Hal finished her cup of sack, gratefully accepting the dregs of Charm’s when he noticed hers empty. So very solicitous he was, charming, indeed, and stolid. Here her mother had served her a consort on a platter: handsome, good, ready, and ambitious. Not cruel, only as violent as Hal liked in her warrior-lovers. She ought to be thrilled, but thinking of bedding him, again and again, him sticking inside her, wove in Hal a special tangle of nausea.
Sometimes, when drunk enough, Hal envied those women who welcomed any sort of body to their bed. But most of the time she was glad to disdain masculine flesh—Ianta, too, had never bothered with men.
Hotspur said once, If only one of us were a man, wistful and easy, as if it would solve all their problems.
In the courtyard of the Quick Sunrise, Hal’s guts clenched, and every time she stopped cheering, drinking, being loud, her throat went tight. It was the day, she told herself. The day’s festival only, nothing else.
She ought to have stayed in bed today, huddled and aching from missing Hotspur.
But Ianta would know why, and so Hal had forced herself out, forced herself to play and dance and tease Charm and Nova both. She could do it.
At the end of the sisters’ performance, Ianta herself heaved up off the well’s rim and strode to center stage. “Good folk of Lionis, I am Ianta Oldcastle, lady of knights, friend to kings and princes, lover of women and seeker of magic, wind-whisperer, sword-crusher, and—”
Hal threw the remains of sack in her cup at Ianta, laughing. “What will you perform, oh mighty giant?”
Ianta drew herself up with exaggerated dignity. “A tale of greatness born, from a century ago,” she began, drawing it out to turn and eye people at every edge of the courtyard stage.
“Morimaros the Great!” cried Nova, knowing the start of this tale. Her call was echoed by many, and Ianta flapped her hands for quiet from her audience.
It was Ianta’s favorite story, of the battle Morimaros won against Diota when he was no more than Captain Mars, commander and soldier. His identity—that he was the heir to the throne—had been known to only a few friends. From the battlefield he’d emerged with glory as his mantle, but before his soldiers came a royal messenger with white flags. The king, Morimaros the First, was dead, and his son now was king. The messenger cried it loud for all to hear, summoning Mars to take the ring, the Blood and the Sea, and put off his everyman-self, his facade of simple soldier. He must now be King Morimaros.
Would that Hal could rebirth herself from obscurity as Mars had. Whether Prince Mars had built his legend deliberately or not, it was one of the best tales, and everyone loved him for working as a common man for a while, even a hundred years later.
Charm leaned toward Ianta, listening—oh, he had never heard the story! Hal smiled, clutching the rim of the well. All eyes were riveted to Ianta. If Hal leaned back, if she fell softly into the black pit of the well, how long before it would be noticed?
Nova would realize, would feel the empty air where once Hal’s legs rested to either side of her shoulders. Nova would mourn, knowing there was no point to gathering rope to climb down and down into the dark where Hal’s body crumpled, curled like a babe in a cradle, at the base of the well. Embraced by black water.
It sounded peaceful to Hal. Noise would find her, but muffled, and for an hour or so every day the sun would pierce down the shaft. That was all the sun a prince like her needed.
Hal called for more sack and fisted her hand in Nova’s hair to anchor herself to life. Nova tilted her head back, lips parted, pale eyes begging. So Hal kissed her. She licked at her tongue, planted kisses along Nova’s jaw—her hands she held to herself, working nothing but mouth parts.
Beside her Charm shifted, and Hal wondered if he liked it or only grew angry. Before Hal could choose to press or withdraw from her lover, that name she could never ignore darted through the noise of the courtyard:
“Hotspur!”
Hal jerked her head up, and there Hotspur stood, framed by the arch of two columns supporting the balcony above. The crowd had parted, and it had been Ianta who’d said the other knight’s name with surprise and pleasure.
Hotspur was still the most beautiful creature Hal had ever seen.
Fury pinked her cheeks and her fire hair straggled around her square face, braided and messy, falling in chunks nearly to her waist. She wore a dark green dress and a leather vest studded with silver that bound her breasts flat, pinching in her waist. Her sword pulled at her hips. Hotspur’s bright eyes pinned Hal, gouging her, and Hal’s lungs constricted.
