She put a hand to her chest; it felt as though she’d been knocked back, a weight crushing her sternum. She froze, trembling with the effort to breathe, and closed her eyes. The noises coming from her choked and gasped, like a dying horse—Hal was on the battlefield again, surrounded by blood and screaming, her body a hard, smooth weapon and Hotspur at her side. They screamed together, shoulder to shoulder, pummeling their way into the enemy forces. Pain radiated through every motion, and the heaviness of armor and stink of death.
Then it was gone, and Nova was there, hands on Hal’s face. “Hal, hey, Hal, what is it, why are you breathing like that?”
Shoving away from Nova, Hal hurried to the well; she grasped the rim in tacky, icy hands and leaned into it as if nothing else could keep her alive. She breathed. She counted, in-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten and out-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten and when Nova touched her again Hal managed to rasp, “No, please. Don’t—don’t touch me.”
Nova backed off.
Moonlight streamed around Hal. The darkness there, the peace, it was unlike war. But in that night there was space for her dreams—and every blink brought the streak of blood, the king’s gurgling final breath, the thick rug under her muddy boots and Hotspur’s hand in hers—
squeezing, squeezing—
squeezing—
until Hal couldn’t feel anything at all.
The prince opened her mouth to taste a long, careful breath; cool autumn air, wet rocks, the sweet flavor of rootwater.
Wait—no, that was only her mouth filling with saliva as her gorge rose.
Hal sank to her knees, retching at the base of the well. Her torso clenched, and she knocked her temple against the rough limestone, pressing hard. Her fingernails scrabbled in the earth.
What if she’d puked into the holy well? Tears filled her eyes, her nose burned with the fumes of her bile. She spat, wiped her mouth, and laughed.
“Hal,” Nova murmured, crouching nearby.
“I have to marry him,” Hal moaned.
The sound of pouring liquid drew her gaze back to the Witch Elm. Ianta drizzled the rest of her sack out over the roots, splashing the trunk. The clear sugar-wine gleamed like silver. Hal’s gaze focused on it, the rest of the world a blur.
“You can still have lovers,” Nova said gently. “You can still be you, inside your role.”
“I don’t want lovers, Nova. I don’t want women. I want—” Hal stopped, closed her eyes tightly.
“Hotspur,” Nova snapped. “If she loved you she’d take what she was allowed instead of proudly running off. I take what I can get of you, and it’s enough, because you’re enough!”
It was more words than Nova usually spoke, and she stopped abruptly.
Hal sat up, putting her back against the well. Nova breathed fast, and Hal knew if she looked, even in the moonlight it would be obvious how upset her lover was by the pink streaking her neck and the set of her mouth. A good lover would apologize. A good prince would gently rebuke her familiarity.
But Hal was good for nothing.
“Leave me alone, both of you,” the prince said.
For a long while she heard them breathing, gathering Ianta’s things, and then Nova paused, but a grunt from Ianta dragged her on. “We’ll see you at the keep in the morning,” Ianta said. “Don’t make any bargains tonight.”
When the noise of their leaving faded, Hal took a relieved breath and leaned sideways until she landed on her shoulder on the earth, then rolled onto her back. The ground was cold and felt damp, though there’d been no recent rain. She splayed her arms and let her legs relax, finally opening her eyes.
The moon filled the sky with silvery light, making the layers of elm branches pure black. Hal felt as if she rested under a dome of dark lace. The stars beckoned from beyond, and the moon was a distant promise. Once she’d told Hotspur that the moon was nothing but a big old rock, just powerful enough to glow and shine so brightly she could read by its light on clear nights. Just a silver stone, a jewel in the sky, pulling the attention of all the world. When I am queen, I will make the moon your crown.
If Hal died here, how long before her bones and flesh were swallowed by the grass? By the dirt itself, drawing her down to the bedrock for a permanent rest? She’d go from thirst, her skin dry out perhaps. Starve, eventually.
Or a wolf—a real wolf—might come and bite into her stomach, snapping her in two.
