The Queens of Innis Lear

by Tessa Gratton

  Dalat, my dear.

  The star signs these past nights had offered Elia no comfort, no guidance, though Elia had charted every corner of the sky. Can I save my Lear? she had asked again and again.

  No answer had emerged, though she wrote down and dismissed a dozen smaller prophecies: the storm is coming; a lion will not eat your heart; you will give birth to the children of saints; the rose of choice will bloom with ice and rage. They meant nothing. There was no star called the Rose of Choice, only a Rose of Decay and a Rose of Light. Lions had never lived on Innis Lear. Earth saints had long ago left the world. And there were always, always storms at the end of summer.

  The only way to piece out the true answer was to ask the trees, listen to the voices in the wind, or sip of rootwater. This was the wisdom of Innis Lear.

  Elia stopped, recalling the feel of her bare toes digging into the rough grass, sliding her fingers over the ground to hunt up crickets or fat iridescent beetles.

  She remembered once Ban had taken her hand in his own and then placed a brilliant green beetle onto her finger like an emerald ring. She’d giggled at the tickling insect legs, but not let go, looking up into his eyes: green and brown and shining just like the beetle’s shell. A pearl of the earth for a star of the sky, he’d said in the language of trees.

  In truth, she hardly remembered how to whisper words the earth could understand. It had been so long since she’d shut herself off, swearing to never speak their language again.

  So long since he’d been gone.

  Darkness veiled the dusty white road as Elia finally arrived: the sun was entirely vanished and no moon risen, and the star tower did not light torches that would ruin the night-sight of their priests.

  Aefa stood at the shoulder of the messenger’s horse, arguing to be given the letters. But the soldier said, clearly not for the first time, “I will give these only to the priest Danna or the princess herself.”

  “And so here I am,” Elia said. She need prove herself in no way other than her presence; there were no other women who looked like her and her sisters, not across all of Innis Lear. Not any longer. Not for half her life.

  “Lady.” The messenger bowed. He began to unseat himself, but Elia shook her head.

  “No need, sir, if you’d like to ride on. I’ll take my letters, and you’re welcome at the tower for simple food and simpler accommodations, or you have just enough light to return to Dondubhan and sleep in those barracks. Only wait there for my responses in the morning before you depart.”

  “I thank you, princess,” he said, taking the letters from the saddle box.

  She reached up to accept and asked his name, a habit from her youth in the castles. He told her and thanked her, and she and Aefa backed out of his way as he turned his horse and nudged it quicker on the road to the barracks.

  Elia wandered toward the star tower with her letters, studying the three seals. The leather bag carrying her charts and frame, candle-mirrors and charcoal sticks, pressed heavily on her shoulder, and she finally slumped it off, settling herself down on the slope of moor beside it.

  “Did you spy your star?” Aefa asked, herself gangly and pretty, like a fresh hunting hound, with plain white skin tending toward rose under heightened emotion and chestnut hair bound up in curling ribbons. Unlike Elia’s gray wool dress, the uniform of a star priest, Aefa wore bright yellow and an overdress in the dark blue of Lear’s household.

  “Yes,” Elia murmured, still staring at the letters.

  A long moment passed. She could not choose one to open.

  “Elia! Let me have them.” She held out her hand, and Elia gave over the letters from Burgun and Aremoria.

  Clearing her throat, Aefa tore through the Burgun seal, unfolded the letter, and then sneezed. “There’s—there’s perfume on it, oh stars.”

  Elia rolled her eyes, as Aefa clearly wished her to, and then the Fool’s daughter held the letter to the last of the twilight and began to read.

  “My dear, I hope, Princess of Lear—Elia, he is so forward! And trying not to be by acknowledging it, so you must in some way give permission or not! —I confess I have had report from an agent of mine as to your gentle, elegant beauty—What is elegant beauty, do you think? A deer, or a reaching willow tree? Really, I wonder that he does not provide some poetic comparison. Burgun has no imagination—your gentle, elegant beauty, and I cannot wait many more months to witness it myself. I have recently been defeated in battle, but thoughts of you hold my body and my honor upright though all else should weigh upon my heart—His body upright, indeed; I know what part of his body he means, and it’s very indelicate of him!”

