The Queen of Blood by Sarah Beth Durst Page A

from the maze from soaking into the rug. Listening, Hanna waited while the applicant found a spot of wood floor to stand on, where the mess wouldn’t cause too much damage, but Hanna knew without looking that it required standing in the center of the brightest sunlight. It was all strategic, of course, designed to make the applicants feel uncomfortable and out of place, but it was hell on the carpet.
    â€œSo, you believe you can become an heir,” Headmistress Hanna said without turning.
    â€œMy little sister does, and I won’t let her down, ma’am.”
    Hanna closed her eyes. Spare me the heroes, she thought. The ambitious ones were easier to take. Disappointment just made them angry. The altruistic ones were always so sad. “It doesn’t matter what she thinks. She isn’t here. And she won’t be here, if you stay. You won’t see your family daily anymore or even monthly. You will live at the academy, sleep here, eat here, breathe here. You will work until your muscles feel like sponges and your mind feels like dust. You will have neither the time nor the energy to worry about what your little sister thinks of you. You will need to find the strength from an internal source, not an external one, and if you cannot do that, you will not last.”
    â€œI can do it,” the girl said instantly.
    Of course she thought she could. All the girls thought they could. All of them were optimistic, idealistic idiots, with no idea of the cost of failure. Few, if any, had ever witnessed the danger of a rogue spirit. They had no concept of the level of destruction even one could cause, much less the thousands that a queen had to control. “Do you have any idea of what an uncontrolled spirit can do?”
    â€œYes, ma’am. My village was destroyed by them.”
    Hanna was grateful that she still faced the window so that the girl couldn’t see the expression on her face. It was rare, very rare, that villages were destroyed, but when they were, the spirits were usually thorough. She’d never met a survivor. To have one come here . . . Schooling her expression, the headmistress turned to study the girl.
    Standing in the sunlight, the girl was a mess. She had mud in her hair, and her clothes were soaked. She’d left a mucky puddle at her feet. She was average height, average size, average everything. Without the mud, her hair might be striking—it was streaked red and gold and orange, like leaves in fall—but right now it was caked with brown muck. Her cheeks still had baby pudge to them, and her arms were tan, showing she spent a lot of time outside. Her fingernails were worn down to the tips of herfingers. She looked very young to have faced such tragedy. But then, all the students looked young. “I am sorry for your loss,” Hanna said at last.
    â€œThank you, ma’am. It’s the reason I’m here. I don’t want it to happen again.”
    Studying the girl’s determined eyes, Hanna revised her usual speech. “I am going to be blunt, because you need to make your decision with facts instead of emotions. You did not do well in the entrance exam. Yes, you passed, because you made it out of the maze in the time allotted”—she saw the girl’s shoulders visibly sag in relief—“but you did not excel. You only used your power once and you expended a great amount of effort in order to control a single, weak spirit with a simple command. To excel at this academy, you must show great proficiency and innate talent, and frankly, I do not believe you possess it.”
    The girl did not move, speak, or react. Hanna admired her for that. She’d seen other girls break down in tears at even gentler assessments of their abilities.
    â€œThat said, you could still be of immense service to Aratay. You do not have to enter this academy for your life to have purpose and your power to do good. You could work with the forest guards