“Stop!” she cried. “Swearing is enough, promising to live if you can. I can go forward into tomorrow with that.”
“Tomorrow, Innis Lear will live, Mora. Tomorrow, magic will live, and we will, too.”
Mora kissed him, tugging at his clothes, pressing against him. He grasped her by the thighs and lifted her with a strength that made her moan. “We will live,” she commanded as she kissed him again, pushing her words inside him, speaking to his tongue and heart and liver, to his guts and bones and blood.
PRINCE HAL
Liresfane, early summer
AN HOUR BEFORE dawn Hal gave up on sleeping and slipped out of her tent, past a handful of silent guards, and into her mother’s.
“Who’s there?” Celeda asked.
The queen reclined upon a sofa carried here in a wagon, the better to support her when she was in pain.
“Hal,” the prince answered softly, pausing to listen to her mother breathe.
Celeda’s rhythm was easy and deep, without a hint of pain.
“You couldn’t sleep, love?”
“I tossed for a while, then tried to read, then just sat there staring at nothing. Charm snored—I’m jealous.”
“There is some bread, if you’re hungry. You ought to light another candle or two so I can see your smile.”
“I’m not smiling,” Hal murmured, but obeyed. Three candles put a glow in the royal tent, making it as intimate as a chapel or the mouth of a cave. The prince picked across the braided rug holding down the dust of the camp and found the sofa. She perched carefully at her mother’s feet, laying a hand upon her ankle through a thin blanket.
“No food?” Celeda asked.
“I’m not hungry. But, oh, are you? I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s all right. I am not, either.”
Hal fell back against the sofa. She tilted her face up and stared at the tent peak, where shadows streaked in rays, like a black sun. “Is it always like this?”
“Yes.” Celeda’s reply was immediate. “Though different things have kept me awake over the years. A campaign is always exhausting.”
“I wish I could gossip and drink with the soldiers. Put on a foot soldier’s coat and wander among them. Are they afraid of the same things I am?”
The queen nodded; Hal saw in the corner of her sight. “But not as many things. The weight of their deaths rests around our necks; they have their own lives and their comrades, their families at home, worried how long this will last, will they be home for sowing the fields, or the harvest? What will an injury do to their families? You know these concerns.”
“Do you think they want us to win?” Hal whispered.
“I do, Hal. I do.”
Prince Hal lolled her head toward her mother. Shadows beneath Celeda’s eyes seemed starker, her lips colorless. Hal stared, eyes flickering over her mother’s face. Celeda said irritably, “Stop fussing.”
Hal’s smile brightened. “There’s still time to run. You like the Third Kingdom; it wouldn’t be hard to live your twilight years there.”
“Never again without you,” Celeda said firmly.
Emotion knotted Hal’s throat and so she nodded, and Celeda stopped breathing.
The queen’s lips parted and that final exhalation was sweet, pink with wine and forgiveness as she died. Silence roared in Hal’s skull.
Hal gasped, but—it was not real. Her mother frowned at her, very much breathing and alive and annoyed.
For a brief moment, Hal shut her eyes, then she said, “Will we ever be allowed to stop killing our friends?”
“I am so very sorry, Hal. I brought you to this.”
“You were the right choice for Aremoria,” Hal whispered. “So will I be.”
“Take a deep breath, then bring us some bread and water. We will eat together, the two of us, and so fortified, put on armor and fight.”
Nodding, Hal squeezed her mother’s hand and stood. “Armor for our bodies, and our hearts,” she muttered. Her hand reached for the flask in her pocket, but Hal let it fall. Later, when she was ready—(she would never be ready)—when she prepared to mount her horse, fully dressed with sword in hand, she’d pour Terestria’s tears onto the soil, a drink for Aremoria.
THE DAY DAWNED silent and striated by sheer clouds.
They waited until the zenith to charge, because it was the most fair time, when the sun was at its pinnacle. For four generations the queens of Innis Lear had made zenith suns their most holy times for bringing people together.
War brings people together, too.
