“What will we see first?” he asked, tilting his head back. He reclined on his elbows and years seemed to melt away.
Elia lay beside him, so he could toy with her curls. As a child, she’d move her eyes as she searched for a star, certain that whichever was first sighted contained a message just for her.
Now, Elia knew from study and habit where stars would appear, their secrets predictable and universal. The Star of First Birds would be to the northwest, higher than the last time she’d watched for it. To the true north, Calpurlugh would appear, though it was autumn and so it would be the Eye of the Lion, not Elia’s Child Star. If she looked east the Autumn Throne would rise, and the Tree of Sorrow, with its long roots. The trees in the west were too high for her to see the Hound, but she knew it would arc there soon.
The evening breathed cool air across their noses, and the king sipped his wine. Elia’s cheeks were warm from hers already. She drifted, thinking of stars, and asked the wind,Which direction shall I look?It said,We blow from the north.
Elia turned her face with it and watched the southern sky through half-closed eyes.
“Ah, there is Lasural!” her father said, pointing to a single glint of light. “The tip of the Thorn. What do you see?”
“The Sisters,” she whispered. “All five pushing out there in the south.”
“Yes. So. Hmm. I suppose that is—is sacrifice for mine, a surprise of it, and for yours…”
“The wind blows from the north, so we should consider Lasural leading toward the Sisters.”
The king of Innis Lear grunted. “The wind is—”
“Of the island, Father, it…”
Elia’s answer trailed away as she heard a vast, sudden noise, a gathering noise, like the ocean’s roar. She sat up, turning toward it: southeast.
A tempest of air and screams surged toward them, bending around and through the White Forest, tossing birds into the sky. It blew hard enough that Elia grabbed both the nearly empty bottle of wine and her father’s wrist, squeezing closed her eyes, worried about which might do more damage if released into the shocking squall. Her hair tore and pulled; her skirts slapped hard.
Then the wind was gone.
Vanished, as if it had never been.
In the empty silence, birds struggled against the purple sky. Trees shivered, leaves tossing wildly, but slowly, slowly settling.
Elia let go her breath in a long sigh and put down the wine.
“Oh, Father, that was… that was too strange. Do you think the stars felt it, even?”
The old king said nothing.
She looked over to him, searching. Through the dim purple light, she saw her father reclined fully, lips parted, eyes still open. His hair was a wild tangle, twisted together with the half-torn crown of hemlock. His wrist was limp in her hand.
“Father?”
Leaning over him, she shook his shoulders.
Nothing.
He did not move. He did notbreathe.
“Father!” she yelled. “Aefa! Kayo!” Elia grabbed her father’s chin and looked into his faded blue eyes. But Lear did not return the gaze: his eyes were empty.
Elia gasped, and then did so again, knives stabbing her lungs. She held her breath and swallowed her terror. She put her cheek over his mouth. Waited to feel anything, for his tender breath to reach her.
She heard the pounding of feet as her uncle thundered closer, followed by all who’d camped nearby.
But there was nothing for them to do. Nothing could be done at all.
The king of Innis Lear was dead.
Part
