When the summons from the queen came, Champion Ven was spearing an air spirit with a candelabra. It squawked as the iron pinned its shoulder to the wall, and then it melted into the air and flitted as wind across the room to coalesce on the balcony railing.
“Naelin, you have to stay in control of your emotions,” Ven said. “You can’t panic.” He plucked the candelabra from the wall, scowled at the tear in the gold-leaf decoration, and then turned.
A courtier was clinging to Naelin.
“I didn’t panic,” Naelin said. “He did.” She pried his fingers off her arm and then patted his shoulder. “You should knock next time.”
The courtier bowed deeply. His eyes still looked wild, as if he wanted to bolt but his knees were shaking too hard to carry him out of the room. “Champion Ven, the queen has requested your presence with utmost haste. She is in the Sunrise Room.”
“Is she—” He halted. “Of course. Naelin, please continue to practice. A light touch, this time. Think small thoughts.”
“I’m not summoning any spirits alone.”
Beside the fireplace, the wolf Bayn stretched, as if to deliberately remind them of his presence. Ven was again struck by how much the wolf understood what went on around them. “Bayn will bite anything you can’t handle and howl if there’s anything he can’t handle. You’ll be perfectly safe.”
“Famous last words.”
“Trust me. Or if you don’t trust me, trust yourself. That’s the piece you’re missing. You still don’t trust yourself.” He crossed to her and put his hands on her shoulders, as if he could convince her through his intensity.
“I’m dangerous.”
“Yes, you are—but to them too. Trust that to keep you safe.” He could tell from her mulish expression that he wasn’t getting through to her. She didn’t see herself the way he saw her: strong, in every way that mattered. He’d never encountered anyone like her, someone who gave off her own kind of brilliant light, someone who made him want to be better and fight harder. But he couldn’t stay and argue with her, not when Queen Daleina had summoned him. He shot a look at the wolf, and the wolf flared his nostrils as if in agreement. It wasn’t a good sign when an animal understood him better than his trainee. Ven leveled a finger at Naelin. “We’ll continue this later.”
He then strode out of Fara’s chambers. He knew the way, but the courtier insisted on scrambling after him, trying to fulfill his obligation of leading the champion, even though Ven outpaced him and was down the twisting stairs while the courtier still puffed behind him.
He tried not to think about why Daleina could need him. If she was having a blackout, she wouldn’t have been able to summon him. Plus the spirits would be acting murderous. The air spirit had been irritated, but not worse than that, and he knew there were fire spirits flitting from lantern to lantern as if nothing was wrong. Maybe other symptoms had begun to manifest? But then she’d call for Hamon, not for him. She must want to talk about her security. He’d handed much of the responsibility over to the palace guards, but he knew Daleina felt most comfortable with him in charge.
Nodding at Captain Alet and a second guard outside the Sunrise Room, he strode inside. She wasn’t on the throne. Instantly, his hand went to his sword hilt and he scanned the room, checking for threats. He saw her a moment later, in front of a mural, staring at it.
“Leave us, and close the doors,” she ordered.
The guards obeyed. He heard the solid doors clank shut and noticed the room was devoid of spirits, as near as he could tell—and he considered himself to have solid instincts when it came to spirits. He might not have the power to sense them, but he was aware of the twitch of air, the vibration in the earth, and the shuddering of a flame that came with them. He and Daleina were alone.
“Do you hate me for Queen Fara’s death?” Daleina asked.
The question hit like an arrow from an unseen archer. “You are my queen, and I could not hate you.”
“Nice answer, but you must blame me.”
He couldn’t imagine where this was coming from, or why she wanted to discuss it now. “Of course I blame you. And I blame myself. But mostly I blame Fara, and the spirit who corrupted her.” He corrected himself: “The spirit she allowed to corrupt her.” Fara had never been an innocent in what happened. She may have been tempted, but she was the one who chose to taste that temptation. “Why are we talking about this?”
“Because of Hamon’s mother.” Daleina turned from the mural to face him, and he was relieved to see she looked fine. No trace of illness. Some shadows under her eyes from lack of sleep. She needed to eat more. He made a mental note to tell her sister to bake her some sweets.
“All right. I’ll bite. Are you going to explain what you mean by that, or simply let that cryptic statement hang in the air? Granted, the cryptic statement is more regal, but I’m the only one here to impress.”
Her mouth quirked into a smile. “Hamon’s mother has determined that my case of False Death is not natural. I was poisoned.”
