The Queens of Innis Lear

  “Father.”

  Both turned to see their son. He stood in the doorway, small, skinny, with a tangle of dark hair and solemn eyes. Dirt darkened the left side of his face and streaked his shirt. His toes were bare. Quite the forest goblin.

  “What a disaster you are!” Errigal laughed. He swooped down and embraced Ban. “We’ll get you cleaned up a bit, then on to the Summer Seat with me. Your brother is there, and we’ll find you a sword, how do you like that?”

  The boy’s gaze found Brona, over Errigal’s wide shoulders. “Do you like the Summer Seat, Mama?”

  “I do,” she said. “It is full of magic, and there is a great maw of stone teeth near it. They will be strong for you, Ban.”

  He frowned. “You aren’t coming.”

  “Brona’s place is here in Hartfare,” Errigal said, standing. He put a possessive hand on Ban’s knobby shoulder.

  “So is mine,” Ban said, his gaze still locked on his mother’s, pleading.

  His father ruffled Ban’s hair. “No, boy, no. It’s with your father, and brother. It’s with the king and his men. You’ve been here with the flowers too long, and need to be able to see the starry skies.”

  Ban drew away, finally looking at Errigal. “I want to stay in the forest. I want to stay with my mama.”

  “Ban.” Brona knelt before him. One hand gripped the blanket tight around her shoulders, and one stretched out, but hesitating to touch his dear face. “You must go with your father.”

  Hurt pinched Ban’s brow, and his small mouth puckered. “You don’t want me to stay.”

  “Oh no, oh roots and worms, darling, no.” She threw her arms around him, heedless of her nudity, only desperate to hold him tight and prove his fears wrong. “No, Ban. I would have you stay. But this is your fate, to be in both worlds. You must go away from me now because your father loves you, and would have you share his world.”

  Ban did not believe her; that much was clear. He stood still in her embrace, not returning it. The hook in her heart cut even deeper.

  Errigal pulled the blanket around Brona again, crouching beside her as if to support her, as if they were united in will.

  “Come on, Ban,” the earl said. “Do as you’re told.”

  The boy broke free of his mother’s embrace. He turned his back to them, going for the trunk of their clothes, where Ban’s only coat splayed across the top, flung there yesterday in childish abandon. The boy, older today, put on the coat, scrubbed the dirt from his face, and shuffled around for his boots.

  Errigal began to speak, but Brona touched his hand. There was nothing to say.

  Before they left, Ban let his mother kiss him; it broke the seal he’d put over his heart, and so her kiss made his tears fall. He cried quietly, hugging himself, wretched and unmoving, until Errigal clapped him on the back and told him to stop, that a new home was nothing to grieve.

  When the sounds of their footsteps had faded and she was alone, Brona walked out of Hartfare and into the White Forest, naked and heartbroken and covered in the last of Errigal’s love. She washed herself of everything in a cold, haunted stream, in the shade of an ash tree.

  To the ash, she whispered,

  Don’t let Ban forget the wind and roots. Don’t let him forget me.

  THE FOX

  BAN HAD NEVER done magic quite like this.

  The air was still and quiet over the rocky moorland, here where the hill pushed out of the White Forest like a cresting whale. Silver clouds stretched over the dark sky, brightened by the soon-coming sun and by the moon that hung still in the west, off-center and almost full. Regan Connley, clad in a thin linen shift, sat along an arrow of exposed granite as sleek as she and exactly her size. Her back to the east, she cupped a shallow bowl in her lap and bowed her head over it. She whispered in the language of trees, the words blowing tiny ripples against the surface of pooled blood.

  Ban snapped his fingers and called fire to hand, setting the flame down fast against the patch of pine, thistle, rose, and thick paper tinder here at the south end of the granite. The fire caught and crackled, flaring white-orange before settling in to curl the long stems and petals. Moving eastward himself, Ban sang a low song to the wind and trees, hissing a word or two for the fire. He trailed a line of mixed sand and oak charcoal behind him as he went to the north and then the west. When he reached the southern point again, Ban paused to call fire again, drawing it along the entire circle.

