“You invite her ire, so why should we not use it advantageously?” Vatta answered.
Hal pursed her lips. Her sisters waited abreast, eyes wide and brows up. They were a handsome pair.
Airily, Hal said, “I’m visiting several star chapels this afternoon, join me if you must.”
Tigir whooped triumphantly, and Vatta smiled a cool but happy smile.
They went together between close-crushed homes spilling flowers out of window boxes, under lines of laundry strung from window to window, like hanging rainbow banners, bright against the pale limestone of Lionis. Hal led them to the next nearest star chapel, ducked inside to ask after Era of Innis Lear, then out again when there was no word of her. Nine star chapels existed in the city, spreading across both sides of the river, dotted here and there among houses and taverns, trade shops, guild-houses, butchers, bakers, and tenements.
Vatta kept her eyes open, casting about at the characters who passed, marking their progress so she could easily find her way home. She smiled and nodded at those who noticed her, and twice dropped coins into the cups of beggar children. Hal approved, despite knowing one of the children was blind one day, limped the next. Either way, the child needed money, and Hal flipped her a coin, too. Tigir strode before them unaware of nuance, merely assuming her place was here and space would be made for her. Hal remembered feeling the same, arm in arm with Hotspur, so certain they belonged wherever they were, just on account of being there. It was a sort of self-perpetuating fate: if we do it, we were meant to do it, so anything we do is destiny.
Damn Era of Innis Lear for dragging it all back to the fore of Hal’s mind. She could not shake off her wolf.
The fifth star chapel they visited was tucked between a butcher and a three-story inn with a blue-slate roof that would block the glow of Lionis Palace at night—all the better for stargazing.
Hal made to go inside, but Vatta started after her. Hal stopped, a hand on Vatta’s arm. “Wait.”
“I want to know what you’re doing.”
“Looking for someone. Just wait here a moment.”
“No.” Vatta tilted her chin up.
Tigir put her shoulder to Vatta’s. “We came with you to help, Sister, or support. Let us go. I’ve never been inside one of these hovels.”
“They’re holy, Tigir,” Hal snapped. “Have respect or don’t go with me.”
Vatta glared at Tigir, though to any who did not know her, it would simply appear as a slightly raised severe eyebrow. Tigir heaved a sigh.
“All right, but be quiet,” Hal said and she led her sisters through the small arched door, into the atrium. A hearth glowed with embers to the north, and the wooden floor was painted with a forever sky. Three small benches faced the earth saint alcove, where a polished statue of Saint Terestria stood wrapped in dried heather. Her eyes were clear glass. Beside the statue was a bust of Queen Celeda wearing a crown of crystal stars.
“It smells musty,” Tigir said.
“Like earth,” Vatta corrected.
“Hello?” Hal called, eager to move on and strangely uncomfortable here with her sisters. Would they report this to Celeda? Which was their mother’s spy? Hal is obsessed with religion, Mother, perhaps she should be sent away to a monastery or become a priest in the university. Then I will be your heir.
Yes, it would be Vatta, Hal thought, both bitter and oddly proud.
From beyond the sunlit door that led to an inner courtyard and garden, a priest in dingy gray robes came. He bowed and smiled. “Welcome, young ones. Have you come for a birth chart?”
Hal stepped quickly toward the old man. “Grandfather, do you know a young priest called Era? She is of Innis Lear, from the Errigal bloodline, with red freckles, dark curls, and a very vivid faith.”
“Lear!” cried Tigir.
Hal ignored it.
The old priest frowned and nodded. “She was here, five nights ago, though I’ve not seen her again. She said she searched for the prince, and I told her to follow the red ribbons.”
A smile invaded Hal’s mouth. It was a good hint; either Era would find her way or not, depending on her wiles and ability to earn trust.
The priest smiled back.
“But she no longer stays here?” Hal asked.
“No, I’m sorry, Prince of Riot. She moved on yesterday.”
Frustration churned in Hal’s guts, but she kept it off her face. “Did she say anything of where she would go?”
“I believe she would return to Innis Lear, having achieved or failed in her purpose here.”
