“Regan!”
The second daughter of Lear entered the slip of ash trees and brandished Gaela’s knife.
“No!” Elia caught her arm, jerking her around. “Regan!”
Blood and tears striped Regan’s face; her loose hair crackled with wind and energy. “My sister is dead,” she said in a hollow voice.
“… Gaela is dead?” Elia breathed.
“I was not so strong as her, nor so glorious.”
The girl, the little princess, moved carefully closer, staring at the dagger in Regan’s hand. “How?”
Regan shut her eyes. “Gaela drank Dalat’s poison.”
Elia swayed, struggling to remain on her feet. “No.”
Dry, cracking grief shook Regan’s bones, and she showed her teeth in an anguished grimace. “I will not live without her!”
“I know, sister! I know!”
Regan bit her lip, turning it gray then breaking the skin. Blood leaked free.
“Listen to the wind, Regan, to the island and these roots, please. They love you, this island loves you, I love you—you are not lost, we are not lost!” Listen, Elia begged, ash friends, speak to my sister, this is Regan Connley of Lear.
The grove of ashes shook and shivered, whispering Regan’s name.
She closed her eyes. I know, she said to them. I am roots, I am the roots of this island, I am born of you, and formed of nothing else. Nothing is born from me but wormwork!
Elia knelt before her sister. “We have each other, we can still … we can still be better … a family.”
“A family! Our family is dead. All poisoned, with flowers or magic or stars. My Connley, dead. Gaela, dead. Our mother, too. Ban the Fox, dead—and you should be glad of that, sister.” Regan grasped Elia’s chin and took aim. “Our father’s murderer, slain now by your valiant king of Aremoria.”
“What?” Elia wrenched herself away.
“Ban Errigal killed his enemy, our father.”
“No, Father was old, and in despair! I was there: his heart simply stopped!”
“By magic. A wizard with the ear of the wind and the love of the roots, and the hatred of our father.” Regan laughed wildly, recalling the panicked, terrible moment when Connley was dead and Ban had glowed, incandescent with rage. He had dropped a nut from his pocket and crushed it, and all the wind of the island had begun to scream.
Elia shook her head. Tears clung to her short lashes, and she flailed at Regan, trying again to steal the dagger. “It isn’t true. Give that to me, Regan!”
But her sister pushed her back. “You tried to save him, last night. You love him, still.” She laughed more, but it was weak now, almost sympathetic. She knew what it was like to love too much and yet never be able to change a thing. Regan pressed the bloody scratches on her cheek again until they seeped, like the tears of Saint Halir, the spirit of hunters. Then she put one bloody hand against Elia’s and said, You will be alone, and for that I am sorry.
“Regan,” Elia whispered back.
“I will not miss you,” the witch said, lifting the small jeweled knife, “but you must remember us to your children.”
“Please, sister. Regan.”
Regan turned the knife upon herself. The point found her skin, just over the collar of her ruined gown. “I will take my mother’s way, too,” she said with a small, hysterical laugh. “The rootwater cannot save me from this! Soon, Gaela, soon, Husband, soon, Mother, soon, all my poor babies!”
Stop her, Elia begged of the island. She grasped Regan’s wrist, clinging to it. Wind, stop her. Be my ally. Ash friends, trees, stop her. Love her!
Regan lashed out at Elia’s face; pain burst in Regan’s hand and Elia folded quite suddenly. Regan took a deep breath and repositioned the knife.
The witch no longer listened as Elia begged the world, groggy, dragging herself up against a tree. Save her, please. Please.
The earth shivered.
Around Regan, roots pressed up, rolling the ground like ocean waves. Fingers of mud reached, worms of earth grasped Regan’s skirt, tugging at her. Regan looked down in surprise, blinking tears and blood.
Regan, queen, witch, lover, shuddered the whole of Innis Lear, opening its arms.
The ash trees bent toward her, their roots lifting, churning, walking the trees up out of the earth and nearer to Regan Lear.
Yes, she murmured.
Gaela’s knife fell from Regan’s hands.
An ash shoved Elia out of its way as the youngest daughter of Lear tried to hold on to her sister.
Seven ash trees gathered close to Regan, wrapping her up. Queen, love, Regan, they whispered as she slumped and wept, as she dug her hands into their golden leaves and their roots wound about her ankles. The trees twined themselves together, a braided tower of ashlings, closing Regan off from everything but their cool, dark center. They wanted her, and refused to give her up.
Then she was gone, leaving her last sister behind.
Wind ruffled the last autumn-yellow leaves, tossing them down onto Elia Lear like a benediction.
TWENTY YEARS AGO, THE SUMMER SEAT
GAELA CROUCHED ON her hands and knees in the center of her bed chamber. Her arms shook and her shoulders heaved. She squeezed her eyes so tightly shut it pulled at her scalp.
Her sister crept slowly into the room, even younger and slighter. Regan was not afraid of Gaela, but afraid of whatever in the world had caused this uproar. The fur and blankets had been torn from the bed and crumpled across the floor. Ashes from the fire and chunks of black coal were strewn over the hearth. The small weapons rack lay crashed on the ground, spears and elegant knives scattered hard. A tapestry in the bold patterns of the Third Kingdom had been torn off the wall; threads and rags of it were pinned high still, tatters drifting in the ocean breeze that slipped salty and cool through the narrow window.
Gaela had ripped off her little leather vest, too, a gift from their father that was very like a soldier’s leather chest piece. She’d scoured it with her nails, then grabbed one of the spearheads and slashed at the leather, cutting it in ugly stripes.
“Gaela?” whispered Regan, kneeling beside her sister. She smoothed her pretty skirt and held her hands folded in her lap, waiting for Gaela’s signal.
A great sniffle and then a following sob were enough; Regan wrapped her thin body around Gaela’s back, hugging with all her might. She hummed and murmured, pressing her cheek to Gaela’s shoulder.
For a long time, Gaela cried, in silent, painful gasps and sobs, her tears stuck in her throat. She fisted her hands against her knees, then slammed them into the now ragged rug, again and again, until Regan caught them and held tight. Gaela shoved her away and then scrambled after, grabbing Regan into an embrace. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she hissed, horrified at hurting her sister.
They leaned together, Gaela’s bloody knuckles smeared against Regan’s soft palms, foreheads touching, eyes closed.
“Did you know about the prophecy?” Gaela asked, in a bare breath of a whisper.
“There are so many.”
“About Mother’s death.”
Regan stiffened, wary.
Gaela struggled to breathe without trembling. “The stars say she will die on the sixteenth anniversary of her first daughter’s birth.”
“No.” Regan pulled back to stare at her sister’s face. Studied the stain of tears and pink, swollen eyes.
“I heard Satiri say it, and she doesn’t believe it, but they were talking about the baby. That it doesn’t matter if it’s a boy or a girl, because what matters already happened. She already has a first daughter.”
“Satiri doesn’t like prophecy, maybe she misheard.”
Gaela shook her head. She rubbed her eyes with the backs of her wrists. “Satiri doesn’t mishear, and she doesn’t gossip. I turn sixteen in eight years.”
It was twice as long as she’d already lived.
“I should die instead,” Gaela said. She released Regan and reached for the spearhead again: a spade of iron, the tip jagged and sharp. She put it to her neck and pressed, but Regan took hold of her wrist and dragged it away.
“No, you can’t. You can’t do that.”