  “Now,” he said quietly. Connley heard him and stepped inside the circle.

  Only the three of them attended this predawn witchery, and Connley solely because he’d insisted: I am as involved as you, and I am your other heart. Without me not all of your spirit will be there.

  Ban found it unbearably sentimental, until he saw the mutual intensity in the eyes of husband and wife, and realized they both believed, completely.

  What would such a partnership be like, he wondered, and then caught a fleeting memory—Elia’s hands holding his own, tiny moonlights dancing between and around their fingers.

  Glancing up at the fading stars, the wizard knew it was time. Ban stripped himself of clothes and shoes before stepping into the circle. Wafts of thistle smoke and rose teased his shoulders as he crouched at a pan of orange mud from the iron marsh and drew words onto his chest and stomach, and his power rune at his forehead, heart, and genitals. He coated his forearms with the mud, and when he said Shield me, the mud dried in a quick snap, to near ceramic hardness and hot against his skin.

  At a tearing sound, Ban looked up to see Regan reclined against the granite, and her husband kneeling beside her, using a small dagger to cut into the front of her shift. He sliced it open from the center of her breasts to the low mound at her groin. Parting the pale linen, Connley kissed his wife’s soft belly, then left his hand there as he kissed her between the breasts and again on her mouth.

  Ban joined them at Regan’s feet while Connley moved to her head, and he handed the lady the bowl of her womb blood. She set it on her belly, fingers curled around the rim. Her chest rose and fell slowly and evenly.

  The duke met Ban’s gaze, asking silently again his earlier question. Will this hurt her?

  Two hours ago, when they left the Keep, Ban had answered, “I don’t know. It is not designed to cause harm, but there is wildness in the roots of Innis Lear, and the spirits we call will not be concerned with safety.”

  “If it hurts Regan, I will hurt you,” Connley had promised, simple and calm.

  Ban then replied, “If it hurts her, I will already be hurt.”

  That had seemed to console the duke, though he watched Regan now with a hovering possessiveness.

  Overhead, the stars had gone pale in the cool purple sky, and the moon hung behind Ban, its pregnant lower edge just kissing the horizon. Exactly right for beginning.

  From a small basket at Regan’s feet, Ban took three long primary feathers, tawny and pale, from the wings of a ghost owl. He lifted them in the air, and in the language of trees called the name of the bird, taught to him very reluctantly by a cranky old oak at the edge of the forest.

  Regan added her voice to Ban’s, and then Connley did, too, his unpracticed tree tongue sure enough for their work.

  The three named the owl again and again, growing louder as they drove the word higher into the sky. Nine times and nine again, then finally at the end of a third cycle, they fell silent.

  Ban closed his eyes to listen.

  Wind whispered around them, and the fire snapped happily, reaching with tiny sparks up at the sky.

  There: the high, hissing screech of the owl.

  Ban got to his feet and spread his arms so the feathers caught the wind. Here, he called in the language of trees. Here we are, old ghost.

  It swept down, silent and pale, its luminescent creamy underside feathers presenting like a shard of moonlight against the sky. The owl circled, and Ban called its name again. Regan put her fingers in the bowl of blood and then used the drops to trace the bird’s
name against her sternum, while her husband panted in silence, excited and afraid.

  Opening its tiny pink beak, the owl screeched again, showing Ban the dark maw of its gullet. Then it flared its wings and stretched out feathery long legs, talons flexed.

  “Brace yourself,” Ban murmured, just before the owl landed against Regan’s belly, flapping its long, soundless wings for balance.

  Regan squeaked in pain, but did not move, even as the talons clutched into her flesh and the bowl of blood rocked. Connley grasped her arms.

  A gift for you, Ban said to the owl, holding its gaze: deep black eyes against a heart-shaped white face. Its tawny shoulders melted creamier down its back and along its wings, a splash of brown scattered down its underside.

  The owl made a softer sound, a clicking trill, and walked to the bowl of blood.

  It lowered its white head and tipped its beak into the bowl.

  Fire bind us.

  The moment the owl touched the blood, Ban whispered the words, making the line of their burning circle flare a brighter white; along the lines of sand and char, higher flames burst like tiny yellow autumn leaves, wavering in a breeze.

