Do not let the fire spread, she told them.
She watched the fading tree spirit. It continued to contort itself, its face now more childlike. It wept tears of polished amber. In only seconds, the spirit vanished, and all that remained was a pile of yellow jewels.
Across the forest, the fire died with the tree. Daleina half felt and half saw the water spirits douse the embers, seeing it distorted through their eyes. At last, the ashes were cold, and the spirits danced as if oblivious to the death of their kin.
She turned then to the others, who held themselves still and silent.
Build.
She felt their relief and joy as they flew up toward the branches and wanted to rip that feeling from them. . . . No, I can't hurt them. Clamping down on her feelings, she let the spirits build, and the tree began to grow again, shaped into the village she had planned. She pivoted slowly, painfully, to face the bodies of the villagers who had come to watch.
They were all dead.
Except no, the old woman still breathed. She lay on the ground, unmarked except for a dark wet patch on her stomach. Daleina took a step toward her, and her leg crumpled under her. Gritting her teeth, she crawled the rest of the way. She lay beside the old woman.
The woman opened her tiny eyes.
"I'm sorry," Daleina said. It's my fault. They're dead, and it's my fault. I was supposed to protect them. They trusted me, and I failed. . . .
"Kill me," the woman whispered.
"I'll fetch healers . . ." She should have told Hamon to meet her here, or at least let Bayn join her. The wolf could have held some of the spirits off, or also been killed. I should have made them leave. I shouldn't have come at all.
"Won't heal." The woman moved her gnarled hand to shift the fabric of her shirt. The wound was through her stomach, her organs pierced. A fatal wound. She'd die slowly, painfully, inevitably, poisoned from within.
"I can't kill you," Daleina said, unable to take her eyes off the wound.
The woman made a sound that could have been a laugh or a cough. "You already have, Your Majesty. Show me the queen's mercy." Each word was a forced whisper.
Daleina held her gaze for a long moment, until the old woman closed her eyes. "I'm sorry," Daleina said again, but she knew the words weren't enough to make this right, and she didn't deserve forgiveness. Another massacre, and this time it's all my fault. Sorrow, guilt, hate, rage . . . all of those emotions rose into Daleina's throat, and she forced them down into a tight knot deep inside.
Drawing Ven's knife from her bodice, Daleina pressed it to the woman's throat. With one quick hard stroke, she severed her jugular. Bright arterial blood sprayed onto Daleina, covering her hand and arm.
She turned her head to look at the tree spirits. They'd done her bidding, built the tree village as tall and strong as she might have wished.
Go, she told them.
They fled into the forest.
She wanted to call them back, cause them all to burn, but she knew she shouldn't. If she destroyed every spirit for following its own nature, she'd destroy her home. The spirits were tied to the land, and the land to them. She could not have one without the other. Revenge against the spirits was pointless; it would hurt the land and not bring these people back. But it was so very, very difficult to hold that truth in her mind.
She pushed her thoughts toward the earth, summoning the earth spirits. Bury them. Obeying, the earth spirits widened the ground beneath the torn bodies of the villagers. She made herself watch, to feel the responsibility for these deaths, as the ground closed over them. When they finished, she sent the earth spirits back into the ground and called the spirits of water and air, together.
At her command, rain fell on what was once an open grove and was now a shaded grave. The blood ran into streams and into the earth, washed away. She let the rain fall on her, soaking through her bloody dress, washing her own wound. Pain throbbed in her leg. But she ignored it until the rain had done its work.
When the spirits were again gone, she tore one of the layers of her skirt and bound her thigh tightly. The tree spirit had merely begun to feast on her flesh. It hadn't sliced deeper, and for that, she was grateful. Still, she felt weak and dizzy, though she didn't know if that was from blood loss, shock, or whatever had caused her to black out so completely that her commands were broken.
This shouldn't have happened, she thought. She'd been crowned; the spirits shouldn't have been able to revert to wildness, even with her unconscious. This wasn't the way it worked. Revi, Linna, Zie . . . they'd lost their lives, but she'd been crowned and that should have kept everyone else safe. The deaths should have ended on that day. I'd promised myself: no more innocents will die. Six months into her reign, she'd broken her promise.