Chapter 7
High above the tiny house in the woods, Ven perched with Alet. "She's lying." He watched the woodswoman emerge from the front, check in all directions, and then climb onto the roof of her house. She had a basket of charms dangling from the crook of her elbow. She began to lace the roof with them.
"You'd rather believe the idiot husband?"
"I know when people are hiding secrets."
She snorted.
"I'm not boasting," he said. "It's truth. I've had to learn." He thought of Fara-he hadn't known what the queen was hiding, but he'd known she had secrets. "It's the palace. You can't survive there unless you learn to read people. With time, you'll learn it too."
"Right, O wise and experienced one. Explain this secret, then: Why would a woman marry the kind of man who'd deliberately endanger her? If he'd been wrong, she and the children would have died horribly, and he'd be a murderer."
"But he wasn't wrong."
"Unless he was," Alet said. "You saw all the brand-new charms in that house."
He'd seen them, but he'd seen something else too, the fear in the woodswoman's eyes. She'd tried to hide it, but he was used to looking for it-you could learn a lot about an opponent by deducing what they were afraid of. I'm right.
"Even if it's true and she's hiding tremendous secret power, it doesn't matter. You don't want an unwilling candidate. You know firsthand how difficult the trials are, and that's for someone who wants to pass."
"She'd want to pass," Ven said. "She wants to survive. All those charms in the house? She's desperate to survive. And for her family to survive."
"So?" Alet said.
Ven glanced at his companion. She wasn't going to like what he was about to propose. Frankly, he didn't like it much either. "I think her desire to protect herself and the people she loves will outstrip any unwillingness. I think she'd fight for them, if she had to."
"If she can," Alet said. "I still say she may not have any power at all."
"Then we need to talk to the villagers, learn more about her, and if she seems suitable, we test her," Ven said. "Test both her power and her willingness." Looking down again, he watched the woodswoman venture onto one of the limbs. She was clearly an experienced climber-she'd balanced herself correctly to compensate for the thinness of the branch, which wasn't an easy or obvious maneuver. Stretching, she affixed a charm to the next tree over. There was determination in her. He could see it even from this distance.
He felt Alet glaring at him. "You want to do exactly what that husband of hers did," she accused. He heard the disgust in her voice, but he refused to let it affect him. He didn't take this job to be nice. "You want to trick her into using her powers, if she has them."
"I will get her to tell the truth, no tricks involved," Ven said. "But yes, I intend to make her use her powers. Unlike her husband, though, we'll be able to protect her if things go wrong." And then . . . We'll see what she's really made of.
"Things will go wrong," Alet predicted.
Ven shrugged. "They always do."
At dawn, Naelin filled her pockets with protective charms, kissed her sleepy children, and informed her husband that if he let them leave the house, she'd let the spirits tear his arms off. He only grunted at her and rolled over in bed, wrapping the blanket around him like a cocoon.
Hesitating in the doorway, she looked back inside at her comfy, snug home. Toasty warm, it was bathed in amber light from the fireplace. Her favorite chair was by the hearth, piled with quilts. A half-knit sweater lay on the tiny table next to it. Maybe it would be smarter to stay home. Surely she could cobble together a few meals-baked roots, at least. They were out of flour, though, and also eggs and sprouts. Realistically, she couldn't feed all four of them for more than a day or two without needing more, and it was safer to travel the well-worn bridges to the market than for either her or Renet to venture into the forest to hunt. After a dinner or two of baked roots, Renet would insist on heading out. I don't want to have that argument. Or any other argument, for that matter.
She locked the door carefully behind her and checked the ladder-all clear below. The forest felt crisp and awake, sparkling with morning dew and alive with the chirp of cheerful birds. Or territorial, amorous birds.
She climbed down the ladder and lowered herself onto the forest floor. Hurrying, she stepped over roots and around underbrush, aware of every twig that broke under her feet and every bit of dirt she disturbed, but she didn't see any spirits. Up ahead was the main road: the rope bridges that spanned the forest between Everdale and the neighboring towns. Quickly, she scurried up the ladder to the relative safety of the familiar path.