world to perfection, given it form, given it life, given it all, but before we were done,yourkind came.”
Humans.
Scourge.
Born too soon.
“You were not to be here yet. We were not ready.”
Not time.
Not your time.
Not our time.
“The world wasn’t finished, but you were here, and we did not know what to do. We were afraid. We were angry.”
We hated you.
Hate.
Still hate.
It was not your time.
You were not to be born yet. Not yet. We were not done. We were not gone.
“We found you,” the little spirit said. “And we killed...”
You killed.
We killed.
All of us killed.
“And the Great Mother tried to stop our fight. But she died in the battle. She was not supposed to die. But she did, and the world was unfinished, and we were still here and you were here, and this was never supposed to be. We were supposed to finish and change, become the world’s protectors, but we did not, this was not to be, becauseyoucame. And you were not enough. You are not enough. But you are something. With you, we make something out of nothing. But it is your fault there is not more, your fault so much is undone, and we will never forgive you.”
Naelin tried to make sense of the story. She never knew the spirits had their own story of how it all began, of where their hatred came from. She only knew the spirits needed queens and yet hated them. “You were supposed to make the world... and then leave?”
“Not leave,” the little spirit said. “Change. We would have become what we were meant to be. But we lost our fate. It died that day, with Her.” And the sadness rose in waves from the little spirit and permeated the others. It swamped them, and they did not speak again as they kept flying westward as the sun trekked above them.
