Connley closed his eyes, for often removing his sight made more splendid the touch of the world upon his other senses. The rustle of frosty grass beneath him, the hush of Rowan’s breath, the careful cold hovering against his skin, the weight of his clothes and the prick of ice against his teeth when he parted his lips to speak. “What is to come, Rowan?”
“I cannot say, because I do not know. Except that I will open the star roads. But here is what I believe: no great clap of thunder nor act of wizards and queens will bring change. It will be all of us, making small choices, intimate ones. That is why the stars offer no clarity. There is no one moment, one choice to point to. The stars see a thousand possibilities, a thousand paths, and they all intersect on the Longest Night.”
“So there is nothing we can do.”
“Oh, we can always act, my witch. And we must. It is within our actions that we will find salvation.”
“What should I do?” Connley knew Rowan would have a plan for him, a command.
But instead, the prince lifted Connley’s hand and kissed it softly. “You must do what you feel to be right. When the wind and the stars will not tell us what to do, we much choose for ourselves.”
PRINCE HAL
Dondubhan, early winter
IT DID NOT take long for Innis Lear to discover how difficult it was not to fall in love with Hal Bolinbroke.
Too bad Hotspur strove to resist her charms.
Since her first night at Dondubhan, when Mora had said, “I know what is mine, and what I can take,” Hal had seen a new sharpness in Mora, a burning for vengeance, not justice.
Once a mission of revenge was set, there was no arguing with it. Hal could only focus on Hotspur. If she could win the Wolf of Aremoria back to her side, with Hotspur would come Perseria and possibly even Mercia. That would be enough: Banna Mora and Innis Lear could not defeat a united Aremoria. The plan was a long shot, for Hotspur would need to be convinced to act against this new family, and once her loyalty was given, it did not waver.
But Hotspur had pledged loyalty to Hal once, too.
Fortunately, Hal had been born with the gift of making friends. Even considering that perhaps a fourth of those spending the winter at Dondubhan were openly hostile to the prince of Aremoria, Hal made quick allies. It was the plain way she had of smiling, and her honesty (so she’d claim if asked), and of course her charm. Within a week, Rowan Lear commented that it seemed Hal Bolinbroke could read hearts better than any witch. Him she’d approached with a conversation angled toward star science and the astrolabe gifted to him from Celedrix, asked him how he found impending fatherhood, and ended by complimenting him through a compliment of his mother. Most people tried to pretend he was like Glennadoer instead, assuming there would lie his pleasure. But Hal guessed otherwise, and correctly.
Because she could not approach Hotspur directly—for the Wolf had no problem turning abruptly away or finding plentiful work to separate her from the prince—Hal would have to simply befriend the entire fortress until there was no corner in which Hotspur could hide.
Hal woke midmornings, lazy in her efforts to meet any dawn exercise, especially in cold like this. She ate a quick breakfast and joined the Aremore soldiers at their temporary barracks in the lower yard of the fortress, which they shared with the Learish retainers, all packed into the stone long house rather like puppies. But it was warmer than canvas tents. If Hal was late enough she had to bully some soldiers into a run with her, out along the banks of the Tarinnish, or a war game in the yard. Catrin Glennadoer appeared whenever Hal did and was more than willing to support Hal’s tardy exercises. Though Hal made invitations every day, Hotspur refused to join, though she allowed her retainers to participate.
It was a winter house party, and the midday meal tended to be loud and casual. Though Solas and Ryrie arrived when the sun was at its zenith and remained until all the fortress had eaten—often two hours later—the rest of the household came when they were hungry, with no accordance to station as there would be in Aremoria. Hal relished the mess of it, and though she always began at the queen’s side, she floated to different tables, using the opportunity to befriend the Errigal duke and the Glennadoers—Donnan Glennadoer, the earl’s mother, was an old canker, and Hal promised herself to get the beast to smile before she left—as well as the local reeve, the ostlers and blacksmiths and royal secretaries, and even the little pages and their families.
