He deserved to die by this poison, for having given it to her unawares. And Innis Lear would not punish or ruin Mora. She understood deep in her gut. This would be the judgment of the island. Her judgment. Even Solas would grant this right to her, and Ryrie Lear and Owyn Glennadoer. Perhaps this was the prophecy, for wasn’t Rowan a hemlock queen, too?
Queen queen queen, whispered the wind, ruffling the hemlock blossoms hard enough three petals broke free and tumbled off the sill.
The bedchamber was a black well, both swirling and still; Mora’s feet were sturdy on the ground but her blood raced and spun; she was hot and cold, jagged and soft.
Rowan Lear deserved to die for what he’d done to her.
But Mora did not deserve to have to live without him.
Tears burned down her face as she stepped over her husband. Beside the hemlock bowl rested a similar pewter bowl half filled with clear water. The surface rippled; there in the center was a shivering reflection of the moon.
Mora lifted it in both hands, awed and breathless, feeling as if she lifted the moon itself between her palms. She returned to her numb, quiet husband and stepped across him, one foot on either side of his hips. There she crouched, kneeling over him to set the bowl on his chest. She dipped a finger into it and touched his mouth; his lips were cold.
“Rowan,” she murmured, and then lifted the bowl to her own lips to drink. The rootwater tasted like floral perfume, like smoke and rainwater, lightning and wine. She gulped it down, but for a swallow, and then bent over Rowan. Mouth tingling and full, she kissed him. She kissed with all her heart: anger, betrayal, lust, and hope. Need, as well, and that elusive spark of love.
Rootwater spilled over his tongue from her own, and she did not stop. Mora kissed his mouth, his jaw, down to his neck, pushing aside tangles of moon-gold hair. She dragged her hands down his chest, finding every swirl of light hair, every scar, every ridge of muscle. She licked his collarbone, scraped her teeth against his nipples, tasting his skin because it was hers to do with as she liked. And Banna Mora moved to kiss him again, then spilled the last of the rootwater from the bowl against his chest and lips. “Rowan Lear,” she said, an invocation.
Breath puffed from his mouth and his eyes flew open. He grabbed her hips, and Mora kissed him harder. One of his legs lifted beneath her, nudging her tighter to his chest, and she felt his arousal against her inner thigh.
Mora stood, despite his soft cry of distress. She shoved off her boots and unlaced her trousers, peeling them down and away, and her stockings, everything until she was naked below the belly.
Rowan watched her from the floor, dazed, a shadowy flush across high cheekbones. His body was limp and lazy, but for that erection. Mora settled herself atop him once more, wishing she had another sip of the rootwater to smear across his belly and loins. She slid herself along him instead, laughing triumphantly to think she did not need any island water; within her was a well of her own: fertile, dark, longing.
Her laughter pulled a smile across his mouth, and Rowan touched her bare knees, not helping so much as stroking her skin as Mora located him between her thighs. She moaned as she moved, letting her head fall back at the pleasure, the victory.
Their cries mingled in rhythm, becoming a duet with the wild ocean wind, a conversation beyond the language of trees.
Rowan grasped her hips again, surging up to sit, wrapping his arms around her as she shook and laughed, kissing his forehead. She ran her fingers through his long hair. Her ears rang.
Her husband slowly finished his earlier project of removing her doublet, then gripped the collar of her shirt and tore it down the middle. Mora laughed again and helped slip free. A film of sweat coated her entire body. She held on tight to Rowan, with every muscle, relieved in his embrace. He sighed, pressed his cheek to her shoulder. He said a thing in the language of trees, and the wind blew, translating for her:
I am yours, Banna Mora.
“Yes, you are,” she said.
“Hold on to me.” Rowan gave her a moment to comply, and then climbed to his feet; Mora hugged him with arms and legs, clinging like a tenacious vine. He moved through the moonlight to their bed, then toppled over.
Mora lay naked and cooling, limp with aftershock but already wondering how long before her knees would hold her upright again. She would go to the windowsill, knock that fucking hemlock into the ocean, and then bend out toward the sky. She would invite Rowan to join her there, bury himself in her again as she gave her hair to the grasping fingers of the wind and cried and laughed with the great white moon.
