Crouching on a branch just outside the perimeter of the palace, Ven eyed the spirits who served the queen. Tonight there seemed to be more than usual, or maybe he was just sensitive to them. He’d never liked the way they flocked around the queen, as if they were loyal, as if they wouldn’t gleefully rip her throat out if her control ever slipped. Above the north spire, two air spirits chased a banner around a pole, winding it, then unwinding it, playing with the wind. On the spiral stairs, a fire spirit lit the candles, dancing within each flame. Below, earth spirits tended to the queen’s rose garden, coaxing black roses to bloom for the night.
Maybe what happened in the village was an aberration. Maybe he’d report to Queen Fara, and she would reassert her will over the perpetrators, and that would be it. He hoped it wasn’t a symptom of rot hidden beneath the veneer of beauty.
Rot beneath the veneer.
It sounded so poetic when he thought of it that way. Clearly, he’d spent too much time listening to the canopy singers and not enough time bashing things. After he had his audience with Queen Fara, he’d take a few hours in a practice ring and knock the melodrama out of his head.
“The queen wishes to know if you are lurking in her trees because you have turned assassin, or if you plan to come inside and present yourself.” The voice crackled, sounding like wind between dried leaves, and Ven felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He twisted to see an air spirit dangling upside down from a leaf. Its translucent wings beat fast, like a hummingbird’s, and its many-faceted eyes darted up, down, left, right. He hated when she sent the spirits to speak for her.
“Tell her I’m considering my options.”
Its wings fluttered faster, and Ven smelled the sweetness of wisteria and also wine. “The queen does not have a sense of humor where you are concerned.”
He sighed. “I’m aware of that. I’d like an audience with Queen Fara in the Blue Room. Please ask Her Majesty to keep her archers from skewering me.”
“She will consider her options.”
The air spirit shot upward, rustling the leaves in its wake. Ven climbed higher, to reach one of the spiderweb-thin unbreakable wires that stretched from the outer trees to the palace core. He attached a hook and hoped the spirit had obeyed. The queen’s archers were vigilant and trigger-happy, a fact that he’d appreciated when he’d been in charge of defense. He wrapped a rope around the hook and around his wrists. Kicking off, he rode the line through the air. Wind raced past his ears. No arrows fired.
He landed with a thump, unclipped, and rolled free of the rope. He straightened to the sound of slow applause. Flanked by guards, the queen walked forward, clapping, until she was framed by moonlight. She looked flawless as always, all six feet of her, with curls that tumbled artfully onto her bare shoulders and a blue-white gown that looked woven from a moonbeam. A new tiara rested on her head, a delicate metal vine with a single pearl that hung in the center of her forehead. “You always did know how to make an entrance.” He’d met her shortly after she’d been crowned. He’d been a new champion, but she had already had the regal bearing of a queen.
“As do you.” He dropped to one knee and bowed his head. “Your Majesty.”
“Oh, rise, silly. We’re old friends. Or have you forgotten that?” She held out her arms, as if she expected him to hug her like a beloved cousin. Slit above her elbows, her sleeves fell back from her arms. Looking at her bare arms, he remembered how he used to hold her—there hadn’t been anything cousinly about it. Her cheeks tinted pink, and he knew she was remembering also. Dangerous thoughts.
Instead of embracing her, Ven stayed kneeling. “My queen, I bring grave news.”
“And here I hoped you were visiting for old times’ sake.” Her voice sounded wistful, but Ven didn’t trust it. She was a master at shielding her emotions. For all he knew, this pleasant greeting hid murderous rage. Or at least severe irritation. Last time he saw her, she’d been “irritated” enough to send a fire spirit after him. He’d ended up with scars on his arms from the burns, and she’d only recalled the spirit after he’d almost killed it.
“I’ve been on the outskirts, scouting the midforest villages—”
“Whatever for?” Queen Fara asked. “You already found me an heir. Lovely girl. Sana, is it? Sata? She trains incessantly. It’s a bit insulting, frankly, as if she expects me to drop dead any moment. You should teach your candidates to have more faith in their queen.”
