Daleina gripped the tower window. Wind whipped against her. Leaves swirled over the city, and the trees swayed. She could feel them: the foreign spirits. They were flowing across the forest like a wave, sweeping away everything in their path.
Merecot’s earth spirits were tearing through the land, causing bedrock to tilt and pierce through the surface. The land shifted, and the trees toppled. Daleina felt her own spirits howl in rage. But Naelin was holding them back, within two miles of the city.
The enemy wasn’t close enough.
It was sound logic: if Daleina controlled them and blacked out, they’d feel her death and turn on her people. If that happened outside of Naelin’s range, there would be no stopping them. So it was better to wait and let Naelin control them from the start. Avoid the risk altogether.
Daleina dug her fingers into the wood and wished she dared command them. North of the city, people were fleeing from the destruction. Their homes were crumbling around them. The very earth was betraying them. She was betraying them. She’d sworn to protect them, and here she was, seemingly doing nothing while they lost their homes, possibly even their lives.
I could abdicate, she thought. She could let Naelin take the crown now. Naelin could then command the spirits throughout Aratay . . . unless she couldn’t. Unless the coronation failed. There had never been a coronation ceremony with only a single heir, and there was no guarantee the spirits would accept Naelin. Plus she’d need to take the crown without the traditional seven-day grace period. Daleina had no proof that the spirits would even accept a new queen without those seven days. They might, if the new queen were powerful enough—the seven days could be mere tradition—but she didn’t know for certain. No, it was too great a risk. She’d hold out and wait, until the spirits reached the capital, until Hamon had her cure. He had to find it.
Alet . . .
No, I can’t think about her right now. Not yet. She’d lost so many friends, to death and now betrayal. Every loss felt like another bit of her soul was sliced away. She wasn’t certain how much more she could take, but she wasn’t ready to give up. Abdicating felt like failure. “Am I being selfish, Ven?” she asked softly.
He was beside her, close enough to hear. Naelin was on his other side—she gave no sign that she’d heard Daleina, and Daleina hoped she hadn’t. “You must be. Aratay needs you.”
“Naelin could do it.”
“I’m not burying another queen,” Ven said.
So she held her power in check and kept the spirits close.
The chancellors had issued orders to her soldiers. She knew they waited as well, as the refugees poured into the capital. Her seneschal was welcoming as many as he could. He’d had tents set up in the gardens. The palace cooks were distributing food, and the caretakers were handing out blankets and other supplies. She’d received word from Hamon that her sister was with him—Arin was safe, at least for now, and if they could keep the invaders out of Mittriel, she’d stay safe.
“I hate waiting,” Ven said.
Daleina nearly laughed. He sounded like a grumpy child. A choked giggle burst out of her lips. She swallowed it back in.
From near one of the tower windows, Naelin snorted. “You should like waiting. When the waiting ends, the killing and dying begins. I’d rather wait an eternity.”
“You don’t feel it? The taste of the air, the beat of your heart—there must be a part of you that wants to release all your coiled energy. Strike out. Let loose your anger and your fear.”
“Mostly fear,” Naelin said. “How am I supposed to defeat a queen?”
“You just have to hold her and her spirits back until Hamon finds the cure,” Ven told her. “You don’t need to defeat her; you just need to buy time. Until Daleina can fight too.”
Except Merecot was always stronger than me, Daleina thought, but she didn’t say it out loud. It was the best and only plan they had. Daleina’s advantage was that she was defending her home. Her people. Her sister. She hoped that would be enough.
Daleina leaned out the window and looked across the canopy, across Aratay. The enemy was close enough to see: a thickness in the air, like a fog that hung heavily over the forest. It was a wall that advanced toward them. She wanted to strike at it.
“There’s a new mountain.” Daleina pointed. A peak, or the shadow of one, rose out of the swirling swarm. Merecot’s changing our land. My land.
“We’ll fix it,” Naelin said. Her voice was kind—she must have seen, or guessed, at Daleina’s feelings. “After the killing and the dying will come the cleaning and the recovering.”
“You can’t be looking forward to that part?” Ven looked incredulous, like Naelin had just told him that she didn’t like his beard. Daleina wondered if he felt fear, underneath all his casual bravery. He must. She wondered if he was hiding it for her sake or his own.
“You can stop trying to glorify battle,” Naelin told him. “I won’t like it, no matter how exhilarating you claim it is. It’s better to avoid a fight than win one. Even Queen Merecot doesn’t want a fight. That’s why she used Alet.”