Get out of my city, Hal had said to her. How she regretted it now, despite the performance she’d had to give. “Thank you. Here.” She dug into the coin purse tucked inside her coat, fishing out a coin and a long red ribbon with a thread of gold woven in. Leaning in for only the priest’s ears, she murmured, “If you ever need anything from my court.”
The priest touched Hal’s forehead, marking a spiral like the shape of turning stars. “Go with blessings, Prince Hal.”
She did, dragging out her sisters.
“It’s time for a drink,” she said, aiming for the Quick Sunrise.
Vatta kept pace with Hal, and said, “He knew you.”
“Prince of Riot!” Tigir laughed. “That’s amazing. It’s all true, then, you have your own court?”
“It’s a game,” Hal said with a dismissive shrug. “Are you coming to drink with me? You’ll be in more trouble if you engage with Ianta.”
“Yes!” Tigir said, moving faster, getting ahead of them despite not knowing their destination. She strode with her hand on her small Third Kingdom saber, stomping through the gutter of piss and mossy old water without concern for the fine leather of her boots.
Hal watched Tigir fondly, missing the luxury of youth.
“Why do you look for a priest from Innis Lear?” Vatta asked softly.
“It doesn’t matter,” Hal answered.
Silence was their companion for a half block, until Hal turned them river-ward, cutting through a looping alley toward Patter Lane. Then her sister said, “Tell me, Hal.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
Vatta grabbed Hal’s wrist and frowned. “Trust me with it. I know you are serious.”
Hal looked into her sister’s eyes, which glared softly back under the cold cut of her black brows. There were so many things she could say or ask. Had Vatta ever longed to be more than she was afraid she was destined to be? Did she fear the crown as Hal did? Fear blood and the cut of swords? Fear responsibility and fate? Vatta was a second daughter; she should never have to rule, but could choose to be advisor or soldier, priest or mother or all of them together. How could she understand Hal’s misery? Hal shook her head. “No.”
“You have to trust someone since Hotspur left!” Vatta cried it so suddenly, jerking away from Hal.
This spark of fury had come from nowhere! Hal swallowed and shook her head again.
“What is this?” Tigir asked, astonished, as she came back to them, eyeing both sisters innocently.
“Nothing.” Hal thinned her lips. “Go with me, if you like, to the Quick Sunrise, or go home. I’m going to get drunk with my friends.”
“I want to,” Tigir said immediately. “But …” She glanced at Vatta, who still stared at Hal with a flush shading her high cheeks. Vatta’s eyes sparkled with anger or tears; whichever, there were beautiful stars in the dark brown of her irises. Someday someone would die of love for those eyes.
For a moment, Hal regretted snapping, regretted not confessing to her sister.
“We can drink,” Vatta said tightly, “with the Prince of Riot, who may or may not be our sister.”
Tigir laughed again. “It’s a mystery!” She clapped a hand on both her sisters’ shoulders, then spun and walked again.
“Left, Tigir,” Hal said wearily, drawing herself up. “Go left and head toward the river.”
Evening sunlight cast her half in shadow, half in light, and Hal felt divided between
day and night, between past and future, love and hate.
THE QUICK SUNRISE tavern was a popular inn and drinking house near the trader’s district of Lionis, only three blocks off the river, and therefore people from all over Aremoria and the surrounding kingdoms frequented it. Miss Quick, the proprietor, had inherited it from her parents twenty-six years ago and though she’d married twice and had six living children to show for it, ranging in age from thirty to thirteen, Quick went by the name given to her as a girl for how fast the dawn seemed to come if you spent the night in her outrageous company. She and Ianta Oldcastle had been friends and sometime lovers for decades and Ianta owned the buildings on either side. Quick leased one as an adjoining inn, and Ianta liked to raise the rent against her credit in the Sunrise whenever Quick pretended to deny the old knight her sack.
Hal was in the middle of explaining their connection to her sisters when Vatta suddenly stood up, knocking a half-full mug of white wine to the wood-slat floor, and declared, “She’s here!”
The princess’s usually creamy-tan cheeks were blotched red from drink and her dark eyes were wild. She pressed her hands to the front of her dress and glared at Hal. Her pretty lips parted and she hiccoughed.
