The Queen of Blood

by Sarah Beth Durst

  “Tilt your head to the side,” Hamon said.

  She obeyed, and he poured water gently across her eyes. After he finished bathing them, he tilted her chin up, as if he were examining her. “How can you examine my eyes in the darkness?” she asked.

  “It’s not dark,” Hamon said quietly.

  “What do you mean?” But she felt her heart constrict.

  Gently, he rewrapped the bandages. “Your eyes need to heal for a while more.”

  Reaching her hands forward, Daleina felt around her, and her palms felt heat—Ven hadn’t extinguished the fire. “But . . . they should be better!” The rest of her had healed. Why not her eyes?

  “The corneas should heal themselves,” Hamon said. “Most likely, your sight will return on its own, but you must continue to rest them. All you need is time.”

  “Is she well enough to travel?” Ven asked.

  “Yes, except for her eyes, she’s fully recovered,” Hamon said. “She was remarkably lucky, in many ways.”

  “Then we’ll start for the academy at dawn—”

  “I’m not going back,” Daleina interrupted. He’d said she was recovered. That wasn’t grounds for sending her back to the academy in shame. She felt along the edges of the bandages. Their softness was comforting now, after the water. “I’ll heal out here.”

  “You can’t continue your training like this,” Hamon said gently. “In a few months—”

  “In a few months, the queen could call for the trials.” The queen could call them whenever she wanted, regardless of whether Daleina—or anyone—was ready. And Champion Ven could find another candidate, one who wasn’t injured, one who was more powerful. It would be worse than not having been chosen; she’d be the rejected one.

  “It’s not possible,” Ven said. “You can’t climb without your sight, and you can’t train on the forest floor—it’s too dangerous, especially since we can’t predict when another earth spirit will decide to grab you—”

  “Of course you can predict it! It was your test, wasn’t it?”

  “Daleina, that wasn’t a test.”

  She was silent for a moment, absorbing that—he hadn’t been testing her, which meant she hadn’t failed, not really, not in her champion’s eyes. At least, not yet. Not if she showed him that this wouldn’t stop her. That was one thing she could do as well as or better than any other candidate: be stubborn.

  “It’s the healer’s purview . . .” Hamon began.

  “But my decision, right?” Daleina interrupted.

  Hamon began to protest again, but this time Ven stopped him. Daleina listened to their breathing. She heard the crackle of the fire and Bayn’s soft panting beside her, as well as the wind in the leaves above and the rustle of night animals in the underbrush. Stretching her awareness out, she touched the spirits that lived in the trees nearby. “What are you suggesting?” Ven asked her.

  “If I become queen, I won’t have the luxury of hiding if things get difficult,” Daleina said. “If I’m not strong enough for just myself, how can I be strong enough for Renthia? I have to do this. I can’t stop.”

  “You’re injured,” Hamon said. “No one expects you to continue to train while—”

  “I’m supposed to stay with Champion Ven. Learn from him. I can’t learn if I’m cocooned away somewhere.” There was no guarantee Champion Ven would want her as a candidate anymore if he had to wait for her to heal. He could choose someone else, and what if no one else ever chose her? Especially with an injury, her chances were far worse. If he didn’t keep training her, if she didn’t continue, she may never get another chance. It was a miracle I was chosen at all. Headmistress Hanna had made that clear.

  “Only until you’re well enough,” Hamon said. “Then you can train all you want.”

  “It’s just my eyes, isn’t it? If I could see, you’d let me train, no objection.”

  “You need your eyes—”

  “The people need a queen, not a squirrel. I don’t need to be able to climb easily; I just have to control the spirits.” Daleina buried her hands in Bayn’s fur. “Bayn will help me on the forest floor. And when I have to climb higher . . . I’ve climbed at night before. This won’t be so very different. Please, Ven, don’t dismiss me. I can still do this.”

  “I don’t advise it,” Hamon said.

  “You’re not supposed to advise it,” Daleina said. “You’re a healer. You’re supposed to coddle people. Ven, I know I can do this, but I can’t do it without you. Please. You chose me. Choose to believe in me again.”

