The Queens of Innis Lear

by Tessa Gratton

  “I kissed the king of Aremoria,” she said, sliding Aefa a sorry almost-smile.

  “Finally!” the Fool’s daughter danced in place to cheer up her friend.

  But Elia’s smile trembled. “I am having trouble letting myself feel it all.”

  Weaving their fingers together, Aefa made sure her face was bright and open, ready to listen.

  “There is so much, and all of it conflicting. I—I cannot fall down and wail,” Elia said. “I cannot yell or sob or even rejoice. Those are not things a queen does. But I also … I know better than to shut it all away, to wrap myself in blissful numb nothings. Not anymore.”

  Aefa bit her lip, then nodded. “I understand. I think … Well, there is more possibility between falling and flying wild. You do not have to be only either a cold star or a fiery explosion.”

  “How do I find balance when my heart is aching to burst?” Tears hovered in her black eyes. “Someone I love will die in the morning. Ah!” She caught back a gasp of pain, widening her eyes so as not to blink and force the tears to fall.

  “Hold on to me.” Aefa tugged Elia nearer and put the princess’s arms around her waist, then wrapped her own arms around Elia’s neck. She took a deep breath. “Rain is not always a storm. The wind does not always howl. Sometimes death is quiet, or love is peaceful. There are little things.”

  “Fire can be a candle flame,” Elia whispered.

  Aefa hugged her tightly, smelling the rich bergamot oil, the tart remnants of paint, sweat and warm skin—every Elia smell except charcoal smudged from a freshly drawn star map.

  The princess pulled away, but held on to her friend’s hands for a moment. She stared into Aefa’s eyes, as if searching for something, and then smiled a very little again. Elia’s brow remained pinched, her wide eyes teary. Then she let go of Aefa. Fire, she whispered in the language of trees, and snapped her fingers.

  Tiny orange flames flickered to life. They danced in the air, two of them, around and around, as if orbiting each other.

  The light put warmth back into Elia’s eyes, and Aefa felt like crying, too. The princess drew her hands closer, and the flames drifted into one, joining with a tiny crackle. Elia allowed her face to crumple and tears to fall, but she did not lose the thread of magic, did not stop her even breathing, despite the weeping.

  With Aefa’s help, cupping her hands around the flame to block the breeze of their motion, they walked to the hearth and knelt, adding their magical flame to the comforting fire.

  REGAN

  THE BED WHERE last Regan had slept with her husband was too wide, too cold, too lonely.

  Better that she sleep against the earth, wrapped in the roots of a cold hawthorn tree, or ancient oak.

  Wind rushed against the windows, skittered against the sharply pitched roof, and whistled down the chimney. The small fire flattened but held on to itself.

  One of his long jackets lay folded over the back of a tall chair. Bright, gleaming red. “Connley,” she murmured.

  But the wind outside hissed back her little sister’s name.

  Gasping, Regan swept out of the room, past surprised attendants. She covered her ears with her hands, nails dug into her scalp. “No,” she moaned. The island should mourn with her, call her husband’s name.

  Though Gaela was the first recourse of her heart, Regan was angry with her elder sister, too. As they’d come to the Keep, Regan had been desperate for privacy and a glass of wine, to discuss Dalat, breathless with the need to wonder with her sister: Was any of it true? What Elia said? Regan’s heart had struck a wild rhythm, her free hand curled into a fist so tight her knuckles ached. Had Dalat eaten the king-making poison herself?

  But Gaela had turned a ferocious snarl on Regan and said, in the most drastically even, low voice, “No, it is not possible.”

  Then her best, strongest sister had stalked away, leaving Regan truly alone.

  But it was possible, if the trees believed it, if the wind screamed it, if—if poison was the true way forward on Innis Lear.

  Regan’s breast heaved. The tingling, cold edges of panic pressed close, and she ordered one of the women trailing her to take her directly to Ban Errigal.

  She did not knock at his door, just opened it, finding the Fox beside the hearth, where a small altar was spread and fire burned in a fist-sized iron cauldron. Three candles were lit, additionally, at the window, and a pile of broken glass glittered on the small table beside the bed.