The knight—the wolf, Hal’s mind flailed—stalked into the courtyard. Hal stood, inadvertently nudging Nova out of her way, and stepped off the well, to the uneven cobbles of the courtyard. “Do you—do you want a drink?”
“No, I do not want a drink.” Hotspur pressed her mouth shut, grasped her sword’s pommel with one hand, and said, “I want—I want you …”
As Hotspur sputtered, Hal’s heart sparked, warming.
But Hotspur added, “I want you to not be here, I want you to be better—I needed you today, and you should have been at my side.”
“I’ll go now, anywhere you say,” Hal said, bursting forward the final steps. She did not quite touch Hotspur, but her hand fluttered at her side with wanting to.
“I don’t need you now, Hal, I needed you hours ago, facing your mother’s summons.” Hotspur’s voice rose. It needn’t, for not a single person in the entire courtyard breathed: they leaned in, desperate to hear.
“Are you—are you all right?” Hal hadn’t known Hotspur was in the city, and of course nobody at the palace had told the prince Celedrix had sent for Hotspur.
Hotspur sneered. “It’s not me you need to worry on. If you’d been there, Hal—if you weren’t such a degenerate, a—a drunk! Look at you, here!” Hotspur flung her arms around, gesturing at everything. “And dragging your—your— You should be at court, performing as a prince, even if you can’t manage to make yourself one in actuality.”
“But she is a prince, Isarna Persy” snapped Nova, appearing there beside them. “And you shouldn’t speak so baldly to her. She’s your better.”
Hal felt gutted at the words, knowing them false; she deserved Hotspur’s censure. She couldn’t stop staring at the delicate lashes framing Hotspur’s eyes, at the trailing freckles.
Those angry eyes narrowed on Nova, and Hotspur nodded. “Nova Irris. How disappointing to find you here, too, fallen with Ianta and Hal. You could be amongst my retainers, or my aunt’s. You could still be in the queen’s service if you’d tried.”
Nova scoffed. “I was to be a Lady Knight, and when that title was torn from my future, I followed who I loved. I refused to settle for a consolation prize.”
“Instead you settled for sour wine and gutters.”
“Being with Hal is not settling, it is rising.”
“Nova,” Hal said carefully, shifting away from her: Hal buzzed, she floated; she was not fully present in her body. This was not real—no, she was supposed to meet Hotspur again alone, and sober, or at least calm.
Hotspur saw the shift, saw Hal remove herself from Nova’s protection, and shook her head. “See, Nova? Hal will not claim you when it is hard. She will not be loyal.”
The words were a hammer against Hal’s heart, freezing rain on her head, dripping down her body.
Nova said, “You left us. Hal never even had a chance to stand with you. You left!”
Hotspur only shook her head again, watching Hal.
And Hal understood why. Though Nova did not seem to notice, they were not speaking of themselves. “I argued for ransom, again and again, all winter,” Hal said. “I tried. I did try, Hotspur.”
The energy around them crackled as folk grew anxious—some could not hear, and others would defend their Prince of Riot. Hal sensed Ianta standing to the side, her attention sorrowful, longing; and burly Charm nearby, curious but there at Hal’s back. She did not deserve his support.
�
�Try!” yelled Hotspur. “I don’t care if you begged or argued! I don’t care what you said or think you said to try and convince Celeda to bring her home! Everyone knows what you are now, Hal, everyone—Prince of Riot! Drunk, whoremonger! Irresponsible! You might have made the most eloquent pleading speech on her behalf, and it wouldn’t have mattered, because the reason Celeda needs her gone is you!”
Hal backed away.
But Hotspur stepped in again and hit the side of her fist on the bare white skin above the godscarf binding Hal’s chest. “If you were a better prince, your mother would have no reason to fear Banna Mora!”
Chaos erupted, calls of horror at the name, or cheers because the people remembered Mora, missed her—everyone’s opinion was divisive.
There was nothing Hal could say. Hotspur remained there, fist against Hal’s chest, and she was trembling—or Hal was, or both of them. “I came here to see you,” Hotspur said, quieter now.
