REGAN, LADY CONNLEY, almost-queen of Innis Lear, stood naked but for a thin white shift hanging off her shoulders and down just past her knees. It brushed her hips, her small belly, the tips of her breasts, dappled by early morning shadows that cut like lace through the canopy of the White Forest. She wore no paint nor jewels, no slippers, and her brown hair fell free in soft waves. Her eyes fluttered under closed lids, her mouth relaxed in a low, gentle prayer in the language of trees.
She greeted the forest, saying her name and her mother’s name, and the names of her father’s mother and grandmothers, then a litany of favored earth saints. On long, bare feet, Regan walked over mossy rocks to the edge of a creek. Crouching, she touched the water, listening to the reply of the trees.
Welcome, beautiful witch. We know you.
This was the realm of Brona Hartfare, but Regan had come to use the power of the White Forest without the help of Brona; the woman had tried before, to no avail. The babe Regan had lost last month was the culmination of the elder witch’s best efforts. Everything going forward was up to Regan herself. And produce a child she must: the future of Innis Lear depended on it, as well as her relationship with Connley. He loved her, but if she did not bear the next ruler, he would focus all his determination on taking the whole island from Astore. And he would not care if Gaela was lost in the process.
Connleys had once been kings, and he’d see it so again, one way or the other. It worried Regan, as much as it inflamed her, his noble rage and confidence the sunlight to her darker, inconstant shadows. They would merge and unite into a glorious dawn, but to protect her family, it must be through Regan’s issue. Her husband insisted. At Midwinter, you must earn the blessing of the island over your sister, which should be simple. You are the queen of the island already—you hear its voice, you bleed with its holy rootwater. There is no other way.
I do not want to take it from my sister.
At the cost of what, Regan? Always waiting for Astore to rise up, for Gaela to be restless and bite, to wipe my name from history, without our own blood to give this land life. And what of your dreams? Perhaps when you are queen, when you are the star-ordained and island-blessed queen, the rootwater and stars will give us a child. Have you thought of that?
Regan had not, though she saw that Connley had for a long time been convinced. She’d not thought he kept anything secret from her. She said, Let me have this time, then, to get with child again, to show you I can, that I will. Before the Longest Night.
He had agreed, but he insisted they come to Errigal Keep, for Connley to treat with the earl and secure the long-held alliances between their families. In preparation for war against Astore, just in case the tides turned. Or even as guard against invasion, if Elia bent as he assumed she would. They already had Glennadoer with them, as Connley history demanded, and they would do best to remind Errigal of this loyalty.
This land of Errigal’s was a barren landscape, raw with iron. Regan worried at her chances of conceiving here at all, much less carrying a child. Yet, it was just beside the White Forest, the most pure of heart of the island: in some places the trees leaned together so ancient, groping, and thick, no star or moonlight ever shone upon the churning black earth. Things unknown to the stars might be born here. And that ancient star cathedral waited somewhere inside it, ruined and alone. If Regan could find it, and uncover the holy well, perhaps that rootwater could restore her womb. Perhaps her dreams would bring peace instead of urgency or despair.
There had to be something she could do, that no healers or witches had heard of before. If she was an ally of the rootwater, the forest should tell her.
Regan stepped into the cold creek, relishing the shiver as her thighs tingled with raised hair and her spine chilled. She knelt, her knees parted enough to welcome the water inside her. No sun pierced through the arcing boughs of the oak spread over this narrow section of creek: all was shadow. Regan buried her hands in the water, digging into the silt and pebbles below. Tiny fish darted away, and she heard the call of a frog. The voice of the great oak mingled with the wind and he said, This is a cleansing place, daughter. Welcome.
Take away my impurities, Regan replied, splashing water up onto her face. It dripped down her neck like icy fingers, spotting her shift so it stuck to her collar and breasts. The creek water pressed around her hips and at her belly, finding the curves of her bottom and tickling the soles of her feet.
For a moment, she wished she’d brought Connley here to bury his seed deep inside her, under this oak and in this creek.
Regan dragged her hands up her thighs, pulling the wet shift high. One hand moved up to press between her breasts, over her heart. The other slid into the darkness where her pleasure lived. She opened herself with her fingers, whispered coaxing words to the forest, calling on the Tree of Mothers, the Bird of Dreams, and the Worm of Saints. Bending over herself, Regan shook and gasped, never stopping her prayer, until she rattled with passion and her words were hoarse, hissed in the language of trees and sounding exactly like wind through branches, on long moorland grass, against the rough peaks of the mountains. It was a plea pushed through her teeth, heavy with desire and love and longing.
Regan became more than she was: a piece of the forest, with roots and branches for bones, vines of hair, flowers where her lips should be, lichen hardening her fingers, and a black-furred bat unfurling its nighttime wings inside her womb. It fluttered and scratched, then shrieked as Regan shrieked, spilling her magic and her delicious pleasure into the creek, into this vein of the island.
Water covered her body as she stretched on her back, only her lips and nose and eyelashes above the water, and her toes. She was river rocks, around which the creek slid, shaping her smoother, polishing her skin to a luminous brown-gray.
Tell me where to find the forest’s navel well, she said, her voice echoing in her skull beneath the sound of water. Or tell me how to see what is wrong with me, I ask you, roots of my mothers, trees and birds of this island, please, that I may bear a child who will love you, rule you, and be yours in return.
Ban!
Regan frowned. The name sounded sharp in the language of trees.
Was this her answer?
The Fox is coming.
Beneath our branches, in the shade of our voices.
Iron and smoke, teeth and longing.
The Fox!
Regan sat abruptly. Water sluiced off her, and she got onto her hands and knees, crouching. She stared all around at the blue-green-gray light, at the trees and bold late flowers crawling up toward the sunlight, embracing some linden and rough ash nearby. Three bluebirds danced, teasing each other; a squirrel chittered at her; there a flash of shadow from some other silent bird, a ghost owl, she thought; a soft buzz of insect life. Neither fox nor man to disturb her solitude. Then—
Flickering pale gray.
She stood, watching a line of several moon moths fly southwest, toward Errigal Keep. Too many to be natural, and as she studied them, three more arrived, flitting down from the canopy like snow.
Regan climbed out of the creek and the water painted her linen shift to her body, an earth saint rising from summer sleep. Quickly she took up the long jacket she’d arrived in, sliding her damp arms into the sleeves, pulling up the hood around her heavy wet hair. She left her leather-soled slippers here, nestled in moss, and followed the moths in silence.
They led her on a brief, easy path away from the oak and the creek, toward a clearing that sloped between two gnarled cherry trees.
A man stood in the center, his back to her, his shirt discarded with his sword belt and short black jacket. Scars etched his tan skin, carving his muscles into war-strong weapons. Sweat glistened in the curve at the small of his back. His hair was half in tiny braids.
Two dozen moon moths, white and creamy gray, perched upon his shoulders, and he allowed it, remaining still as a deep-rooted tree. They gently brushed their wings up and down, bestowing tiny kisses. Like he was an earth saint, too.
So the forest had answered her.