He was going to protest again, but she had closed her eyes and begun to snore.
And . . . he wasn’t sure she was completely wrong.
Merecot sipped the pine-needle tea and was surprised that it had honey in it, not poison. In Daleina’s shoes, she wasn’t sure that she’d be so gracious. “I apologize for trying to kill you again. I was upset.” The words felt awkward in her mouth, like pebbles stuffed in her cheeks. And “upset” didn’t begin to cover it.
Daleina didn’t say anything, and Merecot couldn’t be sure that Daleina had even heard. She had that distant look of talking with spirits. I used to wear that look.
“I appreciate that you haven’t put me in prison,” Merecot continued. She didn’t really understand why she had her freedom. She may not have power, but she should still be considered dangerous. Daleina is entirely too trusting. Or maybe she simply knows she’s the more powerful one now. “I’ll be returning to Semo, I guess.”
“You don’t have to,” Daleina said, stirring her tea. She had circles under her eyes but was still sitting as stiff and proper as Headmistress Hanna always did. “Queen Cajara is adjusting, I’m told. You could stay in Aratay. It was once your home.”
“Definitely can’t do that.” She’d never be able to bear the constant reminder of what she’d lost. And of what she’d nearly done. Putting down her teacup, Merecot crossed to the open window. A light breeze blew in, tinged with a hint of chill, a harbinger of the coming winter snows. “I truly thought it would work.”
“So did I. We share the blame.”
Merecot rolled her eyes. “I think I deserve more of the blame. Let me carry the guilt, Daleina. You’ve taken everything else from me.”
She heard Daleina sigh behind her. “That wasn’t my intent.”
“Intent or not, it happened, and now I have to live with it.” But live how? She’d always had her power. It had made her who she was. It had shaped every choice she’d ever made. Now when she reached for it, it felt like reaching for a ghost. It slipped through her fingers and faded into memory. It was even hard to recapture the feeling of how she’d done it, pushing her thoughts out, sending others. Now when she pushed . . . she felt only silence, as if she were pushing into a dense down pillow.
Leaning against the window, Merecot viewed the city that she’d nearly ruled—she wondered if any of them knew the details of what had happened in the grove, and how much they’d hate her if they knew.
They probably already hate me, she thought. I did try to kill their queen—twice. And kidnapped their other queen’s children. And invaded, causing much of their forest to die. And, failing to control the spirits, let many others die . . .
She almost laughed at the thought. Of course they hate me. What she truly wondered was if they hated her as much as she hated herself.
Daleina was silent behind her, and Merecot felt an itch on the back of her neck, as if she were being stared at by dozens of bumblebees. It was annoying. “What?”
“I didn’t speak.”
“But you want to. Go on, say whatever you want to say.”
“Your affinity for spirits might not be gone forever. Your power could still return.”
It might, or it might not. Merecot wasn’t in the mood for Daleina’s unbridled optimism. Doesn’t she ever get tired of being perky and positive?
“But if it doesn’t . . . You could seek out a new path, one that has nothing to do with spirits at all. Your life isn’t over, which means you still have choices, whether you see them yet or not.”
Merecot grunted. It was as much of a reply as she could manage, and as much as that gooey mushiness deserved. She heard a shift of fabric behind her and knew that Daleina had stood up.
“Good luck, Merecot. You’ve been a terrible friend, but I am still glad I saved you.”
She didn’t know what to say to that either. She listened without turning around to Daleina’s footsteps as they receded, and the door opened and closed. Still looking out the window, she saw an ermine-shaped spirit with wings like a bat fly between the branches and then up into the blue sky above.
“Maybe someday I’ll be glad too,” Merecot said, though Daleina was already gone.
Daleina didn’t want a feast for her wedding—she did not want to waste even a bit of food that could be saved for her people. Though she had the spirits working hard to repair the orchards, nut trees, and berry bushes, the stores were still low, and the winter months would be lean for many across the land. So it seemed wrong to celebrate her and Hamon’s wedding with any kind of extravagant banquet.
