The Queen of Blood

by Sarah Beth Durst

  She let it go and stepped out of the ring, fifth to last.

  Dropping to her knees, she dug her hands into the ground beyond the ice circle. Her head felt as if it were spinning. She felt Hamon’s hands on her back, smearing salve onto the wounds. Lifting her head, she looked across the ring—and saw Queen Fara looking directly at her.

  Daleina was certain, bone-deep certain, that the queen knew what she’d done, directing the spirit to attack her friend. Queen Fara smiled.

  “Knew you could do it,” Ven said, beside her. He helped haul her onto her feet. “Head high, back straight, look like a princess. Everyone’s watching.”

  Daleina nodded. She straightened and watched the two remaining spirits battle in the ring: a candidate she didn’t know, plus Mari. She circled the ring for a better view as Mari guided her water spirit to create a geyser in the center of the ring. She must be drawing water from throughout the city. The geyser stretched higher and higher, and her spirit was within it, spinning faster and faster.

  The other spirit, a fire spirit, tested the edges of the water, roaring as it turned streams into steam. Steam flooded the practice ring, and then Daleina couldn’t see. No one could. She stretched her mind into the ring, feeling for the spirits, and she felt the moment when the other candidate’s control broke and the spirit turned on her.

  The fire spirit roared down on the girl.

  “No!” Daleina cried with her voice and her mind.

  She felt the weight of other minds pressing down on the spirit as well, as other candidates realized what was happening, but they were too late.

  The steam cleared.

  Mari stood beside her water spirit.

  And the other candidate was dead.

  ALL OF THEM GATHERED IN DALEINA’S ROOM, LIKE THEY USED TO. Except tonight they were silent, and their silence made the room feel small. Mari sat on Daleina’s bed, between Linna and Revi. Iondra was perched on the desk. Evvlyn, Zie, and Airria all sat on the rug on the floor. Only Daleina stood.

  Linna stroked Mari’s hair while Revi held her hands.

  “You were following instructions,” Iondra said. “This self-flagellation is pointless. Queen Fara does not blame you. The people of Aratay do not blame you.”

  “We don’t blame you,” Revi said.

  “You’re all anyone is talking about,” Zie said. “You won the trials!”

  “First half of the trials,” Iondra corrected.

  Mari only stared at her hands, entwined with Revi’s. “I didn’t even know her name.”

  Zie opened her mouth to say the woman’s name, and Daleina nudged her with her foot, hard. When Zie looked up at her, Daleina silently shook her head, and Zie shut her mouth. They fell into silence again. Outside, there were murmurs on the spiral staircase, the current students dispersing after dinner. The night bells were beginning to ring, a cascade that was like a familiar lullaby. Daleina moved toward the window and looked out at the familiar view: the stairs and the interior of the academy. High above, the headmistress would be in her office. Below, the teachers would be preparing the practice ring for the next day. Life went on, even in the midst of the trials. She had to remember this, when she was in the middle of everything. She had to remember who the enemy was. It wasn’t anyone in this room. “Airria . . .” Daleina began.

  “Don’t,” Airria said. “You were clever. You’ve always been clever.”

  “I shouldn’t have—”

  “You redirected it, didn’t you? Toward yourself. That makes us even.”

  “But I shouldn’t have—”

  “Stop, Daleina,” Evvlyn said, her voice heavy, old. “All of us do things we regret.”

  All of them were silent, deep in their own thoughts, until Revi, in an attempt to lighten the mood, said, “For example, I regret that I lied to my champion. ‘I shot the squirrel myself.’ ‘I didn’t forget the fire starter.’ ‘I didn’t steal these gloves; they were a gift.’ ‘Of course I paid for the bread.’ ‘Of course I can sense the spirits.’ All our ethics courses, and I fold in the face of the outdoors and the horror of camping.” She mocked herself in a light voice, but the look in her eyes didn’t match her tone, and her words fell like rocks into a pond, swallowed whole. She looked haunted. More had happened than she said, Daleina was certain. She wondered how many secrets they each held now and thought of her champion and the notes he received. “A queen shouldn’t be a petty thief.”

