Elia stared in shock. How dare he say such things about her country, her family? She clenched her jaw, then said firmly, “My sisters are determined, Morimaros. They will fight, and the people will accept them, because they are daughters of the island. Gaela is immensely powerful, like a saint already in her reputation, and Regan is known to commune with the roots. There is more than belief on Innis Lear. It is magic, real magic in our blood and in the song of the trees. My sisters are the new story of Innis Lear. And—and if nothing else could bring Connley and Astore together, it is the prospect of Aremore invasion.”
“I would use all of this to your advantage.” Morimaros drew her closer to him by her elbows, as near into an embrace as he ever had. “Make you the new faith. I would make your sisters and their husbands understand the only thing to stop my invasion is their sister Elia on the throne of Lear.”
Elia shook her head, denying the thought of it, even as her skin warmed. “Me? That is impossible. I was never built for it, Morimaros. I am a priest, no more, and hardly that, any longer.”
“I cannot believe that.”
“Then believe that I do not want to be queen. I never have wanted such a thing. I want my life to be my own.”
“We do not always have a choice in that matter. Even kings.”
“Do not take that choice away from me,” she commanded, or tried to: her voice shook.
He studied her for a moment. “Your uncle, the Oak Earl, wants the same as I. He argued in my council today that Aremoria’s best move is to put you on the throne of Innis Lear, and have a friendly neighbor, open trade without offense to the Third Kingdom. That it is what your father wanted, what he expected to have done at the Zenith Court.”
Horror stalled her voice. Elia closed her eyes. “I do not want to be queen of Lear. I do not want to vie with my sisters for the crown. I do not want to face their furious disdain. I have never wanted this. I want my father safe, and at peace for the last years of his life. I want—I want to do some good. Let me write to my sisters, negotiate with them. For my father, and for peace between them. They will choose one to rule: it will be Gaela. As is her birthright. If they know you are not readying your warships, they might relax enough to listen. To calm their husbands.”
“You believe your sisters can create balance? Can make Innis Lear strong? And do fair business with me? I do not see it.”
“And yet what do you see in me that makes you so certain I should be a queen, so certain you can trust me?”
“Elia.” His voice was hot suddenly, lacking his usual reserve. “I saw it the day we met, in small things, things you would not remember because they were so naturally part of you. And I saw it blossom when you stood before Lear and did not play his game. Not for power or aggression or anger, but for love. You can bring people together, instead of dividing them. That is what strength is. And what love should be.”
Elia, fighting tears, said, “Then for love, let me try to save my father, and resolve these things between my sisters to make a strong country before you wreck it.”
“I will not be the one to wreck Innis Lear.”
Desperation compelled her to say, “Don’t go to war, Morimaros. Say you won’t, and I’ll marry you. Make me your queen, keep me here in Aremoria, but never go to war with my sisters.”
The king released her suddenly. Some strong emotion rippled across his face. “You would marry me for your island’s sake, but not my own?”
“Your sake?” Elia’s heart clenched, and her fists followed. “I thought marriages between kings and queens were for the sake of alliance. I thought you wanted my position and leverage over my island, Your Highness, not my heart.”
“I find … I would have both,” Morimaros said.
She stepped back, her hip pressed to the stone rail.
Her sister Regan’s voice hissed at her, Use this to our advantage, little sister. Use his heart to gain what you need. And Gaela’s triumphant, disparaging laugh echoed.
The king waited as she thought, his eyes taking in every detail of her.
Shivering, Elia said, “I would prefer that, too. Both, I mean.”
Morimaros leaned in to her, bringing his hands up to cradle her neck. His thumbs touched her jaw. They were so close, too close. He was all she could see of the world, and his desire to kiss her was painted clear on his face. She hoped desperately he would not. She couldn’t imagine what she would feel if he did, or how his kiss would change her. She only knew that it would. She wasn’t ready.
“I see many possible consequences to your father’s choices, your sisters’ choices,” Morimaros said softly. She smelled the sweet, clear wine on his breath. It made her want to lick her lips; his nearness pressed her anger in too many directions. The king continued, “Your choices are more mysterious to me.”
“Everything I do is so simple,” she whispered. “I only want to live and practice compassion, and follow the path of the stars and earth saints. I cannot be responsible for the lives and deaths and rages and regrets of others.”
“I want…” Morimaros leaned away from her. He shook his head and turned to gaze at the shadows that overtook his city, turning it violet and blue and gray with deep twilight.
She waited, but he did not continue. As if the king of Aremoria did not know what he wanted, or could not quite bring himself to say the word aloud. “Tell me what you want.”
He leaned on his hands, gripping the stone rail of the balcony. His head dropped, urging her to touch his arm. She did, then slid her hand down the orange coat to place her fingers delicately atop his. Turning his hand up to put them palm to palm, Morimaros said, “I want … to only care about what I want, Elia Lear.”
The words were both heartbreaking and offensive, and yet when her name was in his mouth, it sounded like a queen’s name.
She withdrew her hand and left him below the new-pricked stars, understanding something more about rulership, and rather less about love.
