The Queen of Sorrow

by Sarah Beth Durst

  It was exactly what she needed.

  Besides, I’ll need all the help I can get in the untamed lands. Fighting through the chaotic swirl of thoughts, she projected a command: Down. Rest.

  And the spirits obeyed easily, as if they’d always obeyed her, though she thought it was more likely they obeyed because they wanted to rest than because they respected her authority. They plunged down through the trees, knocking off the last of the golden leaves. Several lit on branches in the canopy, while others plunged deep in between the trees. She felt them infiltrate the forest—and as her spirit landed on a branch beside Ven’s, she felt a wave of uneasiness.

  She stayed mounted on her spirit while Ven climbed off and began setting up camp, stringing hammocks between the branches.

  “The trees don’t want us here,” she said suddenly.

  No, that’s not right. Trees don’t feel.

  But she felt watched . . .

  No, worse than watched. Hated. Feared.

  Around her, the ex-Semoian spirits were filling the trees. The feeling wasn’t coming from them. She tried to pinpoint the source of wrongness that pervaded the air. Around her, the spirits chattered and chittered and chirped as they burrowed into the ground, grew new branches onto the trees, and dusted the leaves with frost.

  Then it dawned on her. What she felt was the spirits of Aratay pouring toward them. Agitated. Angry.

  “We can’t stay here,” Naelin said, louder.

  Ven stopped.

  Her spirits noticed the Aratayian spirits surrounding them. She felt her spirits press closer to her, felt their anger shift outward, and felt them begin to sink into the land beneath them. Quickly, Ven unhooked the hammocks and tossed the supplies onto the nearest spirit that could fly—a black serpent with iridescent dragonfly wings. Naelin climbed onto a water spirit shaped like a swan.

  Keep moving, Naelin ordered the spirits.

  The spirits resisted—they liked this land, they wanted to stay, reshape the earth, grow the trees, play in the breeze. Not yours, she told them firmly. We can’t stay.

  It was worse than dragging reluctant children on a walk, because the spirits itched to fight. She felt them snap quickly from exhaustion to rage, and they wanted to tear, rip, rend, destroy. No. Come. Fly, run, crawl.

  Follow me.

  She felt the haze of all the memories burn away, like fog in the sun, and she focused on the single command, guiding her spirit up higher and higher above the canopy.

  Naelin drove them across Aratay as the spirits of the forest pursued them. When one of her spirits stopped to snap at a tree spirit, she wrapped her mind around it and propelled it forward. She felt sweat dampen her back and her hands as she clutched the feathers in her spirit’s neck. It bucked beneath her—it too wanted to spin around and fight, fight, fight.

  Come, she told it. And while it obeyed, the command seemed to drain her. She was pushing the spirits—and herself—too hard. Already, lights began dancing in front of her eyes . . .

  “We won’t make it!” Ven shouted. His spirit was weakening beneath him. She felt it as it struggled to keep pumping its wings. She tried to will it to stay aloft, but even if she weren’t completely wiped, she couldn’t make a spirit suddenly find strength it didn’t have. “It’s too far to the untamed lands! Naelin, we’ll have to stop!”

  But if they stopped, the spirits would fight, and she couldn’t let them tear apart Aratay. She wouldn’t. Which meant they needed someplace safe to stop. Somewhere the spirits wouldn’t attack those of Aratay. Somewhere they could rest. Somewhere . . .

  And then she remembered the whole reason these spirits followed her in the first place: the barren patches. Her little army could rest safely within one of the dead zones.

  She reached with her mind and, instead of looking for spirits, looked for the absence of spirits. She felt one, not far, a small circle of emptiness within the trees.

  There, she told the spirits.

  They streamed toward it.

  She felt the spirits funnel into the barren circle, and she guided her swan in, diving through a swarm of spirits. She saw the dark forest ringing them, hazy through the bodies of so many spirits. She felt them continue to pour into the tiny space.

