Ban turned to the window and leaned out. The sky was a cold blue, clouds moving faster than they ought. This room overlooked the choppy Tarinnish, not the inner courtyards and garden lanes, and Ban was glad, since the dark and tumultuous waters did reflect his spirit.
He wasn’t sure he could bear seeing the gardens and verdant nooks, the havens of his fearsome youth. Once in a garden here, Elia had whispered to him that she dreamed of him, that she saw him next to her always. And once they had kissed in the rose garden, near enough to prick their sleeves on the thorns where he had first laid eyes on her, near enough that the early buds had exploded into full blossom. Once, he’d put his head in her lap and let himself doze there; her fingers played against his bottom lip and tangled in his hair. Once Ban had been hopeful, and impossibly happy. Once, he’d not remembered to guard his heart.
And so of course, it did not last: there came the memory of the hardened face of his father at dawn, and the sneering, proud king, and the realization that she would let him go, that he would be forever alone.
Putting his forehead to the wall, Ban tried to empty his mind again. The cold of the stone seeped into his skin.
He must tell Gaela and Regan he’d killed King Lear.
It was a weight Ban could not quite shrug off. Not for loyalty or sympathy for the loss of a father, nor for regrets—this was by no means the first man the Fox had led to his death. No, he was glad the old man was gone, but Ban had not guessed that this utter, devastating silence would ever be the consequence.
Innis Lear itself grieved the terrible old man, despite his rejection of rootwater and magic, his injury to the land itself. The island wept and wailed, but still it did not speak.
The king’s death should have been a triumph, a gleeful, malicious satisfaction sweet on Ban’s tongue. Instead, his stomach knotted anxiously.
Finally, there came the knock to summon him. Ban leapt at the door, composing himself once more as he was led through the narrow castle corridors. Despite broad windows, Gaela’s room was suffocating and closed up, brightened only by candles and firelight. The dark reds and blues and purples reminded Ban of nothing so much as the innards of a dying man, sprawled across a bloody battlefield. Perhaps that was exactly by design.
“Ban the Fox,” Gaela Lear said by way of greeting, and he liked that she used the name he’d earned, not his father’s bequest.
Ban had not been this near to the eldest daughter of Lear in years.
“Queen,” he said softly, giving her back the title that she, too, had earned.
Both Gaela and Regan sat already in tall-backed chairs, wine in a jug and plenty of steaming meat on their plates. It smelled delicious. Gaela gestured with greasy fingers for him to sit, to pour himself wine. She swallowed her bite. “We did not wait, so please do not worry about any formality now.”
Ban glanced to Regan, who’d bathed, and wore a dark dress of Gaela’s, tied tight enough to pucker at the eyelets, and bound with a wide pink belt in order to fit her slighter frame. The lady’s hair was braided simply in a loose crown, her face drawn still in grief. But her eyes were bright again. She nodded once to Ban, holding his gaze longer than was necessary; Gaela noticed this with narrowed eyes.
He could do nothing about that, and so sat, helping himself to the duck. Ban fed his suddenly voracious appetite while the fire crackled and wind blew hollow and high against narrow windows. Regan picked slowly at her plate, but Gaela finished and leaned back, and Ban knew it was a signal he should stop, too. He wiped his hands and drank deep of the dark wine. For courage.
The lady of Astore studied him, lounging back in her chair. Her dress was cut low and dyed so deep a purple it would be easy to imagine it only an extension of her skin. Some thick twists of hair, free of the white ribbons Gaela wore for mourning, had nestled against her neck and collar. “Well, Ban. You are the Earl Errigal now, besides a wizard, a soldier, and a spy. And my sister claims you’re hers.”
It was quite the opening gambit. Ban said, “Your sister Regan has won loyalty from me, and from the trees and roots, who are my friends. Her husband won me, too, by his own mettle and honor. Though I never thought they were at cross-purpose to you and your aims.”
Regan smiled, the ghost of last week’s sharpness in the delicate corners. “Never you and yours, Gaela. But your husband’s, maybe.”
Gaela held her gaze on Ban, never blinking. She was a ferocious dragon, born of these cold north mountains; he only a southern fox.
Showing his teeth, too, Ban said, “You were surely at cross-purpose with Astore, to kill him in the way you did.”
Ban was dazzled by the fierceness of Gaela’s regard, her grimace nearer a grin. “He betrayed me, and thought to rise higher.”
Regan said, “As did the former Errigal. And our uncle offered Ban the same, once.”
“Did he?” Gaela said silkily.
A flutter in Ban’s stomach caused him to regret the greasy duck he’d eaten, and the wine went sour on the back of his tongue. He forced a nod. “I told the Oak Earl no. And I said the same to your sister Elia, herself, when she told me she would find—recover—and save your father, bring him out from the wilderness where he was cast.”
At this, both sisters leaned forward. “What is this?” Regan asked.
The Fox held his hand still on the cup of wine. “The night of the storm, when I led my father to his death, and Connley met his own, I came across Elia Lear lodged in Hartfare.”
“Elia is on Innis Lear.” Gaela stood, towering over the table.
I’m going to save you, too.
Ban forced himself to speak. He would see out the plan, commit to this destruction. “She came to save your father, from you both, no matter the cost.”
“Does she have Aremoria behind her?” Gaela leaned toward him, hands on the table.
“Not yet,” Ban answered, heart pounding. “But she will summon him, if she needs to. Consider making him the king of Innis Lear.”
“Over my dead body,” snarled Gaela.
Regan closed her eyes. “What a fool our baby sister is, to set her sights so low.”
“Aremoria will see the loss of your husbands as opportunity,” Ban said, though it was only partially true.
A soft cry of distress escaped Regan’s lips. Gaela gripped her shoulder. “We will find vengeance for Connley’s death, sister,” Gaela promised. “Take Errigal, and this entire island, for our own, in your husband’s memory and for our glory. Elia will be sorry to come home for this challenge. She should have done as we said, and we would have made her choices easy.”
Regan clutched Gaela’s hand. The two shared a long, hot stare.
Ban lowered his gaze to the remains of duck and violent streaks of berry preserves.
“You look poorly, Ban,” Regan said.
“I am reluctant to go against your youngest sister. To see her harmed, more than she might otherwise be. We were friends, once.”
“But?” Gaela prompted, sensing his hesitation.
“I must—we must.” Ban let all the years of loathing coat his voice. “Elia would forgive Lear everything.”
Gaela downed her wine, licked a drop of it from the corner of her mouth. She came to him and grasped the shoulder of his tunic, dragging Ban to his feet. Regan joined them, taking his hand in her cold fingers.
Both his and Gaela’s hands were rough and dry, muscled and scarred by swordwork. Regan’s were smooth and elegant, with nails ragged from their travels, still honed enough to bite. Ban thought of Elia’s soft brown skin, how it would blister if she went to war.
“You hate our father as much as we do,” Gaela said. “I remember you, as a boy. He called you her dog. As if dogs are not loyal, not true.”
“And you made yourself a fox,” Regan continued.
Gaela said, “I made myself, too, Fox.”