JUST BEFORE THE call sounded, Connley strode up to his wife, dressed like a Learish soldier in vivid blue with steel mail. She began to compliment his look, but he kissed her. Hotspur was surprised: there were soldiers everywhere. For a split second it was Hal kissing her fiercely, two years past, in the courtyard of the Lionis barracks before she led the queen’s army to take back the March.
Here. To this very valley.
She’d led the army here, and seen those same three figures standing at the crest of the Liresfane hill, though she’d not had a name for the ruins then.
The earth tilted beneath Hotspur but Connley’s mouth was warm and slow; this was no desperate kiss, no passion, no performance, but more a benediction. She felt his blessing exactly like the hiss of her iron sword, through her skin and blood, down, down through her feet and into the roots.
Where she belonged.
Home.
IN THE MOMENTS before the call to attack, Hal Bolinbroke’s mind quieted.
The sky was pale gray, windless and smooth. Struggling light diffused the shadows of horses and infantry and dulled the polish of armor and sharp blades, but made bold contrast of colored flags and tabards in violent orange and red, bloody purple and dark winter blue.
Hal took the first step off the edge of the line and raised her sword to signal the archers.
When the two sides charged to the blaring song of trumpets, the field of Liresfane trembled.
LADY HOTSPUR LED the charge, spear in arm and buckler braced as she held tight to the reins of her horse. Her courage was a rush of breath, the bloom of bloodlust, and a cry for Banna Mora.
Between hoofbeats a voice whispered, Wolf of Aremoria.
I am already home.
But that was Hal’s voice, haunting her.
Hotspur’s focus narrowed as it always did: push forward against this man before you, and that man to your right. Thrust with spear, pull back fast. Speed was the only champion between speared cavalry, and Hotspur would be on her feet too soon, so must make use of the horse, of the heightened position.
Awake
Yelling “Banna Mora!” again, she lifted her spear, rallied her soldiers, and pressed the charge.
Awake
She kicked out into a soldier’s face, knocking the man back. Shrieks of horses and the grunts and cries of men filled her ears, drowning her own voice. In the center of the maelstrom of battle, Hotspur was most alive. Her bones jarred with impact, her teeth set.
An enemy—but still Aremore—got past the blade of her spear and grabbed the shaft. Hotspur twisted it and pulled back, dragging the soldier off-balance. She lashed out with her boot and knocked the man to the ground to be trampled.
come home
She threw her spear like a javelin; the target was close enough the blade sliced through his gambeson and knocked the soldier back. Hotspur crowed and leapt off her horse: she knew she was faster, more efficient and deadly on the ground. She landed hard, making way deeper into the opposing forces, dragging her army behind like she was the prow of a ship driving into enemy waters. That was the goal: break their line, crush as many as possible, make them understand it was Hotspur’s army that owned the rocks of the field.
wake up!
Drawing her sword, her beautiful, hissing sword, Hotspur screamed and attacked again. Blood splashed her face. She spied an inch of exposed shirt between a chest plate and mail pauldron, and jabbed her sword in. She bashed th
e buckler into another soldier’s face, then used her sword to block the head of a hammer flying at her. The contact shook her wrist, and she twisted away before the other could disarm her with the hook.
She shoved through to a group of her own men who’d formed in a square against spearmen on horseback, using her speed to dodge weapons and slash the neck of the nearest horse: it went down, throwing its rider and breaking the unity of the attack.
The whole world was blocking and thrusting, blood and the rush of small pain, the break of harder blows, the overwhelming roar of anger and thrill. Lady Hotspur belonged there, in those moments. This was her world. She’d been tempered to this purpose all her life, and scorched through it like wildfire.
She was already home, too.
LADY IANTA OLDCASTLE put down the prince of Burgun, but not before he killed two knights in his quest to destroy Prince Hal: first Lady Danika and then Mata Blunt, and Vatta Bolinbroke only lived because she ran away. Vatta found Hal in the fighting where it spilled south toward the narrow stream, tears cutting lines through the blood on her face, and begged her sister’s forgiveness.