  The swan landed on the ground, and she slid off it. Her knees buckled and she sank to the ground. Her palms touched the earth. The soil felt strange, dry and dead, and the air too tasted almost metallic. Her wild earth spirits burrowed happily into the earth, and her sense of it began to change as they filled it, bringing it back to life, bonding with it—

  No, it is not yours, she cut them off sharply.

  Confused, they halted.

  The spirits couldn’t bond to this land—she’d never be able to bring them out of Renthia into the untamed lands if they did. And besides, there were too many of them for such a constricted space.

  Only tonight, she told them. Not ours.

  “Can we stay here?” Ven asked.

  “I don’t know,” Naelin said. “Yes. But we can’t stay long. The spirits . . . they want . . .” She lost track of the rest of the sentence as the thoughts of the spirits pulled her into their minds again.

  They wanted to stay.

  They wanted land.

  They wanted sky.

  They wanted fire, ice, water . . . Flames skirted the edge of the barren circle, and little sprouts burst from the dry earth, to be tinged with frost then frozen. A sheet of rain swept through, and the earth spirits pushed from deep within, shaping the ground up—

  Stop. Not ours.

  They whispered back: Ours. Now, ours.

  Not yet. You’re going home. She pictured the untamed lands, the shifting haze, and she pushed the image out.

  They recoiled.

  Here. Now. Home, they told her.

  But they were fighting with one another. It was only a bit of land, a small circle, not nearly enough for the hundreds of spirits she’d brought with her. Barely enough for them to squeeze into for the night.

  She felt a hand touch her arm, and she jumped.

  “You need to eat,” Ven told her.

  “They’re . . .” Words failed her, and Naelin waved her hand at the spirits clustered around them.

  “And you need to sleep. I’ll keep you safe.” Ven met Naelin’s eyes.

  She couldn’t sleep, not with so many spirits pressing around her, wanting to fight one another. It wouldn’t take much for them to launch into one another, and the two humans in the middle . . . She had to keep control of them. “They want to bond with the land,” Naelin told Ven.

  “You can’t let them,” Ven said.

  “I’m aware of that.”

  He was silent for a moment. “How can I help you?”

  She loved him for that question. As before, it was exactly what she needed to hear. Naelin let herself sag against him and felt his arm around her—one hand because the other held his sword. “Just be with me.”

  She pushed her tired mind out into the sea of spirits. Rest. Sleep. Rest, sleep. She repeated the order over and over until she felt the spirits sink and sag. They were exhausted too, after being severed from a queen and bonding with a new one, after traveling across Semo and into Aratay. She felt the flurry of thoughts and emotions around her begin to slow and then dissipate. Sleep.

  Sleep.

  Sleep.

  The spirits slept.

  Curling up against Ven, she closed her eyes. She didn’t think she slept, but morning came faster than she expected, so perhaps she did. Awake, the spirits began again, trying to bond with the barren patch and clashing with one another over the same scrap of lifeless dirt.

  Onward, she told them. Toward home.

  They questioned her: Home?

  On the back of a feathered deer spirit—this one with silver and black feathers—she drove them out of the barren circle and up above the forest canopy. She felt the spirits of Aratay following, watching, hating, and hoped Queen Daleina had a tight grip on them. She must feel this, N
aelin thought. Every hedgewitch with a shred of power had to feel it as her spirits swept through the forests.

  She showed the spirits the image of the untamed lands again, and she felt their resistance. They didn’t want that. Now that they’d seen Aratay, they wanted to stay in a land that had already been shaped and solidified. She pressed the image harder into them. Home.

  Not home, they replied, and they threw images back at her: the towering mountains of Semo, the wide fields of what she thought was Chell, the glaciers of Elhim, the seas around Belene. We want our own home.

  You’ll have one, in the untamed lands, she told them. You can be happy there. No queen. No orders. No commands. Once I find my children, I’ll abdicate and leave, and you can live your lives without any of the humans you hate so much.

  Unfinished. She felt the word as a feeling more than a word. The others echoed it around her, and she felt their sadness.

