The Queen of Blood (3 page)

“Oh, thank the queen, there are others!” Mama said.

The healer laid a hand on her arm. “Only a few, I'm afraid.”

“Then we shouldn't say thank you,” Arin said, clutching Daleina's hand. Her pudgy fingers were slick with sweat, but Daleina held on to them. “The queen didn't help us. We shouldn't thank her.”

“Hush, Arin,” Daddy said.

“Daleina should be queen,” Arin said. “
She
kept us safe.”

Mother clapped a hand over Arin's mouth. “Arin! Quiet! This is a
champion!”

Daleina stared at the man in green—she'd never seen a champion before. There were only a few, charged with training the heirs and protecting the queen. She never imagined one would be in her village, or what was left of her village.

For a brief instant, she imagined him sweeping her away, taking her to the capital, and proclaiming her his chosen candidate. It happened that way in the tales: a champion would appear in a tiny village, test the children, and pluck one to be trained to become an heir, and the heirs became legends themselves, creating villages, securing the borders, and keeping the spirits in check, in conjunction with the queen. She imagined herself in the palace, a circle of golden leaves on her head, with her family beside her, safe because of her power. Never again huddling afraid in a hut in a tree.

Her story should have begun right then, in that moment. Fate had declared that her power would emerge in her village's tragedy, and chance had put the champion in the nearby trees at the moment the spirits attacked, too late to save the village but in time to meet Daleina. It should have been the beginning of a legend, the moment he recognized her potential and she embraced her future with both arms.

But it wasn't.

The champion looked away, across the ruined village and the broken bodies. “Only the best can become queen. And she is not the best.” Daleina felt his words hit like slaps, and then he added the worst blow of all: “If she were, these people would still be alive.”

C
hampion Ven knelt in the ruins of the village. Sifting through the rubble, he lifted out a broken doll, its pink dress streaked with dirt and its pottery face cracked.

There was always a broken doll.

Why did there always have to be a damn doll?

Other stuff didn't bother him—the broken dishes, the bedsheets, the clothes, all the evidence of lives lived and then cut off—but the dolls got him every time. He used to collect them, in the wake of whatever tragedy had struck this time, take them to a toymaker to be cleaned, and then give them to kids in nearby villages. After a while, though, he decided that was too morbid.

He tossed the doll aside. There weren't many survivors. Two children. A handful of adults. They'd be taken to another village, given new homes and lives. The older girl would be trained and maybe become some village's hedgewitch someday. If she was lucky, she wouldn't see anything like this again. But she'd always have nightmares.

Ven knew the nightmares well. He hated sleep. A day like this, he wasn't fond of being awake either. Straightening, he admitted that he wasn't going to find any other survivors, and the spirits weren't going to come back to let him beat on them more.

He wished he could track the ones responsible, make them pay, or at least make them understand. . . . But they'd never understand
that what they'd done was wrong, and destroying the spirits would only hurt the forest and leave more people homeless.

“Champion Ven?” It was one of the guards. He'd forgotten her name. She favored an ax and left her right side open for a half second too long when she fought. She was decent with throwing knives and slept lightly, waking often to check their camp. He'd traveled with her for five days. Still didn't remember her name. “The survivors want to bury the dead.”

He shook his head. “The queen will take care of it.” She'd have the earth spirits subsume the village and cleanse the entire area with water spirits.

The guard flipped a piece of wood with her toe. Underneath it was a hand, gray and bloodless, already stiffening. “Like she took care of them when they were alive?”

Ven raised both his eyebrows. He knew that look could quell most people. This guard, however, was made of sterner stuff, or else she too was unnerved by how thoroughly the spirits had decimated this village to care about his best fiery expression. This village—what had it been called? Greytree?—might have been on the outskirts, but it was within Aratay's borders. It should have been safe.

The guard met Ven's eyes steadily. “Is she dead?”

He flinched at the word, picturing the queen's body broken, like one of these villagers, but it was a fair question—after a queen's death, the spirits always went wild, until the heirs called for a coronation, suspending the spirits' power. “I heard no bells.” Three tolls for the death of a queen, repeated across the forest. “Even if she were, she has many capable heirs.” If Queen Fara died, they would undergo the coronation ceremony, and one of them would reaffirm the queen's commands. That was the entire point of heirs, and the purpose of champions. Champions found and trained potential heirs, to ensure that Aratay would always have a queen and that the spirits would always be controlled.

Except they hadn't been controlled here,
Ven thought, echoing the guard's snark.

He swore under his breath, colorfully and thoroughly.