“You look very pleased with yourself,” he murmured, spreading his hand across her sternum. His hand was hot.
Looking, she met his eyes. The thick, straight hair falling around them both had twisted into sweaty waves at his temples. “You nearly died, Rowan Lear.”
He kissed her, slow and deep, as if to suck any last drops of rootwater from her teeth.
Mora made a fist in his hair and pulled him back. “Why?”
“Poison,” he whispered.
“You said it was for queens. After all this, you would take the throne from me?” Mora tried to push heat into her tone, but doubt obfuscated her anger.
Rowan sat beside her, crossing his legs. He touched her forehead where a crown would rest, then petted her curls. “I have taken hemlock monthly for … years.”
She looked at him as if he were mad; perhaps he was. They said kings on Innis Lear always succumbed to madness.
“The island purifies my blood, transforms it into rootwater,” the prince continued. “So long as it accepts my sacrifice, I know it accepts my service, as well as my actions.”
Breathless with shock, or horror, or perhaps an awful admiration, Mora sat, too. “It’s a test? To be certain Innis Lear … agrees with you.”
Rowan shrugged delicately, seemed to remember the blue robe still hung off his shoulders. He peeled it off and tossed it to the floor where it lay like a rippling pond sprung up from the castle stones. “Would you like to join me?”
“I will not. I passed your test once, and the island did its magic. I am satisfied; are you not?”
“Banna Mora, I am immensely satisfied with you.” His voice thickened and then his gaze lowered to her belly.
She allowed herself a small smile and took his hand, touching it to her skin just over the mound of her well. “Soon he will push back.”
“He?” Rowan’s startled eyes flew to hers.
Mora opened her mouth but found nothing to say.
“Well, my aunt will not be pleased.” Rowan himself sounded pleased and amused.
“It is only a word that slipped out,” Mora protested, knocking his hand away. “I may have a daughter.” She turned onto her side, but dragged him down behind her. Rowan complied, wrapping around her, hugging her flush to his front. His breath stirred the curls at her temple.
For a time they were silent, as the wind tickled the hemlock at the window and the moonlight changed course, passing the night. Finally, Rowan said, “You considered letting me die.”
“You poisoned me once.”
“I love you. I knew what you were.”
Mora closed her eyes. “You did not trust me.”
“I do.”
“Now that neither of us has a choice.”
“I was born without choices: I am what I am, and reach for that which I reach, Banna Mora. You reach for the same.”
“My crown was stolen from me.”
“We will reclaim what you are owed.”
Mora hummed. “You are careful with your words.”
“When I speak with the breath of rootwater and hemlock, it is important not to invoke without specificity.”
Laughter burst from Mora, startling even her. Her husband grumbled and bit her earlobe. His hands wandered down her belly, up again to her breasts.
She said, “You’re a hemlock queen, too. You could be the one the stars mean. Or me.”
Rowan’s hands fell still. Mor
a’s body tightened, her skin and her guts, and it seemed even her womb thickened into a hard rock of fear. “There are so many messy prophecies these nights. Who told you of that one?”
“Your mother.”
Slowly, Rowan nodded. “If it is a true foretelling, yes. I could be the one. Or you.”
“Who has felt safe in a thousand years,” she whispered, quoting an Aremore poem.
Her husband turned the line into a melody, and lulled her to sleep with his song.
HOTSPUR
Northern Aremoria, autumn
IT WAS A perfect autumn day, blustery but jewel toned from the sapphire sky to the topaz fields, trees dripping garnet and amber where they no longer were green. Hotspur could not push through her fretting and fury to enjoy it, however much she tried.
She’d been alone on the road for six days, and in two more would be home to Red Castle, or if she turned north, Annyck in a handful of hours. She was hungry and cranky, endeavoring not to impress her mood through her seat and into her horse. Hotspur patted the mare borrowed from Vindomata’s Lionis stable. She was a hard worker and did not complain of these long days or the foraged food.
The horse did not deserve Hotspur’s moods.
For stretches of time, Hotspur breathed easily and let her mind wander to the winter, to fires and cold winds, to rebuilding the damned barracks fence and putting her retainers through winter exercises. Trekking to Annyck for the Longest Night supper, and her promise to Corio that his wife and daughter would be warm and cared for at her own hearth this season. Only unexpectedly, her thoughts would shift to Hal Bolinbroke half-naked, practically having sex right there in public, drunk and reluctant and yet still so charismatic and handsome that every person was inexorably drawn to her. If Hotspur had stayed in Lionis last autumn, would Hal be better?
Hotspur had to let out a growl or cry of sheer frustration and hurt when her thoughts slipped along that path. Hal Bolinbroke could not be her responsibility!
She thought, too, of setting Douglass of Burgun loose, sending him home with a promise of friendship, so that then she could tell Celedrix that she no longer had hostages. A workable, certain strategy, but so slippery and non-confrontational when all Hotspur wished for was direct action. She ought to be able to press her advantages, lay out the realities, and a smart, capable queen would simply agree with her.
Bolting from the city had felt dangerous and rightly so, then pushing hard and harder up the north road until the sun vanished and the mare’s sides heaved. That brought Hotspur up with guilt and she set camp immediately, pampering the horse with a running commentary on what a beautiful, endearing, sweet creature she was until she was relaxed and sated. Then Hotspur saw to herself, but she didn’t sleep. She paced all night, putting herself through exercises when sleep proved impossible. By dawn the sweat had dried and she trembled with physical exhaustion, so managed to doze for an hour or two.
So most of the nights had gone—Hotspur still did not know what to do that would not end her entire world.
Go home. Free Douglass. Write to Banna Mora accepting marriage to her brother.
It put a cringe on her face whenever she thought of it. She felt her choices were being taken away from her, yet did not know exactly what she would choose if she could.
Tears burned her cheeks again as she turned her strong little mare off the road. She wiped them away before they stuck and dried. More followed, and Hotspur did not care. This raw emotion deserved its time. When it was over, she would bury her love for Hal Bolinbroke. She knew exactly where.
The tree grew a half-day’s ride southwest of Red Castle, the old oak tree with limbs so heavy they leaned down against the earth. Its trunk was as wide as the spiral stair at Annyck, rough and deep brown, with boles and gray scars. It put out wide-fingered leaves and oblong acorns. This time of year those leaves were uniformly yellow—like stained glass. Hotspur thought she’d roast some of the plentiful acorns and see if she could sleep between the thick roots. The whispering sword might go quiet so near the bosom of its creation. The last time Hotspur had been there, not only did the tree gift her with this sword, but also with a sense of knowing herself and her destiny. She’d cried to the storm that she only wished to be as strong as the roots of Aremoria.
Hotspur dismounted, never doubting the mare would follow at her leisure, and pushed into the bright, summery chapel of the oak’s gold-leafed branches, arching like rafters, dipping down again toward the earth.
But she was not alone.
A young man crouched at the heart of the oak’s grove, focused on the beginnings of a fire: sticks and dry leaves in a circle of small stones. Only his did not burn, and he used no flint or steel to spark it. He held one pale hand over it as if the fire might light itself with the power of wishing.
Hotspur tilted her head, inspecting him. He’d clearly not heard her approach, and so mustn’t be a forester; she’d not moved quietly at all. He was clean, newly clean, but his jacket less so. Mud streaked the cuffs, splotching along the hem. His trousers were cut in Learish style, the knees darkened green with grass stains. His boots were muddy, too. In fact, this traveler seemed to have been on the road for a long while. Rips scoured the chest of his linen shirt and the left shoulder of his jacket. There, to the side, a wool cloak spread, half hanging from the oak. He must have found the stream a quarter mile west of here and washed his body, but few of his clothes. A good choice, if he’d not known how cold it would grow when the sun set.
Black hair curled thickly around his head. His skin was tan, from either birth or the sun, she couldn’t tell; his full lips frowned, and Hotspur thought him rather attractive, if young and helpless seeming. He reminded her of someone, or perhaps they’d met as children. It was that sort of familiarity: distant and remembered, rather than intimate.
Beside him on a small cloth were two dozen acorns.
The man whispered a single sharp word, snapped his hand over the built fire—and nothing happened.
He sighed.
Wind shivered the oak in a similar sigh, then puffed at his curls, and the man startled, then suddenly looked up and directly at her.
“Hello,” he said, his voice full of surprise and something more … open. In his angular face, his dark eyes were like shadowed moons.
She said, “This is my oak.”
“Um,” he responded, glancing up at the brown-and-gold lattice ceiling. His lips parted and his lashes batted against the bright, filtered light.
Hotspur suddenly felt ridiculous for saying such a thing. “It’s on my land, I mean,” she corrected herself irritably. She’d intended to be alone here, with the oak, her memories, and her sword. Rage, cry, and then bury her heart under the roots. How could she even begin to let go of Hal Bolinbroke and her childish dreams with a stranger taking up space and—and even preparing to roast acorns, which had also been her intention!
But the man looked at her again and smiled. “Perhaps I was waiting for you, then. I was wondering why she wished me to remain.”
Curling her mouth in distaste at the personification of the tree, Hotspur glared. His smile was so innocent, though, so simply pleased, her glare fell to pieces. “Did you soak the acorns?” she demanded, stomping the rest of the way into the grove.
“Ah, I planned to, but the fire is taking some time.”
“How have you survived without being able to make a basic fire?” Hotspur dropped her saddlebag with a thump and dug into it for a flint. In mere moments she had flames licking at his tinder.
The man watched her instead of answering, and Hotspur felt a flutter of interest: he was lovely and maybe could provide a way to bury Hal. Hotspur did not partake of any of the usual spoils of being handsome and admired, titled and successful. Men flirted with her, but as with Douglass she put them off. She’d never been with anyone but Hal, for none but Hal had tempted her, and those few times she’d considered it, there seemed no benefit to forcing herself to find some desire. Hal was too bold in her memory, too gl
orious and amazing, and those memories had been everything to Hotspur.
Perhaps to banish them, Hotspur must take more determined steps. That certainly had been Hal’s plan. Besides, if Hotspur were to marry Mora’s brother, making herself less inexperienced with men could prove advantageous.
“I’ll fetch water,” she said, waving at the acorns. If they didn’t soak, they’d be too bitter and twist the stomach.
“I was going to boil them,” the man answered softly.
“Now we can,” she answered. Then she left to find her horse and tromp through the forest with the pot to collect fresh water.
When she returned with the full pot and refilled drinking pouches, nudging the mare ahead, the man had built up the fire and cleared the grove of deadfall. His cloak hung better secured, rather like a bright blue backdrop, and he’d laid out more food upon the acorn cloth: mushrooms and blackberries.
“I have no meat,” he said.
“No wonder you’re so skinny.” Hotspur set the water down, assuming he’d see to the nuts, and she loosened her saddle, dragging it off the horse to prop over one of the low-swooping oak branches. She rubbed the mare down and tied a feedbag with the last of the oats to her head. They’d be at Red Castle late tomorrow, and there was a good meadow off the road for grazing.
The man had stood, and when Hotspur wiped sweat from her brow and shucked free of her leather jacket, he held out a handful of the berries.
She plucked one and ate it: the flavor was full and perfect. Better than she’d expected for this late in the season.
“The brambles know how to hide the best,” he said softly. His accent lilted Learish, and Hotspur felt a low reluctance to ask his name.
“Thank you,” she said, wondering how to do it flirtatiously. Hal could flirt with the subtlest flick of her brow or a shift in tone. Hotspur ate another berry, slower, and studied the man’s eyes: mostly shards of green and darker green, a center of brown.
He did not blink as she did so, holding her gaze with a solidity that grounded her to the earth.
Hotspur forgot what she was doing, then came back to herself with a little gasp. Her skin prickled; this was danger. She found the hilt of her sword and gripped it.
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