The Queens of Innis Lear

  Anything but a bastard and a princess, anything but a star priest and a traitor.

  Ban touched the back of her hand, where it lay relaxed against his stomach, her fingers skimming his skin in tiny strokes. At his touch, she stilled, and he flattened her hand beneath his. Was it even possible to purge Innis Lear from their hearts? Who could they be without stars and roots? “Elia.”

  “Ban,” she replied, lips brushing his shoulder blade. Her sigh was soft and warm, skating down his spine to settle like a hot brand in the small of his back. He fought the urge to grip her fingers too tightly, to turn in the bed and press against her again, or to beg her without words to crawl onto his lap and move as she had before. To weave their spirits together again and again until she couldn’t leave him even if she wanted to.

  He opened his mouth, and words came out in a rush: “Go with me, as soon as the sun rises. Far away from this island. We’ll start over, be only what we make ourselves, without pasts, together.”

  For a long moment, Elia was silent and still. Then she said, “But I am a piece of Innis Lear, and so are you.”

  “It’s broken,” he murmured. “Innis Lear. And we are broken, too. But if we left, maybe we could fix each other.” Ban touched the ends of her hair, pulling the curls out and releasing them to bounce back.

  She pressed her face against his shoulder; he felt tears. She said, “We have to fix it all.”

  “Why? Why us?”

  Elia’s voice sharpened. “Do you remember that beetle you dug out from under the stone in the Summer Seat meadow? It was iridescent green, with rainbows of blue and yellow? You put it on my finger like an emerald ring.”

  He nodded, voice stuck in his throat.

  “I loved that silly bug. At first, after you were taken away, I searched for them on my own. I imagined, sometimes, when looking at the stars with my father, that the stars themselves were tiny bright beetles, crawling across the sky. The heavens were the same as the island mud, and all those stars my father worshipped were bugs like the one you put on my finger.”

  Ban turned under her arm until he lay on his back as she leaned over him. Firelight gilded her hair. Her eyes were deep enough to dive into. She was frowning, her brow furrowed by sorrow.

  The silence dragged: something was wrong. He didn’t want to ask; Ban wanted to exist here without the Fox, without questions and plotting, without everything he’d been made to be.

  Her thumb stroked his collarbone.

  “Elia?” he whispered.

  The words tumbled out of her, then, hard and fast: “I know Morimaros sent you here, on his behalf. I know you’ve been an Aremore spy, and you intended to get the iron for Aremoria.”

  Shock silenced him, and behind it a wave of shame. Elia knew. But beyond that, Mars had told her: it was the only way for her to know. What else had they shared?

  Ban opened his mouth, and nothing came out. The two of them in this bed, having been together like this, was another betrayal of that noble Aremore king. But Ban had loved Elia first.

  “I…” Ban’s voice was hoarse. He swallowed, reaching for some explanation that would keep her in his arms. “I … I needed Aremoria, and I needed his—his respect. I had none of that here, and even you … even you let me go. Being the Fox meant something, and I was recognized for it. Not as a bastard, but a soldier. A friend, even.”

  “I respected you. I needed you.”

  But an old hurt welled up Ban’s throat and found its way out of his mouth. “You didn’t write to me,” he whispered like a child. “You never wrote to me, in all my time in Aremoria. I thought you loved me, but you let me go. Because your father told you to!”

  “I shouldn’t have. I am sorry, Ban. I did not know how alone you were. How … abandoned. No wonder you gave yourself to Morimaros, abandoning Innis Lear in turn.”

  “I didn’t do it to abandon Innis Lear! I did it for Morimaros. Because he asked me, and because he treated me like I was worth asking.”

  Elia frowned, and Ban saw the struggle as she fought to hold his gaze. She, too, must be thinking of Mars now, while naked and sticky from sharing this bed with Ban. He desperately wanted to ask what was between the two of them, if they’d made promises.

