The Queens of Innis Lear

by Tessa Gratton

  He said nothing.

  “You might try to give it back to me, like a gift. If I were your wife. Your queen. Is that what you think?” Elia blinked, and tears rolled down her cheeks, clinging to the line of her jaw. “Do you see? You are above me.”

  “What? No.” Morimaros shook his head in emphatic denial. “You are already royalty, the daughter of kings and—and empresses. Never beneath me.”

  “That’s how I feel. Disempowered, with no authority. If I marry you as I am, it would be like locking that into place.” The realization took Elia’s breath away. This was it: the core truth. She had to make herself into—something. Her choice. Before she could hold any power over herself or others. “I can’t abandon Innis Lear to you, and marrying you now would do exactly that.”

  “I’m asking only for you, Elia. And nothing else.”

  “You know that isn’t how it works. You are never only you, and I—I don’t even know what I can be!”

  “I’m sorry,” Morimaros said, low with regret. “This is still too soon. I’m making everything worse.”

  He turned, but Elia grasped his elbow. The tears fell into the air. “It is not too much. I am not breaking again. Tears are not a sign of such calamity.” She curled her hands around his wrist, pressing his hand to her heart. “I cannot hide here with you, I cannot be small when Innis Lear needs help. I—I cannot let you be my strength. I let my father be that for me, let him protect me, hide me away, coddle me, so that I would not be sullied with the emotions of life, or face any distress. So that I would not become my sisters. I won’t make such a mistake again. My giving my all to one man, even one I might learn to trust, is how he alone was able to take everything I thought I was.”

  “I wouldn’t do that. I’m not your father.”

  “I promise you I do not see you as such a king as he. But I…” Elia lifted his hand and kissed his knuckle. She let herself breathe against the back of his hand as his fingers trembled. She turned his hand over and kissed the center where the skin was softer than where Morimaros would grip his sword.

  At the touch of her lips to his palm, Elia shivered. Heat spiraled in the small of her back. When she breathed, she was suddenly aware of the press of her breasts against the stiff bodice, and her bare feet against the tickling grass. She had not felt so alive in her body in years and years, not since—

  Gasping, Elia let go. She backed away, hands clamped together over her heart.

  “Elia.”

  That was all he said, without demand, or even longing: only her name, hovering there like a soft moon moth.

  “I can’t marry you,” she whispered.

  His short beard ruffled as he clenched his jaw, but it was only hurt in his eyes. He did not ask for more explanation.

  That was what made Elia offer it. “You’re the Lion of War, and I’m the Child Star. Never together, despite Calpurlugh being fixed, always there in the north. When the Lion appears, Calpurlugh is consumed and vanishes.”

  “Do not make this choice based on inconstant stars, Elia Lear,” he warned.

  “It is my heart making the choice, and the stars are only … the reflection of it. The poem I grasp at, to try to explain to you.”

  Morimaros lost all emotional expression. “The sun has no friends,” he said dully. “Nor kings, either.”

  Elia did not understand the words, but she did understand the feeling behind them. Loneliness had been the star at her back, for these last years. “I’m sorry, Mars.” She took a long breath of rosy air, shocked the garden could remain so bright and colorful, when the king of Aremoria had gone dull and gray. “Someday—” Elia began to say, but Morimaros held up his hand.

  He said, “I interrupted you here. I should withdraw.”

  Though it hurt him, she could see, Elia did not stop him from leaving this time. She sank onto the grass, bowed over her knees, and covered her head with her hands. Grass scratched her ankles, the tops of her feet, and her nose. It smelled of earth, dry and thick, and of roses nearby. Elia breathed carefully, letting the perfume soothe her. There was one other piece of her refusal she could not have shared, for it terrified her: she would not marry a man who loved her, especially one as truly good as this one seemed. Her father had loved her mother, and then her death had destroyed him, though the stars had made him expect it all along. Elia knew her stars, too. Her loyalty had been fixed at her birth; there was no breaking its orbit. She could not risk causing such harm to Morimaros.

  And Elia would not allow herself to find refuge at the expense of Innis Lear.

