don’t even like snakes.”
“Maybe they’ll grow on you.”
“Or slither on you,” Hanima said. “Slither slither slither—”
“Shut up.”
“Nope, I’m never shutting up again. They’ll flick those little forked tongues in your ear, all tickly—”
“Ugh. If they do what I say, they won’t be doing that.”
“What’s your title going to be, Sudhi? Serpentlord? Snakemaster?” Hanima snapped her fingers. “Ooh! How about an ‘eel wizard’?”
He shook his head. “Not cool enough. I don’t even know if this is it or not. But if it is? I think I’d prefer to be called a charmer.”
“Oh, that’s good, Sudhi,” Adithi said. “I like it.”
“You should talk to them, see what you can do,” I suggested.
Sudhi called a wheaten constrictor to him and had it coil up on his right. There was a bulge in its abdomen where it was still digesting something. On his left coiled a kholeshar, the most poisonous serpent in the world.
“Somehow I don’t think anyone will tease me about my hairstyle anymore,” he said, and we grinned at him.
“This is the best,” Hanima said. “Wish I knew what I was, though. Kind of weird that I’ve felt nothing so far. Maybe I have some kind of talent with fish and there aren’t any around here. Or maybe some animals that aren’t technically Nentian. Like some of those freaky creatures that live in the Gravewood. Oh! What if I could talk to gravemaws? Wouldn’t that be cool?”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” I said. “We could explore the Gravewood without fear. Who knows what’s in there? I’ll bet there are animals humans have never seen before or at least creatures no one has lived to tell about.”
“You’re right,” Sudhi said. “There is so much we can do now.”
“It’s true freedom, isn’t it?” Adithi said. “I can get on my horse and go anywhere and not have to worry.”
And during our breakfast of oats and apples, which we shared with the horses, a bee landed on Hanima’s arm and did a frenetic little dance.
“Huh,” she said, casually regarding it as she bit into her apple. “There’s a hive back there in the nughobes about a hundred lengths from the bloodcat nest.” She looked up to find us staring at her, wide-eyed, and then her eyes popped open as well. “Hey! How’d I know that? That’s my thing, isn’t it? Bees! I know what they’re saying! Where they are! I’m a, uh…I’m a hivemaster! Yeah!”
“Hivemistress,” Adithi corrected her.
“Whatever! That! Yes, that! You know what this is?”
“Is it…the best?” Sudhi ventured.
“Yes! Exactly! This is the best! You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because if someone wants to mess with me, I’ll be able to say, ‘Step back, man, or I am going to throw bees in your face!’ ”
“What? Why would you throw them?”
“Well, I will urge them to fly faceward, okay? Don’t pick at my words, Sudhi; I’m all excited! I have a thing now. Bees are my thing. But not just bees!”
“What?”
“I can sense other hives,” she said, her hands freezing in the air and her eyes closing. “Ants. Termites. Burrow wasps. All near here.”
I stretched out with the senses of my kenning, seeking those specific creatures, and found the ants and burrow wasps at the limits of my range. “Where are the termites?” I asked.
“Three leagues to the south. The other side of the nughobes.” That was a much greater distance than I could sense, as was the beehive. Hanima’s affinity granted her far more sensitivity.
“What about other insects?” I asked. Can you sense them? Or spiders?”
Hanima paused and shut her eyes tight, trying to find them. “No,” she finally said. “Just the kind with queens.”
“Think of what we could do,” Adithi said, her face glowing. “Charmers could have serpents keep fields free of shrews and voles. A hivemistress like Hanima could make crops more fruitful.”
Tamhan, who’d been quiet to this point, snorted softly and said, “That won’t be the first thing the viceroy will think of.”
Adithi frowned. “What will he think of?”
“First, he will think of how you threaten his power. He will look at his lost cavalry and say you’re too dangerous to live. He’ll think of how Sudhi could send that kholeshar or a flesh eel into his bedchamber at night and end his life. And so he’ll seek to control you if he can, and if he can’t, he’ll try to kill you and then get others blessed by the Sixth Kenning that he can control.”
“Stop being a storm cloud, Tamhan,” Hanima said.
“I know it’s unpleasant, but we need to think about this. Do