The Queens of Innis Lear

by Tessa Gratton

  A week later, she received a letter stamped with scarlet wax.

  I see you, Regan, daughter of Dalat, it read in the language of trees.

  It had been signed, Connley, of the line of kings.

  Folding the paper, she’d pressed it between her breast and the warm wool of her dress. Eventually Regan had written back, and their correspondence went slowly, with no regular rhythm except that each took their own turn, never sending a new letter without receiving a response. There was little call for Connleys at Dondubhan or at the Summer Seat, for the perpetual tensions between them and the king, or them and Astore, but Regan had seen him again, finally, some year and a half later, this time broader in shoulder and with his bright hair smoothed back to show off that striking face. His red-and-black coat, tied tight over more expensive black this time, seemed to make his eyes burn. That gaze had found her where Regan waited with the remnants of her family, high on the Summer Seat rampart, and her chest rose faster—though she strove, again, to keep excitement off her face.

  She had touched his hand later that afternoon, passing on her way out of the great hall when her father dismissed her and her sister, so that he and Connley’s father, the duke, could argue without a woman’s judging eyes. Regan’s fingers had barely brushed the backs of his knuckles, and she’d held her eyes straight ahead. Then off with Gaela she went, though her sister had veered toward the barracks and Regan was left to wander to her chambers, cradling her hand between her breasts.

  Words on paper had been their only courtship at first, along with tiny sketches of flowers or food or whatever thing was nearest Connley as he wrote to her. Regan returned pressed herbs for ambition and health, and advice on the best tea to soothe Connley’s mother when she was dying of a wet fever, coughing and hard. When his mother did die, Connley asked Regan to come to the year anniversary, and she did, though with Gaela and Elia to make it a more formal royal affair.

  It had been easy to keep her secret from Gaela, though Regan never explicitly decided to: Gaela never asked about such things as romance and men. Regan didn’t mind these differences, for her sister would be a great, vicious warrior-queen and she trusted Regan absolutely, and so Regan would act as she needed in order to be Gaela’s best support.

  Alone with Regan in the shade of an oak tree where he’d brought her to share the ancient well of his father’s bloodline, Connley had cried for his mother. Regan kissed him, but briefly, and he’d gasped. She’d kissed his tears away, and as his trembling hands cupped around her elbows, a shaking panic had filled her heart, for this was too big, too bright, and there was no space for brightness around Regan Lear. She was not allowed: there were no stars in her, only an empty, wide sky.

  She had fled, and Gaela chided her for being missing nearly an hour. Regan easily convinced her sister she’d only lost time conversing with the wise grandfather oaks near the castle. It had been a retreat, as Gaela might have counseled upon facing an unwinnable battle, waiting to gather more allies to her side.

  Not until after Gaela married her duke, and then after Connley’s father had died, did the two lovers meet again. Six years since the fated goblet of chilled wine. Regan stood alone at her father’s side, mostly, for her baby sister already inhabited the star towers, studying to become Lear’s perfect pet. Connley was his own man, finally, duke in title and self, and could find reason to be at the Summer Seat if Regan would be, or north at Dondubhan, even braving Astore’s displeasure to prove to Regan the depth of Connley loyalty, the lengths he’d go to just to see her.

  The next kiss between them was anything but brief.

  Regan remembered all their kisses, for they were as close to stars as she could get. A burst of light against a dark floral tapestry; bonfires kindled in a low feather bed; flickering quick as night-bugs, here and gone, there and gone, anywhere darkness lived; consuming and constant as a hearth fire.

  Now his lips were cold and tasted only of blood. Around her, the wagon rattled and wind screamed. Lightning gave her cruel glimpses as the road vanished behind them: not fast enough. Regan huddled with her beloved under the thick canvas stretched over the wagon, holding his head against her belly, propped at the fore of the wagon bed. She tried to cushion her love from the wrenching travel, the rocking, hard cracks of the wheels.

  There was not very much blood, yet Connley grew colder and colder.

  He’d said, as Curan the iron wizard hefted him up, “Regan, be brave. There is something wrong inside me.”

