“We do not hide,” Gaela Lear answered her youngest sister, stepping to the fore of the pavilion. The self-proclaimed king of Innis Lear wore vibrant purple and red, with shimmering chain mail falling off her shoulders like wings. A sword and scabbard encrusted with gold and garnets hung heavily from a belt at her hips. Her hair was sculpted into a spiral crown with pale clay. That same clay dotted down her temples and cheeks in the mockery of a star pattern. Beautiful and striking, she embodied the Star of War, with all its promise of victory and glory and strength.
And Regan Connley was the matching Star of Death, in a white gown with scarlet trim and collar. Red paint colored her eyelids and her bottom lip, and streaked across her cheeks in violent lines. Her hair was loosely drawn back under a white mourning veil that ruffled and shivered in the wind like a furious waterfall. The simplicity only exaggerated her dangerous beauty.
With them stood the Fox of Innis Lear, in a dark gambeson and dull armor, his sword whispering at his hip; he was a shadow of war, a wizard’s secret form. He stared at Morimaros of Aremoria, in Elia’s dark blue, sword at his side but lacking crown and royal ring. The king’s eyes scoured the Fox with the penetrating force of the furious wind, angry, wounded, and worst of all: disappointment.
Gaela said, loud enough to be heard by all, “As agreed, come inside: we meet as rival sisters, not enemies.” With her middle sister in perfect alignment, they stepped back to welcome the youngest.
The Oak Earl gripped Elia’s elbow. “Change your mind,” he was heard to say, low and firm.
“I will not,” she said back, only a whisper in the wind, but he knew, and slammed his cane into the rocky moor.
The youngest princess left him behind, for only two would enter with her: a triangle complete, to face her two sisters and their wizard.
Elia stepped inside, followed by Morimaros of Aremoria and Aefa, the former angry and strong, the latter clutching to her chest a cloth-covered prize.
The noise of the wind changed, from desperate wailing to a dull, distant roar, as if those six stood inside the heart of a seashell, protected from the crashing ocean. Iron stands rose like spears in each corner, lifting plates filled with candles head-high. Chairs waited, but none sat upon them, and all ignored, too, the low table with dark wine and bright stone cups.
Gaela appeared amused at her little sister’s choices of seconds, but Regan eyed Aefa and her bundle suspiciously. Ban the Fox concentrated on his breathing; he’d not expected his former king to join them now.
“Sisters—” Elia began.
Regan interrupted, “You are bold to bring Aremoria with you. Have you fallen for his charms, baby sister?”
“We thought,” Gaela said, “you would prefer our offering.” She turned her gaze to the Fox, who stared at Elia.
“I have business with my old friend, the Fox,” Morimaros said threateningly. Elia held her hand to him, and he did not step forward.
The wizard said, “I ended our business.”
“That is not your right,” said the king.
“Morimaros,” Elia said. “This, now, is our turn to speak: my sisters and I. You are here on our sufferance.”
He bowed his head, though did not remove his gaze from his Fox.
Gaela smiled broadly at Elia. “You have found some iron in your worm-soft bones, or else been blessed finally by our imperial ancestors.”
“Circumstances have tempered me,” Elia replied.
“Then,” said Regan, “swear to us and retire to the star towers.”
“No.”
“No?”
Elia held out her hand, and Aefa Thornhill lowered her arms from her breast. She held a pillow, its prize covered with a thin blue cloth. The girl took a fortifying breath and picked the cloth up by a corner, sweeping it away to reveal a crown of freshly woven, slightly crushed hemlock. In the flickering orange candlelight, the starburst blossoms seemed to catch fire.
Regan gasped softly, eagerly, even, and Gaela laughed dark and loud.
“You are resourceful, Elia,” the self-annointed king, her sister, said. “Did Brona show you this? Or did the trees themselves whisper their secrets to you? Was it because you listened?” On the last word, the wolflike grin turned into a sneer, though Regan beside her seemed almost wounded.
“The trees,” Elia said. “You know what this means, then? We should eat it, and drink from the navel well, and be the queens of this island together.”
