LADY HOTSPUR
Tessa Gratton

Copyright

HarperVoyager

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

Copyright © Tessa Gratton 2020

Jacket photograph © Larry Rostant 2020

Jacket design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

Tessa Gratton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780008281922

Ebook Edition © January 2020 ISBN: 9780008281953

Version: 2019-12-05

Dedication

For My Mom.

You didn’t need to be a queen to make the world better.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

The Dragon

Prince Hal

Banna Mora

Hotspur

Prince Hal

Hotspur

Rowan

Here is how …

Banna Mora

Hotspur

Banna Mora

Prince Hal

Banna Mora

Three creatures watched …

Hotspur

Banna Mora

Prince Hal

Banna Mora

Hotspur

Banna Mora

The roses know …

Banna Mora

Hotspur

The Lion

Prince Hal

Hotspur

Banna Mora

Hotspur

Banna Mora

Prince Hal

Hotspur

Prince Hal

Connley

Eighty-seven years …

Charm

Connley

The ghost held …

Charm

Prince Hal

Be calm …

Prince Hal

Prince Hal

Hotspur

Prince Hal

The wizard slipped …

Banna Mora

Hotspur

Connley

Prince Hal

Hotspur

Connley

Banna Mora

Rowan

Prince Hal

The wizard had …

Hotspur

Connley

Prince Hal

The sky was …

Hotspur

Charm

Prince Hal

Banna Mora

The queen of …

Hotspur

Innis Lear likes …

Prince Hal

The Wolf

Innis Lear remembers …

An hour before …

Prince Hal

Hotspur

Prince Hal

Charm

Hotspur

Rowan

Connley

To Celedrix of …

Hotspur

Daughter— …

The drowsy trees …

Banna Mora

Prince Hal

The night before …

Banna Mora

Prince Hal

The day dawned …

Rowan

Prince Hal

Connley

There is light …

Banna Mora

Hotspur

Star-Seer

Every year the …

Acknowledgments

By Tessa Gratton

About the Publisher

The
DRAGON

PRINCE HAL
The March, late spring

HAL WAS NOT yet a prince when she fell in love with Lady Hotspur, but she would be within the hour.

It was the end of the battle, and Hal had been ordered to collect the knight of Perseria and bring her to the castle where their mothers waited.

Hal was exhausted, but lit up inside with awe and hope and rippling terror. The wind smelled of sour blood and sweaty horses, and her ears rang. Just twenty years old and Hal had nearly died four times this afternoon:

—A spear caught under her buckler, shoving her arm back, and its tip would’ve gutted her if she’d not trained herself into the twist-and-nudge that turned her body and signaled her horse to sidestep.

—A surprising gust of wind tossed a rain of arrows over the shield wall, toward the cavalry troop she led; one arrow sliced open her cheek but avoided her eye.

—Her horse screamed and fell, and Hal’s boot almost trapped itself in the stirrup before she threw herself free.

—On her feet, she fought shoulder to shoulder with Vindus of Mercia, and missed the moment her fellow knight was cut down, and suddenly the space was empty: she spun into it, breathing hard and desperate, knowing if Vin was down she was the knight in charge. She screamed as she shoved her sword into the man before her, slicing under his pauldron and up to skewer his shoulder, nearly cleaving it from his neck.

But Hal had survived.

Not only that, but the rebels had won. Her mother had won.

Hal’s nerves translated into her new mount, and the mare skipped anxiously along the muddy edge of the field. She’d not seen her mother in a decade, and now she was a rebel, bruised and panting, her hair knotted and her helmet lost saints knew where.

Ten years ago, King Rovassos had exiled his niece, Celeda Bolinbroke, to the Third Kingdom on the lying word of his lover. Celeda had been accused of murdering the king’s youngest brother, though she swore she did not—she’d fought and argued and screamed she did not—on the lives of her own mother and father, on the lives of her daughters, on the lives of the great kings before them: Segovax, Isarnos, and Morimaros the Great.

Thank the saints, Celeda had been banished instead of killed, only forced to leave her daughters and homeland behind, instead of her life. Hal had grown up without her mother, a ward of the king alongside the heir to the throne, Banna Mora. She’d always hoped that someday Celeda would return home, forgiven by Rovassos. Then last year Rovassos had stripped the title and lands of Bolinbroke from Hal, giving it to his (new, different) lover. Hal had written to her mother that the last thread of hope was gone.

But in the Third Kingdom a strong mother-line was respected, and for a decade now Celeda had gathered allies and woven her plans, always knowing she’d never be invited home. Knowing if she was to return, she would have to seize back her legacy.

The divesting of Bolinbroke by the king had been the simple spark, offensive and untimely, that lit the pyre of this rebellion. And Celeda was not the only one to have seen it for the sign it was: Caratica Persy of Annyck and the Red Castle, her sister, Vindomata the duke of Mercia, Mata Blunt of Ithios, the dukes of Westmore and Or, and Ardus of Iork, had all joined together against the weakened king, and they summoned Celeda home.

Today it had come to a head here at Strong Water Castle, at the edge of the March on the western coast of Aremoria, where the king returned from a voyage to Ispania. Rovassos was welcomed back to Aremore shores with swift violence. The rebels had crushed the king’s forces beneath banners of ancient Aremore houses: the lion and bluebells of Bolinbroke, the eagles of Westmore, the wolf of Perseria, the oak of Mercia, and the coursing river of Or. As if the very animals of land and sky, the bones and veins of Aremoria agreed it was time.

