Arin grimaced. “Or not.”
Cajara let out a little chirp of a laugh, frowned, as if surprised to be laughing, then laughed again. She sobered quickly, though. “I wasn’t ready.”
“No one ever is, when the future comes.” Hanna held her arms up, hating that she needed to ask for help. A world filled with so much power, and she couldn’t stand. Stop it, she told herself. You’re alive. That’s power enough. “Help me mount? We can’t stay here. The Semoians must meet their new queen.”
Over her shoulder, Cajara asked, “Champion Havtru, can you—” and saw her champion’s lifeless body.
Poor girl. First to lose her homeland, then her mentor. Hanna spoke gently. “He kept them from the grove until you could claim the crown. And he kept me alive.” She wondered if the girl had seen death up close before. There were few in Renthia who hadn’t. Still, it was a shock if the death was someone who was supposed to keep you alive. She braced herself—this shock piled on top of all the others of the day could prove to be too much for the young queen.
But Cajara simply said, “We can’t leave him here. Not like this.” There were tears on her cheeks, but she was a quiet crier. And more important, she didn’t collapse in despair or fall apart in panic. Perhaps she will handle the crown just fine, Hanna thought.
“You have the power,” Arin said. She was holding Cajara’s hand again. Hanna approved—the new queen of Semo was going to need as much support as she could get. “He can be buried here.”
Cajara shook her head. “No, he’d want to be home.”
“Then send him there,” Hanna suggested. “As far as the border. From there, the Aratayian border guards will take care of him. And when we’ve left here, perhaps you could send my four guards as well. And the woodsman Renet to his family. They all deserve to be buried with honor, at home.” Searching through her skirts, Hanna located a piece of parchment. She’d kept it for her next message to Daleina, but it would be better used for this. While she wrote a note to the border guards of Aratay, explaining who he was and how he died and to expect five more bodies to follow, an air spirit spiraled down from between the stone peaks. It was a bird-shaped spirit with a body as soft as clouds. A tree spirit scurried down from the tree and lifted Havtru’s body onto the spirit, nestled on the bird’s back. Hanna handed the note to Cajara, who affixed it onto Havtru’s leather armor, threading it onto the straps. She then crossed his arms over his chest and whispered to him.
Hanna couldn’t hear her words, but she didn’t need to. She bowed her head in respect until the air spirit lifted off, carrying Havtru skyward. They watched him until the bird spirit was indistinguishable from the clouds.
For several minutes, there was silence. Then Cajara spoke again. “I don’t know this land. I don’t know these people. What if the Semoians don’t like having another Aratayian as their queen?” Hanna heard the quaver in her soft voice. Fear.
Hanna smiled. “We’ll make them like it.” Now, that sounded like a challenge worthy of her skills. She hadn’t had a challenge like this in . . . well, not since she’d taken over at Northeast Academy.
“You’ll stay with me?” Cajara said, her young eyes brightening.
“Of course we will,” Arin said firmly.
“But what about your family, your home, your bakery . . . your dreams! And you, Ambassador Hanna, your academy—it’s your life’s work!”
Arin shrugged, as if this were a minor decision. “I’m allowed to have new dreams.”
“And making queens is my life work,” Hanna said to her. “We will both stay.”
Naelin buried Renet in the untamed lands, beside the cave of the Great Mother. Quietly, the villagers helped her dig—they’d lost two of their own as well in the spirit attack, and they lined all three graves in a row.
On either side of her, Erian and Llor clung to her hands. Both of them were silent.
Ven handed out shovels, rotating them among those who wanted to dig. He then came to stand beside Naelin and the children. Releasing her, Llor flung his arms around Ven and buried his face in Ven’s stomach. Ven stroked his hair.
Softly, Ven said, “They never had graves before. Not that stayed.”
She nodded. Others in the village had told her that. They’d tried to bury their dead with honor and dignity, but the markers would be swallowed by the earth. Or the hill they’d chosen would be transformed into a lake. “These will stay,” Naelin promised. “And we will stay.”
Bring me stones, she asked the earth spirits. As beautiful as you can find.
She felt the spirits burrow deep into the soil and within the rock of the mountains as she watched the villagers lower the three bodies, wrapped in white cloth, into the fresh graves. She could have had the spirits also refill the dirt, but she didn’t—the people wanted to do it themselves. Not “want,” she corrected herself. Need.
As the first shovelful of dirt landed softly in the hole, Erian turned away. Naelin knelt and wrapped her in her arms. Erian began to cry into her shoulder.
Pressing her lips against Erian’s hair, Naelin wished with all her heart that she could take the pain away. She felt spirits cluster around her. Rain began to softly fall, and she didn’t try to stop it. Air spirits thickened around them—she felt their curiosity, as well as a mirror of her sadness.
Like with the rain, she knew she could control it now—if she wanted to, she could block that sadness away, keep it from spilling onto the spirits, but she didn’t. Not today. Today we all mourn.
For those who died. For those who are left behind. For futures we could have had.
As the final shovelful was added to the graves, Naelin felt the earth spirits return. She called to them, and the earth disgorged jewels:
Opals that glittered with a hundred colors.
Rubies with fire-red hearts.
Diamonds, cloudy and rough.
Also, beautiful shards of tiger-striped stones, pink-laced granite, pure white marble, and mica-flecked basalt. Swarming, the earth spirits laid the gems and rocks over the three graves.
“Will you make the white flowers bloom?” Erian asked, muffled against her shoulder. “Like in the forest?”
“Yes,” Naelin said, stroking her hair again. “And I can make them bloom again every time you miss him.”
“I’ll always miss him,” Erian said.
“Then they’ll always bloom,” she promised.
She then called to the tree spirits, and white flowers spread over the graves and over the Great Mother’s cave. They bloomed all around the feet of Naelin, her family, and the villagers.
Within the palace in Mittriel, Hamon changed his mother’s bandages. These had less blood on them, which was a nice improvement. She was beginning to heal. Her hand closed on his wrist.
“You won’t look at me, Hamon. Why not?”
He looked at her, then looked away, fixing his eyes on the rolls of bandages and tubs of ointment. He’d saved her. His tormentor. The murderer. She’d be free and healthy and ready to hurt more innocent people whenever the whim struck her. “I want you to leave, when you’re well enough.”
He expected her to argue, to say he was her beloved son and of course she had to stay by him and make up for the time they’d lost, or some other nonsense that he’d never believed. She hadn’t stayed for him; she’d come and she’d stayed only for herself.
But she didn’t argue, which was a minor miracle. “I have been thinking that a journey would be nice. See the world while I still can, after your wedding, of course. Perhaps Semo, the land I’ve heard so much about. Or Belene. There are some fascinating potions that I’m told come from the islands.”
He did look at her now, fully, to see if she was lying. It would be like her to raise his hopes then laugh when she dashed them, but she had a contemplative look on her face. Perhaps the brush with death has changed her. Then he dismissed that as impossible. His mother would never change.
She patted his hand. “It’s enough that I know you do love me after all.”