“I train them to be ever-ready, and hope they never need it.”
“Aw, now there’s the charming Ven that I missed. Tell me, what did you find in those backwater villages? Lack of bathing routine? Unfamiliarity with how to cook edible food? I swear, if I had to eat one more boiled vegetable—”
“Death, Your Majesty. Your spirits betrayed you, and a village was slaughtered.” He tried to keep his voice measured, reporting the news and not reliving it. He’d seen the aftermath of natural disasters before—forest fires, earthquakes, winter storms, leaving behind broken bodies and broken homes with broken dolls—but this . . . this was the largest instance of deliberate disaster he’d ever seen.
Queen Fara went still. “You wait until this late in the conversation to tell me?”
“There’s no immediate danger. The survivors have been taken to safety, and the spirits have fled into the depths of the forest. The forest guards are watching the other villages, but so far, there haven’t been any signs that the tragedy will be repeated. My concern is: why did it happen at all?”
“Indeed.” She waved at her guards. “I will speak with Champion Ven in the Blue Room. You will see that we are not disturbed.” Without waiting for a response—there was no need to wait; she was the queen—she swept through the hall toward the interior of the tree. Ven followed. A tiny fire spirit darted up and down the hallway, lighting the candles before her and then dousing them in her wake. It looked as if her shadow were extinguishing the flames. Nice effect, he thought.
Rushing ahead of her, the guards threw open the double doors to the Blue Room. Standing at attention, the guards flanked the doorway—knees bent, limbs loose, sword hilts an easy distance from their ready hands—as she and Ven entered. He felt the guards’ eyes on him, cataloguing his weapons and calculating the distance between the queen, his sword, and theirs. As a champion, he was allowed to be armed in the presence of the queen. The guards didn’t have to like it, though, and as someone committed to the queen’s welfare, Ven approved of their mistrust.
The Blue Room was known, in whispers and in tales, as the “death-knell room”—you only requested it when you wished a private audience to speak of serious matters. Legend said that a long-ago queen learned of the death of her son in this room and ruled that from then on, the walls could only hear talk of deaths to come or deaths that have been. One version of the tale said he killed her. Another said the queen’s son died here, in her arms, and her tears stained the walls blue. Clearly the last was untrue, as Ven knew the sap had been dyed blue as it bled from the walls and had hardened into a sheen that glistened and flickered in the candlelight. But who wanted practicality when a salacious rumor existed instead? He followed Queen Fara in.
A small octagon, the death-knell room had been carved into the center pulp of the tree. Sweeping the train of her dress so that it puddled at her feet, Queen Fara sat in the polished blue throne at one end of the chamber. “Leave us,” she told the guards. Bowing, they shut the door behind them.
Ven was aware there were no windows in the room. If she sent a spirit after him, he’d have to fight, again. But it wasn’t going to come to that. This wasn’t a personal visit, and he had no desire to restart their old argument. He was merely a messenger.
He hoped.
“Tell me everything,” she commanded.
He told her about how he’d been ten miles away from the village of Greytree when he noticed that the usual spirits were absent. More than that, the forest animals were hiding, and the birds were silent. He’d tracked the silence,
but by the time he found the source, the slaughter was nearly over. The spirits had killed everyone they could find, right down to the babies, and torn the houses from their branches. He’d fought the spirits who remained and called for the forest guards for help. Two were nearby—he’d been traveling with them off and on for the prior week—as well as a healer. “Much of the credit belongs to them.”
“You undervalue yourself,” Queen Fara murmured. “You’re a hero, drawn to defend the defenseless. It’s admirable.” But she didn’t sound as if she were complimenting him, or even listening to him. She stared at the walls and pressed her lips together.
Ven waited while she thought. He used to believe he could tell what she was thinking; he didn’t delude himself about that anymore.
“Have you told me everything?” she asked.
