Talsil did not wait for further permission, but headed with swaying hips for the bedroom.
SOME HOURS LATER, in the dark, Charm lay upon his side, naked. Hal rested with her back to him, one hand reached behind to hold his. Nothing else of their bodies touched.
On the prince’s other side, Talsil slept, limp and snoring in tiny little gasps Charm found endearing. He wished he were so satisfied, but this evening had been so much effort. While pleasure had been found, amongst the three of them, between himself and his wife it had been layered with hesitations and averted eyes.
Only the low fire put light into the room, and Charm traced the line of Hal’s creamy shoulder with his gaze. “Was it too awful?” he whispered, unable to stop himself.
Hal tilted her head enough that one eye caught the orange light. “I am all right, Charm. But I will tell you, since my mother confessed she is dying, the scale of what I consider to be awful has shifted every single day.”
HOTSPUR
Dondubhan, spring
SPRING CAME LATE on Innis Lear, but when it did, the arrival spread soft color across the whole of the land. Pale purple clover speckled the bog, and weeds along the banks of the Tarinnish burst with brilliant yellow and warm white flowers. The grass flushed hot green, and birds flooded the blossoming cherry and apple and dogwood trees of the queen’s garden, filling the skies with their eager song and splattering the ground with their shit.
Mora’s child was a healthy girl, named Cealla for Mora’s mother. The baby was dusky pink and bald, and did not cry overmuch, but mewed like a kitten and even at only two weeks managed to grip Hotspur’s lengthening curls with impressive obstinance whenever Hotspur wrestled her from one of the besotted soldiers.
The birth of a new heir should have calmed the world, but there was a breathlessness to the settled wind, a waiting tension.
Or perhaps it was only Hotspur.
Hal was married. Hotspur thought she didn’t deserve to be jealous, didn’t deserve to be angry at all—yet she was. She could not forget the yearning in Hal’s voice when she said, Hotspur. She could not forget the touch of Hal’s lips, the control and purpose of her hands, demanding a promise.
What mattered, Hotspur told herself, was the alliance with the Third Kingdom. How it would shift the coming war. Vindomata had already taken back the March, with Burgun at her side. It had begun, and Hotspur was more of a weapon than ever. The Wolf of Aremoria would choose the end.
No matter whom she loved.
She wished Connley were here.
For weeks after the Longest Night, her own husband had been quiet and supportive. Hotspur had told him of her confused feelings of being trapped between Mora and Hal Bolinbroke. He’d said he understood, but when Cealla had been born, Connley had vanished from Dondubhan. An untroubled Rowan insisted it was the prerogative of the Witch of the White Forest to go where he willed, when he willed, and didn’t it add some mystery to their relationship? Hotspur tried to accept it as such, but she’d grown used to Conn’s presence at her side and in her bed, a constant companion and friend. Missing him taught Hotspur how few friends she’d ever truly had. Everyone else was somehow either under her command or her commander. But Connley had left her, without anyone to tell.
The shutters of the Dondubhan barracks windows had been lifted away to allow brisk lake wind to clear out the stale winter, and the floor had been covered with fresh rushes. Hotspur spotted for Banna Mora as the warrior princess gripped cloth loops bolted to a ceiling beam and dragged her body up. Weights were piled around them, and there was a woven mat for stretching. Mora’s regimen for readying herself for war in a mere month was brutal, but so was her midwife’s courage in forcing breaks and her attendant Trin’s schedule for nursing. (Mora did not do the nursing herself, the better for her physical recovery.) Three retainers joined them every day, skilled and wolfish, who liked to hold Cealla and touch her tiny nose and sing Learish lullabies with a strong rhythm her mother could use for pacing her exercise. These men would be the first to swear themselves to the newborn princess when the girl was old enough to speak their names.
Mora groaned through clenched teeth as she performed a fifth pull-up. Her arms trembled, and Hotspur touched a hand to the small of her back as she lowered and dropped the final inches to the floor.
“Too slow,” Mora panted, rolling her shoulders.
Hotspur snorted and handed her water gathered from the Tarinnish, which Rowan claimed would strengthen her even faster. “Better than yesterday, and that’s what counts.”
“Only nineteen days until we sail for the March.”