He felt himself go very still, every muscle tense, the way he felt before an attack. He was aware of the taste of the air, the stillness and silence in the room, the warmth of sun on the amber floor, the sound of his breathing and hers. “Hamon has confirmed this?”
“He believes her, and that means I do too. It explains the early onset and the lack of other symptoms. But there’s more: his mother believes she can manufacture a cure, if we can find a sample of the original poison. It’s too diluted in my blood right now.”
“Then we’ll find it.” He’d tear apart the palace, branch by branch. “We’ll wring it out of whoever did this to you—” He cut himself off. “Who would do this? It can’t be someone rational. Anyone would know that killing you without an heir would destroy Aratay. We’re after a madman.”
“Or someone subsumed by grief. I’ve sent investigators to the families of the heirs, with instructions to pry without compounding their grief. But it could also be someone who privately hates me—either with reason or without. A caretaker. A courtier. A guard. A cook.”
“Then we interview everyone.”
“Everyone in Aratay?”
“Everyone who has had contact with you in the past month. Your seneschal will have a list. Call them to the palace one at a time—”
“It could be a champion.”
She was watching him, looking for his reaction, and so he didn’t react, not at first. He considered it. His first and obvious reaction was no, impossible, and ridiculous. Champions were sworn to protect the Crown. “It couldn’t.”
“It could.”
“We are sworn to protect the Crown.”
“The Crown, not the woman who wears it.”
“Sophistry.”
Her eyes were still on him as he paced back and forth. He wanted to punch something—a wall, an enemy, the throne. “We killed a queen for the sake of the country,” she said. “What if someone else wanted to do the same?”
He knew all the other champions. Hated a few of them. Still didn’t believe any of them were guilty of regicide. But then, he’d never have expected it of Hamon and Headmistress Hanna either, nor his Daleina. “There’s no heir. No champion would endanger Aratay.” None of them were madmen, or so subsumed by grief as to be so irrational.
“It’s a slow-acting poison,” Daleina pointed out. “A champion could think he or she would have time to train a new heir. He could have realized how I’d react: that I’d push forward faster with the training and the trials. He could have known that I’d name an heir sooner.”
It was nonsense. But he couldn’t entirely dismiss the idea. The champions had unfettered access to Daleina and the palace. Everyone trusted them. And she was right about the choice of slow-acting poison: anyone who didn’t care about consequences could have simply stabbed her. Poison was the choice of someone who wanted additional time. “It’s very, very, very unlikely.”
“But not impossible.” Her shoulders drooped, as if she’d been hoping he would argue with her and convince her she was wrong.
He wished he could, but once the seed of doubt was planted, it took root. “Good people can do the wrong thing for the right reasons,” Ven said slowly. Plenty of champions were upset when their heirs died and Daleina emerged. Many thought she was unqualified and unworthy. He’d heard rumblings . . . Nothing to suggest that anyone meant her harm, but enough to know she had few fans among the champions. They’d yet to be impressed with her. She’d been careful with her power ever since being crowned and very careful after falling ill, and while the people might have seen her as cautious, there were those who saw her as weak. “Still, these are your champions we’re talking about. You shouldn’t doubt us. I can. But I’m a bitter, jaded old man, and you’re the fresh face of hope and light.” He shook his head. Now that she’d introduced the idea, he couldn’t help but cycle through each of the champions, evaluating them: Piriandra, Cabe, Ambir . . . No, it was unbelievable that he was even considering this.
“It’s not a likely enough possibility for me to spare an investigator,” Daleina conceded. “But I thought perhaps you could question them, if only to lay our worries to rest.”
“I can’t approach them in the middle of training. They’d think I was there to poach their candidate, or at least disrupt their training. You need a neutral party.” Ven paced harder, his feet grinding into the amber floor. He knew the other champions. He’d never succeed in cracking through their secrets. “Not neutral. Someone who is loyal to you alone. Captain Alet.”
She sank into her throne. “Yes. Of course, yes. She’s perfect.”
“Tell them she’s there to assist, in the interest of fairness. All of them know she assisted me. Or that she’s there to evaluate them, to determine if their candidates are ready for the trials. Either way, they won’t suspect the truth.” And if, however unlikely it was, Alet were to uncover the killer, at least she could defend herself, unlike an ordinary investigator. She was one of the few who stood a chance to survive such a discovery. She’d be able to report, even subdue the guilty party and secure the poison. He’d seen enough of her skills to know she could bring down a champion. He felt a chill, thinking of anyone taking down a champion, revealing them as a traitor and a murderer . . . “Daleina, you realize we’re grasping at straws here. The poisoner is far more likely to be a disgruntled political enemy or some heartbroken citizen than a hero of the realm.”
