She listens, said the wind.
“She’s here,” Connley told Isarna. His mouth felt dry, his heartbeat erratic. There was Mared, and Sennos of Perseria with a handful of Isarna’s retainers. Errigal cousins and servants dashed out from the pantry and kitchen.
“I’m here, Ashling ghost! And I am not leaving!” Isarna bared her teeth in wolfish challenge.
Wind gusted, shoving Isarna from behind. She stumbled forward, then spun, and spat on the ground. “I’m not leaving.”
This time the wind slammed into Isarna from two sides, tearing at her hair. Isarna screamed, but not in fear or panic: in rage.
Connley said, as loudly as he could in the language of trees, Ashling, don’t hurt her, she is my wife.
you are mine
my Connley
mine!
He said, I can be your son and her husband, Lady. Can you not have more children than one?
Isarna panted with the effort of standing within the shredding wind; it ripped at her from all sides, gusting, tearing, spinning up and down like a whirlwind.
Era Star-Seer appeared beside Connley, and Mared, and also Sennos with Isarna’s sword in hand.
“Hotspur,” Sennos said, thrusting the hilt toward her, into the wind.
She wrapped her hand around the grip and smiled at her aide. “Ash!” she cried. “See?”
With one violent motion, Isarna flipped her sword blade-down and took the grip in both hands. Bracing herself, she slammed the point into the packed earth of the yard. She grunted and yelled with effort, her entire body a tremor of force, driving the sword into Innis Lear.
Connley did not breathe, though around them people cried out. Her instinct for magic was like nothing he’d ever seen.
The wind dragged dirt and grass into Isarna’s eyes, and those nearby, too. The trees—the oak from the heart of the black keep loudest of all—cried Hotspur! A word that did not translate into their language, and so every person understood it as the roots and leaves and winds bent splinter tongues and ripples of air to make the sound:
“Hotspur!” cried Innis Lear.
A cheer lifted from the ramparts of Connley Castle, from the yard and windows, as every witness clapped or gasped or yelled in surprise and triumph.
Isarna held her sword, leaning on it, panting and staring directly ahead, where wind spun, holding thin yellow ash leaves in suspension, in a dance and flourish.
“Connley Errigal is mine,” Isarna said.
The wind blasted at her once, and the ash leaves slapped Isarna’s face, then fell naturally, shivering, to the yard.
mine
The Lady of Ashes whispered mournfully, pulling cold fingers through his hair as she faded. Connley took a shaky step toward Isarna, put a hand on her shoulder.
Isarna startled in surprise, but she let go of the sword and turned to him. One eyebrow raised, her cheeks flushed with shock and power. Her chest heaved, there was sweat on her brow, and her ruined curls stood out in tangles as if lightning had struck just beside her.
“Isarna,” he said.
She grasped hold of his tunic and jerked him nearer to her. She put her mouth on his.
Connley gasped, surprised, stealing her breath from hot lips, and Isarna kissed him, taking his face in both hands. He was dazzled, but Isarna let go: she took his hand and dragged him back toward the passage leading into the black keep. Ignoring the cries of her name, the onlookers calling questions, she pulled Connley stumbling behind her.
“We’re doing this now,” she said when they were alone with the oak tree and four corner altars in the empty privacy of the ruins. None had followed them: everyone knew better.
“Doing what?” he asked, genuinely confused, blood ringing in his ears.
Isarna leaned closer and put her hand over his groin.
“Isarna,” he breathed, stepping away.
“Listen to me, Connley.” She let him escape but kept her gaze leveled on his. “I win battles. That is what I do. I fight, and I win. I finally understand the strategy to take Innis Lear. I have your rootwaters inside me right now, I have confronted the wind itself, before family and witnesses, and now I will put you, my husband, my very own witch, down against this earth and have sex with you—those are the ways of the magic of Innis Lear.”
Though he should have been glad, Connley felt oddly gutted and hurt. He said nothing, though he let go a slight breath of sorrow. Always, he would be a piece on someone else’s game board. At least the Lady of Ashes never treated him so.
