Other? Otherwhat?
As she touched dozens of minds at once, she pieced the images together: an air spirit with leathery wings and a sword-sharp beak attacking, the wolf saving Llor, Erian trying to defend herself and Renet trying to help her, Bayn saving Erian and Llor as more air spirits attacked; Bayn running away... She tracked them, through the fresh memories of tree and earth spirits. The little spirits of Aratay had hidden from the “other” spirits, but they’d watched.
Bayn, carrying Erian and Llor, had run west, and the strange air spirits had chased them...Then what happened?She sent another one of her spirits to fetch Ven, with orders to bring him faster, and then she pressed harder on the nearby spirits.
She felt them resist, but she wasstrong, and she forced them westward, toward theother. And she splintered her mind, trying to touch the spirits that had attacked. If she could find them, stop them, hold them, destroy them—
Her senses brushed up against four air spirits, but she couldn’t sink into them. Her thoughts slid across them as if they were made of glass. She battered against them.Where are my children?It was as much a question as it was a command, yet she got no response. Through the eyes of her own spirits, she saw the foreign spirits from a half-dozen different directions, fragmented as if she were looking through broken glass. Beyond, the forest seemed to dissolve into a haze.
These weren’t her spirits. They weren’t from Aratay. She wasn’t their queen.
But she bore her will down on them anyway, determined to crack their minds.
In the moments before Naelin found the foreign spirits, while she was pillaging the minds of stray tree and air spirits, Ven was running with no other thought in his mind butFaster!
He refused to think about what could have happened to Erian and Llor, or what could be happening right now. Refused to think about what if he was too late. Refused to picture Erian, preening as she mastered another move he taught her. Or Llor, looking at Ven with those wide, hero-worshipping eyes. Refused to remember Naelin tucking her children in at night, or the way they’d started to ask to say good night to him too. He’d told them stories sometimes. Bandaged Llor’s knee when he skinned it. Fixed a knife holster for Erian that fit with her new princess dresses. He knew that Llor sometimes snored like a hibernating badger and that Erian squirmed in her sleep. He knew Llor hated nuts, unless they were crushed in a cookie, and that Erian could eat fistfuls of blueberries.
If I can just reach them soon enough...
He had to believe that Bayn was with them, defending them, buying Ven time to race to the rescue.Keep them safe, old friend. I’m coming!
A little birdlike spirit with wooden wings darted ahead of him, flew on, then flew back, as if waiting.
Naelin sent it,he thought. “Go!” he yelled at the spirit.
He veered, following it, leaping from tree to tree, running over the branches. After so many years of this, he could gauge every leap in mere seconds. He knew how to cling to the bark, how to use his knives like claws, how to dangle from a slim branch and land on the next one. He used every skill he had to run faster than he’d ever run.
But not fast enough. I’m...
I’m too late.
He knew it in his soul. The fact that Renet had returned to the village, slowed by a leg wound, but not killed, meant the attack was over. Whatever had happened to the children had already happened. It had been too long.Even Bayn isn’t strong enough or clever enough to defend the children from six spirits for this long.
Don’t think about that.
It was impossible not to, though.
He drew his sword as his senses alerted him to motion above him. A few autumn leaves swirled down as an air spirit, woman-shaped but with eagle wings and talons instead of feet, broke through the branches above. He crouched, sword ready, but then saw the spirit was falling talons first—
Another of Naelin’s,he thought.
He lowered his sword and let the spirit pluck him into the air.
With his leather armor bunched in its grip, the spirit carried him through the forest. Branches smacked into his legs, stinging, and he drew his knees up to his chest. The spirit let out a shrill cry that couldn’t have come from a human throat. In the distance, he saw the border of Aratay, which was also the border of Renthia itself: beyond it, the haze of the untamed lands curled like a forest fire on the horizon.
They flew closer.
Ahead, only a few yards from the border, Ven saw a clump of spirits—four air spirits, writhing on a branch as if they were caught in a fire. “There! Take me there!” His air spirit released him, and he crashed down, sword ready.
The four spirits didn’t look like the usual Aratayian spirits. Their wings were leathery instead of coated in feathers, and their bodies were bunched with muscles coated in sleek, snakelike skin. Razor-sharp beaks open, they were howling in pain.Naelin, he thought. She was trying to force them to obey her and they were resisting.
He leaped in between them and began hacking with his sword.
They sprang to life, focusing on this new threat, and he swirled, kicked, and struck at them, hoping that this distraction was what Naelin needed.
It was.
As Ven engaged the foreign spirits, Naelin sank into their minds. They couldn’t fight him and block her at the same time.
