Naelin saw Ven exhale, as if he’d been worried she’d refuse. Granted, she was still refusing to become an heir, but he must have been worried she’d refuse to train at all, after the stunt he’d pulled last night. Truthfully, she’d considered it. If he’d been a little less honest, a little less kind . . .
He settled himself on a root. “Have you ever summoned a spirit?”
“Never. And I won’t, not out here, not around Erian and Llor.” She used her this-is-not-open-to-debate voice. It worked well with her children; she wasn’t certain it would work at all with a champion.
“But you’ve sent spirits away? You’ve commanded them.”
She saw where this was going, and she didn’t like it. “Only when Renet forced me. Only what you saw. I’ll send them away again if I have to, but only if it’s necessary, and I won’t summon them. Not here, with us all alone and not enough charms.”
“I know you can sense spirits. Describe that to me.”
It felt like a change of subject—she’d been expecting an argument instead. She didn’t hesitate, though, and answered promptly, feeling like a schoolgirl. “It’s like a crackle in the air, like lightning about to strike.”
“Good. You should also be able tell their proximity, their size and strength, and their general intent, whether they plan to tear you to bits that instant or generically just want to kill you. Can you do that?”
Behind her, Naelin heard Erian gasp-yelp at the word “kill” and saw the champion wince. He clearly wasn’t used to watching his words. She wondered if that had gotten him into trouble before. Not everyone appreciated honesty. She did, though. Minutely, she relaxed—he didn’t seem like he was trying to trick her into anything. “I don’t think so. Or at least, I’ve never tried.” I’m not stupid, or reckless. She’d spent so much time pretending she didn’t have power, acting as if she were normal. She’d never wanted to jeopardize what she had by experimenting.
“Then that’s where we’ll start.” He held up his hand to stop her question before she asked it. “Don’t worry. We won’t summon anything. This exercise won’t endanger anyone.” He looked at her, sincerity clear in his eyes. And also respect—that was a look she hadn’t seen in Renet’s eyes in a long time. Ven was treating her as if he valued what she thought and felt. “If this is going to work, you’re going to have to trust my word.”
Reaching behind her, Naelin squeezed Erian’s shoulder, as much to reassure the young girl as herself. She kept her eyes on Ven, particularly watching his hands to be sure he didn’t stab the trees again. She knew she shouldn’t trust him after last night . . . yet she wanted to, especially when he looked at her like that. “I’m listening.”
“When you are with your children, your awareness grows, doesn’t it?” He pointed to Erian and Llor with his knife, and then appeared to think better of it and tossed and caught the knife so that he was pointing at them with the hilt instead of the tip. Llor whistled, obviously impressed. If Naelin weren’t careful, the boy was going to develop a serious case of hero worship. Ven seemed oblivious to it, which was another point in his favor. He was confident without being arrogant. She’d met plenty of people who were the reverse, as well plenty who were far less worthy of adoration. “You expand your sense of what’s ‘you’ to envelop them, the same way you’re aware of a knife in your hand as an extension of you.”
“Yes, precisely.” She was surprised to hear him describe it so exactly.
“I’ve been a bodyguard. It’s similar to parenthood. Except with moderately more bloodshed.” He actually smiled at that, and it was all she could do to not smile back. She wanted to be angry at him, but there was something about him that made that impossible. Maybe his earnestness. Or his determination. He was just so blasted sincere. He radiated heroism, even when he wasn’t doing or saying anything particularly heroic. If I’m not careful, she thought, I’ll be the one with the case of hero worship. Shaking herself, she tried to focus on his words. He continued. “What I want you to do is expand your awareness as far as you can. Consider the forest around you as part of your body and reach your mind out to touch your new ‘limbs.’” He sheathed his knife.
Erian crawled up beside her. “Can I try?”
Champion Ven looked at her sharply. “Does your daughter have any affinity for spirits?”