But Isarna frowned. “What?” she said, gruffly, which likely was as near to tenderness as she could manage in the moment.
Connley gulped a grounding breath and said, “I don’t want to be strategy.”
She actually rolled her eyes. “Your sister and I made it so; you have already agreed. You are the linchpin between Aremoria and Innis Lear.”
“But …” He waved a hand between their bodies. “Not …”
“You want love. But your prince isn’t here. I am.”
Struck silent again, it was all he could do not to sink to the ground in mortified despair.
“I like you, Connley,” she said conversationally. “You’re weird and very unashamed of it, you’re forthright and you protect what’s yours, and what isn’t yours but simply needs protecting. You don’t lie to me. I don’t think you lie to anybody. That makes me trust you. It’s a place to begin.”
“Trust,” he whispered, trying to feel better.
“Trust, and …” Isarna touched his cheek, then slid her fingers to his mouth. “Pleasure. And winning. If you do it with me, it isn’t my strategy. It’s ours.”
Quaking internally, Connley swallowed and moved his lips to kiss her fingers. He then licked very slightly at the pad of her middle finger.
Isarna gasped, too, as if startled. She brushed that finger along his mouth and moved closer. Slowly, so very slowly, she leaned in against him, aligning her hips with his, her chest to his, and tilted her chin up. Connley did not move but to tilt his head down in a matching angle so that when they kissed, it was simple, soft, and he felt the pleasure of it slide down his spine to settle in the narrow prow of his hips.
“This is good,” Isarna murmured.
“You weren’t … sure it would be.”
She eyed him, blue eyes ferociously near. “Were you?”
Connley stared at her, head aching from the focus, and then set his jaw. In answer, he kissed her harder. He put his hands to the back of her head and did not budge; he remembered the best kiss he’d ever had, years ago, when Rowan had pushed open his mouth with tongue and teeth, and pinned Connley in the crook of two low hawthorn branches. The sensation had been taking and taking, as if Connley had no choice, but he had, and surrender was a gift to his lover.
Now he felt Isarna’s jaw muscles tighten then relax as she opened up to him, and he slanted his head sideways to reach better—he was rough and awkward, but it felt right. She tasted good, of wine and something deeper, more raw, like blood or iron, and on her breath the rootwaters remained, bright as stars.
Isarna gripped his hips and dug her fingers in. Her teeth scraped his tongue and he moaned a little, pulling her with him down to their knees.
The wind embraced them, soft and wordless; the oak dropped curling golden leaves like fragments of sunlight. Isarna grunted impatiently, kissing down his neck as her hands tore at the laces of his trousers. His tunic kept falling over her wrists, and he leaned away to strip it off, and his shirt after, flinging both to the side. Pausing, Isarna touched the long owl feathers, then lifted one off his chest to brush the slender blade to her cheek.
Connley trembled and leaned back on his heels, kneeling before her. He touched her ankle, pushing up the wool skirt, and dragged his palm up over the leggings wrapped tight all the way up to her thigh.
“Connley,” she said, and gripped his hand, guiding it farther up until he found warm bare skin.
He looked at her face and saw she was afra
id, but unhesitating. She nodded fast, and he tugged her closer so that she had to straddle his lap. Isarna was strong, and she held on to his shoulders as he cupped her body’s well in his hand, exploring carefully, for he did not know what else to do.
Isarna kissed him, and then, flushed and breathing shallowly, she managed to unknot his trousers and stared down at his erection, lips parted. She shook her head in tiny motions, and Connley didn’t think she intended to. He bit his lip and rubbed the heel of his hand against her.
“Oh,” she said loudly, then the shaking of her head turned to nodding.
Connley leaned back, bracing himself with both hands against the cold earth. His entire body shook but he didn’t look away and didn’t force anything: she’d said she’d never been with a man. This part was brand new to both of them—he was thinking too much, but the words were his only shield against the o of her mouth and her fluttering, hesitant hands on him, her heat and careful, strong thighs to either side of his, pressing.
“Connley,” she said, slowly and just as loudly as before. She opened her body with her hands and took him in a little. Once she decided she was ready, she suddenly pushed entirely onto him, making a pretty little squeak.
