Another queen would have said yes.
But Queen Naelin had no problem with saying no—not to her children when they asked for something ridiculous (such as “Mama, can wepleaseclimb to the top of the canopy without safety ropes or adult supervision, where we will imperil our lives by recklessly daring gravity until inevitably we plummet down, breaking all our bones on multiple branches before we crash onto the forest floor to be devoured by wolves, bears, and wolverines?Please,Mama?”).
And certainly not to the villagers when they asked for her to summon spirits in order to build them a new library.
“You can build one yourselves,” she told them. “You have hammers and nails.”
Shifting in their seats, the villagers whispered to one another. Naelin raised her eyebrows at them, waiting for them to argue. She didnotcome all the way out to the farthest northwest corner of Aratay to add improvements to their already very nice trees.
“Summoning spirits draws their attention,” she said, for what felt like the hundredth time.
“Your Majesty, forgive us,” a woman began—she was younger than Naelin, with a baby swaddled against her hip. Judging by her pressed apron and the starched scarf holding back her hair, Naelin guessed she was the village laundress. Redleaf was larger than Naelin’s old home village, which wasn’t saying much—East Everdale hadn’t been more than a few disparate huts tucked into the trees. Redleaf was large enough tohavea laundress—not to mention a baker and its own schoolteacher—all housed within multiple trees that had been grown and shaped by candidates during the last heir trials, back before nearly all of them had been killed in the Coronation Massacre. Today, nearly a hundred villagers had squeezed themselves into the town meeting hall, a chamber hollowed out of the middle of the largest tree. “The spirits already know we’re here. Why not use them for good?” The laundress ducked her head and bobbed in a half curtsy. The baby at her hip gurgled. “Please forgive our presumption for asking.”
Naelin waved her hand. “Nothing to forgive.” She was never going to get used to people groveling at her. It was ridiculous. Before Champion Ven had plucked her from her quiet, happy life, she’d been no different from them.
Now, though, the crown she wore put distance between them.
As did the power she could wield.
But power came in many different forms, and in this case, it was more important to display restraint rather than give in to these ridiculous demands. She worked out a way to say that more...queenly.
“It would be irresponsible of me to command the spirits for any reason but dire emergency,” Naelin explained patiently. “They’re conscious beings, not tools, and using them as tools only fuels their hatred of us. Do you truly want all the nearby spirits to hate youmore?” Naelin fixed her gaze on the gurgling baby. “To hate your children more?”
The laundress cradled her baby closer.
One of the woodsmen, a grizzled older man with a scar that split his left eyebrow, shrugged. “Begging Your Majesty’s pardon, but we already live in constant danger. Be nice to live in constant comfort too. ’Sides, we can’t spend the manpower or supplies to build it ourselves. We aren’t city folk here. Everyone already does what we can. All we want is a little something special for the children.” He waved at the baby too, who cooed, unaware she’d been elevated to be the metaphorical stand-in for all the children of Redleaf. “You could do it, we heard. You don’t have problems like the other queen.”
Naelin felt her eyebrows shoot up as she fixed him with the same look she gave her children when their mouths moved without consulting their brains.
He was immediately shushed by the nearest villagers.
“Long live Queen Daleina!” one shouted. And then quickly, “Long live Queen Naelin!”
Naelin felt a headache form between her eyes. “I will consider it.”
A few cheered. A few looked worried. Sweeping out of the town meeting hall, Queen Naelin fled as gracefully as she could. Outside the heart of the tree, she inhaled fresh air. Ven was waiting for her—he’d been standing guard outside while she met with the villagers.
“Go well?” he asked mildly.
“Shut up,” she told him.
He grinned at her. “You’re their queen. In their eyes, you work a dozen miracles before breakfast and eat rogue spirits for lunch, on a crisp bed of lettuce.”
“I expect that kind of behavior in the capital, where they can call on the queen anytime, but out here? So far from the palace, where helpcan’tcome quickly?” She strode away from the hall, passing by the shops and market stalls that clustered on a platform in the center of the village. In a few minutes, she was beyond the town center, out on the thinner branches—homes dangled from them as well, a few built but most budded directly out of the tree itself, but it was blessedly quieter.
“I thought you handled them well.” Ven still looked amused, and she wanted to wipe that little smirk off his face. He thought it wasfunnywhen the villagers treated her like some sort of all-powerful wish granter.
“I didn’t stay firm.” When she was far enough that she could no longer hear the buzz of voices from the meeting hall, she plopped down on the branch. Her silk dress poofed around her. She flattened the skirts down and wished she’d worn more practical clothes. But the palace caretakers had insisted that she pack ridiculously voluminous dresses—skirts send a message, they said, that the queen is unafraid and will not flee from danger. People needed to see their queen in finery to help them feel safe.Absurd, she thought. No oneis truly safe in Renthia.
Amazingly, the head caretaker was somehow able to veto the queen, and now here she was, feeling like a fool.Actinglike a fool.
“You heard me. I don’t know what possessed me to say I’d think about it. Classic error.”
“You could do it, you know,” Ven said, sitting beside her.
She glared at him.
He grinned broader.