If he wanted to be sure this didn't happen again, he had to
find out
why
it had happened here, why the spirits had defied the queen, and he wasn't going to find an explanation in the outer forest. He had to go back to the capital, talk to Fara, determine why her protections had failed. He was a champion. It was his responsibility. It was the only way to find the answers he needed, the answers that these people deserved. “I'll speak to the queen.”

“She must be told,” the guard agreed.

“She won't be pleased to see me. I'm not welcome at the palace.” He winced, aware that sounded perilously close to a whine, which was not behavior becoming a champion, especially in the wake of a tragedy he'd been unable to prevent. Assuming a sterner voice, he said, “See to it that the survivors are settled safely and then resume patrols. I'll return as soon as I can.”

“Just try not to break any heirlooms.”

“It was an accident,” he ground out.

“You broke her
crown
.”

“I thought she was being attacked!”

“She's the queen,” the guard said. “She could have defended herself against a vicious twig.” The queen's crown was made of twisted living branches that grew flowers every spring and leaves every summer, despite being severed from the earth. He'd thought it was turning on its wearer. He wished that story hadn't spread. It made him look like an idiot. Just because he'd
acted
like an idiot, that didn't mean all of Renthia had to know.

“Send word if there are any more attacks,” he said.

The guard sobered. “Run quickly, Champion Ven.”

He nodded once and then he sprinted for the nearest trunk. Using the village's anchors, he climbed up, looking back only once to see the guard kneel in the wreckage and pick up the broken doll.

I
N THE CITY OF
M
ITTRIEL
,
THE CAPITAL OF
A
RATAY
,
IN THE HEART
of Renthia, the white limbs of the palace tree shone in the moonlight. The shadows seemed softer, and Ven felt as if he was coming home, even though he hated the place.

He'd traveled through midforest, watching for other signs of unrest among the spirits, but hadn't seen anything out of the
ordinary. In every village and town, men and women went about their lives without fear—or at least with no more fear than usual. When you lived surrounded by mindless, powerful creatures whose primary instinct is to murder you, a little healthy fear is normal. Even champions weren't fearless.
We just carry larger knives,
Ven thought.

Crouching on a branch just outside the perimeter of the palace, Ven eyed the spirits who served the queen. Tonight there seemed to be more than usual, or maybe he was just sensitive to them. He'd never liked the way they flocked around the queen, as if they were loyal, as if they wouldn't gleefully rip her throat out if her control ever slipped. Above the north spire, two air spirits chased a banner around a pole, winding it, then unwinding it, playing with the wind. On the spiral stairs, a fire spirit lit the candles, dancing within each flame. Below, earth spirits tended to the queen's rose garden, coaxing black roses to bloom for the night.

Maybe what happened in the village was an aberration. Maybe he'd report to Queen Fara, and she would reassert her will over the perpetrators, and that would be it. He hoped it wasn't a symptom of rot hidden beneath the veneer of beauty.

Rot beneath the veneer.

It sounded so poetic when he thought of it that way. Clearly, he'd spent too much time listening to the canopy singers and not enough time bashing things. After he had his audience with Queen Fara, he'd take a few hours in a practice ring and knock the melodrama out of his head.

“The queen wishes to know if you are lurking in her trees because you have turned assassin, or if you plan to come inside and present yourself.” The voice crackled, sounding like wind between dried leaves, and Ven felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He twisted to see an air spirit dangling upside down from a leaf. Its translucent wings beat fast, like a hummingbird's, and its many-faceted eyes darted up, down, left, right. He hated when she sent the spirits to speak for her.

“Tell her I'm considering my options.”

Its wings fluttered faster, and Ven smelled the sweetness
of wisteria and also wine. “The queen does not have a sense of humor where you are concerned.”

He sighed. “I'm aware of that. I'd like an audience with Queen Fara in the Blue Room. Please ask Her Majesty to keep her archers from skewering me.”

“She will consider her options.”

The air spirit shot upward, rustling the leaves in its wake. Ven climbed higher, to reach one of the spiderweb-thin unbreakable wires that stretched from the outer trees to the palace core. He attached a hook and hoped the spirit had obeyed. The queen's archers were vigilant and trigger-happy, a fact that he'd appreciated when he'd been in charge of defense. He wrapped a rope around the hook and around his wrists. Kicking off, he rode the line through the air. Wind raced past his ears. No arrows fired.