  “Aefa!” The princess laughed, smothering it with her hands.

  Aefa quirked her mouth and wrinkled her nose, skimming the letter silently. “Burgun is all flattery, and then, despite telling you he’s been trumped on the battlefield, he still finds ways to suggest he is handsome and virile, and perhaps a wifely partner would complete his heart enough to … well to make him a better soldier. Affectionately, passionately yours, Ullo of Burgun. Worms of earth, I don’t like him. So on to the king of Aremoria. I wonder if Ullo knows the general who defeated him also pays court to you.”

  Elia drew her knees near to her chest and tilted her head to listen better. The letter from Lear pressed between her two hands, trapped.

  “Lady Elia, writes Morimaros, which I approve of much better. Simple. An elegantly beautiful salutation, if I may say so. Lady Elia, In my last letter I made it known I was nearing the end of my campaign against the claim of Burgun—This king refuses to even give Burgun the title kingdom! What a pretty slight. Certainly this king knows who his rival is—against the claim of Burgun and can report now on the eve of what I believe to be our final confrontation that I will win, and am sure this shift in political lines will too shift the direction of your thoughts. In Aremoria’s favor, I expect, but if not, let me add we have a nearly unprecedented harvest this year, in the south of barley and—Elia! My stars! There is now a list of Aremore crops! He says nothing of his hopes for you, nothing about himself! Do we even know what sort of books he enjoys or philosophies he holds? At least Burgun treats you like a woman, not a writing exercise.”

  “Are you swinging toward favoring Burgun, then?” Elia asked lightly.

  Turning her back to the silver light still clinging to the mountains in the west, Aefa shot her princess a narrow look and held the letter toward her. Elia could see it consisted of three perfectly lined paragraphs. Aefa pulled the paper right to her face and read, “I have petitioned to your father that I be welcomed in Innis Lear in the near future, that you might look upon me and perhaps tell me something of my stars. Oh. Oh, Elia, well there. That is his final line, and perhaps he is not so dry as everything. His signature is the same as before. Yours, Aremoria King. I dislike that so very vehemently. Not his name, even, but his grand old title. It’s like your sister refusing to call Connley anything but Connley, when everyone knows he has a name his mother gave him.”

  Elia closed her eyes. “It is not a letter from a man to a woman, but from a crown to the daughter of a crown. It stirs me not at all, but it is at least honest.”

  The huff of Aefa’s skirts as she plopped to the earth beside her princess spoke all the volumes necessary.

  “And your father’s letter?” Aefa asked quietly.

  “You might as well light a candle. I’m done star gazing tonight.” Elia danced her fingers along the edge of the letter; it was so thin, one parchment page only, when it was not unusual for her father’s letters to be five or six pages, thickly folded. From the leather bag, Aefa dug out a thin candle and a candle-cradle attached to a small, bent mirror. She whispered a word in the language of trees, snapped her fingers, and a tiny flame appeared. Elia pressed her lips in disapproval as she snapped the letter’s wax seal in two, cracking the midnight blue swan through the wings. Aefa set the candle into its cradle so that the flame lit the mirror. This device was meant to illuminate star
charts while keeping brightness from the eyes of the priests who needed to stare high and higher into the darkest heavens. In Aefa’s hands, it angled all the light onto the letter and Lear’s scrawl of writing.

  Elia, my star—

  For a moment the youngest princess could not continue, overwhelmed with her relief. The words shook before her eyes. Elia took a fortifying breath and charged on. She murmured the contents of the letter aloud to Aefa: “Our long summer’s absence is at an end. Come home for the Zenith Court, this third noontime after the Throne rises clear. The moon is full then, and will bless my actions. I shall do for my daughters what the stars have described, finally, and all beings shall in their proper places be set. Your suitors are invited, too, for we would meet them and judge them. Your beloved father and king.”

