Aefa hugged her tightly, smelling the rich bergamot oil, the tart remnants of paint, sweat and warm skin—every Elia smell except charcoal smudged from a freshly drawn star map.
The princess pulled away, but held on to her friend’s hands for a moment. She stared into Aefa’s eyes, as if searching for something, and then smiled a very little again. Elia’s brow remained pinched, her wide eyes teary. Then she let go of Aefa. Fire, she whispered in the language of trees, and snapped her fingers.
Tiny orange flames flickered to life. They danced in the air, two of them, around and around, as if orbiting each other.
The light put warmth back into Elia’s eyes, and Aefa felt like crying, too. The princess drew her hands closer, and the flames drifted into one, joining with a tiny crackle. Elia allowed her face to crumple and tears to fall, but she did not lose the thread of magic, did not stop her even breathing, despite the weeping.
With Aefa’s help, cupping her hands around the flame to block the breeze of their motion, they walked to the hearth and knelt, adding their magical flame to the comforting fire.
REGAN
THE BED WHERE last Regan had slept with her husband was too wide, too cold, too lonely.
Better that she sleep against the earth, wrapped in the roots of a cold hawthorn tree, or ancient oak.
Wind rushed against the windows, skittered against the sharply pitched roof, and whistled down the chimney. The small fire flattened but held on to itself.
One of his long jackets lay folded over the back of a tall chair. Bright, gleaming red. “Connley,” she murmured.
But the wind outside hissed back her little sister’s name.
Gasping, Regan swept out of the room, past surprised attendants. She covered her ears with her hands, nails dug into her scalp. “No,” she moaned. The island should mourn with her, call her husband’s name.
Though Gaela was the first recourse of her heart, Regan was angry with her elder sister, too. As they’d come to the Keep, Regan had been desperate for privacy and a glass of wine, to discuss Dalat, breathless with the need to wonder with her sister: Was any of it true? What Elia said? Regan’s heart had struck a wild rhythm, her free hand curled into a fist so tight her knuckles ached. Had Dalat eaten the king-making poison herself?
But Gaela had turned a ferocious snarl on Regan and said, in the most drastically even, low voice, “No, it is not possible.”
Then her best, strongest sister had stalked away, leaving Regan truly alone.
But it was possible, if the trees believed it, if the wind screamed it, if—if poison was the true way forward on Innis Lear.
Regan’s breast heaved. The tingling, cold edges of panic pressed close, and she ordered one of the women trailing her to take her directly to Ban Errigal.
She did not knock at his door, just opened it, finding the Fox beside the hearth, where a small altar was spread and fire burned in a fist-sized iron cauldron. Three candles were lit, additionally, at the window, and a pile of broken glass glittered on the small table beside the bed.
Ban himself was already undressed, crouched in a long, loose white linen shirt that fell to his knees. His sword belt hung from the only chair and his boots stood tall beside it, along with the rest of his fine warrior’s clothing and equipment.
“Lady Regan,” he said.
“I would not be alone tonight.”
Silently, Ban came to her and offered his hand. The lines of his face were stark in the haze of candlelight. She allowed him to lead her to his bed. There he knelt and helped her out of her short boots. Perched at her feet, he lifted his head up. “Is there anything you need? Water, wine? Should I help with the overdress?”
His voice was soft, softer even than his forest eyes or lovely mouth.
“Overdress,” she murmured, and touched the places it laced under her arms. She raised them, and he worked quickly at the silk ties. Together they lifted it over her head, and Ban folded it carefully over the back of his chair. She shut her eyes as tightly as she could, and a flash-memory of Connley’s folded red coat waited in the dark.
“Please take some of the pins out,” she said next.
He obeyed, gently sliding his fingers into her coiled hair to find plain, dark horn pins. Removing enough so that the three thick braids fell around her neck and shoulders, he settled the collected pins beside the pile of broken glass on his table. Then Ban glanced at her eyes; Regan nodded, and he got into his bed.
Climbing in after, Regan put her head on his shoulder and her hand over his heart. Ban stared up at the shadowed ceiling, and they both listened to the wind shrilling against the ramparts. He was smaller than her husband and she did not fit so well against him.
What would Connley think of this? The duel, the hemlock, the stars and wind and love and death and … everything? Her hand curled into a fist again, the knuckles whitening. Regan did not wish to watch another duel. It would bring visceral memories of her love: the line of his shoulder, the gleam of his teeth, the passion shifting the color of his blue-green eyes. Regan’s breath had thinned; she was panting. Near hysteria with no warning.
“Regan?” Ban whispered.
“I wish Connley were here,” she whispered into the darkness. Ban hugged her, touched her hair as she trembled.
“It would all be different if he were,” the Fox said.
“Not the hemlock crown.”
“No,” he agreed.
“My sister would not lie about our mother.”
“Elia would never.”
“But I—I should be comforting you, Fox. You fight in the morning.”
“I don’t need it.”
“Is that a lie?”
“No.”
“Aren’t you nervous? Will you sleep?”
“I won’t sleep, but I … am not nervous yet. That will come. And, Regan, I am glad you are here.” Ban drew a shaky breath. “No one should be alone the night before battle. I have been, once, hiding in my dugout, waiting to send a signal. I knew the fighting would soon begin, but not the hour, I knew I would rage and kill, I knew … but there was no room in my hole for sword or shield, so I would have to acquire my own from the enemy. Those were the worst times. Alone and knowing little of what is to come. So this is better. I know who I face, and I know when, and why.”
“Do we know why?” Regan whispered. “Some moments lately, I don’t remember.”
“For love,” he said. And there was his lie.
For love, the witch whispered back, in the language of trees.
GAELA
GAELA LEAR STOOD outside the door through which Brona Hartfare slept. It was mere hours before dawn, and Gaela had yet to put her head to pillow.
Errigal Keep was a warren of new and old rooms, and tonight Gaela had wandered all the corridors and ramparts, from the deepest cellar to the tall tower platform, avoiding this confrontation, hoping to purge her rage and upset. But nothing had ever been able to do such a thing. She’d been born furious and riled. It was her lifeblood.
Had Dalat wondered why? Cared or not cared? Loved Gaela for that very ferocity or been afraid of it?
Had her mother killed herself assuming Gaela would be strong enough without her? Why hadn’t there been a final message or word she’d given Gaela to remember, the rest of her lonely star-cursed life?
So many questions, the largest of which hummed and begged in her pulse: Why why why?
Gaela pounded on the witch’s door.
“Brona,” she demanded, low and urgent.
In a moment she heard a shuffle and the door swung open. Brona waited in a loose robe, but she was unrumpled and clear-eyed.
Gaela shoved in. “Was there nothing she said for me? Why did she trust you and not me? I was sixteen!”
“Gaela,” the witch said, but Gaela had already stormed past her, toward the dimly glowing hearth. Spread over a heavy black cloth were all twenty-seven holy cards and a scatter of bones and polished rock.
“Tell me,” Gaela insisted.
“Gaela,” Brona snapped.