The three sisters stood at three points, the bright stars that formed a constellation of disaster.
Wind shoved at the north wall of the pavilion, pushing the canvas taut.
“You think it would only save you,” murmured Regan. “That our island loves you best of all, little sister. That we are unworthy, because you do not understand our way of loving. You have ever avoided your own choices, and now you make the island seek vengeance on your behalf.”
“No, that is not true. I do not want either of you to die. I want all of us to survive—to live, together, as we have not in so many years.”
“Then submit,” snarled Gaela.
“I would survive,” Regan said. “The island loves me, as it loves you, only more, for my Connley’s bones are our roots now.”
Elia reached for her sister, but stopped. “I am so sorry he’s gone, Regan. I know you loved him.”
The middle sister’s face turned hard as crystal.
Gaela stepped nearer and put one hand on Regan’s shoulder; the other she made into a fist and settled threateningly against Elia’s. “This is a waste of our time.”
“If you are to be queens of Innis Lear,” Elia said, “you must be part of the island, sacrifice your own selves to gain its trust, the trust it waits for you to show. Are you afraid of something our father was brave enough to undergo? If you would be the queens of Lear, this is how the crown is claimed.”
“I claim my own crown. Our father was not strong enough to do so. He was weak, and terrible. Magic did not help him.”
“He denied all but the stars; that is why the island turned on him, as it will turn on you if you reject the roots.”
“I do not need it. Let the wind rage—eventually it will stop, when it understands I dominate.” Gaela spread her arms, displaying herself.
Aefa thrust out her chin. “You cannot defeat the very rocks you stand on.”
“Quiet, Fool,” the eldest sister ordered.
Elia closed her eyes briefly, then leveled her gaze upon Gaela. “Are you less brave than our mother?”
“What,” snapped Gaela.
Regan hummed, low and soft, discordant with the wind.
Elia took Gaela’s wrist. “Dalat has everything to do with this, with us, with what we are. This is how she died: as a queen. With one action to protect us and uphold the star prophecy. She ate poison, and did not let the island save her.”
“No,” Regan whispered.
The eldest laughed like a snarling wolf, tugging out of Elia’s grip. “I don’t believe this. It was Lear’s worship of star signs that doomed our mother.”
Elia nodded. “Yes, but because she chose to let it, she chose to strengthen the people’s faith in the stars—which was faith in her. Don’t you see? Dalat’s legacy depended on that prophecy being fulfilled.”
Regan shook her head, no no no. “She loved us, and him. No one who loves like that would keep such a thing secret. Connley would—” The middle princess stopped suddenly, going still and certain and cold. “It is not possible.”
“She was wrong,” Elia said, glancing between her sisters. “She should have told us, told our father. Trusted him. But he lost her, too, haven’t you ever thought of that? He adored her, and his heart tore apart when she died. Have you no sympathy for that?”
“I crushed sympathy in myself long ago, little sister,” Gaela said.
“I do, though, have sympathy,” their witch-sister answered. “But no more for him than for myself or my sisters. No more than for the roots and wells of Innis Lear t
hat he forsook! His pain does not excuse his actions.”
“Nor yours, Regan,” said Elia.
Gaela shook her head. In a voice sharp and regal she said, “I do not believe this, but even if I chose to, how would it change anything at all? It does not make me want to eat these death flowers, especially if my mother died of the same. You cannot manipulate my heart, out of desiring my destiny. I have always been meant for the crown. I have strived all my life to make myself into a king. I will not apologize for what I have done to achieve this, and none shall take it from me because of stars or trees. It is mine. I am the oldest and strongest. Peace will come from me.”
“And all my strength is hers,” Regan said. “Why do you not give over yours as well, Elia?”
The youngest breathed hard, struggling for calm. “I would have, before you went just as mad as Father, mad with violence and hatred, disregarding Innis Lear itself. I cannot allow the island to crumble beneath my feet for your arrogance and ambition.”
“You’re ambitious, too, Elia,” Ban Errigal said. The wizard had been quiet, following his queen’s command.