Tigir roared with laughter, as loud as only an eleven-year-old can be. She slapped a large hand on her gangly knee and nearly tipped backward off her stool. A serving boy in a skirt and low bodice caught her, laughing.
At the top of the stairs from the rowdy bar below, Ianta leaned heavily against the wall, scowling at Vatta. “Your presence is a surprise to me, too, lady princess. Though I see you’ve been enjoying Quick’s sack.”
“It is vile!” Vatta argued.
“Have some more,” Hal suggested, standing from the thronelike chair set in the center of the balcony, reserved for her royal ass only. “It grows on you.”
“More like …” Vatta paused, licking her lips, and narrowed her eyes at Ianta, then her older sister. “More like it burns the edges of your tongue and throat off until you only think it’s good.”
Laughter showed the crowd’s approval.
“Even more reason to have another,” said Ianta. “Where’s mine, Hal?”
“Here, pretty.” She strode to Ianta and put a cup in the old knight’s hand. “Have you met Tigir?”
“I would know Tigir in any court, so tall and with that nose of your mother’s right there on a square brown face.”
Tigir lifted her nose and grinned.
The serving boy—Ysso—who’d caught Tigir walked to Vatta. “You’re awfully upset,” he said, and took her hand, flattening it against his bodice right where there would’ve been a tit if he had any.
Vatta bit back a squeal as she pulled free her hand and spun to Hal. The prince slung an arm around Vatta and leaned in. “You will survive, Sister. Let’s have something better to drink.”
“I’m not a prude, Hal,” Vatta insisted in what she likely thought was a whisper. It couldn’t be for Hal to actually hear it through the merriment all around, below, and above them.
“I never called you so.”
“It’s only this is so very unprincely, and we are—we are princes.” Vatta put her mouth against Hal’s cheek. Her lips were hot compared to Hal’s relatively sober, cool flesh.
“We are,” Hal acknowledged mournfully.
They stood together at the rail. Below, the main floor of the Quick Sunrise bustled and shifted as men and women yelled conversations and shared bottles of wine or flasks of finer liquor. They wore all manner of styles, coats of Aremore colors, tunics and trousers endemic to nearly every land, some with slashed vests from Diota or fur edges from the Rusrike. A few wore ruffles from Ispania on skirts or sleeves; others covered their heads and hair with brilliantly dyed godscarves from the Third Kingdom. Hal saw nobody from Innis Lear.
One or two people turned their faces up to Hal, knowing her, for she stood at the rail like a queen prepared to address an audience. Perhaps they thought Vatta was a lover or friend, not another daughter of Celedrix. Hal grinned and pulled her sister closer. It was a mask, however, for the Prince of Riot thought not of performing, but rather of how easy it would be to tip over the rail and fall, fall, fall.
From this height she might land perfectly whole, or perhaps break her neck on the edge of a bench, or there, on that table just beneath her. If Hal leaned out and aimed well, perhaps her skull would collide with the corner at precisely the speed to brain her.
Hal’s grip on Vatta tightened with a shudder and she closed her eyes, backing up from the rail, but in the dark of her mind the image was ever more vivid: the swift flight, the crack, the silent gasps and screams, and her splattered brain matter. What color was the flesh of her nightmares? Pink as tongues? Or gray with rot from all her ill thoughts and sweet sack?
“Hal.” Vatta shook her. “Hal, are you going to vomit? Sit down.”
Swallowing, Hal looked carefully at Vatta’s concern. “I’m well enough.” The prince stepped firmly back, and turned the motion so she spun Vatta under her arm like a dance.
Her sister swayed but smiled. And here was Nova holding a black wooden flask filled with Hal’s favorite clear, sharp drink: Terestria’s tears. Distilled from perfect white winter berries that grew in mountain crags.
“Try it,” she urged, eager for Vatta to taste the tears and be lost in the lightning. Vatta here at the Sunrise was a terrible idea. Hal couldn’t keep her safe, and everything—every time she stepped back from an edge or out of the way of death, it was for Vatta. None of this trouble could be allowed to fall upon her sister’s shoulders or plant like a knife in her heart. Vatta deserved none of that burden.