“I miss you,” Hal said, only her voice didn’t arrive. Her lips moved, her tongue, but there was only sack and disappointment and fear inside her.
Hotspur’s hand fell out of its fist, and she slid it up Hal’s neck until a rough thumb touched oh so lightly to Hal’s jaw. Hal moved nearer, almost gasping. Hotspur leaned up, her mouth bent in a sad, full frown.
“My Hal is dead,” Hotspur whispered.
It was like dying, to hear it.
Hotspur turned her back on Hal. Away she strode, finished with this battlefield, eager and ready for the next: Hal recognized that walk. This battle was over for Hotspur, while Hal hadn’t even chanced an attack, or formed a strategy. It was over, and she hadn’t known it was coming.
“Hotspur!” Hal croaked, reaching desperately after her.
The fiery knight glanced over her shoulder, and there were tears streaking her cheeks. “I wanted you to choose better, Hal Bolinbroke. That’s all I wanted, today, of all days—for you to find your better half, and to be her.”
And then Hotspur was gone, piercing through the crowd like the sword she was, and Hal couldn’t breathe. Nova spat an insult, Ianta sighed, Miss Quick shared around more cups and poured more wine. Charm stared after Hotspur, and there was enough admiration in his confused brown gaze that Hal nearly cried.
But tears weren’t for her anymore.
THE WIZARD SLIPPED into a shadow and followed that ferocious light through the Quick Sunrise, and onto the ramshackle street outside. He kept sight of her bright hair as she determinedly pushed through celebratory crowds, up and up toward the palace, but he could’ve followed her over miles for the eddies and spikes she cast in her wake, churning the wind. That was why he followed, he told himself, that and the sword at her side, the whispering, eager sword whose name he remembered. Unlike the wizard, the sword still bore the same name it had known for a hundred years.
There was a third reason the wizard followed Lady Hotspur, the real reason: Choose better.
The wizard had heard such a command before. Lifetimes ago, during a storm.
Choose me, and everything, that other queen had said.
He hadn’t obeyed.
The more he remembered, the more he identified with his lion prince, and he wondered if somehow, this woman would help Hal more than he himself had been helped. Or if Hal could accept what he had not, before the end.
The wizard followed Lady Hotspur out of the city, then stopped. She rushed and raged away, setting off to the north, and his place was here, close to Hal. But he thought, as the woman pulsed and burned, that perhaps his lion did not carry her heart within her own chest.
BANNA MORA
The Summer Seat, autumn
IT WAS LATE. Mora’s head buzzed with the voice of the ocean wind, wordless but heavy with meaning. She’d shared her plans with Queen Solas and her sister, Ryrie, then eaten her fill of their dinner and shared drinks, listening as the sisters told stories about the deaths of the great queens. Queen Dalat died for love and star prophecy, to save her daughters; Elia drowned in the Tarinnish, drawn there by some voice in the wind; Gaela died midsentence, in the great hall, when her heart stopped; Astora by a stray arrow, the shooter never named—was it murder, accident, earth saint? This, Solas did not know, but it had made her queen. Ryrie told five different stories of the future, predictions as to how her sister would die, but they were full of teasing and dramatic proclamations, and Ryrie insisted she herself would die in bed. Though Mora sat ill at ease, she found herself drawn in, picturing the queens’ bloody or simple, watery or violent or peaceful deaths as the sisters goaded each other.
The folk of Innis Lear were dire in their humor.
She did not ask how they imagined she herself would die. The answer was fire. But Mora did not intend for it to be until this child in her had grown strong and ready to inherit a joined crown of Aremoria and Lear.
Only at the end did they mention their imaginings had been spurred by one of the many prophecies whispered across the island: The hemlock queen will die.
“Is that a … the hemlock queen is the queen of Innis Lear?”
“Any queen made by the hemlock ritual,” Solas said with gentle danger.
Mora stared openly at Solas, and the queen held her gaze, then casually sipped her wine. “How do you joke about this prophecy,” Mora asked, furious, “when you take them so seriously, too?”