Hal, panting, clasped Vatta’s neck and said, “Sometimes winning necessitates withdrawal. I am glad you live. Go with me, stay at my side.”
They found Ianta with her sword through the guts of the large Douglass, spitting and staggering back from a wound in her own side. The great knight fell to one knee; Hal ran to her, skidding to the earth so she could grasp at Ianta’s arm and prop the woman up. “Look at this blood,” Ianta said, disgusted, fainting.
Hal and Vatta caught her and lowered her to the earth. The prince yelled for aid to a group of soldiers in orange.
BANNA MORA HAD not lost her seat upon her horse, though her hips burned and her insides squeezed fierce nausea, she fought on, driving toward one goal: Celeda Bolinbroke.
The pounding of her horse’s hooves jarred through Mora’s bones, echoing out in every direction, and seemed to clear a path for her. There, her brother, Connley, remained astride as well, blood coating his sword and streaked down his face exactly like bright lines of ash. He grimaced and shoved his horse around toward Hotspur, never letting himself be forced too far from his wife.
Mared Lear had called off the archers once the armies were too mingled, then he brought them out onto the field, circling behind the thrust of Burgun’s force. Vindomata hunted, still, butchering her way through Prince Hal’s cavalry.
There’d not been sign of Rowan since the first charge: Mora gritted her teeth and thrust herself and her mount forward again, toward the sun-crown pennant of Celedrix, furious at her husband for not waiting—they should win the day, then together go to the ruins!
Mora kicked out at an enemy shield and turned her sword to bash the pommel into an enemy face.
VINDOMATA OF MERCIA found herself at the edge of a circle of barren earth.
She spun her horse, ready for attack, panting. Her ears pounded with battle rage and blood. Her sword gleamed red, half her hair striped down her neck in hunks, torn free when she tore her mail hood off her head, too eager, too raw with rage to be so confined. Her back burned from a hard knock she’d taken earlier, nearly unseating her, and her thighs, too, from pressure, and her mouth bled where she’d bitten her own cheek.
An aide rushed to her, crying that Douglass had fallen. “And Bolinbroke?” she demanded, voice raw.
The soldier shook his head, and pointed. There, just past this circle, was Celeda Bolinbroke: the man had mistaken her question about Hal for a question about the queen.
Celedrix.
Her steel helmet crowned with gold, the set of her shoulders impossible to miss.
“Give me your shield,” Vindomata said, and the soldier unhooked it from his arm before the duke even finished.
Vindomata screamed, positioning her boot and pulling the reins to rear her horse; it screamed with her, showing off its power. Thrusting her sword high, she cried, “Celedrix!” If she killed her, the day would be won.
Celeda’s head snapped toward her, but it was not the queen who charged.
It was the black prince from the Third Kingdom, Charm Kurake. He turned his horse at an angle to Vindomata’s, nudging it between her and the queen. Scarlet flared behind him as he rode, streaming like fire. His teeth were bared and in his hand was a curved Sun sword. Upon his shaved scalp were painted stripes of silver and red. As if a god could protect him better than a helmet.
Fine, Vindomata would kill him first. Kill the son of Celeda’s heart, and gladly. Then the daughter, too.
She slammed into Charm, full-body, with horse and shield. She reached her sword over to stab, but he shoved her back. She clung with her legs, shifting her weight to move her horse. Charm pushed his horse away, kicking out at her, following with a solid hit with the edge of his shield. It cracked along her shield, vibrating up her arm. Twisting, she got her sword up again, focused on him while their shields pressed impossibly hard.
He met her blow with his sword. They parted, attacked again, their horses too near, hooves clashing. Vindomata swung her shield so Charm had to engage, then thrust quickly beneath it. But the prince caught the hit with his curved cross guard, angling her sword away: he punched her in the face with his armored fist.
Pain blew out from her cheek, blackening her vision with sparks.
She fell from her horse, slamming to her back. Spiderweb pain pulsed in her face, but Vindomata stood, rattled and breathless, as Charm swung down off his saddle. He strode over mud and churned grass toward her. With blood smeared across her mouth, Vindomata bared her teeth and rushed him.
