The Queen of Sorrow (The Queens of Renthia #3)
Sarah Beth Durst
Chapter 1
Everything will be better soon, Daleina thought.
She’d climbed to the top of the canopy and was balancing on two slender branches. Spread before her, the forests of Aratay looked magnificent. Red, orange, and yellow leaves blazed like candle flames in the late-afternoon sun.
This high up, she could see across all of western Aratay, even as far as the untamed lands beyond the border. Shrouded by a thick mist, the untamed lands looked as if they were boiling. As she watched, a mountain burst out of the soupy haze, and then it crumbled. Beyond the borders of the world, everything was as ephemeral as a sand castle washed away by waves.
So long as Aratay had a queen, it would never be like that.
And right now, we have two!
It was a heady thought, because with two queens . . . We can fix all that was broken.
Below her, she heard Naelin—the second queen of Aratay—huffing as she climbed up the tree. Daleina wanted to tell her to call a spirit to fly her up to the canopy, but she didn’t bother. She knew how Naelin would feel about that. The other queen despised using spirits for “nonessential purposes.” In truth, she’s afraid of them, Daleina thought.
And honestly, it was a sensible way to feel.
Today, though, Daleina didn’t want to be sensible. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath of sweet, fresh air. Today we begin!
The branches jiggled as Naelin popped her head up between the leaves. “And why can’t”—she puffed—“we do this midforest?”
Daleina tilted her head back to feel the sun on her face. It was as warm as Hamon’s caress. She stuffed that lovely thought away, to save for later, when she wasn’t with Naelin. “Because it’s beautiful up here.”
“Beauty.” Naelin humphed and heaved herself up. “Sure, it’s beautiful. But it’s also reckless, and we have no heirs.”
Daleina flinched—she was the last person who needed to be reminded of that—but she refused to let it destroy her mood. Opening her eyes, she pointed to a hole in the canopy. As she’d hoped, from this high up, it was easy to spot the damaged areas. “We’ll start with that one.”
Once there had been a tree filling that hole, probably a grand one with sprawling branches and dense leaves, but now . . . The barren patch looked like a black island in the sea of green. Merecot had left countless dead zones in the wake of her invasion. Yet another thing I can’t quite forgive her for. She’d wounded Daleina’s beloved Aratay when she’d attacked—killing its spirits killed the land. They’d pushed the queen of Semo out, but her influence was still visible throughout the country.
The time for fighting was over. Now was the time for healing.
“Come on.” Dropping down, Daleina scampered over the branch until she found a wire path. She hooked a carabiner over the wire. “The closer we are, the easier it will be.”
“Can’t we just—”
Kicking off, Daleina sailed through the leaves. She whooped, and whatever the other queen was saying was lost in the rush of wind. She knocked yellow leaves off their branches, and they filled the air, making her feel as if she were flying through a cyclone of gold.
She reached the next tree quickly, landing on a platform. Unhooking herself from the wire, she waited for Naelin to join her.
“You’re torturing me on purpose,” Naelin said as she landed. She was sweating, her doelike brown-and-gray hair sticking to her forehead. Her cheeks were flushed.
“Not on purpose.” Daleina crouched, peering through the trees. “It’s just a happy accident.” She flashed her a smile, to show she was only joking. Of course, she wasn’t entirely sure that Naelin had a sense of humor. They hadn’t spent much time together, at least not without either Naelin’s children or Ven.
No matter. I thought it was funny.
A rope bridge led from the platform toward the barren area—very convenient. She wondered why . . . Oh. A village must have been there. Her heart sank. When the tree died, the villagers’ homes had been destroyed. Maybe lives lost. Moving more slowly, Daleina led the way from the tree to the bridge. She tried not to imagine how many could have lived there.
I did the best I could, she told herself, not for the first time.
Per usual, it didn’t make her feel better.
The nation wasn’t the only thing that needed healing.
The ropes were mossy and frayed, and the bridge swayed and bounced as she and Naelin crossed to the next platform. From there, they could see the barren area: roughly a circle, the width of one of the massive oak trees that commonly held homes in their branches. Below, very far below, the ground was dry and gray, lifeless. It was ringed by thick underbrush that wouldn’t creep even an inch into the dead land—Not until we fix it, Daleina thought.
Daleina reached into the pack she carried and pulled out a coil of rope. She selected a sturdy limb and secured the rope. She then swung herself onto it and began rappelling down the trunk of the tree.
“Really?” Naelin said.
“Or we could call a spirit and fly.”
With a sigh, the other queen began rappelling too.
Despite the reminder of her losses, it was nice to be out of the palace, away from the courtiers and counselors, away from the minutiae of running Aratay. Only one problem lay before her today: healing the land. And I can do that.
She could have done it from a distance—as queen, she had the power. And Naelin certainly had more than enough power at her disposal. The other woman practically radiated strength. But for this first barren patch, Daleina wanted to do it in person, to show Naelin how it was done. “It’s a necessary training exercise,” she’d told Ven. As champion, he couldn’t object to additional training for the new queen, especially since Naelin had jumped from woodswoman to queen with barely any instruction.
He’d seen right through Daleina, of course. “You just want a break from the throne.”
“It is an uncomfortable chair,” she’d agreed.
“I’ll hunt for more pillows while you’re gone.” And to demonstrate, he’d notched an arrow into his bow and shot it into the nearest couch. Down feathers had puffed into the air.
Halfway down the tree, Daleina and Naelin switched from the rope to a ladder that had been built into the trunk, presumably for the villagers to descend to the forest floor to forage for berries and hunt for deer. It was easier climbing the ladder, and soon they reached the ground and waded through the bushes to the barren area.
It was as lifeless as Daleina had thought. Or, actually, more so. She’d seen what drought could do, but even then, there was always a sense of something in the soil. Now, though, she felt nothing as dust swirled around their feet while they walked. Kneeling, she scooped up a handful of the dry earth, letting the dead grains fall through her fingers. Sitting on a rock, Naelin drank from her canteen. A few drops landed on the ground and were quickly sucked into the earth.
“When the spirit, or spirits, who belonged to this tree died, the land died,” Daleina said. “Bringing it back to life is more than just instructing a water spirit to bring rain or a tree spirit to plant a few seeds. We have to tie spirits to the land—otherwise it either stays a dead zone or, worse, the spirits run rampant over it, like in the untamed lands. The trick is that all the nearby spirits are already tied to their own trees or streams or bits of earth, so they’ll need to be encouraged to claim more.” She caught Naelin’s expression out of the corner of her eye. The other queen’s lips were curved up in amusement. “What?”
She was definitely laughing. “Nothing.”
“This is serious. Homes could have been here. People could have died.”