“You don’t mind it in me.”
“No, girl, I don’t,” he said, though she’d not been a girl in ages. He kissed her, and Brona allowed it, opening her mouth to his. She curled her fingers around his belt, tugging with exactly enough force to invite, and stepped back toward her cottage.
“Distracting me will only delay our departure,” Errigal said, kissing her eagerly.
Brona lifted one shoulder as if she cared not, and dragged him into the cottage. She would take this from him, and then he would take her heart away in return.
The finest thing about Errigal had always been his enthusiasm. Coupled with stamina and an instinct for generosity, it made him the best lover she’d ever had. Even if not for having made Ban, Brona would have welcomed Errigal back and back again to her bed, whenever he liked. His life outside Hartfare was no care of hers, for she’d learned long ago to revel in what joy she could find, and embrace love in every form. Innis Lear did not nurture such things, but scoured them away; it was the nature of the island, to be pulled between hungry earth and cold stars.
Brona considered herself an emissary of that wild, starving earth, and devouring the power of the Earl Errigal, taking it into herself, was a blessing, a ritual itself, to weave the stars and roots together again.
Nobody else was even trying, not since the last queen had died.
Sweaty and smiling, Errigal stretched beneath her when they were done, and Brona perched atop his hips, settled exactly like a witch on a throne. “This is the end,” she said.
Errigal reached up and skimmed a finger along the curve of her breast. “I don’t like that.”
“Then leave my son with me.”
“No.”
Brona put her hands on his chest and dug her fingernails in, sliding her palms along the soft hair hiding his milky skin. “This is the end.”
He nodded but wrapped his hands around her wrists. “I’ll take care of him.”
No, he would not. Brona knew this deeply. Errigal did not see Ban, did not understand his needs or how to foster joy in the slivers of passion that cut wildly inside their son.
“Brona, I will,” Errigal insisted.
She climbed off him, taking a blanket with her, wrapped around her shoulders.
“He is mine, and I will care for him as a father should.” The earl made a mess of noise pulling on his trousers. He tugged his beard as Brona held silent, and she saw the moment he decided to make a threat. “You have no choice in this. I’m taking him.”
That was true. Brona knew too well how precariously Hartfare existed: a heart of root magic and runaways and those hiding from King Lear’s stars. A word from Errigal and Lear would raze it to the ground. So far, prophecy had saved them, stars that promised the island needed this tiny center of roots. So far, Lear accepted it. But only so far.
“I know,” she whispered. “But it wounds me, Errigal.”
His bullish, handsome face crumpled, and he came to her. “Ah, girl, I would not hurt you if I could.”
“You do now.”
“So it must be.” Errigal kissed her, wiping his thumbs roughly along her cheeks, though Brona did not cry.
“Father.”
Both turned to see their son. He stood in the doorway, small, skinny, with a tangle of dark hair and solemn eyes. Dirt darkened the left side of his face and streaked his shirt. His toes were bare. Quite the forest goblin.
“What a disaster you are!” Errigal laughed. He swooped down and embraced Ban. “We’ll get you cleaned up a bit, then on to the Summer Seat with me. Your brother is there, and we’ll find you a sword, how do you like that?”
The boy’s gaze found Brona, over Errigal’s wide shoulders. “Do you like the Summer Seat, Mama?”
“I do,” she said. “It is full of magic, and there is a great maw of stone teeth near it. They will be strong for you, Ban.”
He frowned. “You aren’t coming.”
“Brona’s place is here in Hartfare,” Errigal said, standing. He put a possessive hand on Ban’s knobby shoulder.
“So is mine,” Ban said, his gaze still locked on his mother’s, pleading.