She did, though, want music. And dancing.
It was Belsowik who spread the word, and when she woke on her wedding day, she heard music: singing from the treetops, drums and horns from the branches, and what sounded like a thousand bells.
Sitting up, she saw Hamon was already awake and standing by the balcony. Smiling, she crossed to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “They’re singing for you,” Hamon said.
“For us,” she corrected.
“And themselves. They’re happy to be alive, thanks to you.”
Out in the trees, she saw the people of Mittriel were already celebrating: on the bridges, men and women were dancing. Children were racing over the branches, pulling ribbons behind them. Already brilliant-colored ribbons were tangled in the trees, looking like nests made of rainbows, and she saw spirits plucking them off and playing with them in the air.
She walked out farther onto the balcony, and the music wrapped around her. It soared—sopranos mixing with baritones in a glorious chorus that rose above the laughing children and the dancers’ drums. And then she saw them: the canopy singers, hundreds of them, perched at the very top of her city.
They must have all come. Or at least more than she’d ever seen. Most canopy singers were loners. She’d never heard of them gathering like this.
One of the singers, a woman with hair that floated around her face like dandelion fluff, rode a zipline toward the palace. She waved to the queen and shouted words that Daleina couldn’t quite hear. Quickly, Daleina signaled to her guards to let her come. And then she reached out to an ermine air spirit to carry her from the zipline to Daleina’s balcony.
I hope this doesn’t scare her. But she seems to want to talk to me.
The singer was laughing as the spirit deposited her on the balcony. Her cheeks were flushed. “And now I’ve met a second queen!” she said happily.
“Thank you for the beautiful music,” Daleina said, wondering whom she’d met before. Naelin? Fara?
“Oh, we had to sing for you. So you’ll have happiness!” She beamed at Daleina. “My brother chose well twice! Ven’s my brother. I came to ask you: The singers have heard rumors, they’re composing songs . . . Are they true? Did he go into the untamed lands? And did he live?”
This was Ven’s sister! Daleina had forgotten she was a canopy singer, if she’d even known that. Ven didn’t talk much about family or his childhood. “I’m so pleased to meet you.” She wanted to ask her a hundred questions about Ven: what was he like as a child, did she know any embarrassing stories about him, had he been born with a sword in his hand? But the singer’s questions were more important. “Yes, he did. And yes, he lives with Queen Naelin in the untamed lands . . . which I suppose we can’t call ‘untamed’ anymore, at least not their part of it.” Vast stretches of untamed lands still existed, of course—no one knew how far they stretched—but Renthia itself had grown.
Ven’s sister clapped her hands. “Oh, the stories he must have for me! Thank you!” She then stepped forward with arms out, as if to hug Daleina, then suddenly remembered this was the queen and dropped into a curtsy.
Laughing, Daleina hugged her anyway.
She then called to the air spirit to carry Ven’s sister back to the treetops. Daleina heard her singing as she flew. “It’s nice to have good news to share,” Daleina said to Hamon.
Hamon held out his hand. “Shall we give them all more good
news? Are you ready to marry?”
Looking down at her nightgown, Daleina laughed again. “Not quite.” She then shooed him out of the room and called to the palace caretakers to help her prepare.
She wore a dress of silken lace that felt as if she were wearing clouds, and for jewelry, she asked the spirits to decorate her in flowers. Vines wreathed her arms, with just-bloomed sprays of pink blossoms on her wrists. Around her throat, she wore the necklace her family had given her when she became queen: wood carved in the shape of leaves. Her crown was woven branches with white flowers, in remembrance of those lost.
Once she was dressed, Belsowik opened her chamber doors, and her parents and her sister rushed in. She embraced all three of them. “Oh, my baby girl,” her father said. “You grew up.”
“We’re so proud of you,” her mother said. She kissed Daleina on each cheek.
“Are you ready?” Daddy asked.
Am I?
Daleina remembered she’d once asked Queen Fara if she’d been ready when she became queen. But how could anyone be truly ready, when you never knew what path your life would take? “I’m happy,” she told him.
