“So.” Gaela sighed gruffly and put her hands on Regan’s hips. “This is the child of two royal lines, then.”
“Three, sister. Lear and Connley and the Third Kingdom.”
“Connley’s grandfather said it was a taint in the blood of the island, that Dalat was here.”
“My Connley is proud of it,” Regan said.
“Connley. Connley.” Gaela narrowed dark eyes. “You have laid yourself with him, you bear his child, and yet do not call him the name his mother gave him?”
Regan forced herself not to lower her lashes, angry at how difficult it was to hold her sister’s gaze in this moment. The union with Connley would be a wedge between them; Gaela was unfairly correct. But she still protested, “Connley is himself, and so too is he his land, his title, his own ferocious crown, sister. Connley is all the crags and peaks, the rushing waters and moors of the eastern coast.” Regan’s voice lowered again, memories of skin and cries and a bed of earth quieting her. “Connley is so many things more than his person.”
Gaela sucked in a shocked breath. “You spoke of love, but it is your love. You love him.”
Regan shuddered, skin tightening around the dangerous expansion of her heart as something quickened, much lower.
“Regan.”
“Gaela.” Regan sighed. “Don’t you see how this is our best result? Who better to father your heirs than our father’s least favored duke, one sure never to align on his side? Lear will have to swallow it, he must, because here, listen: Connley’s stars predict it! I’ve seen his birth chart, and the trees are adamant. The rest of the island will rejoice at the wisdom of it. Better than marrying me to Morimaros of Aremoria! Even you see the folly in allowing talks of such nature. Connley is already ours; he is entrenched in Innis Lear, sprung from our storm-wracked waves and rooted in iron. And, Gaela, his land is wild and his keep strong; his wells are far better than this one beside us. Deep and rich and flowing. They did not give up on the rootwaters as Father ordered. Do you see? Together you and I bring the two greatest dukedoms under the line of Lear. Through your rightful crown, and my growing child. We will make this island ours, the opposite of our father’s foolish skyward devotions and heartless intentions!”
“Maybe,” Gaela said, unusually thoughtful. Gaela, who had always favored more direct responses. At seventeen she’d bargained with Astore directly, demanding military training for herself. At nineteen she’d plotted to poison their father, and only Regan had convinced her sister of the folly of losing the king before he—or the island—blessed Gaela’s inheritance. Love him, or pretend to; let his throne be a rock of strength and a known position, while we shore up the rest of the island for ourselves, until we are ready and our methods are impenetrable.
“I promised you years ago,” Regan soothed. “I promised you that we—that I—would be his downfall. Do you remember the star under which I was born?”
“None.”
Regan swallowed the bitter word. “None. I was born under an empty sky, a sliver of blackness our father cannot bring himself to love. You were born under the Star of the Consort, with the Throne on the rise. Double stars, which Father claimed negated each other for how they were webbed that night by the sheer, high clouds. But you and I know my star was already with you. The Throne and the Consort, you and me. Father could never understand, but we do. We understand, Gaela.” She clutched at her belly, the tiny star she couldn’t yet feel, but already burned in her heart. Regan would destroy the world for this singular star of hers, this helpless, sparking thing. When she told Connley she was pregnant, if he hesitated for even a moment, the man—no matter how passionate, how glorious—would be sliced from her life. Regan stared at her sister, willing Gaela to agree, to accept Regan’s word.
She did. Of course she did. Gaela twisted around to dip her whole hand into the well. She splashed the holy water against Regan’s neck.
With the sky as witness overhead, and the sleeping city of Astora below, the sisters made new promises to each other, against their father, and toward the future of Innis Lear.
REGAN
REGAN KNEW THAT when in residence at the Summer Seat, her sister Gaela did not share chambers with the Duke Astore, but chose instead to occupy the rooms that had been hers as a child, when this castle was Gaela’s favorite for its nearness to the rocky cliffs and caves their mother had loved.
