For two days they’d been camped here at Liresfane, and Hal had taken Ter Melia and Nova to scout with three of Abovax’s soldiers and a Westmore captain. They’d paired up, spread out, and spent an afternoon and evening taking the lay of the land before Nova and the Westmore man rode north to wait for sign of Banna Mora. The two had charged into camp midmorning today, filthy and exhilarated: the enemy would arrive within five hours.
So Hal had put on her best mail under her red jacket and ordered that Lady Ianta be prepared as well, with Charm, to ride with her for parley. She had considered bringing her wizard but decided not to take anyone under any authority but her own. While she trusted the wizard, to outsiders his allegiances were unknown.
Before they departed, her husband said, “Remember, Hal, that you have made every choice for the right reasons.”
“I do remember,” she said. It was good to be reminded, though, for she’d spent hours these past weeks telling Charm everything she could, as if he were a diary to record her thoughts. She’d told him if she was to have a husband and king, they ought to be of one mind. They were not of one bed, after all.
They rode under the banner of the Lady Knights: herself, Lady Ianta, and Charm.
Riding to meet them were three more: Banna Mora austere in blue and black; Hotspur, armed in leather and passion; and Mared Lear, who smiled grimly as he held Mora’s banner. It was a golden sheaf from the March upon a vivid blue field, and a curve of stars above it, angling the shape of the Dragon of the North’s arched neck.
Hal thought, One of us will have to die.
But she did not let herself imagine it.
When the riders were near enough, Hal raised her hand. “Banna Mora.”
“Prince Hal,” Mora replied. “Ianta, this is a surprise.”
“I am the commander of the Lady Knights,” Ianta said. “Yours once, too. But this time the charter is real, built upon solid truth, not thin promises.”
“I betrayed no promises to you,” Mora said, chiding.
Lady Ianta smiled grimly. “But such were given to you, Prince, and so you are lost.”
“I’ve not lost yet.”
“Wandering lost, my love, if not defeated.”
Hal slid her glance to Hotspur, who sat easily upon a pale brown mare, staring back at Hal. Wind tugged her red-hot curls. Hal felt bleak. Mirthless. She drew herself up in her own saddle and politely said, “You’ve not met my husband, Echarmet of Celeda Queen.”
Hotspur’s mouth pulled in discomfort, but she glared at Charm in a very Hotspurish way.
“Hello, Echarmet,” Mora said. “I am Banna Mora of the March and Innis Lear. This is my sister, Lady Hotspur Perseria, and here my brother, Mared Lear.”
“I have heard much of you, Banna Mora,” Charm said, voice a deep purr.
Though the moment should have felt portentous, Hal would rather get it over with. Aremoria glinted with the strength of summer: green-gold fields soon to be trampled and running red; blue sky and wisps of clouds ready to dissipate; the sun, oh the sun, bright and glorious. Hal said, “Will you surrender, Banna Mora? Leave the field and withdraw from Aremoria? This is not your country any longer, and we will compel you away if we must.”
Mora smiled, pleased and hungry. “I will not. But if you consider—”
“No.” Hal held up her hand. “I did not come to negotiate. I came to say goodbye.”
Surprised painted itself across Mora’s face and held her still for a full breath.
Mared Lear’s eyebrows lifted and he turned to glance behind him, as if he expected something dreadful to interrupt.
Charm and Lady Ianta had known this would come, and rested easy in their saddles.
It was Hotspur who exploded. “Goodbye! You cannot dismiss parley, Hal! This is—”
“Is what, Hotspur? Going to change anything?” Hal pressed a fist to her chest, where her heart pounded. “I will not compromise with those who seek to murder the people and peace of Aremoria.”
Hotspur gasped, and in another age, Hal might’ve found her exaggerated shock to be funny.
Mora’s hungry smile had returned. “It is all right, Lady Hotspur. Prince Hal has found her spine, and she is correct—we are here for what is ours. This land we stride upon is a missing body of Innis Lear. Ours. And we will reunite all tomorrow morning, land and people, and we will open the corridors of magic that so long have been severed. Hal will see, and her knight and her husband, and everyone in Aremoria will feel the magic rise, the land awaken, and Aremoria will lift a crown onto my head, because I am the heir to the hemlock throne.”
