His face stretched into a toothless smile. Several tongues flicked out. She followed his gaze and saw he was ogling the villagers. This was the most critical time: after a spirit was summoned, when its hatred of humans was freshest.
Again, she pushed her will firmly at him: Dig, now.
With a scowl, he dove back into the earth. She stood, knees braced, as the ground rolled beneath her like the sea. He and his kin would soften it beneath, prepare it for the roots that would come. Next, she needed tree spirits. Lots of them. Come, she called to the trees, the bushes, the grasses, the thorns, the flowers. Stepping back, she dropped the acorn into the hole that the earth spirit had left behind. Make it grow, tall and strong.
Laughing, the tree spirits separated themselves from the shadows of the forest. Tall, lithe, and translucent green, they danced through the grove. Flowers flowed from their hair. Moss flourished in their footprints. Daleina spread her arms wide, welcoming them. She pushed her mind toward them, sharing an image of the acorn, sprouting. The spirits flowed to her, pressed close, and then swirled around the hole.
Yes! That's right!
Her vision split, and she saw through their eyes as they poured their energy into the acorn. The nut split open, and a tendril of green burst from its brown shell. It unfurled. Still laughing, the tree spirits danced faster, a whirl around her. She felt the sprout thicken and grow. More leaves poked out of it, and she felt as if the leaves were poking out of her flesh. Below, the earth spirit softened the soil, and the acorn's roots shot through the ground, thickening and hardening. The tree shot toward the sky, higher and higher, growing thicker and thicker. Branches stabbed out from it.
Shape it, she ordered the spirits. She pictured the trunk opening wide to form houses within. The branches were to be stairs, rooms were to be formed and shaped as if carved out of the soft inner wood. She pressed this image out toward the spirits, and they howled-they wanted the tree to be wild and free; she wanted it to be a new home for the villagers who lived on the forest floor, a safe home, above the dangers of the wolves and bears and countless creatures who hunted at night.
She pressed harder and harder, bearing down on the spirits, filling their minds, and they in turn forced the tree to grow in the shape she pictured. Grow higher, wider, like this . . . She added more rooms and more. This tree would house many. Above, the branches spread into a canopy, blotting out the sun.
And then, without warning, her mind went dark.
Sightless, she heard the spirits shrieking and then heard the men and women screaming-for her, for themselves-as she toppled onto the churned dirt.
Chapter 2
She woke to blood: on the dirt, on the trees, on her skin. It even seemed to stain the sky, until her mind woke enough to realize that she was seeing her white skirts, billowing in the wind, not the clouds overhead. Around her, she heard shrieking, shrill, mixed with laughter that was as wild as a tornado. The spirits were creating the wind as they swirled through the grove.
Suddenly, pain shot through her leg, sharp and fast, and she screamed, loud and high. Jerking forward, she clutched at her thigh, and a tree spirit skittered away from her on all fours. Leering, it wiped her blood from its mouth.
"No!" she shouted. "Stop!"
There was blood, as if it had been flung from a bucket, in every direction. Her mind took an extra second to understand what she was seeing: the spirits had torn the men and women to pieces and thrown their body parts around the grove. That, there-it wasn't a root; it was a leg. And that was a torso, cracked open like a shellfish and then shredded. Daleina balled up every bit of her mind that wasn't screaming and threw it at the spirits. Stop! I am your queen, and I command you, stop now!
All stilled.
The spirits hung in the air. All of them stared at her with their blank, translucent eyes. One held the head of a woman. Blood pooled on the ground below and sank into the moss, staining it a deep russet red.
You will obey me.
One of them laughed, shrill, and then fell instantly silent as Daleina, forcing away the pain, pushed herself up to sitting and then slowly stood. She felt the blood run down her leg, warm and wet, and her knees shook. But she stayed upright. She reached with her mind toward the one who had laughed.
Burn, she commanded.
It twisted and writhed, screamed and cried, but she held her order firmly in her mind. The spirit began to fade, growing more and more faint, and she knew elsewhere in the forest, a great tree burned, wreathed in fire spirits. She'd learned this since she'd become queen: kill a wood spirit and a tree dies, but kill the right tree and a spirit dies. Reaching farther, she called to the water spirits.