The Reluctant Queen

by Sarah Beth Durst

  He flinched, as if the mention of her name felt like a blow. Hanna knew that feeling. “Yes, I believe so,” he said. “But she refuses to use it. She wouldn’t summon any spirits while we were out in the forest. She’s afraid.”

  Hanna heaved herself up from the window ledge, using Champion Ven’s overly muscular shoulder for leverage, and walked to her desk. She eased herself into her chair. “She’s right to be afraid. You should know that the other champions are pushing their candidates hard. One candidate died this morning. She was a student at Southern Citadel Academy. A very promising one. I’d considered her the top contender.”

  She saw memories flicker over Ven’s face and knew he was thinking of his former heir, Sata. She’d once been the best of the best, and Queen Fara had killed her for it. “All the more important that I found a strong candidate,” Ven said. “She will catch up and surpass the others . . . if she agrees to try.”

  “Tell me all.”

  “She’s the one,” he said. Hanna listened as he told her how he’d found her, what he’d observed, and what he’d planned for her future. He painted a clear picture: a mature woman who knew her own mind but not her own power, a woman who’d settled in marriage but loved her children, a woman whose determination matched Daleina’s but whose ambitions didn’t extend beyond her own little sphere.

  “She’s a grown woman,” Hanna pointed out when he finished. “What makes you think she’ll act the way you want her to act?”

  “Because she has a weakness: her children.”

  Pushing up from her desk, Hanna paced around her office. If this woman were as powerful as Ven suspected, she might be needed more badly than he even knew. Champion Ven didn’t involve himself in broader politics, but Hanna stayed abreast of all the news and rumors, and she knew about the problems on the border. Queen Merecot of Semo was stretching her muscles—if she heard of Daleina’s weakness, she wouldn’t hesitate to strike. Hanna remembered Merecot from when she was a student at the academy and doubted the girl’s ambition had dimmed. She was the type to crave power. If she sensed weakness, or worse a power vacuum . . . “Her children are not her weakness.”

  “Oh?”

  “They are her strength. And yes, I do believe we can use that.”

  Inside the academy, Naelin softly closed the door to the room where both Erian and Llor had fallen fast asleep, side by side in the same cot, cuddling each other like they were both each other’s blanket. She leaned her forehead against the door and wished it were possible for her to sleep. She felt bone tired from the journey here . . . all of it new and scary, and the act of staying strong and brave in front of her children was beginning to make her feel like a chunk of cheese rubbed against a grater.

  “Asleep?” Alet asked, behind her.

  “Like worn-out puppies.” Straightening, Naelin turned to face the guardswoman. She was glad to see her again—a familiar face! Alet was dressed in crisp, fancy leather armor, with a royal crest emblazoned on her chest in green and gold, marking her as a member of the Royal Guard. Her hair was neatly coiled, with the white stripe in her black hair pinned back beneath a helmet. She was armed with multiple knives with jeweled hilts that looked as much like ornaments as weapons. “You’re going to the palace?” Naelin asked.

  Alet nodded. “On my way there shortly. I wanted to make sure you got dinner before I reported for duty.”

  Naelin felt her lips pull up into a smile, despite her tiredness. The knots in her stomach began to unravel. “Captain Alet, are you mothering me?”

  “Are you going to let me?”

  She thought about it for only a split second. “Absolutely.”

  She let Alet lead her down the spiral staircase into a dining hall. Set within the tree, the hall was a semicircle and boasted arched ceilings and plenty of windows that overlooked the practice ring. Even the long tables were curved to match the room. Following Alet, Naelin joined a line of students, carrying trays of food. She accepted a heap of potato-like roots, a wedge of nut bread, and a slab of meat smothered in some kind of sauce, as well as a cup of gooseberries. Around them, students chattered and laughed. She was grateful when Alet picked a table apart from them and set her tray down. Joining her, Naelin studied the students. All of them were children. “Ven wants me to go back to school? This won’t work.”

  “You don’t have to befriend them,” Alet said, dipping her nut bread into the meat sauce. “You just have to learn what they know. Not to put too fine a point on it, but all of them, including the scrawniest pipsqueak who will most likely wash out before the end of the week, know more about your power than you do.”

