“Father?” Elia said carefully as Aefa hung back to give the king some illusion of privacy.
Lear glanced up, his expression opening like a bright dawn. “Ah, pretty spirit, do come join me on this bank here.”
Elia knelt in the damp grass beside him. “No spirit, sir, but flesh. Your daughter Elia.”
The old king frowned. “My daughter went over the sea—I sent her there. But you do look like my wife, pretty spirit.”
“Take my hands, Father. I am no spirit.”
Aefa could hear the struggle in Elia’s voice, and clenched her hands into fists, wishing to tear the difficulty away, or bear it instead.
The king frowned at his daughter. “Will you pull me into dreams? There are roots here, whispering. They would hold me under the earth forever, and as much I deserve.”
“You hear the voice of the trees?” Elia whispered. She glanced to Aefa, and Aefa did her best to smile encouragingly. It was a good sign, for the star-touched king to be listening to the wind.
But a shudder pushed down Lear’s body, and Elia grasped his cold, dry hands, bending to kiss his knuckles. The king pulled free.
“Let me wipe them,” he said, clucking his tongue. “They smell of mortality.”
Elia laughed, a small, helpless thing. “Yes, Father, they do.”
He pursed his lips. “What do the stars smell of, do you think?”
His daughter opened her mouth, but shook her head in astonishment and ignorance. “I suppose they are clean smelling, like fresh water.”
“My youngest smelled of goats,” the king murmured. He closed his eyes, holding her hand to his chest. “Or some sharp, spicy oil her mother always wore. It spread to her baby skin, and I never remember a time she smelled like her own self instead of my darling wife.”
“Bergamot oranges,” the princess said.
“Oh, I should have told you, before you died.”
“Father, I am Elia, your daughter. Not… Dalat.”
It was hard even for Aefa to hear the name; she could only imagine the impossible effort it took Elia to speak it.
Lear looked at his daughter and seemed to see her finally. “Elia? Am I dead?”
“No, Father, I’m with you in the White Forest. Come with us, stand and go with me to Hartfare. You’ll rest and be able to bathe, to eat and drink what you like. We will care for you—I will. I should never have left.”
A frown marred his brow, made his nose seem overlong. All the wrinkles of his face bent toward the upset mouth. “I forced you away. I remember.”
Elia nodded. “You did. But I… I love you.”
Lear put his long, dry hands on her face, cradling it. “That is all you said before.”
“It was not enough, then.”
Aefa ground her teeth together but did not interrupt. That was the first lesson her father had taught her at court: to judge when to speak and when to be still. The most effective Fool—and friend—understood such a thing.
“I know, my love, I know, we never say enough.” The king stared through Elia, seeing some other place. “I deserved nothing from your daughters,” he whispered. “But I wished they loved me anyway. I could not tell them what happened—What? And take you away from them again? Lost once from life, and again from memory? But I see now—I saw in the storm, cold and hungry, oh so cold with nothing but myself, no stars, no love—how in being wrong I put on a mantle of rightness.”
It was difficult for Aefa to follow his thoughts, but Elia held on to him, her expression listening, listening, as she did to the forest.
“But I loved you,” he said, hands slipping off his daughter’s face. The old king looked to the thin, trickling stream near his bare toes.
“Shh, Father,” Elia whispered, putting her arms around him. She tucked her head against his shoulder. Aefa touched her own lips to keep silent.
“You trusted yourself,” he said. “I did not trust anything but stars. I trusted them over us, over everything. Do you think they care if I trust them? Elia cares. Gaela cared, but not anymore. Regan… ah. It is too late, pretty spirit.” Lear sank back, out of Elia’s arms, and lowered himself onto the grassy hill again. “I should have trusted this, too.” He fingered a leaf of the hemlock crown. “You weren’t there, my star, but this is the island’s crown. This is the island’s star, these little white starbursts of poison. The king eats it, and drinks the rootwater. And the island keeps you alive; youbelong to the island. That is how you become king. See? I have had poison, too, my love! I have had poison, too!” He laughed, shoulders shaking.
