Not for the first time, Mars wished the Third Kingdom would agree to a permanent ambassador here in Lionis. Aremoria’s interests were constantly stifled by the empress’s insistence that all trade deals be brokered in her territory. His frustration was probably her goal. If Aremoria grew much richer or stronger, there would be a clearer path to rivaling the empire’s dominance over their neighboring continents. Mars had to send ambassadors to her, receiving none in return, or get nothing. Two countries cushioned the borders of Aremoria and the Third Kingdom, and Mars’s father had occasionally toyed with attacking Ispania or Vitilius in an effort to expand south and southeast against her. But Mars had an excellent relationship with the king’s council of Vitilius, one he was loathe to risk, and Ispania had been conquered and reconquered by the Second and then Third Kingdoms, each time eventually earning independence again. The familial connections between the Third Kingdom and Innis Lear put a handful of his best people on the side of careful marriage and no military involvement should Mars decide to take the island. Nobody wanted to risk the wrath of the empress, but all wanted more power for Aremoria.
The best solution, he thought, was to get the granddaughter of the empress as a wife and queen of Aremoria. Marry Elia, and then take Innis Lear against her elder sisters. After his time there, Mars believed the old king had done him a favor by closing off those holy wells. Innis Lear was ready for change. The people needed it.
As the discussion waged, Mars stood at the grand garden windows, his back to the council, hands folded behind him, staring out at the rows of juniper bushes below, trimmed into spiraled cones. Despite the fraught conversation behind him, his mind was full of deep black eyes and the tremble of the princess’s hand as she held the letters from home.
He had wished to pull Elia against his chest and hold her, comfort her, promise anything she asked. He had wished to take the letters and burn them if she was afraid to read.
“It is not only trade to think about, but security,” Efica, Lady of Knights, broke in. “Burgun holds Innis Lear in his sights, too, and if Aremoria does not seize it, Burgun might try, and with the sponsorship of the Rusrike who have long hunted an opportunity to best Aremoria.”
Mars’s sister, Ianta, asked whether Regan or Gaela might consider a stronger alliance. Kayo insisted Elia was the best and only true road for Aremoria, and Mars silently berated himself for not insisting that the exiled princess be here for this council. She should be speaking for herself. Let them all know what she would even consider with regard to marriage and alliances. But her spirit had seemed withdrawn these past weeks, diminished from the humorous young woman he’d so briefly met at the Summer Seat. Still, she had not lost that quiet core of resolve holding her spine tall, as if she truly were leashed to the stars. She mourned; she longed for her home and father. That was what he told himself.
Mars would not push too soon. But he wanted to marry her. Regardless of how it would necessarily shift his tactics in taking Innis Lear. In fact, Mars found he could not stop circling his thoughts back and back and back around to it: as if nothing else mattered to him as much as Elia Lear.
He could not recall a single time in his adult life when he’d been so tilted by his heart.
Perhaps the strangeness on Innis Lear had infected him. Perhaps she was a fracture in his careful crown.
She would not be happy to know he’d sent Ban Errigal to destabilize her island. To undercut Errigal and find a means of putting an Aremore leash upon the powerful iron magic.
I keep my promises.
“Take the island now, Morimaros,” said Vindomatos Persy, one of his northern dukes. “And negotiate your own new sea trade with the Third Kingdom after. They will enter a new bargain, for they crave Innis Lear’s copper. And use the possibility of marriage to a daughter of their empress’s line for better leverage.”
“Is that the sort of king you would have my brother be?” Ianta asked.
Mars could well imagine his sister’s expression, as cool as her voice, but likely with a mocking lift to her golden eyebrows. Novanos had reported that of late, Ianta and Vindomatos played a courtship game, though it remained unclear if Vindomatos desired Ianta herself, or to marry his daughter to Ianta’s son.
Silence dragged on behind him.
“It’s the kind of king our father was, Ianta,” Mars said. Their father had always encouraged Mars to view Innis Lear as a lost piece of Aremoria that needed to be reclaimed. There was an old prophecy, though one not officially espoused since forsaking religion; it claimed that the greatest king of Aremoria would reunite the island to the mainland.
Mars did not believe in prophecy, but he did believe in the power of his people, and their loyalty. Aremoria would rejoice if he regained the island. Especially if he did it with minimal loss of Aremore lives.
So he said nothing else, waiting for someone to press with a cause. Ianta said no more, and Mars thought he should tell Ianta of Ban’s mission. It would swing her arguments to know his man worked for their interests on the island, outside of Elia and marriage.
One of the councilors tapped a boot impatiently against the marble floor. Another sighed. Mars heard the tick of a glass touch the tabletop, and the soft gurgle of pouring wine. He still did not face them.
“Sir.” It was Efica. “You should marry her, first. Hold off Burgun that way, and it will be an opportunity for all our people to celebrate. Project strength.”
With that, he agreed. Rather desperately.
Kay Oak said, “Your majesty, it will go better for Aremoria in the long term if you marry an acknowledged queen of Innis Lear, not an exiled princess.”
“That’s true, though if she gains power, when you marry her the power would still be yours,” Dekos of Mercia said.
“No, I—” Kay tried to say, but Vindomatos interrupted loudly.
“If we act now, before they’ve consolidated their rule, it will be easier and faster, with less loss of Aremore life.”
Before any else spoke, one of the entrance doors clicked and suddenly swung open. Mars turned, alert for danger, though an urgent message was the most likely interruption.
Elia Lear halted a few paces into his throne room, chin up, mouth determined, eyes wide on him. Seeing her again was a revelation.
It always was.
Taking two concerned steps toward her, Mars said, “Lady Elia?”
Straw clung to the hem of her mint-colored dress, and her brown hands were so stiff and straight at her thighs it had to be an affectation. The throne room and the people in it fell away into a gentle roar in his ears, and Mars wondered if she’d like to go with him now down into the garden, and walk among the junipers.
But Elia instead turned to face the council table.
Kayo half stood out of his delicate chair, chagrined. Elia’s nostrils flared as the Oak Earl winced, and Mars recognized, finally, her anger. Her spark. His heart flew high with hope.
Elia walked to the edge of the table, stared at every member of his council; they gazed back unconcerned, curious, irritated, and a few as chagrined as Kayo, depending on their arguments.
The princess touched the corner of the map spread across the oval table, held down by weights sculpted into ships: an elaborately painted Innis Lear and its surrounding ocean, with the shores of Aremoria just visible.
“Are you discussing my island?” she asked, too softly.
“Elia,” Kayo said, fully on his feet now, sounding conciliatory.
She held up her hand for him to stop. Carefully, she turned to face Morimaros again.
“Yes,” the king said.
“You should not discuss Innis Lear without Innis Lear present. Not only is it insulting, it seems tactically unsound.”
His heart went wild at her offended tone, and his eyes ranged over her face as if all the pieces of it were separate, as if he could read her as clearly as any battlefield; she was a mystery in that moment. His lips parted, but the king maintained his silence.
The princess’s chest lifted faster; the only signal of the depth of her upset. She lifted her brow as if to encourage him. Yes? Speak?
As if he needed her permission.
“You are correct,” Morimaros said. “I apologize, Princess.” He ignored the shifting motions of his council; indeed, he only suddenly recalled their presence.
She said, “I was grieving when I took the haven offered by the Aremore crown, and I thank you, Morimaros, for the sanctuary provided so generously by your court, and for the time to appreciate my wounds.”
Mars nodded once. Any more and he would cross the small distance to her and touch her: take her wrist, brush his hand along her jaw, put his cheek to her curls.
Elia stepped nearer. “I am finished hiding.”