The Queens of Innis Lear

  “Yes. I knew all of this, and I used it.”

  “He kept his promise,” she said. It was not dismay or grief tainting the word, but a hissing disgust.

  And she turned to watch it hit Morimaros.

  His expression did not alter, still and calm, and only barely ashamed.

  Anger, and the loss of something very small and very pure, threaded itself though her ribcage, seeking her heart to take root.

  Elia willed the swelling ocean flat.

  “So Aremoria has agents inside the heart of my island,” she said. “And the king is not so noble as he pretends.”

  “I have not lied to you about my intentions, nor my desires,” Mars insisted. “I do what I must. I am many things at once, the high and the low, the root and the stars. My kingdom is strong because I know how to breathe high clouds, to take sunshine in hand, while wading my feet through the shit. That is how a land flourishes, and its plants and flowers, birds and wolves and people. Not with magic, or old superstitions, but with a leader who will do everything, give everything, to it.”

  She stared at him, and watched the space between them widen. She knew he was right about the duty of kings. It changed nothing.

  “I am in love with you,” he said, in the same determined tone.

  Elia laughed once, in disbelief only that he would say so now. When it could not have mattered to her less.

  She shook her head, pressed her hands to her stomach, and turned to leave.

  “Elia.”

  “No, Morimaros,” she said. “I must go, for I have some shit to wade through, and I will not have your company.”

  He did not try to stop her again.

  * * *

  THEY SAILED FOR Innis Lear at dusk, to make the crossing overnight.

  Elia stood at the prow of the small galley, holding the worn rail with one hand for balance against the waves and the thrusting of oars. The sailors chanted a low song to keep their rhythm, a soothing Aremore lullaby that seemed to have no beginning and no end. Men dropped out and slipped back in at any time of the cycle, in harmony or low melody-free intonation, creating a never-ending, comforting mess.

  Besides the twenty-odd oarsmen, she was only joined by Aefa and the king’s most trusted soldier, La Far. Every Aremore man would be left on the boat, when they made land: if La Far even stepped off without her invitation, she had threatened to arrest him on her own authority. Though she had little power to keep that word, La Far gave her the respect of believing it.

  So by themselves, Elia and Aefa would go, despite neither knowing anything of traveling alone, or of camping without bags packed by priests or retainers waiting to serve. At least they would be together.

  As she struggled to remain awake at the front of the ship, Elia set her plans in order: First she would listen to the wind, speak to the trees. She’d bare her heart to the roots and stones and swear to die for Innis Lear.

  Next she would find her father, work out Rory’s safe return with Errigal, and then she would meet with her sisters to set them on a sane course of rule. Make peace in Innis Lear between the two of them and their dangerous husbands. Crown them immediately, before Midwinter, for Elia bled of two royal lines and was a star priest besides; if anyone could ordain true queens without the long dark of Midwinter, it was her. She would convince the rootwaters to accept them, sort out the lore from truth, rally Innis Lear to respect their joined rule—after all, Gaela and Regan had said to her once they shared their stars, so they could share this crown.

  And Elia would do all that before thinking ever again of the king of Aremoria, or how his rare touch had lifted her spirit.

  Of Ban Errigal’s future or pardon, Elia was uncertain.

  The moon waned yellow and gray in the eastern sky, peeking in and out of long black clouds that blotted out nearly half the stars. All around the waves flashed silver, tickling the shallow hull of the galley with wet kisses. Aefa knelt beside Elia, her temple pressed to the wooden rail, eyes shut, valiantly holding back her sea illness. On the journey to Aremoria, seemingly years and not weeks past, Aefa had vomited heartily over the side of Morimaros’s grand royal barge. Elia suspected her friend’s newfound resolve had everything to do with La Far’s presence, as he twice already had brought the girl fresh water and a cool compress for the back of her neck. In the moonlight, his sorrowful face took on a solemn, holy cast.

  But Elia could not think so peacefully when looking at La Far. He reminded her too much of Morimaros, and then she would think of his spy. Ban the Fox, whom she did not know at all.