Hal imagined it, the slinking predator, the sudden growl and pain, the blood gushing. She’d bring up her hands and dig them into the beast’s thick fur, not to push it away, but hold it close. Through the pain, through the stink, and maybe the scrape of that wolf’s tongue on her guts would lull her into peace. What if it didn’t hurt, or the hurt did not last? After the initial flare, would there be a flood of numbness because her body couldn’t take the saw of teeth and tearing?
Perhaps the wolf would have pups, and they’d lap at Hal’s blood while it was warm, taking her heart blood into themselves. Tiny wolves growing taller and stronger, with Hal’s blood pumping through their veins. Hal’s heart, in six fleshy chunks, but beating still because those little hearts beat still. When they scattered to find mates and families of their own, the heart of the prince of Lionis would live in pieces.
A smile touched Hal’s mouth, there at the foot of the forgotten holy well at Tenne-Tiras, and she drifted into sleep.
BE CALM.
THE COMMAND RIPPLED across the water to distant shores in the wake of a witch’s boat.
Beneath the hills of Aremoria, eyes opened.
Eyes of emeralds, and eyes of cherry stones, eyes of pink granite and eyes of molten iron. Eyes of cornflower petals.
BE CALM.
THOSE WORDS SHOT across ancient, broken roads, leaping over shattered lines of magic, and they knew. The one from Innis Lear was strong enough already.
BE CALM.
NOW, AN EARTH saint hissed, pleased. Her emerald eyes never blinked once they were open. In another root-wrought castle, the saint with cherry-stone eyes agreed. Send him now. Push it faster.
Now.
Now.
Now.
But I like him here with me, said the youngest, (the newest), and though his eyes were made of cornflower petals they somehow became sad.
THE MOON DRIFTED low in the west, drawing thin clouds behind it in a great arc like a royal train. On Innis Lear they called such clouds a mourning veil after their shape and color, and when seeming attached to the full moon, it prophesized the arrival of mystery. What sort of mystery only a star priest might say, after noting which constellations touched the edges of the veil, which were obscured, and which flew ahead unscathed. Tonight, the Salmon nosed low, its tail vanishing in the moon’s corona; the Tree of Thorns shone bright, only partially obscured along its roots, and a single thread of the veil stretched far enough north to just glance across the bright sparkle of Calpurlugh, the most constant star in the sky.
Perhaps this mystery was an old one, then, of the sort that connected history to the living. A mystery of spirits, of bloodlines and promises made on battlefields, the clash of brothers and the birth of a dreamer.
Just as the moon touched the sleek black horizon, casting long shadows sharp as swords across this old holy well in the south of Aremoria, the Witch Elm of Tenne-Tiras shivered.
Bells chimed.
The thick bark of the elm rippled. In a great pulse, the elm tightened its roots, causing a tremor in the earth. Wind slipped in, curious, to flutter the long, serrated leaves. At the north face of the tree, a bole spiraled thick and ugly, waist high on a grown man. It tightened, knotting itself worse, and the elm groaned. Then the bole stretched and pulled, pushing out at all sides, slowly widening until it opened in the middle like a mouth.
Fingers gripped the edges, rough, dirty, and tan, darker than the gray-brown bark, darker than the moonlight. The fingers became hands, and those hands shoved at the bole’s lips, forcing the mouth wider an
d wider. An entire arm reached out, then a shoulder, and a wild, shaggy black mess of hair covered in leaves and flecks of dirt.
This creature climbed out, and when its chest was free, it bent and tumbled the rest of the way, spilling onto the earth in the lap of the elm tree like a fumbling, long-legged colt.
It was a man.
He moved into a crouch, more feral than human, and did nothing but breathe for many long moments.
His back gleamed in the fading moonlight, scarred and scratched from war and magic. His curving spine pressed up through skin and every vertebra could be counted; he was lean and muscled, nearly hairless but for the thatches on his head and at his groin. As he slowly unfurled himself again, he lifted muddy hazel eyes to the sky, then shivered violently. His stomach was ruined by scar tissue, and his right shoulder and chest, as well. Other scars wrote words in the language of trees, and a spiral over his heart.