“No,” Naelin began, and then stopped. “We don’t know.” They’d never experimented with it, and she wasn’t about to start. “Erian, I need to work with Champion Ven for a while. Why don’t you . . .” She trailed off, unsure what to suggest she do. She didn’t want Erian to stray far, but she couldn’t expect her to huddle in the roots for however long this took.
The guardswoman dropped from a branch onto one of the roots. She wore no sign of last night’s battle—her face was scrubbed clean, her hair tied slickly back, her leather armor stiff and spotless. She twirled a knife in one hand and then tucked it into a sheath. Crouching, she studied Erian. “I can teach her a few things. Defensive moves. How to break a hold.”
That sounded . . .
“Yes!” Erian sprang to her feet.
. . . perfect.
As Captain Alet guided Erian to a patch of soft moss and demonstrated a defensive stance, Naelin began to revise her opinion of her. She was a kinder teacher than Naelin would have expected, not barking at Erian or scolding her for her lack of knowledge. She positioned the girl’s limbs, even gave her an encouraging smile.
Both Naelin and Ven watched them for a moment.
“Mama, may I play with the doggie?” Llor asked. He’d crawled closer to the wolf and was holding his hand out, palm up, for the wolf to sniff. The wolf declined to sniff.
“Only if he wants,” Naelin said, damping down her natural instinct, which was to scoop up Llor and run as far and fast away from the predator as she could. So far, the wolf had done nothing but protect them. “His name is Bayn. Don’t pull his tail.”
“I wouldn’t!” Llor cried with all the dignity of an insulted six-year-old.
A ghost of a smile crossed the champion’s face. “There, your children have babysitters, at least for the next few minutes. Now will you focus on your training?”
Unusual babysitters, she thought, but he was right. Erian and Llor were both nearby and as safe as she could hope them to be, given the circumstances. She didn’t have any more excuses. “Sensing the spirits won’t summon them?”
“Not in my experience, which is considerable.”
He was trying hard to sound soothing, she could tell, and that impressed her. She didn’t know why he wanted her as his student so badly, especially when she refused to become an heir, but sensing spirits did sound both harmless and useful. “All right, I’ll try it.”
Crossing her legs, she sat on one of the roots. She felt the bark dig into her thighs, through the fabric of her skirts. She felt the damp morning chill in the air and breathed in the heavy, wet, mossy taste of the forest floor. Birds were chirping in the trees above, and a few bushes rustled nearby, most likely squirrels. Concentrating, she tried to do as he said—imagine that she was part of the woods around her, that her arms extended into the trees, that her thighs poured into the earth, that her lungs expanded to breathe in all the air.
Half of her kept listening for Erian and Llor—she heard the captain giving Erian instructions, and Erian answering with questions about how to hold her arms and her shoulders, adjusting her foot position in the crumbled old leaves and pine needles. In between the roots, Llor was babbling happily to the wolf, telling him all about his collections back home: he liked to collect rocks, feathers, and interesting sticks, but Mama didn’t let him bring the best sticks into the house because they were too pointy, which was endlessly disappointing. Mama was fine with rocks, he confided, as long as they weren’t too big, and fine with feathers, as long as he found them himself and didn’t try to pluck them from any birds. He even had an eagle feather that was as long as his arm, but he’d had to leave it behind when they left. He promised to show the wolf when they went back sometime.
She shook her head. “I can’t do it. My children—”
“Don’t block them out,” Ven advised. “Embrace them, and then stretch farther. Pretend you’re listening to them and making charms at the same time. You’ve done that, right?”
That she could do. She was used to splitting her attention between her own tasks and her children. It was how she went about every day. She’d never tried to reach beyond, but she supposed that the champion was right—in theory, it shouldn’t be too different. She stretched her mind, and felt the quivering of nearby spirits. It was so simple and easy that she gasped. I can feel them.
There! A wood spirit, above, skittering along a branch.
To the east, an air spirit flitted through the trees, rustling the leaves, drawing a breeze behind it.