  Unfinished. Undone. Interrupted. Humans . . . Cannot return to the untamed lands. Cannot be without a queen. Don’t want to. Don’t leave us. Can’t. Can’t. Don’t make us. Unmake. Undone.

  And then a soft, quiet: Please.

  She followed the thought into the mass of spirits. It was from a little air spirit with a thin humanlike body and delicate wings. Feeling the touch of Naelin’s mind, it flew closer and alit on the deer’s head. It held on, wrapping its long fingers around a feather.

  Why? Naelin asked. Aloud, she said, “You hate queens. In the untamed lands, you’ll be free. No humans. No queens.”

  The little spirit shuddered. “Stupid human, you don’t understand.” Her voice was as shrill as a whistle in the wind. “Beyond the borders of Renthia lies the chaos of the world beginning, unfinished. Do not send us back to the beginning.”

  “But you can’t stay here,” Naelin said. “You need your own home.”

  “Not home,” the spirit said. “Never became home. Long, long ago, it began.”

  All around, the other spirits echoed her: Long, long ago.

  Long ago, longer ago, still longer ago, back, beginning, before beginning. Yes, before the beginning . . . “Before the beginning, we were called by the Great Mother of Spirits to shape this world, seed this world, breathe this world to life.”

  We came. We shaped. We breathed.

  We did not finish.

  “We did not finish. We should have shaped this world to perfection, given it form, given it life, given it all, but before we were done, your kind came.”

  Humans.

  Scourge.

  Born too soon.

  “You were not to be here yet. We were not ready.”

  Not time.

  Not your time.

  Not our time.

  “The world wasn’t finished, but you were here, and we did not know what to do. We were afraid. We were angry.”

  We hated you.

  Hate.

  Still hate.

  It was not your time.

  You were not to be born yet. Not yet. We were not done. We were not gone.

  “We found you,” the little spirit said. “And we killed . . .”

  You killed.

  We killed.

  All of us killed.

  “And the Great Mother tried to stop our fight. But she died in the battle. She was not supposed to die. But she did, and the world was unfinished, and we were still here and you were here, and this was never supposed to be. We were supposed to finish and change, become the world’s protectors, but we did not, this was not to be, because you came. And you were not enough. You are not enough. But you are something. With you, we make something out of nothing. But it is your fault there is not more, your fault so much is undone, and we will never forgive you.”

  Naelin tried to make sense of the story. She never knew the spirits had their own story of how it all began, of where their hatred came from. She only knew the spirits needed queens and yet hated them. “You were supposed to make the world . . . and then leave?”

  “Not leave,” the little spirit said. “Change. We would have become what we were meant to be. But we lost our fate. It died that day, with Her.” And the sadness rose in waves from the little spirit and permeated the others. It swamped them, and they did not speak again as they kept flying westward as the sun trekked above them.

  At nightfall, Naelin found another barren circle and fought them again as they tried to bond with it, harder this time.

  “What’s going on?” Ven asked her quietly.

  “They don’t want to go back,” Naelin said.

  “Can’t blame them,” Ven said.

  “But they’re spirits. They hate us. I thought . . .” She’d thought the spirits in the untamed lands were free, the way they wanted to be, but she’d been wrong. “They told me their creation story. It’s different from any I’ve heard.” She told him what the spirits had told her.

  When she finished, Ven said, “Wish my sister were here to hear that.”

  “They think it’s true.” She’d never felt sorry for spirits before, but when she’d told them about the untamed lands and about her plan to leave them there, she’d felt their fear. Like children, afraid of being abandoned by their parents.

  They’d lost their Great Mother.

  The queens, they’d said, were poor substitutes.

  But we’re all they have.

  Reaching out, she sent them a thought: I won’t abandon you there.

  The spirits paused. As if all of them were holding their breath at once, she felt them listening to her. Is that what you’re afraid of? Being without a queen in the untamed lands?

  Yes. Yes, it was.

  I’m going with you. She pushed them the memory of Erian and Llor. I need to find them. Help me, and I won’t leave you alone. We’ll go into the untamed lands together, and I promise I won’t leave you behind. We’ll come back, and we’ll find you a true home.

