Was this glee and triumph building like a scream inside his chest? Or despair?
It would not do to dwell—not with so few hours left in his possession. Ban dropped his bag and hurried around the corner, where he caught a passing servant and asked after his father’s body. Wrapped and oiled, the earl had been laid out on a slab of worn granite in the cellar. Curan Ironworker and Captain Med had seen to it in the absence of both Errigal sons.
Ban went on alone, hurrying down the stone stairs with a shuttered lantern.
Usually the cellar smelled of earth and water and candle smoke, and a slight sourness, though Ban had not visited in years. Today, it burned with pine and strong myrrh to cover the inevitable stink of death.
Layers of dark linen wrapped the broad body, still daunting and wide, despite the sunken betrayal of slow rot. There was nothing to see but the shape of his father, so quiet in death. The lantern Ban had brought cast shadows over everything. His own shadow lengthened, stretching unnaturally across the slab altar and Errigal’s body.
Ban’s father had been dead for twelve days.
His lantern’s light wavered, and Ban realized he was shaking.
“I wondered if you would come here,” Rory said from the deep shadow beyond the first row of dusty wine.
“Brother,” Ban said.
“I am no such thing to you, am I? Have I ever been?”
“I’m sorry.” It gave Ban no relief to say it, thought his regret was true. Ban was sorry—sorry that Rory had been hurt and that Errigal had died as he had, that his brother would have wanted nothing so much as to die in their father’s stead. And he was sorry that Rory was now looking at him with such disgust. But Ban was not sorry for his choices, though he suspected he should’ve been. He was not sorry their father could no longer carelessly parade through life, untouchable as the stars he’d so worshipped. It was Errigal’s choices, too, his misplaced trusts and spoiled passions, that had brought the old earl to be here, lying coldly in this underground tomb. His sons at war.
Rory snorted and emerged into the broken light. He put his hand on the chest area of their father’s body and lifted a bottle of wine to his lips. It sloshed loudly; most had already been consumed.
The brothers stared at each other over the corpse. Ban set his lantern on the altar and reached out for the bottle. Rory smacked it into his hand.
Ban drank, eyes never leaving Rory’s blotchy, angry face.
Rory took the wine back. “Am I supposed to hope you live or die tomorrow?”
“Die, I suppose,” Ban said viciously.
Rory flung the bottle against the wall; it broke into three pieces, then hit the stone floor and shattered further. Rory breathed hard, while Ban did not even flinch. “Sometimes I hate you,” Rory whispered.
Ban nodded.
“I didn’t deserve this,” Rory said.
“I didn’t do any of it to hurt you.”
His brother only pressed his mouth in a grim line. “You’ll die.”
The cold agreement of his guts finally bent Ban’s knees; he crouched and put his hand to the floor for balance. “I think so, yes,” he hissed, unable to find a voice.
His brother knelt beside Ban and shoved him, then caught him and grabbed his shoulders. “You have to fight, you shit, you fox, you—you bastard.”
The word hit Ban harder than it might’ve, a bite under his heart, because in all his life Rory had never flung it at him. “I will fight,” he snarled into his brother’s face.
“Good. But you’ll lose.”
“What do you want?” Ban cried, wrenching away.
“I don’t know! I…” Rory fell back onto his behind, put the heels of his hands against his eyes. His fingers curled like claws. He heaved a deep breath and then dropped his arms. “I have always been generous to you, always loved you completely.”
“I did not doubt that. I only … do not know how … I was not made for love.” Ban shrugged, trying for indifference, but it was a jerky, offended motion.
“I know that is a lie. On your last night at least, do not lie. You were loved in Aremore. Did you never see that? The king—but … You were loved. And you loved Elia. I saw it when we were young.”
“It only broke things,” Ban whispered.
“I’m sorry for that. For my part in it.”
Frowning, Ban gripped his brother’s arm. Even not understanding, he could give Rory this: the illusion of forgiveness.
