In Semo, outside the grove, Hanna closed Champion Havtru’s sightless eyes. “You were an excellent champion,” she told him. “Greet your wife with pride.”
She sat slumped beside his body for a long while, before she found the strength to drag herself to the earth spirit. It hadn’t moved since Arin and Cajara had entered the grove, and Hanna doubted she had the ability to control it. Her affinity was for air. But she rested her tired body against the spirit anyway, willing it to stay while she watched the stone circle of the Semoian grove.
At last, she saw two figures walk out, hand in hand: Arin and Cajara...QueenCajara, with a crown of diamonds and other precious jewels dug from the mountains of Semo. The girl was stumbling as she walked, weaving between the stones in the path, but seemed unhurt. Arin was helping her, keeping her from falling. Hanna wished she could go to them but could only wait until the two girls reached her.
“Your Majesty,” Hanna said.
“They want...”
“I know,” Hanna said as kindly as she could. This had to be a shock to the poor girl. “You must control them. It’s on you now. Tell them do no harm.”
“That’s all?”
“For now, it’s enough.”
Cajara closed her eyes.
Hanna wasn’t powerful enough to sense how far the new queen could reach, but Cajara’s expression eased, and she opened her eyes.
“They hate me,” the girl reported.
“Of course they do. They hate us all.”
“But they want me too.”
“You’re bound, for better and for worse,” Hanna said. “Think of it as a marriage.”An unhealthy marriage in which you’re only staying together for the kids.
Arin grimaced. “Or not.”
Cajara let out a little chirp of a laugh, frowned, as if surprised to be laughing, then laughed again. She sobered quickly, though. “I wasn’t ready.”
“No one ever is, when the future comes.” Hanna held her arms up, hating that she needed to ask for help. A world filled with so much power, and she couldn’t stand.Stop it, she told herself.You’re alive. That’s power enough.“Help me mount? We can’t stay here. The Semoians must meet their new queen.”
Over her shoulder, Cajara asked, “Champion Havtru, can you—” and saw her champion’s lifeless body.
Poor girl. First to lose her homeland, then her mentor.Hanna spoke gently. “He kept them from the grove until you could claim the crown. And he kept me alive.” She wondered if the girl had seen death up close before. There were few in Renthia who hadn’t. Still, it was a shock if the death was someone who was supposed to keep you alive. She braced herself—this shock piled on top of all the others of the day could prove to be too much for the young queen.
But Cajara simply said, “We can’t leave him here. Not like this.” There were tears on her cheeks, but she was a quiet crier. And more important, she didn’t collapse in despair or fall apart in panic.Perhaps she will handle the crown just fine, Hanna thought.
“You have the power,” Arin said. She was holding Cajara’s hand again. Hanna approved—the new queen of Semo was going to need as much support as she could get. “He can be buried here.”
Cajara shook her head. “No, he’d want to be home.”
“Then send him there,” Hanna suggested. “As far as the border. From there, the Aratayian border guards will take care of him. And when we’ve left here, perhaps you could send my four guards as well. And the woodsman Renet to his family. They all deserve to be buried with honor, at home.” Searching through her skirts, Hanna located a piece of parchment. She’d kept it for her next message to Daleina, but it would be better used for this. While she wrote a note to the border guards of Aratay, explaining who he was and how he died and to expect five more bodies to follow, an air spirit spiraled down from between the stone peaks. It was a bird-shaped spirit with a body as soft as clouds. A tree spirit scurried down from the tree and lifted Havtru’s body onto the spirit, nestled on the bird’s back. Hanna handed the note to Cajara, who affixed it onto Havtru’s leather armor, threading it onto the straps. She then crossed his arms over his chest and whispered to him.
Hanna couldn’t hear her words, but she didn’t need to. She bowed her head in respect until the air spirit lifted off, carrying Havtru skyward. They watched him until the bird spirit was indistinguishable from the clouds.
For several minutes, there was silence. Then Cajara spoke again. “I don’t know this land. I don’t know these people. What if the Semoians don’t like having another Aratayian as their queen?” Hanna heard the quaver in her soft voice. Fear.
Hanna smiled. “We’ll make them like it.” Now,thatsounded like a challenge worthy of her skills. She hadn’t had a challenge like this in... well, not since she’d taken over at Northeast Academy.
“You’ll stay with me?” Cajara said, her young eyes brightening.
“Of course we will,” Arin said firmly.
“But what about your family, your home, your bakery... your dreams! And you, Ambassador Hanna, your academy—it’s your life’s work!”
Arin shrugged, as if this were a minor decision. “I’m allowed to have new dreams.”
