“Then I will not stay!” Lear pressed knobby hands to his face and spoke more, but it was unintelligible. He threw off Errigal’s touch and spun to leave the hall, crowing and crying for his Fool.
He is truly mad,Regan thought, lightheaded herself, as if floating apart from her body—but for the constant ache, ache, ache of her womb.
Errigal paused in his trailing the king to say to Connley and Regan, “I’ll make sure he sets his head down in some safe place, my lord, my lady, have no worries on it.”
“Not in this place,” Regan cried, sick at the poison of his nearness.
“See him out, and no more,” ordered Connley.
The earl frowned before hurrying in the king’s wake again.
Regan saw Ban the Fox in the center of the hall, gripping his sword and staring after the king with something like horror and something like glee. She went to him and touched the hot back of his neck. He startled, but relaxed when he realized it was her. “Good riddance,” she murmured. Her thumb stroked below Ban’s ear, and he shivered.
The great hall door shut behind the three older men, its dull echo making the following silence more profound. Regan felt as if she’d been scathed clean with a rough knife. Ready for new growth.
She should have done that long ago.
“He’ll take the king to Hartfare,” Ban said.
Connley joined them, a sneer of disdain nearly ruining his handsome face. “Not with all those retainers.”
“What did Gaela want from this?” Ban asked, though gently, as if truly asking himself.
“Power,” Regan murmured, heady with it. Though she thought of the line of distress in Gaela’s letter, and wondered if Gaela had truly thrown their father out instead for not knowing how else to react. Her elder sister was a strong fighter, but not always strategic in the moment of passion. But Regan would not reveal that weakness to Ban the Fox. Not yet.
“To discover what you would do?” Ban answered himself.
“And whatshallwe do?” Connley asked. “We must discover Errigal’s true allegiance—to us or the old king. That will affect our course. We need Errigal firmly before we can act against Astore.”
Ban turned to them. “You know my own.”
Regan nodded slowly, dragging her thoughts off her beloved sister and toward the future. “I have bled all day, so tonight we will go to the heath and make your magic. Tomorrow, we will deal with Gaela, and my father, and yours, and with everything else that will come.”
“You are ready, lady?” Ban asked, earnest eyes studying her.
“Completely.”
“I will go to prepare,” he said sharply, and with Connley’s nod, left them.
Regan did not move. She thought of little but of the angry White Forest her father certainly walked into, where the stars had no power, and of theblack sky that would appear overhead soon, when the sun sank. The waning moon would obliterate the stars.
Connley pressed against her back, wrapping his arms around her middle. “Are you all right, my love?”
Leaning into him, she shook her head. “No. But…” She reached up to touch his face, skimming her fingernails along his jaw, to his ear, and finally into the thick crop of golden hair on his head. She squeezed it into a fist, and he hissed his pleasure. “But I will be.”
ELIA
IN SOME PLACES,Lionis felt like a labyrinth, so unlike the flat mud roads and shadowed moors and jagged rocks of Innis Lear.
Here, the stone-paved street was narrow and clean, surrounded by garden walls twice taller than Elia, snaking a steep incline just below the palace on the south, and stacked with many-storied houses of the same bright limestone of the street and gardens, all agleam in the late morning sun. As she walked between Rory Earlson and Aefa, Elia fought the urge to wince; the light made her eyes ache. Bold autumn flowers rioted over the tops of some walls, spilling their vines off window boxes, or growing tall off balconies. Arches spanned from wall to wall, supporting the gardens and houses, giving the street a glowing, cathedral presence. She understood why someone would desire to live here: if forests were carved in stone, they might feel rather like this neighborhood.
They’d been to visit Rory’s Alsax relations in their city residence, where his great aunt lived with two of her seven grown children. Mistress Juda was first cousin to the current Errigal, and eager both to help Rory mend things back in Lear, and to meet Elia, who had yet to venture out to any trade enclaves in her time in Aremoria. But with Rory’s arrival it had seemed less prudent to ignore the Alsax invitation, especially as Elia needed now to apply herself to finding a way home that did not directly involve Morimaros or his crown. The only thing that might mitigate Gaela’s ire upon Elia’s premature return would be the lack of Aremore support behind it.
Elia had soothed ruffled feathers, used honesty in her requests and reasons as much as possible, and did not hide her desire for peace and alliance between the two lands as well as between her own family lines and those of Errigal. For her part, Mistress Juda used delicious food and a very fine Alsax wine to negotiate. In the end, they agreed to the use of a barge, as long as no unhappy political ramifications would land at Juda’s door. Elia’sthoughts had drifted with drink as they began to leave, so much so that when Juda asked for a star blessing, Elia had found herself unusually caught in silence. Several generic blessings and prayers crowded her throat, along with those more specific to the moment: right now, invisible behind the sun, the Stars of Sixth and Fifth Birds swooped, and the curving row of stars that were the Tree of Golden Decay and the clustered Heart of Ancestors would be angling west. The patterns were there, waiting for Elia to name them in meaningful prophecy, but she could not. Would not.
Everyone had stared at Elia until she took a breath and laughed ruefully at herself. “I only can give you my own blessing, Lady Alsax, and my promise: as you are generous and ambitious and loyal, may those virtues together water the roots of earth and sing along with the stars.”
“Thank you, Your Highness, I accept it with honor,” Juda said, rather solemnly. “Good luck to you. This son of mine will send word when the barge is ready, and guidance to where you should be.”