Rory nodded heavily and climbed to his feet. A tear caught in his eyelashes and glinted in the lantern light. He nodded. “Fine. Good then. I’ll—I’ll grieve you, you know. When you are dead. Had you not killed our father, I might have named my heir for you, the uncle who should have taught him to make swords and climb trees and drink beer. Who should have—should have…”
Ban slowly stood, too, and gave in to a sudden impulse: he hugged Rory, and said, “You could name a daughter after me, then.”
His brother’s arms came around him, too tight, tight enough to kill. Ban held his breath and did not struggle until Rory’s embrace loosened into something real. Rory whispered, “No, I don’t think so.”
“I understand,” Ban whispered back.
Rory released him, backed away, and said, “Goodbye—good night.”
The earlson left, and Ban did his best to banish all thoughts: of his brother, of the morning, of the last week or years or—
The Fox stared at his father’s withered body. He went to the broken wine bottle and slid the largest pieces together with his boot, then picked them carefully up. Cradling the shattered glass, Ban climbed the stairs out of the cellar, and made his way to his own room.
MORIMAROS
MARS BARELY SAW the corridor in front of him as he strode through Errigal Keep. He slid his hand along the stone wall, but his vision was a blur of blue-black wrath, and fear, and guilt.
His name was called behind him, and he ignored it the first time. The second time it was said sharply, and he paused, leaning into the wall. It was Elia’s voice, Elia Lear come after him.
She ducked around him, putting her small body between him and the heavy stone wall. Her dark eyes were glaring, now they were alone, her mouth bowed in displeasure. Anger, even. She put both hands on his chest and pushed.
It did not budge him at all.
“How dare you take this onto yourself, Morimaros,” she said furiously.
“It had to be done,” he said back, just as upset. He curled his fingers around her wrists, squeezing with careful control. “Ban Errigal was mine—my soldier, my spy—and now mine to show justice.”
“Revenge, you mean!”
A retainer passed, solicitously ignoring them.
The king took deep breaths in an attempt to rein in his emotions. But the air was thick, the corridor narrow, and beautiful Elia so close. His throat narrowed, too, and his chest clenched. He had to breathe. Mars jerked away and dragged Elia with him. She walked stiffly as he led her outside into the cold night. Soldiers camped everywhere, shadow bodies, impossible to tell apart. Around the long dark wall of the Keep he and Elia went, and to a corner where the outer fortification and the castle joined. There he stopped, turned her, and tucked her against the sheltered corner, blocked the wind with his body. He gasped for air, head fallen back. The night sky was blissfully huge and clear, the stars bright.
“Breathe, Morimaros,” she said gently, unlacing the ties at the collar of his dark blue Learish tunic. She freed his throat, then slid her hands up to his smooth jaw. After a brief touch, she dropped her hands and sighed angrily.
“Elia,” he said, low and longing.
“You acted the king—it was my negotiation. You undercut my authority.”
“No! I was a man—your man, to fight for you. Like the Fox himself said: kings use champions to fight their battles. Let me be your champion.”
“It should have been my choice; you should have listened to me. If you were my man, my champion, you would have stopped when I said no.”
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Mars opened his mouth to argue, but couldn’t. He snapped it closed again, clenching his jaw in renewed anger—at himself, at the Fox, at all of them.
“I should send you away. Now. Before dawn can come and—”
“No, Elia, please.”
She crossed her arms. “Would you even go? If I commanded you to get your men and go before dawn, sail away so I could deal with this on my own, would you? I do not think so. You are not very good at taking orders.”
He stared at her, wanting nothing so much as for her to touch him again. His shoulders heaved. His thoughts fled through a maze of possibilities: the answers he could offer, the actions he could take, and what she would do, then his response, and on and on and on. It all turned to tragedy. For himself, and for ruined Ban Errigal.
In the end he said nothing.
“I thought so.” Elia’s arms relaxed until she held them still at her sides. “Then tell me, why did you do this? Challenge him?”
“I did it for you.”
“No, you did not! You did it for you. So why?”