  He was silent for a long moment. She listened to the night sounds. A distant wolf howled, but Bayn didn’t echo him. Insects buzzed, and night animals rustled in the bushes around them, scrounging for food. No spirits were nearby.

  “Very well,” he said at last.

  SHE TRAINED ON THE FOREST FLOOR.

  Her champion drilled her on sensing spirits. How many could she feel? How far could she reach? She’d never done it without sight before, and it was both easier and harder. She couldn’t depend on seeing a leaf rustle, but she could hear it, and without the distraction of her eyes trying to guess where the spirits were, she began to trust her mind more. For an entire week, that was all she did: practice reaching with her mind.

  They kept to the camp for the most part, with Bayn on guard against wolf packs, irate badgers, ground snakes, and the other wildlife that kept most villages up in the trees. The wolf also acted as her guide, helping her move quickly around the trees and over the roots. Daleina keep her hand on the wolf’s back so she could feel when Bayn leaped over a root, and Bayn would nudge against Daleina when it was time to move around a tree. The wolf stuck by her side constantly.

  The earth spirit in the bedrock didn’t return, but Daleina stayed alert for him. When it was time to sleep, she climbed into a hammock above the dirt, and Bayn lay beside her. She hoped that was enough to keep them safe.

  Gradually, she became used to feeling her way around the camp. She had a sense of where the trees were, and each step didn’t feel so much like plummeting off a cliff.

  “You’re going easy on me,” she told Ven one morning. “You haven’t had a spirit attack me yet.”

  Hamon spoke up. “You want to be attacked?”

  “I want to stop an attack,” Daleina corrected, turning in the direction of his voice. He was grinding some of the plants that he’d gathered—she could hear the pestle and mortar. When he wasn’t tending to her eyes, he used his time to search for rare plants, herbs, and berries. He’d found ripe woundberries, as well as the root of a jump flower (used to prevent seizures), a rare bush of deadly nightend berries (used to ease the passing of a terminal patient), the powdered petals of a glory vine (used to slow the symptoms of a disease called the False Death), and many others. Daleina couldn’t remember them all, but Hamon liked to rattle off their properties as he worked.

  “I don’t want to risk waking that earth kraken again,” Ven said. “We’ll resume the attacks when we can be midforest.”

  Very well, if that’s what it took, that’s what she’d do. She hugged Bayn, and he leaned his head against Daleina’s cheek. Daleina then stood up and, with her hands in front of her, felt to the nearest tree. She knew from ducking under it that this one had a low branch, and she knew from sensing the spirits run up and down it that there were multiple limbs above her.

  “He didn’t mean right now,” Hamon said.

  She climbed slowly but steadily, reaching up for the next branch, climbing by feel. It wasn’t so different from climbing through her old village at night. She missed the shadows and bits of light that filtered through the trees, but other than that, she knew she could do it. Beneath her, she heard the sound of climbing—Ven was following her.

  Clinging to the braches, she stretched her mind out to the nearest spirits. She kept her mind open, waiting for the attack that she knew would come—and it did come. She “saw” the wood spirits converge, heard them chittering to one another, and she focused
on them.

  Grow berries. She guided them with her mind to the berry bushes that ringed their campsite, imagining the bushes bursting with fat, ripe berries, and the spirits veered down to attend to the bushes.

  “Is that the best you can do?” she asked Ven.

  He laughed. She thought it was the first time she’d heard him laugh. It sounded like a rumble, as if a bear were laughing.

  From there, the training resumed as intensely as it had been before. He tested her often, calling spirits to their campsite and ordering her up into the trees to face them. She wasn’t fast, and she often came down with extra scrapes and bruises and the occasional more serious gash.

  Hamon patched her up each night. “I can see why Ven wanted a healer along.”

  “What were you doing before this?” Daleina asked him.

  “Helping my master in the outer villages. All the usual sicknesses and injuries, plus childbirth complications.”