  Ban himself was already undressed, crouched in a long, loose white linen shirt that fell to his knees. His sword belt hung from the only chair and his boots stood tall beside it, along with the rest of his fine warrior’s clothing and equipment.

  “Lady Regan,” he said.

  “I would not be alone tonight.”

  Silently, Ban came to her and offered his hand. The lines of his face were stark in the haze of candlelight. She allowed him to lead her to his bed. There he knelt and helped her out of her short boots. Perched at her feet, he lifted his head up. “Is there anything you need? Water, wine? Should I help with the overdress?”

  His voice was soft, softer even than his forest eyes or lovely mouth.

  “Overdress,” she murmured, and touched the places it laced under her arms. She raised them, and he worked quickly at the silk ties. Together they lifted it over her head, and Ban folded it carefully over the back of his chair. She shut her eyes as tightly as she could, and a flash-memory of Connley’s folded red coat waited in the dark.

  “Please take some of the pins out,” she said next.

  He obeyed, gently sliding his fingers into her coiled hair to find plain, dark horn pins. Removing enough so that the three thick braids fell around her neck and shoulders, he settled the collected pins beside the pile of broken glass on his table. Then Ban glanced at her eyes; Regan nodded, and he got into his bed.

  Climbing in after, Regan put her head on his shoulder and her hand over his heart. Ban stared up at the shadowed ceiling, and they both listened to the wind shrilling against the ramparts. He was smaller than her husband and she did not fit so well against him.

  What would Connley think of this? The duel, the hemlock, the stars and wind and love and death and … everything? Her hand curled into a fist again, the knuckles whitening. Regan did not wish to watch another duel. It would bring visceral memories of her love: the line of his shoulder, the gleam of his teeth, the passion shifting the color of his blue-green eyes. Regan’s breath had thinned; she was panting. Near hysteria with no warning.

  “Regan?” Ban whispered.

  “I wish Connley were here,” she whispered into the darkness. Ban hugged her, touched her hair as she trembled.

  “It would all be different if he were,” the Fox said.

  “Not the hemlock crown.”

  “No,” he agreed.

  “My sister would not lie about our mother.”

  “Elia would never.”

  “But I—I should be comforting you, Fox. You fight in the morning.”

  “I don’t need it.”

  “Is that a lie?”

  “No.”

  “Aren’t you nervous? Will you sleep?”

  “I won’t sleep, but I … am not nervous yet. That will come. And, Regan, I am glad you are here.” Ban drew a shaky breath. “No one should be alone the night before battle. I have been, once, hiding in my dugout, waiting to send a signal. I knew the fighting would soon begin, but not the hour, I knew I would rage and kill, I knew … but there was no room in my hole for sword or shield, so I would have to acquire my own from the enemy. Those were the worst times. Alone and knowing little of what is to come. So this is better. I know who I face, and I know when, and why.”

  “Do we know why?” Regan whispered. “Some moments lately, I don’t remember.”

  “For love,” he said. And there was his lie.

  For love, the witch whispered back, in the language of trees.

  GAELA

  GAELA LEAR STOOD outside the door throug
h which Brona Hartfare slept. It was mere hours before dawn, and Gaela had yet to put her head to pillow.

  Errigal Keep was a warren of new and old rooms, and tonight Gaela had wandered all the corridors and ramparts, from the deepest cellar to the tall tower platform, avoiding this confrontation, hoping to purge her rage and upset. But nothing had ever been able to do such a thing. She’d been born furious and riled. It was her lifeblood.

  Had Dalat wondered why? Cared or not cared? Loved Gaela for that very ferocity or been afraid of it?

  Had her mother killed herself assuming Gaela would be strong enough without her? Why hadn’t there been a final message or word she’d given Gaela to remember, the rest of her lonely star-cursed life?

  So many questions, the largest of which hummed and begged in her pulse: Why why why?

  Gaela pounded on the witch’s door.

  “Brona,” she demanded, low and urgent.

  In a moment she heard a shuffle and the door swung open. Brona waited in a loose robe, but she was unrumpled and clear-eyed.