Softly, the queen said, “I know. But Ven, don’t you see? There’s hope now. I can’t let it slip away. I have to do everything I can.”
“I know,” he said. “And we will.”
Telling Ven her suspicions hadn’t been so hard. Asking Alet to spy on the heroes of Aratay would be harder. Daleina wasn’t going to order her to do it. She wanted this to come from a friend, not a queen. She didn’t know why that mattered to her, but it did. It was such a ridiculous idea that she couldn’t make it a royal command.
Given that, she didn’t want to talk to Alet in the Sunrise Room. She’d rather discuss it in her quarters. Coming back, she’d expected to find her sister, but Arin hadn’t returned. Just as well, she told herself, because this conversation isn’t for her ears. Still . . . maybe she shouldn’t keep sending Arin away. She missed her. She’s safer if she’s not with me, Daleina reminded herself.
Captain Alet shut the door behind them. Daleina saw her eyes sweep over the chamber, cataloguing the points of entry and searching out any dangers. Ven did the same thing every time he entered the room—it must have been something in their training, a constant alertness. Daleina did it too, but she scanned for spirits, not humans. That may have been her mistake.
She wondered where the poisoner had caught her. Had the poison been in her food or drink? Had she been pricked by a poisoned blade, so slight that she didn’t notice? Was it spread on a surface that she touched, like her pillow? It could have been dusted into her dresses. She could have breathed it in. Others could have been infected as well.
She’d ask Hamon later if his mother knew how the poison had been delivered. She’d have him look into any other cases of False Death that had been reported recently . . . That was actually a good idea. If others had been poisoned, perhaps they could find a pattern . . . The poisoner could have experimented, or simply had other targets as well.
“You’re thinking,” Alet said. “I know that look on your face. I will be outside if you need me.”
Daleina shook her head and suddenly all the thoughts felt as if they were screaming inside her mind. She crossed the room to Alet’s side. “Don’t leave.” In a rush, she said, “I’m not sick.”
Alet’s eyes widened, and her mouth parted.
Daleina suddenly realized how that sounded. “I’m still dying. But I’m not sick, not naturally. I’ve been poisoned.”
Alet’s mouth shut and then she asked, “Are you certain?”
“Experts told me it was true. And I want to believe it’s true.”
“You do?”
“Because poisons have antidotes.” She suddenly felt herself smiling, as if the sun were beaming down through the trees. She pulled Alet across the room to the balcony into the sunlight. Only a sliver of it had beat its way through the thick canopy of leaves, but that patch was enough. “Look, it’s a metaphor for hope! Feel that!”
Alet was staring at her. “I’ll fetch Healer Hamon. Delusions could be a side effect—”
“Hamon told me this himself,” Daleina said. “Don’t you want to believe it’s true?”
“What I want and what is true seldom have anything to do with each other,” Alet said, pulling away. “It’s too good to be true, especially if Hamon has the antidote. Does he?”
“Not yet. First we need to find the poisoner. Determine exactly what kind of poison was used. We don’t even know yet how it was delivered. Still . . . there’s hope.” Daleina pointed to the ray of sunshine again, and when Alet didn’t step into it, she tugged on her friend’s hand again.
“I don’t want you to have false hope,” Alet said, not moving. “That can be even more painful.”
“If it’s false hope, I’ll be dead,” Daleina said, “and nothing will be painful anymore.” She wasn’t going to let go of this feeling. She was going to chase every idea she had, follow every clue, do everything she could to keep living. “So I’m going to proceed as though it’s not false. And I want you to help me.”
“Always, my queen.”
Daleina took a deep breath. “The royal investigators are speaking with everyone who had access to me who could have had motivation . . . but there is one group they won’t be approaching: the champions.” She held up a hand to forestall any objections. “I know, it’s ridiculous to even consider suspecting them. But I can’t leave any stone unturned.”
Alet merely nodded. “All right.”
She blinked. “You don’t want to hear my reasoning?”
“Just tell me what you want me to do,” Alet said. “If it’s within my power to do, I’ll do it.” She reached out as if she wanted to touch Daleina’s hand, and then dropped back. “I don’t want you to die.” There was an unspoken echo: What I want and what is true seldom have anything to do with each other.
Daleina stepped forward and took her friend’s hand. “It’s going to sound traitorous. And it’s almost certainly pointless. Fear and hope are twins—and I can’t help but want to explore every possible avenue, no matter how remote.”