  The owl shrieked and launched forward, batting the bowl away with its wings. Blood splattered across its white face, and across one elegant wing; blood slid in a branching line down Regan’s hip and ribs.

  Ban reached out and grasped the owl’s torso between both hands, even as it slashed at him with its talons. He commanded, Be still, ghost owl, and said its name again.

  The charge rang against the walls of the diamond, and the fire shrieked its own wild laughter. Regan sat, pressing hands to her bloody stomach, against both freshly dripping blood and that previously wrung from her cold womb. Her husband put the small dagger into her hand and pushed Regan to her feet.

  In Ban’s arms, the owl settled, wings limp, talons flexed but still. Its eyes hooked on his own, black and starry.

  Regan joined Ban, slid one hand around his, and then firmly pierced the dagger through the owl’s back.

  Its wings spread in a beautiful arc, and blood dripped down its tail.

  “Now, while it still lives,” Ban said. He held one wing, and Connley took the other in firm hands. The duke’s face was paler than normal, too, drawn with temper and concern. The men held the owl up by the wings, and Regan grasped its head, then cut free its perfect black eyes.

  Ban led Connley as they lowered the owl, carefully, respectfully, to the earth as it died.

  The lady walked to the granite slope, gory eyes in her palm. As her wizard and her husband watched, Regan set the dagger upon the stone, and then one by one, put the eyes in her mouth and swallowed them whole.

  She knelt, back bent, head low so her loose curls fell all around her arms, hiding her face. The sun pressed up in the east, sending a ray of gold across the horizon, and the half-moon blinked, overcome. Wind nudged them all, waving hands through the fading fires of their diamond.

  Hurry now, the wind said, and Ban knew if Regan saw nothing before the orb of the sun lifted itself completely over the earth, she never would.

  Connley stepped closer, and Ban grabbed his forearm. Though the duke cast him an angry look, this was Ban’s power. He was the wizard, and his word ruled the moment.

  A gasp from Regan, and both men jolted forward but stopped themselves. Her hands flattened against the gray, speckled granite, and blood dripped once off her chin. It was all they could see, but her hair shook and her shoulders trembled. She moaned softly and high, bending over herself. Words in the language of trees fell from her lips, but Ban could not understand them; they were too quiet, too jumbled and full of teeth.

  Ban’s heart raced, loud enough to make a language of its own.

  The fire blew out, though there was no wind remaining.

  And Regan suddenly rose, threw out her arms like wings, and screamed at the bright morning sky.

  Connley broke then, rushing to his wife. “Regan, Regan,” he said, and dragged her off the stone altar, holding her about the waist as she twisted and cried. Tears pink with blood marred her cheeks, and she gouged her temples with her nails. Blood colored her bottom lip.

  Waiting, impatient, Ban clenched his jaw.

  Connley held her as she wept, as she curled in upon herself, and then finally, Regan spoke. “My insides are covered in scars like dark roots, and I cannot see past them, to mend myself! I need another.” She whipped her head around and stared at Ban. “Another guide, one with stronger, better eyes.”

  Fear slithered coldly down his spine. He glanced to Connley, then shook his head. “Rest now.”

  “Come, my love,” Connley said, embracing her. He kissed her jaw.

  Regan clawed at him—but not to push him away. She clutched his neck, pulling him all against her, shoving their foreheads together. Her voice was raw as she begged, ordered, and kissed him with her bloody mouth. And the duke of Connley held her tighter, nodding, promising nothing, everything.

  Ban turned his back, shaking with weariness and sorrow. Regan deserved better. He was a scout and a spy, a wizard who knew how to seek and see. But he couldn’t help her more, not without seeking his own mother, or some other witch who knew more of the putting together than taking apart. He started down the promontory alone, toward the deep morning shadows of the White Forest. Thirst drew Ban toward a spring he knew, and behind it, sleep called his name in the voice of wind and roots.

  He would have let himself be pulled underground, to be revived as always by the embrace of the trees. But before he could reach them, the earth beneath his feet trembled. Dry golden grass bent awake, shifting and whispering; the White Forest fluttered, bowing toward the sunrise and the southeast.