Daleina widened her eyes. “You’re right,” she gasped. Queen Merecot didn’t want to destroy Aratay; she wanted to rule it. Daleina had realized that when she’d looked at the map with the chancellors. She’d known it when she’d invited the refugees into the palace. But she hadn’t fully followed the thought to its logical conclusion. Merecot wanted to become Queen of Aratay as well as Semo. To do that, she needed to claim both the capital and the spirits. “You need to go to the grove. Now.”
Both Naelin and Ven stared at her.
“What?” Naelin said.
“We aren’t leaving you,” Ven said simultaneously.
Naelin nodded. “Your Majesty, we’re here to defend you.”
“The attack. The grand entrance. Why is she doing this?” Daleina didn’t wait for them to answer her. Up until today, Daleina had assumed that Merecot didn’t know about her illness—all her strategy had been based on that assumption—but of course Merecot knew about it. She’d caused it. Merecot had always been stronger—in a head-to-head battle, it would take all of Daleina’s strength and cleverness to keep her out of the city, which Merecot knew. She was trying to force Daleina to use all her power to defend her capital—she was trying to trigger a false death. And she’d had Alet kill off any candidates who could take the crown. Oh, Alet, how could you? Sister or not, queen or not, you should have refused her! “It’s brilliant. She didn’t bring her spirits and soldiers to conquer the city. She brought them to protect it.”
Ven pointed out the window at the approaching storm of spirits. “That’s an invasion.”
“Yes, now. But when I fall . . . She plans to use the invasion to force me to trigger a false death, and in the midst of the chaos, she will walk into the Queen’s Grove. She’ll try to crown herself, during the invasion, not after! And the people will support her because, in the meantime, her spirits will be saving them. She wins the power, the land, the spirits, the people—everything she ever wanted—all at once.” Which meant there was one way to outsmart her. One way to win. Daleina fixed both of them with the fiercest expression she could. “She doesn’t know Alet failed to kill you. You have to stop her. Go to the grove. Now.”
“What will you do?” Naelin said.
“I will be queen, for as long as I can.”
Naelin hated to use the air spirits for travel, but she saw little choice. Reaching out, she beckoned to one. Fly with us. She didn’t make it a command. As Daleina had taught her, she tempted instead—she picked a restless spirit, one that didn’t like being held at the border, and reeled it in like a fish on a line. It came eagerly. Climbing onto the window ledge, she held her hand out to Ven. “You’ll like this part,” she told him.
He raised his eyebrows. “We jump?”
“Yes,” she said, and leaped from the window, yanking him with her. For one terrifying, exhilarating minute, she plummeted, and then the air spirit was there. She thudded onto its back. Ven landed diagonal with her and quickly righted himself. He helped her sit upright and wrapped his arms around her stomach.
“See, I think you secretly crave adventure,” Ven said, “but you think you shouldn’t.” She could hear the forced lightness in his voice—inside, she knew he was twisted with worry. They were leaving their queen.
She forced lightness into her voice too. “Oh? You know me so well now?”
“Yes.” His voice was warm in her ear. “Right now, you are trying to decide whether it would be worth the risk of my falling if you were to elbow me for being obnoxious.”
Naelin couldn’t help herself: she laughed. “You’re just trying to distract me from being afraid.” She twisted to look at him. Seated on the air spirit behind her, he was very close, less than an inch away. “Thank you,” she said, and then she kissed him.
He cupped her face in his hands as he kissed her back, deeply, sweetly. The wind raced around them, and she felt the air spirit skim the tops of the trees. The first rays of sunrise spread across the leaves, lighting them in green and gold.
Pulling back, she directed the spirit, Lower. Don’t be seen.
The spirit dropped. They raced through the trees. She saw them in a blur: a smear of green, a flash of brown. As they flew faster and faster, the colors ran together as if the forest were melting around her. A twig hit her ankle, and it stung as it broke the skin.
Behind her, she felt the foreign spirits cross into her range. They felt like oil poured into water. They slid through her awareness like a shiver through her body.
“Are you ready?” Ven asked.
Her answer surprised even her. “Yes.”
Ahead was the grove.
Champion Piriandra heard the Semoian spirits before she saw them. They sounded like a storm, the kind that snapped sturdy oaks in half, the kind that ripped houses out of their branches, the kind that flattened plants that had withstood a hundred rains. She attached a clip to the wire path and pushed off, sailing between the trees. “Be ready!” she shouted to the soldiers below. To the candidates, she called, “Hold them still! Our spirits are your arrows; you are the taut bow! On my mark!”
