Dalat flipped her hands, calling Regan onto the mattress with her. The princess climbed carefully against her mother, and Dalat wrapped her arm around Regan as her middle daughter curled around the bulge of the queen’s belly. “Imagine her, Regan, my pretty shk lab-i. Imagine what she might be.”
As mother and daughter dreamed together, Brona Hartfare glanced again at the spiral of cards and scattered holy bones. Her gaze drifted, bland and unfocused, as she waited for the symbols and names to paint her a story, for the voice of prophecy to whisper.
Suddenly, the witch stopped breathing: neither queen nor princess noticed, for the witch had simply fallen silent, unmoving, and alone. Because in honor of Brona’s son, Regan Lear had put the Worm of Birds bone between the cards of the Tree of Ancestors and the Bird of Rivers.
For months, Brona’s son’s name had echoed her dreams, been whispered in long, ragged songs by the wind and roots of Innis Lear. His heart, blood, and magic would resonate, would echo up and up, outward and even deep into the bedrock of Innis Lear until every inch and crevice of the island knew his name. Knew him, and loved him.
But with the Worm of Birds there, his future of power and love instead became his doom.
Brona flicked her eyes to little Regan Lear, so innocently snuggled against her mother, whispering in babyish confidence.
Such a young girl could not know what she’d done, what she’d revealed like a curse.
Holding her belly in one hand, the witch of the White Forest swept her other across the holy bones, scattering the cards toward the fire.
MORIMAROS
MARS SPRAWLED BACKat the top of a mighty Aremore hill. Beside him gleamed a pile of armor: helmet, greaves, gauntlets, and breastplate; beneath him, a thin blanket. He’d not bothered to remove the shirt of mail and so Mars, too, gleamed in the sunlight. Before him stretched his legs, his muddy boots just off the blanket. Mars tilted his head back to peer at the solid blue sky. Sweat darkened his hair, especially where the straps of his helmet had pressed. He longed for a bath and clean clothes after over a week in the field, but this was pleasant anyhow.
Ianta and her son, Isarnos, had come out with La Far to meet the king and his men for a picnic lunch, and the breeze was gentle, the cool wine relaxing. Nearly enough to help Mars clear his thoughts.
He’d joined his army ostensibly to inspect their winter camp, but truly because he needed time away from the princess, to build up defenses in his heart. To think without her presence diverting him, always. Instead, she had loomed even larger in his mind. Mars thought of her first when he woke at dawn, for he knew she, too, would be awake, and high on his ramparts saying farewell to the stars. He thought of her again when the wind brushed through curling leaves just beginning to turn the same dark copper that streaked her hair. His boots, all the boots in the army, reminded him of hers, peeking from beneath her dresses, a flower suddenly revealing thorns.
Leaving had made him long for her even more.
He sighed, and Ianta patted his knee sympathetically.
“What’s that you have, my prince?” Novanos asked Isa, and the prince leaned around his mother and stretched a skinny arm across her lap, offering something to the soldier with grubby hands. He carefully opened his palm to accept it, then showed the small yellow rock to Mars.
The king smiled. It was one of the ribbed stone beetles often found trapped in the cliffs or the limestone of Lionis Palace. Old stories said theywere ancient animals transformed by earth saints into rock, as punishment for a crime that varied by the family telling it. Mars reached to pluck it from Novanos’s hand. The beetle was the size of his thumbnail. He said, “I spoke with a man from Ispania who thinks this is a natural process, a thing that happens to some creatures when they decompose, the way our flesh rots and falls away.”
“I’m eating, Mars,” Ianta said.
But Isarnos climbed onto his knees and eagerly poked the stone beetle. “Do you think if we could break inside it, there would be a hollow where its flesh rotted? Or turned to dust, or is all still there, preserved perfectly?”
“Maybe it is beautiful crystal like a geode,” Novanos suggested.
Isarnos gasped in delight.
“Break it open and find out.” Mars gave the beetle back to his nephew.
“Then it will be ruined, if there’s nothing but stone.”
The Twice-Princess nodded, dabbing her mouth with a cloth. “Then have it gilded, and save it forever. Always full of secret possibilities.”
The young prince stroked the ribbed shell and leapt to his feet. “If I find more, I can break one open and still have another to keep!”
Mars laughed, well pleased by his nephew’s strategic and forthright conclusion. The boy dashed through the line of soldiers enjoying their own lunch just down the hill, dodging toward the saddled horses. Most of the men remained with the camp, completing the necessary winter adjustments; this was only an honor escort so that the king did not ride alone.
Novanos got up, too, and trailed after the prince. He shared a glance with the Twice-Princess that told Mars he was facing an inquisition.
“So, Mars, how are your troops?” Ianta scraped soft cheese off the platter between them with her finger, and popped it into her mouth.
“The army is bedding down in the east. They’ve repaired Fort Everly’s spike wall, and should be wintered well. I’ll ride north toward Burgun next, but not get too close to the old line. Wouldn’t want to upset them unnecessarily yet.”
“Are you going to the west coast where the navy is?”
“I will have to tell them to nest or remain prepared for assault if I do.”
