And then the foreign spirits attacked.
Earth spirits tore through the soil. She saw beasts with razorbacks and spikes and claws, and others that looked like mounds of rocks with boulders for arms. Air spirits whipped through the sky, blotting out the faint light of the dawn. In a mass, their translucent bodies blended into gray streaks. The wind hit the front lines like a punch, and the ground exploded at their feet.
Dropping, Piriandra clung to the platform as it swayed beneath her. “Come on,” she muttered. “Pass us by.” If Queen Daleina was wrong, if the bulk of the spirits did not stream toward the city, if instead they stayed and fought, if they were more interested in slaughter than conquest . . . Queen Daleina was young, weak, sick, and inexperienced, and Heir Naelin was just an untested, barely trained woodswoman. We’re all going to die out here, Piriandra thought. They’d be ripped apart before they even got a chance to fight. The candidates were too few to fight back—But I am not weak. I will fight.
Raising her voice, Piriandra shouted, “Now!” She jabbed her sword into the air.
The soldiers charged forward.
And the spirits flew above them and around them—exactly like Queen Daleina had predicted—heading for the heart of the city. Well, well, what do you know? Now Piriandra had to hope the queen’s prediction about her heir was equally accurate.
“Shield our soldiers,” Piriandra ordered the candidates. “Don’t engage the spirits unless they attack our troops. Do you understand?” She’d given them this order before, but it bore repeating. As the foreign spirits streamed around them, she had to fight with herself not to slice at them with her sword. Their job was to stop the human army. Just that. Don’t let the soldiers take the capital. Don’t let the foreign queen set foot in their city. “Only defend our soldiers. Let the other spirits go.”
Queen Daleina, she thought, you had better know what you’re doing.
And then she had no more time for thinking. Leaping onto the forest floor, she landed between two soldiers, and she began hacking at an earth spirit that was trying to rip them apart.
Headmistress Hanna had wrapped the academy in air spirits. They swirled around in a controlled tornado. She had the other teachers stationed throughout the academy. Master Chirra had instructed earth spirits to dig a trench around the roots of the academy trees, and Master Sondriane had had water spirits flood the trench to create a moat. The spirits lurked within the moat, ready to pull any enemies under.
Master Sondriane had reported they liked that idea very much.
The students were clustered in the training circle. Hanna wished they could be tucked in bed, sealed inside their rooms, but she remembered how good Merecot had been with tree spirits—she could easily crush the students with their own walls, if she were so inclined. Master Klii, who specialized in fire spirits, had the students within a ring of fire. Triple layers of protection. The headmistress couldn’t do any better than that. No one had ever protected an academy so thoroughly.
She hoped it was enough.
In her office at the top of the tree, she watched the foreign spirits pour across the city border. She heard the crack and crash of trees as they fell beneath the onslaught. And she both saw and felt Queen Daleina send Aratay’s spirits out to crash against the incoming storm.
She was ready when a few spirits broke away from the battle and flew toward the academy. Tightening her control, she prepared the air spirits. She’d meet them in midair—
The earth spirits came from below.
They tunneled through the roots. Master Klii directed the fire spirits at them, but their rock bodies didn’t burn. Master Sondriane sent the water, pouring down, washing the earth back. But the rock creatures crawled out of the mud and muck.
The children were screaming.
And the window by Hanna’s desk shattered as the air spirits slammed into it. She turned and ran out the office door and to the stairs—and then she leaped. She called air spirits to her as she fell, and three flew to her, breaking her fall. She flew down toward the children. As the foreign spirits pressed closer, the headmistress and the teachers drew a shell around them: wood, earth, fire, water, wind, and ice. They layered it and clung to one another within, as the enemy burned, rained, froze, and tore, trying to reach them.
She’s too strong, the headmistress thought. Her former student had only grown in power. Heir Naelin wouldn’t be enough. Only a queen could hope to defeat a queen. Fight her, Daleina. Fight with everything you have.
Chapter 32
Alone except for a wolf, Queen Daleina stood atop the Queen’s Tower and watched as the spirits of Semo rolled over the border of the city. She wished she’d had a chance to say goodbye to her sister. Keep her safe, Hamon, she thought. “Are you ready?” she asked the wolf.
In answer, he lifted his head and howled.
She spread her arms as she released her mind. Fight!
The order flew through the air. She felt it release her spirits, and she felt them rise to meet the invaders. She felt their swirling fury, their defiance, and their sheer joy. It flooded her body and filled her throat until all she could see, all she could feel, all she could breathe were the spirits. Their howl was her howl. Their rage was her rage. She felt herself with them, as they plunged into the gray mass of air spirits and plowed into the phalanx of earth spirits.
Air spirits sliced through water spirits, breaking them into thousands of droplets. Water spirits embraced fire spirits, and around them wood and rock exploded as they crashed, fighting, on the forest floor. Her earth spirits were trampled beneath the feet of the giant mountain earth spirits, and so she sent ice spirits to stiffen the enemy’s joints and water spirits to weaken the ground beneath them.
She fought the way she thought: cleverly. She couldn’t outpower Merecot, but she could outwit her. She sent her spirits behind the invaders, striking from directions they wouldn’t expect. She slipped ice spirits into the ranks of Merecot’s soldiers, forcing her to use fire spirits to protect them. As soon as the fire spirits were close enough, Daleina caught them with earth spirits, burying them in soil, or trapped them with branches that her water spirits doused with water.
The forest burned.
But the city did not.
I can do this, she thought. You will not take Aratay. You cannot win.