More bows. “Our deepest apologies, but we are not permitted—”
Hanna wheeled forward. “Actually, I’d like to show Queen Naelin the gardens. I think she’d find them soothing after her journey. Could you please escort us there instead? Feel free to send word to Queen Merecot as to where we are, but I don’t think she’ll have any objections. And if she does . . . she is welcome to come join us for a stroll.”
Naelin opened her mouth to object, but Hanna quelled her with a frown.
The servant looked troubled for a moment but smoothed his expression quickly enough. Bowing, he led them—with guards, of course, both Hanna’s own and Merecot’s castle guards—out of the West Room and down the sloping, spiraled hall.
The castle was shaped, Hanna had discovered, like a conch shell, with curves and spirals, vastly easier to navigate in a chair than the ladders, stairs, and ropes of Mittriel. It also gave the impression of immense distances within the structure, helped by the high ceilings and tall, narrow windows that allowed slits of light to pattern the floor. A clever design, Hanna thought. Everything about this castle was designed to impress and intimidate. “You’ve heard Merecot’s assessment of the situation,” Hanna said. “I’d like to give you mine.”
“Good idea,” Ven said.
“My children . . .” Naelin began.
“Your children’s safety depends on our cooperation,” Hanna said. “You’ve come this far. Be patient a little longer, Your Majesty.”
Hanna said nothing further until their escort had delivered them to the gardens. She was certain that Merecot would have spies, even spirits as spies, following them, but there was no point in making it easy for her. She thanked the servant and wheeled forward in between two stone statues of soldiers with raised swords.
The famed Gardens of Arkon were, like much of Semo, made of stone. The works of spirits, guided by queens of the past, lined the walkways. Hanna’s favorites were the ones of people: children carved out of black basalt tossing a ball, an elderly woman carrying a bucket of water all carved out of a blue stone flecked with gold, two men playing a game with round white and black stones, a gardener carved so long ago that the rain had worn away his expression . . .
She rolled down the paths, her wheels crunching over the pebbles. “You can see here what beauty a queen with control over her spirits can create.” She waved her hand to gesture at an exquisite sculpture of a mother with a child on one hip and a sword on the other—the sun hit her face just right, to highlight the fierceness of her expression. Hanna was partial to that one.
“Lots of places for an ambush,” Ven murmured, checking behind the statue of the mother and baby and keeping his eye on the other shadows. Hanna supposed paranoia went with his job description.
“We’re safe enough for now,” Hanna said. “Merecot won’t dispose of us while there’s a chance we’ll do what she wants. You’re safest when your enemy wants to use you.”
“Rather cynical for words of wisdom,” Ven said.
Electing to ignore that, Hanna said to Naelin, “Reach out and feel the spirits of Semo.”
Naelin nodded, then her face went blank—the peculiar focused-absent look of someone who was pushing their mind out of their body. Hanna wondered how far Naelin’s range was outside of Aratay. Undoubtedly impressive. Naelin had been able to summon an earth kraken before she was linked to the spirits of Aratay, Hanna remembered. Her powers should still be intense here, even though the local spirits were linked to Merecot. She wondered what Naelin would make of the spirits of Semo.
Hanna didn’t have to wonder long.
Naelin’s eyes snapped back into focus. “They’re wild.”
“Some of them, yes. But not all.”
Her eyes lost focus again. “You’re right. Not all. There are two kinds of spirits here. One feels frightened. They’re hiding. The other . . . rage, hate, chaos, wildness.” She fixed her gaze on Hanna. “I don’t understand. In Aratay, there’s variation, but not this kind of split. Are the spirits here warring against themselves?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.” Hanna rolled farther into the garden, stopping in front of a twenty-foot marble statue of Queen Jastra in her prime, wearing the steel armor of the guards and holding the head of an earth spirit. Snakes sprouted from the spirit’s head instead of hair, and the spirit’s eyes were filled with fist-size rubies. “I have been asking questions, mostly of colleagues, scholars of spirits at the University of Arkon, as well as of several long-time chancellors who served the prior queen, and I’ve unearthed a consensus on what—or rather, who—caused Semo’s current problem. It seems that Queen Jastra, the prior queen of Semo whom you met, had grand designs on the future of her country. She was ambitious, not unlike her successor, and had plans of uniting all of Renthia under a single queen. Her, obviously. But to do that, she required greater strength.”
Ven snorted. “I see where this is going.”
“I don’t think you do,” Hanna said.
“Queen Merecot is intent on carrying out her predecessor’s dream,” Ven said. “Simple enough. She wants to control the world.”
“Right now she’s struggling to control Semo,” Hanna said. And “struggling” is an understatement. She thought of the active volcano she’d seen.
Naelin nodded. “She’s holding these spirits by constant vigilance—I can feel it. It has to be exhausting. I don’t know how she even sleeps. They’re like wolves who’ve caught the scent of prey.”
“When she sleeps, people die,” Hanna said flatly. “As powerful as she is, the spirits are strong too. If they were all linked to the land, it would be different . . . but a few hundred of them are not. They all want to be—instinct pulls them to bond with Semo as well as their queen—but there are too many spirits for the land to accommodate, which is where the warring that you sensed comes in—they’re competing for the land. The question is: Why?”
“The question is,” Ven corrected, “What do we do about it?”
Hanna glared at him. “Well, you can’t just whack them with your sword. So hush, Champion, and let me finish. This is important.” She turned back to Queen Naelin, ignoring Ven’s look of indignation at being shushed. “The wild spirits you’re sensing, My Queen—the ones who are connected to Queen Merecot but not to the land—are not native to Semo. In order to increase her power, Queen Jastra ventured into the untamed lands and brought back an army of spirits to her country. It was a clever idea. You felt for yourself how your power increased when the spirits of Aratay chose you. And you’ve felt how you are diminished when one dies. A queen’s power comes from her spirits. Queen Jastra understood this—and she concluded that the more spirits she had, the more powerful she’d be. She thought she could tie them to her and then use them to invade neighboring lands. Except there were too many—and without a link to the land, the spirits are much more erratic. Queen Jastra wasn’t strong enough to control them all, which was why she abdicated in favor of the more powerful Queen Merecot.”
Naelin’s eyes had gone wide. Ven too looked as if he’d seen an apparition. “She went into the untamed lands and survived? Naelin, do you think Bayn . . .” His voice trailed off, as if he were afraid to finish the question.
Hanna gawked at the two of them. She’d just revealed the fact that Queen Jastra had definitively proven (and disproven) multiple theories on the nature of queens and spirits that had been the subject of debate at the academies for years . . . and they were focusing instead on a wolf?
“It’s possible,” Naelin said. “If a queen could go into the untamed lands and come out again alive, maybe a ‘Protector of Queens’ could too.” She laid her hand over Ven’s. “When this is over, we’ll do what we can to find him,” she promised. “We’ll search every inch of the border, and I’ll probe the mind of every spirit within a mile of it.”