The Reluctant Queen (The Queens of Renthia #2)(19)

"You saved them!" a familiar voice crowed from below.

She jumped to her feet.

Below, on the forest floor, was her husband, Renet. "I saw it! You were magnificent! They fled from you like . . . like . . . You did it! I knew you could! I knew you had it in you!"

Lowering herself to the front of her house, Naelin didn't trust herself to speak. She didn't want praise, not for this, never for this. Her hands were trembling as she unlatched the door. "Erian? Llor? It's safe now. You can come out."

For a brief, terrible instant, she thought she'd failed-that the spirits had broken in, found them, while she dithered over whether to use her power or not-but then Erian flung open the trapdoor in the floor. Her daughter helped Llor climb out.

Dropping to her knees, Naelin gathered up her children in her arms and held them close. They threw their arms around her neck and clung to her as if they were both still toddlers, afraid of the dark. "They're gone," she whispered into Erian's hair. She breathed in the scent of her children, felt the warmth of their bodies.

Behind her, she heard Renet climb the ladder and burst into the house.

"I knew you could do it," he repeated.

Slowly, Naelin lifted her face from her children to look at her husband. "What," she said carefully, not yelling, no anger in her voice, but calm careful words, "do you mean you ‘knew'?"

"I didn't know, but I suspected." He dropped to his knees beside them, his face alight with excitement. "And it's true. You have power!" 

She stared at him and tried very hard not to let her entire body clench. "Tell me you are not saying you wanted this to happen. Tell me you didn't ‘forget' the charms on purpose. Tell me-" She stopped herself. Llor was sobbing into her shirt, and her brave Erian was shaking as if she was crying as well. She hugged her children tighter and tried to think calmly, rationally. The spirits knew what she could do now. They'd come again. How soon? And how many?

Belatedly, she realized Renet was talking again. ". . . the champion will be in Everdale as soon as tomorrow!"

"Is that why you did this?" she demanded. "You think a champion-"

"-is looking for you! Yes! Or he will be, once he knows that you have the power. I heard he's searching for a candidate, village to village, the way they used to a hundred years ago. Oh, Naelin, don't you see? This is our chance!"

"Chance? Chance for what-to be the target of every spirit in the forest?" She tried to keep down the anger, her children a reminder that she did love this man. But . . .

"No, no, a million times no! Renet, promise you won't tell the champion about me. I don't want to be a candidate. I refuse to be." Just thinking about it made her squeeze her children tighter. If this champion chose her, he'd take her away from them, from Renet, from her home, from her life. Leaving Erian and Llor would be like leaving her soul behind.

Burying her face in her children's hair, she breathed in and out, trying to calm herself enough to think. They'd have a little time before the spirits dared return. She'd make as many charms as she could. She'd cover the house with them, not just the nearby trees; she'd shove them in between the shingles and around the windows and in the fireplace. They'd all take precautions. She'd make herb packets for them all to carry. She'd refresh the charms herself and double-check them, in case Renet had any more reckless ideas to "test" her.

Eventually, if they were careful, if she didn't use her powers again, if they didn't give the spirits cause to come to them, the spirits would forget and move on. And then Erian and Llor would be safe again. And she would have her home and life back.

So long as her husband promised not to tell.

Calmly, or as calmly as she could, she asked, "Renet, do you love me?"

"Of course! But-"

"If you love me-if you ever loved me-then promise me when the champion comes to Everdale, do not tell him. Do not tell anyone.

"Ever."





Chapter 6




For four days, Ven and Alet traveled the outer forests: racing along the wire paths through the canopy, then descending to the comfortable towns that sprawled through midforest, and then ferreting out the tucked-away towns on the forest floor, where people lived between the roots of great trees behind barriers of stone and wood. Every town and village had its own hedgewitch, and Ven insisted they see them all. He judged them abruptly and, he knew, unfairly, but he was looking for something very specific: potential. Not undeveloped potential. There was plenty of that at the training schools. What he wanted was something else entirely. Missed potential.

So far, he hadn't found it.

Alet pointed to a squirrel that was racing up a nearby tree. "There's dinner."