Afternoons were for hunting, if the day was lovely (as lovely as winter on Innis Lear could be), or remaining by fires if not. They hunted big game twice a week, ranging for hours southeast toward the White Forest for wild pigs, or up around the Tarinnish toward the foothills where the deer were plentiful but one had to make sure not to kill those breeding. The rest of the afternoons they hunted pheasants or foxes with the fortress hounds. Mared Lear was a superb falconer, but Hal had disliked the sport since she was a child, for no reason she could articulate, and made due with admiring the prince’s skill. Mared and Hal always numbered among the hunting party, while Hotspur, Rowan, Ter Melia, Taria, and Rory Errigal or one of the Rory cousins joined or not depending on the pressures of their families that day. Hal always attempted to ride at Hotspur’s side, to tease and entreat, but Hotspur clenched her jaw and refused. Sometimes her cheeks flushed, so Hal knew she listened.
At dinner, once the sun had set, Era Errigal or Rowan Lear, or a star priest named Aeli, read a prophecy from the evening’s stars. They were trifles, mostly, suggesting the following day’s weather or where to find the best deer, who would arrive when or how much supply to send to a town on the northwest coast that would be frozen in for weeks. Often the prophecies contradicted each other, and the players argued, laying out possibilities as if it were sport. They made the stars a massive game board, and if someone shifted the words and imagery around exactly right, suddenly all would be clear. To Hal’s dismay, the dragon, lion, and wolf were a constant presence, reminding everyone what was at stake.
Hal cornered Era early in her stay, catching up with the young woman as she went from the great hall to the king’s tower. “Era,” she said, coming up beside her, “it is good to see you again.”
The young woman paused and gave Hal a cheeky look. “You were not so glad to see me the first time.”
“Ah, but I was caught unawares. I looked for you, after, in Lionis.”
“You said magic was for backwater wizards, and that I should leave your city.”
Hal grimaced. “I did, but I was the Prince of Riot then, and the stars you brought to my court were no game.”
“Are you not the Prince of Riot now?”
“I’m the prince of Lionis, and I’ve come to save both our queens. Help me. Give me another reading.”
Era pursed her lips and twisted them to the side, studying Hal. Her red freckles shifted as her expression did, making new constellations. “All right. In three nights. The stars and moon will be good for it. After dinner, an hour before midnight. Come to my room.”
With great restraint, Hal did not flirt, but only nodded solemnly.
The next day she spent her afternoon in the queen’s tower, in a large chamber kept warm by a blazing fire. It was only herself, Solas, and Ryrie, enjoying warm apple cider and hard cheese as they alternately read to one another poetry from Aremoria and the Rusrike, and discussed historical politics—a favorite topic of the queen’s, and one Hal honestly enjoyed. During a lull, her belly melting warm with cider, Hal said, “I had heard the third child of Ryrie Lear was a boy.”
Ryrie sighed prettily and set down the tangle of wool she’d been weaving with her fingers into a circle.
It was Solas who answered. “The stars promised a girl for my sister’s third, but when the child arrived she seemed to our eyes to be a boy. So she was named Vae and a son was announced. But not too many years passed before it became clear to Ryrie and me that Vae herself believed the stars, and regardless of how she seemed to us, the prophecy had always been true.”
Hal
’s eyebrows rose and rose, and she did not hide her surprise from the older women. They allowed her to sit in silent contemplation for a few moments, waiting to discover her response. Finally, she said, “The power of the stars to move minds on Innis Lear is greater than magic, I think.”
“It helps that Solas executed the first person to disrespect my daughter.” Ryrie laughed softly.
Solas did not appear as amused. “It was treason, not disrespect. Against a child of the line of Lear, against my crown, and against the stars.”
(A perverse thread of curiosity had Hal asking similarly of Vae’s father, and Glennadoer simply growled, “I am a man with a bear in me, is that any less strange? I will always be glad to have more daughters.”
It made Hal’s heart twist with hope and bitterness, for on an island that believed so vehemently that a person’s heart could shape their reality, perhaps she and Hotspur might have been happy forever.)