Mars burst out, “Because I had to! Because he betrayed me. He was mine, my soldier and spy and—and my friend, and he threw me aside!”
“He was mine first. And before that he was his own, and his spirit belongs to Innis Lear. None of us are yours, Morimaros. We do not do things as you do; we have rootwater and poison in our blood and that makes us strong. This is not your island. It is mine.”
His hands shook. His heart, too. He’d not felt helpless like this since he was a small child. Not even when his father died and Mars had slid the Blood and the Sea onto his finger. “I know,” he said. “But you’re right, I don’t—I don’t know how to be other than a king.”
“You don’t have to. You can’t, and we shouldn’t have pretended otherwise.”
The grieved wisdom in her eyes filled Mars with longing again. To bundle her away to some safety, to tear her from all of this so she never had to carry this kind of weight. The kind of weight that made a king promise to kill his friend in a few short, dark hours. Nausea crawled up his throat.
Mars swallowed it painfully and whispered another truth. “I loved him.”
“I know.” In the darkness it was difficult to see; only a flicker of distant light from the Keep and torches lit along the ramparts overhead offered any break in the night. But her eyes shone, sharp and black and teary. “Please don’t kill him.”
The words cut between them; Mars stepped back. “He might kill me instead.”
Elia surged forward and grabbed his face—too hard. She dug her fingers around his jaw. “Don’t let him do that, either,” she commanded.
Mars felt the breath of her words slide along his chin, and he finally kissed her.
He kissed her slowly and desperately, as if her lips were his destiny, shaping him with every glancing touch or press or bite. An inexorable progression from who he’d been before, to who he would be now.
She hardly moved at first, except to allow it, then her clutching fingers relaxed and she touched his cheeks gently. He lifted her by the elbows and pulled her firmly against him, tasting the salt of tears on her mouth, the tang of lip paint, her softness, and then her power when Elia suddenly kissed him back.
Wind slipped around her and tugged at him, coiling around his neck, fingering his short hair and eyelashes. It giggled and whined. Elia slid her hands down his chest, grasped at his arms, at his ribs and waist, shifting and moving exactly like the wind she was.
Mars held her head in his large hands, kissing her until he needed to breathe. Then he leaned back enough to catch her blurry, fluttering gaze. She licked her lips.
“I love you, too,” the king of Aremoria said, hoarsely. And, “Do you forgive me?”
She’s said so much to Ban at the pavilion: forgiven him, her blessing and condemnation both.
Elia asked, “Should I forgive the man or the king?”
Slowly, Mars shook his head. He was both. Always.
“I will do what you tell me to do,” he said, touching a thumb to her bottom lip. “Whatever that is. Anything you order, right now.” He ran his thumb along the soft skin, then let go. His entire being longed to hold her closer, to beg Elia for what he wanted, to sink onto his knees before her, even as a king. “And forever from now, I will be honest with you—even if it makes Aremoria and Innis Lear enemies, for politics or trade or anything. I will tell you the truth.”
“Mars,” she said carefully, as if tasting the flavor of the nickname. “And Morimaros. Man and king.”
“I wish we could be only one thing, choose only one thing.”
Elia said, ferociously, “I don’t want to be chosen above all things, one thing most of all. I want to be a part of someone’s whole.”
He was silent a moment, studying her. “Do you remember all those weeks ago, at the Summer Seat, when you said I was the Lion of War and as such always apart from your Child Star? That they could not exist in the same sky, because of how they are created by the shapes around them?”
She nodded.
“What would happen if the eye of the lion were named Calpurlugh? It is only semantics; it is only what some old man said long ago, that makes such a thing impossible.”
“New shapes,” she murmured glancing up at the sky. “You want to make new shapes.”
“I don’t know what else a king is good for,” he said ruefully.
Elia Lear took his hand, the one missing its royal ring, and drew a long breath. She tilted her head toward the wind as it teased wisps of her curls free at her temple and ear. She said, “Fight for me at dawn, Morimaros of Aremoria. I will be ready, with a crown of hemlock.”
