Mora smiled, and it was not a kind nor pretty smile. “It is the true ring, Hal Bolinbroke. And it is mine.”
“No, I saw my mother take the Blood and the Sea from Rovassos’s own hand. So did Hotspur—Hotspur, tell her, you were there.”
Licking her lips, Hotspur tried to find a slice of memory to deny it, but could not. “I did, Mora.”
Now the lady of the March smiled better, happier. “That is the replica that Celedrix wears: it has one too few pearls. Rovassos did not wear the real ring when he traveled, and so it was not with him when he was murdered.”
Hal groaned and dropped onto one of the hard chairs beside the table. She put her boots out wide, spreading her knees like a man, and her head lolled back as if in despair. But her shoulders shook: she was laughing. Soon it popped through her lips, and she set the bottle of wine hard onto the tabletop, then put her hand to her eyes.
An answering laugh stuck in Hotspur’s throat. She stared at the long line of Hal’s neck, at her jaw and the shadow beneath her right ear. She licked her lips, but the taste of Connley was gone.
“Pour my drink, Hal,” Mora ordered, and Hal did, still trembling with tipsy laughter. She leaned to give a cup of wine to Hotspur, careful not to let their fingers brush, then stood to bring wine to Mora. The prince of Aremoria bowed as she proffered it, and Mora’s dark eyebrow rose in amused admiration.
“So elaborate and lovely, Hal,” she said, “and I note you’ve charmed Solas.”
“The queen is a sensible woman, and being charmed is a sensible reaction to me.” Hal returned to her seat, facing Mora, but her eyes slid to Hotspur.
Hotspur snarled and knocked back her wine. “Where is your husband?” she asked Mora.
“I sent him to sleep with yours.”
If there’d been wine in her mouth, she’d have choked. As it was, Hotspur’s tongue went dry and she tried to breathe as if this were all a joke. She pressed the empty cup into her thigh and closed her other hand into a fist.
Some perversity made her glance at Hal to see how the prince took this; Hal only watched her with a little bitter turn of her lip. Hotspur was unsure whether she ought to revel in Hal’s dislike of Hotspur being married now, or regret everything.
“Why are we here, Banna Mora?” Hotspur asked, voice hoarse with strained emotions. Mora had done this on purpose, when both of them were raw with the newness of being near again, and both drunk.
“I wanted to see what would happen,” Mora said. “We’re going to be together for more than a month, and I want any surprises spent tonight.”
Hal laughed again, but softly, and nodded. “I am not here to cause trouble, I am here to stop it.”
“Stop it?” Hotspur snorted. “You’ve never stopped trouble in your life, Hal. You breathe it, and cast it with every word. That is your true charm.”
“You liked it once.”
“Of course, once. I’m a weapon, Hal. I thrive on conflict, for that is my purpose.”
“You should be my weapon, then, your queen’s weapon.”
“You don’t have the grip to aim me.”
Hal smiled, and by the glint in her eyes, Hotspur knew the prince held back a sly answer, sexual enough to make her toes curl. When Hal did reply, she said, “Perhaps you should consider aiming yourself.”
Hotspur bent awkwardly over the chair and set her cup on the floor for a moment to recover. When she straightened, she said, “What makes you think I would aim myself in a direction to your liking?”
“Because I trust you.”
Impossible to tell if the cold rock in her stomach was horror, love, or longing. Hotspur swallowed. “Why are you here, Hal? Not to wish me happiness in my marriage. And Mora’s been wed for months and months without you giving a shit.”
“I’m here to settle this between us, between Aremoria and Innis Lear.”
It was simply said, as if the only obvious conclusion, but beyond that, the only true and just answer.
Banna Mora shifted and said, “The Aremore throne is mine.”
“No, it isn’t,” Hal shot back. “Once it was promised to you, but now it is Celeda’s, and she has a different heir.”
“A ruinous heir,” Hotspur said.
“Am I, Hotspur?” Hal turned fully to her and kept her expression clear. She spread her hands. “I’m alive, I’m known to my people, and now that I am needed I will walk beyond my reputation to do great things.”