  I keep my promises.

  Anger curled its clutches again around her heart.

  Elia would discover the extent of Ban’s loyalty to Aremoria. His eyes, his hands, his promises had been so real, so intensely true at the Summer Seat: she could not believe they were only lies, meant to distract her or manipulate her toward Morimaros. They had meant everything to each other, once. She’d seen it in him again, that night when he asked, What makes you bold? It was not a thing to say to a woman you wished out of the way, to convince her to give herself and her island into the protection of an enemy. Elia had to believe he had not betrayed her completely.

  But if he was truly Aremoria’s man, she would cast him off her island forever. Elia’s breath quickened. She had to know.

  “Ban Errigal.” Aefa’s voice was rough, like sand that had seen no tide. “You’re thinking of him.”

  Elia startled, then knelt beside her friend. “I am,” she whispered.

  The girl glared, her eyes bright with a feverish glint. “He is a bastard traitor!”

  “Yes.” Elia grasped Aefa’s hands, clutching them tightly. They put their foreheads together, and the princess whispered, “Was he ever expected to be otherwise? What king of Lear has trusted him, what loyalty was he afforded by those who should have held him dear? He was made this way as a child.”

  “Do not hold Ban higher than Morimaros, Elia,” Aefa begged quietly.

  “I cannot think of that king,” she whispered harshly, even as his final words to her thumped and thrummed in her skull.

  “Ban does not deserve to be in your heart if you cannot put that king there, too. I do not see how you blame Morimaros for all, and Ban Errigal for none.”

  Elia kissed Aefa’s knuckles. “Because I understand Ban’s pain, and I understand who he—who he was, at least. And perhaps who he might have been, had he not been ripped from us. But Morimaros I cannot forgive. He sent a spy, his stolen weapon, against my island, then spoke to me as if we could be partners. As if we might even be more.”

  “He is a strong king; you saw his court, walked his city. He is good, and so he must have believed his reasoning was also good. And he didn’t know you when he first sent Ban. You hardly gave him anything of yourself in those letters.” Aefa managed a weak smile. “Remember how much he talked of farming?”

  It churned in Elia’s guts: simple, personal hurt. She’d though Morimaros was incapable of this deceit, which was ridiculous of her, naive and stupid, perhaps, but still—she hurt to be so wrong. “I will discover Ban Errigal’s truth apart from Aremoria, and his choices, and judge him for them, whatever they may be.”

  “He was gone for five years, and you spent perhaps an hour with him, at the most desperate, vulnerable moment of your entire life, and so you trust him? This is folly!”

  Elia held on to Aefa’s hands. “I loved him before, Aefa. Before any of this, before you came to me. You don’t remember. You were not yet at Father’s court. My father was terrible to him, and then he—with Errigal, too—earned Ban’s hatred. Even I … I let him go without a fight. I cannot … I cannot be surprised he fell into admiration for a king like Morimaros. I did myself, as did you! You condemn Ban for the same, but his betrayal did not come from nothing. Innis Lear betrayed him first, because his birth stars say he is worthless, or at least less, and so our men would believe, refusing to see their part in the ruin of their sons. But he … Oh, Aefa, if you could have seen the
conviction in him that night. How he looked at me. He has power, different from Morimaros, from my sisters, from my father.”

  Aefa squinted her light eyes and brushed damp hair off her face. “But you do want to see him again, personally.”

  “I do.”

  “Uh!” Aefa laughed like she was annoyed, and shoved Elia gently. The princess rocked backward, only catching herself by letting go of Aefa and scrambling. It was very ungainly, very lacking royal grace.

  La Far appeared immediately, formed out of the shadows and sea spray. He caught Elia’s elbow and steadied her. “We have a few hours left, lady. Perhaps you might try to sleep.”

  Allowing him to lift her to her feet, Elia smiled a small, polite smile. “Thank you, but I do not sleep well at sea, and I would like to be aware of the moment we come again into Lear’s waters.”

  Aefa dragged herself up by the rail, and La Far belatedly offered an arm to her as well.