It was not a man, but a wizard.
He stretched, rolled his neck, squeezed his eyes closed, then opened them wide; he opened his mouth, too, bared his teeth, touched the tip of his tongue to his lips as if remembering the taste of his own skin. He splayed his fingers, arms out, bounced on the balls of his bare feet, regaining balance. Rooting himself in flesh again.
The wizard touched his palms to his chest, found the hash-marks of the language of trees cut there, paler than the rest of his skin. He explored his body, sliding his hands along his hips, then up his torso to his neck, finding the sharp corners of his jaw, his cheekbones, his dark brow. He touched the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, then slid fingers back into his hair, pulling it out and together, smoothing it somewhat. It hung past his shoulder blades, the ends broken and tattered.
Then the wizard stood still, hands fallen to the sides, cocked his head, and listened.
Wind blew gently; the wizard smiled and murmured a fond Hello.
It had been a long while since last he’d walked these hills, though until he met a living human to ask, he’d no way of knowing exactly how long. Years, surely. He felt them in the stiffness of his joints and the dullness of his memory. As he moved through the trees, met folk, touched the walls of cities or drank rootwaters, more would return to him. His name, his family, his service and loves and losses.
But he did know his purpose.
When the star roads blaze, bring the lion’s heart home.
That was the only riddle, his instruction from the ones below.
It meant little to him. When it mattered, he would understand; he always did. That was the way of the service to which he’d been bound.
The wizard yawned. He rubbed his face. The wind laughed at him, reminding him with its cool, insistent fingers that he needed clothing.
He went to the well—there was always a well nearby when this happened. It was a stocky, pale thing, and poorly kept. Even if he’d not known the accent of this Aremore wind, the state of the well would’ve taught him he was not on Innis Lear. They did not neglect their holy wells on the island, not since—not since—
The wizard sighed. He’d remember eventually.
When the star roads blaze, bring the lion’s heart home.
A body sprawled beside the holy well, and the wizard paused in surprise. It was a young woman, he thought, dark of hair, pale of skin, and very pretty. Her clothes were rich, if dirty. The wizard sniffed; that was certainly the smell of vomit. He knelt and held his hand above her mouth. She breathed.
Her eyes flew open and she leapt at him, grabbing his arm, then she flung her body against his. They rolled, and she pinned him quickly, forearm pressed to his throat, knee in his belly.
“What are you?” she demanded, voice hoarse, brown eyes intense with fear. But she did not shake, and her strength was solid.
The wizard approved, liking the sensation of that strength over him, holding him against the earth. He snapped: seven flames appeared in the air, arcing over both of them.
The woman’s mouth fell open and she looked from the fire to him, then back again. But she didn’t release him.
The wizard liked that, too.
She stared at him, taking a pair of very long, deep breaths. Then she removed her arm from his throat and said, “You’re naked for an earth saint.”
He shook his head, no.
“Perhaps—a wizard?”
He nodded.
“Well.” She got up, tearing off her jacket. “Here, I suppose.”
The wizard wrapped himself in the offered garment. “What is your birth star?” His voice was dry and rasping.
“Uh, the ass end of the Lion of War,” she said, and it seemed to be a habit, for her mouth tucked up in a self-deprecating smile.
Dawn pushed against the trees behind her, lightening the sky. The woman glanced over her shoulder at it, wincing. She rubbed a hand down her face. “I could be dreaming.”
The wizard put his hand on her shoulder, pressing to convince her he was no spirit. He glanced at the nearest flame; it hovered just higher than his eyes, orange as the Aremore flag.
“Right,” she said. “Magic.” And then she laughed. “Fucking magic. Well, I’m Hal Bolinbroke, and I’m going to go have a massive breakfast, and probably an entire bottle of wine. Come share it with me, wizard, and tell me your tale.”