  Raising his face toward the morning sky, Ban heard a longed-for name on the wind, bright as a star, as if all the island gave it welcome.

  Elia, said Innis Lear. Elia has come home.

  FIVE YEARS AGO,

  DONDUBHAN

  WAKE UP! SHRIEKED the wind.

  Wake wake wake!

  The sharp cry threw leaves against themselves and against the walls of Dondubhan, rattling shutters and adding their slapping words until the chaos startled Elia awake.

  “What?” she gasped aloud, then said again, What? in the language of trees.

  away they’re taking him he will be gone forever you have to go now go now go

  She could taste his name in the wind’s panic.

  Ban.

  Flinging herself out of bed, Elia grabbed her over-dress and pulled it on, then dragged her boots onto bare feet and rushed out her door. She ran through the narrow black hall of Dondubhan, listening hard for the pull of the wind, dodging early-risen servants and retainers.

  A woman jerked back as Elia passed, and Elia stumbled. The woman—a retainer’s wife, her name on the tip of Elia’s tongue—took Elia’s elbow and shook her head. “Your Highness, whatever you are doing, please slow down. You are a wild creature, and whatever you want, this behavior will not help.”

  Elia gasped and panted, pulling at her arm, but the woman stared at Elia’s head, eyed her up and down, and Elia put her free hand up to her head. Her hair was half pulled free of the loose cap she often slept in, blast that old habit she had of picking at it in her sleep. Her overdress was skewed, untied at the waist. Nodding, Elia quickly tied it closed over both hips, glad at least that her night shirt was long and warm wool. The woman—Rea! That was her name—pulled a ribbon out of her own hair and offered it.

  “Thank you, Rea,” Elia said breathlessly, taking it. She saw Rea smile, pleased to be known, but that was all, for Elia tore down the hall again, arms up to throw off the cap and twist the unruly curls quickly back in a painful knot with this single ribbon.

  She burst out into the front ward of Dondubhan, glancing up: sheer clouds cut the sky into patches of pink and pale blue with the final moments of dawn. She listened, and the wind said, Horses.

  Elia hurried through the inner curtain wall, toward the long se
cond ward, where the barracks were built against the external wall and then the stables beside them. She dashed quickly across packed earth, and there, at the gaping gate that led beneath the ramparts and out into the moor, were Errigal and her father, as well as Rory, and a dozen retainers in the winter blue of Errigal. All dressed and ready to travel, except for Lear, who wore an informal robe of midnight blue.

  “Ban,” Elia whispered, seeing him at last; a slight, dark figure in Errigal’s shadow.

  The wind fluttered banners that hung off the crenellations overhead.

  she’s here she’s here

  Ban looked around his father’s broad body and saw her.

  Elia did not care about the consequences: she ran and threw herself at Ban, arms around him desperately. He was ready, holding her tight back. “I didn’t know,” he whispered fast in her ear. “I’m sorry. I would have warned you.”

  “No,” she said, clutching at him. “Why do you leave?”

  “Elia, stop,” her father said, putting a hand on her shoulder and squeezing.

  She shook her head, buried her face in Ban’s neck.

  “Let the princess go, my wayward son,” Errigal commanded, jovial, as if this were all a humorous mistake. “You’ve parted before, and this is no different.”

  Ban shifted, loosening his grip, but Elia put her cheek to his. No, she whispered in the language of trees. Mine.

  The king jerked at Elia. “Now, daughter,” he said, voice deep with authority.

  “It is different,” she said, leaning away only slightly. She looked into Ban’s eyes. Pain haunted them, and she knew she was right.

  “The boy goes to Aremoria,” King Lear said, “to join his cousins’ retainers. It is a good position for a bastard, especially for one with his stars. It is the best he can hope for in this world, and both of you should appreciate that.”

  “It’s too far! He won’t be able to hear the island wind at all.” Elia whirled to face her father. “He is part of Innis Lear, Father. Don’t send him away. Let him join the retainers here and learn amongst his own people.”