The Queen of Blood

by Sarah Beth Durst

  Soon, the Chamber of the Queen’s Champions was empty, except for the queen. She breathed in. The chamber always smelled like flowers. White blossoms wound over the archways in clusters that looked like snow. She’d never seen anyone tend the flowers, and she’d never cared for them either. They merely grew there, every season, even in the worst of winter when the branches were laced in ice and the chamber was slick with frost. The chamber had been grown by one of her predecessors, shaped from the top of the palace tree, with arches that surrounded it and a throne that grew out of the center. It was open to the sky.

  Standing by her throne, Queen Fara watched the blue expanse above. Her visitor always knew when she was alone here, no matter how carefully the champions checked for assassins and spies. Clouds stretched and separated, forming shapes that looked as if they were fleeing from one another. It was late morning. By now, the deed was done, and Champion Ven had either received her message in time or he hadn’t. Sending the message to Headmistress Hanna had been her one burst of inspiration, her one gesture of defiance.

  As usual, she didn’t see the spirit arrive. One second she was alone, and another . . . it perched on her throne.

  It was a wood spirit, with the face of an owl and the body of a woman, with owl wings that lay down her back. Her feathers were patterned with a hundred shades of brown, as if she wore a mosaic of all the bark of all the trees of the forest. Her bare feet had talons in place of toes, and they were digging into the soft wood of the throne.

  “Are you satisfied?” Queen Fara asked, and she couldn’t help the hostile tone creeping into her voice. She tried to swallow it back. It wouldn’t help to let the spirit see her emotions. The spirit wouldn’t understand, as it had none itself. Except rage. And now the satisfied smugness of a hunter who has claimed her prey.

  “Yes, indeed,” the owl woman said, her voice nearly a purr.

  Queen Fara thrust the list of demands at her. “This is what my people need. Your spirits will assist me.”

  “Of course,” the spirit said. “We honor our promises.”

  And unfortunately, so do I. Queen Fara kept her face blank. “Do not grow accustomed to this arrangement. This will not happen again.”

  But she knew she’d said those words before.

  CHAPTER 9

  Daleina pinched the flesh under her arm, hard, to keep herself awake. Exams, reports, lectures . . . She stayed on top of those, but this—summoning—still didn’t come easily, even after two years at the academy. She sat cross-legged on the floor of her bedroom. The wolf Bayn curled around her back, a comforting cushion. He didn’t mind that Daleina wasn’t asleep yet.

  The trick was to clear her mind of all other thoughts. She had to focus purely on what she wanted the spirit to do. Years ago, when Greytree was attacked, fear had instinctively focused her, but everyday life didn’t include that kind of mortal danger. Even after two full years of academy training, she still had difficulty controlling her mind. All the thoughts from the day tumbled through: the facts from the day’s lessons, how tired she was, how she still had to study for her diplomacy test, the way her arm ached from a miscalculation in survival class. She breathed in and out, as she’d been taught, and picked a single image: a candle flame.

  She’d set a candle on the floor in front of her, in an iron candlestick that she’d borrowed from the dining hall with Revi’s help. Revi never minded pilfering items from the common areas. They’re here for our use anyway, she rationalized. And besides, what better cause was there than practicing their lessons? Daleina couldn’t argue with that, but she did intend to return it, once she’d mastered this. “You are going to dance for me,” she whispered. “Come and dance.”

  Gently, the wolf began to snore.

  Daleina pushed Bayn’s rumble out of her head. She pushed away the clatter of footsteps on the spiral stairs outside her window. She ignored the bells that called for the younger students to be in bed. She ignored the chatter from Revi’s room—Revi, Mari, and Linna were having their usual study season for tomorrow’s history exam. Daleina hoped she’d studied enough. She thought she had. She’d been cramming facts into her head all week, names and dates of queens, their miracles and their deaths, battles and treaties, ready to rattle them off—No, focus, she reminded herself. That’s why you’re in here, not over there.

  Another deep breath. “Come and dance,” she whispered.