It wasn’t an answer to his question, but was perhaps even better.
She then looped her arm around Arin’s and followed her parents and Belsowik out the door of her chambers. “Are you happy?” Daleina asked Arin as they walked toward the Sunrise Room.
“Yes, I think I am,” Arin said, a faint blush staining her cheeks. “You’ll have to come visit as soon as you can. Mama and Daddy will be coming back with me after your wedding. They want to meet Cajara. And I want to show them Semo.”
“You should ask them to move there with you so you won’t be alone,” Daleina encouraged. She knew her parents would visit Aratay, and Arin needed them more.
Arin smiled. “I’m not alone. But I think . . . maybe I will.”
And then they reached the Sunrise Room, and the palace guards flung the doors open. Morning sun streamed through the windows, lighting the room so that it glowed amber. Hamon waited for her by the open window.
The wedding itself was only for family . . . but all of Aratay bore witness.
Outside, the people of Aratay were crowded onto the branches, as many as could fit, overflowing the trees. The song of the canopy singers flowed inside with the sweet autumn breeze. Daleina’s parents and sister escorted her to Hamon, and Daleina and Hamon stood facing each other, by the window so all could see.
Looking into Hamon’s eyes, Daleina thought she’d never been happier.
And when they sealed their vows with a kiss, all of Aratay rejoiced with them.
Naelin had told them all no castle. “It’s frivolous,” she’d said everyone who asked—and everyone did ask. Her new people had waited so long for a queen that they wanted all the trappings: a gleaming city of splendors. Naelin gave them all the same answer: no, no, and no. She wanted only a simple house, built only a walk from the cave of the Great Mother, no larger than the houses of anyone else in her new land.
It was harder, though, to say no to the spirits. They wanted to build. Out in the untamed lands, everything they’d created had been so quickly destroyed that now they yearned to create something that would last. She felt that yearning like an itch until at last, she gave in.
She gathered Erian and Llor to her. “Tell me: what should we make?”
“Trees,” Erian said promptly. “Like home.”
“Mud castles,” Llor said. “Like these.” And he plopped into a mud puddle, with mud splashing in a wave around him and spattering his pants. Naelin winced but said nothing as he scooped up fistfuls of muck and dribbled it to make towers.
“Llor, you’re all dirty now,” Erian informed him.
“If you sit, you can be dirty too.” He patted the puddle next to him. “Mama’s going to make me take a bath anyway.” He shot Naelin a look that clearly conveyed what he thought of that idea. “Bayn never makes us take baths.”
“That’s because Bayn lacks hands to wash you,” Naelin said. “He’ll be happy when you smell better. Wolves have an excellent sense of smell.” She knew she should scold Llor for drenching himself in muck, but a smile kept tugging on her lips. Kneeling, she scooped up a handful of mud and squeezed it, dribbling out a tower of dirt. “All right, but we’ll make the towers out of rocks so it’s less messy to live in, and we’ll grow trees around it.”
Llor cheered, clapping and spattering mud on Naelin and Erian.
“Mama!” Erian squealed.
Naelin met Erian’s eyes. She wiggled her eyebrows, then shot a significant look at the puddle and at Llor.
“Really?” Erian asked.
Grinning, Naelin nodded.
Whooping, Erian scooped up mud and flung it at her brother. He squealed and threw mud back at her. Then Naelin joined in, tossing mud at both of them, until they ganged up on her, spattering her from hair to feet.
Laughing, they collapsed in a heap in the puddle, and Naelin reached her mind out and touched the spirits. She etched in her mind an image of towers made of rocks, and the earth began to bubble, as did the spirits’ excitement. Earth spirits scurried over the land and within it, pushing upward, and Naelin felt the ground shake as stone burst from the dirt: black-streaked red stone twisting into spirals that jutted up toward the sky. Calling for the tree spirits, she released them to grow a forest around it. One muddy child on either side of her, she watched as trees sprouted and thickened.
