Elia drew her knees to her chest, hugging herself. For a long moment, Lear breathed and said nothing.
Aefa could stand it no more. She went to Elia’s side and sat, leaning her shoulder against Elia’s as the princess pressed her eyes against her knees. Lear had been freezing and hungry all night, Aefa thought; such suffering had stripped him to his most essential self, his nature revealed, and that nature was broken and trapped.
“He’s been alone so long,” Aefa whispered, and hugged her princess.
Elia asked, voice full of pity and raw need, “Do you think it’s true? About the crown and the island and… my mother?”
But the old king interrupted with a sigh. “I should be blind, for all I have never been able to see.”
His tender voice tore even at Aefa.
“Maybe,” Elia said gently, unfolding herself to glance at him, “this is always what the stars saw. What was always meant to be. The two of us here, like this. Unnamed and uncrowned, Father, with our feet in the mud.”
Her father laughed again, but gentler.
Elia put her palm to his cheek. “Maybe we had to go through this. I certainly did. To trulybecomeyour heir.”
Lear stared at his youngest daughter, amazed.
“Maybe you did everything you had to do,” she said. A sad smile bowed her lips: she had learned to couch the truth, and Aefa was both proud and stung by it. Elia said, “Be at peace. Maybe you did everything right.”
“Maybe,” he said, nodding his long head. The hemlock crown dragged down one temple, lopsided. He touched it carefully. “Did you know my daughter Elia… you,youwould come in from an afternoon in the meadows and forest with a crown of flowers?”
Elia kissed him carefully. Then she glanced again at Aefa, and her lips trembled. Her eyelashes, even, seemed to shake. But Elia only said, “I remember.”
THE FOX
BAN THEFOXwandered his way north through the White Forest, a lightness to his step. If he could, in this dense forest, he’d run.
He might never complete his spell, but it was enough to carry the promise with him, a threat beneath his fingers instead of lodged, poisonous, in his heart.
Ban yelled his pride, leaping into the air, sharing his joy and his thanks with the trees. But instead of their fierce whispers, full of love—something darker seemed to echo back.
Wind crashed overhead, tossing the canopy. Yellow leaves rained down, and Ban stopped, closed his eyes. He could not quite grasp the words.
He swiveled, searching for water, or exposed roots: there, an elm leaned on raised earth, three roots curling through the grass like worms. Ban crouched by it, grasping the roots in both hands. He leaned down and whispered against the cool brown bark:I’m listening.
For a long moment, nothing changed. The snap of branches alerted him to the presence of a large animal. A very low crackle sounded nearby, small enough to be a slinking snake, just the brush of scale against deadfall, or a young rabbit hunched beneath ferns.
Regan.
The lonely name hissed on the wind, and Ban startled to his feet.
Regan!screamed the White Forest.
A wail came after, high and mournful.
Regan Regan REGAN!
I’m coming,he said to the wind.Show me the way.
Ride, said the elm tree, and the branches shuddered. From beyond them came a gentle, curious whicker. Startled, Ban said, “Horse?” He pushed around the old elm’s roots and there it stood: the horse from Errigal Keep he’d lost in the storm. It—she—was ragged and still saddled; he ought toremove all the tack and rub her down, give her rest, but the wind snapped hard against the canopy.
Regan!The forest cried again.
Muttering an apology, Ban mounted and urged the horse after the wind.
***