  Finally, Elia sighed softly. “I know Morimaros is good, Ban. Better than Connley, better than my father. But he’s still the king of Aremoria. He wants…” Elia looked away again. “He wants to marry me, too, and I believe he has not lied about what he wants.”

  “Innis Lear. And you.”

  “Yes.”

  “He’ll make himself the king of Innis Lear, if you marry him. Even if he swears not to lay siege, your sisters will take it as an act of war—Regan at least, who I’ve spent these past weeks with. And everyone knows Gaela looks for reasons to fight.”

  “So what should I do, Ban? Will my sisters hear me? They are poisoned with hate. I’ve tried telling myself they will listen, they have to, but with you here, now, like this … Ban. I am so very afraid that they will refuse me, drive me away again. Or worse!” Tears washed her eyes. “And what of Innis Lear? It is crumbling!”

  “Regan will listen to me. I can protect you,” he whispered, desperately.

  Elia drew away, even as he held her naked in his arms. “Like you protected Rory?” she asked, carefully.

  Ban flung himself out of the bed. He paced away, unsure where to put his hands, scuffing his bare feet on the dusty earthen floor.

  Behind him, silence.

  Hugging himself, he faced Elia again. She’d sat against the wall, legs drawn up under the quilt. Ban said, suddenly, hopelessly, “I think my father is dead.”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “Father was allying himself with you—with an invading force. With Morimaros. I told Connley and Regan. And I left him there, between them; they were in a killing mood.”

  “Oh, Ban.”

  “I’m not sorry. He never once put me first. My father did not defend me, and if he ever loved me it was less than he loved Lear, or himself, or those fucking stars.”

  “But you—”

  “Errigal betrayed your sister, his queen, no matter why, or how, Elia,” Ban said ferociously. “He pretended to be loyal to Regan and Connley, then went behind their backs to treat with Aremoria. He is a traitor.”

  “Done in by the same.”

  “I’m no traitor to you,” he lied.

  Elia scoffed, and wiped a tear off her cheek with a sharp flick of her hand.

  “I never forgot you.” Ban returned to the bed and knelt near enough to touch her if she wished. “And what I said before—I didn’t do all of this for Mars. I did it for me, and for you, and because of the roots. I had to come home, Elia. You’re right: we cannot leave. We’re both part of this island. It’s my blood and the air I breathe: even in Aremoria, it was always Innis Lear. I wished it could be anything else. I swear I did. I wanted it to be Mars, so much I believed it myself. But—I can’t change who I am.”

  “Neither can I. I’m the daughter of the king, and I love him, I love Innis Lear. I have to help my sisters, and fix everything. Somehow.”

  “It needs to burn, Elia. This island is broken, and you can’t piece it back together; you need to remake it.”

  “That can’t be the only way. The roots have to be capable of regrowing. It’s only been twelve years of breaking.”

  “No.” Ban shook his head. “It’s been longer than that, and the roots are not strong. They’re weak and begging; the trees want to glory in themselves again, and in the hungry wind. They need heat and passion and sun, not just coldness and hesitation and stars.”

  “I came home and listened to the trees and wind for days, Ban Errigal. The trees have asked me for help, the way they want, and I will see it through. I must convince my sisters to listen, too. Together we three must be able to find the right balance, the right weave to pull Innis Lear together again. We need a—a fulcrum, not a poison root. But first I need to find my father.”

  “You
forgive him.”

  “Yes.”

  “I do not, Elia.”

  “I know.” She was slipping away from him. Back to Lear, as always.

  “Your father did this! And those like him, unwilling to cleave away from their rigid, starry ways, the ways they have no evidence serve the world best. What does it matter for my mother and father not to have been wed? Nothing except what men pretend it matters! What does it mean that I was born under a dragon’s tail moon? Nothing but what priests have decided it means.”

  “You hate him so much,” she whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “Then you will do nothing to help me.” Her voice was dull. The passion, the eagerness from before had all drained away, and Ban did not know what to do.

  “Understand, Elia, please,” he said. He took her shoulders.

