Elia swayed, struggling to remain on her feet. “No.”
Dry, cracking grief shook Regan’s bones, and she showed her teeth in an anguished grimace. “I will not live without her!”
“I know, sister! I know!”
Regan bit her lip, turning it gray then breaking the skin. Blood leaked free.
“Listen to the wind, Regan, to the island and these roots, please. They love you, this island loves you, I love you—you are not lost, we are not lost!”Listen,Elia begged,ash friends, speak to my sister, this is Regan Connley of Lear.
The grove of ashes shook and shivered, whispering Regan’s name.
She closed her eyes.I know,she said to them.I am roots, I am the roots of this island, I am born of you, and formed of nothing else. Nothing is born from me but wormwork!
Elia knelt before her sister. “We have each other, we can still… we can still be better… a family.”
“A family! Our family is dead. All poisoned, with flowers or magic or stars. My Connley, dead. Gaela, dead. Our mother, too. Ban the Fox, dead—and you should be glad of that,sister.” Regan grasped Elia’s chin and took aim. “Our father’s murderer, slain now by your valiant king of Aremoria.”
“What?” Elia wrenched herself away.
“Ban Errigal killed his enemy, our father.”
“No, Father was old, and in despair! I was there: his heart simply stopped!”
“By magic. A wizard with the ear of the wind and the love of the roots, and the hatred of our father.” Regan laughed wildly, recalling the panicked, terrible moment when Connley was dead and Ban had glowed, incandescent with rage. He had dropped a nut from his pocket and crushed it, and all the wind of the island had begun to scream.
Elia shook her head. Tears clung to her short lashes, and she flailed at Regan, trying again to steal the dagger. “It isn’t true. Give that to me, Regan!”
But her sister pushed her back. “You tried to save him, last night. Youlove him, still.” She laughed more, but it was weak now, almost sympathetic. She knew what it was like to love too much and yet never be able to change a thing. Regan pressed the bloody scratches on her cheek again until they seeped, like the tears of Saint Halir, the spirit of hunters. Then she put one bloody hand against Elia’s and said,You will be alone, and for that I am sorry.
“Regan,” Elia whispered back.
“I will not miss you,” the witch said, lifting the small jeweled knife, “but you must remember us to your children.”
“Please, sister. Regan.”
Regan turned the knife upon herself. The point found her skin, just over the collar of her ruined gown. “I will take my mother’s way, too,” she said with a small, hysterical laugh. “The rootwater cannot save me from this! Soon, Gaela, soon, Husband, soon, Mother, soon, all my poor babies!”
Stop her,Elia begged of the island. She grasped Regan’s wrist, clinging to it.Wind, stop her. Be my ally. Ash friends, trees, stop her. Love her!
Regan lashed out at Elia’s face; pain burst in Regan’s hand and Elia folded quite suddenly. Regan took a deep breath and repositioned the knife.
The witch no longer listened as Elia begged the world, groggy, dragging herself up against a tree.Save her, please. Please.
The earth shivered.
Around Regan, roots pressed up, rolling the ground like ocean waves. Fingers of mud reached, worms of earth grasped Regan’s skirt, tugging at her. Regan looked down in surprise, blinking tears and blood.
Regan, queen, witch, lover,shuddered the whole of Innis Lear, opening its arms.
The ash trees bent toward her, their roots lifting, churning, walking the trees up out of the earth and nearer to Regan Lear.
Yes, she murmured.
Gaela’s knife fell from Regan’s hands.
An ash shoved Elia out of its way as the youngest daughter of Lear tried to hold on to her sister.
Seven ash trees gathered close to Regan, wrapping her up.Queen, love, Regan,they whispered as she slumped and wept, as she dug her hands into their golden leaves and their roots wound about her ankles. The trees twined themselves together, a braided tower of ashlings, closing Regan off from everything but their cool, dark center. They wanted her, and refused to give her up.