Below, an earth spirit burrowed.
She could feel their size and their mood, the same way she could feel an itch on her arm. It was shockingly easy, a parlor trick, a matter of concentrating on the “crinkling” in the air and bringing it into focus. She wondered, traitorously, why she’d been resisting so hard. If she’d known this . . . If her mother had known, when the spirits came for her . . .
“You’ll practice this every day, until it becomes second nature.”
Naelin nodded. She disliked the way they seemed to crawl on her skin, even though they weren’t nearby, but that was a slight sacrifice for the boon of knowing where they were. She rubbed her arms, feeling the gooseflesh, and pulled her awareness back to their camp.
“With practice, you’ll be able to expand your range,” he said. “A queen is aware of every spirit in her country. She’s granted that awareness in the coronation ceremony. In the ceremony, she links herself to all the spirits in Aratay and can awaken that link whenever she chooses. It helps if you have practice beforehand, so the sensation doesn’t overwhelm you.” Shaking her head, she opened her mouth to say that she was never going to be queen so this was a moot point, but then he said, “Daleina was always skilled at sensing spirits, even before Coronation Day.”
He’d been there, at the massacre, she remembered. She could see the memory of it in the way he looked out at the forest, as if he were seeing that moment and looking at another set of trees. She had the urge to reach out to touch his arm, to comfort him, but she didn’t.
She didn’t argue when he told her to practice more. She kept at it for nearly an hour, until Llor began to clamor that he was hungry and she realized so was she. After breakfast, they continued to travel, and she continued to practice.
Naelin caught the champion shooting her glances every few minutes, as if she were a puzzle that he wanted to solve. If she hadn’t been so busy helping Erian and Llor keep up and “feeling” out the spirits around them, she would have asked him what he found so fascinating. She didn’t consider herself fascinating at all. Don’t read too much into it, she cautioned herself. At some point, he’d realize she was too difficult a student and came with too much baggage, and he’d go find himself a child to train, one who wanted this. Until then, though, she’d absorb any trick that would keep them safe.
And she’d find a way to safely leave.
The next morning, Naelin declared the children had to be washed. She found a stream near their camp, with a willow tree that draped over the water. Every time the wind blew, tendrils of leaves stroked the water, creating ripples that spread toward the pebbled shore. Naelin kept an eye on the ripples, her senses open, watching and listening for spirits. Two were perched in the branches of a tree to the north, and a water spirit lurked around the next bend, catching fish as they swam between the rocks and then bashing them against the closest rock.
Close by her, Llor splashed in the shallows while Erian scrubbed her face. When she finished, she handed the cloth to Llor, who promptly tossed it onto the shore. “Not dirty,” he proclaimed.
“Very dirty,” Naelin informed him. She dunked the cloth into the water, caught his arm, and began to scrub his neck. He twisted and squirmed, kicking at the water until it splashed his sister, who screeched. “No screaming, Erian. You know better than to make loud noises in the forest. And Llor, don’t splash your sister, and don’t fidget. Hold still, and it will be over faster.”
With zero warning, Erian burst into tears. “It’s not my fault! He splashed me.”
“And that’s why I told him no splashing. Erian, we don’t cry about nothing.”
Erian sucked back a sob. Her lower lip quivered. “Father would understand.”
The words felt like a stab. Naelin wanted to say she was sorry, but she wasn’t the one who’d forced her to use her power. She wasn’t the one who’d brought a champion into their home. She wasn’t the one who’d changed their lives. She was trying to do her best . . . She sucked in air and tried to stay calm. It would only escalate things if she showed she was upset too. “Cry if you need to then. I know this is difficult, and I can’t promise it will get easier. I can promise I’ll keep you safe as best as I can.”
“Safe isn’t enough,” Erian sobbed. “I want to go home.”
“I want to go home too,” Llor said, and then he started to cry as well.
