“I thought you handled them well.” Ven still looked amused, and she wanted to wipe that little smirk off his face. He thought it was funny when the villagers treated her like some sort of all-powerful wish granter.
“I didn’t stay firm.” When she was far enough that she could no longer hear the buzz of voices from the meeting hall, she plopped down on the branch. Her silk dress poofed around her. She flattened the skirts down and wished she’d worn more practical clothes. But the palace caretakers had insisted that she pack ridiculously voluminous dresses—skirts send a message, they said, that the queen is unafraid and will not flee from danger. People needed to see their queen in finery to help them feel safe. Absurd, she thought. No one is truly safe in Renthia.
Amazingly, the head caretaker was somehow able to veto the queen, and now here she was, feeling like a fool. Acting like a fool.
“You heard me. I don’t know what possessed me to say I’d think about it. Classic error.”
“You could do it, you know,” Ven said, sitting beside her.
She glared at him.
He grinned broader.
And Naelin laughed.
She wasn’t even sure why she felt like laughing. Ven was just capable of making her happier simply by being with her. Leaning closer, she kissed him. He gathered her to him, his arms wrapping tight around her, and she clasped her hands together behind his neck. She felt his heartbeat through his shirt and hers. His mouth roved over her lips and down her neck as her fingers caressed his hair. At last, when they stopped, the air tasted sweeter, the sun felt warmer, and the day seemed better.
Sometimes Naelin thought Ven had a special magic all his own.
“I could build them a library,” she conceded. “It’s at least not a frivolous request.”
“The last village wanted a merry-go-round,” Ven reminded her.
“Oh, yes, because it’s so sensible to make five-year-olds dizzy when they’re a hundred feet above the forest floor.” She’d said no to that very quickly. People are ridiculous. “After Erian and Llor are back, I’ll do it. But only a very basic, utilitarian structure. No turrets. No frills.” Erian and Llor should return with Renet in another hour or two. That would still give her a couple hours before nightfall to construct the library.
Ven frowned out at the trees, as if he could pierce through the branches to see the children at their picnic. “How far did they go?”
“I don’t know,” Naelin said. She’d stuck firm to her decision not to have spirits watch over them—that would only draw the spirits’ attention to Erian and Llor, and she didn’t want that. Besides, with two queens controlling the spirits, the forests of Aratay were safer than they’d ever been. And Bayn could handle all other threats.
Of course, it was hard not to worry about them anyway.
She’d feel better once they were just an arm’s reach away again. “I told them to stay close.” She’d even drawn them a map, though Renet had claimed to know exactly where they were. She was pretty sure she’d seen Bayn roll his eyes at that.
Ven kissed her forehead. “Stop worrying.”
“I can’t.”
“Your children are lucky.”
She patted his cheek. “Oh, I worry about you too.”
“You know I can take care of myself.”
“That has nothing to do with it.” She kissed him again. There were benefits to having her ex-husband and children away for a few hours. It was hard enough trying to balance being queen and mother, let alone lover. She felt pulled in three directions, always disappointing someone. She wished she knew how to be everything all at once. I used to be one person, needed only by my family. She’d known how to be that person—mother to her children—but she didn’t know how to be mother to them and mother to the world. Naelin sank into Ven’s arms—
Footsteps pounded behind them.
Sighing as she pulled away, Naelin stood and smoothed her skirt. Another villager who wants a miracle, she thought. I’m getting tired of saying no—
“Your Majesty!” A woman was running toward them. She was a forest guard, dressed in brown and green with a knife strapped to her waist and a crossbow on her back.
Ven’s hand went to his sword hilt as Naelin thrust her senses out, touching the nearby spirits. All seemed calm. She didn’t sense any increase in hostility from the local spirits.
Calling over her shoulder, the guardswoman shouted, “She’s here! This way! I found the queen!”
“What’s wrong—” Ven began.
Then Naelin saw Renet. Held between two woodsmen, Renet was hobbling toward them. His hair was stuck to his forehead with bright-red blood. His pants were ripped, and his leg was gashed, deep enough that the skin had curled back. Naelin cried out. “Erian? Llor?”
“Gone,” Renet puffed. “The wolf . . . Spirits attacked . . .”
His words felt like knife thrusts to her stomach. Gone, missing? Or gone . . . dead?
“Gone where?” Ven demanded.
“West.” Renet pointed. “I don’t know—”
Naelin didn’t hear anything else. Her mind was already sailing away from the village, westward. She touched the spirits, diving into their minds, rifling through their thoughts, looking for memories of her children. Distorted through their eyes, she saw that Ven had begun running west, leaving the village and leaping through the forest.
A spirit, as small as a songbird, with a wooden body, leaf wings, and only a few thoughts in its mind, gifted her with one vivid image: her children and the wolf on a branch. She seized control of the little spirit and forced it to fly toward Ven, leading him farther west, toward where it had seen her children. Through the eyes of the birdlike air spirit, she saw Ven follow and knew he’d understood.
She widened her mind, reaching out to grab other spirits. There were few nearby but—there! An earth spirit! She felt its terror. She couldn’t sense the source of its fear, though. Just . . . Other. It repeated that word, “other,” over and over in her mind.
Other? Other what?
As she touched dozens of minds at once, she pieced the images together: an air spirit with leathery wings and a sword-sharp beak attacking, the wolf saving Llor, Erian trying to defend herself and Renet trying to help her, Bayn saving Erian and Llor as more air spirits attacked; Bayn running away . . . She tracked them, through the fresh memories of tree and earth spirits. The little spirits of Aratay had hidden from the “other” spirits, but they’d watched.
Bayn, carrying Erian and Llor, had run west, and the strange air spirits had chased them . . . Then what happened? She sent another one of her spirits to fetch Ven, with orders to bring him faster, and then she pressed harder on the nearby spirits.
She felt them resist, but she was strong, and she forced them westward, toward the other. And she splintered her mind, trying to touch the spirits that had attacked. If she could find them, stop them, hold them, destroy them—
Her senses brushed up against four air spirits, but she couldn’t sink into them. Her thoughts slid across them as if they were made of glass. She battered against them. Where are my children? It was as much a question as it was a command, yet she got no response. Through the eyes of her own spirits, she saw the foreign spirits from a half-dozen different directions, fragmented as if she were looking through broken glass. Beyond, the forest seemed to dissolve into a haze.
These weren’t her spirits. They weren’t from Aratay. She wasn’t their queen.
But she bore her will down on them anyway, determined to crack their minds.