Outside, the people of Aratay were crowded onto the branches, as many as could fit, overflowing the trees. The song of the canopy singers flowed inside with the sweet autumn breeze. Daleina’s parents and sister escorted her to Hamon, and Daleina and Hamon stood facing each other, by the window so all could see.
Looking into Hamon’s eyes, Daleina thought she’d never been happier.
And when they sealed their vows with a kiss, all of Aratay rejoiced with them.
Naelin had told them all no castle. “It’s frivolous,” she’d said everyone who asked—and everyonedidask. Her new people had waited so long for a queen that they wanted all the trappings: a gleaming city of splendors. Naelin gave them all the same answer: no, no, and no. She wanted only a simple house, built only a walk from the cave of the Great Mother, no larger than the houses of anyone else in her new land.
It was harder, though, to say no to the spirits. Theywantedto build. Out in the untamed lands, everything they’d created had been so quickly destroyed that now they yearned to create something that would last. She felt that yearning like an itch until at last, she gave in.
She gathered Erian and Llor to her. “Tell me: what should we make?”
“Trees,” Erian said promptly. “Like home.”
“Mud castles,” Llor said. “Like these.” And he plopped into a mud puddle, with mud splashing in a wave around him and spattering his pants. Naelin winced but said nothing as he scooped up fistfuls of muck and dribbled it to make towers.
“Llor, you’re all dirty now,” Erian informed him.
“If you sit, you can be dirty too.” He patted the puddle next to him. “Mama’s going to make me take a bath anyway.” He shot Naelin a look that clearly conveyed what he thought of that idea. “Bayn never makes us take baths.”
“That’s because Bayn lacks hands to wash you,” Naelin said. “He’ll be happy when you smell better. Wolves have an excellent sense of smell.” She knew she should scold Llor for drenching himself in muck, but a smile kept tugging on her lips. Kneeling, she scooped up a handful of mud and squeezed it, dribbling out a tower of dirt. “All right, but we’ll make the towers out of rocks so it’s less messy to live in, and we’ll grow trees around it.”
Llor cheered, clapping and spattering mud on Naelin and Erian.
“Mama!” Erian squealed.
Naelin met Erian’s eyes. She wiggled her eyebrows, then shot a significant look at the puddle and at Llor.
“Really?” Erian asked.
Grinning, Naelin nodded.
Whooping, Erian scooped up mud and flung it at her brother. He squealed and threw mud back at her. Then Naelin joined in, tossing mud at both of them, until they ganged up on her, spattering her from hair to feet.
Laughing, they collapsed in a heap in the puddle, and Naelin reached her mind out and touched the spirits. She etched in her mind an image of towers made of rocks, and the earth began to bubble, as did the spirits’ excitement. Earth spirits scurried over the land and within it, pushing upward, and Naelin felt the ground shake as stone burst from the dirt: black-streaked red stone twisting into spirals that jutted up toward the sky. Calling for the tree spirits, she released them to grow a forest around it. One muddy child on either side of her, she watched as trees sprouted and thickened.
Under her command, the water spirits corralled rivers and guided them into a lake that spread across a patch of desert. She instructed other earth spirits to create cliffs, and the water spirits joyfully led the water to cascade in thundering waterfalls.
“Oh, Mama, it’s beautiful!” Erian cried.
The fire spirits were fidgeting anxiously in her mind, and she sent them in: lighting fires in hearths in the homes of all her new people. Careful, controlled fires, but plentiful so that the new palace towers and all the stone homes blazed with light.
Reaching out to the ice spirits, she let them have a turn: freezing one of the waterfalls. It crackled as it crystallized, each torrent of water solidifying in midair. Glistening in the sun, it looked like a work of art.
As the others worked, she sent the air spirits out across her country and beyond the borders of her land, into the far wilds that were still untamed, to bring seeds of flowers from everywhere they could reach. They swept the seeds across the land, and she guided the tree spirits to plant them and the water spirits to help, until a riot of flowers blossomed at once for miles in every direction: reds, purples, blues, yellows, and the land was bathed in color.
With her arms around Erian and Llor, Naelin watched as her spirits danced across the land, drenching it in beauty. She decided she’d let them continue creating once they finished, but she’d send them beyond the capital, pushing them outward so the people could live their lives while the spirits lived theirs.
It might not be peace, but it’s close.
“I think I’ll like it here,” Erian said.
Kissing her mud-spattered hair, Naelin said, “Me too.”
Her children curled against her, watching as the land was reborn.
Ven kept his sword sharp and his bow ready—there were always spirits who didn’t want to be tamed, who wanted to destroy more than they wanted to create, who tested the limits of Naelin’s control. Queen Naelin had a simple and elegant solution to such rogue spirits: sever their connection to her and expel them from her country, exiling them into the vast expense of still-untamed lands that lay beyond her borders. But sometimes she missed one or two. Sometimes she was busy with other problems. Or asleep. Even queens needed to sleep. So Ven had claimed the responsibility of leading the guards who watched for occasional rogues.
It was rather enjoyable. And it had the added benefit of keeping the land safe.