  Gaela shoved in. “Was there nothing she said for me? Why did she trust you and not me? I was sixteen!”

  “Gaela,” the witch said, but Gaela had already stormed past her, toward the dimly glowing hearth. Spread over a heavy black cloth were all twenty-seven holy cards and a scatter of bones and polished rock.

  “Tell me,” Gaela insisted.

  “Gaela,” Brona snapped.

  Unused to such command, the eldest daughter of Lear glared, but she saw then the source of Brona’s upset.

  Kay Oak struggled to get out of the bed, naked, with a bandage covering his eye. He groaned, and Gaela felt a thrill of anger and guilt. She ground her teeth together. “Get out, Uncle, before I remember my proclamations about your banishment.”

  Brona went to his side, grabbing a shirt and helping him into it. As they dressed him, Gaela worked to slow her heated blood. Kayo moved stiffly and leaned hard on the cane Brona handed him once his boots were on. “Be gentle with yourself,” Brona murmured.

  “Try to rest, love,” Kayo said. He moved carefully toward the door but stopped before Gaela. “First-daughter-of-my-mother’s-only-daughter, your future rests on the death of Brona’s son, so do not treat her poorly tonight.”

  Gaela had forgotten that. She blinked, scowling. “Did you know? About Dalat?”

  “I told him, a year past her death,” Brona said, nudging Kayo away by the shoulder and putting herself in Gaela’s line of fire.

  Kayo left, slowly, feeling the way into the dark hall with his cane.

  Alone with the witch of the White Forest, Gaela suddenly felt trepidation.

  “Come, sit.” Brona knelt by the hearth, slid all her cards into a stack, and shuffled slowly.

  “I don’t want a reading.”

  “I know. I’m asking questions about my son.”

  “That isn’t my fault.”

  Brona glanced at Gaela from beneath her lashes, her face tilted toward the cards in her lap.

  “It isn’t.” Gaela plopped down on the hearth rug and crossed her legs. She leaned forward, peering through the gentle orange light at Brona. “Ban the Fox made himself.”

  “As you did. Do you think those things disconnected?”

  “I think my mother had a hand in making me, in ways I did not know until tonight.”

  The witch nodded and flipped over three cards: two from the suit of trees and one bird. Gaela could not identify them further.

  “Well?” Gaela asked when Brona flipped three more cards, then three more, but remained silent.

  “I thought you did not want a reading.”

  Baring her teeth, Gaela said, “I want to know why my mother trusted you, and not my sisters. Not me.”

  “She did trust you, Gaela. She trusted you to protect Regan and Elia and grow into a strong queen.”

  “She didn’t say goodbye.”

  “In some ways she did.”

  Gaela pursed her lips. Her neck ached from the weight of all her hair coiled atop her crown and the layers of clay sculpting it in place. She ought to have rinsed it clean and smeared these decorations off her cheeks. Flattening her hands against the soft wool of her skirt, she carefully asked, “Did my mother leave me a message? Did she say anything about me?”

  “She loved you, Gaela. She said to Kayo that this fate was her choice, and he must understand that. So, too, must you.”

  By now Brona had spread all twenty-seven cards atop her cloth, in five circles that spiraled atop each other, so only the top layer of cards was completely visible. The steady glow of embers cast them in umber and shadows, the roots and feathers and bright stars, the splashes of water and several moons in several shapes. Splatters of blood and new-budding flowers. “What will you do, in the morning?” Brona asked, placing the bones down one at a time, instead of tossing them in a scatter.

  “Be king.”

  “If my son lives.”

  “You sound doubtful. Have more faith, Brona Hartfare. Ban is wild and vicious, and—though not easily—he might defeat the steady, predictable king of Aremoria.”

  Brona stood abruptly, scattering the cards. “You will never give up the crown.”

  Standing, too, Gaela said, “Should I?”

  “You made a bargain.”

  “And I will find a star prophecy claiming only I can rule, else Innis Lear will fall to ruin. Something even my baby sister cannot disprove. Is that not how it’s done by kings on Innis Lear? Besides, what else could be done with me? Kill me? I think not. The island needs me. Worry not, Brona. I will rule, and Elia will make your son happy enough. Both of them at my side, for what other choice will they have?”