  “That’s all?” Aefa said, rather incredulous. She pressed her face to Elia’s cheek, to get a look at the letter. “When is that? The Throne is part of the Royal sequence, and they began a month ago … it’s the … second? After the Hound of Summer? So…”

  “Six days,” Elia said. “The Zenith Court will be six days from now, when the moon is full.”

  “Why can’t he just say, come on the Threesday of next week? And what does he mean? All beings in their proper place? Will he finally name Gaela his heir? That’ll set the island off, though it’s inevitable. She has to be crowned someday.”

  Elia folded the letter. “I hope so. Then in the winter we can have a new queen. Before Father loses his faculties, before his continued hesitation breeds more intrigue and plotting.” She turned her eyes toward the west again, where the vibrant diamond of the Star of First Birds should gleam.

  But the star was shrouded by a single long strip of black cloud cutting across the sky like a sword.

  REGAN

  IN THE EMERALD east of Innis Lear lounged the family seat of the Dukes Connley, a castle of local white limestone and blue slate imported from Aremoria. At only a hundred years old, it was the youngest of the castle seats, built around the old black keep from which Connley lords of old once ruled. No city filled the space between its walls, nor abutted the sides, though the next valley south flourished with people devoted to the duke, as did the valleys to the north and west. None could deny the Connley line was expert at inspiring loyalty.

  Perhaps because the Connleys were defiantly and fixedly loyal to themselves. Perhaps because they continued to study wormwork and respect the language of trees, despite the king’s decrees. Or perhaps only because they were so beautiful, and strove to reflect such personal attributes in their castles and roads and local tax policies.

  Connley Castle itself consisted of three concentric, towered walls, each higher and lovelier than the last, and in the center a new, white keep faced the old, black one, matching it stone for stone. At least externally, as the guts of the black keep had long since crumbled. Trees grew up from its center; vines and creeping flowers had taken over arrow slits and arched doorways. The cobbles had cracked, surrendered to the earth more than a generation ago. One ancient oak flourished at the very heart of the keep. It had been planted by one of the lords for the pillar of his throne room, back in the days when baser magic topped the island, and few cared for the path of stars. There, the wife of the current Duke Connley kept her shrines and working altars. And it was there she now knelt, stricken, among those winding old roots, surrounded by a bright pool of her own blood.

  Regan, the second daughter of Lear, had come to the shady courtyard to listen to the whispers of the island trees and to recast the quarter blessings that rooted her magic to Innis Lear. Each altar was created with a slab of rock—carried by her own hands from a corner of the island in the four great directions—settled against the crumbling stone walls with permission from the oak, tied down through three seasons of growth and decay. Their lines of magic crossed through the heart of the oak tree, and its roots dove deep enough into the bedrock of the island to hear the other powerful trees, to pass Regan’s words, and to collect for her the concerns, complaints, and hopes of all who still spoke through the wind.

  These days there were many complaints, and while her altar blessings should have lasted a full year, the island’s magic had become so withdrawn she had to bless the altars at the turn of every season. She needed living rootwater, but such holy wells were forbidden and Regan had to rely upon the witch of the White Forest for a steady supply.

  Recasting and blessing the altars was the work of an afternoon, and Regan had just moved on to the final altar in the east when she felt the first twinge at the small of her back.

  She paused, telling herself she’d imagined it, and had remained kneeling before the eastern altar. But the language of trees would not spring to her lips easily; Regan’s attention was all for her womb, waiting, hardly able to breathe.

  The delicate thread of nausea might’ve been overlooked by one unused to such things. But Regan had been through this before, and so followed the nausea as it turned over into a knot between her hips, then pulled tight.

  The princess’s cool brown hands began to tremble. She knew this pain well, and how to hold rigid until it passed.

  And pass it did, but not without leaving that ache behind, an echo of itself that radiated down the backs of her thighs and up her spine, hot and cold and hot again.