  Aefa appeared and knelt at her side; Elia knew her friend by the gentle touch at the nape of her neck, and the stiff sigh as fingers picked at something on her shoulder. “The king looked wretched as he passed me. What did you say to him to carve such a mask?”

  Elia leaned sideways so her temple touched Aefa’s knee, and her friend pulled her fully against her lap. The wool of Aefa’s skirt was soft on Elia’s cheek. “I did not say yes.”

  “He proposed again?”

  She nodded, then buried her face against Aefa’s thigh.

  “Very demanding king,” Aefa said with a sniff.

  “I hurt him.”

  “Well, he doesn’t understand.”

  “Neither do I,” Elia let the edge of a whine taint the words.

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Yes, I do,” she murmured to her friend with a sorrowful sigh.

  I have to go home, she whispered to the flowers of Aremoria. Now. But they remained silent, ruffled petals shining like pearls in the zenith sun.

  GAELA

  IN HER OWN home, Gaela preferred to wear simple soldier’s attire: brown and gray leather, with some bits of mail or plate as the situation required, short skirts over trousers or only the trousers. A jacket that tied tight across the front for binding and armor. All finely made, but basic and plain.

  Since her father had come to stay nearly a month ago, she’d learned an unfortunate lesson that her choice of clothing allowed Lear’s retainers to snub or ignore her, in seeming obedience to Lear’s own wishes.

  She might snap for their attention or threaten to throw them out, and this or that retainer could bug out his eyes and be all apologies and smooth pretense, that he’d not realized it was her. Obvious lies, Gaela knew, as there was no one like her in all of Innis Lear.

  Not since her mother had died.

  But rather than act a fool for her father, or a furious brat in her husband’s eyes, Gaela now chose upon rising to put on a gown and glittering belt hung with amber and polished malachite, to have her girls weave velvet and glass into her hair, slide more than only the Astore ring onto her fingers, paint her bottom lip and the corners of her eyes. As if she attended a refined court every day, as if fashion and elegance were her best morning concerns. No retainer could pretend this Lady Gaela, this queen-to-be, this duchess in her pink-and-midnight gowns, her skirts lined with outrageously beautiful teal wool, a diadem crowning her black hair, could be mistaken for any less than herself.

  So did she sweep into the rear court of Astore’s old castle, hunting her father and his commander.

  Not five moments before, Gaela had come upon her captain Osli, back pressed to the stone wall of an unused hall between the duke’s study and the old solarium. It was a fine place to hide, and Gaela would never have found the young woman if she hadn’t been looking to use the solarium herself, to store the few of her mother’s things she’d brought home from the Summer Seat. Gaela refused to find displays for the beloved objects until Lear and his men moved on to their time with Regan and Connley.

  The captain of Gaela’s personal retainers had, for the first time, hidden from her. Osli had gasped, straightened, and turned her eyes across to the opposite wall, clearly willing Gaela to walk past, ignore her—to allow Osli the privacy she’d come to find.

  And Gaela would’ve granted it, if not for the reddened new bruise cutting an inch along her captain’s right cheekbone.

  Thi
s was no battle wound or accident from the arena: Osli’s uniform held no dust or mud, and her knuckles were not red from hitting back. Only a single drop of blood marred the collar of her dark pink gambeson. Gaela stopped instantly.

  To Osli’s credit, the girl did not bend her face to her shoulder to hide the wound, nor flee. She would not cower, as Gaela would not have. Her eyes had closed, though, and so the captain could not see the flash of horror and concern that slid through Gaela’s eyes before transforming into pure, cold anger.

  “Who did that to you?” Gaela demanded softly.

  Osli kept her lips pressed shut.

  Gaela admired the determination but would not allow it. She intended to utterly destroy whoever had hit Osli. “There are times for honor in silence,” Gaela said, standing near enough she could see the roots of Osli’s hair. “This is not such a time. I will know, and you will tell me.”

  “My lady,” the captain said, brave enough to meet Gaela’s dark eyes. “It will do no good.”

