She saw them exchange glances.
“Your Majesty.” Sevrin spoke, his voice smooth and urbane as always. “Many of us have chosen candidates already. Indeed, we began our searches the day after the massacre. But cultivating a suitable candidate takes time, and given the severity of—”
Daleina shook her head. “Ready an heir. Not in your own time. In mine. You have three months.”
Ven’s hands tightened on hers as the other champions broke into talking, overlapping one another so they sounded like birds startled from their roosts. She waited, letting the words tumble out of them, until she heard them repeating themselves. She stared into Ven’s water-pale eyes and let them soothe her, like looking across the tops of the trees, Aratay’s green sea.
At last, the champions fell silent.
“I have the False Death,” Queen Daleina said. Saying it out loud hurt, each word like a hammer in her heart. The words tasted like poison in her mouth, and for the first time, it felt real. She did not let her expression change.
The silence deepened.
Releasing her, Ven stood.
She looked up at him. The sun was behind him, and his face was in shadows. “You must train your heirs before three months end,” she told him.
“Impossible!” Sevrin said. Others cried out, echoing him.
“There is no doubt,” Daleina said, eyes on Ven. “I have experienced the blackness multiple times now. My blood has been tested. The diagnosis is certain.” His jaw was clenched, and she saw the muscles in his cheek twitch. His entire body was tense, as if he wanted to punch something or someone. It was, she thought, an entirely appropriate response. If she could punch this sickness out of her body, she would. “Champion Ven, take your seat.”
He obeyed.
One of the champions, Ambir, had tears rolling down his weathered cheeks. He was the eldest of them, and Daleina knew he’d hoped to retire before ever facing another trial. He’d lost his candidate, Mari, in Greytree, and it had broken his spirit as thoroughly as the spirits had broken Mari’s bones. Across the chamber, Champion Piriandra was tossing one of her knives from hand to hand, a nervous habit.
“My healer is working on a cure,” Daleina said. As the champions began to speak, she held up one hand to silence them. “But as there is none known yet, we must proceed as if he will fail. If you do not already have a candidate, you must choose one as quickly as possible. If you do have a candidate, you must accelerate their lessons. All of you will present your choices to me in two weeks’ time. That’s fourteen days, understood? Once I have approved your candidates, you will have one month to train them, and then we will begin the trials to determine which of them have the skills to be an heir.” Standard was: training first, then an audience with her, but this reversal would push them faster.
Another champion, Havtru, spoke. “You said three months.”
“I will weaken sooner than that,” she pointed out. “It would be a shame if I weakened too much to help your candidates because of your slowness.”
“There are no candidates advanced enough,” Sevrin objected. “One month is impossible!”
Daleina and her friends had had only a few months to train with their champions when Queen Fara had called for the trials. Of course, they had all had years in the academy first. She suspected most of the new candidates had far less experience. But what choice did any of them have? “This is the time we have. It is what I have. Consider yourself lucky to have any warning at all.” She felt herself growing angry. Good. Be angry. Anger would fuel her. She seized the emotion and rose to her feet, pushing aside the pain in her leg. “My champions, Aratay needs you, and I am calling on you to answer that need. You have proven yourself before. You must do so again. For if you fail, all our people fail with you.”
Ven leaned forward. “We will not fail you, my queen.”
Sevrin began, “But we must discuss—”
Daleina cut him off. “The discussion is over. There is nothing more to say. Your queen is dying without an heir. It is your sworn duty to ready an heir. You must do it quickly. I strongly suggest you begin now.”
Ven was on his feet instantly, as were the other champions. As one, they bowed and stayed bowed as Queen Daleina swept past them toward the stairs. She did not look back. Keeping her chin high and back straight, she walked down, her hand on the trunk. The bark scraped her fingertips. Pain from her leg radiated through her body, and her head began to throb. Keep walking. Don’t collapse. You can do this.
Where the stairs curved into the heart of the palace, Alet waited for her. Coming inside, out of the sight of the watchers, Daleina leaned on her friend. Drawing out a handkerchief, Alet wiped away the sweat from the queen’s forehead. “How did they take the news, Your Majesty?”
“Not as heroically as one might hope.” Daleina looked back at the stairs, which wound around the tree, out of sight, as if it were swallowed by the green. “They’re afraid.”
“But they’ll find you an heir?” Alet asked.
She heard the hope in Alet’s voice, but she didn’t have the strength left to lie. “They’ll try.”
After she reached the privacy of her chambers, Queen Daleina peeled the bandages away from her leg. The wound had reopened, and blood had soaked the gauze. She’d need to re-dress it. But first, she had to rest, only for a moment. Leaning back, she closed her eyes and breathed in and out, trying to keep her mind clear and calm.
She heard a hiss.
Opening her eyes, she saw a wood spirit perched on the back of a chair.
“I didn’t summon you,” Daleina said. Its eyes were bright, as if the sun reflected off the sunken eye sockets, but it was entirely in the shade. She could see the shape of her wardrobe through the spirit’s translucent body.
This spirit was small and gnarled, with arms and legs that looked like twigs. It was covered in leaves, as if that were its fur. Daleina thought it could be a child, but that didn’t make her trust it.
It pointed one twig-like finger at the blood on her leg.
“Have you come to watch me bleed?” she asked, keeping her voice even, calm.
It giggled, a shrill sound like wind through a narrow hole. She hadn’t had a spirit visit her chambers before. Usually they kept their distance, afraid of being compelled to obey another order. “I have come to watch you die,” it said.
The words felt like claws in her skin. It was rare that the spirits spoke directly to her, especially uninvited. For an instant, it was hard to breathe. She wanted to send it away—force it away—but she didn’t dare use her power. “How do you know?”
“Whispers through the woods.”