On the seventh night of her stay at Dondubhan, Hal knocked on Era Errigal’s narrow door an hour before midnight. The king’s tower was slightly smaller than the queen’s, and it overlooked the walled town that stretched north from the fortress around the eastern bank of the Tarinnish. This room was on the top of three floors, and the corridors were drafty and freezing. Hal huddled under a wool blanket she’d tossed over her shoulders to cut the wind even better than her leather coat. The edge of it pulled over her head like a cowl.
Era opened the door and gestured hurriedly for Hal to enter, then peeked beyond her as if worried they were being spied upon. Hal’s amusement died on her lips as she noticed the third person in Era’s small room: Connley Errigal. Hotspur’s husband. He stood robed in a blanket that added bulk to his slight frame. Behind him the fire crackled, casting his shadow ominously toward her. In Dondubhan, he was the only person Hal had avoided. She knew if she could win him over, he would help her with Hotspur, but Hal could not imagine being kind to him.
Hal smiled, grateful habit had taught her lips to make a happy shape without any feeling behind, and said, “Connley.”
“Prince.”
She could think of nothing to say. With him witnessing, how could she ask Era what the stars would say about winning Hotspur back?
Era closed her door and rubbed her hands together. “Hal, Connley is the … sixth best prophecy maker on Innis Lear; his voice will be valuable.”
“Sixth?” Connley murmured, small petulance bending his frown, but his eyes were friendly at the disparagement. Hal remembered these two were cousins, and so their banter might be affection.
“I might’ve asked Rowan to come—he’s the second best,” Era answered with a shrug, “but more hostile.”
Hal glanced at Connley, thinking surely the hostility ought to be between herself and him, but the witch nodded. He said, “The kings of Innis Lear are susceptible to reading their emotions into the stars.”
“We wouldn’t want that,” Hal answered, both serious and ironic. She walked to the fire and stripped off her gloves, setting them against the narrow hearthstone.
Era and Connley set the single stool atop the hardly larger table, then shoved the table beside the short bed, clearing the floor between the hearth and the narrow glass window. They spread a blanket over the braided rug and knelt. Era summoned Hal, and the prince plopped down cross-legged. She let the wool blanket slip off her shoulders, making a nest around herself.
While the Star-Seer pulled out her holy cards and shuffled them, Hal studied Connley. He was pretty, with large round eyes and brown curls glinting softly in the firelight. They hung around his wide tan cheeks and down his neck messily and free, and Hal wondered if Hotspur liked grabbing a handful. She clenched her jaw. Connley’s hazel eyes flicked to Hal’s, and he offered her a sad smile, barely there before it was gone.
Hal wondered what he saw when he looked at her, and then with a brutal pinch of self-loathing, asked it aloud.
Connley’s surprise showed only in the brief curl of his fingers against his thighs. Then he leaned back and stared at Hal, looking her up and down, and even through her it seemed. “You’re … hungry. But not with your body. It’s your heart, and that is how you were born. You make friends so that you can feel like your heart’s well can be filled, though you understand by now it never will be.”
The condemnation fell so calmly from his lips, Hal nearly didn’t connect the words to their meaning. Slowly, her understanding caught up, and she felt it: the black emptiness, the pit gnawing at her insides, and there—a flash of steel and blood spattering hot across her face and neck.
Hal jerked backward. “No, that isn’t true.”
The witch shrugged one shoulder and accepted Era’s stack of cards. He shuffled slowly, watching Hal.
Era took chalk from a small box and began sketching a star field upon the blanket spread between them. She asked Hal and Connley to press their knees to the corners and hold it tight. “The stars right now,” she murmured. “Requests?”
Connley asked, “What is your birth star, Prince Hal?”
“The Lion of War.”
The Star-Seer laughed softly and Connley said, “The Lion already graces this sky, and the Dragon’s Eye. Add Saint Terestria, and the Elegance. We should give in and just add the Wolf Star.”
Hal leaned forward as the star priest marked little white dots onto the dark blue linen. She said, “Saint Elegar.”
Era lifted her gaze without lifting her head. The gray rim of her irises drew Hal forward as they had before, and she would fall into those twin wells if she did not catch herself.
“I’m sorry,” Connley murmured.
“What for?”
“The thing I said.”
Hal studied him a moment; the flicker of his black lashes, the fluttering pulse strangely visible under his jaw. She nodded.