  The smile that spread on Gaela’s mouth was not kind. “I do not intend to try for good. Tell me.”

  Osli’s jaw muscles shifted as she clenched and unclenched her teeth.

  Gaela grasped Osli’s shoulder, squeezing the thin leather cap of the uniform sleeve. “None shall know you told me, none shall know I have discovered it at all. Your life will not be made harder in our own ranks, or in your command. You have my promise on that. But I will know.”

  “Esric,” Osli snarled, suddenly alive with fury. “They—they cornered me, said they could fix me! There is nothing wrong with me. I told them that if they were men they’d not be threatened by my strength. That’s when he—I would’ve hit him back, but it was so vicious, and I was so full of rage. I’d have killed him if I started, and I would not have your retainer responsible for the death of your father’s.”

  Such a swell of affection and pride filled Gaela that her grip became too ferocious, causing Osli to gasp.

  “It was well done,” the prince said, releasing her young captain. “I will finish it for you.”

  And Gaela strode toward the rear courtyard, where she knew Lear’s retainers could be found, lounging and lazing even at this early time of evening.

  In the yard a ring had been built, messily formed of ropes, with retainers—half unjacketed—holding the corners, all while two shirtless, barefooted men wrestled in the middle. Gaela paused on the final stair as a cheer rose, the unmelodious noise made of half groans, and several voices calling new bets. Lear was seated close to the wall, and he clapped and tossed a handful of dull coins at the men. A cacophony of vulgar behavior.

  Esric was her father’s commander, and Gaela did not doubt that Lear had witnessed the entire attack and done not a thing.

  Gaela stepped down and called, “This game is over.”

  She was ignored, and that would not stand.

  The eldest daughter of Lear walked to the nearest corner, shoved the retainer aside, and grasped the rope he held. She jerked it, pulling the next man off balance hard enough so he fell to one knee.

  Protests rang out at the interruption, before the men noticed who had ended their revelry.

  “What, Gaela!” her father cried. “Why so full of frowns?”

  “Your men are all insolence, sir.” She thrust the rope to the hard-packed dirt of the yard. “All hours, in all ways, and I am grown sick of it.”

  “Insolent! For sporting with ourselves?” Lear giggled.

  “I have spoken to you of their slovenly ways before, and yet you refuse to take them to task. I will do it for you now.” Gaela leveled a glare at the nearest man, then swept her gaze over them all, eyeing Esric especially. “Mend your lazy, arrogant, unbridled behavior, or be gone from Astora by morning.”

  Lear flew at her. “You cannot order my men. These are mine, and my will shall order them.”

  “Then order them better, as a commander, and not an old fool.”

  It was too much; Gaela knew it the moment she spoke it, but she faced Lear proudly.

  “Do you call your father a fool?” Lear said with stealthy anger.

  From the benches, a voice called, “You so readily did give away all your other titles!”

  For a moment silence struck the yard, but for the song of evening birds and the rustle of the city just beyond the wall. Gaela could not look away from Lear to identify the speaker, not until Lear himself slid his eyes that way, with a tattered slight smile.

  It was his own Fool.

  “What title would you regain for me, then?” asked Lear.

  “Lear’s shadow?”

  Gaela fought a shiver of foreboding.

  “And who is this standing, then, here with us?” Lear flapped his hand at her, and she leveled the Fool with her dark gaze, daring him.

  “Your daughter, Uncle, and the queen-in-waiting, if waiting be a battle.”

  “That is right,” Gaela said to her father. “This Fool knows better than you what we are, and what we will be. Understand me: your retainers are not welcome here any longer, soaked in this dreadful behavior. Wrestling in mud and betting on themselves! Lusting after my maids and those living in the city! Think not that I am unaware. Striking my people, and making servants of their betters. A king would never have tolerated it before, nor shall I now. Get them gone if you cannot control them.”

  Lear brought his fists up, trembling with exhaustion or rage or some mix of the two. “I will go with them, if they are to be tossed out with so little joy and care!”

  “So be it!” Gaela yelled.

  “What is this storm?”