They left the grove of the Witch Elm, heading toward Tenne-Tiras keep, and as the sun rose the bole in the face of the elm knotted tightly closed again, and wind whistled across the mouth of the holy well.
PRINCE HAL
Tenne-Tiras, early autumn
THE NAKED WIZARD did not offer Hal his story. He barely said a word, and refused to give a name, although Hal could not be certain if it was obstinance, or the famed reclusive nature of wizards, or simply that he himself could not remember it.
Or perhaps he’d never had one at all.
As they walked to the Tenne-Tiras keep, Hal made no effort to hide her curious staring. The wizard was older than her by at least fifteen years or more, putting him near forty. Fine wrinkles made darker with dirt showed at the corners of his eyes, which were muddy-brown and green—though sometimes she caught a ghostly silver light in them, like will-o’-the-wisps—and he seemed perhaps to have some Third Kingdom or Ispanian in him by the way his skin refused moonlight. He had a crooked nose and sharp jaw, and unassuming lips. His hair was long and rough and desperately in need of washing. All of him, truly, needed to be scrubbed seven or eight times.
She’d never heard a story about a wizard dirtier than a boar in a rainstorm. But Hal had heard stories of wizards living in magical groves, or hermitlike witches who made homes near holy wells. She just hadn’t thought any were left in Aremoria.
It nearly caused her to dance in place. The earth saints—Aremoria!—had sent her an answer. She grinned at her wizard and asked questions about his magic, about Morimaros, about the Witch Elm, about Aremore wizard lines, and he told her nothing, shrugging one bony shoulder as if it didn’t matter. When she mentioned the last wizard being gone from Aremoria for at least a hundred years, he startled her by asking the name of the king.
“Celedrix,” she replied. “For two years now. My mother.”
The wizard eyed her for a long moment, paused in his walking, and then nodded to himself as if choosing to believe she, this messy fool he’d met sleeping near her own vomit at a holy well, might in fact be the heir to the crown. Then he said, “How long since the nineteenth year of Segovax of Aremoria’s rule?”
“Oh, ah, he died twenty-two years ago, and he’d been king for twenty-three years, so … twenty-six years ago was the nineteenth year.”
“That is how long since I last walked these forests, then,” he said, seeming sad.
Hal was too starving and hungover to disbelieve. She dragged him with her through the gatehouse of the keep and through the corridor into the family hall, then remembered he was naked, and she was a disaster, so called out for baths and fresh clothes to be sent up and then told the steward they would come down for as much food a
s could be prepared in half an hour’s time.
“There’s a messenger from your mother,” the steward said, apologizing with a grimace. “You are to return to the palace at Lionis immediately, to meet with Echarmet of Kurake Queen.”
“Oh, worms,” Hal said, putting a hand to her suddenly throbbing head. “Did Ianta and Nova already go?”
“Nova, yes, did not even sleep, but Lady Ianta has not gotten up yet.”
The wizard watched it all, bemused, and said, “I would go to Lionis with you.”
Hal shrugged and groaned and told the steward nothing was changing about what she needed in the moment; after getting clean and eating she would drag herself back onto a horse and they would go beg the queen’s indulgence.
And so it happened as she instructed. She did not think about Echarmet of Kurake Queen. After washing, Hal sank down into her bathwater and held her breath.
If she sucked in a lungful, how long would it take to die?
Too long, and too painful.
The water, she guessed, would be heavy and cool inside, filling her stomach—no, her lungs. Or would it burn? Anything burned when breathed badly, she knew from choking if she laughed too hard while drinking or swallowed sack down the wrong pipe.
She wondered if the wizard could breathe water, and if so, would he teach her?
Dressed in a plain riding suit and chewing a hunk of bread, Hal went into the guest room to find two young women helping the wizard tie up a dark brown jacket. The laces were tight under his arms, as well as up the front, to better fit it against his slight torso. They watched him as though he were a feral kitten; adorable, but prone to slicing their fingers.
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