  “All I want to know about my power is: How do I get rid of it?” Her stomach rumbled, and she cut into the meat. She tasted a wedge of it. Not as good as a home-cooked roast from a fresh kill, but it was surprisingly decent. She nibbled on it. It was heavily salted and had spices that she didn’t recognize—they tickled the tongue, but not unpleasantly, a nice peppery kick. If she could find out who the cook was and ask what kind of spice he or she used . . . She realized Alet was staring at her. “What?”

  “You’re in the famous Northeast Academy, about to be interviewed by Headmistress Hanna herself, and you still don’t want this life?”

  “I told you I didn’t.”

  “I thought you’d change your mind once you got here. I thought maybe you were just afraid.” She was looking at Naelin with . . . respect? No, not quite. It actually looked a bit like relief.

  “I am afraid. Anyone with sense would be.” Naelin waved her hand to encompass the academy, the capital, all of it. “I don’t belong here, no matter what the queen said. This isn’t my world or my fight.” Her last words fell into silence as the entire dining hall quieted.

  Everyone turned to stare at her, and then turned toward the doorway.

  She twisted in her seat to see an elderly woman in a green-and-black robe, accompanied by Champion Ven. His gaze swept the dining hall, searching for someone—for her. Seeing her, he pointed and spoke to the woman.

  Naelin tried to read his expression, to judge if he seemed happy to see her, relieved, resigned, any emotion at all, but his face was expressionless and professional. She tried to sort out how she felt, seeing him, and was surprised she’d missed him, though it hadn’t been long. A ridiculous reaction, she scolded herself, and blamed Alet’s words for planting such thoughts.

  The woman’s wrinkled eyes fixed on Naelin, and suddenly Naelin felt five years old, pinned by the glare of her grandmother, a formidable woman who’d taken no nonsense from anyone, especially when it came to interrupting her baking.

  Alet handed her the wedge of bread. “Take this with you,” she said in a low voice. “I’m told magic makes you hungry. Remember: if you don’t want this, then keep saying no. Don’t let them change your mind.”

  Naelin tucked the bread into her skirt. “Thanks,” she whispered.

  “Candidate Naelin, report for lessons,” Ven barked.

  All the students shifted again in their seats, and Naelin felt dozens of eyes on her as she weaved her way through the tables of children toward Ven and the older woman, whom she guessed to be Headmistress Hanna. She wondered if she was supposed to bow, salute, or shake hands. She settled on inclining her head respectfully. She glanced up at Ven, hoping for a hint of what was to come.

  Naelin didn’t know anything about Headmistress Hanna, except that she had featured in several of the bedtime tales that she liked to tell Erian and Llor. In those tales, Headmistress Hanna was the wise, powerful mentor—the woman who had proved herself at the Massacre of the Oaks, who had trained heirs, who had advised queens. She was the calm lake, the bedrock beneath the city, the soft soil that grew the wheat. She was a living legend as much as Champion Ven and Queen Daleina, and Naelin again felt small, insignificant, and horribly out of place. She wanted to tell them they’d made a mistake, and at the same time, she wanted this woman to never look at her with disappointment in her eyes, the way she was right now.r />
  “I know of your objections to training, to all of this. Champion Ven has apprised me of your situation and preferences, and while I sympathize, I reject your conclusions,” the headmistress said. Her voice rung clear across the dining hall. “You live in this world. Your children live in this world. Therefore, it is your fight. All that remains is to determine what kind of weapon you have to fight with.”

  Naelin opened her mouth to defend herself, to say it wasn’t that simple, but the headmistress swept away before she could speak. Feeling like a chastised child, Naelin followed the headmistress and Ven out of the dining hall, all eyes still on her. Glancing back, she saw Alet leaving as well—on her way to the palace. She wished her friend could stay.

  As soon as Naelin crossed the threshold out of the dining hall, she heard the students burst into chatter again, most likely about her, and she tried to tune it out, telling herself that she didn’t care what a bunch of children who’d never lived in the real world thought of her.

