The Lord of Stariel

by A J Lancaster

  “Not at all!” he protested. “Please, sit. Will you take tea with my mother and sisters?”

  “Perhaps,” Hetta said, perching lightly on one of the chairs. “But I wanted to ask you something first. Something potentially rather serious, I’m afraid.”

  “You alarm me.” Angus held a hand to his heart. “I hope you’re not about to cast me off entirely?” He tried to pass this last remark off as levity, but there was wariness in his tone.

  Hetta threw caution to the winds. “Angus, what do you know about the Star Stone?”

  As soon as she’d said it, she knew. Angus covered his initial reaction well, but she’d been watching closely for it.

  Angus frowned, continuing the charade. “The Star Stone?” he repeated in a confused tone.

  Hetta sat back in her chair with a sigh. “Oh, Angus. Why would you do such a thing?”

  “I’m afraid I’m rather confused as to what you mean.”

  Anger began to kindle in the pit of her belly. “I’m not a fool, though I think you’ve tried to make one of me. Does the name James Snickett mean anything to you? I suppose he was an old school friend of yours. That must’ve made things easier when you needed an illusionist you could trust. And Smithson’s Manufacturing? I was there, Angus, when you picked up the dashed box.”

  This time even Angus couldn’t pretend he wasn’t startled. He blew out a breath. “How did you find out?”

  “You think it’s all superstition, which makes me slightly less angry at you. You have no idea what you’ve done, of the danger you put Stariel in. But that’s of no matter right now. What does matter is this: what have you done with the Star Stone?”

  “Hetta…” Angus held out a hand towards her.

  She recoiled. “The Stone, Lord Penharrow. Where is it? Or will you force me to make a fuss about theft? I don’t desire to make my affairs public, but you can be sure I will if I have to.”

  Angus abruptly gave up his pretence of innocence. He fixed her with a very serious look and then said softly: “Whyever do you want it back, Hetta?”

  “I wasn’t entering into a debate with you, Lord Penharrow. I was demanding the return of a valuable family heirloom.”

  “I admit the theft doesn’t sit well with me. But—”

  “It shouldn’t. And there is no but,” she told him. “Where is it?”

  “Come, Hetta, don’t tell me you think that a pseudo-magic rock is worth all this fuss?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  Angus scoffed. “You’d give up Stariel’s lordship?”

  “It’s not rightfully mine.”

  And now Angus was leaning forward, his hazel eyes intent. “But why shouldn’t it be? It took you by surprise, but you’re thriving in the position. You have the ambition and the intelligence to make Stariel great again. More than any of your male relatives. You know that; you’re not a woman of false modesty.”

  Hetta was silent. It was true that she’d been unable to keep from turning her thoughts to changes that ought to be made at Stariel, despite knowing the impermanence of her claim. And she hadn’t fought terribly hard against Marius’s suggestion that she maintain the fiction as long as possible.

  Angus sensed her hesitation and continued, surer of himself. “What does it matter about the Star Stone or how you came to be lord? It’ll cause a hell of an uproar if you try to change it. Why not continue as you have been? Make the best of things?”

  “And you have only Stariel’s interests at heart, of course,” Hetta said, raising a weak protest.

  Angus grinned, that same disarming smile that had made her younger self’s heart skip a beat. “I’ll admit I may have been looking out for my own interests too. It was wrong of me, but I couldn’t bear to see such good land wasted. Your father’s management was appalling—which ought to be evidence enough against the Star Stone’s wisdom.”

  Hetta had sworn not to be drawn into a discussion, but she was finding that an increasingly difficult vow to keep. “And Jack, his likely successor? You assumed he’d be no better?”

  “I assumed he’d be just as stubborn in his refusal to sell the land along the border,” Angus said. His frankness was disarming. Hetta was fairly certain he knew that and was using it to win her over, but the realisation didn’t lessen its effectiveness. One oughtn’t to admire such ruthless practicality, and yet…

  “But why me?” She dug her fingers into the arms of her chair. “I’m aware you’re complimenting me for your own ends, Angus, but you can’t make me believe you had any particular memory of me before I arrived.”