  She wasn’t supposed to say the words out loud. It was a crutch, the teachers said. All summoning should be all internal by now. She shouldn’t need to even think about it; it should be instinct. Yet it wasn’t, not yet. But it would be, even if she had to forgo sleep for the next week.

  “Come and dance.”

  She knew the spirits were out there—she could sense them, little shivers in the air, wrinkles that she could “feel” when she reached her mind out. She’d become adept at sensing spirits, one of the best in her class, in fact. It had been such a relief that at least one skill had come easily. But it wasn’t enough. The spirits teased the edges of her awareness, twisting and slipping and sliding out of her grip. Sometimes it felt as if they were pieces of her that she could feel—extra limbs that felt smooth, soft, hot, cold—but couldn’t move.

  She’d left the window open intentionally, and the curtain shifted as wind blew. She glanced up. A spirit? Just a breeze. It carried the scent of tonight’s dessert: a chocolate melt cake, a reward for all the students who passed last week’s diplomacy exam. She’d never tasted chocolate before. It looked like mud but tasted like what she imagined sunset would taste like, if it had a flavor. And there she went again, mind drifting. Maybe she should try this first thing in the morning, before she was cluttered up with thoughts from the day. Except morning came with the remnants of dreams, and then crowded with the rush to begin the day’s lessons. She’d do this now. No more excuses.

  Flexing her hands, rolling her shoulders, and taking a few more cleansing breaths, Daleina tried again. This time she focused, reaching toward a small shiver in the air outside on the stairs. A tiny fire spirit, one of the ones that liked to inhabit the lanterns around the school, skittered over the sill of her window.

  “Come,” she coaxed. She beckoned it toward the candle.

  It darted closer and then stopped, a little closer and then stopped again, as if it were shy. It was a beautiful thing, a living dollop of flame, with fiery hair, coal eyes, and a dress of glowing embers. It climbed onto the iron candlestick and then shimmied up the wax candle to the wick.

  And then it danced.

  It danced!

  Twirling and spinning, it swayed and leaped in the melting pool of wax. Dance! Yes, dance! She wanted to clap her hands and shout, even though she knew first-year students did this all the time. She’d done it, herself, with no help. Dance!

  And then there were more, pouring in through the window, dozens of tiny fire spirits. Some climbed the curtains. Others cavorted over her bed.

  Oh no, not this many.

  Daleina pushed to her feet. “All right, that’s enough. Stop now. Go.”

  Growling, Bayn backed to the door. He then turned tail and fled for the stairs, pure wolf instinct. Sensible instinct. Daleina thought maybe she should run too.

  Flames licked up her curtains. They raced over her desk, curling the edges of her notes. The corner of one book crumbled into ash. Stop, she told them. Stop now!

  But the fire spirits didn’t listen. There were too many, swirling together, laughing in their crackling voices. Fire, true fire, whooshed up from her bed, and smoke gathered.

  “Stop!” she commanded. Her voice rang, and the fire spirits halted where they were and looked at her, all the coal eyes looking at her. And then they fled, pouring out the window, but leaving the fire behind.

  Daleina ran to the door and flung it open. “Fire!”

  Merecot threw her door open. “What did you do?”

  “They danced,” Daleina said.

  Opening her door, Revi shrieked. Linna tossed a
pitcher of water toward the flames. Mari bolted down the stairs, calling that she’d fetch help.

  “Seriously, all of you?” Merecot rolled her eyes. “Try thinking instead of panicking.” She raised her hand, and water spirits dove through the window, bringing a cascade of rain into the room. They drenched everything, including Daleina, and then they funneled out of the room. Returning up the stairs came Mari with a bucket of water. Behind her was Caretaker Undu.

  Daleina wished she could vanish out the window like the spirits.

  Standing in the doorway, hands on her hips, Caretaker Undu surveyed the mess that was Daleina’s room: soaked and charred at the same time. “Who is responsible for this?”

  Slowly, Daleina raised her hand. “I am.”

  “The rain was mine,” Merecot chimed in.

  Revi peeked in around them. “Adds a nice touch to the décor. Sort of post-shipwreck chic.”