Trin called, “And steady improvement is better than leaps and fits.”
Banna Mora said nothing, as this conversation recurred every few hours.
“Wrestling?” Hotspur offered. Anything to put off talk of invading Aremoria.
“I want a sword in hand.” As Mora went to the rack of swords she glanced toward her retainers and midwife. Hotspur followed the look to find Per, a broad-shouldered, grizzly-bearded retainer holding Cealla against his shoulder, a gauntleted hand cupping her tiny head.
Per said, “She’s sleeping.”
“She threw up on me,” said the youngest retainer, with a weird little smile like he was pleased.
The midwife nodded from her chair in the corner, where she was repairing a tear in a blanket with heavy wool thread.
Hotspur double-checked the tuck of her shirt into her trousers and squatted a few times to stretch her knees and ready her muscles. She and Mora flowed into one of their old warm-up routines, despite Mora already having worked for nearly an hour. They each chose a dull sword and buckler, fit the small round shields over their left hands, then tapped their edges together in salute.
The tang of sword on sword woke Hotspur’s blood, though they were only light touches, skimming delicately as each woman tested their space and each other. Hotspur smiled, and Mora returned it, green-brown eyes alight.
After only three quick passes, darting in to swing, block, dodge, and retreat, Hotspur was ready to push harder, but sweat shone across Mora’s hairline.
“Break,” Hotspur said to Mora’s frustration. They set down their swords and bucklers. Lying upon the mats, the two women lifted their legs slowly, holding the motion in their abdominal muscles. Mora groaned. Hotspur closed her eyes and stretched her arms over her head. Down here she could easily smell the light perfume of the river rushes and lavender.
“This is good,” Mora murmured.
“We don’t have to push so hard,” Hotspur replied. “We could go slowly, be sure.”
“I’m sure.”
Mora’s quiet tone brooked no argument. But Hotspur said, “War is hard, even on someone at the height of fitness. The camping, the planning, the lack of sleep. A campaign exhausts everyone.”
“I’m sure, Hotspur.”
Hotspur turned her head to the side and looked at Mora’s profile: strong, hardly showing strain at all but for at the corner of her mouth. Her tightly braided hair held against her skull, and sweat beaded at the hollow of her throat.
Hesitating only because there were others present, on the far side of the barracks practice hall, Hotspur asked quietly, “Why?”
Silence fell as Mora lowered her legs to lie flat against the hard-packed earth. After a handful of slow breaths, Mora said, “I know who put this question in your heart.”
Hotspur winced, thinking of Hal who’d argued so passionately that this war would do more harm than good, that Mora’s chance was over, that Aremoria itself would suffer. That Mora only wanted revenge.
Hal, drawn and pale with blood splattered along her jaw again, eyes too-wide circles, nearly feverish with the aftereffects of Glennadoer’s murder, commanding Hotspur no.
She said, “I won’t deny Hal began to draw me, at the end. She is right that war comes with a steep cost. You know that, and so I ask, how do you know you must do it, Mora? How do you know it is right?”
Banna Mora dre
w another slow breath, held it, and pursed her lips to blow it out as if she could see the wind of her lungs piercing the world. She sat up smoothly and said to Trin, “Bring my child to me, and leave us.”
It was done as she ordered; Trin also handed Mora a towel and refreshed both her and Hotspur’s water from a pitcher. The retainers shut the doors to the practice hall behind them; the two women were alone with the quiet and the sighing baby. Bundled in soft blue wool, Cealla slept with her tiny bottom lip stuck out and her brow wrinkled. Hotspur frowned, and in answer, Mora put the baby into Hotspur’s lap.
She weighed nothing, and Hotspur curled around her, smelling gentle lavender and the sour echo of spit-up. A smile hooked the Wolf of Aremoria’s lips as she touched a finger to Cealla’s round little cheek.
“You want one,” Mora said.
“More than one,” Hotspur whispered as she folded the blanket a little higher up around Cealla’s head, casting the dusky pink face in shadow. A child of hers and Conn’s would have thick curly hair, she was certain.
“You’ll have your chance. And they’ll be cousins.”