  There it all came, blazing back. Elia’s eyes widened, and she tore free of him, launching to her feet. “I do not. Why do you hate him so much?” She thrust her hands out. “Look at you! You are strong and famous! I heard your name spoken with respect in Aremoria, by the king himself! You did that—your actions made you a name outside of Errigal or my father! Earned you trust! Respect! So what if my father and yours scorned you as a child. It was cruel, yes, wrong, yes, but, Ban Errigal, look at you. You made yourself better than them! You could be so worthy of leadership and of love, but you can’t do it. You believe what they said of you.” Fury shone all around Elia, like a halo of lightning.

  Ban said, terribly calm, “Because it’s true. Here, there, everywhere I go I am a bastard, Elia. A spy and liar, and I am not good.”

  “You could be! I see better in you, and I always have. Take my word over my father’s! Over your father’s. I loved you, Ban, and I wanted your friendship, your heart—over anything else—and you wanted mine. So it didn’t matter because I was just a girl, just a princess? The opinions of our fathers shaped you, but my heart knew better. Believe that if nothing else, you stubborn man.”

  Ban nodded, slowly, understanding a pit in his belly. “I believe you.”

  She threw herself at him, relief blowing out of her in a sigh. Elia hugged him, her mouth on his neck. “Good. Good,” she murmured.

  “But I can’t help you save your father.”

  “Help me save Innis Lear, not my father. Us, our island. Our home.”

  They stared at each other for a long, dark moment. Outside the storm had calmed. Only the wind remained, blowing strong and steady through Hartfare, ruffling roofs, nudging at shutters and doors. It whistled down the chimney; their fire spit back.

  “Ban, don’t do this. Don’t choose against me, not you, not now.”

  “Everything is a choice. You chose a long time ago.”

  Elia said, “No. Not love. Love is not a choice between different things like this. Love has to be growing, making your heart expand. It’s not narrowing. I love you and Innis Lear. I love my sisters and my father. Not one or the other. You can be more—you can be what you were and what you are, and—and whoever you want to be.”

  Ban reached up and touched the corner of her mouth, slid his fingers along her jaw. “Your father sent me to Aremoria to get rid of me, because he hated me, whether because of my stars, as he told himself, or because he was selfish, and wanted you to himself. Do you understand? Such a man doesn’t deserve your love.”

  “But he’s my father still, and I do love him. I know you don’t understand that, and I’m sorry. I wish you could. I deserve to love him.”

  “He rejected your love.”

  Her hand flattened over his heart. “I think … he tried to, maybe, because he was confused about the stars, or what he needed. He was afraid. He’s dying and losing himself, and maybe it reminds him of losing her. Dalat. My father loved her more than anything. More than the island, more than us. That was his choice. And when she died he fell to pieces because there was nothing else! That’s what comes of choosing to love something above all others, instead of widening your heart. If he’d loved stars and Dalat and my sisters and everything, maybe he wouldn’t have broken without her…” Elia touched her lips to Ban’s shoulder and whispered against his skin, “I won’t love anyone so much more than everything else that I lose it all if that person is lost. If it makes your world smaller, it isn’t love.”

  Ban shook his head and stared at the first subtle dawn light glowing at the window. “I would have chosen only you. And risked it.”

  “Choose me and Innis Lear! Choose me, and everything.”

  “That isn’t how it works. Something always comes first. My mother chose Hartfare over me. My father chose Rory, always. Morimaros would never even consider me first; he must choose his crown and country. Even you chose your father, and the stars, rather than me, never made me first in your heart.”

  “I was a child,” she whispered.

  “I was, too.”

  “But we’re not anymore. I can’t love one person above all. Some things are bigger than just one heart, but that doesn’t mean a heart can’t love completely!”

  “If you had let me, Elia, I would’ve given everything I am to you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted: to be something that matters most of all for just one person.”