“You cannot have this throne, this land, or this people,” Hal said.
“You’ll have to kill me to stop me,” Mora said.
“Death is everywhere, Mora.” Hal glanced at Charm for strength—he knew what she would say. “I used to be afraid of many things, death worst among them. But death by betrayal, especially. Do you remember, Hotspur, what Rovassos said just before he died? That betrayal is the only way kings ever die. I believed him, and maybe I still do. Maybe I will die tomorrow, but I can’t let it stop me from doing what I must, from being who—what—I am. I can’t. Or I would never get out of bed. You showed me that, Hotspur, to keep fighting, and keep choosing. And Mora, you lifted yourself out of the worst betrayal and found new meaning, new love. A new destiny entire! I admire you both so very much.”
Hal laughed a little bit. “If I die in the morning, I’ll love you now anyway. That’s why I came to say goodbye—because I would rather have this moment with the people I have loved more than anyone in the world, than never speak to you again.”
The prince had to stop, for the swelling in her throat.
Mora stared at her, face drawn cold. Hotspur’s hands had become fists around her reins.
“I taught her to give speeches,” Lady Ianta drawled, and Hal laughed again, breaking the hold on her heart: tears splashed her cheeks.
“If there is nothing more to say?” Charm asked.
Hotspur nudged her horse forward, and it tossed its head. She turned it, to better reach for Hal. “Aremoria wants the magic, Hal,” Hotspur urged. “I wish I could say otherwise, but Mora is right—Rowan is right. We must do this. I must do this. The magic must take root. Aremoria must wake up. That is the end I choose.”
Ianta Oldcastle leaned forward, and her broad charger took a step toward Banna Mora. The old knight said, “Are you awake then, Wolf?”
“I am,” Hotspur said, a look of surprise on her face.
Hal held up her hand again, to Ianta. The prince looked at Hotspur, and at Banna Mora, Mared, and back to Hotspur. “Then let the star roads blaze. I am the lion prince, and my heart is already home.”
THE NIGHT BEFORE the Battle of Liresfane, four prophecies were cast.
Connley Errigal fanned holy cards out before his wife as they stood together in the light of a torch, surrounded by tents and muttering soldiers, snoring men and settling horses, the clink of bowls and cups, sudden laughter: the sounds of a camp at night. “Breathe in the wind, and pick,” he said.
Her hot blue eyes did not leave his face as she reached a pale hand and drew a card.
The Tree of Ancestors. In this deck, it was a ropy black tree with roots as twisted and intricate as its branches. Tongues of flame licked at the branches against the dark blue sky; beneath the green earth, stars lined the roots like silver leaves.
“Another,” he murmured, and Isarna chose the Bird of Sacrifice. Also a mirror-image card: a sleek-winged falcon at the edge of a spring, its feathers lined with lightning. In the reflection, the falcon’s feathers were made of blood.
“Two more,” Connley said, though he did not want her to.
His wife met his gaze this time, frowning. “What’s wrong?”
Connley shook his head, for he had no words to describe the gruesome feeling tearing at his heart.
“Conn.”
He lowered his hands. Holy cards fluttered to the trampled grass in a spira
l like a star chart. Through blurring eyes Connley saw the leaping Salmon constellation, and above its arcing back the Wolf Star marked by the Saint of Stars—sanctified destiny. He said, “Do you know what you are meant to be? You’re connected to this land, and you’re torn. You have a great destiny, Isarna.”
She sighed. “I always have.”
“But it’s near. It’s … now.” Crouching, Connley touched the card holding the place in the spilled night sky where Hotspur’s birth star hung.
The Tree of Home.
His shoulders bowed, and then his wife touched his cheek, kneeling beside him. Wind nudged his lashes and the short ends of his curls, and this prophecy coiled in his ears: She will become home.
Connley whispered, “Rowan says someone must be anchored here, when he opens the star roads. He thinks it will be him, but what if it’s you? What if that’s what they’ve wanted, Isarna, all this time?”