Sister,
I would rather we be together than entrust these words to you by messenger, a fallible man who may read or lose or take too long. But always has it been so, and so always have I put ink to paper and written regardless.
There is a bird haunting my dreams, sister. A great predator clutching the windowsill beside my bed, or standing at the center of my northern altar, talons scoring the granite so that it bleeds. The bird stares at me, stares inside me, and I ask it what it sees, but its hissing words are in no language I understand. I think it is an earth saint, perhaps, in the guise of a tawny ghost owl. I shall ask the forest when I pass through, for we are soon to Errigal Keep.
Connley Castle and the surrounding lands are secure. My husband sent runners to every village and town, to the star towers along the coast, and to his retainers near Brideton especially, darling sister. Be sure to tell your husband. You will not catch us unaware.
If only they would settle between themselves by the trust in our hearts.
Do you—
Gaela, I do not know if I can bear a child.
I cannot send this. Regan you cannot send this. I
* * *
Sister—
We go to Errigal Keep soon, so send your next communication to me there.
Connley Castle is secure, and all our land. My husband sent runners to all our villages and towns, to the star towers along the coast, and especially to his retainers near Brideton. We will not be caught unawares by Astore, dear sister. But you must expect as much.
It is likely we will remain at Errigal until it is time to travel north for Midwinter, when you and I will meet again and finally become queens together. Keep our father if you like, or send him here, where it may do the Earl Errigal good to be forced to reckon with Lear’s deterioration. Bracoch may join us, and I understand from Connley that Astore is heartily courting Glennadoer.
I have opened the navel wells throughout Connley lands, and I suggest you do the same in Astore, no matter your apathy. It is the best way to Glennadoer’s he
art, for that family has always bled like wizards.
There is an owl haunting my dreams—a great, tawny ghost owl that must be a messenger or an earth saint. Connley’s cousin Metis told me of a stag that lay down along the Innis Road the same afternoon as the Zenith Court, its branches of antlers pointed toward the center of the island. Write to me if you hear of other such things, that the island is waiting for us.
I have written to Elia. I hope you are correct that she will find it in her to stand as we bade her stand, and not give in to the will of a different king.
Yours above all, sister-queen,
Regan
REGAN
REGAN, LADY CONNLEY, almost-queen of Innis Lear, stood naked but for a thin white shift hanging off her shoulders and down just past her knees. It brushed her hips, her small belly, the tips of her breasts, dappled by early morning shadows that cut like lace through the canopy of the White Forest. She wore no paint nor jewels, no slippers, and her brown hair fell free in soft waves. Her eyes fluttered under closed lids, her mouth relaxed in a low, gentle prayer in the language of trees.
She greeted the forest, saying her name and her mother’s name, and the names of her father’s mother and grandmothers, then a litany of favored earth saints. On long, bare feet, Regan walked over mossy rocks to the edge of a creek. Crouching, she touched the water, listening to the reply of the trees.
Welcome, beautiful witch. We know you.
This was the realm of Brona Hartfare, but Regan had come to use the power of the White Forest without the help of Brona; the woman had tried before, to no avail. The babe Regan had lost last month was the culmination of the elder witch’s best efforts. Everything going forward was up to Regan herself. And produce a child she must: the future of Innis Lear depended on it, as well as her relationship with Connley. He loved her, but if she did not bear the next ruler, he would focus all his determination on taking the whole island from Astore. And he would not care if Gaela was lost in the process.
Connleys had once been kings, and he’d see it so again, one way or the other. It worried Regan, as much as it inflamed her, his noble rage and confidence the sunlight to her darker, inconstant shadows. They would merge and unite into a glorious dawn, but to protect her family, it must be through Regan’s issue. Her husband insisted. At Midwinter, you must earn the blessing of the island over your sister, which should be simple. You are the queen of the island already—you hear its voice, you bleed with its holy rootwater. There is no other way.
I do not want to take it from my sister.
At the cost of what, Regan? Always waiting for Astore to rise up, for Gaela to be restless and bite, to wipe my name from history, without our own blood to give this land life. And what of your dreams? Perhaps when you are queen, when you are the star-ordained and island-blessed queen, the rootwater and stars will give us a child. Have you thought of that?
Regan had not, though she saw that Connley had for a long time been convinced. She’d not thought he kept anything secret from her. She said, Let me have this time, then, to get with child again, to show you I can, that I will. Before the Longest Night.
He had agreed, but he insisted they come to Errigal Keep, for Connley to treat with the earl and secure the long-held alliances between their families. In preparation for war against Astore, just in case the tides turned. Or even as guard against invasion, if Elia bent as he assumed she would. They already had Glennadoer with them, as Connley history demanded, and they would do best to remind Errigal of this loyalty.
This land of Errigal’s was a barren landscape, raw with iron. Regan worried at her chances of conceiving here at all, much less carrying a child. Yet, it was just beside the White Forest, the most pure of heart of the island: in some places the trees leaned together so ancient, groping, and thick, no star or moonlight ever shone upon the churning black earth. Things unknown to the stars might be born here. And that ancient star cathedral waited somewhere inside it, ruined and alone. If Regan could find it, and uncover the holy well, perhaps that rootwater could restore her womb. Perhaps her dreams would bring peace instead of urgency or despair.
