“Duly noted,” Naelin bit off, and then she commanded the spirits, Fly!
With a roarlike cry, the spirits launched themselves up from the branch. Naelin felt the wind in her face as they soared upward between the branches. Orange and yellow leaves blurred around them until they burst through the canopy into the sun.
Her stomach felt as if it had stayed behind down in the branches. But she just gritted her teeth and held on. The wind yanked on her hair, pulling it into her eyes, and she wiped it back so she could see.
Below, the forest looked like a toddler’s painting: reds, oranges, and yellows spattered everywhere, on a backdrop of dark green. The sun bathed it all in light, so bright that it even washed the blue out of the sky. If she’d turned around, she would have seen the haze of the untamed lands, where Bayn might or might not be alive. If she’d looked north, she would have seen the mountains of Semo, where her children might or might not . . .
She didn’t look.
They flew until the sun began to sink and the stars began to poke through the darkening blue. Beneath her, Naelin felt the spirit’s wingbeats begin to slow. Touching their minds, she felt their exhaustion. It seeped into her bones and muscles.
As much as it annoyed her to stop, she guided them down into the trees. Landing on a broad branch, she slid off the spirit’s back and sagged against the trunk of the tree. Her legs felt wobbly, as if they’d forgotten how to stand. Beside her, Ven and Renet both dismounted. Renet dropped immediately into a crouch and hung his head between his knees.
Leave us, she told the spirits.
The winged-jaguar spirits obeyed, taking off from the branch and then gliding between the trees. They disappeared into the gathering shadows.
“Decent place to camp,” Ven noted.
Lowering his pack, he took out a tangle of rope. Ven strung hammocks, and Renet tied their packs securely to the trunk. “I can start a fire,” Renet offered. His voice sounded rough, as if he hadn’t used it in days. He wasn’t meeting her eyes either, which was fine with Naelin. If he met her eyes, she’d see all the memories they shared together: first steps, first words, the time when Erian first toddled out of her own bed and climbed into theirs, Llor crafting drums out of boxes, crates, pots and pans . . .
“I’ll do it,” Naelin said, stopping him before he gathered any wood. She tried to make it a kind of peace offering. He had to be going through the same kind of agony she was, clinging to the belief that it wasn’t too late, that they could still be saved.
Ven handed her a fire stick, but she rejected it. Instead she reached out with her mind and grabbed control of a nearby fire spirit. Yanking it to their camp, she instructed it to burn in the crook of the tree.
Not far from their camp, a tree spirit cried out.
Naelin silenced the cry, holding the tree spirit still with her mind as if pinning it with her hands. At the same time, she kept the fire spirit pinned in place in the fire pit. This fire spirit looked like a lizard with red, orange, and blue flames for scales.
“Ven, do we have dinner?”
Unstrapping his bow, Ven selected three arrows. “We will.” He then bounded off over the branches while his hands fitted the arrow to the bow.
Naelin unpacked a few herbs. She had no appetite but was aware she had to fuel her body to keep it functioning. Which is exactly what she was doing right now: functioning. Soon, though, she’d need to be more—if she was going to attack the queen of another country, she’d need every ounce of strength.
“I can never decide if it’s arrogance that he doesn’t bring more arrows, or if he just knows he’s that good,” Renet said, watching Ven leap from branch to branch.
“He’s experienced.”
“So am I, but I take a quiver.”
“Your idea of hunting involves a visit to town and a nap. Besides, I can help him.” Turning her attention to where Ven stalked, several branches above them, creeping up on a hole in a branch, Naelin snatched a nearby tree spirit and made it collapse the squirrel’s hole.
The squirrel darted out.
Ven shot it between the eyes.
It fell from the branch, and Naelin instructed a hawklike spirit to retrieve it. Winging down from the upper branches, the spirit scooped the carcass up in its talons, then dropped it into her hands. She pulled the arrow out and handed the animal to Renet while she cleaned the tip. “You’re scary when you’re like this,” Renet told her. “You know that, right?”
“You wanted this. Me using my powers. Me wielding a queen’s powers.”
“Yes, but . . .” He stopped, and she knew what he was going to say: not at the cost of their children. He didn’t say it, and she felt her anger toward him soften. “Never mind.”
She wanted to apologize for snapping at him, for feeling so much like a volcano about to erupt and destroy everyone around her. He didn’t deserve that. No one did. Except Merecot.
Bending over the squirrel, he skinned and prepared it. He dropped the remnants down the trunk of the tree, to be scavenged by animals far below their camp. “You don’t need to forgive me. I won’t forgive myself.”
She knew the words she was supposed to speak: It’s not your fault, you couldn’t have fought the spirits, you did your best, but she couldn’t make herself say them. Ven shot two more squirrels, one arrow each, and Naelin repeated the process, fetching the bodies via spirit and giving them to Renet to skin. Taking the meat, Naelin skewered it onto a branch and positioned it over the fire spirit. Flames licked the edges.
As Ven climbed back to their camp, he said, “You drove them out, didn’t you? Not sporting that way.” He took back his arrows, checked to be sure the points were clean, and put them back in his quiver. He stowed the bow as well.
“I want to reach Mittriel as quickly as possible,” Naelin said. “We eat, we sleep, we go. Whatever you’re going to say, I don’t want to hear it.” She rubbed herbs onto the squirrel meat, twisted the stick, and instructed the fire spirit on how to hold the flame and how hot to blaze.
They waited in silence while the meat cooked, then ate in silence when it finished. Naelin watched the fire spirit coil and uncoil itself in the crook of the tree, shedding embers as it moved. If she stared at it long enough then closed her eyes, the light twisted behind her eyelids—a dance only visible after she stopped watching. It helped to have the fire spirit instead of a real fire. It didn’t remind her of the fire in the hearth at home that had kept Erian and Llor warm on cool autumn nights like this.
“You aren’t going to leave it there as we sleep, are you?” Renet asked.
“It won’t dare harm you,” Naelin said. She climbed into her hammock. The ropes folded around her. Sleep hard, she ordered herself. Please, no dreams.
“But if you’re asleep . . .”
“Scream if it bites you. I’ll wake.” Closing her eyes, she tried to will herself to sleep. Nearby, she heard Renet and Ven climbing into their hammocks.
She heard Renet whisper, “I can’t tell if she’s serious or joking.”
“Unclear,” Ven said.
“Whatever you do, don’t ask her,” Renet said.
“You do realize she can hear you, right?” Ven asked. Naelin heard him shift and a branch creaked. She heard all the noises in the night forest: the wind rustling the leaves, the owls hooting to one another, the croak of the frogs far below. The forest was unbearably loud.
“Sorry, Naelin,” Renet said. “It’s just . . . This isn’t like you. Keeping a spirit so close.”
I’ll never be “like me” again. She could see that, objectively, like a healer viewing a broken body. I failed the only task that ever mattered: keeping my children safe. I’m broken. “It will keep us warm tonight, and no one will have to feed the fire.”