“Fire can be a candle flame,” Elia whispered.
Aefa hugged her tightly, smelling the rich bergamot oil, the tart remnants of paint, sweat and warm skin—every Elia smell except charcoal smudged from a freshly drawn star map.
The princess pulled away, but held on to her friend’s hands for a moment. She stared into Aefa’s eyes, as if searching for something, and then smiled a very little again. Elia’s brow remained pinched, her wide eyes teary. Then she let go of Aefa.Fire,she whispered in the language of trees, and snapped her fingers.
Tiny orange flames flickered to life. They danced in the air, two of them, around and around, as if orbiting each other.
The light put warmth back into Elia’s eyes, and Aefa felt like crying, too.The princess drew her hands closer, and the flames drifted into one, joining with a tiny crackle. Elia allowed her face to crumple and tears to fall, but she did not lose the thread of magic, did not stop her even breathing, despite the weeping.
With Aefa’s help, cupping her hands around the flame to block the breeze of their motion, they walked to the hearth and knelt, adding their magical flame to the comforting fire.
REGAN
THE BED WHERElast Regan had slept with her husband was too wide, too cold, too lonely.
Better that she sleep against the earth, wrapped in the roots of a cold hawthorn tree, or ancient oak.
Wind rushed against the windows, skittered against the sharply pitched roof, and whistled down the chimney. The small fire flattened but held on to itself.
One of his long jackets lay folded over the back of a tall chair. Bright, gleaming red. “Connley,” she murmured.
But the wind outside hissed back her little sister’s name.
Gasping, Regan swept out of the room, past surprised attendants. She covered her ears with her hands, nails dug into her scalp. “No,” she moaned. The island should mourn withher,call herhusband’sname.
Though Gaela was the first recourse of her heart, Regan was angry with her elder sister, too. As they’d come to the Keep, Regan had been desperate for privacy and a glass of wine, to discuss Dalat, breathless with the need to wonder with her sister: Was any of it true? What Elia said? Regan’s heart had struck a wild rhythm, her free hand curled into a fist so tight her knuckles ached. Had Dalat eaten the king-making poison herself?
But Gaela had turned a ferocious snarl on Regan and said, in the most drastically even, low voice, “No, it is not possible.”
Then her best, strongest sister had stalked away, leaving Regan truly alone.
But itwaspossible, if the trees believed it, if the wind screamed it, if—if poison was the true way forward on Innis Lear.
Regan’s breast heaved. The tingling, cold edges of panic pressed close, and she ordered one of the women trailing her to take her directly to Ban Errigal.
She did not knock at his door, just opened it, finding the Fox beside thehearth, where a small altar was spread and fire burned in a fist-sized iron cauldron. Three candles were lit, additionally, at the window, and a pile of broken glass glittered on the small table beside the bed.
Ban himself was already undressed, crouched in a long, loose white linen shirt that fell to his knees. His sword belt hung from the only chair and his boots stood tall beside it, along with the rest of his fine warrior’s clothing and equipment.
“Lady Regan,” he said.
“I would not be alone tonight.”
Silently, Ban came to her and offered his hand. The lines of his face were stark in the haze of candlelight. She allowed him to lead her to his bed. There he knelt and helped her out of her short boots. Perched at her feet, he lifted his head up. “Is there anything you need? Water, wine? Should I help with the overdress?”
His voice was soft, softer even than his forest eyes or lovely mouth.
“Overdress,” she murmured, and touched the places it laced under her arms. She raised them, and he worked quickly at the silk ties. Together they lifted it over her head, and Ban folded it carefully over the back of his chair. She shut her eyes as tightly as she could, and a flash-memory of Connley’s folded red coat waited in the dark.
“Please take some of the pins out,” she said next.
He obeyed, gently sliding his fingers into her coiled hair to find plain, dark horn pins. Removing enough so that the three thick braids fell around her neck and shoulders, he settled the collected pins beside the pile of broken glass on his table. Then Ban glanced at her eyes; Regan nodded, and he got into his bed.
Climbing in after, Regan put her head on his shoulder and her hand over his heart. Ban stared up at the shadowed ceiling, and they both listened to the wind shrilling against the ramparts. He was smaller than her husband and she did not fit so well against him.
What would Connley think of this? The duel, the hemlock, the stars and wind and love and death and… everything? Her hand curled into a fist again, the knuckles whitening. Regan did not wish to watch another duel. It would bring visceral memories of her love: the line of his shoulder, the gleam of his teeth, the passion shifting the color of his blue-green eyes. Regan’s breath had thinned; she was panting. Near hysteria with no warning.
“Regan?” Ban whispered.