Solas laughed sweetly. “I know I will die, one day. Everyone shall. And if the stars see it, Mora, I cannot fight it. I can only plan, share, protect myself. My sister knows, my retainers know, and we make peace with the possibility. But we do not give in to it. Do not worry, I promise not to poison myself, and I do rather hope the prophecy will reveal some other answer than my death. Though I would rather it be mine than yours.” And the queen’s gaze softened. She knew, somehow, of Mora’s condition.
If Mora died before the Longest Night, so would her child.
Queen Queen Queen, the wind whispered in her ear as she climbed the stairs to the tower room she shared with her husband. Retainers in dark blue, with bright stars on their tabards, waited in shadowy nooks at regular intervals, and Mora was trailed by two women ready to help her out of her clothing and into a bath. But when she reached the chamber door, she asked the retainer there if Rowan already had retired. At the positive response, she dismissed the women and entered alone.
The door sighed as she closed it behind her. Darkness shaped the room into slick shadows and pockets of blackness. Rowan had not lit any fire, but moonlight drifted in from the bedroom. Mora walked slowly, stretching her neck as she went, and touched her still-flat belly.
Rowan stood with his back to the door, hands on the stone sill of one of the three windows opening out of their bedroom. Moonlight transformed his hair into a veil of silver that spilled over the thin blue robe hanging off his shoulders. The hem billowed slightly in the gentle salt breeze. Otherwise her husband was naked. Beside his hand a bowl of tiny white flowers bloomed, brilliant as stars. Hemlock. He always had some, even before he’d poisoned her; kept it fresh by gathering new clusters at every dark moon throughout the year, for hemlock always bloomed on Innis Lear. To him, he said, it served as a reminder of the island’s star-fed power; to Mora the hemlock was a reminder that her husband had betrayed her once already.
“I’m pregnant,” she said.
The pronouncement dropped hard onto the floor between them. Many things had been hard between them lately. Mora tried, but most days she was too coldly angry at him. He knew why, and did not press.
Turning now, Rowan stared at her. His eyes seemed black and silver in the glancing moonlight, and his lips parted; he said, “What?” and came to her, crossing the woven rug on silent bare feet.
“I’m pregnant,” Mora repeated.
His face transformed to certain delight and he touched her cheeks. Mora shivered but allowed the touch: he slid his fingers delicately down her neck, over her breasts, to her stomach where his hands became pale spiders, long-fingered and exploring. He gripped her hip with
one, splayed his other hand across her belly, and sighed.
His cool breath smelled of some gentle, bitter drink. It danced along her jaw, oddly familiar. Rowan reached for the laces of her doublet, deftly unknotting them and slowly drawing them free until the left side was unbound, loose under her arm. Mora remained still but for placing her hands on his shoulders. Sex was the one thing between them that hadn’t changed since their wedding.
But as Rowan began on the laces under her right arm, his fingers slowed. He drew a deep breath and held it. His eyes blinked lazily, then again, and it took a slight moment before he opened them again.
“Rowan?” Mora said softly, putting a palm to his cheek. It was cold, but then, the wind sliding in through the window was cool and spiked with salt.
“I …” He shivered very slightly. She’d not have noticed if she hadn’t had both hands on him.
Suddenly Rowan dropped to his knees. He swayed and licked his lips.
Mora’s gaze darted past him to the windowsill and the hemlock. That was the familiar smell on his breath.
Her husband gripped her hips, fingers digging in to hold himself upright. In the darkness, his hair seemed to glow and he whispered something in the language of trees: she thought she heard her name, and the word for stars, then rootwater.
Stunned, Mora stepped away from him, shoving his hands free of her. The sudden movement affected him like violence, and he jerked back, falling, and caught himself rigid against the floor. His shoulders bowed; his back arched. He groaned quietly.
Hot blood rushed in Mora’s veins. It was a roar in her ears, her body’s own furious language. Rowan was dying at her feet. She could allow it.
Mora barely breathed as he shuddered and slowed below her, as he stretched out his arms, sprawling on the floor, loose robe flared like dark wings. Rowan rolled onto his back, mouth open, and stared up—no, through the ceiling toward the starry heavens, gaze sharp. Air hissed through his teeth like whispering leaves.
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