Connley almost choked in surprise.
Isarna’s eyes were as wide as the sky.
He concentrated on breathing, on the wind whispering and the cold earth under his knees and shins, and he sat up a little, catching her with his arms around her waist, anchoring her on his lap.
“What do I do now?” she whispered.
Instead of speaking, Connley pulled at her hips, and pushed, and Isarna nodded hard, grimacing.
“Right, I knew that … I …” Her breath released in a huff and she was moving then, sliding easily, strong, and Connley’s whole body was tense.
Isarna Persy was loud. It was gratifying and distracting, and Connley laughed, gasping, as they fumbled and moved together; she changed her pace or angle unexpectedly, making sounds of discovery and deep pleasure, and pain, too, touching herself, sometimes him, and Connley knew he was along for her ride. When she finished it was showy and spectacular, and Connley was not ready for her to melt away, to relax back. He grunted and said her name, which brought a flush back to her cheeks, and he maneuvered her onto her back, hooked her leg around his hip, and pushed back in again and again, biting his lip, intensely quiet, until he was done, too.
She put her arms around his neck, holding him tightly, and Connley just breathed. His temple touched her cheek and he drew in the cool air, sweaty and dirty, smelling of roots and fallen leaves and the delicate perfume of those roses on the north wall. Magic. They’d made a spell here, locking together in a marriage just as meaningful as any communion with Rowan.
Connley crushed his eyes tightly shut, trying to banish Rowan, trying to end the comparison, the longing.
Then he realized his wife was crying. Connley stiffened. “Isarna?” he whispered. What a pair they made.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she whispered back, shifting uncomfortably. Her dress was bunched between their stomachs; he moved to free her, to roll away, but Isarna did not let go. She clung even tighter to him.
“I can’t stop thinking about—about her,” she said. “My prince. For so long I was only hers … I—I defined myself by her. But I’m not hers anymore. Who am I now?”
Connley clenched his jaw, reeling. Stars and worms, what was he supposed to say? Mussed, mostly naked, and confused, Connley just hugged her. He rolled to his side, pulling her with him, and cradled her. “It’s all right,” he murmured. “It … will be all right.”
That was the only thing he knew to be true.
BANNA MORA
Dondubhan, late autumn
MORA’S BACK ACHED, but she refused to sit. Her husband had curtly instructed a chair be brought for her despite her protest, and a footstool. Brigh, the stern midwife attached now to Mora’s household like a fungus, instructed that if she would not sit and put up her feet, better to pace slowly than stand still. But Mora had nearly four months of pregnancy ahead of her, and she would rather withhold the inevitable pampering for when she truly needed it. Aches in her lower back and knees she could handle, and the discomfort of swelling breasts, and even the burn of indigestion and hard gassy pain that often pressed in her guts. She was a warrior, and a queen-to-be: her body would submit to her.
Brigh—forty, mother of two living children, and amused by Mora’s arrogance—shrugged and said, “You will learn otherwise, and next time take my advice. If the baby dies, I will have done my best.”
“If the baby dies,” Mora snarled, “it never was strong enough to be my heir, and certainly not the future queen of Innis Lear.”
It was perhaps the only time she’d truly shocked her husband. Rowan thereafter strove to prove the immense love he already felt for their child, and for her. “It is not weakness to be honored, it is not weakness to take care of yourself,” he murmured after they’d waited nearly an hour for Hotspur to arrive.
“I will meet her again on my feet,” Mora whispered, winding a finger around a thin silver-blond braid falling from Rowan’s temple. “Give me your arm so I may pace with half your strength, or be gone.”
He offered it, leaning in to splay his other hand over her belly. Only a linen shift and thin wool overdress separated his palm from the high curve of her body; she wore a heavier winter coat that laced over her swollen breasts, covering her arms and back, falling down to her knees. But Mora kept it open just beneath her breasts, so the wool and leather split over her pregnancy, revealing her belly in a cascade of red wool. Whether she entered a room or waited at a crossroads, none would forget she was with child. Mora had long ago learned that her body was her weapon and signal, and she would use it to her best advantage.