Lady Hotspur kissed her husband, cradling his face in her rough hands. “If that is the answer, it is easy. I anchored myself on Innis Lear, and the whole island called my name. I can do the same, and better, at home in Aremoria.” She smiled.
Home, Connley whispered in the language of trees.
RELUCTANTLY, THE NAMELESS wizard stared up at twinkling stars.
“I don’t even know what I want to hear,” Prince Hal murmured beside him, her face turned up like its own moon.
“Good, because prophecies are mostly a waste of time.”
The prince laughed. “That is the least wizardly thing you’ve ever said.”
He shrugged one shoulder, feeling petulant.
Hal put her arm around him and pressed her cheek to his temple. “What do you see when you gaze at them?”
“Lies.”
“Wizard, don’t make me say your name.”
With a little sigh, he cast his eyes up again, marking constellations and sheer clouds, and the waning moon just risen in the east. Beneath his boots the earth trembled, but only with magic, only with crawling roots. Those were his tools, his masters, the avenues through which he might grasp at the future. In the sky, the stars softened and smeared, like lines of cold wind, blowing from east to west.
The wizard thought longingly of the queens of Innis Lear.
“One for Aremoria, one for Innis Lear,” he said. “That’s what the wind is saying. And She will become home and …”
“Home, hmm? Like your riddle. I’m not afraid, wizard. I’m ready to be home. But what do the stars say?”
The wizard shook his head. He faced Prince Hal and put a hand over her heart, spreading his fingers like wings. “Here is a prophecy for you: Be your own star.”
“And what does that mean?” she whispered, leaning nearer to peer into his eyes.
The wizard smiled mysteriously.
Just then flapping startled them both, and a small crow dropped through the night, awkward and irritable (night was not a time for crows to fly). It brushed its wing against the wizard’s cheek and he saw
long white braids
the ruins, a rustle of leaves tossed by wind
elegant hands
a line of earth and salt
Shooing the crow away with thanks, the wizard said, “Rowan Lear is at the old temple.”
DESPITE THE CRUMBLING nature of the walls and the wild vines spilling like tapestries from the trees, despite the ruined old well and nothing but shadows where once doors stood, Rowan Lear could sense the holy space around him. Long ago, this temple had echoed with joy and worship, with blessings, prophecy, and the language of trees.
The Poison Prince brushed aside a line of earth and salt, smiling gently. It was no barrier, but a signal. The wizard would know by wind or bird that Rowan had come, but the prince did not believe the wizard would bother him. Not here. It was only that neither Celedrix nor Banna Mora wanted their enemies using the temple for leverage.
Where two arms of the temple would once have met, a mound of black rocks hunched, damp and recently disturbed. The scent of rootwaters lifted to his nose: bright, but tinged with sweet decay. Rowan lowered himself to his knees and slid a leather pack from his shoulder. Inside were rolled star charts and clean parchment, charcoal pencils, candles, and a mirror setting he could use to reflect the flame of his candle onto the parchment so that it would not glare at his eyes nor ruin the crisp night sky.
Calmly, the prince unrolled parchment and without the aid of light sketched the arc of the sky. He smeared out stars and parts of constellations based on the angles of the wind and clouds, and the trees surrounding him: he spiraled his chart tighter and tighter, using all his fingers to connect some stars and shatter others, until the chart was a mass of black shadows precisely placed, with only a few tiny spots of creamy parchment speckled through.
Blinking, Rowan sat back and studied the prophecy.
It was the Star of Third Birds falling between the Child Star, the Wolf Star, and the Elegance. And Terestria’s Heart in balance.
a line of starlight stretching like a road between Aremoria and Innis Lear. Rowan, somehow, at both ends
a saint for Innis Lear
a heart for Aremoria
Rowan saw the face of the Dragon of the North, her garnet-bright eye swung to stare at his soul. He stared back, and through her, until his gaze landed upon the base of the Liresfane well, where clung a single weedy white flower.