There had to be something she could do, that no healers or witches had heard of before. If she was an ally of the rootwater, the forest should tell her.
Regan stepped into the cold creek, relishing the shiver as her thighs tingled with raised hair and her spine chilled. She knelt, her knees parted enough to welcome the water inside her. No sun pierced through the arcing boughs of the oak spread over this narrow section of creek: all was shadow. Regan buried her hands in the water, digging into the silt and pebbles below. Tiny fish darted away, and she heard the call of a frog. The voice of the great oak mingled with the wind and he said, This is a cleansing place, daughter. Welcome.
Take away my impurities, Regan replied, splashing water up onto her face. It dripped down her neck like icy fingers, spotting her shift so it stuck to her collar and breasts. The creek water pressed around her hips and at her belly, finding the curves of her bottom and tickling the soles of her feet.
For a moment, she wished she’d brought Connley here to bury his seed deep inside her, under this oak and in this creek.
Regan dragged her hands up her thighs, pulling the wet shift high. One hand moved up to press between her breasts, over her heart. The other slid into the darkness where her pleasure lived. She opened herself with her fingers, whispered coaxing words to the forest, calling on the Tree of Mothers, the Bird of Dreams, and the Worm of Saints. Bending over herself, Regan shook and gasped, never stopping her prayer, until she rattled with passion and her words were hoarse, hissed in the language of trees and sounding exactly like wind through branches, on long moorland grass, against the rough peaks of the mountains. It was a plea pushed through her teeth, heavy with desire and love and longing.
Regan became more than she was: a piece of the forest, with roots and branches for bones, vines of hair, flowers where her lips should be, lichen hardening her fingers, and a black-furred bat unfurling its nighttime wings inside her womb. It fluttered and scratched, then shrieked as Regan shrieked, spilling her magic and her delicious pleasure into the creek, into this vein of the island.
Water covered her body as she stretched on her back, only her lips and nose and eyelashes above the water, and her toes. She was river rocks, around which the creek slid, shaping her smoother, polishing her skin to a luminous brown-gray.
Tell me where to find the forest’s navel well, she said, her voice echoing in her skull beneath the sound of water. Or tell me how to see what is wrong with me, I ask you, roots of my mothers, trees and birds of this island, please, that I may bear a child who will love you, rule you, and be yours in return.
Ban!
Regan frowned. The name sounded sharp in the language of trees.
Was this her answer?
The Fox is coming.
Beneath our branches, in the shade of our voices.
Iron and smoke, teeth and longing.
The Fox!
Regan sat abruptly. Water sluiced off her, and she got onto her hands and knees, crouching. She stared all around at the blue-green-gray light, at the trees and bold late flowers crawling up toward the sunlight, embracing some linden and rough ash nearby. Three bluebirds danced, teasing each other; a squirrel chittered at her; there a flash of shadow from some other silent bird, a ghost owl, she thought; a soft buzz of insect life. Neither fox nor man to disturb her solitude. Then—
Flickering pale gray.
She stood, watching a line of several moon moths fly southwest, toward Errigal Keep. Too many to be natural, and as she studied them, three more arrived, flitting down from the canopy like snow.
Regan climbed out of the creek and the water painted her linen shift to her body, an earth saint rising from summer sleep. Quickly she took up the long jacket she’d arrived in, sliding her damp arms into the sleeves, pulling up the hood around her heavy wet hair. She left her leather-soled slippers here, nestled in moss, and followed t
he moths in silence.
They led her on a brief, easy path away from the oak and the creek, toward a clearing that sloped between two gnarled cherry trees.
A man stood in the center, his back to her, his shirt discarded with his sword belt and short black jacket. Scars etched his tan skin, carving his muscles into war-strong weapons. Sweat glistened in the curve at the small of his back. His hair was half in tiny braids.
Two dozen moon moths, white and creamy gray, perched upon his shoulders, and he allowed it, remaining still as a deep-rooted tree. They gently brushed their wings up and down, bestowing tiny kisses. Like he was an earth saint, too.
So the forest had answered her.
Regan smiled as he tilted his head, listening to the moths. This young man was a witch. She pushed the great hood off her head so the cool forest air could kiss her wet hair.
Ban turned in one smooth motion. Half the moths rose on a breeze, fluttering around his head; the others remained clinging to his skin, and flourished their wings.
This was the Ban Errigal she only remembered as a scrap of a bastard child, loving her baby sister. Now grown handsome in a wild, tight way, like a hungry wolf prince. One arm slowly streamed blood from a slash just above the elbow.
Ban the Fox, they called him at the Summer Seat.
Ban the Fox, who was beloved of the forest.
Ban the Fox was her answer.
Lady Regan, he said softly in the language of trees.
Ban … the Fox, she replied in the same.
The cherry trees all around them giggled, dropping tiny oval leaves like confetti.
“You’re a witch,” he said, awed, “as well as a soon-to-be queen.”
“And you a soldier as well as a witch.”
He bowed, unable, it seemed, to take his eyes off her.