It was the king of Innis Lear.
Ban spun around, wildly, but there was no one else nearby. Birds chirped and the forest canopy shivered pleasantly, scattering tiny raindrops onto Ban’s forehead. He stepped into the sunny meadow, one hand curled around the hilt of his sword. The other he lifted, palm out, as if the sleeping old man were a wild boar, a lion or deadly bear.
Ban approached slowly, and began to smile.
He could do anything to this foolish man, left alone in the heart of the forest. Slide this hungry blade into Lear’s gut. Bash in his head with a jagged rock. Wake him with a whisper, before gently suffocating him. Ask the ash tree there to bury the king deep in the earth, until he was eaten by worms.
It would hurt Elia so very badly.
Ban ground his teeth together and hissed. But this old man, this awful once-king, deserved this and more, for all he’d done: not only to Ban, to his daughters, to his queen, perhaps—but even more for what he’d done to this island itself. The rootwaters should be free.
There might never come such a chance as this. But to murder him so secretly, without consequence, would do nothing for the island, prove nothing to anyone.
He bent and put his hand over Lear’s mouth, to feel the small puffs of breath.
Sometimes I cannot even breathe when he is near,the king had said of Ban, dismissing his very existence with a wave.The stench of his birth stars pollutes this air.
And so Ban knew what it was that he would take.
***
AWIZARD CROUCHEDbetween two young hawthorns at the edge of a clear, rushing creek. Bare to the wind and roots, he’d painted muddy lines onto his chest, in spirals down his arms and legs, and with a tiny knife, he now etched his name alongside that of a former king, glistening blood against his own skin.
The hawthorns shivered and shook with thrills; they’d not worked such magic in more years than they even understood. This was death magic, magic of the worms that fed upon their roots, magic that brought food to the world, decay and rebirth and an excess of fluid.
The wizard breathed into his palms, where the two shells of a walnut were fitted together, missing the meat. He replaced the nut with his own blood and a stolen silver hair.
Breath and death,he whispered to the nut in the language of trees, glad the daylight drove all the stars away, so they could not witness this. Or maybe they did: the wizard knew not. He only knew the blood of the land and the chatter of leaves.
Breath and death,he whispered again, and the hawthorns echoed it back to him.
The spell would be his last weapon, a comfort to him wherever he went. A safeguard, a triumphant laugh, a final word to be remembered by.
He would not be forgiven for this.
GAELA
IT WAS Acold, crisp morning when Gaela led her retainers out of Astora.
They headed north across the foothills to Dondubhan Castle, where her husband had already claimed the winter throne, and Gaela was eager to join with him. Two nights of angry storms had cleared out the remains of summer, scouring the hills of the last flowers and painting ice farther down the jagged peaks of the Mountain of Teeth, always a sharp ghost in the far distance. Her army marched quickly, a surging river of pink, black, and silver across the moors. They passed the Star Field silently, all eyes turned in respect, for even the least religious knew that this was where the kings and queens of the past rested, where stars and rocks came together to merge heaven and earth.
Gaela reveled in the cold wind, though winter itself she despised: layers of wool weighing her down, and the constant snow of the north trapping her inside, where there was little space to breathe or loom large. Tight quarters, sweat, pine-sharp incense, and fire all the time, wet socks from melting ice, all were oppressive and overwhelming, heavily laden with memories. Dalat had loved the winter, been fascinated by ice crystals and the patterns of snowflakes, sometimes even leaving open a window, and wasting wood to beat back the cold. She would wrap herself and Gaela and Regan in massive bearskins to watch the snow fall, so crisp and quiet.
This was before Elia arrived, loud and interrupting.
Gaela could not stand the smell of fur in the winter.
But it was not yet that darkest part of the year, and Gaela led her army to join with Astore at the seat of her childhood. Together they would push south to take back Lowbinn and Brideton, crushing Connley’s arrogant claims while he sat in Errigal. If he would take the iron for himself, then Gaela saw no reason to let Connley think to keep any of the north.
Her only regret was leaving before Osli had returned from delivering letters in Errigal. But it was taking her longer than it should have, and Gaela could not wait.
Slivers of cold wind cut inside her throat as she breathed deep to call an order to move her retainers faster. Now that they’d crossed around the Star Field, their destination was visible.
The castle at Dondubhan embraced the Tarinnish, the largest, deepest lake on Innis Lear. Its name meantwell of the islandin the language of trees, and was one of the few words all still recognized. Even in the height of summer the black waters were cold with runoff from the mountains.
Gaela led her men from the karst plain of the Star Field down toward the marsh surrounding the lake and the river it fed. They met with the West Duv Road, narrow here, and built of stone to lift itself out of the muck to cross the Duv River over three thick stone arches. No more than two horses could walk abreast for the final hundred feet of the approach to the fortified first wall of Dondubhan. The wall rested on foundations as old as the island itself: a handful of massive blocks of blue-gray basalt gifted to the first people from the earth saints, pushed out of the roots in fully formed boulders and columns. If the stories were to be believed. Again and again, over generations, earls and kings had built the walls taller, adding an inner castle and fortified towers and longer arms of the wall to curl halfway around the Tarinnish. When the moon was brightest, the castle rock glowed, as eerie as swamplights or wandering spirits.
This afternoon, beside the dark blue and white swan flag of Lear, Astore’s salmon crest flew from the tallest tower, snapping in the bitter wind. Men on the forward ramparts held up their hands to greet Gaela and her men, flying a matching banner. The drawbridge sat open, like a wide, wooden tongue, but her army was forced to wait while the iron-toothed gate was lifted for them to pass.
