They wanted fire, ice, water... Flames skirted the edge of the barren circle, and little sprouts burst from the dry earth, to be tinged with frost then frozen. A sheet of rain swept through, and the earth spirits pushed from deep within, shaping the ground up—
Stop. Not ours.
They whispered back:Ours. Now, ours.
Not yet. You’re going home.She pictured the untamed lands, the shifting haze, and she pushed the image out.
They recoiled.
Here. Now. Home,they told her.
But they were fighting with one another. It was only a bit of land, a small circle, not nearly enough for the hundreds of spirits she’d brought with her. Barely enough for them to squeeze into for the night.
She felt a hand touch her arm, and she jumped.
“You need to eat,” Ven told her.
“They’re...” Words failed her, and Naelin waved her hand at the spirits clustered around them.
“And you need to sleep. I’ll keep you safe.” Ven met Naelin’s eyes.
She couldn’t sleep, not with so many spirits pressing around her, wanting to fight one another. It wouldn’t take much for them to launch into one another, and the two humans in the middle... She had to keep control of them. “They want to bond with the land,” Naelin told Ven.
“You can’t let them,” Ven said.
“I’m aware of that.”
He was silent for a moment. “How can I help you?”
She loved him for that question. As before, it was exactly what she needed to hear. Naelin let herself sag against him and felt his arm around her—one hand because the other held his sword. “Just be with me.”
She pushed her tired mind out into the sea of spirits.Rest. Sleep. Rest, sleep.She repeated the order over and over until she felt the spirits sink and sag. They were exhausted too, after being severed from a queen and bonding with a new one, after traveling across Semo and into Aratay. She felt the flurry of thoughts and emotions around her begin to slow and then dissipate.Sleep.
Sleep.
Sleep.
The spirits slept.
Curling up against Ven, she closed her eyes. She didn’t think she slept, but morning came faster than she expected, so perhaps she did. Awake, the spirits began again, trying to bond with the barren patch and clashing with one another over the same scrap of lifeless dirt.
Onward, she told them.Toward home.
They questioned her:Home?
On the back of a feathered deer spirit—this one with silver and black feathers—she drove them out of the barren circle and up above the forest canopy. She felt the spirits of Aratay following, watching, hating, and hoped Queen Daleina had a tight grip on them.She must feel this, Naelin thought. Every hedgewitch with a shred of power had to feel it as her spirits swept through the forests.
She showed the spirits the image of the untamed lands again, and she felt their resistance. They didn’t want that. Now that they’d seen Aratay, they wanted to stay in a land that had already been shaped and solidified. She pressed the image harder into them.Home.
Not home,they replied, and they threw images back at her: the towering mountains of Semo, the wide fields of what she thought was Chell, the glaciers of Elhim, the seas around Belene.We want our own home.
You’ll have one, in the untamed lands, she told them.You can be happy there. No queen. No orders. No commands. Once I find my children, I’ll abdicate and leave, and you can live your lives without any of the humans you hate so much.
Unfinished.She felt the word as a feeling more than a word. The others echoed it around her, and she felt their sadness.
Unfinished. Undone. Interrupted. Humans... Cannot return to the untamed lands. Cannot be without a queen. Don’t want to. Don’t leave us. Can’t. Can’t. Don’t make us. Unmake. Undone.
And then a soft, quiet:Please.