  She leaned her head to the side so that he could smooth a salve on a scrape that crossed the back of her neck. She’d miscalculated on a branch, and it had snagged her as she jumped to the next one. Jumps were the scariest, since she had to trust Ven was right about the distance—he’d call it out, and she’d do it. As long as she didn’t think too much before she jumped, it went fine, usually. At least she hadn’t broken anything yet. “Why did you become a healer?”

  “The same reason most do, I suppose. I want to help people.”

  “But why?”

  “You don’t want to hear the sob story. It’s not particularly original. My father was ill when I was young. If I’d known more about medicine, I could have helped him. As it was, he died.” He unwound the bandages from around Daleina’s eyes. She cracked them open. They felt as if they’d been glued together.

  Looking around, she thought she saw glowing orbs, orangeish. That was progress, wasn’t it? “I see a glow, there.” She pointed.

  “That’s the fire. Good.” He began to wash out her eyes again.

  “I’m sorry about your father.”

  “It was a long time ago.” Gently, he wiped her eyes with a soft cloth. They didn’t sting as much. She tried again to see the fire, trying to force it into a crisp shape. The glow undulated. “My mother did not take his death well, and so I left for an apprenticeship as soon as I could. Not an unusual story. Your childhood pain is more unique.”

  “Ven told you?” She thought she saw a hint of movement, but it could have been her imagination. She closed her eyes again as he rewrapped the bandages. “Our stories aren’t so different. I wasn’t good enough to save them.”

  “I understand how that must have shaped you. Survivor’s guilt, it’s called; it’s an illness of the mind. I have been trained—”

  Curled at her feet, Bayn tensed. Immediately, Daleina sent her senses out, as well as down and up—there was a spirit with Ven, several yards from their camp. She didn’t sense anger, but she leapt to her feet, tense, ready.

  “What is it?” Hamon asked.

  Daleina heard Ven barrel into the campsite. “Got a message. I have to go. Bayn, take care of Hamon and Daleina.” She listened as he threw items into a pack.

  “What do you mean, ‘a message’?” she asked as Hamon asked, “Where?”

  “North Garat.”

  “I’ll come,” Hamon said. “You’ll need me.” She heard him begin to pack as well.

  “No, I need you to stay with Daleina,” Ven said. “She can’t be left alone out here. Not on the forest floor, and not when we’ve been drawing spirits. Not until—”

  He stopped short, and Daleina knew he was going to mention her eyes. She clenched her hands and forced her voice to sound calm, reasonable, competent. “What’s happening?”

  “He gets messages with warnings, about rogue spirit attacks,” Hamon explained when Ven didn’t answer.

  “Then I’m coming too.”

  “You can’t keep up on the forest floor.” Ven’s voice wasn’t cruel, just factual.

  “We can travel the wire roads,” Daleina said. “I don’t need to see to fly. All I need is someone to call out when it’s time to switch wires.” She managed to say it as if she thought it would be easy, even though the idea of hurtling through the air unable to see the end of the line was terrifying. “I can help. You know I can. This is why you picked me, why you brought me out here, isn’t it?” She remembered the conversation with Headmistress Hanna, the cryptic remarks about messages that hadn’t made sense at the time. “This is why we’re here.”

  She braced herself for an argument, but it didn’t come.

  “Fine,” Ven said. “Let’s go.”

  All three of them began to climb.

  CHAPTER 17

  As she climbed, Daleina felt the air change. On the forest floor, it tasted damp, thick with the smell of earth and moss. By midforest, the air was sweeter, mixed with the scent of nearby villages, of smoke and cooking meat and drying clothes. Higher, near the canopy, it was like breathing fresh, cold water. She felt the wind on her face and heard the whispering of leaves.

  Below, Ven called, “The platform is to your left.”

  Stopping, she reached around the trunk with her foot, feeling for it. Her toes brushed the edge. Intellectually, she knew how high she’d climbed, but she pretended she was only a few feet from the forest floor as she shifted weight and lunged onto the platform. Just like climbing back home, right? Wind whipped around her, and she clung to the tree trunk. Feeling above her, she found the wire.

  Soon Ven joined her, and then Hamon, panting. “This is insane,” Hamon said. “Daleina, you can’t do this.” He caught her shoulder, and she shrugged him away.

