Hamon was watching her but he hadn’t asked. She loved that about him: he trusted her completely. If she kept secrets, he trusted those secrets wouldn’t hurt him. But there was no reason to keep this from him. “As you said, other lands send herbs, food, supplies we don’t have here, right?”
“Right.”
“So why can’t they also send heirs?”
He paused, thinking it over. Then, “You’ll be admitting weakness to the other queens. What if they have the desire to expand their land, like Queen Merecot? It’s a risk.”
“More than leaving Aratay without a viable heir?” Now that things were set in motion, she felt some of the tension leave her shoulders. Keeping the bedsheet around her, she walked out onto the balcony once more. The blackness was fading to a pale gray.Nearly dawn, she thought.I wonder if Ven is watching the sunrise from the northern border.“I don’t mind saving the world—it’s what I swore to do. I just don’t like worrying about who is going to save the world when I can’t.”
“You think they’ll spare one of their heirs?”
“I think there’s a chance, and I can’t deny our people that chance.” If she were queen of a country with multiple heirs and received a plea for help, she would have spared one. Truly, hadn’t Semo done just that to Aratay? Although they morestoleMerecot than asked for her, or more accurately, Merecot had left, but still...
I have to try.
“I value our people’s lives over my sovereignty.”
“Fine. But we don’t even know what the other queens are like.”
“True. But we do know what the spirits are like, and what they’ll do if I die without an heir. Hamon, why are you arguing with me about this?” It was the first solid idea she’d had about how to keep Aratay safe.
He wrapped his arms around her again. “I’m sorry, Daleina. It’s only... I don’t like any plan that presumes you’re going to die.”
Oh. I see.She never really ever thought of it like that, but of course he was right—it was only a problemifshe died. “This is plan B. Or even C. I don’t plan to die.”
“Then make plan A: you don’t die.”
She smiled. “All right. It’s official. Plan A is no dying.”
“Dying can be plan Z,” he said.
“Guess I’m going to need a lot more plans.”
He smiled back at her, his special smile that made her feel as if hot liquid were pouring through her. “Do you have any plans for right now?” he asked, and then kissed her neck and shoulders.
“Yes, I believe I do.”
She led the bedsheet slip off her, falling into a pile at her bare feet.
Chapter17
At dawn, Naelin called to two air spirits to carry them into Semo. She’d said goodbye to Ven’s mother and sister already, and Sira had climbed monkeylike up to the tips of the trees. The slight shiver of the leaves betrayed that she was high up at the top of the canopy, on branches that Naelin wouldn’t trust, and she was singing to the sunrise. “Don’t you worry about her?” Naelin asked Ven.
He didn’t look up from his pack as he loaded supplies into it. “Always.”
“I mean right now, when she’s so high up.”
He glanced up at the canopy above. The crinkled brown leaves were edged with a lemon-yellow glow, and the bits of sky were pale. “I don’t worry about that. She knows how to climb.”
“But a branch could snap.”
“She’d feel it.”
“What do you worry about then?”
“I worry that one day she’ll realize the sun will rise whether she sings to it or not, and she’ll quit springing out of bed as if the day were made just for her. I worry that she’ll realize her little brother sometimes makes mistakes, and that just because she trusts me and Mother, it doesn’t mean she’ll always be safe or that everything will work out for the best. I worry that she’ll stop believing in the power of good over evil, and that she’ll learn that sometimes bad things happen no matter how hard you fight.”
It was a lengthy speech for Ven. Fighting with his mother must have made him contemplative. She studied him—he had depths it was easy to overlook when he was busy being his competent, in-control self. “And do you worry about me too?”