The sisters turned to him like a fearsome, three-headed dragon. Elia said, “To bring everyone together. To save everyone.”
“To forgive,” he sneered.
Morimaros of Aremoria spoke pointedly to the Fox, “Sometimes we forgive others because it keeps our own hearts whole, not because they deserve it or for any thought of them.”
Ban’s nostrils flared, but Aefa yelled, “Stop, all of you! This is a family squabble that will tear the roots from the earth and pull the stars from the sky if you allow it!”
“Yes! Don’t you see?” said Elia. “This happened because our family shattered, and if we come together again we can fix it together.”
“What would that look like? You married to this king? Always a threat at our east?” Gaela smiled a dark smile.
Regan petted Elia’s cheek before her little sister could shy back. “I like this rage in you, baby sister. Perhaps you can join with us. But you must give up your Aremore king, and these fantasies about our mother, and let go of thinking Gaela and I do not have Innis Lear’s best interest at the fore of our minds. If the rootwaters mean so much to you, as they do to me, I will eat this poison, and Gaela will be my king.”
“No,” Gaela said stubbornly. “We do not need the imagined approval of the land. It is ours.”
“Ban will tell you,” Elia said, latching her gaze onto the Fox. “You know, Ban Errigal, Fox of Aremoria, of Innis Lear, of whatever side you steal. Tell them, if they trust you so well, that they must bargain with the island.”
“You cannot use him against us, either,” Regan said, silkily. She dug her fingers into the Fox’s hair, curling a fist against his skull. “Ban is ours. You gave him up, his great strength and power, but we will not.”
The hemlock blossoms trembled as the Fool’s daughter stamped her foot. “How can you do this, Ban Errigal? Elia has loved and defended you beyond all reason, while you have betrayed all of us some time or another. How dare you stand against her?”
“How…” Ban bared his teeth. “Here are two queens who admire me for myself and give me a purpose I am suited to. Who do not treat me as a bastard, or a tool, or someone who never, never, can be an equal. They are my equals! They do not hold themselves apart from me.”
“You hold yourself apart from us,” King Morimaros said, quiet with intensity. “I made you my friend.”
“How do you come to be here, Aremoria?” Gaela asked. She stepped to the king: the black princess of Lear was nearly as tall as the foreigner. “What is your game?”
“I am here to support Elia for the crown. That is the will of Aremoria.”
“It will be war, then.”
“No!” Elia put herself between them, a hand on the king’s chest and one flat out to Gaela.
Morimaros met Gaela’s hot gaze over Elia’s head. “You will lose against me.”
The eldest sister did not smile, but behind her hard expression came a ferocious joy. “You cannot take Innis Lear. It has never been yours, and never will join with Aremoria again.”
Elia shoved hard at both. “Stop, now. This will not be war. We must—we must—eat of the flower, and drink of the rootwater. That will decide, without bloodshed, without dividing our island.”
“Yes,” hissed Regan.
Gaela whirled to her middle sister, thrust out a hand, and grabbed her arm. “Collect yourself, sister.”
In the quiet, the wind gusted again, streaking under the tightly staked walls to tear and tease at their ankles and skirts. Candles snuffed out.
Fire, said Aefa Thornhill with a snap of her fingers, and five of the candles lit themselves again.
Through the dim orange shadows, Morimaros of Aremoria advanced. “Ban Errigal. Our business is bloodshed.” The king grasped the front of Ban’s gambeson, pulling it into his fist. “I challenge you. Fight me, if you think you are worthy.”
Gaela Lear laughed.
“To the death,” added Regan, dark fascination in her tone.
“No,” the last princess said, calmly.
But the king ignored her. “If I am defeated, Innis Lear will see no penalties from Aremoria. Novanos, called La Far, will make sure of it.”
Ban stared at Morimaros.
The silence grew heavy with monument.
The Fox had betrayed everyone; all knew it to be true. He was a shadow, a wormworker, a traitor, a spy. A bastard. He knew the secret paths behind sunlight and slipped through cracks, understood the language of ravens and the tricks of trees. He could see how, with one act, he could change everything here, destroy and re-create with a word.
