“Famous last words.”
“Trust me. Or if you don’t trust me, trust yourself. That’s the piece you’re missing. You still don’t trust yourself.” He crossed to her and put his hands on her shoulders, as if he could convince her through his intensity.
“I’m dangerous.”
“Yes, you are—but to them too. Trust that to keep you safe.” He could tell from her mulish expression that he wasn’t getting through to her. She didn’t see herself the way he saw her: strong, in every way that mattered. He’d never encountered anyone like her, someone who gave off her own kind of brilliant light, someone who made him want to be better and fight harder. But he couldn’t stay and argue with her, not when Queen Daleina had summoned him. He shot a look at the wolf, and the wolf flared his nostrils as if in agreement. It wasn’t a good sign when an animal understood him better than his trainee. Ven leveled a finger at Naelin. “We’ll continue this later.”
He then strode out of Fara’s chambers. He knew the way, but the courtier insisted on scrambling after him, trying to fulfill his obligation of leading the champion, even though Ven outpaced him and was down the twisting stairs while the courtier still puffed behind him.
He tried not to think about why Daleina could need him. If she was having a blackout, she wouldn’t have been able to summon him. Plus the spirits would be acting murderous. The air spirit had been irritated, but not worse than that, and he knew there were fire spirits flitting from lantern to lantern as if nothing was wrong. Maybe other symptoms had begun to manifest? But then she’d call for Hamon, not for him. She must want to talk about her security. He’d handed much of the responsibility over to the palace guards, but he knew Daleina felt most comfortable with him in charge.
Nodding at Captain Alet and a second guard outside the Sunrise Room, he strode inside. She wasn’t on the throne. Instantly, his hand went to his sword hilt and he scanned the room, checking for threats. He saw her a moment later, in front of a mural, staring at it.
“Leave us, and close the doors,” she ordered.
The guards obeyed. He heard the solid doors clank shut and noticed the room was devoid of spirits, as near as he could tell—and he considered himself to have solid instincts when it came to spirits. He might not have the power to sense them, but he was aware of the twitch of air, the vibration in the earth, and the shuddering of a flame that came with them. He and Daleina were alone.
“Do you hate me for Queen Fara’s death?” Daleina asked.
The question hit like an arrow from an unseen archer. “You are my queen, and I could not hate you.”
“Nice answer, but you must blame me.”
He couldn’t imagine where this was coming from, or why she wanted to discuss it now. “Of course I blame you. And I blame myself. But mostly I blame Fara, and the spirit who corrupted her.” He corrected himself: “The spirit she allowed to corrupt her.” Fara had never been an innocent in what happened. She may have been tempted, but she was the one who chose to taste that temptation. “Why are we talking about this?”
“Because of Hamon’s mother.” Daleina turned from the mural to face him, and he was relieved to see she looked fine. No trace of illness. Some shadows under her eyes from lack of sleep. She needed to eat more. He made a mental note to tell her sister to bake her some sweets.
“All right. I’ll bite. Are you going to explain what you mean by that, or simply let that cryptic statement hang in the air? Granted, the cryptic statement is more regal, but I’m the only one here to impress.”
Her mouth quirked into a smile. “Hamon’s mother has determined that my case of False Death is not natural. I was poisoned.”
He felt himself go very still, every muscle tense, the way he felt before an attack. He was aware of the taste of the air, the stillness and silence in the room, the warmth of sun on the amber floor, the sound of his breathing and hers. “Hamon has confirmed this?”
“He believes her, and that means I do too. It explains the early onset and the lack of other symptoms. But there’s more: his mother believes she can manufacture a cure, if we can find a sample of the original poison. It’s too diluted in my blood right now.”
“Then we’ll find it.” He’d tear apart the palace, branch by branch. “We’ll wring it out of whoever did this to you—” He cut himself off. “Who would do this? It can’t be someone rational. Anyone would know that killing you without an heir would destroy Aratay. We’re after a madman.”
“Or someone subsumed by grief. I’ve sent investigators to the families of the heirs, with instructions to pry without compounding their grief. But it could also be someone who privately hates me—either with reason or without. A caretaker. A courtier. A guard. A cook.”
“Then we interview everyone.”
“Everyone in Aratay?”
“Everyone who has had contact with you in the past month. Your seneschal will have a list. Call them to the palace one at a time—”
“It could be a champion.”
She was watching him, looking for his reaction, and so he didn’t react, not at first. He considered it. His first and obvious reaction was no, impossible, and ridiculous. Champions were sworn to protect the Crown. “It couldn’t.”
“It could.”
“We are sworn to protect the Crown.”
“The Crown, not the woman who wears it.”
“Sophistry.”
Her eyes were still on him as he paced back and forth. He wanted to punch something—a wall, an enemy, the throne. “We killed a queen for the sake of the country,” she said. “What if someone else wanted to do the same?”
He knew all the other champions. Hated a few of them. Still didn’t believe any of them were guilty of regicide. But then, he’d never have expected it of Hamon and Headmistress Hanna either, nor his Daleina. “There’s no heir. No champion would endanger Aratay.” None of them were madmen, or so subsumed by grief as to be so irrational.
“It’s a slow-acting poison,” Daleina pointed out. “A champion could think he or she would have time to train a new heir. He could have realized how I’d react: that I’d push forward faster with the training and the trials. He could have known that I’d name an heir sooner.”
It was nonsense. But he couldn’t entirely dismiss the idea. The champions had unfettered access to Daleina and the palace. Everyone trusted them. And she was right about the choice of slow-acting poison: anyone who didn’t care about consequences could have simply stabbed her. Poison was the choice of someone who wanted additional time. “It’s very, very, very unlikely.”