  As they had loaded him into the wagon, Regan had commanded the Keep be held for Ban Errigal’s return, and to yield for no other. She’d then climbed in with Connley, hushing him. Save your strength, beloved, she whispered in the language of trees. He was never fluent: she remembered so clearly his proud explanation that he learned to write her name and his, in just that way, because he wanted to impress her. No hint of chagrin to his tone, or guilt. The language of trees had grabbed her attention, because he had recognized her.

  Wind blew, and a very soft, delicate moan parted her husband’s lips. Regan smoothed his hair. Connley hated delicacy in himself, though he prized it in her. Glass, my sharp wife, he sometimes said, for she wore a mask that was smooth, clear, beautiful to behold. But it had cracked beneath long ago, and Connley knew where the perilous edges were; he saw them and loved them, though few others would admit a knife so deadly could be made of glass.

  Her arms tightened around him, but he barely moved.

  “Connley,” she breathed, his name disappearing into the wind. The wagon tilted as they started up a hill, and Connley moaned again. His eyes moved; she saw a glint of them. Bending over him, she put her ear to his lips.

  “Regan,” he whispered, barely. She knew the sound of her name from his mouth, in all forms, but not this, not from a voice weak and hurting.

  “Regan,” he whispered again. “Don’t lose yourself when I’m gone.”

  “Stop,” she hissed.

  She couldn’t wait for the altars.

  “Stop!” Regan screamed, slapping the front of the wagon. “Stop now!”

  The driver pulled the horses back, and everything went still but for the wind. Even the punishing rain had ceased.

  As carefully as she could, Regan shifted her husband to the wagon floor and began untying the canvas above their seat. When enough had been pulled free, she shoved it away: rolling black and vivid purple clouds pushed at the southwest edges of the sky, but in the east it was clear, stars glittering just like sharp shards of glass. Not for me, not from me, Regan thought, kneeling, holding the side of the wagon for support. Dark forest sprawled at the bottom of the hill behind them: this length of the West Ley Road poured through a deep valley between stretches of moorland. It was hours still to Connley Castle and her altar, that deepest seat of Regan’s power.

  “Lady?” Osli, from Gaela’s retinue, stood still, silhouetted against the stars. She had aided Regan, she had driven the horses, she had kept the other ladies and retainers at Errigal Keep from following.

  “Help me put him now against the earth.”

  With Connley spread against damp, yellow grass, Regan pushed Osli back and then took off her heavy outer dress. She knelt in wool shift and stockings to undress him, quickly, unwrapping his wound. He breathed slowly and shallowly, skin too pale, she thought, but the moon was behind the storm, and the sun too far away. Another storm, one made of blood and bile, had formed a violent bruise that covered Connley’s chest, ribs, and stomach.

  He was bleeding inside.

  There was nothing she could do alone. Nothing any healer could do.

  Water pattered off distant forest leaves. Wind glided more gently now over the moorland, teasing before dawn like a weary sigh.

  Save him, Regan told the wind. Tell me what to do, she said to the earth. She brushed her hands on the grass, tugging. Tell me. Help me.

  He is dying, the wind whispered.

  We cannot save him, said the trees.

  “No!” Regan cried. She
tore up chunks of grass, then grabbed her own hair, pulling until it burned. Tears filled her eyes. She blinked hard, leaned over him so the tears fell onto his face. “Wake up,” she said, and wrote heal on his cheek using the cool slip of her tears.

  Please, she begged the island. Innis Lear, I am your daughter, and I would give you anything to save him.

  Below her knees, the ground shifted. A small ripple, as if from a tide pool. Regan flattened one palm against the earth and the other over his sternum. Tendrils of earth crawled up his sides, like tiny worms.

  Saints of trees and stars, she whispered, birds of the sky and fire, worms of the dreamtime, lend me strength!

  Connley shuddered as the earth entwined him.

  The sky brightened along the eastern horizon, creamy and gilded.