And so, the wizard drew a shaky breath. He said the only thing he could: “Yes. But if I am defeated, you all three eat of the hemlock crown.”
Wind slammed into the pavilion, shrieking, whistling like triumphant horns.
In the following stillness, Gaela glared in Ban’s face, grabbing his chin. “What did you say, Fox?”
Elia pressed a hand to Morimaros’s chest, hard, as if she could force him away from the rest.
“I said,” Ban repeated, loudly in the dark chamber, “we will fight, and if I am defeated, you let the island choose its queen, and all swear to lead no army against her.”
“I can fight my own battles for the crown,” Gaela said, frowning.
“This is what a king would do, Gaela Lear. Champions fight for them; they do not make their own war. Are you a warrior or a king?”
“Stop this!” cried Elia, but Aefa touched her shoulder.
“This is the best,” Aefa said. “No war, very little danger. Only two men at risk.”
“More than that is at risk,” the princess gasped.
Regan circled her fingers around Gaela’s wrist and squeezed so the eldest released Ban’s chin. He swallowed, staring past both sisters at Elia. As if devastated by hope.
“So,” Gaela said, nearly a growl. “If Morimaros of Aremoria wins, little sister, you will have your desire that we eat the island’s poison. But if Ban the Fox wins, your Aremore king will be dead, and your allies will disperse. Rory Errigal will return to Aremoria forever. Kay Oak will be struck down for disobeying my banishment.”
Elia’s entire body had gone rigid. Her voice trembled with strain as she asked, “What of me? What will you ask of me?”
Gaela studied her baby sister for a moment, and then smiled. “You will marry Ban Errigal, and your children will be my heirs.”
The youngest princess looked at Ban the Fox with eyes spinning betrayal and wild panic.
And the wizard said, in the language of trees, It gives you everything you need to save everyone.
Not you, Elia replied in the same.
Of all there, only Regan the witch understood their words, but her heart did not care any longer.
You must, Ban said.
Elia opened her mouth, hesitating as she stared at him, and the entire world paused with her. But
the world cannot hold still for long. She breathed deeply. “I accept.”
Her sisters clutched hands, pressed their lips into matching grim smiles. “As do we,” Gaela King said.
“At Scagtiernamm,” Regan Connley added. “Where the wind and trees can witness. Just when the sun rises.”
Dawn, Elia Lear whispered in the language of trees.
The island beneath their feet seemed to shiver, and the wind made an obeisance of gentle, laughing huffs against the death-gray pavilion.
THE FOX
BAN ERRIGAL’S ENTIRE life had led to this.
Elia looked directly at him and said, “I forgive you.”
There was no possible response he could offer, desperate as he was to remain standing, to hold himself together.
She turned from Ban and to her sisters, inviting them all and their captains and whatever men would fit to shelter in Errigal Keep and its yards for the long, blustery night to come. Gaela agreed.
Then, very like a queen, Elia marched out of the pavilion with both Morimaros and Aefa at her heels.
The two eldest Lear sisters surrounded Ban, who felt himself entirely stunned by the swift current of destiny.
Gaela’s face was murderous. “You’d better win, Ban the Fox,” she said.
Regan kissed him, soft and scraping. She left her cheek against his to whisper, “The island will choose. Nothing else matters now.”
“I will win,” he lied, meeting Gaela’s eyes. “I will go ready those men who can move, to join Elia in the Keep.”
Their permission given, Ban hurried to do so. It took the greater part of an hour before he was on his way with a full contingent of men, behind the two queens and Earl Glennadoer, with Osli at his side, and upon arrival at the Keep, nearly another hour to settle all in their places. The wind blew, softer than before, but still urgent and waiting. He swung his saddlebag over his shoulder and strode inside.
But alone, Ban reeled still, and could not yet go to his old rooms. He leaned into the whitewashed wall, and said Elia’s name silently, no voice behind it.
The future of Innis Lear was rooted to his life or death. Him, and him alone. Ban the Fox, bastard of Errigal, would determine who wore the crown.