He landed with a thump, unclipped, and rolled free of the rope. He straightened to the sound of slow applause. Flanked by guards, the queen walked forward, clapping, until she was framed by moonlight. She looked flawless as always, all six feet of her, with curls that tumbled artfully onto her bare shoulders and a blue-white gown that looked woven from a moonbeam. A new tiara rested on her head, a delicate metal vine with a single pearl that hung in the center of her forehead. “You always did know how to make an entrance.” He'd met her shortly after she'd been crowned. He'd been a new champion, but she had already had the regal bearing of a queen.

“As do you.” He dropped to one knee and bowed his head. “Your Majesty.”

“Oh, rise, silly. We're old friends. Or have you forgotten that?” She held out her arms, as if she expected him to hug her like a beloved cousin. Slit above her elbows, her sleeves fell back from her arms. Looking at her bare arms, he remembered how he used to hold her—there hadn't been anything cousinly about it. Her cheeks tinted pink, and he knew she was remembering also. Dangerous thoughts.

Instead of embracing her, Ven stayed kneeling. “My queen, I bring grave news.”

“And here I hoped you were visiting for old times' sake.” Her
voice sounded wistful, but Ven didn't trust it. She was a master at shielding her emotions. For all he knew, this pleasant greeting hid murderous rage. Or at least severe irritation. Last time he saw her, she'd been “irritated” enough to send a fire spirit after him. He'd ended up with scars on his arms from the burns, and she'd only recalled the spirit after he'd almost killed it.

“I've been on the outskirts, scouting the midforest villages—”

“Whatever for?” Queen Fara asked. “You already found me an heir. Lovely girl. Sana, is it? Sata? She trains incessantly. It's a bit insulting, frankly, as if she expects me to drop dead any moment. You should teach your candidates to have more faith in their queen.”

“I train them to be ever-ready, and hope they never need it.”

“Aw, now there's the charming Ven that I missed. Tell me, what did you find in those backwater villages? Lack of bathing routine? Unfamiliarity with how to cook edible food? I swear, if I had to eat one more boiled vegetable—”

“Death, Your Majesty. Your spirits betrayed you, and a village was slaughtered.” He tried to keep his voice measured, reporting the news and not reliving it. He'd seen the aftermath of natural disasters before—forest fires, earthquakes, winter storms, leaving behind broken bodies and broken homes with broken dolls—but this . . . this was the largest instance of
deliberate
disaster he'd ever seen.

Queen Fara went still. “You wait until this late in the conversation to tell me?”

“There's no immediate danger. The survivors have been taken to safety, and the spirits have fled into the depths of the forest. The forest guards are watching the other villages, but so far, there haven't been any signs that the tragedy will be repeated. My concern is: why did it happen at all?”

“Indeed.” She waved at her guards. “I will speak with Champion Ven in the Blue Room. You will see that we are not disturbed.” Without waiting for a response—there was no need to wait; she was the queen—she swept through the hall toward the interior of the tree. Ven followed. A tiny fire spirit darted up and down the hallway, lighting the candles before her and then dousing them in her
wake. It looked as if her shadow were extinguishing the flames.
Nice effect,
he thought.

Rushing ahead of her, the guards threw open the double doors to the Blue Room. Standing at attention, the guards flanked the doorway—knees bent, limbs loose, sword hilts an easy distance from their ready hands—as she and Ven entered. He felt the guards' eyes on him, cataloguing his weapons and calculating the distance between the queen, his sword, and theirs. As a champion, he was allowed to be armed in the presence of the queen. The guards didn't have to like it, though, and as someone committed to the queen's welfare, Ven approved of their mistrust.

The Blue Room was known, in whispers and in tales, as the “death-knell room”—you only requested it when you wished a private audience to speak of serious matters. Legend said that a long-ago queen learned of the death of her son in this room and ruled that from then on, the walls could only hear talk of deaths to come or deaths that have been. One version of the tale said
he
killed her. Another said the queen's son died here, in her arms, and her tears stained the walls blue. Clearly the last was untrue, as Ven knew the sap had been dyed blue as it bled from the walls and had hardened into a sheen that glistened and flickered in the candlelight. But who wanted practicality when a salacious rumor existed instead? He followed Queen Fara in.

A small octagon, the death-knell room had been carved into the center pulp of the tree. Sweeping the train of her dress so that it puddled at her feet, Queen Fara sat in the polished blue throne at one end of the chamber. “Leave us,” she told the guards. Bowing, they shut the door behind them.

Ven was aware there were no windows in the room. If she sent a spirit after him, he'd have to fight, again. But it wasn't going to come to that. This wasn't a personal visit, and he had no desire to restart their old argument. He was merely a messenger.