Her advantage now was reminding any who saw her that she bore the future queen.
Behind Mora the mighty fortress of Dondubhan waited, too, deep gray and blue as the moon in the evening sky. Every tower, crenellation, and window hung with Child Star banners and welcoming Aremore orange. Behind the castle the Tarinnish, that great black lake the fortress embraced, flickered with tiny waves created by a snappy winter wind, reflecting both the streaked clouds and the falling red sun.
The lake and castle were surrounded by marshland and moor, dipping into shallow valleys. Just southeast a hill rose, crowned by a trio of standing stones from which one could see the entire fortress, the edge of the town of Wellage as it curved around the Tarinnish, and the distant black outline of the Jawbone Mountains cutting off the northern thrust of the island.
Hotspur would come from the south, having made her way along the Ley Road from Connley Castle, then west across the northernmost tip of the White Forest. She’d curve around the Star Field—a meadow memorial where the ashes and bones of the dead of Innis Lear were buried beneath stone towers and slabs of rock. Candles dazzled from nearly every surface, slender and bright. Banna Mora had visited twice now: for the death of an old, retired retainer, and at the full moon. The vivid peace of the place soothed her, for she admired the practical marriage of stone and flame to create a spray of stars on earth. That was an ideal monument to a lost life, even to her Aremore sensibilities.
“We will know they approach,” Rowan said quietly, “in time for you to stand to greet her.”
Mora curled her lip angrily at her husband. The prince sighed and led her at a slow walk along the packed earth road. Built up from the marsh, it was narrow to keep any visitors to nothing but two horses abreast or a slender wagon.
For six weeks already Banna Mora and Rowan Lear had resided here at Dondubhan; Mora had grown irritable at her husband’s mother and at the women of the royal retinue stationed at the Summer Seat for their incessant advice and claim to her. As if this shared experience of pregnancy made her into one of them more certainly than her own word, than her marriage, than her island ancestry. Than the poison crown.
But none knew she’d accepted the hemlock. N
one except for Solas, Ryrie, and Rowan.
That single prophecy ate at her thoughts: The hemlock queen will die. She could not ignore it as the Learish queen seemed so able to do, nor accept it. On Innis Lear prophecies always came true.
“Oh, it will happen,” Rowan had said as if intending to reassure her. “We may not know how exactly, we may work to prevent it, but the prophecy will come true. There have been prophecies about the deaths of queens before. They always come true.”
Mora had stared at him, angry at his casual consent, until Rowan cupped her face, gripping her jaw hard, and said, “But you will not die—you are pregnant, and if you were to die, so would our child, and that is not prophesied.”
“And you, husband?”
“There are so many prophecies, Mora. For me, for you, for all of Innis Lear. It is a cacophony right now. A messy disaster. Try to enjoy it for now. We do not have a single answer, but a dozen. More. Endless possibilities. So live your life, make your choices, and be prepared.”
It did not comfort her.
Hotspur would understand, being as fully Aremore in faith and function as Mora. It would be good to have an ally again. And Mora intended to make Hotspur her partner in this mission to retake the throne. If she could win Hotspur, who loved Hal Bolinbroke, Mora could win anyone.
Eager to think of something else, Mora gripped Rowan’s hand too tightly as they waited at the gates of Dondubhan. He did not complain but slid her a calming glance with those tiger-iron eyes. Mora stopped her slow walk, tugging him nearer.
Rowan, her beloved, betraying husband.
She kissed him with teeth and tension, and he held her head in both hands, fingers molding carefully to her rows of braids. Mora’s head pounded; exhaustion weighed down her limbs, for she’d had difficulty sleeping these past two weeks. Insomnia happened sometimes, the midwife said, and she should bathe in warm water before bed, should lay on her side, should allow her husband to sing her restful melodies and caress her back, her shoulders, cheek—whatever soothed her. Make a ritual for sleeping.
The child inside her shifted, pushing a little fist or foot out toward its father. Mora swallowed the amazing discomfort. “He is kicking,” she said.
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