“Again, all right.”
“I want you to spy on the champions. Go to each of them. Tell them I plan to hold the trials soon, but that I wanted to be certain they were ready. You’re there to warn them, and to assess their readiness. Get them talking, and learn what you can. Study them. Sneak around them. Determine who we can trust and who we can’t. Can you do that?”
“And if I find your murderer?”
“Bring them to me. Alive.”
“Alive?”
“Yes. I have questions for them.” She liked that Alet didn’t question that she’d be able to capture them. These were champions, the best of the best. But Alet herself was also remarkable. She’d be a match for any of them.
“Can I rough them up first?”
“That would be delightful.” Daleina threw her arms around Alet’s neck. “You’re a true friend, you know.” The captain stiffened, but Daleina knew that was just the woman’s nature. She cherished what they had. A rare find. She felt as if the sunlight were spreading, even though it stayed confined to the sliver of balcony. Between the investigators and Alet, she’d find her poisoner.
She just hoped they found him or her in time.
Champion Piriandra threw open the window to the training room—she’d commandeered one of the champion training rooms to use with her candidate. “She barely looked at you.” She stomped across the room, past her candidate, to the weapons wall. Savagely, she ripped weapons off the wall and tossed them into a pile.
“She accepted me.” Beilena’s voice was barely more than a murmur.
“She’s not worthy to be queen.”
Piriandra heard Beilena gasp, but she ignored her. She pulled a heavy tarp over the pile of swords, maces, axes, and knives and then dragged crates on top of the corners of the tarp—in the next stage of training, Beilena couldn’t have access to any weapons. She had to rely on her power. Piriandra wasn’t convinced her student was ready, but they were perilously short on time.
“If I might ask . . .” Beilena began, “what are you doing?”
“You may have done enough to prove yourself to Queen Daleina”—she growled the word “queen”—“but you still need to prove yourself to me. An heir must be capable of handling an irate spirit by herself with only the power of her mind. No weapons. No backup.”
“But I haven’t yet—”
“Excuses aren’t acceptable.” People were always making excuses for Queen Daleina: she was so young, she witnessed a tragedy, she hadn’t expected the responsibility . . . But no matter. She would be dead soon, and then another queen would take her place. Piriandra simply had to be certain that a worthy heir was ready. “This time, I won’t come to your rescue. You have to rescue yourself.”
Her chosen candidate had potential. Tons of potential. Piriandra wouldn’t have chosen her otherwise. The girl was young—the queen hadn’t been wrong about that—but all the better for molding. She didn’t know her own limits, because she’d never been pushed to them. It was Piriandra’s job to fix that.
Piriandra hefted a crate onto a table. It was covered in a thick cloth. “Come closer, girl.”
Swallowing so hard that Piriandra could hear her, Beilena crept across the room. She was so tense that her shoulders were up around her ears. Piriandra wanted to swat her and tell her to relax, but she controlled herself. She let a note of kindness into her voice. “You have done well. So well that I believe you’re ready for this.”
“What’s in there?” Beilena asked.
Piriandra withdrew the cloth. Underneath was a metal cage. Inside it was a spirit, asleep. It looked like a coil of silver, with crystal-like spikes that were its arms and legs. Its face was carved out of an icicle. It was no larger than her palm and looked breakable, though Piriandra knew it was hardly as fragile as it looked. She still had cuts on her leg from when she’d caught it—the thing was fast. Luckily, she was faster. “Your task is to calm it and then send it out the window.”
“Sounds easy. What’s the trick?”
Piriandra smiled humorlessly. At least she’d trained Beilena enough for her to realize there would be a trick. “It’s going to be very, very angry at you when it wakes up.”
“Why will it be very, very angry at me?”
“Because it will think you did this.” Piriandra grabbed a torch from the wall and shoved it between the bars of the cage. She then stepped out of the way so that only Beilena was standing in front of it when the spirit’s eyes snapped open.
Reacting to the flame, it shrieked and hurled itself at the bars of the cage. Ice spread across the metal. Beilena backed up quickly, toward the tarp-covered weapons.
“No weapons. Just your mind,” Piriandra commanded.
“It’s an ice spirit. I’ve never controlled one before!”
“You have mastery over all, don’t you?”
“Y-yes, of course. But . . . but . . . they’re rare.”
For a second, Piriandra hesitated. It was possible that she’d never faced an ice spirit before. But surely Headmistress Hanna would not have allowed her to be chosen if she hadn’t demonstrated mastery of all the spirits. “They’re not rare all the time.” In the worst winters, the ice spirits howled across Aratay, out of Elhim. They encased the branches in ice, froze the forest streams, and cracked the earth around the roots of the trees. “Remember: it’s angry. Don’t take your eyes off it.”