“One family of survivors saved themselves. The older daughter, who apparently never showed any affinity for spirits before, was able to keep their home intact. I advised she be trained.”
“How old?”
“About nine.” He thought back to the girl. She’d been as tall as her mother’s shoulder, with still-round childlike cheeks. Fierce but afraid—and rightfully so. “Possibly ten.”
“And just showing power for the first time? Then she wouldn’t have spoken with them.”
He assumed she meant the spirits. It took power and training to summon spirits who were sophisticated enough to speak, and more skill to coerce them to communicate if they didn’t want to. “She wasn’t able to protect anyone but her family. Her influence ended at her house. Someday, some village will be lucky to have her as a hedgewitch, though I doubt she’ll ever say the way she found her power was ‘lucky.’”
“Good. And now have you told me all?”
He reviewed the details in his head. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Then I will send earth spirits to bury the village and will wipe its name from the maps.” She sighed, and the word Ven thought of was “wistful,” which was an odd way to feel after a massacre. Ven expected shock, outrage, or even disbelief. “I only wish I could wipe the memory from your mind as well. Believe me when I say I wish it had not been you.”
“Your Majesty, it could be indicative of a larger problem—”
“There’s no ‘larger problem.’”
He wanted to let the matter drop at that—he’d informed his queen; his duty was done—but he thought of that broken doll, and the way the little sister spoke about the queen. “We need to know why the spirits disobeyed you—”
“The spirits did not disobey me, Ven.” Queen Fara rose. On the dais with the throne, she towered over him, and her shadow stretched blue across the room. “They never disobey me, and you must never suggest that they do. It would weaken our people’s faith and endanger us all.”
He appreciated her confidence, but he’d seen the evidence with his own eyes. “But—”
“There were traitors in that village, several who plotted against Aratay, against us. It was a breeding ground for betrayal. I have eliminated the threat.” She closed the gap between her and Ven, her gown swishing on the floor. Laying her hand on Ven’s cheek, she said, “I am sorry you were a witness to it. But I am not sorry for doing what had to be done. A queen must make sacrifices for the greater good.”
Ven shifted back so that her hand fell from his cheek. His skin felt burned where she had touched him, and he didn’t believe her. She couldn’t have caused that tragedy. She’d never have gone that far. “There were children. Elderly. Innocents. You can’t tell me the entire village was guilty of treason.”
“Enough were. It had to be done.”
“There had to have been another way!”
“Don’t get agitated, Ven—”
“I am very agitated!” Ven paced through the Blue Room. He didn’t want to look into her eyes anymore, her beautiful, guiltless eyes. She hadn’t been there. She didn’t understand the horror the spirits could inflict . . . Except that she does understand, he thought, because she’s queen. He knew how extensive her training had been. “You are supposed to protect your people, all your people, from the spirits. You aren’t supposed to use the spirits against them! Ever. No matter the crime. No matter the danger.”
“Oh, you are so tiresome, Ven. I did what I had to do. Do you think I don’t feel guilt? Sorrow? Anger? I do! I hate that I must make these choices, but I don’t run from them. Like you did, fleeing to the outer villages—don’t try to pretend it was anything else. I stay and do what’s best for all my people, not a few, not myself, not the ones that I like best. That’s what it means to be queen.”
“There must have been another way!” he repeated.
“It was the best way for all our people.”
“How do you even know there were traitors—”
She cut him off again. “I have ways, Ven. Ears in places you can’t imagine. Voices that whisper to me on the wind. There are no secrets that are safe from me.”
He quit pacing and stared at her again. “You’re using the spirits to spy on your people?” This was getting worse and worse. If people knew . . . “Why are you telling me this? You know I won’t approve. Can’t approve. What you did . . . it was outside of your promises to the Crown. You know I can’t allow you to do this ever again. The council must be told, and they will rule—”
“You will not tell them,” Queen Fara said.
“Fara, I’m sorry, but I must.”
“You don’t have the right to call me that anymore.”