Warmed at the thought, Hotspur glanced up at Mora again. There was something of the princess’s cheeks and the shape of her eyes in the baby, though Hotspur might just as easily find similarity in the shape of a cloud, the baby remained yet so unformed. “Is it strange? To be made of war and fire, but have my heart swollen with such tenderness and wanting?”
Mora smiled crookedly. “If I knew tenderness, perhaps I could tell you.”
Hotspur rolled her eyes a little, then dropped them back to Cealla. “She’s lighter than the most delicate stiletto, fragile enough to be killed by stray breeze.”
“On Innis Lear, even a queen of great strength might be killed by the wind.”
The two women watched Cealla sleep for a few moments, sharing the water between them as through the open window drifted voices and that very wind, warm but stinking of spring rot from the thawing marshes. Mora leaned back on her hands, tipping her head toward the ceiling beams. Motes of dust bobbed in the angled sunlight.
Gathering her courage, Hotspur touched Cealla’s soft cheek, then looked square at Mora. “Why are you not content with all you have? Family, a crown already, and this strangely willful island? A people, a place … it is everything, right here. You love your husband, and he you. You can be happy, without sacrificing more soldiers or yourself, without trying to kill Celedrix or Hal.”
None of the words had cracked under the weight of Hotspur’s urgency, but Mora glanced sharply at her friend.
Hotspur added, “This winter I saw royalty in Hal Bolinbroke again—finally. A true power, the spark of leadership shining through that mess she made of herself. It took her a long time to learn it, but she was thrown into rapids as much as you were. And you know she did not kill Glennadoer willingly, she had no choice. Even Solas was glad of it, and though your husband might have liked to do the deed himself, you must be relieved he was not forced to. Patricide would change him, no matter how just. Hal was a—a vessel of justice, unburdened Learish subjectivity. Imagine, Mora, how her actions change shape if we all are friends. Allies.” Hotspur paused, passion catching up with her, and whispered, “We could have everything.”
Mora studied Hotspur nearly long enough for Hotspur to grow skittish. Then Mora asked, casually, “Did I tell you I met a dragon last year?”
Stunned, Hotspur knew not whether to tense at being teased or to shatter against this perfect pearl of truth unexpectedly revealed.
“It was the Dragon of the North, a massive beast of granite and rubies, and it taught me that when the world burns, we must learn to breathe fire.”
Hotspur’s lips parted, but still she could dredge up no words.
Mora smiled knowingly, without looking at Hotspur. “You can’t believe it. I hardly believe it myself, except when I close my eyes and reach for the memory, it strikes me with such cold clarity.” A laugh bubbled merrily from her, another thing Hotspur was shocked to witness. Gaiety should not settle into Mora’s skin like it belonged there; she was a hungry, ambitious woman, and when she slid her glance finally to Hotspur, there it appeared: the flame. “I know what I am, Hotspur. Who I am, what I am meant for, and how to make myself—my people—whole. I know what I serve: Innis Lear, and the future of Aremoria. Being the queen of Innis Lear makes me the queen of Aremoria, too, because they are two lands meant to be one. One Aremoria, and One Innis Lear. That knowledge burns inside me, it consumes me, and I must release it. I must be what I was made. To do otherwise would lessen me, and lessen my crown, my people along with me. If I do not act as I have promised, I will not deserve to be a queen.”
“I believe you,” Hotspur said. “I understand breathing fire.”
“It matters to hear you say so.”
Hotspur held out her hand, the other carefully pressed to Cealla. Mora slapped their hands together and wove their fingers.
“I want your clarity,” Hotspur said. “I have none of my own. My aunt directs me, or my mother, or you, or Hal—my world has always been burning, Mora, and I have always been fire.”
“That seems clear enough to me.”
“Clarity of being, but not of purpose. You have purpose. Everyone around me seems to. Is my purpose only war? Only to burn as I am commanded? I wonder, sometimes, if there were peace, what would I be? If you bring everyone together, make everyone whole, what then for Hotspur Persy?”
Mora snorted. “There will always be a battle to fight—believe me what a war it is to become a mother. And stay a mother, too, I think.”
“I felt it when this little one was born. But will it be enough? Or will I scorch everything around me?”
“Hotspur, you’ve been doing that all your life.”
“What if I cannot burn at all when Hal Bolinbroke is dead?”
