“You look like her sometimes, firstborn,” Lear said, frowning, in a voice of darker curiosity now. As if unaware of the knife, the danger to his person. “Except my Dalat was full of love; you’ve none.”
“I loved my mother, and you destroyed that. If I have no love left, that is your doing.”
“Yes, probably, mine, and our stars’. And these stars’…” Lear pulled free of her, and Gaela allowed it.
The old king sighed hard enough it shrugged his bony shoulders. He turned from his daughter, shuffling away on bare white feet. The servants dashed after, one—the younger—glancing back at Gaela with mingled shock and sorrow.
Gaela was left alone in the black courtyard. She sank onto the rim of the well. The rough black stone glinted with dampness, though the wooden lid was locked in place and it had not rained.
Silence blanketed her, and darkness, and Gaela wondered if it had been a dream.
ELIA
THEQUEEN’SLIBRARYin Lionis took up the bottom three stories of the easternmost tower, a cheerful round room with more books, scrolls, and curiosities than should have been available in all the world. Three half-moon balconies jutted out of the shelves at the second-story level, complete with small tables and cushioned stools for taking coffee. Elegant ladders lent access to all the shelves, even those spreading up past the second story, though of course it would be inappropriate for a high-born lady in a gown to climb such a thing. Aefa, though, and the queen’s and princess’s ladies, were often sent scurrying up like squirrels to fetch certain items when necessary.
Though many plush and low chairs were set about the main floor for reading, and several lounging sofas presented near the fire, all polished of light wood and pillowed with velvet, the Elder Queen Calepia and her daughter the Twice-Princess Ianta most often sat around the wooden table in the very center, casually discussing news and court dramas; sometimes with visitors or guests but most often alone, content in their familiar space. Sometimes they invited Elia to join them, but she preferred most mornings to perch instead with Aefa on one of the balconies, visible but not quite available.
Elia cupped her coffee and breathed in the rich, bitter smell. Two days into her Aremore exile, she’d received a gift of it from a Third Kingdom trader who wished her to remember his name.To give you a taste of home,he’d written, not realizing it would hurt her to her core, because Innis Lear was her home, not the floodplains and deserts of the Third Kingdom.
That was the seed of her disagreement now with Aefa: they argued with pointed whispers over how Elia should handle the constant deluge of notes and letters from Aremore people approaching her. Aefa could not see any reason to refuse a visit with the coalition of foreign traders taking place tomorrow at their meeting hall near the harbor. Elia did not see the point.She wanted to go home and couldn’t bring herself to care about anything else as much as everyone around her seemed to.
“Only some of the traders are from the Third Kingdom,” Aefa said again.
Elia gripped the delicate cup in her palms. “But they are the most dominant, you know it. It would be a meeting with so many of them. I’m not… them. And I am not ready for their expectations.”
“They might be part of your mother’s family, you can’t know! What if they would help you? Broker something to convince Morimaros not to be rash? You said yourself he did notwantto invade us.” Aefa spoke fast and harshly, to keep her voice from growing in pitch. It had happened yesterday: her inadvertent exclamation had drawn the Elder Queen and Twice-Princess’s attention, thus ending their ability to converse unwatched for the afternoon.
“Aren’t you curious to meet them?” Aefa insisted.
“Are you?”
“Yes!” Aefa laughed in disbelief. “Wildly. I’ve never been closer to them than the time we rode past Port Comlack when one of their ships was at the docks.”
Elia recalled that afternoon: her father had rushed them on, promising there was nothing but painful memories to be had in visiting with Dalat’s people. Merely the drop of her name hurt, and so Elia had believed him. Kayo did all the negotiating for Lear when it came to the Third Kingdom.
“What of the Alsax then, will you see them?”
“They are related to Errigal, involved in the iron trade,” Elia said rather darkly.
Aefa heaved a sigh. “You aren’t shunned, Princess. You can have guests and friends. And family.”
Elia bit her lip, thinking of how many Lionis courtiers treated her: as if they knew who she was only because of how she appeared. That her brown face marked her personality, marked her desires and humor. She’d never dealt with such things on Innis Lear. As silly as it sounded, at home she’d only been an oddity, an easily identified princess, a girl isolated, true—but by her family situation, not the people. She was their princess, and she desired what they desired, found amusing what they did. Here in Aremoria, a weight of political history had convinced the people they knew what she was before she acted or spoke, despite knowing nothing true about her except her name and looks.
Aefa did not, quite, understand. Nobody looked at Aefa as they did Elia.
Could she even imagine trying to be queen here?
“My sisters would be furious, Aefa,” she said, her forever excuse.
Aefa’s eyes narrowed, recognizing it.
“I’m not ready to earn their ire.” Tentatively, she reached out and touched Aefa’s bony wrist. That quieted her friend, who was unused to such physical affection from Elia.
She set down her coffee. It had been four days since her dinner with Morimaros, and three since she’d written to her sisters. They would be getting the letters today, or soon.
Sister,she’d written, copying the same letter twice, careful not to alter a single word and set her sisters to thinking she schemed between them.I remain wife only to myself and to the stars, and negotiate with Morimaros of Aremoria for the independence of Innis Lear. He sees the fractured nature of our government as a weakness, and not one he necessarily wishes to exploit, but one that by nearness makes his own country vulnerable. He is convinced, for now, to peace, but it is only temporary: so long as our father runs mad and nothing is settled between us all, his threat will hang over us. I trust this king not to be overly combative or hawkish, unlike his council, but his patience toward the cracks our father created will not last forever.
Send our father to me, here, to await Midwinter with me. Allow me to tend to his age and mind, while you both adjust to your new roles and strengthen Innis Lear. End the fighting between your husbands, and force them into accord, either divided or together. Show me and this king there is hope for a strong, independent Innis Lear.