  “A queen shouldn’t be a murderer,” Mari said.

  “It’s not your fault, Mari,” Linna said, covering Mari’s hands with her own. “You didn’t order the spirit to kill her.”

  “Of course I didn’t!”

  “Then it’s not your fault.”

  “She’s right,” Daleina said.

  “But my control slipped,” Mari said.

  At least you had control, Daleina thought.

  “I don’t deserve to be here,” Mari said.

  “You were the best!” Linna said. “What happened doesn’t erase that. Mari, you’ve come so far. Don’t talk like that. You’re the best of us.”

  All of them nodded.

  “Is this the part where we all hug?” Iondra asked. “Because that is not in my nature.”

  Mari half hiccupped, half laughed, and then she started to cry. Linna twisted and gathered Mari into her arms so that Mari cried on her shoulder. Revi patted her on the back. The rest sat in silence, listening to her cry, feeling her pain. Daleina wished she knew the name of the candidate who died, wished she knew anything about her, so that the woman could be more than a broken body in the middle of a steam-filled practice ring as the ice melted around her, but she’d been taken away quickly, by her own champion. Daleina didn’t know if she should go to the funeral. She thought no. If she were the woman’s family, she wouldn’t want to see the other candidates, the ones who had survived. Or maybe she had to be there, to show respect. It could have been any of them who fell.

  “Did I tell you about the time I tried to gather an egg from a bird’s nest? My champion wanted breakfast, and I was determined not to let her down,” Revi said, her voice determinedly upbeat.

  “Let me guess,” Daleina said. “Not a bird’s nest.”

  “Oh, no, it was not. Did you know there are actually flying lizards out in the forest? Well, apparently, there are. And apparently, they don’t like egg stealers. And do you know how they express their displeasure? They spit. Goo. All over you. I had it in my hair, up my nose, in my mouth, because of course I opened my mouth to scream, and down my shirt. As a lesson, my champion wouldn’t let me bathe until that night.” This time, Revi’s attempt to lighten the mood worked. Daleina began to smile, almost.

  “My champion thought I had to learn to be less ‘pretty,’” Linna offered. “She wanted me to ditch all my hair jewels, go without bathing, and sleep in muck.”

  “What a strange way to train you,” Iondra said.

  “I believe she wanted to harden me,” Linna said.

  “Did it work?” Mari asked in a small voice.

  “I’m already hard,” Linna said with an elegant shrug. “It just made me dirty. After a week, I made sure to sleep in a pile of skunk cabbage and then stick closer to her for the entire next morning. She let me bathe that same day. Champions do have some odd notions.”

  “They want the best for us,” Iondra said.

  “They want the best for Aratay,” Evvlyn corrected. She’d returned recently from training and had refused to talk about her experience, but Daleina had seen the way she flexed and unflexed her right hand, as if she couldn’t control it anymore. Softly, she said, “I’ve thought about quitting.”

  Silence greeted that.

  “But I won’t, because . . . well, this is who I am now. I wouldn’t know who else to be.”

  Daleina felt herself nodding. She sank onto the bed beside Linna, Mari, and Revi. They stayed up another hour, talking about their training, wondering what the second half of the trials would be like, and sitting together in
the silences between the words. This is my family, Daleina thought. These women, in this place. This was home, and these were her sisters. When they left for their respective rooms to sleep, she felt their presence linger in the air.

  She was still sitting on her bed, thinking about them, her friends, when she heard a soft knock on her door. Standing, she crossed to the door and opened it, expecting to see Mari or Revi or Linna.

  But it was Hamon.

  He was still dressed in his Healer uniform, as if he hadn’t tried to sleep. He probably hadn’t. He’d most likely been offering his services to all the candidates. He held a jar of salve. “You’re awake. I’ve come . . .” He trailed off but held up the jar as an explanation. “You need to be pain-free for tomorrow. You don’t know what she’ll throw at you next.”

  “Is that truly why you’re here?”

  “When the wood spirits closed around you . . . I thought I’d lost you. And then today, you were so fierce . . .” He touched her cheek, gently. Definitely not a healer’s touch.