  Regan grasped the small knife she’d plucked from her husband’s boot and slashed the back of her wrist. Blood dripped onto his chest and she wrote heal, wishing with all her power that the rootwaters still flowed freely, that she could bathe him in the navel well, find the nearest star chapel and break it open until the island’s heart-blood pumped out and over Connley.

  Wind jerked at her hair, and she dragged her heavy overdress against Connley’s legs, blanketing him up to his belly, keeping him warm.

  Hidden inside the wind’s voice was a sorrowful whisper: Lost and fading, it mourned already.

  Then I will die, Regan cried.

  This was the limit of earth magic, and star prophecy, too: neither could force a body to do what it was not capable of doing on its own. Roots might encourage, water direct, wind gift with speed, stars shine hope, but if something was too broken, not even the blood of the island or the tears of the stars could mend it.

  Regan kissed him. She opened his mouth with hers, tasting the corners of his lips, the edge of his teeth, and he tilted his chin, sighing a harsh breath. Connley kissed her back. One hand found her neck, slid up to her skull, fingers dug roughly through her tangled dark hair. A spark—the last star Regan might ever claim. His grip tightened, then went slack as his arm sank slowly again. His breath softened. Hitched.

  “No,” she whispered, and the knife in her hand flipped; she aimed the point at her ribs, pausing just a moment to lift her voice to the wind: My heart for his, my life blood for his, take it, take anything.

  Weight hit Regan’s shoulder as Osli tackled her, knocking the witch to the ground and snatching at the knife with quick skill.

  “No!” Regan screamed, and again, gasping, crushed beneath the other woman’s weight.

  “My lady would murder me if I let you die,” Osli said. She tossed the knife far away, pinning Regan still. Regan tried to reach for her husband. Her fingers only grazed his hair.

  “Get off me,” she ordered, but in a quiet, desperate whisper.

  The captain obeyed.

  Regan crawled nearer to Connley, tucking her cheek against his shoulder from upside down, and wrapped one arm around his head.

  Sunlight flashed in a long line at the horizon, a signal to the dying night.

  ELIA

  DAWN BROKE THROUGH the storm clouds lingering over the White Forest, and the tattered, torn trees glistened with sun-pink drops of rain.

  Elia opened the door of Brona’s cottage for Ban’s departure.

  Though Elia only had wrapped herself in a blanket over the long shift she’d gone to bed in, Ban wore a clean shirt borrowed from Kay Oak’s traveling bags, and a coat of his mother’s that fit his shoulders. They’d done what they could with his hair, braiding pieces of it back from his face. Still he seemed wild, though that might have been his expression or those hollow cheeks. He paused, framed in the door. His eyes rested on hers, heavy with the weight of all that had passed between them.

  But Elia felt grounded for the first time in years. She could see the paths they’d followed, and why, the choices they’d been forced to make for themselves and never for each other. Before she let him go, she needed only one more answer.

  Elia folded her hands before her: not in pain, not holding some great, gnawing wound inside, merely regal and sure like the queen she was supposed to be.

  She asked, “What do you want, now that this storm has passed?”

  “I am the storm,” Ban murmured. He leaned closer to her, until his forehead brushed hers and his words tickled along her cheekbone to her ear. “I want this island to crumble, and see what rises. Discover who can transform all the shattered power into something strong. Will it be you?”

  “Stars and worms, Ban Errigal,” she whispered, shivering.

  “I had to come home because this is what I was meant to do. To pull Innis Lear apart. To show your father and my father and everyone who believes as they do how fragile everything truly is, and how wrong they have been.”

  “Am I wrong, too?”

  Ban pressed her against the doorframe. Body to body. “What do you want, Elia Lear?” he asked, then kissed her tenderly.

  She welcomed the kiss, relishing its warmth and simplicity, when nothing about this was simple. His lips, her tongue, their teeth and hearts.

  Elia leaned back and said, “I want to save everyone.”

  “So we are opposed,” he whispered, muddy green eyes too near her own.

  “No.” She touched his lips with her fingers, nudging him away. “I’m going to save you, too.”