Wishing Renet were here to scream at, Naelin opened her arms, and both of them piled onto her, their wet clothes soaking hers as they sobbed onto her shoulders. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. She stroked their hair as they cried and felt like crying as well, but she didn’t let herself. She couldn’t afford to break down, not when there was no one here to help put her back together.
She heard a soft clink and looked up. Captain Alet was crouched on one of the rocks. She had her knife drawn and was focused on a shape in the water.
The water spirit.
It was sliding toward them, like a serpent through the ripples.
Leaping from the rock, Alet landed in the water and stabbed her knife down. The spirit squealed, dove under, and sped rapidly away. “You can’t lose focus,” she said, “no matter what else occurs.”
“I never wanted this,” Naelin said. “I wanted an ordinary life: house, husband, children, an honest living. A few herb plants. Neighbors I didn’t hate. A quiet life.”
“We rarely get what we want.”
“What did you want?” Still cradling her children, Naelin watched the guardswoman clean her blade and then splash water on her face and neck. Patches of dirt turned into mud that dripped over her shoulders.
She shrugged. “Not that life. Far too boring.”
“Peaceful isn’t boring.”
“I wanted to matter. For my life to matter. So many people die and no one knows they ever existed. They’re ripples in a stream, disappearing when the wind blows.”
Erian was beginning to quiet. Llor was still sniffling. He’d most likely forgotten why he was crying. He just knew he was supposed to be crying. Naelin let them rest against her. “You’ve lost people?”
“Plenty.” Her voice was distant, and her eyes fixed downstream. All trace of the water spirit had disappeared. Casting her mind out, Naelin felt it, hunkered down in the rapids, a ways downstream. It seemed to have forgotten them. “All, in fact. Except my sister. I’d do anything for her, anything to make her proud of me.”
Naelin cast around for something else to say. “Sounds like you found important work, being the queen’s guard, working with Ven. I’m sure she’s proud of you.”
Still looking downstream, Alet nodded.
“What’s the queen like?” Naelin asked. She wanted to ask more: Will she listen? Will she understand? Will she help? Will she keep my children safe?
“Noble,” Alet said. “Serious. Driven.”
“Have you known her for long?”
“Long enough to know she’s a good queen,” Alet said, and there was a look on her face that Naelin couldn’t quite name—it was a little like longing. “She wants to protect her people, and she’s willing to give her life for that. She understands duty and sacrifice.”
Holding Erian and Llor close, Naelin wondered if she was being insulted. “Are you suggesting I don’t? I’d give my life for my children.” She felt her children shift in her arms, squeezing her tighter. “But I’d far rather give them a mother than a martyr.”
A brief smile crossed the captain’s face. “Before you, I thought all women of power wanted to be queen. Refusing seemed inconceivable. Your lack of ambition is . . . strangely admirable. You are deeply committed to living a forgettable life.”
“Forgettable is fine. I don’t want fame; I want happy.” She pressed her lips to Erian’s hair. “But I’ll settle for content. I don’t think that’s so strange.”
Alet studied her, as if weighing the truth of her words, and finally said, “I’ll help you, as much as I can.”
Naelin’s eyes widened. She hadn’t expected to find an ally in the stern guardswoman. If her arms hadn’t been full of children, she would have hugged her. As it was, she could only nod her thanks. “I appreciate that. We all do.”
“You must be able to say no to the queen,” Alet said. “It won’t be easy. She’s intense, and she is the queen. In the glory of the palace, you’ll want to say anything to please her. You’ll want her to look on you with approval. It can be hard to remember who you are and what you must do.” She had a look in her eye—that odd kind of sad longing again, regret maybe—as if she’d tried to refuse the queen and failed.
“I have two reminders,” Naelin said. “The palace won’t intimidate me.”
“I hope not. For their sake.” Alet held out her hand toward Erian and Llor. “Come, children, and I’ll show you the proper way to stab a water spirit.”
Tears dry, they went with her willingly.