Hotspur narrowed her eyes. “You’re not Morimaros.” She’d said it before, and watched the ripple of memory hit Hal.
The prince’s nostrils flared, but no wound showed on her face. “I don’t have to be, I only have to be Hal Bolinbroke, and rise.”
Mora snorted. “You want us to believe this has been on purpose? Your court of riot, your lovers? Your public drunkenness? It is all a bed of ashes from which to rise?”
“Believe what you want, but know that I am here, and I am my mother’s daughter. We will not make it easy for you to take Aremoria. Why not let us be friends? Mora, you will be a queen here, and already your line will be secure. And Hotspur—you’ve never been a kingmaker, like Vindomata. You’re loyal, not vicious. I know you, you don’t want war between us. You don’t want to see my mother murdered, or me. That is the end point of this path.”
Hotspur held her jaw clenched, tongue pressed to the roof of her mouth. Pressure ached behind her eyes and her stomach twisted. It was too late, and she too full of honey wine and dancing and a storm of feelings.
“I won’t stop trying to convince you, your husbands, and Queen Solas not to invade.” Hal said it with such simplicity that Hotspur believed her.
Banna Mora said, “You can charm Solas, but I know what is mine, and what I can take.” She held up her hand, palm inward, to display the Blood and the Sea.
Hal’s expression tightened, but she shook her head. “It is not so simple a game, the Aremore throne. It is not only about strength and taking.”
“You know so much about it?” Hotspur cried. “You are never there.”
She heard it: her personal pain, the betrayal she’d felt when she’d needed Hal beside her in the council room and instead Hal had been partying with prostitutes and drunkards.
Hotspur gasped, eyes widening, recalling that the shadow man who’d arrived here with Hal had been at the Quick Sunrise on Halfsies Day. She’d brought one of her whores—only, no: Hal did not fuck men. He was something else.
Hal said, carefully calm, “I am doing what I must, Hotspur. I wanted you to be part of my story, but you forced me to change course.”
“You only need a story because you think yourself is not good enough!” Hotspur pulled her legs up onto the chair and hugged her knees like a child. Better for putting more barriers between herself and Hal.
“Do you know what it means to be a king in Aremoria? It means waiting for your friends to cut off your head!”
“I would have protected you,” Hotspur whispered hotly. “If you’d been better.”
“You’re the one who left me, Hotspur.”
Banna Mora pushed herself to her feet with both hands firm on the arms of the chair. She stepped to Hotspur and took the empty clay cup. At the table she lifted the wine, pouring more for both Hal and Hotspur. “This is what I wanted over with, before we settle in for the winter.”
Hotspur did not accept the new wine. She glared at Mora, wanting to complain that Mora was supposed to be on her side, not pitting them against each other.
But Hal sipped her wine, studying Hotspur. “I’m sorry, Hotspur. I miss you, and I miss both of you, and I don’t want any of us in opposition. That is why I came. To bring us together into neighbors, into friends again. I want to revel in the winter with you, and this place with its wild magic, and in—in your marriages, because I do want you to be happy, and all of us prospering! That’s all I’ve ever wanted. Happiness. If I can’t have it, you should, at least.”
“It’s not so easy,” Hotspur muttered.
�
��You’re the one who makes your own star prophecy, Hotspur,” Mora said dryly. It was impossible to read her gaze. Mora glanced at Hal. “Tell us about the wizard.”
“Huh?” Hotspur said.
But Hal offered the ghost of a smile and said, “He crawled out of the witch tree at Tenne-Tiras.”
Hotspur leapt to her feet, pitched forward, but caught herself on the edge of the table. “Have you kissed him yet?” she gasped.
Hal wrinkled her pretty, adorable, kissable nose. “He’s old enough to be my father. My great-great-grandfather, actually,” she added with a laugh.
Hotspur needed very badly to go to sleep. She sank down onto her chair again.
“Why is he with you?” asked Mora.
“He’s been with me ever since the tree. It was the full moon—the one before the equinox. I was at Tenne-Tiras with Nova and Ianta, to see if I could get those earth saints to …” Hal grimaced. “To give me a new prophecy.”