Under her command, the water spirits corralled rivers and guided them into a lake that spread across a patch of desert. She instructed other earth spirits to create cliffs, and the water spirits joyfully led the water to cascade in thundering waterfalls.
“Oh, Mama, it’s beautiful!” Erian cried.
The fire spirits were fidgeting anxiously in her mind, and she sent them in: lighting fires in hearths in the homes of all her new people. Careful, controlled fires, but plentiful so that the new palace towers and all the stone homes blazed with light.
Reaching out to the ice spirits, she let them have a turn: freezing one of the waterfalls. It crackled as it crystallized, each torrent of water solidifying in midair. Glistening in the sun, it looked like a work of art.
As the others worked, she sent the air spirits out across her country and beyond the borders of her land, into the far wilds that were still untamed, to bring seeds of flowers from everywhere they could reach. They swept the seeds across the land, and she guided the tree spirits to plant them and the water spirits to help, until a riot of flowers blossomed at once for miles in every direction: reds, purples, blues, yellows, and the land was bathed in color.
With her arms around Erian and Llor, Naelin watched as her spirits danced across the land, drenching it in beauty. She decided she’d let them continue creating once they finished, but she’d send them beyond the capital, pushing them outward so the people could live their lives while the spirits lived theirs.
It might not be peace, but it’s close.
“I think I’ll like it here,” Erian said.
Kissing her mud-spattered hair, Naelin said, “Me too.”
Her children curled against her, watching as the land was reborn.
Ven kept his sword sharp and his bow ready—there were always spirits who didn’t want to be tamed, who wanted to destroy more than they wanted to create, who tested the limits of Naelin’s control. Queen Naelin had a simple and elegant solution to such rogue spirits: sever their connection to her and expel them from her country, exiling them into the vast expense of still-untamed lands that lay beyond her borders. But sometimes she missed one or two. Sometimes she was busy with other problems. Or asleep. Even queens needed to sleep. So Ven had claimed the responsibility of leading the guards who watched for occasional rogues.
It was rather enjoyable. And it had the added benefit of keeping the land safe.
He’d told Naelin he wouldn’t be her champion. Another would have to play the role of training her successor. He was committed
to keeping her on the throne for as long as she wanted it. Frankly, he was surprised she hadn’t argued with him, but he wasn’t going to complain.
One afternoon, after he’d chased an ice spirit away from the lake, Ven was whistling to himself as he sharpened his sword, when a barefoot boy ran onto the training field. “Visitor to see you, sir! From Aratay!”
He sheathed the sword and stood. Who would visit me?
New arrivals were unusual enough that half the village was gawking out their windows or coming outside to gawk directly as Ven trotted between the houses to greet his visitor. She was walking toward him and singing—the singing part wasn’t surprising, given who it was, but the walking was. “Sira!” he called. “You’re on the ground!”
“Yes,” his sister replied, breaking off her song. “I always said I’d walk on the ground again, once it had an interesting story to sing.”
He hurried to embrace her. “But how did you get here?”
“Aren’t you happy to see me? I’m happy to see you!”
“Of course I’m happy,” he told her. “I’m just also surprised.” Sira wasn’t the type to trek across all of Aratay, braving its dangers. She’d been content in her canopy, singing in the dawn. “Is Mother okay?” Mother would never have let Sira wander on her own. She’s dead, he thought, and he tried to control his reaction and keep his breath even, his heart from clenching in his chest, his hands from shaking. I should have known. With the dribs and drabs of news that had trickled in from Aratay . . .
“She’s fine. Grumpy, though.”
He exhaled, feeling as if he could breathe again. “Then why . . .”
“Because Queen Daleina told me you lived. And that the songs were true! They said you were prince of a new land, and I knew you wouldn’t have any singers to welcome the dawn or say good night to the sun and so I came, because I knew you’d need me.”
He smirked. “Prince?”
“Prince Ven! It rhymes well with many lyrics.”
“You came all this way on your own? On foot?”
The Queen of Sorrow Page 42