  “I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t leave everything for you, I can’t … pick only you. I won’t! I love you and I love Innis Lear, and if I must choose to put Innis Lear first it does not mean you don’t matter to me, Ban Errigal. We’re people, not saints, not stars; we have to move in some kind of structure. I can, and will, pick you and the island, you and my father, but I can’t put you always before—”

  Ban felt himself fall away from her. “Stop,” he said, “I know you can’t. I know it. No one ever has.”

  “Ban, that is an impossible thing you ask! I cannot separate your well-being from that of Innis Lear, or that of my father! It is all connected!”

  “No, it isn’t.” His chest hurt, his eyes burned. “I know because Regan and Connley will always choose each other. Your father chose your mother, and then when she died he chose you. Over the island!”

  “And look at what a disaster it was!” she cried, throwing out her arms. “No one thing alone keeps Innis Lear alive or its heart beating! That is not love! That is selfishness. That is pretending we are all only one thing. Only a star, only a woman, only a bastard. You’re more than that, and I am, too: woman and daughter of a foreign queen and a star priest. I’m all of that. Take one piece away and the rest shifts and changes, just like … just like this island, or any land. If the stars are crying and lonely, the tide doesn’t rise and the trees cannot speak! Or if the trees are all we hear, then there is no future or heaven for our dreams!”

  They stared at each other across several steps of darkness. Fire at Elia’s back, dawn at Ban’s.

  He did not know if the pain growing inside him was love or longing or something far worse. She was glorious. Bold and beautiful like her sisters, but stumbling in her passion, because it was new. He thought he was witnessing the birth of a star.

  But a star was not what he needed. He was rootwater and poison, hissing wind and shadows. She was the first wink of holy fire that would light the sky for thousands of years.

  Ban held out his hand, palm up. For a few brief moments at dawn, stars shone even against earthly sunrise, bright as butterflies or a meadow full of flowers—or iridescent beetles.

  This had been their moment, and it was fading away.

  Elia slid her fingers into his.

  “I will choose everything,” she promised. “I will be everything.”

  Ban thought of the storm. “I will be exactly what I have always been.”

  REGAN

  REGAN REMEMBERED ONLY three things from the night of her mother’s year memorial: her father grasping little Elia’s hand too tightly; the squelch of mud in the Star Field ruining the silk shoes her mother had given her, which were embroidered with the same blue Dalat had prized in the flecks of her middle daughter’s eyes; a glass of cool r
ed wine appearing exactly when she needed it most.

  Long after the lighting ceremony, when they all returned to Dondubhan Castle for a mourning supper, Regan had kept herself at Gaela’s side. She had listened to Gaela’s vexed commentary with half an ear, studying all the players as they mingled in the dining hall with the rest of her attention. The two sisters had held the honor table themselves, for Lear had roamed the long room with Elia in tow, speaking only to his retainers and earls, the young Duke Astore and the old Duke Connley, and, surprisingly, their mother’s young, handsome brother, from the Third Kingdom. Regan had despised the white-knuckled grip Lear maintained on Elia’s shoulder, pressing the folds of her mourning gown askew.

  With a little sigh, Regan had turned, catching herself at a pair of eyes the dull blue-green of old copper. The young man to whom they belonged had bowed and offered her a goblet, full of wine. He’d been no servant, wearing a vibrant red jacket over the gray-and-cream wool expected for a funeral, and a gold chain about his neck too rich for a mere retainer. His mouth was lovely, though thin-lipped, and his nose admirably regal, she had thought, fascinated. Cherry-gold hair flopped across his forehead, too unchecked. His pink cheeks did not flush further, though she had stared quite boldly. Regan then lifted the goblet and sipped proffered red wine.

  It should’ve been the young prince of Aremoria attending her: their fathers currently negotiated the rules for later negotiating some possibility of marriage between them. But that prince had shown little interest in her.

  “Thank you,” she’d said, having a guess who this keenly handsome young man might be.

  He’d smiled very slightly—as good at a cool smile as Regan herself—and said, “I am sorry for your loss.”

  Regan’s throat had closed, and she’d struggled not to allow grief to wrinkle her brow. Only her eyelashes flickered. The young man nodded, then left.