  “Tell me when to switch wires,” she told Ven, and then she hooked herself on to one. She held her other clip in her free hand and breathed deeply once, twice, three times. You can do this. No fear. She heard Ven clip on behind her and felt the wire tremble.

  “We’ll have to make three switches and then climb down to the bridges,” Ven said. “Be ready. If you can’t do it, stop and I will come back for you later.” And then deliver you to the academy, he didn’t say, but Daleina heard.

  “I can do it.” Hoping she wasn’t wrong, she kicked off the platform. Wind hit her face, her arms, her legs, and her back so hard that she felt wrapped in wind. Branches slapped her legs, and one caught her hair, yanking out several strands. Tucking her chin down, she kept her free hand out, the other clip ready. She listened, as if she could somehow hear the end of the wire, but for all she could tell it went on endlessly.

  “Three! Two! One! Now!”

  Daleina reached forward, and her arm hit the next wire, stinging as the wire sliced her skin. She clipped on and released the first clip. She swung wildly, her arm wrenching in its socket as she switched, and then she was going, speeding up again. She felt the wire shake as Ven switched behind her and then again when Hamon switched.

  She sailed between the trees, and for a moment, she felt free, for the first time since she’d been pulled beneath the earth. She felt as if she were all that existed, soaring through an empty world.

  “Three, two, one, now!”

  She switched again, and then again, until at last Ven cried, “Brace!”

  She held out her feet, knees bent, letting gravity tell her which way to face, until she felt the impact of the tree reverberate through her body. She collapsed onto the platform and unclipped. Her arms ached, and her legs stung where branches had smacked into her. She felt and heard Ven land beside her. Standing, she pressed against the trunk, hoping she was out of the way enough as Hamon landed beside her.

  “Let me look at your wounds,” Hamon demanded.

  “There’s no time,” Ven said. “Climb down.”

  Hamon kept his hand on her, letting her use him to guide her to the ladder. She then climbed down by feel until she reached the bridge. Reaching out, she grabbed Hamon’s hand, and he held it as they ran along the bridge, following the sound of Ven’s footsteps, pounding on
the wood as the bridge shook beneath them.

  She heard screaming up ahead. Multiple voices. And the rip of wood. Instantly, she was plunged back in her memories to when she was ten years old. Her breath, already harsh in her throat, felt even faster, and her heart raced. Every muscle wanted her to turn and run in the opposite direction, but she kept running toward the screams. Her hand was gripping Hamon’s so hard that sweat stuck their palms together.

  Ven stopped her with his hands on her shoulders. “Hide here, both of you.”

  Hamon pulled her down behind what felt like a wall. Her fingers touched the seams between wood boards—the side of a house or just a crate. She couldn’t tell which it was. She heard Ven pull his blade from its sheath, the ring of drawn steel, and she cast her mind outward, feeling for the spirits.

  There were six. Small but vicious wood spirits, tearing through the houses, biting any flesh they saw, ripping any cloth, breaking any wood. She felt them like vibrations in the air, tiny earthquakes in her mind. Stop! She sent the thought out, and it was swallowed in their whir. She doubted they even felt her. They were all whirling rage and joy and ecstatic, blood-crazed destruction. She wasn’t going to be able to overpower them; she’d have to redirect them, somehow.

  Growing a few branches was not going to be a tempting enough substitute for the bloodlust. She needed to offer them something grand. Like a palace. Or a fortress. Or the academy. Drawing a picture in her mind of soaring spires and fused trees, she crafted her command. She’d have to hold it firm and be—

  “What do we do?” Hamon whispered in her ear.

  “I talk to the spirits; you keep me safe.” Standing, she threw everything in her into that picture and sent it spiraling out toward the six spirits. Build! she commanded. She held the picture of the spires.

  The spirits shrieked. She felt them rip into a woman’s leg. Distantly, she heard screams, but they faded as she bore her will down on the spirits. Build! She painted the picture for them, beautiful and tall. And she felt the spirits swirl around one another, faster and faster, in a cyclone, and then they burrowed into the trunks of six of the village trees. They wanted this: unfettered growth, wild birth.