Calepia answered with a wry note, “There must be some benefits to becoming king.”
Elia glanced up, wary of being tested. But Calepia’s attention was on her daughter, and the two Aremore ladies shared some private humor.
“Tell me of my son’s stars,” Calepia said.
Elia hesitated briefly. “His Lion of War is a glorious but lonely birth star.”
Calepia made a strange purr of annoyance, then said, “My birth chart gathers dust in a corner of my treasury, inked in gold and set with some tiny rubies. It’s rather more worth its weight in jewels than usefulness, here.”
“What were you born under, if I may ask?” Elia said.
“The Elegance,” the queen said with a suggestion of hidden pride in the corner of her mouth.
“A star of resolution,” Elia said, digging through her memory for more. “And diplomatic promise. Do you know what the moon was?”
“I don’t remember.” Calepia sipped her spicy milk, eyeing Elia over the decorative pearls. Elia did not press.
“I had my holy bones cast once, at a festival,” Ianta said. “Do you do that?”
Elia shook her head. “The holy bones are the most direct connection to the wisdom of earth saints, and my father forbids them in his court.”
“In Aremoria, girls will play spinning games where you turn in circles the same number of times as years you are old, then stop and pick out the first star you see, and that is the star of the boy you’re meant to marry.”
Smiling, Elia said, “I have seen girls say a boy’s name the same number of times as it is days since the full moon, then toss stones to see what constellation they fall into, for the same outcome. It is not such things my father dislikes. He minds nothing that comes only from the stars. It is seeking signs in the shape of a flock of geese or in the scatter of autumn leaves that he believes … taints the perfection of star prophecy.” Once, Elia had been quite skilled at throwing the bones, thanks to Brona Hartfare, but she’d not owned a personal set since her father discovered her huddled in a corner of the winter residence at Dondubhan when she was twelve, giving secretive readings to a handful of his retainers. He’d forbidden her the bones because they were low and filthy, but the incident had begun their more serious star lessons together. She said, “Father disbelieves anything that is only a reflection of stars—like the cards—could offer true providence.”
“And do you believe in the providence of star paths, Elia Lear?” Calepia of Aremoria asked evenly, without judgment.
Elia opened her mouth; the answer was not forthcoming. She was wary of seeming a superstitious fool to these ladies. Though they were kind, they also were vetting her, since their son and brother clearly wanted her for a wife. They would wish to know if Elia could be convinced or compelled to give up the stars if she married Morimaros. There was no state religion in Aremoria any longer, none but king and country.
But Ianta answered first, in a wistful tone. “It has always seemed to me that the moon is a powerful creature. When I look at her, no matter her shape, I feel something.” She touched a hand covered in rings over her heart. “Perhaps a power pulling me down my path.”
“Perhaps,” the Elder Queen said, “you feel something born in your own self.”
“That is what my brother would say. He thinks the sky too distant to know what’s best for us,” Ianta told Elia.
Elia nodded. “I once knew someone who would argue that the roots of trees or the leavings of cows are closer to knowing our destinies than the cold stars.” She wondered where he was at that moment, what he was doing. How he worked to keep his promise.
Ban.
She could at least think his name now, surely, without suffering.
Ianta laughed bright and hard. “Ha! I should like to meet this friend who thinks of cow shit as a divining tool.”
“I think…” Elia folded her hands. “I think that the stars might see farther than we can imagine. Maybe when we’re born they do see how we will die, or how, overall, we will conduct our lives. Like a shepherd on the top of a mountain can see how the flock turns in the valley below. But it is the hounds and children nipping at the heels of the sheep that determine the immediate way. So we must make our own choices, and consider the stars only advisors. Not judges or rulers.”
“Wise, child,” Calepia said.
From the door, Aefa said angrily, “Would that your father were wise before he was old.”
All three ladies at the table glanced at Aefa, who stood with her fingers laced against evil prophecy. The girl raised her nose in the air unapologetically, but her defensive posture cut hard into Elia. Aefa was right. And Elia wanted to scream suddenly, to clutch her stomach and bend in half, to hit something. To shake her father until he took it all back.
Elia gripped her cup of coffee so hard it trembled and spilled over onto the polished table.
She gasped, and the women turned back to her; she wanted to scream even louder. Her face burned and her jaw ached from clenching. She thought she should apologize, but her voice would not agree.
“Oh, saints, Elia,” Ianta said, thrusting herself to her feet and pointing at a boy in the orange lion tabard of the palace. “This calls for something stronger than milk. Fetch three—no, four—glasses, Searos.” With that, Ianta swept up her layers of red skirts and made for the nearest library shelf.
Elia and Aefa stared, but Elder Queen Calepia only leaned against her straight-backed chair and drawled, “She’s thrilled, Elia. My daughter has been near bursting with wondering when you’d finally thin out that incredible armor you wear around your heart.”
“I’m sorry,” Elia whispered, braced for disdain or disappointment.
“Apologizing!” Ianta cried from the shelf, where she was moving piles of leather-bound books to dig behind them. “It’s been weeks! I didn’t know if I would have to fill you with wine and start asking terribly pointed questions. Mars has said many things, and all of them made me want to wrap you up in pillows and silk quilts to keep you from further harm.”
Calepia said, “Daughter.”
Ianta spun around with a long bottle in hand. “Cherry brandy.”
“Oh, no,” Elia whispered.
“Oh, yes,” Aefa said. “You need it.”
Elia met Calepia’s eyes.
The queen gave her a soft, sorry smile. “Ianta, Elia is safe here, and we know it, but how is she to know it? How is she to trust us when everything she trusted before was taken away?”
Though the queen directed the words at Ianta, she watched Elia, and Elia knew they were for her.
“You are safe here, Elia Lear,” Calepia said.
Safe.
These ladies offered safety to her as Morimaros did: like conquerors. Elia could accept it, sit here in their extended haven. Safety. But what would she be asked to exchange, what was the trade? Kindness and honesty were easy things to give when you were secure. Promises were safe. But safety was also inaction; it was a privilege granted, not won. Elia should’ve been safe with her sisters, yet she could not depend on it. Because they did not trust her—allow her—to be at ease with them, had not permitted her to share comfort. She had never been safe with Gaela and Regan, and they would never be on her side.
Admitting it, even for a moment, broke something open inside Elia, and it pushed out from her heart like a great wind. The hairs on her arms raised.
“Thank you,” she said to the queen and her daughter. “I think I’ll accept your brandy.”
Ianta smiled large and rejoined them with her bottle, pouring it all around.
Elia sipped the sweet cherry brandy to cover the cold rain in her stomach. She asked, “What do you believe in, here in Aremoria, if you don’t have stars or earth saints?”
The Elder Queen said, “Our king.”
“Is he so … worthy of it?” Elia forced herself to ask.
Twice-Princess Ianta leaned toward her. “If he reunites Innis Lear and Aremoria, he will be considered the greatest king we’ve had in a thousand years.”