AEFA
NO ONE NOTICED Aefa hang back from the procession that made its way through the darkness toward the Keep. And none noticed her wander to the crowded great hall where a fire blazed in the massive hearth. Folk huddled here in pairs and family groups, whispering, drinking, lulling children to sleep. They shared blankets and tossed bits of food at the hairy dogs, everyone stuffed together against the cold wind outside. Waiting.
Aefa continued to carefully hold the hemlock crown on a spill of midnight blue wool. It shivered with her breathing, and she did not know what to do with it.
Sighing, Aefa dragged herself over to the thronelike chair beside the fire. She collapsed onto the floor, scooting her bottom against the fresh rushes until she leaned against the throne. Legs crossed, she gently placed the crown in her lap.
The poison hemlock was lovely: fresh, tiny white flowers in clusters, shooting out in starbursts off a central, pale green stem with small violet blotches. Elia had braided the stems together, over and over, until the crown itself was a gangly, intricate circlet of nothing but constellated flowers.
Aefa skimmed a pale finger against some petals, barely able to feel their soft response. Her thoughts were filled with a gentle awe. This pretty, natural thing was the kingmaker here. Poison. Death and rebirth through the cold rootwaters was what made kings on Innis Lear. If her best friend weren’t facing it, Aefa might have smiled at the simplicity.
In order to earn the trust of the island, one had to trust it with one’s life.
Aefa shut her eyes. Elia was willing. Elia was being so brave about it, or in denial—there was a trait that showed strong in the Lear bloodline. But no, Aefa believed Elia meant this faith with all her heart.
If only Aefa did.
Perhaps it would be easier to take the leap herself, to entrust her life to the rootwaters, than it would be to watch Elia eat this poison, to watch her grow numb and fall, to be desperate that the waiting waters would purge the poison from her blood and Elia would open her beautiful eyes again and say something tender about whatever she’d seen, while she had been briefly dead.
Aefa had to clutch at her own hands to keep from flinging the crown into the fire. Every part of the plant was deadly, Brona had warned.
A log in the hearth popped, startling Aefa. She laughed at herself, b
ut sadly. She was terrified of the approaching dawn. Ban Errigal and Morimaros of Aremoria facing off, likely killing each other; then the sisters eating this poison crown and letting the island choose.
Aefa expected the king would win, unless the traitor cheated somehow, and perhaps that would negate everything. No magic, no slick treachery allowed.
Thank all the stars and worms of earth Elia was not pregnant with that bastard’s bastard.
Closing her eyes, Aefa wondered if the princess needed her yet, if Elia had returned to her rooms, or if she was with the king. Worms, but Aefa hoped she was with the king. Convincing him to win, to fight hard, saying whatever she needed to say and doing whatever she needed to do.
Very unlikely.
Aefa jumped to her feet, crown in one hand, her skin protected by the thin blue cloth, and hurried after her friend.
Elia was nowhere to be found. Not in her bedroom, not up on the lookout tower. Aefa wandered at a decent pace, not to worry anyone, but searching thoroughly. She saw Rory Errigal storming up from the cellar, and she saw Regan Connley drift down the corridor away from where she’d been placed to sleep.
As it grew later, Aefa returned herself to the bedroom she was sharing with Elia. Just as she reached the doorway, the princess appeared there, too, eyes cast downward as she walked slowly along the thin woven rug keeping warm the hall floor.
“Elia,” Aefa said softly.
The princess’s eyes flew up. Though some curls stood rampant about her face, free of the loose braids Aefa had put in earlier, Elia looked the same. Untouched. No: her lipstick was gone, smeared down to nothing but a flush of color on the left corner of her mouth.
That sight made Aefa’s heart pound. “Come,” she said, shoving open the door. It was grandly appointed, though small, and Aefa dropped the hemlock crown on a cushioned chair before kneeling at the hearth to stir up the fire.
Elia walked to the center of the room and stopped. “Aefa,” she said, very low and haunting.
“I’m here.” Aefa flung herself up, coming before her princess and taking her hands. “Tell me.”