Immediately upon arriving at the keep, Regan left Connley to find his supper and knocked gently at Gaela’s chamber door. “It’s me, sister.”
The door was thrown open and there Gaela stood, regal and tall in a dark red robe fastened with a sash, thick twists of black hair loose around her shoulders. Regan slipped inside and nudged the door shut again before putting her arms around Gaela’s neck and touching their cheeks together.
Gaela kissed Regan’s temple and cupped her sister’s face. “Your eyes are pink.”
Regan, who had only just divested herself of her cloak and muddy travel boots, pushed away and wiped her hands down the front of her bodice, as if her palms were filthy. They were not. Her hands paused for a breath just over her belly, and her face lowered.
“No!” cried Gaela, whipping around to swipe a clay jar of wine off the near table with her fist. It broke against the floor. The wine splashed, staining the wooden slats.
Starting at the streams and tiny reddish puddles, at the shards of clay, Regan saw flashes of hardened brown flesh, pieces of herself sprawled broken there. She clenched her fingers into fists, bruising her palms with her nails. The hurt relieved her.
“Why?” Gaela asked in a low, dangerous tone. She leaned back against the table, gripping its edge.
“I don’t know, Gaela,” Regan snarled.
“Is it Connley?”
“No.”
The eldest sister stared unblinking, waiting with the gathered fury of an army.
Regan refused to be cowed, returning the gaze, cool and still.
Silence stretched between them.
The very moment sorrow slipped in to replace anger in Gaela’s eyes, Regan spoke again. “I consulted with Brona Hartfare at the start of the summer, and have done all I know to do, but there is…”
Her sister stepped forward and embraced Regan again, tighter and with a shaking intensity.
She wept, with a weariness that dragged her toward the floor. But her sister, as always, held her upright. A tower, the strongest oak, the true root of Regan’s heart.
“I won’t give up,” Regan said, leaning her cheek against Gaela’s shoulder. She drew a deep breath, awash in the familiar scent of iron, clay, and rich evergreen that clouded Gaela. A fire crackled in the small round hearth that split the wall between the rooms they’d shared as girls: the one full of weapons and cast-off leather armor, bits of steel and pots of the soft, scented clay Gaela used to shape her hair at court; the other near empty, as Regan chose to sleep with her husband now. Though there still was a trunk left behind, filled with girlish dresses and flower dolls and Regan’s first recipe of herbal secrets she’d saved for her own daughters. Uselessly, it seemed.
“Sit at the fire,” Gaela ordered, with her Regan-reserved tenderness.
Regan removed her slippers and lifted a wool blanket from the hearth, gathering it about her shoulders as she sank into a low chair. “I will find a way to look inside myself, Sister. To find the cause of my … difficulties. There must be some magic raw and strong enough to speak with my body, to demand conversation with my womb.”
Gaela dropped herself into the chair opposite Regan. “If not, we must consider Elia,” she said bitterly. “Those kings courting her would not work, for they would want her issue for their own people, but perhaps … perhaps she could marry that bold boy, Errigal.”
“Rory,” Regan said. “It would be a strong match, her blood and his iron magic, though the boy himself has little power, or never developed it much, thanks to his milky mother.”
“I cannot confide in Elia,” Gaela said suddenly, vehemently, pr
otesting her own suggestion. “Our baby sister is too like Lear. Takes his side, always. Would she want the crown herself, instead of making her children my heirs? Or fill their heads with starry nonsense? Would her ways weaken the children? She gave up your wormwork, too, after all. Is there any of Dalat in her? Any fire of adventure or conquest?”
“And what of my Connley, should Elia’s children inherit your crown? What of him, and us?”
Gaela snorted. “I care not for Connley’s prospects.”