  The soldier watched both young women for a moment, and his sad frown nearly revealed some amusement—or perhaps it was pride. Then La Far reluctantly nodded, and Elia stopped herself from wrapping her arms around her stomach. Instead she nodded back as nobly as possible. She would not return to Innis Lear with her eyes cast down.

  Though afraid, she lifted her gaze.

  She turned again to face the prow, to face the northwestern horizon where soon would be a black gash against the sea and stars. A black gash of rock, of mountains and moors and gullies, of roots and ancient ruins, of wild dark forests and jeweled beetles.

  A star blinked in and out, revealed and covered and revealed again, hanging there bright as a pearl. Elia did not want to care, did not want to think on it, but she knew and felt she had always known: it was the silver face of Saint Terestria, the Star of Secrets, giving her homecoming benediction.

  Elia would not leave Innis Lear again.

  TEN YEARS AGO, HARTFARE

  BRONA HARTFARE HAD always known the day would come when Errigal arrived in her village not for a fuck, but to claim their son.

  Against that inevitability, she cultivated an appreciation of the smallest moments. Flashes of connection, of love, of growth. The sun on a single, crisp green spring leaf as Ban pinched it between his dirty little fingers, to put into a basket for roasting. His rare laugh—not the slow, soft one he let loose for silly rolling beetles or a perfect splatter of bird droppings, but the one that startled everyone, even himself, with its sudden burst of strength. The first time he hid from his mother in her very own forest, emerging from the bark of a low, dying oak tree after she’d passed by. A shine of glee in his eyes, so like her own, and nothing like Errigal’s. Often, Brona wondered what he would become after he left the bosom of Hartfare, out in the world where people took too much from one another and rarely gave back to the roots.

  Only his passion would protect him, and that at least Ban had received from both his mother and father.

  If there had been a way to keep those feelings from ever souring to anger, Brona would have sacrificed anything. But no matter what time of year, or under what moon she threw the holy bones, Brona could see no path that did not paint her son in bitter colors.

  His birth anniversary was six days passed when Errigal came. Because of cycles of seasons and stars, it had been that very early morning when the dragon’s-tail moon under which he’d been born, ten years ago, hung against the dawn, burning painfully silver in a seeping pink sky. A sickle to harvest Brona’s heart, which always before she’d kept as her own.

  Ban still slept, now, curled in the garden despite the frosty morning. He’d settled into a hollow of dirt and roots where the squash vines would be later in the year. A tiny fire burned in a shallow obsidian bowl Brona’s grandmother had brought with them on the flight from Ispania. The flames danced against the black stone, alive by a thread of magic linked to Ban’s breath and the power of the White Forest. It kept him warm despite being slight, for the magic kept his own body working.

  Brona sat on a stool, leaning against the mud brick wall of their cottage, wrapped in a thick wool blanket and cradling a little bowl of her own. Hers held the last of their winter honeycomb.

  Light slowly spread through the garden, waking the roots and tiny shoots of grass that worked toward the sun. A few of her hardier plants held green: the holly with its sharp leaves, and a small juniper tree Brona kept to remind her of Dalat. The overwinter cabbages and onions were beginning to peek up now that the spring had come. The garlic would soon follow, and turnips. When the light touched Ban’s messy thick hair, then the line of his cheek, Brona let a tear fall, catching it with the honeycomb.

  An instant later, she heard him coming, that enemy of her peace. Errigal must have left his Keep long before dawn. He would not plan to stay long, then, intending, certainly, to travel far away from Hartfare before the day was finished. His footsteps were as stomping and broad as ever, eager and careless. And as usual, he’d left his horse at the fore of the village.

  Brona pinched off a coin of honeycomb and left the bowl near Ban. She went around to the front of her cottage.

  Errigal smiled to see her. His breath flared in small white puffs, and the rising sun glowed in his golden hair and rough beard, lighting the star charms he’d braided in, glinting off his rings and the bright tooling along his thick belt. Wind pushed aside treetops and the sun hit full in his face; Brona’s lover did not hesitate or quit his smile, and the brilliant morning turned his eyes into shards of pure light.

