The charms exploded all around them, circling her and Hamon.
“See, my boy,” Garnah cried, laughing, “I’ll keep you safe! Mother’s job, they say. Mother’s joy. To protect my little boy. That’s all I ever wanted. Just didn’t know how. Never knew how. Instead I scared you away. But I get why. Because I’m scary. Hah! Want to see how scary I can be? Come at me, spirits!”
As Hamon struggled to rise, his mother hurled charm after charm at the spirits that surrounded them, driving them back with deadly accuracy. He reached shakily into his pocket and pulled out an herb, stuffed it into his mouth and held it inside his cheek—the pain receded, and he drew his knife. He stabbed at every shadow, every wisp, everything that moved in front and beside him, while his mother stood at his back, hurling charms.
“We’ve got them, my boy! Keep it up! Don’t—” Her voice broke off, and he felt her crumple at his back. He turned, in time to catch her as she fell, slumped against him. He felt blood on his fingers, hot and wet, on her side.
“Mother?”
“Well, this wasn’t supposed to happen,” she whispered. He lowered her down. She’d been sliced in the side, deep. Her breathing was fast, hitched. “Looks like you’re getting what you wanted.”
Around him, the spirits swirled.
Chapter 34
Daleina kicked hard against Merecot’s knee, then jammed her fist into Merecot’s side. Her friend huffed as the air was knocked out of her. Spinning away, Daleina struck upward with her knife and jabbed into the slippery thigh of a water spirit. “Enough!” she yelled at the spirits. “Choose! Choose, damn you!”
“Choose,” she heard Merecot say, panting on the ground, looking up at the sky. Daleina looked up too. It was filled with swirling spirits, clogging the air between the trees, blocking out the sun.
Choose! Choose!
And the spirits stopped.
Hanging in the air, they at last drifted between the trees. On the ground, the earth spirits slumped down or milled listlessly around the roots and rocks. Fire spirits dampened their flames. Daleina sank to her knees beside Merecot. She kept her eyes on the other queen. No—not other. I’m not a queen anymore.
“I can’t feel them,” Merecot said.
“What?” Her legs? Her arms? How badly did I hurt her? Ven hadn’t taught her to fight cautiously. He’d assumed her enemies would be spirits. He’d taught her to fight hard to save her life, and that’s what she’d done. Daleina realized she ached everywhere, in places where spirits had burned and froze and jabbed her. She touched her cheek and felt wetness. Drawing her fingers back, she saw the tips were red. While she’d fought Merecot, the spirits had attacked both of them. She was amazed she was still whole. I wish I could thank Ven.
Collapsed on the golden leaves, Merecot was wounded in a dozen different places. Blood spread through her silk sleeve, and a darkening bruise colored her cheek. But none of her injuries looked deep enough to be fatal. “The spirits,” she wheezed. “They’re gone. I can see them, but only with my eyes. I can’t feel them! What did you do to me?”
Daleina shook her head. She’d severed the links. The severing must have been more serious than she’d realized. But she couldn’t spare the energy to speak. Instead she reached out to the spirits in the grove and beyond.
Choose me.
Once again, let me be your queen.
She touched the spirits of Aratay, and she felt them respond, linking to her, accepting her, loathing her and loving her. She tried to reach farther—but her power was never as vast as Merecot’s. She couldn’t reach beyond the northernmost birch trees.
She felt a handful of tiny spirits curling above her, crafting a crown of leaves to lay on her head once again, and she thought of Naelin, far beyond the borders of Aratay.
“You truly can’t sense them?” Daleina asked.
Merecot gave her a withering look. “I wouldn’t lie about this.”
If it was true, then it meant she’d discovered a way to remove the affinity for spirits—the thing that Naelin had wished for so desperately. If I’d known this sooner, I could have granted her wish. Naelin could have returned to her forest village with her children and never known any of the power or the pain of being queen. She wouldn’t have had to give up her home. Her children would never have been in danger. If she ever returns from the untamed lands, I can tell her . . . But she wouldn’t, Daleina knew. The untamed lands were death. Both Naelin and Ven would have perished soon after crossing the border. I failed them.
“Semo?” Merecot asked.
Daleina shook her head. I failed to save them too.
“And so my people die, because you aren’t strong enough.”
“No, they died because you thought you were strong enough,” Daleina shot back. “But you weren’t.”
Merecot fell silent.
Around her, Daleina felt life return to Aratay once more. The wind blew, the trees swayed, and the forest went on. It was all she could do.
She hoped it was enough.
Merecot lay on the golden leaves in the center of the grove and stared up at the swirling spirits. She’d never felt so alone. “You should have killed me.”
“I couldn’t lose another friend,” Daleina said.
Turning her head, Merecot looked at her, saw the spirits crowning her, and closed her eyes. “I will hate you always.” She meant every word.
“That doesn’t matter,” Daleina said infuriatingly. “I made my choice.”
On the other side of the grove, Hamon knelt by his mother. “You deserve to die,” he told her. “You’ve killed so many people, and you haven’t cared.”
“Ah, but I saved you,” Garnah said. “In the end, at least I did that. I can die contented.”
“I’m not giving you that kind of peace,” Hamon said, and he opened his healer’s bag. For the first time since he’d entered the grove, his hands were steady as he began to sew his mother’s wounds.
To the north, in Semo, Arin readied another packet of herbs. She’d laced this charm with poisonous bark mixed with pepper dust. She didn’t know why the spirits hadn’t calmed yet—the Semoian hedgewitches had to be trying the “choose” command. Maybe the spirits here are just too strong.
Arin glanced over her shoulder at Havtru and Hanna—they were fending off an air spirit that looked like a bat made of glass. She then looked at the circle of stones in front of them, the grove. “You have to do it,” she told Cajara. “Go!”
Cajara seemed as stuck as those stones.
She can do this. I know she can. And I can help her. Daleina always said she became queen because of Arin—to protect Arin. I was Daleina’s motivation. I can be Cajara’s too.
“You don’t have to stop them,” Arin said to Cajara. “All you have to do is keep me safe.”
And then, before she could lose her nerve, she ran into the grove.
She heard Cajara call her name, but she didn’t stop until she was within the circle of stones. Unlike the Aratayian grove, the grove in Semo was a bowl of smooth, black stone. Granite pillars lined it, and the mountains towered above.
Looking up, Arin saw hundreds of spirits.
One of them saw her and shrieked, “Intruder!” Others took up the cry. “Traitor! Defiler!” They whipped faster in a circle, and the air around the stone circle cyloned. Pebbles were lifted into the air. Arin blocked her face with her hands as dust and gravel pelted her.
Maybe this was a bad idea. “Cajara?”
“There are so many,” Cajara said. Standing in the center of the stone circle, untouched by the cyclone, she looked so lost. “And they . . . I can hear them . . . They don’t want you here. You’re not an heir. They . . .”
Pushing against the dust-choked wind, Arin crossed to her. She took Cajara’s hands in hers. “Don’t think about them. Look at me. Focus on me.”