Champion Ven would have told her not to be a martyr.But I am so very good at martyrdom, Hanna would have replied.
She noticed when the forest began to change, switching from hearty oaks to spindly, stark-white birches. With their golden fall leaves, they looked like bright candles against the dark pines. After another day of traveling, the guards called a halt to ask her, with respectful bows, how she would prefer to continue: on the forest floor—which would be easier to wheel over, since it lacked the vast roots of the deeper woods but would leave them more vulnerable to bears, wolves, and other predators who hunted below—or the bridges, which ran nearly all the way to the border but were often rudimentary at best. The chair was well suited for the capital, but this far out... “I leave the decision in your capable hands,” Hanna told them. “This is not my area of expertise.”
The truth was, even when she didn’t need the chair, she hadn’t left the capital in many years and rarely even left the academy—and then, usually only when she was summoned to the palace. She found, as they continued on via the bridges, that she was beginning to look forward to seeing Semo. She’d never imagined she’d have the chance to travel beyond the forests. “I very much hope the experience is not the death of me,” she said.
“Your pardon, Ambassador?” one of the guards asked as he carried her across a swaying rope bridge. Another guard carried her chair.
“Talking to myself,” Hanna said with a wave. “It’s one of the joys you’ll discover as you get older: the amusement of your own company.”
“I see, Ambassador.”
She patted his weathered cheek as he lowered her back into her chair. “No, you don’t. But you’re polite, which is important for our new role.” She looked at each of her guards. Queen Daleina had spared four of her personal guards, two men and two women. When Hanna had objected that it was too many, Daleina had said,Possible trap, remember? I don’t want to receive a message that you’ve been assassinated and have to listen to anyone say “I told you so.”Hanna pursed her lips and hoped that they were all worrying too much and that Merecot’s letter had been truthful. “So that we’re clear, I do not expect any of you to take a knife in the gut for me. It would be far better to deflect the blade in the first place. Be alert. We don’t know what we will find when we arrive.”
All of them agreed, because it was sensible, obvious advice, but she felt better for having said it. She had to trust that they were trained enough to avoid obvious mistakes.And I have to hope that I don’t make any either.
She made a point to memorize their names, scolding herself for being so self-absorbed that she hadn’t done it earlier: Evenna, Serk, Tipi, and Coren.
Evenna, the head guard, had a husband back in Mittriel, a scar on her left cheek, and skin as black as Healer Hamon’s. She was middle-aged and had been a palace guard for twenty-four years. Serk, the oldest, was bald except for a blue ponytail. He used to be a border guard before he moved to the capital to take care of his aged parents. Tipi was young, energetic, and had a twitch in her right hand that she controlled when she climbed. Coren, the youngest guard at nineteen, fidgeted a lot, mostly because he was nineteen. All of them were much younger and more fit than Hanna and seemed to take their roles as her guards very seriously.That bodes well for their survival,Hanna thought.Or at least for mine.
As they journeyed closer to the border, she found herself thinking more about what was to come than what she’d left behind. She also felt the sun on her face more often as the forest began to thin. The canopy above was no longer a thick snarl but instead a lacework of leaves that allowed light to filter through in golden shafts. But what was amazing was she could still hear canopy singers high above, even though the upper branches were as thin as a child’s arm.
While the guards made their camp on a platform that straddled three trees, Hanna listened to the canopy singers. There were two: a baritone and a soprano, one to the east and one to the west, singing back and forth to each other.
It was an old song, about the Great Mother, who died to save humans from spirits. Some stories referred to her as a baby or a young girl, but this ballad treated her as if she had been a grown woman. The soprano sang her verses. Hanna let the melody soak into her as it soared with the breeze in between the leaves and up toward the night sky.
“What’s she saying?” Serk asked.
“She’s singing her sadness, knowing she must sacrifice herself if humans are to survive,” Hanna answered. “In the beginning, all of Renthia was like the untamed lands, with wild spirits making and unmaking the earth we stand on and air we breathe. It took the death of the Great Mother to give us the power to defend ourselves. Before that, there were no queens. Listen—the next bit is the Great Mother singing to the first queen.”
The baritone chimed in, taking the part of the Great Mother:
You alone within the storm
of hunger and unfinished pain
must touch the minds unfettered
and be the spirits’ bane.
The soprano answered back, a cry of loneliness that pierced higher than the sounds of the crickets and evening birds:
I cannot breathe another breath,
without you.
I cannot see the sky
with evening stars and golden moon,
their beauty is a lie;
do not let me walk alone—
And the baritone harmonized with her, telling the first queen that while she must touch the spirits alone, she has not been forsaken. The Great Mother has sent a protector to stay by her side and guard her from harm while her mind tames the wildness all around.
Hanna wondered aloud at the word “protector.”
“The first champion,” Evenna responded.
