Climbing the stairs, Daleina was surrounded by spirits. The ermine spirit flew above her, circling, while tree spirits flitted between her feet. She stepped firmly, unwilling to let them trip her. The spirits hadn't spread far from the palace. In fact, the majority had stayed close after Naelin's training session. They felt like a weight pressing down on her. She wished she could order them to leave, just so she'd feel as if she could breathe. But she didn't dare risk hastening the next false death. She'd been lucky so far, but someday her luck would run out . . . at least until they found the poisoner and the poison.
If she found the poison sample, then she would happily move troops to the border. If she had a viable heir, the same. Without either, she couldn't leave her people defenseless from the dangers within while she prepared for the dangers without. She had to hope the champions would tell her they were ready for the trials. If they said yes, then she could meet the chancellors' requests.
She was panting by the time she reached the top of the spiral stairs. She halted, hands on her knees, and breathed in. Illness or lack of exercise? She hadn't been clambering around the forest the way she used to, but then she hadn't been sedentary either. She made a note to talk to Hamon. It was easy to act as if she weren't sick while she didn't feel sick, but if that changed, her plan for secrecy might have to change as well.
All of the champions were in the chamber as Queen Daleina swept into the room. Air spirits hovered around the arches, and an earth spirit had covered itself with white roses. It clung upside down on one of the pillars, blending in except for its face, which poked between the thorns and leaves. She didn't dare tell the spirits to leave.
She suddenly felt too tired for games. Sinking into her throne, she looked at the faces of her champions. Champion Ven had claimed the center chair, directly across from her. He was staring at her as if his eyes could pierce through her skin and sear away the poison inside. At least he didn't want her to die, she was sure of that much.
On his left was Champion Ambir, the eldest champion. Seeing his candidate dead had broken something inside of him, aging him several decades, until his hands shook and his eyes watered always, but still he had chosen a new candidate to train. She found it hard to believe he could be the poisoner, despite Alet's words. She has to be wrong. His sadness hadn't soured into anger, as far as she could tell. He still carried around a core of that grief, looking out at the world through eyes that seemed perpetually disappointed. She felt sorry for his new candidate, to train under such a cloud of misery.
Beside him was Piriandra. Could she be the assassin? She was polishing one of her knives as she waited for the meeting to begin. She bore down on one edge and did not look up at Daleina. She'd moved quickly from grief to anger after the massacre. Daleina agreed with Alet that she was high on the list of possible poisoners. Even though her candidate had died, that didn't remove her from suspicion-plans sometimes went awry. But could she truly want the queen dead, badly enough to risk destroying Aratay? Even with Alet's suspicion to fuel her own, it was hard to believe.
Next to Piriandra was Sevrin, who had never approved of Daleina. He'd made it clear from the beginning that he found her to be an unsuitable queen. He was an unlikely suspect simply because he didn't hide his distaste. But that didn't clear him entirely either.
Havtru hadn't been a champion at the time of the massacre. He'd have no reason to hate her. But she also knew little about him. He'd lost his wife during Queen Fara's rule and had ample reason to hate the former queen. Perhaps he'd transferred that hate to Daleina.
Tilden and Gura?
She ranked them in the middle-both had lost candidates in the massacre, both had kept their distance from her, both swore loyalty to the Crown and Aratay and only lastly to her. They seemed more likely than Sevrin because they hadn't been vocal in their dislike. . . .
All fifteen of her champions were here, each of them training one or more candidates in the capital. Studying them, she realized her answer to "Could it be him?" or "Could it be her?" was almost always, "It's possible. Unlikely, but possible."
She settled again on Piriandra, trying to gauge from her expression how deeply her hatred ran. She's a champion! Champions protected Aratay.
For an instant, Daleina imagined accusing all of them, announcing she'd been poisoned and one of them was to blame, then watching them turn on one another. Maybe the guilty one would emerge . . . Or maybe it would distract them from their primary goal, training the next heir, and the guilty party would only be warned of her suspicions. He or she could destroy whatever was left of the poison, if there was any to begin with, and she could lose her chance.