  “No,” Regan hissed, scraping her nails too hard on the stone altar. One cracked, and that pain she welcomed. Her breath caught like a broken necklace, dragging up, up, up, and chattering her teeth. She bared them in rage and forced her breathing into long, slow rolls.

  Was it her? Was this failure some greater symptom of the island cracking?

  Any beast could be a mother—there were babes in nests and hovels and barnyards. It was only Regan who seemed unable to join them.

  When the next cramp caught her, she cried out, shoved away from the altar, and curled tightly over her knees. She whispered to herself that she was healthy and well and most of all strong, as if she could change what happened next by ordering her body to obey her.

  A pause in the pain left her panting, but Regan ground her teeth and stood up on her bare feet. Though preferring quite formal attire, even in her husband’s castle, Regan had come to the altars today in only the thinnest red wool dress and no underthings. She’d left her slippers outside the arched gate and untied the ribbons from her wavy brown hair, allowing it to spill past her waist. Hers was the longest, straightest hair of her sisters, and her skin the lightest, though still a very cool brown. There was the most of their father, Lear, in her looks: the shape of his knifelike lips, and flecks of Lear’s blue lightened his daughter’s chestnut eyes.

  Regan walked carefully to the ropey old oak tree to pray, her hands on two thick roots. I am as strong as you, she said in the language of trees. I will not break. Help me now, mother, help me. I am strong.

  The tree sighed, its bulk shivering so that the high, wide leaves cast dappled shadows about like rain in a storm.

  Regan went to the northern altar and cut the back of her wrist with a stone dagger, bleeding into a shallow bowl of wine. Take this blood from me instead, she whispered, pouring the bloody wine over the altar, where north root was etched in the language of trees. The maroon liquid slid into the rough grooves, turning the words dark. Take this, and let me get to my room where my mothers’ milk tonic is, where my husband—

  The princess’s voice cut away at the sensation of blood slipping out of her, tickling her inner thighs with dishonest tenderness.

  She returned to the grand oak tree on slow legs, sat on the earth between two roots, and slumped over herself. Despair overwhelmed her every thought, as hope and strength dripped out of her on the heels of this treacherous blood.

  The sun lowered itself in the sky until only the very crown of the oak was gilded. The courtyard below was a cold mess of shadows and silver twilight. Regan shivered, despite tears hot in her eyes. In these slow hours she allowed herself a grief she would deny if confronted by any but her elder si
ster. Grief, and shame, and a cord of longing for her mother who died when she was fourteen. Dalat had birthed three healthy girls, had done it as far away from her own land and god and people as a woman could get. And Regan was here among the roots and rocks of her home. She should have been—should have been able.

  The earth whispered quiet, harsh sighs; Regan heard the rush of blood in her ears and through the veins of the tree. She saw only the darkness of her own closed eyes, and smelled only the thick, musty scent of her womb blood.

  “Regan, are you near?”

  It was the sharp voice of her husband. She put her hands on her head and dug her nails in, gripped her hair and tore until it hurt.

  His boots crunched through the scattered grasses, over fallen twigs and chunks of stone broken off the walls.

  “I’ve been looking for you everywhere, wife,” he said, in a tone more irritable than he usually directed at her. “There’s a summons from your … Regan.” Connley said her name in a hush of horror.

  She could not look up at him, even as she sensed him bend beside her, too close, and grasp her shoulders to lift her up off her knees. “Regan,” he said again, all tenderness and tight fear.

  Her eyes opened slowly, sticky with half-dried tears, and she allowed him to straighten her. She leaned into him, and suddenly her ankles were cold where air caressed streaks of dark red and brown, left from her long immersion in blood and earth.

  “Oh no,” Connley said. “No.”

  The daughter of the king drew herself up, for she was empty again now, and without pain. She was cold and hungry and appreciated the temporary bliss of detachment. “I am well, Connley,” she said, using him as a prop to stand. Her toes squished in the bloody earth. Regan shuddered but spoke true: