The Reluctant Queen (The Queens of Renthia #2)(124)

She fought the way she thought: cleverly. She couldn't outpower Merecot, but she could outwit her. She sent her spirits behind the invaders, striking from directions they wouldn't expect. She slipped ice spirits into the ranks of Merecot's soldiers, forcing her to use fire spirits to protect them. As soon as the fire spirits were close enough, Daleina caught them with earth spirits, burying them in soil, or trapped them with branches that her water spirits doused with water.

The forest burned.

But the city did not.

I can do this, she thought. You will not take Aratay. You cannot win.

But she couldn't win either. She was stalling them, keeping them within Naelin's range, keeping them from killing more of her people, but she wasn't winning. Merecot was fueling her spirits with her strength-and she was very, very strong. 

Reaching out, Daleina directed several spirits to the academy. They peeled the enemy spirits away from the walls, plucked them out of the practice ring, buried them in the earth, flooded them. She had her spirits sweep through the streets-her people were hiding, and her spirits kept them safe, harrying away any spirits that attempted to pry off doors and break through windows. She sent others to the palace, defending the refugees.

She tried to pull the spirits out the second she felt the blackness rising. She tried to send them out of the city, away from her people, toward the grove. She pushed them as far as she could and hoped she'd given Naelin enough time.

"Now, Bayn," she told the wolf. "Find him."

She heard him run from the tower as she collapsed.



Arin bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. She could do this. All she had to do was focus and keep her hand steady. So far, they'd tried twelve possible antidotes, and all had failed when they encountered a drop of the poison dissolved in a drop of Arin's blood. She was on their thirteenth try.

Behind her, Hamon and his mother were arguing. Again.

The poison was a chameleon, changing whenever it was close to human blood, cleaving to the cells. It hides in the blood, Garnah had said. Disguises itself. She admired the poison, Arin could tell. "Such a clever beauty," Garnah would murmur, which would lead to Hamon yelling. Luckily, Arin didn't need either of them to do this part.

Squatting so that she was even with the jar, Arin squeezed one drop of distilled water. It plopped into the drops of her blood-they'd started with samples of Daleina's blood but had switched to Arin's when it ran out. There wasn't time to go bleed her sister, and anyway, she was busy, Hamon had said.

"What could be more important than discovery?" Garnah asked.

Arin felt the same way. Daleina should be here. This was her life they were trying to save. She's probably off somewhere being noble. Of course, she was certain that Master Garnah was interested in results for entirely different reasons-she loved the poisons themselves, not the people.

Adjusting the microscope, Arin positioned a slide under it and peered in. She watched the cells constrict and then expand as they were invaded by the poison.

Behind her, Hamon was saying, "Yes, I do. I love her! Is that what you wanted to hear? Are you going to murder her now, to see how I react? Or to make me need you? Because it won't work. You'll only drive me further away."

"My boy, I'm trying to save her!" Garnah captured the tone of wounded innocence perfectly. Arin assumed that Hamon could see right through it. He had much more experience with his mother than she did.

"Master Garnah," Arin interrupted, "what would happen if we added feather-moss extract?" She knew why you never baked with feather-moss extract-if it hit sugar, it reacted badly.

"Ooh, interesting, but no. Not unless you want to make your queen vomit for a week."

"So long as she lives," Hamon said.

"Sadly, that would not be a side effect," Garnah said. "But what if you add red lichen-" Coming to Arin's side, Garnah picked up one of her vials and twirled it. "Perhaps we're coming at this wrong. Perhaps instead of attacking the poison, we could redirect it. Give it a new target."

The palace shuddered, and the workbench rocked to the side. Arin hugged the microscope so it wouldn't fall as the tubes and jars rattled together. Outside, she heard screaming. Hamon rushed to the window.

"That is not good," he said grimly.



       
         
       
        

"That is not our problem," Garnah said. "You really must learn to focus. That was always what prevented you from excelling. Instead of focusing on the problem at hand, you get distracted by irrelevancies."

"Other people's lives are not irrelevancies."