  She greeted him at the arched trellis that marked the entrance to her yard, putting the coin of honeycomb up to his mouth.

  Errigal parted his lips, and she slipped it in, allowing him to bleed the comb of its sweetness in a few quick presses of his tongue, and then to lick the remains off her fingers.

  All told, Brona would have greatly preferred him to be here just for sex.

  “What charm is in this honey?” he asked, wrapping his arm around her waist.

  She smiled mysteriously. Let him think what he liked, but Brona offered honey so she knew what to expect when she tasted him herself.

  “Ah, love.” Errigal laughed and picked her up easily, leaning back to prop her against his chest. He did not kiss her, but only held her there, one arm around her waist, the other cupping her bottom. Brona put her arms around his neck and waited. “I’ve come for Ban,” he said.

  “I don’t want you to take him.” Her voice was soft, but commanding.

  “He’s my son, and should be raised with men and retainers. He’s been coddled here enough.”

  The witch said nothing, but tilted her chin down in disapproval.

  With a sigh, Errigal let her slide down his body. “I know you don’t coddle him, but you are a woman, and this is a woman’s place here, women and witches, orphans, runaways, those with no lords. My son will not be such a thing.”

  “You don’t mind it in me.”

  “No, girl, I don’t,” he said, though she’d not been a girl in ages. He kissed her, and Brona allowed it, opening her mouth to his. She curled her fingers around his belt, tugging with exactly enough force to invite, and stepped back toward her cottage.

  “Distracting me will only delay our departure,” Errigal said, kissing her eagerly.

  Brona lifted one shoulder as if she cared not, and dragged him into the cottage. She would take this from him, and then he would take her heart away in return.

  The finest thing about Errigal had always been his enthusiasm. Coupled with stamina and an instinct for generosity, it made him the best lover she’d ever had. Even if not for having made Ban, Brona would have welcomed Errigal back and back again to her bed, whenever he liked. His life outside Hartfare was no care of hers, for she’d learned long ago to revel in what joy she could find, and embrace love in every form. Innis Lear did not nurture such things, but scoured them away; it was the nature of the island, to be pulled between hungry earth and cold stars.

  Brona considered herself an emissary of that wild, starving e
arth, and devouring the power of the Earl Errigal, taking it into herself, was a blessing, a ritual itself, to weave the stars and roots together again.

  Nobody else was even trying, not since the last queen had died.

  Sweaty and smiling, Errigal stretched beneath her when they were done, and Brona perched atop his hips, settled exactly like a witch on a throne. “This is the end,” she said.

  Errigal reached up and skimmed a finger along the curve of her breast. “I don’t like that.”

  “Then leave my son with me.”

  “No.”

  Brona put her hands on his chest and dug her fingernails in, sliding her palms along the soft hair hiding his milky skin. “This is the end.”

  He nodded but wrapped his hands around her wrists. “I’ll take care of him.”

  No, he would not. Brona knew this deeply. Errigal did not see Ban, did not understand his needs or how to foster joy in the slivers of passion that cut wildly inside their son.

  “Brona, I will,” Errigal insisted.

  She climbed off him, taking a blanket with her, wrapped around her shoulders.

  “He is mine, and I will care for him as a father should.” The earl made a mess of noise pulling on his trousers. He tugged his beard as Brona held silent, and she saw the moment he decided to make a threat. “You have no choice in this. I’m taking him.”

  That was true. Brona knew too well how precariously Hartfare existed: a heart of root magic and runaways and those hiding from King Lear’s stars. A word from Errigal and Lear would raze it to the ground. So far, prophecy had saved them, stars that promised the island needed this tiny center of roots. So far, Lear accepted it. But only so far.

  “I know,” she whispered. “But it wounds me, Errigal.”

  His bullish, handsome face crumpled, and he came to her. “Ah, girl, I would not hurt you if I could.”

  “You do now.”

  “So it must be.” Errigal kissed her, wiping his thumbs roughly along her cheeks, though Brona did not cry.