The Reluctant Queen (The Queens of Renthia #2)(4)

Undulating through the clouds, an air spirit flew toward her. It had the sinewy body of an ermine and the wings of a bat. Flying beneath her, it lifted her higher in the sky. Race? she asked it. She pictured a map in her head, of the forests from above, and, with her mind, pinpointed the place she wanted to go.

The ermine spirit trilled a challenge to the others. They bugled and chirped their answers, and then the race was on. Daleina wrapped her arms around the spirit's neck, squeezed with her thighs, and held on as it shot forward into the clouds. Droplets pelted her face, and then she burst out above the clouds into the sunlight. Other spirits zoomed alongside them, dipping and soaring between one another.

Slowing, the spirits dove toward an opening in the canopy. She heard their chittering laughter, like the sound of breaking glass, and she suppressed a shudder. Several feet from the bare ground, they halted and released her. She landed in a crouch and then stood.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw they weren't alone. Seven men and women stood shoulder to shoulder in a semicircle on the edge of the barren patch, but Daleina didn't acknowledge them yet. Instead, she bowed to the air spirits. "You have honored me with the beauty of your world. I thank you."

Momentarily, the air spirits quit snarling. One of them placed its hands together, its long fingers touching one another. She saw specks of red at the tips of its nails and wondered if that was her blood or another's. The spirit bowed to her, and then all the air spirits spiraled together up and up into the circle of blue sky above the grove. She wondered what the masters at the academy would think of her approach and then decided she didn't care, not today. 

Straightening, Daleina turned to face the representatives of the local village. There were four women and three men, all dressed in ceremonial robes. In unison, they bowed low to her. She bit back a shout at them to go home. She didn't want or need an audience for this. The spirits were capricious, and she'd need to summon many for this task. But these women and men knew that and had come anyway. Spare me from curious fools, she thought but didn't say. It would be unqueenly behavior to insult the very people she'd come to help. And I'm the queen.

She had to keep reminding herself of that.

The eldest hobbled toward her. Her face was sunken in so many wrinkles that her eyes were barely visible. Her lips were cracked and pale, and she licked them before she spoke. "On behalf of all, we thank you."

Thank me when it's done, she wanted to say, but again bit her tongue. A queen didn't show doubt or weakness, and this ritual was as much about appearance as it was about results. In a formal voice that carried across the grove, she asked, "Do you have the seed?"

Trembling, the woman held out her hand, fingers curled shut. Daleina waited while the woman turned her fist over and then opened her fingers. An acorn lay on the palm of her hand.

Daleina cupped her own hands, and the woman poured the acorn onto them. "Thank you for this gift." The words of this ritual were simple, even if the action that followed was not. Dropping the formal tone, she pleaded, "Please, would you return to your village? For your own safety." Go, you trusting fools.

The woman shook her head. "We will stay, Your Majesty. You will keep us safe."

Daleina tried again. "I can't promise that. You should leave."

But the woman only smiled. "We trust your power. And we trust you." Behind her, all of them bobbed their heads. "You ended the Coronation Massacre."

She wanted to argue more, but she couldn't spare the time or the energy, and she most certainly didn't wish to talk about Coronation Day, a day that had gone from beautiful ritual to nightmare fodder when, rather than choosing whom to crown queen, the spirits had killed all the other heirs-her friends-and nearly killed her. She closed her eyes briefly to blink away that memory, and opened them up to look at the elders.

Pure trust shone from the villagers' eyes, the way babies gaze at their mothers. Telling herself to let their faith fuel her, Daleina knelt, laid the acorn on her lap, and dug her fingers into the soft earth. Come to me, she called. She felt the earth shift and rumble, as if it trembled from an earthquake. Gently, softly, come to me.

The earth buckled under her, and she saw the men and women topple to their knees. Idiots, she thought, and then she didn't spare them another thought. This required all her concentration. Gently, softly, come to me, she repeated.

A mud-covered hand burst out of the ground. Moss peeled away as if it were the peel of an orange, and a small manlike creature pulled himself halfway out of the ground. His voice was the crunch of rock, but she didn't understand the words. She guessed he was insulting her. She showed him the acorn. Prepare the earth, she told him.