It didn’t hear her. She stumbled to her feet. Preparing to broadcast the command louder, she opened her mind wider, and from every direction, she felt spirits spinning wildly, as if they were about to explode in a thousand pieces.
She couldn’t see. Everything dripped red in front of her, and the world tilted. Feeling her way across the room, she hit one of the posts of the bed. She clung to it, feeling the solid wood, trying to draw her mind back from the whirlpool.
It would suck her in. It would drown her.
Clinging to the post, she tried to pull out of the rush of pain-joy-need.
Blood, the taste of blood. She tasted coppery saltiness on her tongue and realized she’d bitten through her lip.
Stop.
This time the command was to herself.
She was human, not spirit. She could control her emotions. Drawing in tight to herself, Naelin concentrated on her own breath, feeling it enter her lungs and fill her. She focused on her skin, the limits of where her body was—she was here in the room, not split and sprawled across the palace.
Another scream, and more. Naelin ran across the room to the balcony doors and threw them open. Outside, it was as if a storm had hit the palace. The bodies of spirits darkened the sky, blocking the sun. They were twisting and cackling.
Below, she saw people running as the spirits dove for them.
They’re attacking! Why are they attacking?
The spirits couldn’t attack here, not in the presence of the queen. The palace should be the safest place in all Aratay. “Erian. Llor.” She spoke their names out loud as if that would work as a talisman, and then she ran for the door to the bedchambers. She had to reach them. She had to—
There was blood in the hallway, streaked down the wall.
A woman was huddled on the side. Her head was bent to her chest, and she was motionless. One arm was wrapped in vines that grew from the wall. The other arm had been shredded, and the bone gleamed through the red of her muscles. Blood pooled around her, seeping into the carpet. Naelin ran to her and then stopped. The woman was dead, no question.
A spirit had killed her. Here, in the palace.
This can’t be happening! This shouldn’t be possible!
And then something worse hit her:
What did I do . . . ?
She’d summoned the spirits here. What if . . .
She heard more screams ahead of her, from the stairwell. Erian and Llor were five flights down. Naelin ran toward the stairs. She thrust her mind ahead of her and felt a knot of spirits. They were caught in the same frenzied whirlwind of joy and pain. One, a water spirit, was causing water to spill through a window and cascade down the stairs in a waterfall. An ice spirit followed in its wake, freezing the water, while a tree spirit caused the ceiling of the stairwell to sprout thorns.
She plowed her mind into them. STOP!
For an instant, they paused, but they were vibrating, as if she were holding them steady through sheer force of will, and she was certain that if she stopped broadcasting the command, they’d break free. She wasn’t going to let them. I drew them all here; this is my fault. She broadcast the command as she ran down the stairs and through a pack of three fire spirits. Past them, she released them and threw her mind to the next spirit.
She was too slow. Erian and Llor were too far away. And there were too many spirits between her and them. In the middle of the stairwell, a fire spirit blazed. Sparks landed on the wood and lit into fires. The spirit cackled.
Naelin didn’t think about whether she could do it. She had to do it.
Opening her mind, she felt the spirits again, their wild fury. She let it wash into her, and then she grabbed it firmly, as if it were the arm of an unruly child. She held it steady and then reached farther out. She grabbed more spirits and held them.
She felt as if she were splintering, but she kept a tight grip on her thoughts of Erian and Llor. The spirits had to obey her, because she had to keep her children safe. There was no other option. I caused this. I must fix this.
Thrusting her hands into the water that flowed down the stairs, Naelin plunged her mind into the water, into the walls, into the fire, and into the air. Out, farther, until she’d embraced the entire palace. She felt the earth spirits in the gardens, the fire spirits raging in the stairwells, the air spirits at the top of the spire . . . Do no harm!
She felt as if every spirit suddenly turned its focus to her. Her heart began to pound, and she again heard her mother’s screams, but she held the image of Erian and Llor firmly in her mind. She felt the spirits converging on her. Coming from every corner of the palace . . . just like she’d commanded them to come during her training, but this time, she felt their hatred. They wanted her blood. They wanted to squeeze the air from her body, to crush her bones, to burn her flesh . . .
Do! No! Harm!
She burned the words into them, driving them deep inside.
The spirits pressed closer, wanting, needing her pain, her blood, her death.
And she held them still.
Queen Daleina felt a weight on her. She opened her eyes. Her eyelids felt stiff, as if they’d been stuck shut for hours, and she looked up at the blue sky above, framed by a circle of trees. Turning her head, she saw Champion Ambir, lying across her.
“Champion Ambir?” Her throat felt stiff, and her mouth was dry. Worse, her thoughts felt as if they were swimming in muck. She couldn’t piece together why she was here, why he was here, or what had happened.
“Your Majesty!” a woman’s voice cried. Looking beyond Ambir, Daleina saw Champion Piriandra leap from arch to arch around the circle of the chamber. Piriandra’s knives were drawn and slick with blood. She had a cut that ran down her thigh, dripping with red raindrops. Daleina stiffened—if Alet’s suspicions were right, either Piriandra or Ambir wanted her dead . . .
“Move yourself, Champion Ambir,” Daleina instructed, and pushed as she sat up. The body slid onto the ground with a thump. Only then did she realize that’s what it was: a body. The old champion was dead. His back had been shredded, and his throat had been pierced by a thick thorn.
She felt a whoosh inside her mind as her thoughts at last coalesced in a coherent order. False Death. Struggling to her feet, Daleina reached her mind out, feeling for the spirits. They were congregating several floors down, squeezed into a single stairwell. Why— Why doesn’t matter, she told herself. Champion Ambir doesn’t matter. Piriandra doesn’t matter. She had to stop any more deaths. That’s all that mattered.
She forced her mind at the spirits, broadcasting the core command: Do no harm. She felt it reverberate inside them, catching an echo and bouncing back. Do. No. Harm. She reached out beyond the palace, touching the spirits in the forest beyond. But the frenzy hadn’t spread. It had been contained here, somehow.