How she was tempted, though . . .
“We send Headmistress Hanna,” Naelin ultimately agreed. “She confirms they’re there and sends us a report as quickly as possible—the second she knows they’re alive. Then I go in and save them, either by helping with the excess spirits in Semo if this is not a trap or by force and guile if it is one.”
Garnah clapped her hands like a gleeful child. “And then you kill Queen Merecot?”
“Yes,” Naelin said and met Daleina’s eyes. She has to see we can’t show mercy this time. What Merecot did wasn’t just against me; it was against all of Aratay. It was an act of war, and as Daleina said herself, it must be answered.
She saw the younger queen’s shoulders sag and then straighten. Naelin waited, not breaking eye contact. At last, Daleina said, “Yes, then we kill her.”
Chapter 10
The air was still. No breeze.
The rain didn’t fall. It misted in a weak drizzle that only dampened the canopy and didn’t reach the forest floor. Grayness obscured the sky.
Fires wouldn’t light quickly. Even the most skilled woodsmen had to strike multiple sparks before anything would catch, which shouldn’t have been the case, given the lack of a proper rain.
Fruit rotted before it ripened, or failed to ripen at all.
Across Aratay, the people counted their canned fruit, preserved meat, and sacks of flour—and then counted again, hoping they had missed something that would help when the cold struck so that they’d be able to feed their families through the winter, but knowing it wouldn’t be enough and that counting wasn’t changing the fact that the harvest had failed.
That the queens had failed.
As she traveled north as the new ambassador to Semo, Hanna could feel the anguish coating the land in a musty gauze that dampened all joy and darkened all colors. She had coached Queen Naelin as much as she could before she left, but the new queen was too powerful and already too set in her ways on how she used her power. It was why heirs were always found as girls, to be trained while their minds were still malleable. With half a life already in hand, Naelin couldn’t just shake the foundations she had built that informed who she was. And yet that very foundation had been shaken—her belief in her ability to keep her children safe—and now her emotions leaked through every time she wasn’t consciously blocking them, even in her sleep.
While she fretted, the land fretted too.
In all honesty, it matched Hanna’s mood as well. She wanted to believe this wasn’t a trap, that Merecot was merely desperate on behalf of her people, that the children were alive and unharmed and would be returned safely to their mother . . . but after all she’d seen and everyone who had died, it was hard to believe that everything would be all right. That it even mattered what Merecot’s intentions were. She felt as if she’d used up the last vestige of her optimism during the queen of Semo’s invasion. It died while I watched children die. Over the years, she had watched too many die, and yet this somehow felt worse.
Because betrayal always hurts more than random violence.
Wrapped in her thoughts, Hanna traveled north without talking to the four guards who accompanied her about much more than practicalities: would she be more comfortable sleeping in a hammock or on a platform, did she feel she could wheel across this bridge, would she wait while they attached the safety harnesses to her chair, could she be patient while they fetched the basket for her to ride in. She was aware it was not simple to travel through the trees with an old woman who couldn’t walk, even with a chair adapted to the forest, and she prided herself on keeping any complaints about her own discomfort to herself and handling her aches and pains as best she could.
Champion Ven would have told her not to be a martyr. But I am so very good at martyrdom, Hanna would have replied.
She noticed when the forest began to change, switching from hearty oaks to spindly, stark-white birches. With their golden fall leaves, they looked like bright candles against the dark pines. After another day of traveling, the guards called a halt to ask her, with respectful bows, how she would prefer to continue: on the forest floor—which would be easier to wheel over, since it lacked the vast roots of the deeper woods but would leave them more vulnerable to bears, wolves, and other predators who hunted below—or the bridges, which ran nearly all the way to the border but were often rudimentary at best. The chair was well suited for the capital, but this far out . . . “I leave the decision in your capable hands,” Hanna told them. “This is not my area of expertise.”
The truth was, even when she didn’t need the chair, she hadn’t left the capital in many years and rarely even left the academy—and then, usually only when she was summoned to the palace. She found, as they continued on via the bridges, that she was beginning to look forward to seeing Semo. She’d never imagined she’d have the chance to travel beyond the forests. “I very much hope the experience is not the death of me,” she said.
“Your pardon, Ambassador?” one of the guards asked as he carried her across a swaying rope bridge. Another guard carried her chair.
“Talking to myself,” Hanna said with a wave. “It’s one of the joys you’ll discover as you get older: the amusement of your own company.”
“I see, Ambassador.”
She patted his weathered cheek as he lowered her back into her chair. “No, you don’t. But you’re polite, which is important for our new role.” She looked at each of her guards. Queen Daleina had spared four of her personal guards, two men and two women. When Hanna had objected that it was too many, Daleina had said, Possible trap, remember? I don’t want to receive a message that you’ve been assassinated and have to listen to anyone say “I told you so.” Hanna pursed her lips and hoped that they were all worrying too much and that Merecot’s letter had been truthful. “So that we’re clear, I do not expect any of you to take a knife in the gut for me. It would be far better to deflect the blade in the first place. Be alert. We don’t know what we will find when we arrive.”
All of them agreed, because it was sensible, obvious advice, but she felt better for having said it. She had to trust that they were trained enough to avoid obvious mistakes. And I have to hope that I don’t make any either.
She made a point to memorize their names, scolding herself for being so self-absorbed that she hadn’t done it earlier: Evenna, Serk, Tipi, and Coren.
Evenna, the head guard, had a husband back in Mittriel, a scar on her left cheek, and skin as black as Healer Hamon’s. She was middle-aged and had been a palace guard for twenty-four years. Serk, the oldest, was bald except for a blue ponytail. He used to be a border guard before he moved to the capital to take care of his aged parents. Tipi was young, energetic, and had a twitch in her right hand that she controlled when she climbed. Coren, the youngest guard at nineteen, fidgeted a lot, mostly because he was nineteen. All of them were much younger and more fit than Hanna and seemed to take their roles as her guards very seriously. That bodes well for their survival, Hanna thought. Or at least for mine.
As they journeyed closer to the border, she found herself thinking more about what was to come than what she’d left behind. She also felt the sun on her face more often as the forest began to thin. The canopy above was no longer a thick snarl but instead a lacework of leaves that allowed light to filter through in golden shafts. But what was amazing was she could still hear canopy singers high above, even though the upper branches were as thin as a child’s arm.