  A ripple went through the spirits. It was a mixture of fear and something Naelin had never felt in them before.

  Hope.

  The spirits agreed.

  Braced between two pillars, Daleina stood at the top of the Queen’s Tower and tried to ignore Hamon and his mother bickering behind her.

  “If she really wants to talk to me, she shouldn’t make me climb so many stairs,” Garnah was griping. “Also, she should provide a lounge chair at least. I don’t sit on floors.”

  “This is the most secure place in Mittriel,” Hamon said.

  “Pfft. Not so secure. Chop a few support branches, and we’ll all plummet to our deaths on the forest floor. Boom! Splat!” Garnah made a variety of squishing noises.

  “Secure from spies, Mother.”

  Daleina heard shuffling and the crinkling of fabric behind her, then a theatrical sigh before Garnah said, “Most likely, we’d be impaled on one of the lower towers long before we hit the forest floor.”

  “Mother. Enough. Daleina didn’t call you here to murder you.”

  “Delightful news,” Garnah drawled. “But I’d prefer to hear such assurances from Her Majesty.”

  That was her cue to turn around and reassure Garnah, but instead Daleina sank her mind into the forest, reaching out to the spirits, soothing them. Safe. You’re safe. They won’t hurt you. Don’t hurt them. They’ll be gone soon. She felt the spirits twist and squirm—they wanted to hide or attack or chase or flee. Calm. You’re safe.

  She couldn’t keep her spirits from following the swath of foreign spirits that clung to Queen Naelin. They hovered around their camp, watching the intruders’ every move. Ripples of unease spread across Aratay, from spirit to spirit. She couldn’t stop it, or even slow it. All she could do was try to keep it from building into anything more.

  Do no harm.

  Leave them be.

  Watch, if you must. But just watch.

  She couldn’t reach far enough to see through their eyes at such a distance, the way that Queen Naelin could, but she could sense them congregating in a squirming, squalling mass outside of the village
of Redleaf. Naelin had made it that far at least. Another night, and she and all her spirits should be across the border into the untamed lands.

  Daleina had never wished for anyone to go into the untamed lands before, but once Naelin crossed, the spirits of Aratay should relax again and resume paying attention to the land. There was still so much to heal! Winter was coming fast.

  Confident her spirits were heeding her for the moment, she finally addressed the others in the room. “I’ve received a message from Queen Merecot, confirmed by Ambassador Hanna,” Daleina reported. Hamon already knew this, but the information was new to Garnah. “Queen Naelin is bringing the excess spirits into the untamed lands. She’s nearly there.” The spirits had congregated around a strip of barren land—that part of Aratay had the most barren patches, thanks to Naelin forcing so many spirits to die fighting the Semoian spirits when her children were taken. Keeping a hand on the pillar, Daleina turned to face Garnah and Hamon.

  Hamon smiled at her, and she let the warmth of his smile wash over her. It was the one steadying force in her always-tilting world. She could trust his love. I can’t trust Naelin’s grip on her spirits and, if I’m being honest with myself, I can’t trust my own grip to ensure Aratay’s spirits do not attack. The very truth of the situation was enough to drive a weaker person to tears, but Daleina was by no means weak. And with Hamon by her side, his quiet strength adding to her own power, she had a confidence she hadn’t experienced in quite some time.

  “Then it’s almost done,” Hamon said.

  She nodded. “Nearly, but I’m not lowering my guard until it is.”

  His smile shifted into a frown. “You’ll need to sleep at some point. You’ve barely gotten any rest. You won’t be any good to Aratay if you collapse.”

  Garnah was staring at her son. “You are such a mother hen.”

  “I’m her healer, Mother. It’s my job.”

  “You’re a nag, that’s what you are. She’s a grown woman who can take care of herself. Let her sleep when she wants to sleep.” Garnah then frowned at Daleina as well. “That said, you should sleep more. You have vicious circles under your eyes. People will think the spirits have been punching you.”