Arin: “Is she all right? What’s happening to her? Hamon, is she dying? What’s wrong with her? Make her wake up!”
And then Hamon’s mother, Garnah: “Leave her be. Can’t you see she’s concentrating? Although how she can with you two hens clucking at her, I don’t know.” Daleina heard glass shatter as Garnah snapped, “Don’t give her that! Idiot.”
She blocked them out—Garnah was right, she needed to concentrate. Naelin screamed and flailed—it was like trying to hold back a tidal wave with her arms. Naelin’s mind slammed against Daleina’s so hard that Daleina cried out. I can’t hold her, not forever. But that was never her hope . . .
Ven, she thought.
She plunged into the minds of the spirits, searching for him.
Ven knew something was wrong the second he saw spirits streaming north. This was not due to brilliant intuition. It was very obvious something was wrong. All around him, the spirits of Aratay were hurling themselves northward in an uncontrolled stream.
“Naelin!” he cried out. “What are you doing? Stop!”
But if she heard him through the ears of the spirits, it didn’t make a difference. Screaming, the spirits clawed at the land, trying to cling to the branches, and then they’d suddenly release and hurl themselves full-tilt northward.
He slashed again at the foreign spirits—the only ones immune to whatever Naelin was doing—and then he began running, following the stream of spirits. He spared a moment for regret: he was allowing the foreign spirits to escape. But there was a more immediate danger. All around him, the forest was full of Aratayian spirits, howling and shrieking as they flew and ran and slithered and crawled northward against their will. He weaved among them, ducking and leaping, trying to get ahead of them as they flowed around him. “Naelin! Stop!” he yelled.
Above him, he saw one air spirit break from the stream. It dove toward him—it had an ermine-like body and bat wings, the kind of spirit that Daleina preferred to ride. You’d better not be attacking me, he thought. But it was coming at him the same way Naelin’s spirit had when it came to carry him, so he jumped, grabbed onto its legs, and instead of fighting him off, it flew upward, bursting through the leaves of the canopy.
Across the forest, he saw trees burst into flame as if struck by lightning, he saw rivers overflow, he saw leaves darken and die, withering to black in mere seconds.
And to the north, at the Semoian border . . . he saw Aratayian spirits dying.
Ever since Queen Merecot’s failed invasion, she had kept her most powerful spirits at the border, fearing retaliation. All the border guards had reported on it. And now he was seeing it in person.
Naelin should know this! What is she thinking?
Aiming for one of the gaps, the spirits of Aratay were crashing into the Semoian spirits—and dying by the dozens. Even from this distance, he could hear their howls of pain, and he could see the effect on the forest.
“Faster!” he urged the ermine spirit.
He spotted Naelin, on the back of another air spirit, in the thick of the battle. He didn’t know what commands she was issuing, but she looked to be lashing out wildly, using the spirits as if they were her fists and swords, trying to cause as much damage as she could.
But the Semoian spirits held their line.
Ven raised his sword and urged his spirit forward, toward the queen. She wasn’t blocking herself. She’d given zero thought to defense. It was all attack. I have to reach her before—
He was only a few feet away when the stone fist of an earth spirit slammed into the side of Naelin’s head. He lunged for her as she toppled off her spirit. Her body twisted in the air as she fell. Around them, the spirits of Aratay fled south, back across the border, but Ven’s mount continued to obey him—he sent a silent thank-you to Daleina as he aimed his spirit into a dive.
He caught Naelin in his arms as a black dragonlike spirit shot toward them. Cradling his queen against his chest, he brought his sword up.
It hit with a clang against the dragon’s hide.
In Mittriel, Daleina felt the moment that Naelin lost consciousness.
It was as if all the water in a waterfall had suddenly ceased. Daleina gasped for air, suddenly able to breathe again, see again, hear again, feel again. Hamon’s arms were around her. Her sister, Arin, was kneeling in front of her, holding her hands.
She felt a faint dimming inside her as her body adjusted to the loss of power that came with the death of her spirits. It was only a slight change—she still felt the strength of the vast numbers of Aratayian spirits, buoying her—but it was becoming a depressingly familiar sensation.
Garnah, Hamon’s mother, had plopped herself on top of the banquet table and was helping herself to grapes. “Well now, that was all very exciting. You gave your loved ones quite the scare. Granted, they have the nerves of a chipmunk, but still.”
“It wasn’t me,” Daleina said, mostly to Hamon and Arin. “It was Naelin. Something happened to her children. She lost control. Not of the spirits. Of herself.” She shuddered—it was a nightmare scenario, an out-of-control queen. If Ven hadn’t been able to stop her . . .
“Oh, how delightful,” Garnah said. “A woman with nearly unlimited power is emotionally unstable. Would you like me to kill her?”
“No!” Daleina, Arin, and Hamon said simultaneously.
“Pity,” Garnah said, and ate another grape. “Death solves so many problems. Won’t you at least entertain the notion? There’s a new potion that I’ve been just dying to try, pun intended—”
“Absolutely not,” Daleina said. Enough had died. I have to reach out, try to see how much damage Naelin’s ill-conceived attack did. But first she had to recover. Her mind felt as if it had been shoved through a cheese grater. She also had to conserve strength, in case Naelin woke and decided to rage again. She’s too strong, Daleina thought. That power dump probably didn’t even leave her winded.
“Mother, could you please leave us?” Hamon asked.
“Of course.” Scooting off the table, Garnah swept toward the door. “Arin, come with me. You haven’t mastered today’s potion.”
Arin didn’t move.
Garnah commanded, “Arin, come. The crisis has passed.”
Not budging from beside her sister, Arin, squeezed Daleina’s hands. “Has it passed?”
Daleina tentatively reached her mind toward the northwest corner of Aratay—This much I can do without exhausting myself, she thought. Even still, she felt herself stretch thin as she strained to touch the borders. The spirits had fled, hiding and burrowing as deep and as far south as they could. All was still. Drawing her mind back, Daleina nodded at Arin. “I believe so.”
Arin didn’t let go. Daleina saw the worry on her sister’s face as plain as if it had been painted there, and she felt a stab of guilt—Arin was still so young. Not yet fifteen. She should be in their home village, chasing her dream of someday owning her own bakery, figuring out who she was and what she cared about, maybe finding someone to take the place of Josei, the boy she’d dreamed of someday marrying . . . Instead she was here in the palace, worrying about catastrophes, and Josei was dead, one of the first casualties of Daleina’s ascension. Arin’s eyes bored into hers. “You’ll call for me, if anything changes? If you need me at all?”
“I will,” Daleina promised, although she wished she could just send Arin back home. The middle of a crisis was not the time to start an argument with her sister, though. Later, she promised herself, I’ll find a way to get her out of danger. Daleina shot Garnah a look and hoped the woman understood that if anything happened to Arin . . .
Garnah met her eyes without blinking, and Daleina was certain she did understand. Hamon’s mother had an excellent survival instinct. It was empathy and other ordinary emotions that she lacked. Herding Arin before her, Garnah left the room.
Daleina and Hamon were alone.