More softly, he said, “Your Majesty. Can’t you see what you are doing is wrong? Using the spirits to spy on your own people? Using them as weapons against your own people?” Rot beneath the veneer, he thought.
She laughed, a brittle sound that was devoid of even a shred of humor. “You ask why I told you: I hoped you’d understand. Oh, Ven, I hoped you’d stand beside me, that we’d be as we once were. I hoped you’d see the need for silence.”
No. Ven didn’t believe her. It didn’t make sense, and he believed strongly in things making sense. If that was her goal, she’d never have confessed to something she knew he’d find abhorrent. She’d never have told him she was responsible for all those deaths. . . . He thought of that family again, of the look in the littlest girl’s eyes, and he couldn’t imagine what Fara’s game was or why she was trying to manipulate him. What he did know was that when he came bearing tales of death and horror, he expected a different response, especially since he did not believe either that the villagers were traitors or that she’d intentionally caused their deaths. “If you value what we were at all, don’t lie to me.”
Her false smile faded. “The truth then? I cannot allow you to speak to the council. What happened in Greytree was a tragedy—a random, isolated accident—and it must stay exactly that. It cannot be linked to me, and you must never suggest to anyone, much less the council, that my power is failing. It is not, and to bring a formal accusation . . . Raising such doubts about me would have catastrophic repercussions.”
“I have a duty to Aratay, to the council, to the throne—”
“To me!”
“To our people!”
“Then you give me no choice. I must discredit you. Champion Ven, you are hereby stripped of your seat on the Council of Champions. You are exiled from the palace, in full disgrace, with all rights to a private audience with the queen suspended.”
He’d thought he’d seen enough of the world that he couldn’t be shocked—he, Ven, one of the Queen’s Champions, was supposed to be hard and experienced, or at least bitter and jaded—but he felt like a just-born chick caught in the talons of a hawk, too stunned to even squawk. He hadn’t committed any crime. He’d never betrayed his queen, even when he disagreed with her, even now. She couldn’t—
“I will tell the council that you became distraught and attacked me,” she continued, “after I rejected your attempts to rekindle our romance. Any attempt you make to speak against me will be dismissed as the bitter rantings of an ex-l
over. You will have no credibility with the other champions or anyone. Between what’s known of our past history and the testimony of the guards who witnessed your violent attack on my royal person, everyone will believe me, and peace will be preserved.”
“Violent attack . . . ? I would never—”
She raised her voice. “Guards!”
From the lit candles, the fire spirits flew at him. Three of them, each tiny, their bodies made of flame, their eyes like coal, their claws like diamonds. He drew his sword, slowly, his muscles not believing that she was doing this. One of the spirits latched on to his arm, its claws digging into his muscle. He burst into motion kicking and slicing at the spirits, as the door to the Blue Room burst open and the guards spilled in.
All the while, Queen Fara watched from the throne. He thought he saw sorrow in her eyes.
CHAPTER 3
The entrance exam to Northeast Academy was always conducted in front of an audience. Guards were arrayed around the bleachers to minimize the danger to onlookers, and the bleachers themselves kept the audience off the forest floor, but no one pretended it was safe, which was why Daleina did not like that her parents had brought her little sister, Arin, now nine years old, to watch. The three of them were squeezed into the back row—the wealthy parents had secured the better seats, in the center, with a thick layer of other viewers between them and the trees. In the back, Arin was popping bits of crumbled cookie into her mouth, and their mother had bundled her in three sweaters and two scarves.
As an applicant, Daleina wore a white tunic, only a thin layer between her skin and the cold. Goose bumps crowded her arms and legs, and she tried not to noticeably shiver. The other applicants didn’t seem bothered by the almost-winter chill—white blossoms of frost had coated the glass windows in the morning and had made the fallen leaves crisp and shrivel. The others were chatting and laughing, clustered by the judges’ table. There were about twenty girls, all approximately fifteen years old, like Daleina. Many of them seemed to know one another already. She tried to smile at a few of them, and a few smiled back before they returned to chatting with the others. Others returned much colder looks.
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