Mora snorted with what seemed like genuine amusement. Hotspur did not think it was funny. “And did they?”
“No, but they sent the wizard to me. I am not the first lion prince he has known, either.”
Hotspur watched the gentle motion of Hal’s lips. Without better fortification, she was not going to survive this long winter. “I only want to make Aremoria strong,” she said abruptly.
Both Hal and Mora swiveled their heads to stare in surprise.
“I’m the Wolf of Aremoria, and no matter how you both want to change me, take away what I am, you can’t. You can’t make me choose between you, and if you try that is what will end the world—I’ll see to it. You both want Aremoria, or at least”—Hotspur clenched her eyes shut—“you want different things—I’m going to do what needs to be done to serve Aremoria, and my family, because my family is—is Aremoria. Mora is right, Hal. It was hers before our mothers stole it from her. I respect Mora, and trust her. Not you.” Hotspur lurched to her feet. “I’m going to bed,” she murmured, and absolutely fled.
CONNLEY
Dondubhan, early winter
HE DETOURED THE long way around from the great hall to the queen’s tower, in order to stand in the center of the upper yard of Dondubhan and look at the stars. He ought to have gone to the ramparts, to get above the torchlight filling the yards, but it somehow seemed good to stare up at the frigid night from this pocket of life and fire.
Thin clouds shrouded the sky and a half-moon drifted among them. As Conn stared, it seemed he, too, drifted. His heart raced, he reeled a bit, more from the energy and dancing than drink. From his wife’s kiss. Cold wind tugged at his curls and ruffled the collar of his tunic, and where sweat had gathered while he danced and laughed, ice began to form.
It felt like because she’d left, he was cold. Was Isarna just another fire he attached himself to, instead of being his own? Everyone he’d loved before her had chosen someone else.
Yet, as was his lifelong habit when he found himself alone, Connley whispered, Ash, in the language of trees.
She hadn’t answered him in two weeks.
The wind itself often caressed his brow, and some mornings a handful of crows called greetings to him; it was not that Innis Lear no longer cared. Only his Ashling was gone, or silent. Bound, it seemed, by Isarna’s will.
“Conn,” said Rowan, joining him in the cold yard. Connley startled: he’d heard the approach, but not expected the prince, only a retainer or other fortress resident heading for bed this late. The noise of laughter and drums still pulsed from within the hall. “Are you all right?”
Connley lifted one shoulder.
“You looked happy when you were dancing.” There was a friendly pleasure in Rowan’s tone, and Connley relaxed. The prince touched a knuckle to Connley’s cheek, drew it slowly down toward his jaw. “You’re putting on weight, witch. Eating like a prince instead of like a deer.”
“Isarna says there should be more of me to chew on,” Connley whispered.
Rowan’s soft laugh came from deep in his belly, a rare thing, and it curled into Connley’s body as always.
“Do you like her, then?” Rowan asked, tentative enough to surprise Connley, for Rowan Lear never wavered.
“I—I do.”
“Good. I would be very sorry to hear you were unhappy.”
There was so much there in the prince’s voice, so many kisses and hours spent beneath tree shadows, being very young and very in love, when everything had been mystical and sharp. Connley had been so comfortable in the dark forest, its witch, his best friends the owls of dusk and the morning butterflies. Cheeks stained with black cinder tears. He’d lived waiting. Waiting for Ashling to whisper his name, waiting for someone to ask a spell from the Witch of the White Forest, waiting for his Rowan of the Worms, his prince, to arrive, to point him in some direction or simply sink into his body.
“Do you remember when you called me an animal?” he asked the prince.
“I do,” Rowan answered cautiously.
“She is like that. Isarna. She doesn’t plot out people’s lives or manipulate. She wouldn’t ask for a sacrifice from others that she wouldn’t make herself.”
Rowan asked, “How are her lessons going?”
Squinting up at the stars through the reaching firelight, Connley recalled the response of the wind to his wife: gentle, keen, familiar. And she to it: earnest, cautious, slowly opening. “Well.”
“And you’ve still no sign of Ashling?”
