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“Is it Connley?”
“No.”
The eldest sister stared unblinking, waiting with the gathered fury of an army.
Regan refused to be cowed, returning the gaze, cool and still.
Silence stretched between them.
The very moment sorrow slipped in to replace anger in Gaela’s eyes, Regan spoke again. “I consulted with Brona Hartfare at the start of the summer, and have done all I know to do, but there is …”
Her sister stepped forward and embraced Regan again, tighter and with a shaking intensity.
She wept, with a weariness that dragged her toward the floor. But her sister, as always, held her upright. A tower, the strongest oak, the true root of Regan’s heart.
“I won’t give up,” Regan said, leaning her cheek against Gaela’s shoulder. She drew a deep breath, awash in the familiar scent of iron, clay, and rich evergreen that clouded Gaela. A fire crackled in the small round hearth that split the wall between the rooms they’d shared as girls: the one full of weapons and cast-off leather armor, bits of steel and pots of the soft, scented clay Gaela used to shape her hair at court; the other near empty, as Regan chose to sleep with her husband now. Though there still was a trunk left behind, filled with girlish dresses and flower dolls and Regan’s first recipe of herbal secrets she’d saved for her own daughters. Uselessly, it seemed.
“Sit at the fire,” Gaela ordered, with her Regan-reserved tenderness.
Regan removed her slippers and lifted a wool blanket from the hearth, gathering it about her shoulders as she sank into a low chair. “I will find a way to look inside myself, Sister. To find the cause of my … difficulties. There must be some magic raw and strong enough to speak with my body, to demand conversation with my womb.”
Gaela dropped herself into the chair opposite Regan. “If not, we must consider Elia,” she said bitterly. “Those kings courting her would not work, for they would want her issue for their own people, but perhaps … perhaps she could marry that bold boy, Errigal.”
“Rory,” Regan said. “It would be a strong match, her blood and his iron magic, though the boy himself has little power, or never developed it much, thanks to his milky mother.”
“I cannot confide in Elia,” Gaela said suddenly, vehemently, protesting her own suggestion. “Our baby sister is too like Lear. Takes his side, always. Would she want the crown herself, instead of making her children my heirs? Or fill their heads with starry nonsense? Would her ways weaken the children? She gave up your wormwork, too, after all. Is there any of Dalat in her? Any fire of adventure or conquest?”
“And what of my Connley, should Elia’s children inherit your crown? What of him, and us?”
Gaela snorted. “I care not for Connley’s prospects.”
Regan bit the inside of her lips to hold her expression cool and unconcerned. This was an old ritual, and she no longer argued on Connley’s behalf to her sister. Connley’s future was up to Regan alone. She said, “Elia can never threaten us for the crown. She has kept herself too hidden in the star towers, as our father’s starry shadow and acolyte. Some will love her for it, but not enough to follow her against us. Connley would swallow her up if she tried, even with Errigal her husband.”
“On that Astore will agree.”
“Let us eat, then, Gaela, and have this mess cleared.”
After marching to the door, Gaela flung it open, half calling already for a servant, but there stood Elia instead.
Their youngest sister froze, startled, a hand poised to knock. She wore the drab robes of a star priest, but her hair was rolled up and decorated with a net of crystals.
Gaela’s fury at the sight of Dalat’s jewelry flashed in the sudden tightening of her mouth, and Elia put her hands protectively up to her hair. She said, “Father put it in this afternoon, before I went to meet the kings.”
Silence stuck between them, the muscles of Gaela’s jaw shifting as she controlled her anger and instincts. Regan knew that set of her sister’s shoulders, and she joined Gaela in standing. Regan did not hate Elia as Gaela did, but pitied her. She touched a hand to the back of Gaela’s neck. “Did you choose one king or the other?” she asked Elia coolly, as if she cared not at all.
Elia shook her head. “I came to see if you had eaten.”
“We’re about to,” Gaela said, and stepped closer to Elia, blocking her entrance.
Though occasionally Regan thought of their mother and how Dalat would prefer her three daughters united, she remembered keenly enough that Elia forever refused to believe Lear had taken part in their mother’s death. She had betrayed Dalat, and her sisters. And yet she dared arrive wearing Dalat’s starry accessory. Besides, Regan’s womb ached, her joints throbbed, and she could not fathom allowing the cherished, naïve Elia to see such weakness. So Regan did not protest Gaela’s obvious denial of their youngest sister’s overture.
