“Cajara is not your concern right now. That spirit is.”
Arin sprinted ahead. “I’ll get it!” As she ran toward the air spirit, she drew a charm out of her pocket and threw it at a flicker of light. It caught the spirit square in the forehead. The air spirit squealed, then dropped to the floor.
“Help her,” Hanna ordered Havtru.
With one more glance at his candidate, Havtru sprinted ahead. Before them, Hanna saw a body in Aratayian colors, slumped on the floor: the young guard Coren. It was a sharp pain, seeing him dead, but she kept her focus on Cajara.If I don’t find a way to end this, he won’t be the only one to die.
“Answer me, girl! Why do you want to be queen?” Hanna was aware she was yelling, but she could feel air spirits closing in around them. She knew there must be others. Just because she lacked the affinity to sense them, it didn’t mean they weren’t there. Aiming one of her knives, Hanna threw it at a torch on the wall—a fire spirit squealed.
Staring at the wounded fire spirit, the girl didn’t answer at first, and Hanna was about to bark at her again. Then at last she said, “I love the forest.”
“Yes. And?”
“My family... we lived on the forest floor. Berry-pickers. That is how we knew Champion Havtru. Or knew of him, I mean.”
Hanna was aware of the champion’s past. He’d been a berry-picker, though he’d lived midforest, before his wife was killed by spirits and Ven recruited him. She readied another knife. “You said ‘lived.’ Past tense. Family dead?”
“Oh, no, Ambassador. They’re well. But the forest... It died around us. I felt it die. I knew the spirit who was tied to our land. I used to play...” She trailed off.
“You befriended a spirit?” This didn’t bode well. Or did it? “And the spirit never tried to harm you or your family?”
“I never let it, even though they... I never let it hurt them, no matter what,” Cajara said. “And when she died... I went to Champion Havtru and told him I wanted to be his candidate.”
Hanna noticed instantly that Cajara said “she” instead of “it” for the spirit, which told her more than any of her other words what she needed to hear—and it wasn’t good. Or, it wasn’t what she knew to be good. Hanna trained her students to hold the spirits apart, to remember they weren’t human, to remember their instincts were fundamentally opposed to human life. But something about the way Cajara spoke... it intrigued her. She had to be sure, though...
“Queens don’t befriend spirits.”
“But they do save them, when they can,” Cajara said.
It was a good enough answer.
Hanna barked directions as Renet ran toward them. He had a woodsman’s knife in one hand and a bow and quiver of arrows on his back. He was panting. “The spirits are attacking!” he cried. “And your guard—”
“Yes, we are aware, Woodsman Renet,” Hanna said crisply.What did Naelin ever see in this idiot?Beyond them, Havtru, Evenna, Serk, and Tipi were fighting the spirits off, and Arin was lobbing vials and charm bundles at them. Her potions were at least as effective as Havtru’s sword—any spirit splashed by one of her liquids or pelted with one of her herb bundles either froze, burned, dropped, or ran.
“Queen Merecot is dead?” Renet asked.
“Apparently,” Hanna said.
Arin, puffing, ran back to them, excitement in her voice. “Then Daleina won?”
Knowing Daleina, she’d never call it winning. “I’d thank you not to say that while we are the only Aratayians within the Semo castle.”Merecot was my student too. I failed her.She hadn’t expected Daleina to resort to this. She’d trusted that Daleina meant peace when she said peace.Perhaps she changed.She had suffered at the hands of Merecot.Perhaps I misjudged her.
Perhaps, though, none of this matters right now. What matters is that we keep moving.
Hanna guided them through the halls as Havtru, Renet, and her guards fought off the spirits with their weapons, Arin battled them with her potions, and Cajara deflected them with her mind. The spirits were swarming the corridor—pebble-like earth spirits were burrowing through the floor and crawling over the walls and ceiling. An ice spirit, shaped like a snake with wings, slithered through the air, only to meet one of Arin’s potions. Hanna threw two more of her knives, and Havtru retrieved them for her.
At last, they reached the courtyard... the old, neglected one with the weeds and the broken flagstones.And the way to the grove, Hanna thought.
“You say you love the forest,” Hanna said to Cajara. “Can you learn to love the mountains?” Beside her, Renet was fending off a tiny earth spirit that had latched onto his ankle. Bounding over to him, Havtru pried it off and flung it against a pillar.
“Aratay is my home,” Cajara said.
“All of Renthia is your home,” Hanna said. She reached for another knife—she didn’t find one. She’d used them all. “And Renthia needs you. Will you answer her call?”
“I don’t understand,” Cajara said.
Arin grasped her hands. “She wants you to be queen, Cajara.”