  She did wish Ven hadn’t seen her publicly scolded.

  You shouldn’t care about that, she told herself. You have other things to worry about.

  Following them down the spiral stairs, Naelin studied the headmistress—the stiff hold of her neck, the smooth sweep of her jaw, the press of her thin lips. “Headmistress Hanna, I can’t—I won’t—be an heir. There are others far more suited—”

  The headmistress cut her off. “We shall see.”

  Reaching the practice ring, Naelin felt her feet sink into the mossy ground. It was bare of trees, and yet the circle of dirt and moss held fallen leaves and pine needles, as if there were once a forest here. She’d heard about the famous academy ring that changed for its lessons, from a forest to a desert to a lake, depending on what the masters required. She’d never thought she would be here. “What would you have me do?” Naelin asked.

  “Summon a spirit,” the headmistress said crisply.

  “But I’ve never—”

  “You can sense them,” Ven said encouragingly. “It’s not so different.”

  “Form a thought, and send it out,” the headmistress said. “I recommend a simple command: Come.” Her expression softened. “Do not be afraid. I will be here, and so will Champion Ven.”

  “Go ahead,” Ven urged. “It’s safe here. The academy is filled with masters whose primary role is to disperse spirits that students call.”

  “But I don’t—”

  “You have power; you must be trained,” Headmistress Hanna said sharply. “You are a danger to yourself and others if you aren’t. This is true whether you become an heir or not.”

  I’ve survived this long without any training, she thought. She’d been fine and her family safe until Ven had showed up. Until now—until Renet’s idiocy—she’d never even been tempted to use her power. “I don’t want my power.”

  “And I don’t want a knee that aches in the rain,” the headmistress said crisply. “It’s a part of you, and you must learn to cope. Refusing is a child’s act. It is hiding under the covers and hoping the monsters don’t notice the lump in the bed. Summon a spirit, Mistress Naelin.”

  Naelin drew in a breath. “My mother was killed by spirits, for summoning them.” She hadn’t said the words aloud in a very long time, not since she’d shared it with Renet late one night before they’d married. She didn’t like to drag the memory out into the light of day.

  “Then you must not repeat her mistake,” the headmistress said. “But her mistake was not in using her power; it was in using her power poorly. Training will give you greater control and greater safety.” The words felt like slaps.

  “It didn’t help the heirs,” Naelin said quietly. “I know the story of the Coronation Massacre.” She saw Ven flinch, but she wasn’t going to back down. She wasn’t a child to be cowed by a stern frown—or at least that’s what she told herself. “You aren’t doing this for my own good or my safety. You want to use me, and I don’t want to be used.” She swallowed hard. It wasn’t easy to say words like this to a legend. Clasping her hands behind her back, she hoped they couldn’t tell that she was shaking. She was aware she wore borrowed clothes, pressed on her by the academy’s caretakers, and that her children slept safe in cots above, feeling protected for the first time in days. She was, in many ways, at their mercy. “I am not ungrateful for the attention . . .”

  “You see your power as a disease?” the headmistress asked. “Then think of me as the doctor performing a test to assess how sick you are. Cooperate with your healer, and we can work together for a cure. If your power is minimal, then we will find a way to distract the spirits from you. You can proceed with your life as planned, and the queen will never hear of you.”

  Yes! That was exactly what she wanted. Dare she hope? “Truthfully? You promise that? I summon a spirit, and then you’ll help me be free of all this?”

  “If you are not powerful enough, that would be best for all,” the headmistress said. “If Champion Ven is wrong about you, then we will all help you with what you wish.”

  Naelin looked at Ven. “And you’ll agree to this? You’ll help me leave if Headmistress Hanna says so?” Please agree!

  His expression was blank. Finally he said, “I will.”

  She studied his face and decided she believed him. He wouldn’t lie to her, she felt certain of that. She had a chance to end this right now, return to her life . . . or start a new life, with her children, far away from where everything went wrong. Maybe in the west, a small outer village near the unclaimed lands, someplace no one had ever heard of her. All she had to do was show the headmistress she wasn’t anything special, and then this whole nightmare would be over. She’d never have to convince the queen she wasn’t worthy.

