RORY
RORY COULD RECALL, if he cast his memory back far enough, his youthful attendance at festivals on Innis Lear. The Longest Night was always a solemn occasion for vigils and for honoring ancestors and planting iron stakes at the front door if there were young children in the house. To keep away the hungriest earth saints. The summer solstice festival had been alive with laughter and dancing, costumes of feathers and wild fires; there’d been a harvest festival as well, when the hardest work of summer ended and everything was slaughtered for the winter. He’d celebrated that at the Keep with his parents, by burning sharp incense in all the rooms so the ghostly hounds of the earth saints could not smell properly to hunt anyone down, dragging them into the sky forever. In the spring there’d been a festival for all babes born that year, to name them and cast birth charts and share prophecies. That one Rory had the clearest memory of, for it had continued the most intact throughout his life.
Every festival on Innis Lear, when he contemplated them now, seemed purposed to bring light or laughter or togetherness like a shield over some darker, more dangerous promise. The earth saints will steal your children if you don’t celebrate them! Watch out for the howling dogs riding the wind or they’ll snatch you into oblivion! This summer we wear feathers and drink sweet nectar to become the birds of the sky, to balance in careful, ecstatic joy between the wind and worms—but beware leaning too far into the fire, or straying toward the darkest shadows! If you do not remember your name, you might never return to your body! And the star prophecies always, always worked to offer a path of hope against inevitable doom and death.
How strange it felt, then, for this Aremore celebration to be, as far as Rory could tell, nothing but pageantry and fun.
It was the king’s birthday, and everyone in the country—certainly everyone in Lionis—was happy. Streamers colored rainbows across the sky, and petals fell like snow; whistles and tambourines played raucous music; the squares were filled with players and spiral dances and vendors with grilled meat and apple cider; the king himself had begun the day with a dawn parade that stretched from the outer gates of the city through the vibrant white streets, winding and cutting back on itself, until after hours and hours Morimaros had visited every neighborhood. He had smiled, laughed, waved, with his sister and nephew riding at his flanks. Behind came bright clowns and acrobats, then men and women in massive, glittering masks turning their faces into crystal moons like the beautiful earth saints of old; next giant puppets of paper and plaster, decorated with voluminous robes and crowns made of glass. These were the line of Aremore kings, stretching a thousand years. Behind rode any person with a horse who’d turned twenty-two in the year before, the age Morimaros had been when he inherited the throne. Some were noble, others merchants or those in a trade, or students from the great library of Aremore; some were even from the poorer neighborhoods, having banded together to hire a horse, or won the chance from one of the Elder Queen Calepia’s charity funds. Even some foreigners joined in the parade: young men and women in the vibrant, striped scarves of the Third Kingdom; others in the ruffles of Ispania with their hair parted by jeweled fans at the tops of their heads; the furred and steel-gleaming folk from the Rusrike.
Rory’s eyes still blurred from the glitter and spectacle.
He hovered now in the broad open front court of Lionis Palace, one of hundreds crowding the space. Near the arched double doors leading into the palace a dais had been erected, hung with brilliant orange banners. The king of Aremoria sat upon a white throne, resplendent in orange velvet and pristine linen. A crown of gold gleamed at his brow. Cup of cider in hand, Morimaros spoke with whomever approached—it was a long, winding line—for a moment or two, focused and engaged. Gifts accumulated behind him on the dais, accepted by the Twice-Princess Ianta and passed into the hands of lion-liveried attendants.
The cider flowed freely, dipped into cups from great barrels and cauldrons, and edging the yard were tables laden with all manner of bread and fruit, and cheeses molded into lions, as well as tiny candies and lion-shaped fondants. Folk pressed and laughed, waved at friends, and gathered around the pockets of musicians. There would be performers later: more players and puppeteers, clowns, and even a series of eager students who’d been granted the opportunity to present their king with new inventions or ideas he might implement.
Rory should’ve been perfectly at ease.
In Aremoria, when he roused himself to his habitual charm and natural—though now somewhat strained—affability, Rory was popular. He smiled at the servants and carried water for the girls bringing him a bath, then shrugged so casually at the shocked footmen that they couldn’t bring themselves to judge him for not knowing his place. The captain of the palace guard, La Far, welcomed Rory to join him in morning exercise, and therefore Rory was accepted by the rest of the Aremore soldiers. At evening meals, Rory was solicitous of the noble ladies, earning their sympathy; what lords and husbands might initially direct suspicion upon him were mostly caught out by Rory’s earnest engagement. He was simply one of those men for whom relationships and society came easy, as he was handsome, loving, and expected the best of all those he encountered. It all sprung from the confidence of place, from knowing exactly what status he held in the world, and the never-before-undercut assumption that nothing would change: he would always be safe, well-liked, and respected by his kin, his people, and his peers and betters.
Only now, it felt oddly hollow.
Dreams plagued him that the earth crumbled beneath his feet, as did this constant feeling that he was not where he was supposed to be. Go home, that voice told him, but folk he trusted most had asked him to stay away. His brother, Elia herself, the impossibly practical Aefa, Kay Oak, and even the good king Morimaros, when he had managed to find time to sit with Rory. They all had implored Rory to be patient, to wait until the time was right.
The insistence that he remain tucked away in Aremoria felt less like concern, and more as though Rory were being dismissed.
He continued to smile, to flirt and charm, to listen and converse sincerely, yet through it all the urge to be elsewhere distracted him like a constant itch, even ruining such a brilliant festival day as this.
Behind him a bird squawked, and he whirled sharply around, nearly spilling the too-full cup of cider in his hand. A boy stood there, and behind him a tall man holding a pole with a perch at its top. Tethered there was a parrot, head cocked and tail flared. Rory did not think the parrot appreciated all this spectacle. But he smiled at the boy. It was Isarnos, son of Twice-Princess Ianta, and heir to the throne of Aremoria.
“You’re Ban the Fox’s brother, aren’t you?”
Rory managed to withhold the cringe. He turned it into a brighter smile instead. “Ban the Fox is my brother,” he said, and winked.