  “You were an impulse,” Angus admitted. “I like you, Hetta. I had originally planned for Cecily.” Hetta could see the logic in that. Her older cousin Cecily would’ve taken Mr Fisk’s advice on the matter and that would have been that. With that thought came another sinking realisation.

  “Mr Fisk was yours,” she said dully. “Trying to persuade my father to sell, and then trying to persuade me. Making things worse than they already were.” She closed her eyes briefly. “Did you know he was skimming or was that outside the scope of your arrangement?” Her voice came out sharp and brittle as hoarfrost.

  “Hetta—” Angus began, reaching out a hand again, but he didn’t deny the accusation, and she moved out of his reach. He took his hand back

  “And you figured that if I wouldn’t sell, then I might be persuaded into another arrangement. After all, I hero-worshipped you as a girl. How difficult could it be, to infatuate the woman?” Her lips tightened, anger swelling once more. “Where is the Star Stone, Lord Penharrow?”

  “Hetta,” he said again, and this time there was pain in his voice. “I spoke truly when I offered for you. I think we’d make a good pair. I still do. This doesn’t have to mean the end of that.”

  “I think it does. Now, for the last time, where is the Stone?”

  For all his compliments, Angus didn’t appear to be able to take her demands seriously.

  “Don’t be hasty about this, Hetta. At least think it over.” He made a conciliatory gesture and would have reached for her again, but Hetta’s temper abruptly snapped. How dare Angus think he could simply smile at her and make all this go away! How dare he take what wasn’t his! Fire flared within her—the same fire she’d hurled at a fae monster—and she let it swarm, flinging out her arm and casting it out. The fireball hit a section of wood panelling with a great crack, and it was an effort of will to squash the flames before they spread.

  Angus stared as if he had never truly seen her before, the acrid smell of smoke heavy in the air. She looked down at her hands; she’d burnt through the palms of her thin gloves. She peeled them off, filled with a surging, furious satisfaction.

  Then she stood, curling her hands into fists to keep them from re-igniting. “Don’t push me, Lord Penharrow. Much as I might be tempted, I couldn’t live with such a weight of falsehood on my conscience. I can’t explain it to you, since that’s obviously something you lack.”

  His mouth thinned. “Fine. I’ll get it.”

  “You may take me to it.”

  Without a word, Angus rose and strode out of the room. Hetta followed him. He made his way up to what she presumed must be his office from the desk and papers there. He stalked over to a strongbox built into one corner of the room, fiddled with the combination lock, and wrenched the door open. Reaching inside, he pulled out something the size of a large, misshapen apple swaddled in cloth. He turned around, sorrow and anger warring for control of his expression as he handed it to her. “Take it. Damn you, Hetta.”

  Hetta ignored this, carefully pulling the linen wrapping away to inspect the item. The glittering blue of star indigo winked up at her. The tension thrumming through her eased a little.

  “Thank the nine heavens.” She re-wrapped the Stone and cradled it close. “I will take my leave of you then, Lord Penharrow.”

  Angus said nothing as she left. Hetta felt only a hollow coldness, as if the fireball had used up all her anger in its
heat.

  She nodded at Marius when she came out of the manor, and he relaxed infinitesimally, his gaze snagging on the wrapped Stone in her hands. She didn’t release her hold on the Stone on the drive back to Stariel, hugging it tight to her body. It weighed more than its size would suggest, the solidity comforting.

  Marius didn’t seem to know quite what to say, and Hetta was glad for his silence, for this short reprieve before the storm rolled over them. It would be a mess, explaining to the rest of the family what had happened, having to hold the Choosing Ceremony again. Somewhere deep down was relief at finally finding the Stone, but it was buried under a huge, complicated emotion. It dug claws into her, a sharp, painful constriction in her chest that made it hard to breathe.

  It was grief, she realised after a moment of internal self-examination; the grief she’d been waiting to feel since the moment she’d arrived at Stariel Station. But it wasn’t grief for her father. The irony of this wasn’t lost on her.