  All glared at the newcomer: Kay Oak, muddy from travel and stinking of horse. Gaela wished to welcome him, the uncle who shared her better blood. But the once-earl put his hands on his hips and very clearly turned a face of comfort to the king. “Your Majesty, my kin, what troubles you?”

  “My wretched girl turns me out!” wailed the king, with no hint of his so-recent fury at the Oak Earl, nor even a hint of familial recognition.

  “Patience, lord,” Kayo said, turning to Gaela with disbelief. He stripped off his heavy riding gloves.

  She covered her annoyance with a shrug. “If he insists, so it must be.”

  “Gaela.” Her name was all exasperation in Kayo’s mouth. “You owe him a daughter’s fealty. See how unfit he is.”

  “I owe him nothing but what he has already received. How do you stand here now, defending him, when he banished you, cast you aside, like there was nothing he owed to you? Like you were not brothers. What for?”

  Lear blinked. He scrubbed at his eyes and dragged those offending hands into his wild hair. “Banished?” he murmured, and his mouth curled up into a sneer. “My betraying brother! Would he dare show himself?”

  “Ah no, Lear! Ha!” the Fool danced up and between Lear and Kayo. “This is not your brother but mine, a darker Fool than me, but still a fool.”

  Gaela laughed harshly. “He is at that.”

  “Why are you turning your father out?” Kayo asked her.

  “Lear has heard my accusations of misrule and chaos sown in my home, and does not defend himself or his men. So I judge them unfit for this place.”

  Lear cackled, a child unattended, and aimed his words to the sky. “Regan will welcome me, and Connley!”

  Kayo frowned. “Connley cannot be trusted, Your Highness.”

  “But my other, brighter daughter Regan will take me in. Her love has always been true.”

  “You are mad,” Gaela said wonderingly.

  Lear fell silent. All around, retainers barely breathed.

  Kayo’s frown encompassed the entire yard. “Be kind, Gaela, you see how it is with him. He needs you to be a daughter.”

  “As I needed my mother?”

  The Oak Earl said nothing, shattered—as he should have been—by the reminder.

  Gaela held her hands out, uncaring now for her uncle’s opinion. He was as in love with inconstant Lear and as stupid as Elia. “If Lear needs my
council, he should listen to me. Father, I care not where you go, but you will not stay here, not with all your rowdy men. Revel in kinship with the beasts of the field, or ask some poorer of your lands to house and feed you! Discover whether you are truly beloved of these people. I think you will be surprised.”

  Kayo’s eyes were shadowed, so low and glaring was his brow. “Would your people shelter you, Gaela?”

  “I will withdraw my protection of you, Kayo, if you do not watch your tongue.”

  “They would shelter Elia.”

  Gaela bared her teeth. “I will shelter my people, because I will be their king.”

  Lear stepped nearer to his eldest daughter, peering into her face. “It is no wonder I find no comfort nor nurturing grace here; this daughter has none in her. She is dried up, barren of life, deprived of motherhood for being her own mother’s death omen.”

  Gaela slapped him.

  The king staggered back, and around him blades grated free of sheaths.

  Kayo hauled at her arm, crying her name. She swung, knocking Kayo off her.

  She faced her father and his circle of retainers, and all Gaela saw was a rotting old man who had always been sick: with star prophecy and loss and bitter fanaticism. Her stomach churned; she thought she might vomit, but Gaela Lear did not show weakness. She did not shy from battle. She would calm herself, then strike deadly, as a commander and king. Gaela seethed, sweat on her temples, and hissed a fatal verdict to her foolish father: “I do not care what you do, live or die, only do it out of my sight. Go to my sister if you would, throw yourself at Connley.”

  Lear reeled back into the arms of his men, all dragging away, gathering what they could to leave. The Fool flapped his coat but said nothing, staring at his king as he stumbled.

  “Why do you hate your father so deeply? It cannot be from Dalat’s death, not still. It was not Lear’s fault,” Kayo insisted.

  “He has never denied his guilt, and you were not here to see otherwise.” She turned her hot brown eyes to her uncle. “You were not here, and so could not save any of us.”