The Reluctant Queen (The Queens of Renthia #2)
Sarah Beth Durst
Dedication
For my husband, Adam,
with love
always and forever
Chapter 1
Everything has a spirit: the willow tree with leaves that kiss the pond, the stream that feeds the river, the wind that exhales fresh snow . . .
And those spirits want to kill you.
It’s the first lesson that every Renthian learns.
At age five, Daleina saw her uncle torn apart by a tree spirit for plucking an apple from his own orchard. At age ten, she witnessed the destruction of her home village by rogue spirits. At age fifteen, she entered the renowned Northeast Academy, and at age nineteen, she was chosen by a champion to train as his candidate. She became heir that same year and was crowned shortly after, Queen Daleina of the Forests of Aratay, the sole survivor of the Coronation Massacre. She’d heard at least a half-dozen songs about her history, each more earsplitting than the last. She particularly hated the shrill ballads about her coronation, a day she wished she could forget. Instead she had it hammered into her skull by a soprano with overly enthusiastic lungs.
Six months after her coronation, now that the funerals—and so many of her friends’ graves—weren’t so fresh, all of Aratay wanted to celebrate their new queen, and she was swept along with them. For her part, she planned to demonstrate her sovereignty by healing one of the barren patches created during the massacre and replacing it with a new village tree.
It is, she thought, one of the worst ideas I’ve had in weeks.
At dawn, Daleina lay awake in bed and wished she’d chosen to celebrate with a parade instead. Parades were nice. Everybody liked parades. Or she could have simply declared today a holiday and sent everyone back to bed. But no, I had to be dramatic and queenly.
She wrapped her silk robe around her bare shoulders and walked toward the balcony. She’d chosen chambers within the branches of one of the eastern trees, rather than occupying the former queen’s rooms. It felt wrong to sleep in a bed owned by the woman she’d helped kill.
Leaning against the smooth wood of the archway, she peeked out. Her loose hair, with its streaks of red, gold, orange, and brown, fell into her face, and she shoved it back. Outside, the lemon-yellow sunlight poked between the leaves, and the bark glowed warm where the light touched it. She saw hints of sky, pale morning blue, but only when the wind blew hard enough to disturb the canopy of leaves overhead. The trees were thick in this part of the forest, with branches that curled around one another and leaves that blocked most of the sky above and all of the earth below. People were already perched in the branches, camped out early for the best view. Of her. Sighing, she retreated. You knew you’d have an audience, she told herself. Stop acting so surprised.
An amused voice behind her said, “They’re no longer calling you the Queen of Blood. Now they call you Queen Daleina the Fearless.”
Daleina snorted. “The only fearless people I’ve ever met were frightfully stupid.” Turning, she faced Captain Alet, her devoted guard and friend. Alet always seemed to have an unnatural sense of when Daleina was awake. She’d entered soundlessly and now stood in front of the ornate door. She wore her leather armor and had knives strapped to her arms and legs. Her thick black hair with the white stripe was wound up and pinned in place, and she’d tucked at least two more knives into her curls.
“It’s supposed to be a compliment, milady, but if you’d like me to discourage it, I could always stab a few of the worst offenders.”
“You’re too kind. Bloodthirsty, but kind.” Squaring her shoulders, Daleina crossed to her wardrobe. She opened the doors to reveal her celebration dress, a confection of lace that shimmered in the morning light. She touched the fabric lightly. Seventeen seamstresses had worked on it, painstakingly adding hundreds of glass beads so she would look as if she’d been sprayed with sparkling dew. The dress would catch the light even in near darkness. It was far and away the loveliest—and most impractical—thing she’d ever seen.
“You’ll have many more songs written about you after today,” Alet said.
“Especially if I die.”
“Especially then,” Alet agreed.
Daleina arched her eyebrows. “You’re supposed to say that of course I will succeed. That I’m the finest queen that Aratay has ever seen, the best of the best, the jewel of the forest, the scourge of the spirits that spill our blood, and so forth.” All the courtiers were fond of those phrases, and Daleina was certain they were recycling them from when they’d used them for her predecessor, Queen Fara. Daleina knew full well she’d never been the best of the best.
She’d merely been the only one left.
Alet was silent, and then she said, “You can still call it off.” Her expression was blank, hiding her thoughts expertly. Daleina had practiced that expression in the mirror, but it never quite worked for her. A twitch of her lips or her eyebrows always gave her away.
“You know I can’t.”
“You can,” Alet corrected. “You won’t.”
Daleina studied her friend. Alet had a fresh scar above her eyebrow. It was puckered and red, but whoever had struck her had missed her eye. She’d chosen to wear her war armor today, instead of ceremonial. The leather still had the royal crest, but it was painted gold and green, rather than encrusted with ornaments that could snag on a branch or a weapon. Why had she—Suddenly, Daleina understood. “You can’t follow me. I must do this alone. That’s what’s upsetting you.”
Alet made a face. “You’ll be vulnerable to arrows, spears, any kind of thrown implement. This isn’t like the trials, where you’re separated from the populace. You’ll be exposed to everyone and, while all your people love you deeply, a few of them also want to kill you.”
“Human enemies don’t concern me,” Daleina said. “The spirits will protect me.”
“You know you can’t trust them.”
“In this, I can.”
Alet shook her head. The knives in her hair did not move. One stray curl slipped out of its pins to touch her forehead, though. Daleina was surprised Alet allowed even that much out of her control. “The spirits want you dead,” Alet said flatly.
“They want to kill me. Slight difference. If they allow a human archer to pierce my heart with his or her arrow, then they’re denied the pleasure of skinning me alive.” Daleina lifted the beautiful dress out of the wardrobe and carried it to her bed. “Help me change?”
Sighing, Alet left her post by the door and crossed to the bed. “You should call one of the palace caretakers to assist you. This ridiculous dress has at least a thousand buttons.”