  Jack and Wyn were both waiting in the entryway when they returned. Gods knew how they’d explained their loitering; Wyn had at least made some attempt to look as if he had a reason for being there, holding a clipboard vaguely. Jack was simply pacing.

  “Well?” Jack demanded as they opened the door.

  As answer, Hetta pulled back the wrappings from her burden. Her bare fingers brushed the Star Stone’s cool surface.

  The world shifted. The sensation grew outwards and downwards from her feet, as if she were a tree spreading roots deeper and deeper into the earth. She was no longer Hetta. Hetta was now just one tiny part of her. She was soil and roots, trees and mountains. Animals moved across her skin, and she was them as well. In her forests the leaves grew still, and she was a thousand thousand trunks slumbering in the cold. Blue squirrels and robins and blackbirds paused as she became them, tiny hearts skittering for a fraction of an instant as they and she adjusted. She felt the soft paws of a fox rearranging herself deep in her den.

  In the sheepfold, the cloven hooves of sheep sank into her bogs and scrambled up her steep hillsides. Along the Indigoes, the cold wind swirled about her, caressing her, promising snow. And everywhere she felt the trickle and swirl of water, in her creeks and rivers and lakes, and beneath them, the slow, inexorable movement of the groundwater. And mightiest of them all, Starwater, its still surface broken only by the occasional shag.

  She felt the weight of the house’s stones upon her, felt the wriggle of the tiny humans inside and knew they were hers. Many of them held a spark inside, and she felt their connection to herself through it. She reached out and touched the sparks, gently, felt them flare in acknowledgement in the same way that the hearts of the tiny birds had as her awareness encompassed them.

  She felt too the duality of her existence—Stariel and under-Stariel, two worlds occupying almost but not quite the same space. Tiny fae, native to Stariel, paused in their businesses to acknowledge her. She felt, too, the greater fae-spark who was not of Stariel, felt his solemn salutation as her awareness passed over him. And along her southern border, the smallest of testing intrusions by more fae who did not belong to her. She squashed them ruthlessly, turning them back. You are not welcome here. You may not pass my borders. She bore down upon them with terrible force and felt them crumple before her, fleeing.

  She was so alive, more alive than she’d ever been; more alive than she’d known it was possible to be.

  And then she was just Hetta again. It was like breaking the surface after having been under deep, cold water for a long, long time. The entryway had rearranged itself. Disoriented, it took her a while to realise that this was because she was lying on the floor, the Star Stone still held in one hand.

  She felt the immensity that was Stariel lurking in the back of her mind. It wasn’t the small burble of land-sense she was used to. She knew that if she chose to, she might plunge back into the connection again, but she knew also that that would be a very bad idea, that one could lose oneself entirely in something so old and vast. She felt, for the first time in her life, a wholly discernible emotion from the land.

  It was satisfaction.

  She opened her eyes to see three faces peering down at her, all of them with wild eyes.

  “Well, that’s convenient,” said Marius when he finally found his voice. “Turns out you are the Lord of Stariel after all.”

  43

  The Frost Ball

  Lady Phoebe had outdone herself for this year’s Frost Ball. Hetta watched the throng of people whirling about Stariel’s ballroom with a bittersweet mix of emotions. The mood in Stariel House had lightened, and if Hetta’s stepmother chose to believe this was because everyone was excited about her party, there was no harm in that.

  Nothing, she knew, would be as important to her as Stariel now. She’d known that since the moment the bond had clicked into place not quite a week ago.

  She reached for Stariel, and the land responded. It was so intensely alive. She walked out onto the terrace, and Stariel hummed beneath the cool stones, wriggling with interest and a kind of eagerness to please. On impulse, she stroked her hand over a slumbering tree branch and felt the magic stir, green buds unfurling at shocking speed. I probably ought not to do that, she thought guiltily, pulling the magic back. It was deepening towards winter after all, and the buds would wither in the cold. But the irony of it hadn’t escaped her: here was more magic than she’d found in all her years in Meridon. How could her father have been so indifferent to it? And just how much could she achieve by embracing it? She wanted to find out.

