“Not such a big deal to toss in another stick,” Renet said. “Couldn’t you just—”
“Fine.” Using her mind, Naelin shoved the fire spirit away from the camp. It squawked, then unfurled blackened wings from its lizardlike back, and flew in a streak up toward the sky to vanish amid the clouds and stars. The embers sputtered in its wake. Clambering out of his hammock, Renet coaxed the fire back to life.
She tried to force her body to relax, compelling it to obey her as if it were a recalcitrant spirit. Each body part she ordered to calm, tensing then releasing each muscle. She’d done this before, when she was a child, after spirits had murdered her family. She remembered lying alone at night, with the forest sounds all around her, and coaxing first her legs then her arms to lie limp until at last she succumbed to sleep. She hadn’t thought about that in a long time—those first few nights, when she was so afraid she’d see and hear them again in her nightmares.
She hadn’t thought she’d ever have to do this again.
“I don’t want to not talk about them,” Renet said out of nowhere. “That feels wrong.”
Far below, the frogs were calling to one another. Llor had always like the sound of them. Like an orchestra. But one that hasn’t practiced, he’d say. Like at school. They’re terrible. “Everything about this feels wrong,” Naelin said. “Please, let me sleep. Talk tomorrow.” Or after I save them. She didn’t let herself hear his reply—she sent her mind out, mixing with the spirits, submerging herself in the comforting maelstrom of their anger and hate.
She slept at some point, linked to the spirits, and when she woke, she felt as if she were seeing the forest through a thousand eyes all at once. Her head spun. Lying still, Naelin focused, drawing her mind back bit by bit into her body, feeling her legs, arms, back, face. Ven and Renet were already awake, wrapping up their hammocks and putting out the fire, leaving only a bowl-like divot of char in the crook of the tree. She lay there, not wanting to move, not wanting to think, not wanting to face the world, and then she propelled herself out of the hammock. She wrapped up her ropes and secured them onto her pack.
“Llor used to like to surprise me awake,” Renet said, his voice warm with the memory.
She flinched as if smacked across the knuckles.
“He had a feather that he’d stick in my ear and wiggle, but long before he struck, I’d hear him cross the boards—they creaked. I kept promising you I’d fix that. Should have done it. But it wasn’t the creaking that woke me, it was the giggling.”
She remembered. Llor couldn’t help laughing in anticipation. When he was even younger, he’d do that if someone tried to tickle him too—just the sight of his sister wiggling her fingers would send him into a fit of giggles. His laughter had been the brightest, best sound in the world. “Still not ready to talk,” Naelin said. She felt a lump in her throat, thick and heavy, hard to swallow around. “But do what you need to do.” It was his pain too. She couldn’t deny him that. She could, though, not listen.
And not think.
I won’t reminisce about them as if they’re gone for good.
They’re still alive. They have to be.
Reaching out, she summoned three more air spirits—one was a wispy swirl of feathers and the other two had human bodies, swan wings, and smooth, featureless faces. She climbed on one, and so did Ven and Renet.
As she flew, Naelin plunged her mind into the spirits of Aratay, preparing them for battle. She pulled tree spirits from their homes and sent them northward, toward the border with Semo. She guided air spirits high above the canopy and had spun them until she had whirlwinds. The earth spirits she fed, drawing them through the soil and rocks, until they grew stronger, full of their connection to the earth. They sucked in her rage, like water into a sponge, but she didn’t feel it diminish—instead it grew, spreading and expanding through all the spirits of Aratay, until Naelin felt them like fire inside her veins. It hurt as it burned, but it was a good hurt.
Today they’d reach the capital, and then she’d release all that fire at Semo.
Across the forest, Ven saw Mittriel rising gloriously above the forest. Its trees were white spires piercing the green of the pines and the gold of the autumn leaves. Waterfalls crashed between the trees, and bridges, teeming with people, spanned between the massive trunks.
We can’t fly there, he thought. Not without being seen.
Right now, that was the last thing they wanted. If there were even the faintest chance Erian and Llor were still alive, as Naelin believed . . . and he wanted to believe they were . . . then drawing attention could endanger them. Until we know who took them and why, we have to be careful.
He urged the spirit forward as if it were a horse, trying to get close enough to Naelin to shout to her. His spirit flattened its wings and shot forward, knocking him back. Gripping the rope that held him on, he stayed mounted, and his spirit mount finally pulled alongside Naelin.
Focused on the city ahead, she didn’t look at him.
“Naelin! We have to land! You can’t come into the capital like this—you’ll terrify everyone if we come racing in on the backs of spirits. We’ll start a panic!”
She frowned at him. Her mouth opened as if she were saying, “What?”
He pointed exaggeratedly to the forest underneath them. “Land! Now!”
That she seemed to understand. His spirit did as well, and dove, and it was all he could do to cling to its neck as it bashed into the trees below. He saw in a flash the tangle of bridges before the spirit plummeted between them. “Land!” he shouted at it. He thumped its neck. “Land, you stupid thing!”
He saw the forest floor below—closer, closer, closer . . . The spirit shot upward and then glided onto an empty bridge. Quickly he untangled the rope and jumped off. He glared at it. Given that it was eyeless, he didn’t know if the spirit could appreciate the balefulness of his full glare. “You realize I have a sword,” Ven told the monster, just in case.
Beside him, Renet got shakily off his spirit. “It realized if you struck it, you’d fall.” He untied his safety rope and stepped back from his spirit. “Ugh, I hate these things.”
A few yards away, Naelin dismounted, patted the feathery neck of her spirit, and then raised her hands. At her unspoken command, all three spirits flew off into the trees.
“Good riddance,” Renet said, and Ven was inclined to agree with him. He’d far rather trust to his own skill and luck when he traveled than to be so dependent on a being that hated him. The only thing that kept the spirit from dumping him a mile up was Naelin’s control, and while Ven trusted her, he still didn’t like it.
An entire life with spirits as your enemy didn’t just go away because the damn things were convenient.
He watched as Naelin frowned at the trees, calculating the distance to the palace, and he wasn’t surprised when she turned to him and demanded, “Why stop here?”
“I was trying to tell you in the air, but there are two reasons: one, the people are already on edge. If they saw their queen racing to the palace weeks sooner than expected, they’d think another battle was imminent. We’d panic them. At worst, cause a riot. At best, scare people who have already been scared enough.” He scanned the nearby area. They were on the outskirts of the city, a quiet neighborhood. Given the time of day, it was mostly empty—the children were in school, and the adults were working, in one of the shops or in the palace or elsewhere, keeping the city functioning. The key was that no one was around. Good. When he turned back to look at Naelin, though, any relief he felt washed away. There was something about her eyes. Then it hit him.