Wide eyed, Beilena nodded. “It can’t get out of the cage, though, can it?”
The spirit flitted from bar to bar, hissing angrily. The metal creaked and popped.
“Of course it can,” Piriandra said, and then stepped out of the training room.
Beilena surged forward. “Wait—”
Piriandra slid the lock shut. She heard Beilena scream and for a moment she was tempted to throw the lock open, but no. It was only one spirit, and Beilena was strong enough and clever enough to handle it. She forced herself to step back from the door and walk away.
She kept walking, down to the kitchen that she’d stocked with the basics: nut bars, apples, water. She poured honey onto a nut bar and made herself sit, calm, as if her stomach didn’t feel like a tight fist.
For all her training, Beilena had always had teachers around her, safety nets. She’d been in the academy, safely in the headmistress’s bosom, so to speak. She had to learn she could handle things on her own, and it would defeat the purpose if Piriandra were to rush in there. Give her space, Piriandra told herself. Let her learn. If she continued to have a safety net, she’d never learn to trust herself, and that was one of the most important lessons.
Besides, it was only one spirit. An ice spirit, but still, a small one.
Piriandra ate the nut bar, making herself chew at a normal speed rather than gulp it down. Finishing, she wiped her lips with a napkin and cleaned her plate. She hadn’t heard any more screams, and Beilena hadn’t called for help, which was good. She wondered if she really would have the strength to stay outside if her candidate did call for her. She was a tough teacher, but she wasn’t heartless. And I’ve already lost one candidate.
She pressed her ear against the door. It was silent in there. A good sign? Except if Beilena had defeated the spirit, wouldn’t she have come out? “Beilena? Is it defeated?”
No answer.
If she rushed in and interrupted, then her candidate would think she didn’t trust her, which would undermine everything this exercise was designed to achieve . . . “Beilena?”
Still, no answer.
Piriandra flung the door open—everything was coated in ice. She drew her sword. Wind whipped through the open window, but the cloth from the cage didn’t stir. It had been frozen solid.
“Beilena?” She stepped inside.
Scanning the room, she didn’t see the ice spirit, or her candidate. Everything was frosted white . . . except for the red leaking out from under the tarp. Drawing her sword, Piriandra crossed to it.
She pulled back the tarp.
In the center of the pile of weapons lay Beilena. Her eyes were open, sightless, and a drop of blood had pooled in the corner of her mouth, staining her lips. She had a collection of icicles jabbed into her throat, like a necklace.
She must have gone for the weapons but failed to reach them in time.
It could have happened in the first moments, Piriandra thought. That first scream. But the ice spirits shouldn’t have been so hard to control. It was only one, and not overly bright.
A flicker at the window caught her eye, and Piriandra moved toward it, smoothly and silently, her sword raised. The ice spirit lay on the sill. It was still alive. Its arms were missing—those must have been the icicles embedded in Beilena.
Beilena must have fought back, nearly defeating the ice spirit. In the end, though, it had been too much for her.
Piriandra swore softly, then more loudly.
I should have stayed in the room. I shouldn’t have left her alone. She wasn’t ready. I knew she wasn’t ready. This was my fault. My fault alone.
Piriandra scooped up the weakened spirit on the blade of her sword, carried it to the cage, and locked it inside. She covered it with a cloth. It wouldn’t be punished—it had only done what it had been goaded into doing. Spirits used in training exercises were typically exempt from retribution. She’d have to take it away from the capital and release it.
She felt stiff, mechanical, as she performed the task and thought through the logistics.
The candidate’s family would need to be notified, as well as Headmistress Hanna. She’d have to arrange for a burial. If she paid the caretakers extra, they would take care of the bulk of the arrangements. In the meantime, she’d have to find a new candidate, train her even faster, try not to break her. Time was short. Soon, the queen would call for the trials . . . I am sorry, Beilena! This was not the plan! Two candidates, dead. Not the plan at all. She felt like punching something, hard, and her eyes fell on the caged spirit.
She heard a knock behind her. Automatically, she flipped the tarp to cover Beilena’s body. Standing, she turned. “Yes?”
One of the caretakers—she’d never bothered to learn his name—bowed. “A representative of the queen is here to see you. Captain Alet. She says the queen has asked her to check on your progress with your candidate.”
Piriandra swore under her breath, and then sighed. “Show her in.”