The Reluctant Queen (The Queens of Renthia #2)(86)

She was too slow. Erian and Llor were too far away. And there were too many spirits between her and them. In the middle of the stairwell, a fire spirit blazed. Sparks landed on the wood and lit into fires. The spirit cackled.

Naelin didn't think about whether she could do it. She had to do it.

Opening her mind, she felt the spirits again, their wild fury. She let it wash into her, and then she grabbed it firmly, as if it were the arm of an unruly child. She held it steady and then reached farther out. She grabbed more spirits and held them.



       
         
       
        

She felt as if she were splintering, but she kept a tight grip on her thoughts of Erian and Llor. The spirits had to obey her, because she had to keep her children safe. There was no other option. I caused this. I must fix this.

Thrusting her hands into the water that flowed down the stairs, Naelin plunged her mind into the water, into the walls, into the fire, and into the air. Out, farther, until she'd embraced the entire palace. She felt the earth spirits in the gardens, the fire spirits raging in the stairwells, the air spirits at the top of the spire . . . Do no harm!

She felt as if every spirit suddenly turned its focus to her. Her heart began to pound, and she again heard her mother's screams, but she held the image of Erian and Llor firmly in her mind. She felt the spirits converging on her. Coming from every corner of the palace . . . just like she'd commanded them to come during her training, but this time, she felt their hatred. They wanted her blood. They wanted to squeeze the air from her body, to crush her bones, to burn her flesh . . .

Do! No! Harm!

She burned the words into them, driving them deep inside.

The spirits pressed closer, wanting, needing her pain, her blood, her death.

And she held them still.



Queen Daleina felt a weight on her. She opened her eyes. Her eyelids felt stiff, as if they'd been stuck shut for hours, and she looked up at the blue sky above, framed by a circle of trees. Turning her head, she saw Champion Ambir, lying across her.

"Champion Ambir?" Her throat felt stiff, and her mouth was dry. Worse, her thoughts felt as if they were swimming in muck. She couldn't piece together why she was here, why he was here, or what had happened.

"Your Majesty!" a woman's voice cried. Looking beyond Ambir, Daleina saw Champion Piriandra leap from arch to arch around the circle of the chamber. Piriandra's knives were drawn and slick with blood. She had a cut that ran down her thigh, dripping with red raindrops. Daleina stiffened-if Alet's suspicions were right, either Piriandra or Ambir wanted her dead . . .

"Move yourself, Champion Ambir," Daleina instructed, and pushed as she sat up. The body slid onto the ground with a thump. Only then did she realize that's what it was: a body. The old champion was dead. His back had been shredded, and his throat had been pierced by a thick thorn.

She felt a whoosh inside her mind as her thoughts at last coalesced in a coherent order. False Death. Struggling to her feet, Daleina reached her mind out, feeling for the spirits. They were congregating several floors down, squeezed into a single stairwell. Why- Why doesn't matter, she told herself. Champion Ambir doesn't matter. Piriandra doesn't matter. She had to stop any more deaths. That's all that mattered. 

She forced her mind at the spirits, broadcasting the core command: Do no harm. She felt it reverberate inside them, catching an echo and bouncing back. Do. No. Harm. She reached out beyond the palace, touching the spirits in the forest beyond. But the frenzy hadn't spread. It had been contained here, somehow.

She had to reach them, to see, to know why or who . . . She walked two paces and then sagged as her legs wobbled under her. She caught herself on one of the champions' chairs. Before she could regain her strength, Champion Piriandra rushed toward her. "You live!"

Daleina reached for the spirits, trying to call one to her, to defend her if necessary, but the spirits were still held tight in a ball in the stairwell. "Tell me what happened."

"You did this," Piriandra said. "Your weakness. Your failure. You brought this on yourself and on all of us."

She refused to be baited into arguing. Putting the chair between herself and the champion, she demanded, "How many died?" Arin! she thought. Her sister was in the palace. She should have sent her farther away. Home. Farther. Beyond Aratay into Chell or even Elhim.

A man's voice-Champion Havtru-answered, "We don't know."

"How long was I . . ."-her throat clogged on the word "dead"-". . . gone?"

Piriandra pulled a rust-colored cloth from her pocket and wiped her blades before sliding them into sheaths. "Too long." She won't kill me while Havtru is here, Daleina thought wildly. She won't want a witness. Her poisoner had picked an unknown poison, one that mimicked a disease, rather than a blade through the ribs. It stood to reason that he or she wouldn't want to be caught. If Daleina was careful to never be alone with her . . .