Ahead the wire ended. Still flying through the air, Piriandra reached up and unclipped. She fell, and then landed on a platform below in a crouch. Drawing her sword, she faced the coming storm. “Keep your line! Hold steady!”
Through the trees, she glimpsed the largest earth spirit she’d ever seen: a hulking mass of mud and rocks. On its back rode a woman with black hair and a crown of crystal spikes.
Queen Merecot of Semo.
She was positioned behind the foreign spirits and invading soldiers, out of reach of any arrows. Riding back and forth behind her troops, she was shouting—
“Be ready!” Piriandra shouted to the other champions.
And then the foreign spirits attacked.
Earth spirits tore through the soil. She saw beasts with razorbacks and spikes and claws, and others that looked like mounds of rocks with boulders for arms. Air spirits whipped through the sky, blotting out the faint light of the dawn. In a mass, their translucent bodies blended into gray streaks. The wind hit the front lines like a punch, and the ground exploded at their feet.
Dropping, Piriandra clung to the platform as it swayed beneath her. “Come on,” she muttered. “Pass us by.” If Queen Daleina was wrong, if the bulk of the spirits did not stream toward the city, if instead they stayed and fought, if they were more interested in slaughter than conquest . . . Queen Daleina was young, weak, sick, and inexperienced, and Heir Naelin was just an untested, barely trained woodswoman. We’re all going to die out here, Piriandra thought. They’d be ripped apart before they even got a chance to fight. The candidates were too few to fight back—But I am not weak. I will fight.
Raising her voice, Piriandra shouted, “Now!” She jabbed her sword into the air.
The soldiers charged forward.
And the spirits flew above them and around them—exactly like Queen Daleina had predicted—heading for the heart of the city. Well, well, what do you know? Now Piriandra had to hope the queen’s prediction about her heir was equally accurate.
“Shield our soldiers,” Piriandra ordered the candidates. “Don’t engage the spirits unless they attack our troops. Do you understand?” She’d given them this order before, but it bore repeating. As the foreign spirits streamed around them, she had to fight with herself not to slice at them with her sword. Their job was to stop the human army. Just that. Don’t let the soldiers take the capital. Don’t let the foreign queen set foot in their city. “Only defend our soldiers. Let the other spirits go.”
Queen Daleina, she thought, you had better know what you’re doing.
And then she had no more time for thinking. Leaping onto the forest floor, she landed between two soldiers, and she began hacking at an earth spirit that was trying to rip them apart.
Headmistress Hanna had wrapped the academy in air spirits. They swirled around in a controlled tornado. She had the other teachers stationed throughout the academy. Master Chirra had instructed earth spirits to dig a trench around the roots of the academy trees, and Master Sondriane had had water spirits flood the trench to create a moat. The spirits lurked within the moat, ready to pull any enemies under.
Master Sondriane had reported they liked that idea very much.
The students were clustered in the training circle. Hanna wished they could be tucked in bed, sealed inside their rooms, but she remembered how good Merecot had been with tree spirits—she could easily crush the students with their own walls, if she were so inclined. Master Klii, who specialized in fire spirits, had the students within a ring of fire. Triple layers of protection. The headmistress couldn’t do any better than that. No one had ever protected an academy so thoroughly.
She hoped it was enough.
In her office at the top of the tree, she watched the foreign spirits pour across the city border. She heard the crack and crash of trees as they fell beneath the onslaught. And she both saw and felt Queen Daleina send Aratay’s spirits out to crash against the incoming storm.
She was ready when a few spirits broke away from the battle and flew toward the academy. Tightening her control, she prepared the air spirits. She’d meet them in midair—
The earth spirits came from below.
They tunneled through the roots. Master Klii directed the fire spirits at them, but their rock bodies didn’t burn. Master Sondriane sent the water, pouring down, washing the earth back. But the rock creatures crawled out of the mud and muck.
The children were screaming.
And the window by Hanna’s desk shattered as the air spirits slammed into it. She turned and ran out the office door and to the stairs—and then she leaped. She called air spirits to her as she fell, and three flew to her, breaking her fall. She flew down toward the children. As the foreign spirits pressed closer, the headmistress and the teachers drew a shell around them: wood, earth, fire, water, wind, and ice. They layered it and clung to one another within, as the enemy burned, rained, froze, and tore, trying to reach them.
She’s too strong, the headmistress thought. Her former student had only grown in power. Heir Naelin wouldn’t be enough. Only a queen could hope to defeat a queen. Fight her, Daleina. Fight with everything you have.