  It was clear from the bleakness in his face that Ban did not believe her. Well, she would make him believe, just as she would make her sisters. “Go to Gaela and bring her to me at Errigal Keep. I will get my father and go to Regan. We will wait there, and when you and my eldest sister arrive, you’ll see what I can do.”

  “I’ll go to Gaela.” Ban’s lips barely moved under her fingers.

  “Good.” She began to kiss him again, but Aefa suddenly appeared.

  “Elia,” said a wide-eyed Aefa, approaching through the squelching mud with another woman behind her. “You—um.”

  “I must go,” Ban murmured.

  “Be well, Ban,” Elia said. He nodded, then picked up his sword belt and left.

  She had watched him go when they were children, crying, shoulders shaking with young agony at the injustice. He had watched her go last month at the standing stones: him blazing like a torch trapped in its sconce, her heart-frozen, numb.

  Here was the third departure, and Elia was neither shuddering with agony nor stuck in place. She was ready.

  And Elia was glad for last night’s storm, glad for all its raw power that had thrust her together with Ban. She’d streaked across the sky last night, a star falling through the blackness, and landed where he’d been born, landed in the roots of Innis Lear, in this thicket of thorns and wild shadows. No matter what came next, threads of starlight had planted here, and Elia understood them.

  At the edge of the woods a handful of moon moths floated, pale spirits darting in the flickering shadows, just where Elia could not quite see. In the gentle rush of a stream, Elia heard the hopeless echo of her starless sister’s name, but the forest would say no more.

  THE FOX

  THE RAVEN STRETCHED black wings wide, an arc of darkness against the bright green morning. It then leapt off a pile of stones and flapped past the forest canopy, into the keen blue sky. One cry for the wizard, and it vanished east, toward Aremoria and its king.

  Ban sat hard onto the ruins he’d stumbled over, the leavings of some long-dead lord. Moss edged the crumbling stone foundation, and small ferns and patches of rose brambles grew in the cracks. He lowered his head into his hands. His skin felt raw, scrubbed over with shards of glass. That was the last missive Ban the Fox would ever send to Morimaros of Aremoria. He was not formed for order and service, for the soaring spires of clean, careful Lionis. Ban was wild, and this furious island owned his heart.

  But he was sorry to hurt Mars. And selfishly glad not to be forced to witness the moment the king understood this betrayal.

  Ban scraped his hands down his thighs. Ruins were what this island needed more
of: places for the trees to swallow up towers and ramparts, for the navel wells to flood and nobody to count the stars for a hundred years. Raze Lear’s castles to the earth, let them be reclaimed, and seed over the royal roads. Show the people of cold prophecy to fear this land they’d so quickly forsaken, the roots that had deserved to be better loved. Shove those standing stones into the ocean.

  That was what Ban would do, if he were a wizard powerful enough.

  Regan might let him.

  Though Gaela might prefer to murder him instead.

  He shuddered with the thrill of the idea.

  Five years ago, when Ban nearly died in Aremoria, those compassionate trees had saved him, knitting him together and reminding him what power was. Ban had thought his mission must be to grow his reputation; he would become great, and then come home. To prove his worth, to show Lear and his father, and all of them, that Ban was more than any prophecy. To make them see him: he was a bastard, but by the worms of the earth and the cursed stars in the sky, he would be a powerful one.

  Now Ban understood proving himself to those men meant accepting the very foundations of their star-addled beliefs, using the language they understood, taking up the very weapons that had been used against him.

  But such things did not spur heat in his veins or give breath to his spirit.

  He would go to Gaela Astore, as Elia had asked. He’d go, but he would show Gaela how to burn the island to the ground. Give the warrior what she needed most from him: his wild, natural power. And Regan trusted him; she needed him, she would agree. He would help them begin a new empire in a world not tainted by their fathers. He would say, Yes, you should listen to Elia though she requests the impossible, and then hold her there between you as we destroy everything your father wrought. I have done this, twice over, for my own father is dead. And I have abandoned the only king who ever cherished me.

  If Ban could do it, they could, too. Now he was free. Free to be the island’s champion—to bring magic and rebirth back to starved land. But his first mission was to seek vengeance for the ruination Lear himself had wrought.