  Daleina rushed inside. “Oh no, my books! My notes!” All her textbooks, her notes . . . two years of notes! Ruined!

  “I can call a fire spirit to dry them,” Merecot offered.

  “No more spirits in bedrooms,” Caretaker Undu said firmly. “You will clean up this mess, and then you will report to me for appropriate punishment.” She swept out of the room and down the spiral stairs.

  In her wake, they stared at the mess that was Daleina’s room.

  “You know, in a few years, you’ll look back on this and think it’s hilarious,” Revi said.

  Linna patted Daleina’s shoulder. “You’ll tell your future kids the anecdote so many times that they will be able to tell it back to you.”

  “If she has kids,” Merecot said, “which she won’t, because she’s going to die young.”

  Revi, Linna, and Mari glared at her, but Daleina looked at the wet curtains, with char that dripped black on the sill, and she started to laugh.

  Concerned, Linna approached her. “Daleina?”

  “I set my room”—she laughed harder—“on fire. And she”—she pointed at Merecot, and her finger shook as she laughed more, bending over to put her hands on her knees. She couldn’t explain why it was so funny.

  “Yeah, we know,” Revi said, looking at her as if she’d hit her skull a bit too hard, “we were here.”

  “Sorry about my mother,” Mari said. “I didn’t mean to bring her.”

  Daleina couldn’t stop laughing. “It’s just”—she gasped as she laughed—“she thinks she’s so good, and I think I’m so . . . not good, and together we destroyed—” Tears popped into her eyes.

  Merecot began to laugh. Slowly, it spread to Revi, Mari, and Linna, until all of them were laughing, clutching their sides, with tears running down their cheeks.

  OUTSIDE ON THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE, HEADMISTRESS HANNA paused, listening to the sound of laughter from the students’ rooms. Laughter, such a rare, beautiful sound within the walls of the academy. Hanna stood listening for as long as it lasted.

  IT TOOK ALL FIVE OF THEM SEVERAL HOURS TO UNDO THE MESS that the spirits had caused. Even then, Daleina’s books and notes would never been the same. She’d left them to dry by the fires of the academy kitchen, but she knew the pages would be forever crinkled and curled. Linna had taken all of Daleina’s smoke-filled, water-logged clothes down to the laundry, and Daleina now had fresh linens on the bed and no more curtains on the window. After scrubbing everything, it all smelled like lemons. Surveying the room, she thought it looked and smelled as if she’d never lived there. After two years, she thought there would be more evidence that she’d been here than this. Her life ought to have made a mark on the room, other than a few scorch marks that she couldn’t scrub away. Instead, it looked as though she’d moved out—or worse, as if I’d never been here. She had the urge to clutter it up again, to prove it was hers.

  “On the plus side, you’ll pass room checks,” Revi said with a yawn.

  “Go to bed,” Daleina told them. “You can get at least an hour before the bells ring.”

  Nodding, Linna padded toward her room. Revi gave Daleina a quick hug. “Everything will be fine. Well, after Mari’s mother finishes skinning you alive.”

  “Sorry.” Mari cringed.

  “It’s okay,” Daleina said. “My fault.” She turned toward Merecot. “I’ll tell her that, too. You don’t need to come with me. I was the idiot who called too many spirits. You were the hero who stopped the fire before anyone was hurt. It could have spread and endangered the entire academy.”

  “Obviously I’m coming with you,” Merecot said. “You can’t face the dragon by yourself. Your magic isn’t good enough for the kind of punishment she could dole out.”

  “Ouch,” Daleina said, though she couldn’t argue, with the lemon-fresh evidence in front of her.

  “Ouch for me too,” Mari said. “My mother’s not a dragon. She’s just . . . serious.”

  “True,” Merecot said. “I’m sorry. She’s serious.” As Mari headed for her own bedroom, Merecot added, “—ly dragonish.”

