He saw a flash of gray in between the trees. Kneeling, he held his hand out, and a wolf trotted out, doglike, to sniff his fingers. He rubbed behind the wolf's ears. Bayn didn't like the capital, and Ven didn't blame him. "I don't suppose you have any power over spirits," he said to Alet without turning around.
She barked a humorless laugh. "Me? None. Hence developing the intense fighting skills."
No one knew why some were born with power and some weren't. No one knew why it was only women, and no one knew why some had more power than others. Sometimes it was passed down, mother to daughter, and sometimes it wasn't. Sometimes the power manifested early, and sometimes it didn't. But every generation had at least a few women who had enough power to control the spirits and enough strength of mind to become queen. The problem was finding one. "We won't find her here," Ven said.
Bayn was watching him steadily. He was an uncanny beast, so intelligent and aware that sometimes Ven forgot he was just an animal. Ven found himself looking at Bayn as if expecting him to think of the perfect solution, as if the wolf could even know what the problem was.
"Give them a chance," Alet said. "You don't need to rush your choice. You have fourteen days-milady knew you'd need time. She's sensible, even when others aren't."
He heard the admiration in her voice and shared it. Daleina was extraordinary. This shouldn't be happening to her. Balling his hand into a fist, he struck a tree. Bark flew away from his knuckles. He heard a growl behind him, and it wasn't the wolf. Let them come, he thought savagely. He could use a fight.
Alet caught his arm as he pulled back for another punch. "You're angering the spirits."
"They anger me." He could fight them, if he had to. Spirits were difficult to injure, but they hurt and they died, like all else, with enough effort. Still, it would be stupid to risk injury because of a temper tantrum, and the headmistress wouldn't be happy if he caused a tree near the academy to die. He suppressed the urge to pummel the tree and instead climbed it. Alet followed him.
Below, the spirit he'd woken with his punch stalked around the base of the tree. Roots thickened beneath its feet, and ferns unfurled. It snarled but didn't pursue them. Bayn faded back into the underbrush.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ven saw Alet speed up so that she climbed beside him, grabbing branches at the same time he did and hoisting herself higher. Soon, they had a rhythm-the boughs bent beneath them and then flung them upward as they leapt. "Ven, you have to choose a candidate. I know you don't want to. I know it means admitting what we don't want to be true, but you must. The queen needs you. She's counting on you. You, Ven. You're the one who found her. You're the one she expects to find her heir."
"I'm not saying I'm not going to find one. I'm just not going to find her heir at an academy." Standing on the top branch, he straightened until his shoulders and head were above the canopy. He looked out across the green sea, the top of the forests of Aratay.
Climbing up, Alet stood beside him. "You don't know that. One of the other academies-"
"They will all be the same. Children, all of them." There was no reason to think another academy would be any different. Northeast Academy was the finest. He'd be wasting his time. Daleina's time, he corrected. "If I choose a child, she will die, and Aratay with her." Ven shook his head as if that would clear his mind of the images of those children, torn apart by spirits. "It's been a century or more since Aratay was heirless. And so I believe we must find our heir the old-fashioned way. Not through an academy."
Alet's fists were on her hips as her feet straddled two branches. Wind slapped against her, shaking the tree, but she remained motionless, glaring at him. "You're telling me you want to head blindly out into the forest, in search of a miracle?"
"Yes," he said.
Chapter 5
The forests of Aratay were as vast and deep as an ocean. There were dark paths that hadn't seen sunlight in a century, as well as quiet groves of new saplings with trunks only as thick as a child's finger. A few roads, glorified animal tracks, ran on the ground between the trees, and the wire paths ran through the upper canopy, but most towns were nestled in the branches, midforest level, and connected by bridges. Other towns and villages were within the trunks. A few others thrived on the forest floor, and a rare few men and women, primarily the canopy singers, lived in the top level, nearest the sun. Naelin and her family lived midforest in a loose collection of homes that counted as a village. When Naelin first moved there, the village hadn't even been large enough to warrant a name, but now it was called East Everdale, as if tying it to the larger town of Everdale would lend it legitimacy. She liked it just as much with or without a name. It was home.