  “Now, Candidate Naelin.”

  Taking a few more deep breaths, Naelin closed her eyes. She stretched her mind out as she’d been practicing and felt the crinkle in the air of tiny spirits: fire spirits that writhed within the lanterns, air spirits that flitted through the clouds above, tree spirits that crawled up the walls of the academy, and earth spirits that burrowed with the worms beneath her feet. She settled on the earth spirits—they felt closest—and did as the headmistress had instructed. She shaped the command in her mind and pushed it out, imagining herself calling her children home:

  Come!

  And they came.

  Little spirits clawed their way through the soil, pushed aside the moss, and sniffed around the practice ring. They looked like moles, with pointed noses and soft black fur, but their eyes and hands looked human. Behind them, busting through the holes they’d made, were larger spirits. These looked like clumps of rocks, with rock faces, arms, legs, torsos. Rock grated together as they moved, creeping closer to Naelin.

  Voice even and calm, the headmistress asked, “How many did you call?”

  “I don’t know,” Naelin said, backing toward the stairs as the spirits shuffled toward her, sniffing the air and pawing the ground. “I said, ‘Come.’”

  More continued to pour through the holes in the ground. Reaching into the folds of her robes, the headmistress produced a silver bell. She rang it sharply. “It’s customary to begin with a single spirit.”

  “Untrained, remember?” She hadn’t meant to call so loudly. She hadn’t even known there were different ways to call, or a way to call only one. There was, as Alet had pointed out, a lot she didn’t know. She felt her heart sink. This wasn’t the act of someone with minimal power.

  “Ask them to return to the earth.”

  Leave, Naelin thought at them.

  “With conviction, please,” the headmistress said. Above, from the stairs, Naelin heard the pounding of footsteps, but she couldn’t make herself tear her gaze from the spirits, who kept clawing their way out of the holes. She hadn’t known there were so many. She’d only ever seen one or two at a time, but here . . .

  She tried again. Leave!

  A few of the smaller ones scampered back into their holes. Emboldened, she walked
toward them. Leave! Quailing from her, the spirits retreated, pulling the moss in after them. By the time the other masters had poured into the practice ring, every spirit she’d called had vanished again, retreating into the earth. Her head buzzed. Her blood buzzed. Smiling wildly, she turned back to Ven and the headmistress—

  And then it came.

  Tentacles burst through the soil on either side of her, and she felt the ground shift, knocking her onto her knees. She felt the spirit beneath her, as broad as the entire practice ring, its tentacles reaching beyond. It felt hungry, a vast yearning emptiness beneath her.

  The headmistress yelled, “Earth kraken!”

  It flexed its tentacles, and the academy walls began to shake and splinter.

  Leave!

  Lea—

  Chapter 14

  Hamon stood as straight and stiff as the guards. He was sweating beneath his healer’s robes, the summer’s humidity so thick in the air that it curled on his tongue, but he didn’t move from the spot where he’d planted himself as he watched his mother unload herself from a basket. When the basket conveyor held out his hand for payment, his mother waved her hand, holding a kerchief, toward the palace, and launched into what looked like a monologue-style explanation. Hamon made eye contact with one of the palace caretakers and nodded, and the caretaker scurried down to the bridge to pay for his mother.

  Seeing him, she beamed and waved enthusiastically.

  “I regret this already,” Hamon murmured.

  “At least that saves time later,” a cheerful voice said behind him—Daleina’s sister, Arin. “With low expectations, you can’t be disappointed.”

  “You should be with the queen.”

  “She sent me away. Again. She can’t seem to decide whether she wants me glued to her side or shipped to the other end of Renthia, neatly stored away in a box inside a mountain on the other side of a desert.”

  “She loves you. She both wants you near and safe.”

  “Got that. In theory, it’s sweet. In practice, annoying.” Side by side, they watched his mother unload her trunks, bags, and boxes that held her precious microscope and special glassware. She appeared to have brought her entire laboratory with her. He’d have to be clear that she wasn’t staying one second longer than she was needed. “I take it you don’t feel the same way about your mother?”