She kept walking, down to the kitchen that she’d stocked with the basics: nut bars, apples, water. She poured honey onto a nut bar and made herself sit, calm, as if her stomach didn’t feel like a tight fist.
For all her training, Beilena had always had teachers around her, safety nets. She’d been in the academy, safely in the headmistress’s bosom, so to speak. She had to learn she could handle things on her own, and it would defeat the purpose if Piriandra were to rush in there. Give her space, Piriandra told herself. Let her learn. If she continued to have a safety net, she’d never learn to trust herself, and that was one of the most important lessons.
Besides, it was only one spirit. An ice spirit, but still, a small one.
Piriandra ate the nut bar, making herself chew at a normal speed rather than gulp it down. Finishing, she wiped her lips with a napkin and cleaned her plate. She hadn’t heard any more screams, and Beilena hadn’t called for help, which was good. She wondered if she really would have the strength to stay outside if her candidate did call for her. She was a tough teacher, but she wasn’t heartless. And I’ve already lost one candidate.
She pressed her ear against the door. It was silent in there. A good sign? Except if Beilena had defeated the spirit, wouldn’t she have come out? “Beilena? Is it defeated?”
No answer.
If she rushed in and interrupted, then her candidate would think she didn’t trust her, which would undermine everything this exercise was designed to achieve . . . “Beilena?”
Still, no answer.
Piriandra flung the door open—everything was coated in ice. She drew her sword. Wind whipped through the open window, but the cloth from the cage didn’t stir. It had been frozen solid.
“Beilena?” She stepped inside.
Scanning the room, she didn’t see the ice spirit, or her candidate. Everything was frosted white . . . except for the red leaking out from under the tarp. Drawing her sword, Piriandra crossed to it.
She pulled back the tarp.
In the center of the pile of weapons lay Beilena. Her eyes were open, sightless, and a drop of blood had pooled in the corner of her mouth, staining her lips. She had a collection of icicles jabbed into her throat, like a necklace.
She must have gone for the weapons but failed to reach them in time.
It could have happened in the first moments, Piriandra thought. That first scream. But the ice spirits shouldn’t have been so hard to control. It was only one, and not overly bright.
A flicker at the window caught her eye, and Piriandra moved toward it, smoothly and silently, her sword raised. The ice spirit lay on the sill. It was still alive. Its arms were missing—those must have been the icicles embedded in Beilena.
Beilena must have fought back, nearly defeating the ice spirit. In the end, though, it had been too much for her.
Piriandra swore softly, then more loudly.
I should have stayed in the room. I shouldn’t have left her alone. She wasn’t ready. I knew she wasn’t ready. This was my fault. My fault alone.
Piriandra scooped up the weakened spirit on the blade of her sword, carried it to the cage, and locked it inside. She covered it with a cloth. It wouldn’t be punished—it had only done what it had been goaded into doing. Spirits used in training exercises were typically exempt from retribution. She’d have to take it away from the capital and release it.
She felt stiff, mechanical, as she performed the task and thought through the logistics.
The candidate’s family would need to be notified, as well as Headmistress Hanna. She’d have to arrange for a burial. If she paid the caretakers extra, they would take care of the bulk of the arrangements. In the meantime, she’d have to find a new candidate, train her even faster, try not to break her. Time was short. Soon, the queen would call for the trials . . . I am sorry, Beilena! This was not the plan! Two candidates, dead. Not the plan at all. She felt like punching something, hard, and her eyes fell on the caged spirit.
She heard a knock behind her. Automatically, she flipped the tarp to cover Beilena’s body. Standing, she turned. “Yes?”
One of the caretakers—she’d never bothered to learn his name—bowed. “A representative of the queen is here to see you. Captain Alet. She says the queen has asked her to check on your progress with your candidate.”
Piriandra swore under her breath, and then sighed. “Show her in.”
Chapter 19
In the center of the late queen’s bedroom, three water spirits circled Naelin’s head. Cackling in voices that sounded like rain hitting glass, they sprayed water in her face. She flinched and put her arms in front of her, but the water hit just as she took a breath. Inhaling it, she coughed.
“Get them out of here, Naelin,” Ven said.
Coughing, she seized on the one command she knew better than any other: Leave. She shoved it at them, and they streamed out the open balcony door, dumping water in their wake. Sloshing through the puddles, Naelin slammed the balcony doors shut and pulled the curtains. One hung limp, half torn from its curtain rod, with gashes left by an air spirit from yesterday’s disaster. “This has to stop,” she said, wiping the water from her face. “It’s only a matter of time before I accidentally kill someone.”
“You’re learning control,” Ven said.
He was being kind. “This is not control.” She waved at the pool of water on the inlaid floor. “I can’t control them for longer than a few minutes.”
Leaning against the mantel—one of the few items in the room that her lessons hadn’t destroyed, though it was singed with ash—Ven looked calm. His green leather armor was clean, while she was soaked from the water spirits. The dirt from the earth spirits had smudged into mud that ran down her arms. He looked as casual and relaxed as if he’d stopped by for a cup of bark tea. “It’s not the spirits you need to control; it’s yourself. Right now, your fear is controlling you, instead of the other way around.”
“Please don’t tell me I just need to ‘calm down.’ In the history of the world, telling someone to ‘calm down’ has never done anything but piss them off more.” Even Renet knew better than that. She stalked across the room to a pitcher and poured herself a glass of water. After coughing up inhaled water, her throat felt as if it had been scratched. She took a sip. Her hands were shaking.
Ven laced his fingers across his stomach. He was studying her, again, clearly cataloguing her flaws. She straightened her shoulders and glared back at him.
“Do you want another pep talk?” he asked mildly. “Because I can do that, but you must have already memorized all my best speeches.”