Below, the spirit he’d woken with his punch stalked around the base of the tree. Roots thickened beneath its feet, and ferns unfurled. It snarled but didn’t pursue them. Bayn faded back into the underbrush.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ven saw Alet speed up so that she climbed beside him, grabbing branches at the same time he did and hoisting herself higher. Soon, they had a rhythm—the boughs bent beneath them and then flung them upward as they leapt. “Ven, you have to choose a candidate. I know you don’t want to. I know it means admitting what we don’t want to be true, but you must. The queen needs you. She’s counting on you. You, Ven. You’re the one who found her. You’re the one she expects to find her heir.”
“I’m not saying I’m not going to find one. I’m just not going to find her heir at an academy.” Standing on the top branch, he straightened until his shoulders and head were above the canopy. He looked out across the green sea, the top of the forests of Aratay.
Climbing up, Alet stood beside him. “You don’t know that. One of the other academies—”
“They will all be the same. Children, all of them.” There was no reason to think another academy would be any different. Northeast Academy was the finest. He’d be wasting his time. Daleina’s time, he corrected. “If I choose a child, she will die, and Aratay with her.” Ven shook his head as if that would clear his mind of the images of those children, torn apart by spirits. “It’s been a century or more since Aratay was heirless. And so I believe we must find our heir the old-fashioned way. Not through an academy.”
Alet’s fists were on her hips as her feet straddled two branches. Wind slapped against her, shaking the tree, but she remained motionless, glaring at him. “You’re telling me you want to head blindly out into the forest, in search of a miracle?”
“Yes,” he said.
Chapter 5
The forests of Aratay were as vast and deep as an ocean. There were dark paths that hadn’t seen sunlight in a century, as well as quiet groves of new saplings with trunks only as thick as a child’s finger. A few roads, glorified animal tracks, ran on the ground between the trees, and the wire paths ran through the upper canopy, but most towns were nestled in the branches, midforest level, and connected by bridges. Other towns and villages were within the trunks. A few others thrived on the forest floor, and a rare few men and women, primarily the canopy singers, lived in the top level, nearest the sun. Naelin and her family lived midforest in a loose collection of homes that counted as a village. When Naelin first moved there, the village hadn’t even been large enough to warrant a name, but now it was called East Everdale, as if tying it to the larger town of Everdale would lend it legitimacy. She liked it just as much with or without a name. It was home.
Naelin loved the forest, all the layers and shades of green, so many shades that there weren’t words to describe them all—a spectrum of green, from the hopeful green of new leaves to the contemplative moss green on the forest floor, so dark it was nearly black. She wished she were a poet to capture in words the way the forest changed as the light changed. She had to content herself with just drinking the colors in as she stole a few precious moments alone before her husband came home for dinner. She settled into the crook of a branch above the roof of her home, a torn shirt on her lap and a needle with thread in her hand.
Below her, inside the house, she heard the voices of her children: Erian and Llor. As they clomped inside, Llor was bragging about how many squirrels he’d shot with his new bow. Erian praised him and then told him to skin the squirrels himself, because Mama would be so impressed if he did. Naelin smiled. She’d done right there. She heard her own voice echoed in her daughter’s. Naelin listened as Erian patiently coached Llor through the steps for preparing the meat. He squealed and eww-ed, and soon both children were laughing. Picking up the torn shirt, Naelin added a few more stitches, and then she froze.
She sniffed the air.
The forest smelled stronger, as if it had recently rained.
With her foot, she thumped on the roof of their house. “Erian, did your father put out the fresh charms for the spirits?” she called.
“Yes, he said he did . . .”
He says a lot of things, Naelin thought. Some of them are even true. “Would you check, please?” She kept her voice light and pleasant. “Look on the shelf and see if they’re still there.”
Naelin heard rustling, as if Erian were sorting through the herb shelf. Familiar prickles walked up and down her skin—she was being watched by flat eyes, spirit eyes. Multiple sets of them. They weren’t close enough to see yet, but she could sense them.
“Erian?”
He hadn’t done it. Naelin was certain.
“Erian, I won’t be angry. Tell me the truth, baby. When were the charms last laid?”
Erian’s voice was a wail, rising through the roof. “I don’t know! Father said he did today’s and yesterday’s. . . . But the basket is still here, and the herbs are dry. I’ll take it now—”
Naelin jumped to her feet, dumping the half-mended shirt off her. “No! Stay inside, both of you. Close the shutters, lock the doors, and hide yourselves. You know where. Not a peep.”
She heard Llor begin to cry. She hadn’t meant to scare them, except that yes, she did. They should be scared. Scared children hid, and she needed them to hide right now.
The cities and towns had organized protection, but on the outskirts, everyone looked after their own—they’d lived through enough queens to know you couldn’t always depend on their protection, no matter what the songs and tales gleefully promised. Songs were written by canopy dwellers and tales by city folk. The spirits out here were bolder. Despite this, she’d always done fine. She had a knack for making the charms that repelled the spirits. There hadn’t been a problem since before the children were born.
But something about today felt very, very wrong.
Crouching, Naelin scanned the forest. From the scent, she thought there were at least two tree spirits nearby, drawing closer, past where her husband usually hung the charms. She inhaled deeply. And maybe . . . yes, an earth spirit as well. Her breath caught in her throat. Two kinds of spirits at once.
The forest was not merciful today.