For her part, Elia only frowned gently; surely she’d expected this response, if even she’d hoped for better. “I’ll … see you in the morning, then. I wish …” Elia lifted her black eyes and made a determined expression she could not possibly know was reminiscent of Dalat. “When you’re queen, Gaela, you must let me take care of him.”
Gaela breathed sharply. “If he needs to be taken care of.”
Elia nodded, glanced at Regan with a tiny sliver of unforgiveable sympathy, and left.
After a moment, Gaela called in a girl to clean up the broken pot and bring them more wine, and supper. They waited in silence, until every spilled puddle was mopped up, and each sister held a fresh clay cup full of wine.
Regan sighed. “Was she right, Gaela? Will our father name you heir tomorrow? Is that what your summons said?”
Drinking deep, Gaela glanced into the fire. Her pink tongue caught a drip of wine in the corner of her mouth. “That is what we will make happen, no matter what Lear says. I shall set all my daughters in their places.”
“Whatever game he plays, we will stand together and win.”
Together, they raised their glasses.
ELIA (#ulink_5d979954-d60a-5606-ba64-77b0087069c9)
ELIA WAS LATE to dinner.
The great hall of the Summer Seat had been built into the keep’s rear wall so that nothing but sky and cliffs and sea appeared through the tall, slim windows behind the throne. The low ceiling was hung with dark blue banners embroidered with silver stars shaped like the Swan constellation, Lear’s crest. Rushes and rugs covered the entire beaten earth floor, adding warmth and comfort as winds howled for most of the year, even in the height of summer. Long tables spread in two rows off the king’s table at the west end, and benches were full of earls and their retainers, the companions of the visiting kings, and all the resident families. A small side door to the north of the throne, hidden behind a wool tapestry of a rowan tree, led through a narrow corridor to the guardhouse and beyond to the royal tower so that the king and his family did not ever need travel outside from their rooms to the court. Everyone else was expected to enter through the heavy double doors far across from the throne. It was through the small door that Elia arrived, alone.
It was no way for a princess to make an entrance. She lacked companion or escort, had been been denied her sisters’ company, and Lear himself refused to leave his chambers, trapped in a sudden fit of starry obsession he would not share with her. There’d been a time Lear loved entertaining, loved the swell of noise that signaled a well-shared feast, Elia was certain of it, though the memories were dull with age. She’d been so small, delighted at every chance to sit on her father’s knee and listen to the songs and poetry, to eat strips of meat from Lear’s hand. He’d liked to dot cream and fruit syrup onto her face like constellations, sometimes daring to do the same to Dalat.
Elia paused in the arch of the doorway, carefully reeling in the far-flung line of her heart. She breathed slowly, banishing memories in favor of the cool responsibility of representing her family.
She could hardly believe Lear had abandoned her tonight, when the kings he himself had invited were waiting, expecting to be fed and flattered. It spoke to the changes in him, his most capricious stars winning whatever battle raged in his mind.
Food had already been served, for which Elia was grateful; there was no need to make an announcement now, or put herself at the center of attention. She stared out at the chaos of people, the laughing and low conversations, the men and women of the kitchens moving skillfully about with full jugs of wine and trenchers of stewed meat. There were the kings of Aremoria and Burgun, seated at the high table with Connley and Astore at either end. Aremoria spoke evenly in response to Astore’s boisterous laughter, while Burgun and Connley seemed to grit their teeth behind smiles. Elia could not be sure if Connley’s dislike of Burgun aligned her with him for the first time.
She should go direct to the high table, she knew, and reminded herself firmly. She should be gracious and calm, perhaps tell the story of her wager with Danna, or ask after the kings’ own families. Though that would invite questions in return about her sisters and father. No, she could not lead them so easily into uncertain territory. Just as she took a step, a beloved voice called, “Starling!”