“Take the bones and throw them, Hal Bolinbroke,” Era commanded, tossing a rough-spun bag into her lap.
Pulling out the nine holy bones, Hal cupped them all and brought them to her lips. She flared open her hands, dropping the bones over the linen night sky. Era made a face, and Hal asked, “The usual?” For she knew by now it would be: The dragon, the wolf, the lion.
Beside her, Connley began putting the cards down, each laid over the corner of the last in a continuous, tight spiral.
“Yes,” Era said. “The worms are gathering with the dragon, the Wolf Star, and your Lion of War. Those are bones of transformation and mystery, and so I think now that you are together, the future is changing. But I still cannot see clearly past next month.”
“Something terrible is going to happen on the Longest Night,” Hal said.
“Terrible, or wonderful. Wonderful things can change the future, too.”
Hal took a deep breath, studying the cards as if she could read them herself. “If we, together, are changing the future, how do I direct it?”
Era said, “You asked that Saint Elegar be included, and here the Saint of Trees bone landed in the center of Elegar’s stars. I confess I’ve little experience with Elegar’s influence, because she’s an Aremore earth saint, but I believe it means you were right to suggest her presence, for the Saint of Trees is sanctification. Elegar is a saint in many pieces, yet whole …”
“I wanted to know how to heal this rift between Innis Lear and Aremoria. Between Mora and me—well, my mother.”
“That is a good question,” Era said, nodding. “Many times the problem with prophecy is that it offers us so many answers, but we don’t know which questions to pair them with.”
“I do feel like my heart is in pieces, and that our lands are … broken. They should be united. We all should be. Is there anything about bringing things together?”
“Only the three together changing everything: the dragon, the lion, the wolf. Together. But this, the saints must be planted, is a prophecy I’ve never seen before, and in the valley of Lear a new mouth opens. Opening is a frequent theme, but what is the valley of Lear? Whose mouth?”
Connl
ey hummed softly. “You can’t,” the witch said, answering Hal rather than his cousin. One of Connley’s hands moved over the cards, never touching, but palm flat as if he could feel some heat lifting from the spread. “You alone cannot heal Innis Lear and Aremoria. It requires balance. One for Innis Lear, one for Aremoria—you are neither one. Your instincts will keep you in pieces, but a sacrifice makes you whole.”
Hal took a deep breath, tasting the words, swallowing them down into her gut. “Sacrifice what? Aremoria? My crown? Hotspur?”
“Nothing will keep Isarna whole,” whispered the Witch of the White Forest.
“Where do you see that?” Hal demanded, hating to hear Hotspur’s given name on her husband’s lips.
Era slapped her hands down onto the spiral pattern of holy cards. Connley jumped, then shuddered up and down his entire body. “What did I say?”
Hal leapt to her feet. They were trying to scare her: her heart raced, filling her ears with an ocean’s roar. From the floor, both witches stared up at her with wide eyes, round as moons and wells. “You don’t know her. Hotspur has always been whole, whole unto herself, and unbreakable. If nothing can keep her whole it’s because nothing can break her apart.”
With that vicious pronouncement, Hal stormed away.
She fled, furious, up and up to the roof of the king’s tower. Hal slammed shut the heavy wooden door, leveraging all her weight to make it loud, and stalked across the roof to the door in the crenellated wall between two turrets. It led to a rampart stretching along the massive curtain wall between the king’s tower and queen’s tower.
Roiling and upset, Hal strode with her hands in fists, glad of the wind spitting icy mist at her, torn from the Tarinnish below. The black lake rippled like dark glass, silvered at the edges by the great smear of stars overhead. Too many to name or know. Hal gripped the crenellation before her, pressing her fingers hard enough the tips turned white.
It was too cold, and she’d left her blanket by Era’s fire. If only her bed were warmed by a waiting lover. Maybe there was someone she could artfully and diplomatically seduce. Maybe—maybe Vae Lear, who was so pretty. But Hal couldn’t court a princess when she was already engaged. And the lover Hal wanted warmed someone else’s bed. And someone else’s heart.
Lady Hotspur Page 48
