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.
She looked around the former grove. At least when the other villagers came, they would not find their new home stained with blood. They could begin anew here. Minus their loved ones. Hobbling to the tree, she took out her knife again and carved seven lines, one for each death, so that the villagers would know their kin’s fate.
Keeping a tight rein on her emotions, Daleina summoned the air spirits. Carry me home. They lifted her into the air and flew her fast over the top of the green. She focused on the horizon ahead, determined to not lose consciousness again. When they burst through the canopy, she heard the cheers of the people in the trees . . . only to hear the cheers die as they saw her, her dress limp and pink with the watery blood.
The air spirits delivered her to her balcony. She forced herself to stand, and she released the spirits. Spiraling upward, they fled. Leaves and branches shook in their wake.
Queen Daleina looked out at the trees, at her people. She pitched her voice so it would carry. “Seven are dead. But the tree is grown, and the village will thrive. It is done.” She then pivoted and walked into her chambers without waiting to hear their response.
Out of sight of the crowd, she fell as her leg gave out. She was caught by familiar arms, and this time, when darkness came, she welcomed it.
When she opened her eyes, there was no blood. There were no bodies. Only Alet, who sat on one side of her, and Hamon, who sat on the other in his blue Royal Healer robes—he must have been summoned when she collapsed in her room. Daleina lay in her own bed, swaddled in silken sheets and nestled among many pillows. Her wound was dressed in bandages, and she wore a nightgown. She wished she hadn’t woken up, at least not yet, so she wouldn’t have to remember why she lay there. It was too late now, though. Her leg throbbed, but her head was clear.
“Your Majesty?” Alet asked, a dozen questions in her voice.
Not ready to speak yet, Daleina gazed up at the colorful lace canopy above her, intricately embroidered with images of the forest at peace: deer drinking from a stream, bluebells blossoming between the trees, leaves dancing in the wind, and she wanted to tear the canopy apart. It lies. The forest is never at peace.
“Tell us what happened, Your Majesty,” Hamon said, his voice deep and soothing. He’d practiced that voice, she knew. She also knew he wasn’t as calm as he sounded. He didn’t possess Alet’s skill at looking expressionless. He always felt things so deeply that it bubbled up and overflowed—it helped make him such a great healer. Besides, Daleina had known him since she was a candidate. She knew his face better than she knew her own—his spring-green eyes, his midnight-black skin, his sharp chin, his soft mouth, and now the crease in his forehead between his eyebrows that said he was worried. Fleetingly, she wondered if he missed kissing her with those soft lips, and then she pushed that thought to the back of her mind, lumping it with all the guilt and anger and regret that she couldn’t afford to feel right now.
“You already know,” Daleina told him. Her voice came out as a croak. Alet pressed a cup of water into her hands, and with Hamon and Alet’s help, she was propped up on pillows. She drank and then tried to speak again. “The world went dark, and I lost control of the spirits.”
“They could have killed you,” Hamon said flatly, and Daleina knew he was fighting back more than worry. There was fear in his eyes. For her? For their people? Both? He’d seen her bloody before. He’d been with her during her training, sewed her skin back together more than once, stanched her wounds, nursed her damaged eyes until they healed.
“Why didn’t they?” Alet asked.
Daleina saw Hamon shoot her a dark look. But it was a valid question. “I don’t know.” The spirits might not think like humans, but they did think. Killing the queen would have set them all free, and the bloodbath would have spread beyond the grove to the entire forest. That was what the spirits had tried to achieve after the last queen had died, on Coronation Day, when they’d murdered all the other heirs. “Maybe they didn’t kill me because I wasn’t running away. Or they wanted to save me for dessert.” Or maybe they didn’t want to destroy Aratay. As much as the spirits hated having a queen, they needed one to keep them in balance. To keep them from tearing Aratay apart in their bloodlust.
“But if they’d killed you without an heir . . .” Alet began.
“I know,” Daleina cut her off. She knew better than anyone. Closing her eyes, she wished she could stop picturing the blood on the moss and on the spirits’ teeth. She wished she could stop seeing the broken bodies from Coronation Day, her friends with the light gone from their eyes and the breath ripped from their lungs.
“You shouldn’t have taken the risk,” Alet insisted.
“I had to. I had to buy time.” She opened her eyes, wishing she could will them to understand, the way she could force her will on the spirits.