They engaged, sparks bursting to life, as all around them the armies pulsed, pressing in. Death was everywhere, and so very, very loud.
Crouching, Vindomata said, “Your death will destroy her.”
“No,” he replied.
The duke smiled. The prince did not smile back.
She attacked again, he parried. Vindomata used her weight and shield to shove him, and they turned, spinning together in a dance, before pushing mutually away. Her body moved exactly as she willed and her heart beat hard and firm, alive, so alive.
Charm lashed out; she saw an opening and hit with all her strength in his side. The mail shirt saved him from the blade, but not the force; he bent and grunted, eyes never wavering on hers. With a shock of admiration, Vindomata realized he’d given her the strike to get near enough to grab her shield in his hand. With brute strength he tore it away.
Before she could even gasp, Charm hit her in the face with the edge of her own shield. It broke her cheek, shattering the bone, and she choked on the pain and fire of stars in her eyes. Vindomata reeled back, slinging her sword at him. He crashed into her, shoving her down again, and with a wordless grunt he thrust the point of his sword into her. She twisted against the earth, crying, and avoided the stab to her chest, but the point of his sword struck through her armor, digging deep through her ribs on the left.
This did not hurt, not like her face, not like the shards shifting beneath her right eyeball.
“On … my … feet …” Vindomata said, every word agony.
The prince jerked his sword free of her flesh, blood slicking the steel.
Her back arched with it, and Charm took her wrist and pulled her up. He grimaced in pain to support her, and she blinked her working eye, glad to have injured him. As they stood, the prince leaned hard away from her. Blood blackened the scarlet edge of his gambeson.
Vindomata could not speak again. Around her came cries of battle.
There, Vindus, her eldest, a knight covered in blood but handsome, strong, alive. She could not smile at him, or say she was proud.
Charm stabbed her. This time through the chest—perfectly.
Vindomata of Mercia did not fall.
Her lips opened and closed, teeth bright with blood, and more poured fresh down her breast and side, flowing in and out of her chain mail. She lifted her empty sword to the sky. Then she sank forward, caught he
rself momentarily with the tip of her sword against the mud, and died.
ROWAN
Liresfane, early summer
IN THE RUINS of the old temple, Rowan Lear stripped his armor away, dropping it to the ground. He removed gambeson and shirt and boots to the sound of distant battle. Last night he’d left a rope here, and tied it now to a small cup that he then lowered into the crumbling well. It clunked against the stones, but all Rowan needed was a tiny sip of the deepest Aremore rootwaters.
He breathed slowly, head tilted to listen past the echoing cries of war beyond these ruins, for the gentle splash of water. The rope slackened when the cup landed; he smiled and thought of his baby girl.
Rowan spoke her name to the wind as he lifted the rope again, drawing water to him.
If he succeeded here, the surge of magic would hand his wife all of Aremoria. The star roads were not a prize to win and open, but a tool of that triumph for Innis Lear.
One land, one nation.
The Poison Prince held the cup in one hand and with his other plucked free a tiny starburst of white petals from the hemlock growing through the broken well. He placed them onto his tongue and pressed it to the roof of his mouth. Lying down, he set the cup of water beside his hip and dug his fingers into the hard earth. In the language of trees he whispered an old Learish invocation, with his own slight twist:
Hail the roots of Innis Lear
Hail the roots of Aremoria
Hail the stars in the sky
And hail our hearts in between
Listen, Aremoria, wake to the power of Innis Lear that once was yours
He closed his eyes and sighed, pushing wind from his lungs.
Magic sparked in his palms and in his belly. Rowan felt the energy drawn through his blood by the hemlock. This was his purpose: the Poison Prince of Innis Lear could die as he had so many times on Innis Lear, open the star roads for magic to rush back to the roots and caves of Aremoria, feed these worms and earth saints slithering and clicking all around. Draw together with his sacrifice what had been cleaved.
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