Regan bit the inside of her lips to hold her expression cool and unconcerned. This was an old ritual, and she no longer argued on Connley’s behalf to her sister. Connley’s future was up to Regan alone. She said, “Elia can never threaten us for the crown. She has kept herself too hidden in the star towers, as our father’s starry shadow and acolyte. Some will love her for it, but not enough to follow her against us. Connley would swallow her up if she tried, even with Errigal her husband.”
“On that Astore will agree.”
“Let us eat, then, Gaela, and have this mess cleared.”
After marching to the door, Gaela flung it open, half calling already for a servant, but there stood Elia instead.
Their youngest sister froze, startled, a hand poised to knock. She wore the drab robes of a star priest, but her hair was rolled up and decorated with a net of crystals.
Gaela’s fury at the sight of Dalat’s jewelry flashed in the sudden tightening of her mouth, and Elia put her hands protectively up to her hair. She said, “Father put it in this afternoon, before I went to meet the kings.”
Silence stuck between them, the muscles of Gaela’s jaw shifting as she controlled her anger and instincts. Regan knew that set of her sister’s shoulders, and she joined Gaela in standing. Regan did not hate Elia as Gaela did, but pitied her. She touched a hand to the back of Gaela’s neck. “Did you choose one king or the other?” she asked Elia coolly, as if she cared not at all.
Elia shook her head. “I came to see if you had eaten.”
“We’re about to,” Gaela said, and stepped closer to Elia, blocking her entrance.
Though occasionally Regan thought of their mother and how Dalat would prefer her three daughters united, she remembered keenly enough that Elia forever refused to believe Lear had taken part in their mother’s death. She had betrayed Dalat, and her sisters. And yet she dared arrive wearing Dalat’s starry accessory. Besides, Regan’s womb ached, her joints throbbed, and she could not fathom allowing the cherished, naïve Elia to see such weakness. So Regan did not protest Gaela’s obvious denial of their youngest sister’s overture.
For her part, Elia only frowned gently; surely she’d expected this response, if even she’d hoped for better. “I’ll … see you in the morning, then. I wish…” Elia lifted her black eyes and made a determined expression she could not possibly know was reminiscent of Dalat. “When you’re queen, Gaela, you must let me take care of him.”
Gaela breathed sharply. “If he needs to be taken care of.”
Elia nodded, glanced at Regan with a tiny sliver of unforgiveable sympathy, and left.
After a moment, Gaela called in a girl to clean up the broken pot and bring them more wine, and supper. They waited in silence, until every spilled puddle was mopped up, and each sister held a fresh clay cup full of wine.
Regan sighed. “Was she right, Gaela? Will our father name you heir tomorrow? Is that what your summons said?”
Drinking deep, Gaela glanced into the fire. Her pink tongue caught a drip of wine in the corner of her mouth. “That is what we will make happen, no matter what Lear says. I shall set all my daughters in their places.”
“Whatever game he plays, we will stand together and win.”
Together, they raised their glasses.
ELIA
ELIA WAS LATE to dinner.
The great hall of the Summer Seat had been built into the keep’s rear wall so that nothing but sky and cliffs and sea appeared through the tall, slim windows behind the throne. The low ceiling was hung with dark blue banners embroidered with silver stars shaped like the Swan constellation, Lear’s crest. Rushes and rugs covered the entire beaten earth floor, adding warmth and comfort as winds howled for most of the year, even in the height of summer. Long tables spread in two rows off the king’s table at the west end, and benches were full of earls and their retainers, the companions of the visiting kings, and all the resident families. A small side door to the north of the throne, hidden behind a wool tapestry of a rowan tree, led through a narrow corridor to the guardhouse and beyond to the royal tower so that the king and his family did not ever need travel outside from their rooms to the court. Everyone else was expected to enter through the heavy double doors far across from the throne. It was through the small door that Elia arrived, alone.
