“I wouldn’t do that. I’m not your father.”
“I promise you I do not see you as such a king as he. But I…” Elia lifted his hand and kissed his knuckle. She let herself breathe against the back of his hand as his fingers trembled. She turned his hand over and kissed the center where the skin was softer than where Morimaros would grip his sword.
At the touch of her lips to his palm, Elia shivered. Heat spiraled in the small of her back. When she breathed, she was suddenly aware of the press of her breasts against the stiff bodice, and her bare feet against the tickling grass. She had not felt so alive in her body in years and years, not since—
Gasping, Elia let go. She backed away, hands clamped together over her heart.
“Elia.”
That was all he said, without demand, or even longing: only her name, hovering there like a soft moon moth.
“I can’t marry you,” she whispered.
His short beard ruffled as he clenched his jaw, but it was only hurt in his eyes. He did not ask for more explanation.
That was what made Elia offer it. “You’re the Lion of War, and I’m the Child Star. Never together, despite Calpurlugh being fixed, always there in the north. When the Lion appears, Calpurlugh is consumed and vanishes.”
“Do not make this choice based on inconstant stars, Elia Lear,” he warned.
“It is my heart making the choice, and the stars are only … the reflection of it. The poem I grasp at, to try to explain to you.”
Morimaros lost all emotional expression. “The sun has no friends,” he said dully. “Nor kings, either.”
Elia did not understand the words, but she did understand the feeling behind them. Loneliness had been the star at her back, for these last years. “I’m sorry, Mars.” She took a long breath of rosy air, shocked the garden could remain so bright and colorful, when the king of Aremoria had gone dull and gray. “Someday—” Elia began to say, but Morimaros held up his hand.
He said, “I interrupted you here. I should withdraw.”
Though it hurt him, she could see, Elia did not stop him from leaving this time. She sank onto the grass, bowed over her knees, and covered her head with her hands. Grass scratched her ankles, the tops of her feet, and her nose. It smelled of earth, dry and thick, and of roses nearby. Elia breathed carefully, letting the perfume soothe her. There was one other piece of her refusal she could not have shared, for it terrified her: she would not marry a man who loved her, especially one as truly good as this one seemed. Her father had loved her mother, and then her death had destroyed him, though the stars had made him expect it all along. Elia knew her stars, too. Her loyalty had been fixed at her birth; there was no breaking its orbit. She could not risk causing such harm to Morimaros.
And Elia would not allow herself to find refuge at the expense of Innis Lear.
Aefa appeared and knelt at her side; Elia knew her friend by the gentle touch at the nape of her neck, and the stiff sigh as fingers picked at something on her shoulder. “The king looked wretched as he passed me. What did you say to him to carve such a mask?”
Elia leaned sideways so her temple touched Aefa’s knee, and her friend pulled her fully against her lap. The wool of Aefa’s skirt was soft on Elia’s cheek. “I did not say yes.”
“He proposed again?”
She nodded, then buried her face against Aefa’s thigh.
“Very demanding king,” Aefa said with a sniff.
“I hurt him.”
“Well, he doesn’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” Elia let the edge of a whine taint the words.
“Yes, you do.”
“Yes, I do,” she murmured to her friend with a sorrowful sigh.
I have to go home, she whispered to the flowers of Aremoria. Now. But they remained silent, ruffled petals shining like pearls in the zenith sun.
GAELA
IN HER OWN home, Gaela preferred to wear simple soldier’s attire: brown and gray leather, with some bits of mail or plate as the situation required, short skirts over trousers or only the trousers. A jacket that tied tight across the front for binding and armor. All finely made, but basic and plain.
Since her father had come to stay nearly a month ago, she’d learned an unfortunate lesson that her choice of clothing allowed Lear’s retainers to snub or ignore her, in seeming obedience to Lear’s own wishes.
She might snap for their attention or threaten to throw them out, and this or that retainer could bug out his eyes and be all apologies and smooth pretense, that he’d not realized it was her. Obvious lies, Gaela knew, as there was no one like her in all of Innis Lear.
Not since her mother had died.
But rather than act a fool for her father, or a furious brat in her husband’s eyes, Gaela now chose upon rising to put on a gown and glittering belt hung with amber and polished malachite, to have her girls weave velvet and glass into her hair, slide more than only the Astore ring onto her fingers, paint her bottom lip and the corners of her eyes. As if she attended a refined court every day, as if fashion and elegance were her best morning concerns. No retainer could pretend this Lady Gaela, this queen-to-be, this duchess in her pink-and-midnight gowns, her skirts lined with outrageously beautiful teal wool, a diadem crowning her black hair, could be mistaken for any less than herself.
So did she sweep into the rear court of Astore’s old castle, hunting her father and his commander.
Not five moments before, Gaela had come upon her captain Osli, back pressed to the stone wall of an unused hall between the duke’s study and the old solarium. It was a fine place to hide, and Gaela would never have found the young woman if she hadn’t been looking to use the solarium herself, to store the few of her mother’s things she’d brought home from the Summer Seat. Gaela refused to find displays for the beloved objects until Lear and his men moved on to their time with Regan and Connley.
The captain of Gaela’s personal retainers had, for the first time, hidden from her. Osli had gasped, straightened, and turned her eyes across to the opposite wall, clearly willing Gaela to walk past, ignore her—to allow Osli the privacy she’d come to find.
And Gaela would’ve granted it, if not for the reddened new bruise cutting an inch along her captain’s right cheekbone.
This was no battle wound or accident from the arena: Osli’s uniform held no dust or mud, and her knuckles were not red from hitting back. Only a single drop of blood marred the collar of her dark pink gambeson. Gaela stopped instantly.
To Osli’s credit, the girl did not bend her face to her shoulder to hide the wound, nor flee. She would not cower, as Gaela would not have. Her eyes had closed, though, and so the captain could not see the flash of horror and concern that slid through Gaela’s eyes before transforming into pure, cold anger.
“Who did that to you?” Gaela demanded softly.
Osli kept her lips pressed shut.
Gaela admired the determination but would not allow it. She intended to utterly destroy whoever had hit Osli. “There are times for honor in silence,” Gaela said, standing near enough she could see the roots of Osli’s hair. “This is not such a time. I will know, and you will tell me.”
“My lady,” the captain said, brave enough to meet Gaela’s dark eyes. “It will do no good.”
The smile that spread on Gaela’s mouth was not kind. “I do not intend to try for good. Tell me.”
Osli’s jaw muscles shifted as she clenched and unclenched her teeth.