ON INNIS LEAR, deep in the heart of Connley Castle, Era Star-Seer spread a woolen blanket and lay herself down. The old oak tree in the center of this ruined black castle blocked much of the sky from her eyes with its reaching, thick branches, but Era had earned her epithet for never needing to rely on sight alone. She held all the night skies inside her heart, and could cast them up accurately with little more than a reference point.
Tonight she could see the Child Star in the north, just over the edge of the black wall. She visualized all the constellations she could not see, those partially obscured, those still dipped below the horizons, those hidden behind thin silver clouds. The old moon rose. She breathed deeply and watched as the oak bent beneath an insistent wind: the shifting branches marked out a rhythm of prophecy against the night.
For a moment, the stars themselves became burning leaves dotting the oak branches, the limbs and thinnest twigs: silver-fire leaves, the Tree of Ancestors brought vividly to life.
Era gasped and sat up, seeing the path of the future in a sudden clear stream.
She would be too late!
Knowing it didn’t stop her from tearing through the castle grounds to the stables, and pounding against the door until an ostler woke to help her saddle a horse in the darkness.
BANNA MORA
Liresfane, early summer
IT WAS THREE hours until dawn, and she was alone.
How dare Rowan leave her now, Mora thought, seething in the dim glow of a candle stub. The rest she’d snuffed when Vindomata departed, having plotted and planned with Mora, Mared, Hotspur, and Douglass over dinner and a very delicate wine. Vindomata had heated the tent with her fury, and Mora had not bothered calming the duke. Anger would fuel Mercia on the battlefield.
Besides, Mora felt very little of calming thoughts herself.
This might be her final night with her husband if his faith proved true, and he was not here.
She thought Rowan might have gone to the ruins, and she thought she might go after, except it was so dark, and she wouldn’t lower herself to chasing after him like a lovesick child.
It put a trembling in her hands until she clenched them together.
Mora paced, then lay down as she counted her breath, meaning to at least rest if not sleep.
Wind blew gently, and the sounds of camp faded a bit and then faded more, until deep quiet fell, broken only by an occasional ring of armor when guards changed shifts or a burst of laughter from other soldiers too exhilarated with nerves or anticipation to sleep. Somebody in a nearby tent enjoyed a good fuck, and that infuriated Mora all over again.
By
the time Rowan folded back the tent flap and crept inside, Mora was livid. She rose in utter silence. “Husband,” she whispered, too calm.
“Wife,” he whispered back. He leaned in and bumped his mouth to hers, unadjusted to the particular darkness inside the tent.
Mora grasped the back of his neck and held him there. She kissed him, taking his bottom lip in her teeth; she bit slowly, intently, until he hissed.
Releasing him, Mora said, “The Dragon of the North told me to make myself whole.”
“I know.”
“Solas herself said such is the mission of the queens of Innis Lear: to make myself. Make myself whole and entire. Rowan Lear, I am committed to our mission here, to the will of Innis Lear. But after what Hal Bolinbroke said to me today, I must tell you: my heart will never be whole if you die tomorrow.”
“My love,” he said, “That is not how hearts work.”
“It is how mine works!” She smacked her open hand against his chest.
Catching her hand, Rowan covered it with his own. “I will always be in your heart, now that I am there. I will be there, part of your blood and spit, in the blood and spit of our daughter. In the wind of Innis Lear, in the wind of all the world, Banna Mora. I will never be gone from you so long as you keep me in your heart.”
“Rowan.” She stumbled over his name, like it was a cold rock in her throat. A dozen cold rocks, tumbling and spilling inside her, choking her, slowing her breath. “Swear you will not agree to die just for a prophecy. If you must leave me, you must—that is war. But you will fight to live. Swear it, or you don’t love me, you don’t love anyone at all.”
“I will fight,” he said, amusement filling his tone, creeping along Mora’s skin, between her breasts. His voice wrapped around her hips, slipped along her thighs. “I will fight to live, as you fight. Though there are many ways of living, many paths of life. Life is breath, but life is also memory and story, life is roots drinking waters melted by funeral pyres and feasting on the ashes. It is laughter a hundred years from now, when some great-grandchild of my line holds a moonmoth in her hand and the wings tickle her skin. Life is—”
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