It was no way for a princess to make an entrance. She lacked companion or escort, had been been denied her sisters’ company, and Lear himself refused to leave his chambers, trapped in a sudden fit of starry obsession he would not share with her. There’d been a time Lear loved entertaining, loved the swell of noise that signaled a well-shared feast, Elia was certain of it, though the memories were dull with age. She’d been so small, delighted at every chance to sit on her father’s knee and listen to the songs and poetry, to eat strips of meat from Lear’s hand. He’d liked to dot cream and fruit syrup onto her face like constellations, sometimes daring to do the same to Dalat.
Elia paused in the arch of the doorway, carefully reeling in the far-flung line of her heart. She breathed slowly, banishing memories in favor of the cool responsibility of representing her family.
She could hardly believe Lear had abandoned her tonight, when the kings he himself had invited were waiting, expecting to be fed and flattered. It spoke to the changes in him, his most capricious stars winning whatever battle raged in his mind.
Food had already been served, for which Elia was grateful; there was no need to make an announcement now, or put herself at the center of attention. She stared out at the chaos of people, the laughing and low conversations, the men and women of the kitchens moving skillfully about with full jugs of wine and trenchers of stewed meat. There were the kings of Aremoria and Burgun, seated at the high table with Connley and Astore at either end. Aremoria spoke evenly in response to Astore’s boisterous laughter, while Burgun and Connley seemed to grit their teeth behind smiles. Elia could not be sure if Connley’s dislike of Burgun aligned her with him for the first time.
She should go direct to the high table, she knew, and reminded herself firmly. She should be gracious and calm, perhaps tell the story of her wager with Danna, or ask after the kings’ own families. Though that would invite questions in return about her sisters and father. No, she could not lead them so easily into uncertain territory. Just as she took a step, a beloved voice called, “Starling!”
Spinning, Elia held out her arms in preparation for her mother’s half-brother to pick her up in an eager hug. The Oak Earl had always been a brightness in her life, rather a rarity after Dalat died. But Kayo could not help making a bold impression, with his stories from the Third Kingdom, from trading caravans and merchant fleets, deserts and inland seas the likes of which few in Innis Lear could truly imagine. He ventured westward every two or three years, carrying trade agreements for Lear while growing his own riches, but for the most part, he lived here on the island, where his favorite sister had been so happy. He had never taken a wife, instead latching on to Lear’s family like a cousin. Kayo was perhaps the only person in the world all three Lear girls admired: Gaela for his adventures, Regan for his penetrating insight, and Elia because he came home.
“Uncle,” she said now, carefully, as she was always careful when performing emotions in public.
“Elia.” The Oak Earl leaned away, gray eyes full of gladness. He lowered his voice, bending to knock their foreheads together affectionately. “How are you?”
“Nervous, I admit,” she said, breathing in the sea-blasted smell of him. br />
“So would I be. Do you have a favorite between your suitors?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Aremoria, then,” Kayo said.
“Burgun has been more interested in me,” she murmured. “Courted and flirted and given me gifts.”
“Is that the sort of husband you want? The sort who buys you?”
She angled her head to meet his gaze. “I don’t know Aremoria at all.”
“He has the more certain reputation.”
“But certain of what?” she asked, almost to herself.
Kayo smiled grimly and offered his arm. She took it, and together they went to the high table. Elia introduced Kayo to Aremoria and Burgun, and her uncle effortlessly launched into a tale of the last time he’d passed through the south of Aremoria, on his way home from the Third Kingdom.
Able to relax somewhat, Elia picked at the meat and baked fruit in the shared platter before her, sipping pale, tart wine. She listened to the conversation of the surrounding men, smiling and occasionally adding a word. But her gaze tripped away, to the people arrayed before her, who seemed boisterous and happy.
The Earls Errigal, Glennadoer, and Bracoch sat together, the latter two both with their wives, and Bracoch’s young son gulping his drink. A familiar head leaned out of her line of sight behind Errigal, just before she could identify him.
It might’ve been the drink, but Elia felt overwhelmingly as though this bubble of friendliness would burst soon, bleeding all over her island.