Spinning, Elia held out her arms in preparation for her mother’s half-brother to pick her up in an eager hug. The Oak Earl had always been a brightness in her life, rather a rarity after Dalat died. But Kayo could not help making a bold impression, with his stories from the Third Kingdom, from trading caravans and merchant fleets, deserts and inland seas the likes of which few in Innis Lear could truly imagine. He ventured westward every two or three years, carrying trade agreements for Lear while growing his own riches, but for the most part, he lived here on the island, where his favorite sister had been so happy. He had never taken a wife, instead latching on to Lear’s family like a cousin. Kayo was perhaps the only person in the world all three Lear girls admired: Gaela for his adventures, Regan for his penetrating insight, and Elia because he came home.
“Uncle,” she said now, carefully, as she was always careful when performing emotions in public.
“Elia.” The Oak Earl leaned away, gray eyes full of gladness. He lowered his voice, bending to knock their foreheads together affectionately. “How are you?”
“Nervous, I admit,” she said, breathing in the sea-blasted smell of him.
“So would I be. Do you have a favorite between your suitors?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Aremoria, then,” Kayo said.
“Burgun has been more interested in me,” she murmured. “Courted and flirted and given me gifts.”
“Is that the sort of husband you want? The sort who buys you?”
She angled her head to meet his gaze. “I don’t know Aremoria at all.”
“He has the more certain reputation.”
“But certain of what?” she asked, almost to herself.
Kayo smiled grimly and offered his arm. She took it, and together they went to the high table. Elia introduced Kayo to Aremoria and Burgun, and her uncle effortlessly launched into a tale of the last time he’d passed through the south of Aremoria, on his way home from the Third Kingdom.
Able to relax somewhat, Elia picked at the meat and baked fruit in the shared platter before her, sipping pale, tart wine. She listened to the conversation of the surrounding men, smiling and occasionally adding a word. But her gaze tripped away, to the people arrayed before her, who seemed boisterous and happy.
The Earls Errigal, Glennadoer, and Bracoch sat together, the latter two both with their wives, and Bracoch’s young son gulping his drink. A familiar head leaned out of her line of sight behind Errigal, just before she could identify him.
It might’ve been the drink, but Elia felt overwhelmingly as though this bubble of friendliness would burst soon, bleeding all over her island.
Or it might have been that she herself would burst, from striving to contain her worries and loneliness, from longing for inner tranquility in the face of roiling, wild emotions. How did her sisters do it, maintain their granite poise and elegant strength? Was it because they had each other, always?
Elia had never known her sisters not to present a united front. Gaela had been deathly ill for three whole weeks just before she married, and Regan had nursed her alone through the worst of it. When Regan had lost her only child as a tiny month-old baby, Gaela had broken horses to get to her, and let no one blame Regan, let no one say a word against her sister. Elia remembered being pushed from the room, not out of anger or cruelty, but because Gaela and Regan forgot her so completely in their grief and intimacy. There was simply no place for her. Though, like tonight, they did sometimes push her out on purpose.
The first time had been the morning their mother died.
After being refused by her sisters tonight, Elia had gone to Lear. He’d opened the barred door to the sound of her voice, only to stare in horror and confusion. “Who are you?” he’d hissed, before shutting the door again. Right in her face.
Who are you?
Elia wanted to scream that she did not know.
She lifted her wine and used the goblet to cover the deep, shaking breath she took, full of the tart smell of grapes.
This was worse, more uncertain, than she’d ever seen her father. Perhaps if she’d not decided to continue her studies this spring at the north star tower, and instead had remained at his side after the winter at Dondubhan, he would not be so troubled. Perhaps if her sisters bothered to care, they could help. Or at least listen to her!
Dalat, my dear.
Had Lear expected his wife tonight, not his youngest daughter? Was he completely mad?
She should ask the stars, or even—perhaps—slip out to the Rose Courtyard again, and try to touch a smear of rootwater from the well to her lips. Would the wind have any answers?
The Earl Errigal slammed his fist on the table just below Elia, jolting her out of her traitorous thoughts. Errigal was arguing ferociously with the lady Bracoch, and then Elia’s eyes found the person she’d missed in her earlier agitation.
Older, stronger, different, but that bright gaze held the same intense promise. It was him.
Ban.
Ban Errigal.
An answer from the island to her unasked questions.
He was dressed like a soldier, in worn leather and breeches and boots, quilted blue gambeson, a sword hanging in a tired sheath. Taller than her, she was certain, despite his seat on the low bench. He never had been tall, before. His black hair, once long enough to braid thickly back, was short, slicked with water that dripped onto his collar. His tan skin was roughened by sun, and stars knew what else, from five years away in a foreign war, his brow pinched and his countenance stormy.
