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.
A week later, she received a letter stamped with scarlet wax.
I see you, Regan, daughter of Dalat, it read in the language of trees.
It had been signed, Connley, of the line of kings.
Folding the paper, she’d pressed it between her breast and the warm wool of her dress. Eventually Regan had written back, and their correspondence went slowly, with no regular rhythm except that each took their own turn, never sending a new letter without receiving a response. There was little call for Connleys at Dondubhan or at the Summer Seat, for the perpetual tensions between them and the king, or them and Astore, but Regan had seen him again, finally, some year and a half later, this time broader in shoulder and with his bright hair smoothed back to show off that striking face. His red-and-black coat, tied tight over more expensive black this time, seemed to make his eyes burn. That gaze had found her where Regan waited with the remnants of her family, high on the Summer Seat rampart, and her chest rose faster—though she strove, again, to keep excitement off her face.
She had touched his hand later that afternoon, passing on her way out of the great hall when her father dismissed her and her sister, so that he and Connley’s father, the duke, could argue without a woman’s judging eyes. Regan’s fingers had barely brushed the backs of his knuckles, and she’d held her eyes straight ahead. Then off with Gaela she went, though her sister had veered toward the barracks and Regan was left to wander to her chambers, cradling her hand between her breasts.
Words on paper had been their only courtship at first, along with tiny sketches of flowers or food or whatever thing was nearest Connley as he wrote to her. Regan returned pressed herbs for ambition and health, and advice on the best tea to soothe Connley’s mother when she was dying of a wet fever, coughing and hard. When his mother did die, Connley asked Regan to come to the year anniversary, and she did, though with Gaela and Elia to make it a more formal royal affair.
It had been easy to keep her secret from Gaela, though Regan never explicitly decided to: Gaela never asked about such things as romance and men. Regan didn’t mind these differences, for her sister would be a great, vicious warrior-queen and she trusted Regan absolutely, and so Regan would act as she needed in order to be Gaela’s best support.
Alone with Regan in the shade of an oak tree where he’d brought her to share the ancient well of his father’s bloodline, Connley had cried for his mother. Regan kissed him, but briefly, and he’d gasped. She’d kissed his tears away, and as his trembling hands cupped around her elbows, a shaking panic had filled her heart, for this was too big, too bright, and there was no space for brightness around Regan Lear. She was not allowed: there were no stars in her, only an empty, wide sky.
She had fled, and Gaela chided her for being missing nearly an hour. Regan easily convinced her sister she’d only lost time conversing with the wise grandfather oaks near the castle. It had been a retreat, as Gaela might have counseled upon facing an unwinnable battle, waiting to gather more allies to her side.
Not until after Gaela married her duke, and then after Connley’s father had died, did the two lovers meet again. Six years since the fated goblet of chilled wine. Regan stood alone at her father’s side, mostly, for her baby sister already inhabited the star towers, studying to become Lear’s perfect pet. Connley was his own man, finally, duke in title and self, and could find reason to be at the Summer Seat if Regan would be, or north at Dondubhan, even braving Astore’s displeasure to prove to Regan the depth of Connley loyalty, the lengths he’d go to just to see her.
The next kiss between them was anything but brief.
Regan remembered all their kisses, for they were as close to stars as she could get. A burst of light against a dark floral tapestry; bonfires kindled in a low feather bed; flickering quick as night-bugs, here and gone, there and gone, anywhere darkness lived; consuming and constant as a hearth fire.
Now his lips were cold and tasted only of blood. Around her, the wagon rattled and wind screamed. Lightning gave her cruel glimpses as the road vanished behind them: not fast enough. Regan huddled with her beloved under the thick canvas stretched over the wagon, holding his head against her belly, propped at the fore of the wagon bed. She tried to cushion her love from the wrenching travel, the rocking, hard cracks of the wheels.
There was not very much blood, yet Connley grew colder and colder.
He’d said, as Curan the iron wizard hefted him up, “Regan, be brave. There is something wrong inside me.”
As they had loaded him into the wagon, Regan had commanded the Keep be held for Ban Errigal’s return, and to yield for no other. She’d then climbed in with Connley, hushing him. Save your strength, beloved, she whispered in the language of trees. He was never fluent: she remembered so clearly his proud explanation that he learned to write her name and his, in just that way, because he wanted to impress her. No hint of chagrin to his tone, or guilt. The language of trees had grabbed her attention, because he had recognized her.
Wind blew, and a very soft, delicate moan parted her husband’s lips. Regan smoothed his hair. Connley hated delicacy in himself, though he prized it in her. Glass, my sharp wife, he sometimes said, for she wore a mask that was smooth, clear, beautiful to behold. But it had cracked beneath long ago, and Connley knew where the perilous edges were; he saw them and loved them, though few others would admit a knife so deadly could be made of glass.
Her arms tightened around him, but he barely moved.
“Connley,” she breathed, his name disappearing into the wind. The wagon tilted as they started up a hill, and Connley moaned again. His eyes moved; she saw a glint of them. Bending over him, she put her ear to his lips.
“Regan,” he whispered, barely. She knew the sound of her name from his mouth, in all forms, but not this, not from a voice weak and hurting.
“Regan,” he whispered again. “Don’t lose yourself when I’m gone.”
“Stop,” she hissed.
She couldn’t wait for the altars.
“Stop!” Regan screamed, slapping the front of the wagon. “Stop now!”
The driver pulled the horses back, and everything went still but for the wind. Even the punishing rain had ceased.
As carefully as she could, Regan shifted her husband to the wagon floor and began untying the canvas above their seat. When enough had been pulled free, she shoved it away: rolling black and vivid purple clouds pushed at the southwest edges of the sky, but in the east it was clear, stars glittering just like sharp shards of glass. Not for me, not from me, Regan thought, kneeling, holding the side of the wagon for support. Dark forest sprawled at the bottom of the hill behind them: this length of the West Ley Road poured through a deep valley between stretches of moorland. It was hours still to Connley Castle and her altar, that deepest seat of Regan’s power.
“Lady?” Osli, from Gaela’s retinue, stood still, silhouetted against the stars. She had aided Regan, she had driven the horses, she had kept the other ladies and retainers at Errigal Keep from following.