Neither did Hal, but it was too late for all that.
Vatta cradled the flask, eyeing the small spout. She lifted it, lips parted, and stopped, catching Hal’s eye. “Will I regret this?”
“Not the first sip, not ever.”
“Only the seventh,” Nova said. Her voice was gravelly, despite her youth. She flipped short blond hair back from her scarred forehead.
The princess licked her lips, and Hal was quite aware several of her friends and Uncourt minions watched the flick of her sister’s pink tongue, and then Vatta drank in one determined motion.
Her lashes fluttered, and as she pulled the flask away her mouth stayed open for her to breathe the pale fire down her throat after the drink. “Oh,” she murmured.
“Oh!” cried a chorus of approving folk, followed by laughter.
Vatta’s eyes flew open and she froze at the attention. For a moment Hal thought she might blaze into anger and storm away, but instead Vatta turned her lips to a smile, pert and proud. She marched to Ysso and then thrust the flask at the young man’s mouth.
Pleased, but with a cushion of indefinable sorrow, Hal turned to Nova. She stepped into the woman’s space and slid her hands around Nova’s jaw, digging her fingers into the short layers of hair. “You always know,” Hal said, and kissed Nova’s open mouth.
Without ending their kiss, they walked awkwardly toward the wall, a creature of four legs and entwined arms, until Nova’s back knocked against the paneling and Hal could kiss at her leisure.
Nova had been one of the squires taken on just before the rebellion. She’d bullied her way to Hal’s personal service, winning out over slightly older girls with her avid attention to not only the necessary details of polishing armor and cleaning swords and boots and feeding the beasts—and horses, too—but Hal’s particular needs. Often, Nova had been ready with the right sweetmeat or favored coat for visiting before Hal even realized she desired it. She’d been a sergeant under Hotspur last summer, but when that ended, instead of going with the army or staying with the palace guard, Nova had showed Hal exactly what she wanted by sinking to her knees in front of the prince and polishing Hal’s boot with spilled sack and a knowing smile.
And the prince did like Nova, and care for her, and would truly and entirely murder anyone who harmed her.
Hal was not in love with
Nova, but she needed someone.
The prince’s fingers had found their way over Nova’s belt, digging into the flesh at the small of her back, and her lips burned from kissing. Hal held her eyes closed, enjoying the flavor of the kiss; passionate but familiar, rather like bestowing a gift upon a most precious retainer. And it would be difficult to die of a kiss such as this.
As she thought it, Hal imagined her lips turning soft as pudding and Nova’s teeth sliced through the bottom effortlessly. Blood blossomed too slowly, thick and pale as butter.
She jerked back from Nova, stunned at herself, and blinked at her lover’s too-near face.
“Hal?” Nova murmured. She licked plumped lips and dragged half her mouth into a wicked smile. “Should we go elsewhere?”
An errant string of conversation hooked Hal’s attention like a sword in the guts: “… and now we’ve word Mora’s married him,” Vatta said.
Hal spun.
“Must be a treat to be married to a shape-shifter!” laughed Tigir, waggling her eyebrows to the approval of the crowd, especially Ianta. Tigir perched on a stool beside Ianta, who’d taken over the wide seat of Hal’s Sunrise throne.
“A wife!” Ianta shook her head in wonder. “What a woman—she’s so much all steel. How will her body expand for babes when it’s built so rigid?”
Vatta’s cheeks remained splotchy, but she’d folded her hands tightly around a cup in her lap. Ysso had draped himself beside her, his hand on her thigh a tribute to Vatta’s drunkenness. “She’s firmly betrayed us now,” Vatta added.
“Who did Mora marry?” Hal demanded, shoving toward her sister. She gripped Vatta’s shoulder. “When did you hear?”
“Yesterday.” Vatta lifted her chin. “If you joined us ever you might’ve been there for the news.”
“Did she write to Mother? Or was it a spy?”
“It was an official announcement from the queen of Innis Lear, Hal. Mother is stripping Banna Mora of the March.”
The words slammed down over Hal like a heavy bell of cold remorse, thick and sinking. I’ll put the March in your name. “For—for marrying?”
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