The Deepest Blue(37)

Palia cut her off. “Roe, she doesn’t need the history of the world.”

Across the valley, Sorka was shouting at Kemra, Quilan, and Tesana to fight a fire spirit. Kemra had been burned badly on her arm, and Quilan was running toward a copse of trees. Tesana was cowering behind a rock. It would be good if I knew more before I have to face that, Mayara thought.

“Sorry. In addition to their urge to create, the spirits also want to destroy. Specifically, they want to kill us, because they hate how we mess up what they create by living here. But they also need us, as I said . . . or at least they need queens, to keep them in balance.”

Every Renthian knew this, but Mayara had never heard it laid out so baldly before. Most islanders didn’t talk much about the spirits outside of heroic ballads and stories. Feels like bad luck to discuss them, she thought.

Guess it’s too late to worry about bad luck.

“The queens of Renthia are women of power—like us—who have linked their minds to the spirits of their land. Seriously linked, not just the occasional telepathic moment. This bond can only be forged in a coronation grove. Lots of theories on why, but essentially what happens is the old queen dies, the spirits go wild, and then, after a fun killing spree, they enter this kind of stasis until they link with a new queen while she’s in the sacred grove.”

One of the other spirit sisters, Dayine, interrupted, “The heirs force them into stasis.”

“Right. Anyway, once they bond with the queen, they give her power. Lots of power. Enough to sense and control all the spirits she’s linked to at once, and enough to help her fight off the spirits she’s not linked to, the wild spirits. And . . . I should probably skip to the relevant bits. What this means for us.”

Palia snorted. “Oh, I’m sure we can destroy the spirits by boring them to pieces with a history lesson.” In the valley, the three spirit sisters, Kemra, Tesana, and Quilan, had failed to defeat the fire spirit—the Silent Ones corralled it as it writhed, blackening the earth beneath its feet.

“You aren’t supposed to destroy spirits,” Osa, the dockworker, said. “Not the island spirits, at any rate. They’re linked to the land. Destroy them, and you destroy bits of Belene. We’re supposed to control them.”

“Go on,” Mayara urged Roe.

Roe gave Palia a look but continued. “Regardless of how much power they get from the spirits after they bond, all queens start out like us. Spirit sisters. Girls and women with the ability to touch the minds of spirits. We can sense where they are, read their thoughts, and command them—how well we can do this is a mix of how naturally strong we are and how focused we are, which is where the training comes in . . .”

All of them shifted to look into the valley, where Heir Sorka was barking for the next set of spirit sisters to take their turn. Nissala, Resla, and Balka trotted down the slope to face the eager spirits.

One of the women—Amilla, the stained-glass artist—picked up the conversation. “You need to concentrate both on who you are and who they are, to the exclusion of all else. The clearer your thoughts, the clearer the command you give.”

“Yeah,” Osa chimed in again. “You can’t doubt. You just gotta do.” All the women drew closer, clustering together around the fire and around Mayara, as if their proximity could give her confidence and courage.

She looked at them and at Roe, earnest and hopeful. They want me to succeed. It was a warm feeling, and she felt the same way. She wanted all of them to live.

Turning away, Mayara studied the spirits in the valley. Two of them were attacking Nissala, Resla, and Balka, but most were corralled into a corner, held there by the will of the Silent Ones, waiting until they were needed. As easy as the Silent Ones made it look, she couldn’t imagine having enough control over her own thoughts to conquer the will of so many monsters. It was all she could do to keep from screaming in frustration.

Hero or dead, she reminded herself.

“So . . . I just concentrate?”

“You’re a deep diver, aren’t you?” Amilla said. “You have to clear your mind and focus to dive, right? Think of it like that. Except instead of diving into water, you’re diving into minds.”

That . . . she could do. Maybe.

She met Roe’s eyes. At least I won’t be doing it alone.

MAYARA BREATHED IN DEEPLY, DOING AS AMILLA SUGGESTED AND clearing her mind as if she were about to dive. But instead she focused her thoughts on the spirit that stood in front of her. It was a water spirit, made of sea spray, in the shape of a woman. Her eyes were whirlpools, and her hands were whips of water.

“Your task for the next month is simple, newbies!” Sorka shouted. “Don’t die!”

Positioned on the hills that circled the valley, the Silent Ones looked like gray pillars. Heir Sorka was in the base of the valley, on a pedestal of stone that she’d ordered an earth spirit to build for her. Mayara didn’t know if the heir and Silent Ones were here to keep the spirits in or to keep the “newbies” in.

Both, she guessed.

That was almost the way it would be once they were on Akena Island. There, the Silent Ones would be responsible for making certain they didn’t try to escape. Here, though, both the heir and the Silent Ones were also tasked with helping keep them in one piece. Because the queen wanted all twelve potential heirs to arrive on the island alive. They were welcome to start dying within minutes of their arrival, but tradition stated that twelve needed to begin.