How could his return not have been in her star-patterns? They must have been screaming it, surely—or had it been there, hiding behind some other prophecy? Twined through the roots of the Tree of Birds? Had she missed it because all her focus had been on Lear and the impending choices about her family’s future? Had she refused to see?
Over the years she’d forcibly rejected even Ban’s name from her thoughts. Easy to imagine she’d missed some sign of his homecoming.
What else had she missed?
Elia was staring, and she realized with an embarrassed shock that he was very attractive. Not like his brother, Rory, who took after their blocky, striking father, but like his mother. There was a feral glint to his eyes, like fine steel or a cat in the nighttime. She wanted to know everything behind that look, everything about where he’d been, what he’d done. His adventures, or his crimes. Either way, she wanted to know him as he was now.
Ban Errigal noticed her looking, and he smiled.
Light flickered in Elia’s heart, and she wondered if he still talked to trees.
Her breath rushed out, nearly forming whispered words that only he would understand, of all the folk in this hot, bright hall.
But she did not know him, not anymore. They were grown and distant as stars from wells. And Elia had her place under her father’s rule; she understood her role, and how to play it. So she averted her gaze and sipped her wine, reveling silently in the feel of sunshine inside her for the first time in a long while:
Ban was home.
THE FOX (#ulink_c48b7fa9-727d-5ef1-a6b8-fbc2cd24b838)
AT THE HIGHEST rampart of the Summer Seat, a wizard listened to the wind. He sighed whispered words of his own, in the language of trees, but the salt wind did not reply.
He ought to have remembered the cadence here, the slight trick of air against air, of hissing wind through stone, skittering through leaves, but it was difficult to concentrate.
All he could think was Elia.
ELEVEN YEARS AGO, (#ulink_9c0f5321-33c8-51a4-800a-a97bc379a457)
INNIS LEAR (#ulink_9c0f5321-33c8-51a4-800a-a97bc379a457)
THE QUEEN WAS dead.
And dead a whole year tonight.
Kayo had not slept in three days, determined to arrive at the memorial ground for the anniversary. He’d traveled nearly four months from the craggy, stubbled mountains beyond the far eastern steppe, over rushing rivers to the flat desert and inland sea of the Third Kingdom, past lush forests and billowing farmland, through the bright expanse of Aremoria, across the salty channel, and finally returned to this island Lear. The coat on his back, the worn leather shoes, the headscarf and tunic, woolen pants, wide sack of food, his knife, and the rolled blanket were all he had come with, but for a small clay jar of oil. This last he would burn for the granddaughter of the empress.
Dalat.
Her name was strong in his mind as he pushed aside branches and shoved through the terrible shadows of the White Forest of Innis Lear, but her voice … that he could not remember. He’d not heard it in five years, since he left to join his father’s cousins on a trade route that spanned east as far as the Kingdom knew. Dalat had been his favorite sister, who’d raised him from a boy, and he’d promised to come back to her when he finished his travels.
He’d kept his promise, but Dalat would never know it.
Wind blew, shaking pine needles down upon him; each breath was crisp and evergreen in his throat. Every step ached; the line of muscles between his shoulders ached; his thighs and cracking knees ached; his temples and burning eyes, too. He was so tired, but he was nearly there. To the Star Field, they called it, the royal memorial ground of Innis Lear, in the north of the island near the king’s winter residence.
First Kayo had to get through the forest. God bless the fat, holy moon, nearly full and bright enough to pierce the nightly canopy and show him the way.
It seemed he had stumbled onto a wild path: wide enough for a mounted rider, and Kayo recalled the deer of the island being sturdier than the scrawny, fast desert breeds. He’d hunted them, riding with a young earl named Errigal and an unpleasant old man named Connley. They’d used dogs. His sister had loved the dogs here.
Dalat, he thought again, picturing her slow smile, her spiky eyelashes. She’d been the center of his world when Kayo was here, adrift in this land where the people were as pale as their sky. Dalat had made him belong, or made him feel so at least, when their mother sent him here because she had no use for boys, especially ones planted by a second husband. Dalat had smelled like oranges, the bergamot kind. He always bought orange-flower liqueur when he found it now, to drink in her honor.