  She drew him inside and shut the door behind him. “I did something unforgivable in the ring today. I turned a spirit on another candidate. A friend. Someone I’ve known for years, who took classes with me here at the academy, ate meals with me. She may not have been one of my closest friends, but she still counts as one, and I turned a spirit on her to break her concentration. That’s the only reason I lasted in the ring as long as I did.” The words tasted bitter on her tongue. She watched his face to gauge his reaction, but his face didn’t change.

  “You turned the spirit on yourself to stop it.” It wasn’t a question.

  “After I let it attack her.”

  “Let me fix your back. I can’t heal what you feel, but I can heal your skin.”

  She sat on her bed and lifted her shirt over her head. Facing her back toward him, she held her hair up as he rubbed the salve over the mostly healed wounds.

  “How are your eyes?” he asked as his fingers rubbed away the remnants of pain.

  “Fine.” Twisting, she looked at him. She could see him looking at her in the candlelight. His hands moved up to her shoulders.

  “And your arms? Any pain from the other day?”

  She held out her arms, twisting them for him to see. The cuts from the spirits had faded into pink lines on her skin. He ran his hands down her arms, softly, his fingers feeling like feathers.

  “Anything else?” he asked, his eyes locked on hers, as if he planned to never look away. “I want to heal your pain, Daleina. All of it.”

  She drew him closer, and he kissed her, hesitantly at first as if afraid he would hurt her, and she kissed him back, her hands on his skin, his on hers.

  And she felt no pain that night.

  CHAPTER 22

  After the funeral, Daleina and the other candidates gathered in front of the palace. The queen waited for them, alone, framed by the arched entrance. The ring where they had fought and the candidate had died was gone, erased as if it never existed, and flowers encircled the queen, cascading from the top of the arch. Side by side with her friends, Daleina felt other eyes on her, people from the city, the champions, and spirits, curious after yesterday. She tried to draw strength from the fact that she wasn’t alone.

  “Your task is simple. Aratay has many abandoned areas, places where people once lived and now only spirits reside. I have chosen one, a lost village, to be reclaimed for people once again. Your champions have been told where the area is and will share that information with you. Once they have done so, you are on your own. Go. Claim the village. Rebuild it. Make it safe. And then you will have earned your place as heir.” She favored them all with a smile. “I wish you the very best.”

  She then turned and walked into the palace. As she reached the gate, she turned her head and added, “All of Aratay wishes you the very best.” And the trees exploded into bloom, flowers bursting to life on every branch, growing from vines that shouldn’t have been able to grow in fall, in a riot of colors from spring and summer.

  As the queen left, the blossoms burst into flame as fire spirits danced over them and then froze in half-ashen blossoms as ice spirits flew behind them.

  “She does know how to make an exit,” Revi murmured.

  Daleina saw Ven push his way through the crowd toward her. Hamon was close behind him. Ven clasped her hands. “Hate me if you want, but be strong.”

  Daleina blinked. He looked . . . angry, she thought. It wasn’t anything definitive: his face was still blank, but there was a tightness to his jaw that she only saw after a village had been attacked. “What do you mean?”

  “It can’t be a coincidence, the ‘lost’ town. She chose it . . . to punish me? To test you? I don’t know. I can’t pretend to know what she’s thinking, but whatever her reason for wishing to put you at a disadvantage—” He cut himself off, as if he realized he was babbling, an unusual activity for a champion and one that was making Daleina feel as if the oxygen was being sapped out of the air. He squeezed her hands again. “Daleina, the lost village is Greytree. It’s your village. I am so very sorry. It’s cruel.”

  Daleina felt numb. Home. She pictured it as it was, with Rosasi and her friends and their house cradled in the village tree. “She didn’t know.”

  “She did know. She’s testing you. Why just you, I don’t know, except it must be to punish me, because I dared defy her exile and bring you here. She means to hurt me through you. Or test me through you.” He closed his eyes, inhaled, and then opened them. “You will need to set aside your emotions, remember your training, and draw on your strengths. Can you do that? If you can’t, there is no shame in walking away. We can continue our training and try again at the next trials. No one will think less of you.”