  She made her way into the dark gardens with unnatural surefootedness, feeling each place to step without the need to look first. The gardens were still and silent but for the distant strains of music; there would be a frost tomorrow.

  One of the advantages of her new bond with Stariel was that she knew where people were within the boundaries of the estate, if she wished. She paused next to the ornamental cherry trees. Wyn had been standing here alone for some time. Her new land-sense didn’t enable her to read minds, but she didn’t need to in order to guess the turn of his thoughts.

  “You’re thinking of leaving,” she said without preamble.

  He was nearly invisible until he moved, his slender form peeling away from the dark shape of the trunk. The sound of music from the ball carried to them clearly in the cold air.

  “It will make things less complicated for you with the fae. I have drafted a notice for my replacement, and the applicants for the role of housekeeper will be here after Wintersol to be interviewed.”

  Hetta went to him. “Will you dance with me?” The band inside were playing a slow waltz.

  “Hetta,” he chided, but after a moment he held out his hand. “Here?”

  “Yes.” She stepped into his hold, her breath catching at the light touch of his hands on her waist. “Why do I want to make things less complicated with the fae?” she inquired as they began to move to the slow time of the waltz. Whatever had possessed Phoebe to pick such a solemn tune, she was grateful for it at that moment. It meant that she could lay her head against Wyn’s chest and still move in time to the music. He made an inarticulate sound, half-protest, half-approval, before his arms tightened around her.

  Wyn swallowed, and she felt the motion quiver through their bodies. “They will demand you turn me over to them. I do not know what they will do if you refuse. Nothing good, I suspect. I do not wish to bring that down upon you.”

  “What about the oath Grandmamma mentioned you made?” Hetta burrowed closer. “To my father?” He stiffened, and she looked up. “Oh. Oaths can be dissolved if the person who made them is dead. My father is dead. You aren’t oathbound to Stariel.”

  “No,” Wyn said. “I am not.”

  Their faces were nearly touching, the warmth of his breath intermingling with hers, but he remained silent.

  “Do you want to stay?” she asked eventually. “While we’re advertising for housekeepers, I’m in the market for a steward, if you ha
ppen to know someone who could fill that role.”

  He laughed, but his eyes were dark as forest shadows. She wanted to speak further, to command him to stay, and felt Stariel surge up in agreement with that desire. She repressed it; this had to come from him.

  His voice was quiet. “Yes.” A pause. “But I don’t want to bring further trouble here. You can’t ignore that, Hetta. You shouldn’t ignore that.”

  She held his gaze. “I’m not inclined to let bad fairies dictate my actions out of fear of what might happen.”

  He smiled faintly at her description. “You make it sound so trifling.” His gaze sobered as he contemplated the distant lake. The vast surface acted as a mirror, silver glittering in its depths. The Court of Falling Stars, she thought of the fae name for Stariel.

  “I’m not afraid of the fae.” She smirked, thinking of the fire she’d unleashed from her hands. “And I’ll fight them for you if I have to.”

  He let out a soft huff of amusement. “Oh you will, will you?”

  “That’s settled then,” she said. “Now will you stop brooding and, for the nine heavens’ sake, kiss me?”

  He stiffened, their slow dance coming to an abrupt halt.

  Far away, the band began to play a fast-paced folkdance. Wyn stayed so quiet that she worried he’d stopped breathing. Then, as his still silence continued, she worried she’d offended him beyond recall. She was about to say something when Wyn abruptly threw back his head and laughed. It trilled out of him, silvery and delighted.

  “Oh, Hetta,” he said with such fond matter-of-factness that she blushed. He lifted a hand to cup her cheek. “How did I ever think I could resist you?”

  “You are the worst—” she began, but the rest of her words were lost as Wyn abruptly lowered his head and kissed her. Her awareness narrowed to heat and the press of lips and the thunderous roll of her heartbeat. When he paused to draw breath, she squeaked, “You—” But he kissed her again, and after that she couldn’t think of anything else.