“You must be drenched in diamonds, my queen, per tradition,” the courtier said. Merecot hadn’t bothered to learn her name, but the lady wore a row of jewels in the curve of her ear and gold strands laced in her hair. “If you will permit me...”
Merecot waved her hand. “Drench as you please.”
Cautiously, the lady approached her, and Merecot wanted to bare her teeth and growl to see if she’d flinch. But she resisted the urge, because she wasn’t five years old.Oh, but it’s tempting!Suppressing a grin, Merecot held herself still in front of the mirror as the courtier draped necklaces around her neck, fastened bracelets all the way up her arms, and wove jewels into her black hair. As she decorated her queen, the courtier began to prattle about the jewels with increasing confidence. “The Crown was given this necklace by the town of Erodale, during the reign of Queen Eri of Semo. It was carved by the master jeweler Hoile, in his final year of life. It is said that his blindness cleared, and he regained the strength in his hands for the length of time it took him to carve the thirty-six petals into the shape of a perfect rose. When he finished, he carried his masterpiece to the queen and presented it to her. As she clasped it around her neck, his blindness returned, his hands shook again, and his heart gave out. He died at her feet.”
She had a story like that for every single bauble.
Merecot would have demanded silence, except that she had a more effective way to skip the history lesson. So instead of listening to the courtier’s prattle, she sent her mind sailing out of her chambers, out of the palace, and across the mountains, skipping from spirit to spirit like a rock across the surface of a pond.
She pushed her mind farther, beyond the border, into Aratay. Most queens wouldn’t even have had the strength to reach this distance.But then most queens are not even close to me.There was something strangely soothing about the unpleasant sensation of spreading herself so thin and wide that she could brush against the forests of Aratay.
Not that I miss the forests.She didn’t.Shadows everywhere. Always having to worry about the stupid bridges breaking.She’d climbed enough ladders and swung on enough ridiculous ropes to last her several lifetimes. Besides, she’d left behind her worst memories between those branches, and she didn’t regret that for one second. But she had spent the majority of her life above the forest floor, with leaves overhead, and sometimes it felt strange to feel her feet on the ground and see the open sky with nothing brown or green to obscure the sun. And the mountains—oh, the glorious mountains! They were why she had chosen Semo, as opposed to the flat farmlands of Chell or the icy glaciers of Elhim or the ever-present salty stickiness of Belene.
The mountains were fists punched at the sky, fabulous “you don’t own me” gestures at the world. Her favorites were in the west, with their sharp ridgelines and sheer cliffs, but she also admired the southern mountains, with their boulders that could crush a town. And she admired the people who lived in them, carving out lives on the stone faces, eking out their existence from the plants and animals that were hardy enough to live there.
I fit well here, she thought.
If only there were no spirits trying to destroy everything that’s beautiful and good.
Merecot rode with the wind above a snowcapped peak and then soared down the other side. She was only dimly aware of her body, back in her chambers, as the courtier rebraided her hair to hold even more diamonds, plumbed from the depths of the mountains.
Shivering, Merecot strained harder, sweeping her awareness over the strangeotherfeel of the spirits of Aratay. They moved like bugs through her consciousness, making her itch, until at last she brushed against the minds of spirits that felt familiar, hidden in the shadows where the Aratayian spirits wouldn’t see them—touching them felt like breathing in fresh mountain air.
Her spirits, the ones she had sent into the forest.
The ones she’d sent with a purpose.
She touched their thoughts.Did you succeed?
Images were blurred—golden trees, blue sky... and then a wolf, running with the queen’s children... and then a wolf, running alone...
Did you catch them?
Did you kill him?
From across the border, it was difficult to sort through the tangle of the spirits’ memories. But then she saw an image, as crisp as if it had happened in front of her: the wolf running alone into the untamed lands.
Merecot laughed out loud. Distantly, she heard the startled courtier speak, but her mind was too far away to hear words. She felt the spirits’ confusion, then disappointment, then fear. Fear of her anger at their failure.
She consoled them.But you didn’t fail!Granted, the Protector of Queens wasn’t dead, as she’d ordered, but he might as well be. Given what he was, he couldn’t return from the untamed lands, not on his own.He’s as good as dead. But what of the children?
The spirits milled in confusion. They didn’t know... They... She suddenly realized she was touching onlyfourminds.Where are the other two?
Northwas the answer.
Merecot issued a command to her four spirits to return home, secretly and carefully, and then she drew her mind back across the border, across the mountains of Semo, toward the castle. Casting her mind out wide, she found the two missing spirits. They, along with their prizes, were not only in her land, but they were drawing rapidly close.
Nearly here!
Yanking her mind back, she crashed into her body. She swatted away the hands of the courtier. “That’s enough,” she snarled at her. Merecot’s eyes fixed on the mirror. Glittering, she looked as if she’d fallen into a vat of glass shards.
“Go. And send Jastra to me.”
She paced, which was not an easy feat in the layers of formal skirts. The voluminous fabric swooshed and swished as she paced in a tight circle in the center of her chambers.Am I ready? I must be ready!
Moments later, the guards swung open her doors, and Jastra entered. She too had dressed for the Harvest Festival, festooned with rubies, emeralds, and sapphires—precious stones were considered fruits of the earth, appropriate to the celebration of the literal fruits of the earth. She wore no fewer than six necklaces, as well as a sapphire the size of Merecot’s fist nestled on top of her head. It was brilliantly blue against the thin white of Jastra’s hair.
“My dear, you look lovely,” Jastra said. “You honor our people.”