  For a long moment Brona studied Gaela, and the warrior queen held the witch’s flickering gaze.

  Then Brona lowered her eyes. “What choice, indeed?” she murmured, then turned to the narrow table pushed against the wall.

  Gaela watched as Brona chose folded paper pouches and a stoppered vial, adding a pinch of this and drops of that into two clay cups. She brought them to Gaela and handed both to her. Gaela sniffed: sweet and soft, with a hint of spice.

  The witch fetched a bottle of wine and poured some into both cups. She took one and raised it. “To the queen of Innis Lear, then.”

  “Those past and future,” Gaela agreed. She drank the wine. The spices filled her nose, making the flavor strong and bright. “This is good.”

  The witch smiled softly, licking a drop of wine from the rim of her own cup. “My own recipe. It is even better warm.”

  “Have you no warming pot? Our next cup should be so.”

  “You might set the cup against those embers: it is strong enough not to crack with the heat.”

  Gaela downed the wine, then poured more, settling her cup just inside the dark stone of the hearth, tucked where the embers might heat it more quickly.

  Brona held her own cup between her palms, nestled in her lap. They both were quiet, listening to their shared breathing, to the tender shifts and cracks of the red-hot embers. Gaela wondered if Dalat had shared such wine with Brona, long ago. And she wondered if she would remember the color of her mother’s hands at all, if she herself did not share it.

  “Gaela, do you understand at all what your mother sacrificed for?” Brona asked, as tenderly as the fire.

  When Gaela went to speak, she became strangely unsettled, for her words arrived reluctantly. Gaela had never been reluctant in all her life. “Us. Family. Her life and … future.”

  “Dalat changed the entire island, with only a small vial of poison.”

  Something in the witch’s voice caught Gaela’s heart; it skipped and started again. “She—she…” Gaela’s tongue felt heavy. It was very late, and she needed her sleep. She blinked slowly.

  “It was the act of an earth saint,” Brona whispered. “A choice worthy of worship. This island has never forgotten Dalat of Taria Queen. Nor will it forget you.”

  “No … it … will…” Gaela rubbe
d her face. She sighed. She was so sleepy. “Not.”

  She tilted toward the hearth, but Brona caught her, an arm about her royal shoulders, and drew Gaela against her.

  Brona gently helped her fall, whispering quietly to the fire and the wind, a blessing for Dalat’s eldest daughter.

  TWELVE YEARS AGO, DONDUBHAN

  IT WAS NOT unusual for the queen of Innis Lear to be seen wandering the halls of the winter seat well before dawn. The guards and castle folk had accustomed themselves to it, and assumed their foreign mistress slept poorly, or still followed the Third Kingdom tradition of rising early to be blessed by their luminous God. None minded, for insomnia was not so strange, and she was kind to them, and thoughtful, though often distant, as if her thoughts preferred to reside with her daughters, or drift with the wind, or perhaps keep themselves to memories of a sun so hot none of this island could quite imagine it.

  This morning, the queen seemed more present, right there with them in the dark Dondubhan corridors, touching the stone walls, dragging her fingers along the seams. She watched her bare toes curl against the newly laid rushes: evergreen juniper and the first long-leafed sea grasses of spring. She breathed deeply, as if relishing the cold, damp northern air, the thin scent of low hearth fires, and the first hint of fresh rye seeping up from the kitchens.

  This morning, the queen also seemed melancholy.

  In an hour, the dawn would break on her eldest daughter’s sixteenth birthday.

  The past week had been tense: less laughter, and the music forced in the hall. Gaela had stomped in her soldier’s boots and Regan pulled too hard when she separated locks of Elia’s hair to braid. The king held their youngest daughter too tightly, and watched Dalat as if she might fall without warning into the deep black waters of the Tarinnish. Elia had asked her softly, twice, Mother, what is wrong with everyone? And both times Dalat cupped her daughter’s warm brown face in a hand as black as night, smiled, and replied only, Tomorrow is your sister’s sixteenth birthday.

  The queen could bring herself to say no more.