“I haven’t heard her voice in weeks. After Isarna’s … magic … Ash was weak, quieter than usual, but then suddenly she just stopped.”
The prince took his hand and pulled him toward the lower court. “Come with me. I will summon her by her true name, and we will know if she is destroyed or bound or … something else.”
“Her true name?” Connley quickened his pace beside Rowan, holding his hand tighter. He hated, sometimes, that Rowan seemed to experience no hesitation in touching him—to Connley, his prince’s touch meant so much, but to Rowan it was no more than a casual caress such that he might give to a crow or barn cat.
They made their way across the lower yard and out through the maw of the inner gate into the heavily fortified barbican. Retainers nodded to their prince, and Rowan murmured a blessing for them as he drew Connley over the earthen bridge and onto the path leading not to the Star Field, or the southern royal road, but to the long, low hill sometimes called the Three Sisters after the trio of standing stones that crowned it. Their boots crunched softly against frosty yellow grass, and Rowan summoned a handful of starlights to bob over their heads, casting pale light for their way.
Connley waited in his prince’s silence until they had trudged up the hill itself. “Rowan,” he urged.
Rowan slowed and shifted his hand to weave his fingers with Connley’s. “My wife tells me to practice revealing my secrets to those who might benefit from knowing. And so yes, Ashling’s true name. I have known it since I was eighteen.”
Hesitation strung between them, though Connley knew not to feel hurt by Rowan’s reluctance. He moved to the standing stones; their rough shapes were like leaning old women, seven or eight feet tall.
“Regan Lear,” Rowan commanded.
Connley caught his breath.
“Regan Lear,” Rowan said again, and with it stepped purposefully against the earth, casting his will into the island. Wind pushed out from him in every direction: grass rippled, frost glinted, and the moan of air flowed with longing.
Letting go of Rowan, Connley put his back against one of the stones and sank to the cold grass. He put his face in his hands. Regan Lear. A princess who died angrily, mysteriously, at Scagtiernamm, a hundred years ago. Childless, having lost her husband and sister and father. Her husband had been a Connley, too. The last of the name in the family line, though of course there had been the Prince Connley who fled to the Third Kingdom and never returned.
Regan Lear. A broken earth saint, that was what Rowan had said before. There weren’t earth sain
ts on Innis Lear to help her become one of them, and so she’d been trapped, not alive nor dead, but all longing and anger and loss.
Connley wept, his heart squeezed too tight. For a hundred years!
He felt Rowan sit beside him against the standing stone. “She isn’t answering. Something changed, and she’s gone.”
“Gone where?” Connley wiped his cheeks and leaned his head against Rowan’s shoulder.
“I don’t know.”
Where is she? Connley asked the wind, the distant trees of his White Forest, the roots of Innis Lear.
The wind blew with eager shushing, but no words.
Innis Lear, said Rowan, flattening a hand against the earth. Where has the Ashling ghost gone, or what has become of her?
Shhhhhhhhh! said the wind, and Who?
Regan Lear, the Ashling ghost, almost-saint, Saint of Grieving, Regan.
No such ghost, no earth saints—ask the stars, replied the wind.
“The stars will be useless until after the Longest Night,” Rowan said.
“Did Mora tell you about the spirit she saw—along with Isarna and the prince of Aremoria?”
“No spirit, but an earth saint. And the earth saints aren’t to be trusted. We cannot assume they are our allies.” Rowan caught one of the baubles of starlight, snuffing it.
Connley had never known Rowan to be cranky. “How do you know?”
“I have studied them, inasmuch as one can from Innis Lear. There are writings and ancient stories, though hearsay and legend mostly. But you can put the pieces together, understand what is unsaid.”
“Did you study them because of Ash?”
“Yes, and because …” Rowan licked his lips, then pursed them, as if to loosen them and release another secret. “I have studied Aremore magic, too, and the lack thereof. If we are to be reunited, such things should be understood. Maybe, Conn, what’s happened to your Ashling earth saint is to do with all of this swirling potential and change. Maybe her disappearance is a sign of things to come—a prophecy itself in the absence of prophecy.”
Lady Hotspur Page 47