  “Listen to Ven,” Hamon put in. “You don’t have to do this.”

  Daleina’s mouth quirked into a smile. “You mean I have a choice?”

  “Of course!” Hamon said.

  “It isn’t fair of her to ask this of you,” Ven said. “And I won’t ask it of you. I will respect whatever choice you make.”

  Daleina glanced at the others, also in close conferences with their champions. She doubted the other champions were having this kind of talk with their candidates. She wondered what it meant that hers was trying to talk her out of it, if he thought she wasn’t worthy or believed she was going to fail. “It’s the kind of thing a queen has to do, isn’t it? Heal what’s broken? In a way, it’s the reason I’m here.” Brave words. She wasn’t sure she meant them. Then again, she wasn’t sure she didn’t. Greytree. It always came back to that, to the day when she hadn’t saved everyone. “I think I’m meant to do this.”

  Ven snorted. “I don’t believe in fate.”

  “This isn’t about you.” Daleina covered his hand with hers to soften her words. “Maybe that’s how Queen Fara meant it, but that’s not what it is. Not anymore. I’m making it about me. Maybe, when I’m done, someone will write a song about it, and your sister will sing it from the top of the canopy. Now, will you both quit worrying about my emotional state and let me go?” On the last word, she realized she was shouting. Gathering up the shreds of her dignity, she marched to the end of the branch and jumped off, grabbing a rope as she did and swinging down to the forest floor.

  Whistling, she waited for a moment, and Bayn trotted out of the bushes. Daleina rubbed his ears, and the wolf’s tongue lolled out of his mouth. He leaned against her, comfortingly, and she braced herself to keep from toppling over into the bushes. “Guess it’s just you and me.”

  Behind her, she heard a soft thump as someone landed. She turned to tell Ven—

  It wasn’t Ven. It was Mari. “Is it true you know the way?”

  “Yes.” She swallowed and straightened, taking strength from the warmth of the wolf by her side. The others from Northeast Academy joined them: Revi, Linna, Zie, Iondra, Evvlyn, and Airria. “I’ll take us there.”

  THE LIGHT WAS FADING TO A MATTE GRAY, FLATTENING THE SHADOWS between the t
rees. Looking up at the moss-coated branches, Daleina called to the others, “We should stop for the night.”

  Ahead, Linna called, “I found the perfect spot.” She beckoned them through the woods into a clearing that was as picturesque as a storybook: a lovely pool of water, reflecting the dimming sky above, beds of soft ferns, blossoms closed for the coming evening, moss hanging from the branches of the bent bows. All it needs is a deer lapping at the pool, surrounded by singing woodland creatures with ribbons and bows in their fur, Daleina thought.

  As she always did when she traveled with Ven and Hamon, she scanned the area for spirits—she found one, living in the pool of water beneath a tree. “There’s a spirit in the . . .”

  She trailed off as a half-dozen more spirits swooped in from between the trees. A tiny wood spirit with leaflike wings and berry eyes flew to Mari, alighted on her shoulder, and then dived into a nearby bush—the berries ripened in its wake. Calling to a water spirit, Revi flushed a squirrel out of its nest. Across the clearing, Linna created a fire with only spirits and no kindling or wood, and Zie instructed two earth spirits to kill, skin, and prepare the squirrel to be cooked over that fire. Airria and Evelyn used spirits to plump up the moss and create hammocks out of leaves. Watching them, Daleina unrolled her plain bedroll. As the air shimmered around her, a part of her kept whispering, Danger!

  “There are fish!” Linna instructed the water spirit to hand them to her out of the pool. She passed them to Zie’s spirits to be cleaned and put on the fire. Soon, they were all sitting around the living flames, eating fish, squirrel meat, and berries, and Daleina had never felt more like she didn’t belong.

  “Daleina, do you want a hammock? I can make you one,” Revi offered. “The trick is to have a tree spirit weave vines.”

  “I prefer the moss beds,” Linna said. “You can contour them to your back.”

  “I’m fine,” Daleina said. “But thanks.”

  “I’ve heard Champion Ven prefers the austere approach,” Zie said. “I bet he has you hunting for your food with bow and arrow.”