  Daleina shut the door on the room that didn’t look like her room anymore, and she and Merecot headed for the spiral stairs. It was possible that Caretaker Undu would be asleep and didn’t mean for them to come the instant the bedroom was clean, but Daleina thought that was unlikely. The head caretaker never seemed to sleep. She was everywhere, all the time, and was the reason that the academy ran so smoothly. She took the concept of organization to a higher level, conducting the other caretakers in the art of preparing dinner, washing the laundry, and cleaning the academy as if they were instruments in her orchestra. “She’ll be fair,” Daleina said, as much to soothe herself as Merecot.

  “She hates me,” Merecot stated. “All of them hate me, which is fine because it’s mutual.”

  “You don’t really hate them.”

  “They’re jealous of me.”

  “No one is jealous of you.” Daleina resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Sometimes Merecot got in these moods. Daleina was never sure if she meant it or not. Merecot never sounded upset, but she excelled at hiding her feelings.

  “Except you.”

  “Except me, of course,” Daleina said, “but it’s not because of your incredible powers, or the fact that you’re at the top of every single class.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “It’s because of your hair,” Daleina said with a straight face. “You have the best hair.”

  Merecot smirked at her as Daleina knocked on Caretaker Undu’s door. She waited, listening for footsteps. Once again she prayed that maybe they’d get lucky, and the caretaker would be asleep. Then she could collapse in bed for a few minutes before it was time to be shoved through the cheese grater that was an ordinary day. She was never going to make it through all her classes completely awake. Maybe if she kept poking herself with a quill, that would keep her alert. Or she could bring in a stash of crackers to nibble on—sometimes that worked. Summoning class was doomed to be a disaster, and she hated to think what Master Klii was going to say. She’d be back to herding mole-sized earth spirits around the ring. Again.

  She heard footsteps, and then the door opened. Caretaker Undu was in full robes, as if she’d been awake for hours. Most likely she had. “Good. You finished before dawn. Come with me.” Without waiting for a response, the head caretaker swept past them and up the stairs.

  Exchanging glances, Daleina and Merecot followed. Punishment was almost certainly going to involve some sort of cleaning and suck away any extra time they had, the time they used to practice, study, and write papers. But it could involve more studying and practice—in fact, that would be logical. Perhaps Caretaker Undu was going to hand them over to Master Klii or one of the other masters, and they’d have to review the basics for hours on end.

  Except that Caretaker Undu kept walking higher.

  Above, the circle of sky visible from the academy was gray, lightening with the touch of predawn. The few stars were pale, and the shadows within the academy were flat. Daleina wondered what the sunrise looked lik
e from the top of the academy, above the forest canopy. She was always busy at sunrise: beginning her day to the toll of the morning bells. A few birds were singing, but other than the birds, all was quiet.

  “Caretaker Undu? For the record, it wasn’t Merecot’s fault,” Daleina said. “It was mine and mine only. I was alone in my room, and I made the decision to summon spirits alone.”

  “You’ll discuss it with the headmistress,” Caretaker Undu said. “She wishes to speak to you.”

  Daleina swallowed and exchanged another look with Merecot. Neither of them had said more than a few words to the headmistress, not since the day they were admitted two years ago. She was a distant presence, always there, always watching, but never involved. Certainly never in any disciplinary action involving students, at least to the best of Daleina’s knowledge. Was what she had done so very bad? Surely other students had had accidents with spirits. Lots of accidents. The teachers were always telling cautionary tales about former students who had summoned spirits too large for them to control. Sometimes those tales even included tours around the academy, pointing out locations where students or teachers had died or been dramatically injured. Not that Daleina had ever seen it happen. The masters were careful to have their students summon only controllable spirits—that was the point of the training. Don’t mess with the big ones. You needed the extra power that came with coronation to tangle with those. Every teacher sported scars from times when past students had tangled with the wrong spirits—they were all living object lessons, at least those who still lived.

  At the top of the spiral, Caretaker Undu knocked on the headmistress’s door. In response, it swung silently open, with no one touching it. Daleina peered around, looking for spirits who could have opened it, but saw none. “Thank you,” came the headmistress’s voice from inside. “You may leave us, Undu.”