The question fell like a dying star.
Hotspur covered her mouth with both hands. In her lap, Cealla wiggled and frowned in her sleep.
For another long moment, Banna Mora did not reply, and Hotspur hated herself for revealing such weakness. She hoped Mora at least would not patronize her by pretending there was a way for Hal to survive all this. They could not all survive, the dragon, the lion, and the wolf.
Then Mora reached to touch her daughter’s tiny pouting lip. She said, “Rowan says he is going to die in Aremoria. It is our destiny to unite our countries, and open the star roads between Innis Lear and Aremoria. He believes he must die for it.”
“Wormshit, how …” Hotspur shook her head. “What star roads?”
“It is something to do with wormwork, with prophecies and earth saints. That in order to be reunited under my rule, the lands must be reunited under magic, too.”
“Hal’s wizard gave her a riddle. When the star roads blaze, bring the lion’s heart home. I don’t … I don’t know what it means except that I’ve never heard of star roads until then, and now.”
Mora snatched her hand back from her sleeping child. “So. From two fronts, we hear of star roads. Does that mean it is real? That Rowan will die when we go to war? When I go to Aremoria for my throne, he will go with me, and try this magic, and die.”
“Mora.”
The princess’s face was terrible: a hard mask of grief.
Hotspur said her name again. “Mora. Lock him in the dungeon. Don’t let him do it, if you can save him.”
“And what if he said, Solas, lock Mora in the dungeon. Don’t let her do it, if you can save her. How can I betray him like that? How can I believe my destiny, and deny him his? Especially if we would ever rule Innis Lear together.” Banna Mora held out her hand where the Blood and the Sea encircled her forefinger. She was trembling. “I love him, but my love will not bind him. He wants to do it, he is willing to risk it. Must I not honor that? Allow him his risk when I am risking everything, too, for what I want? What we want is the same, and so too is it what Innis Lear wants. I am bound to this island, by blood and promises, Hotspur, and I must
move forward with our combined will to face our stars.”
“I see. If you respect him,” Hotspur whispered, “you have to let him be brave.”
Mora nodded. “We all have to choose our own ends. Hal chose her path, as I chose mine. As Rowan chooses. Embrace it, Hotspur, and love Hal more for it, even if it kills her. Burn when she is dead, because if there is anything this winter taught me it is that when backed into a corner, Hal Bolinbroke is as glorious as she ever was. We all are stars, Hotspur. I am a true north star and Hal a dancing Star of Birds and you are a comet, streaking across the sky. Follow me because I do not waver, love Hal because she loves wildly, and fight because you will burn to the absolute end.”
The Wolf of Aremoria drew a breath of wonder, and said, “Maybe we will all break in Aremoria.”
ROWAN
Dondubhan, spring
THE EVENING SKY stretched silver-blue overhead, darkening along the horizon to a deep violet in the east and vivid orange where the sun had recently set. Rowan strode out through the gates of Dondubhan unchallenged, for he was the prince and known to walk the moors and marshes when he liked. A light cloak flowed off his shoulders, more than he usually wore, but he had a purpose for the extra layer tonight: wrapped against his chest was his baby girl, nuzzling and near asleep for having just eaten her fill of a wet nurse. Rowan had claimed her and told the nurse he would be walking the ramparts, teaching his daughter of the springtime stars and reading the next day’s prophecies.
Outside and across the bridge, Rowan turned north to follow the path around the Tarinnish toward a cluster of old, squat ruins whose name even the trees did not remember. As he walked, the Poison Prince sang to his child. It was a soft love song, filled with longing and promise, and unlike so many Learish ballads, it had a happy ending. He would have only happy endings for his girl. His little queen.
If only his mother had lived to meet her.
But Rowan sang, warmed by emotion so vast he could not define it, but only struggle to name it something as simple as love. This feeling was not mere love, nor protectiveness, nor awe alone, nor fear nor vicious determination. Somehow, it was all of them, and Rowan had whispered to the winds he finally understood the island’s power, for as he craved safety and happiness for this tiny child, so Innis Lear did for its people and itself. Its magic. And he understood that this newborn seed, this relationship of fatherhood, could not be parsed by any language; it was meant to be accepted completely as itself.
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