Dead sprawled across the battlefield, and the injured sat or limped with the help of comrades, but most of their soldiers remained afoot. The surrender had sounded before too many casualties fell.

And Hal had survived her first real battle. It bore repeating. It was a triumph, no matter what else.

Her shoulder throbbed and the gambeson under her mail shirt stuck to her side from the seeping blood. She’d survived. She’d killed. At least three soldiers she was certain of, and others would die of wounds she’d inflicted.

Her stomach churned as she thought of their families. Their Aremore families.

In his diaries, Morimaros the Great had written, Never ignore the consequences of your actions, for such ignorance alone makes your actions unjust.

It had been academic, until now. The consequences of her actions had been more along the lines of dragging squires into punishment with her for sneaking into the throne room, or hangovers, or regrettable mornings-after with girls who would run home to their husbands or fathers. Or a bone bruise from picking a fight with Banna Mora—and worse, the charged disapproval of Lady Ianta Oldcastle’s frown.

The consequences of childhood, Hal thought, are gentle guilts and awkward memories. The consequences of adulthood are ghosts.

But there! Hotspur Persy stood surrounded by soldiers, blood smeared like autumn leaves across her face, the vivid splatter turning her eyes lightning blue. As orders flew past her lips, her teeth shone pink.

Blood sharpened the flavor of Hal’s tongue, too. She wanted to kiss that other bloody mouth.

Hal stared at the flaring aggression, the living command that was Hotspur of Perseria. It was an easy pull to feel, to be drawn toward the lady knight, and Hal wished she weren’t so weary, so nervous; she wished that instead of muddy armor she wore a splendid suit of shining silver mail, her hair combed and fresh—anything to capture Hotspur’s attention in return.

The almost-prince stared too long. Her horse stomped; Hotspur’s gaze swung around and slammed into her.

Hal, startled, pushed a fist into the air and called, “Lady Hotspur! I’ve word from Mercia.”

Wind scoured across the space between them, jerking Hal’s hair free of its braids. The black strands whipped about her cheeks and tangled in the buckles of her armor.

Hotspur lifted a gauntleted hand in response.

Was it Hal’s imagination, or did the wind die at the gesture?

She could not bring herself to dismount, but directed her horse toward the other woman. An aide in Persy green spoke urgently in Hotspur’s ear and Hotspur nodded, eyes on Hal the entire time. The lady knight’s mail hood was pushed back off her head, pooling against her neck, her cap gone, and so her wild hair was tangled and torn, some dark orange strands stuck to Hotspur’s pink cheeks with sweat and blood.

“Hotspur Persy,” Hal said as her horse picked delicately over a broken shield. “I’m Hal Bolinbroke. I’m commanded to bring you with me to the gates of Strong Water Castle, where your aunt, Vindomata of Mercia, and my mother, Celeda, have the king.”

Hotspur nodded at Hal and put a hand on the aide’s shoulder. “Unhook my chest plate, Sennos.”

The young man, plain, his face shadowed with strain, helped her out of the plate armor, swinging it over his own shoulder when she was free of it. Hotspur wore a dark green gambeson beneath. Her sword belt was empty, her boots muddy up the calf.

“Ready,” Hotspur said.

Hal blinked down at her, and did her best to banish uncertainty. She offered her arm and shifted her foot out of the stirrup to allow Hotspur to put her boot in its place. Their hands gripped together, and Hotspur mounted gracefully, swinging up behind as Hal clenched her teeth against the ache of her side injury.

“Hi, Hal,” Hotspur said eagerly, with a broad smile, and shifted her seat closer, their thighs pressing together. She tucked an arm around Hal’s waist.

Twisting her neck, Hal was desperate to see the expression Hotspur wore, but only was able to glimpse Hotspur’s profile as the lady knight stared behind them at the field of battle. Did she notice how easily they fit, the rightness of her arm around Hal’s waist?

Hal ground her teeth and urged her horse to trot, thinking, No, don’t be a fool, this is the Wolf of Aremoria! She never would be distracted from the work of war by carnal thoughts, or even romantic ones.

Lady Hotspur had made a name for herself at only sixteen, leading Persy soldiers against Diotan bandits, routing them completely until she chased them across the border and returned with four hostages. At seventeen, Hotspur had defeated Sir Corio de Or, a legendary knight himself and as large as Lady Ianta, at single combat, then at the same tournament taunted a Burgundian earl by stealing his sword and holding it over her head, though its length was the same as her height, for over a minute. Last year, Hotspur and her mother had traveled to the Rusrike to assist her father’s people in putting down a small rebellion of landholders, and by all accounts had impressed even the cold-hardened soldiers there with her ferocity. Hal had always wished Hotspur would be brought to court, to join the Lady Knights who served Banna Mora, but Hal wondered if Rovassos had feared her.

Look at the time Hal had wasted not knowing how beautiful Hotspur was.

Hal asked, “Is it a day for glory, Lady Hotspur, or a day for grief?”

“Both,” Hotspur answered readily. “Always both, with war.”

Relieved, though she’d not realized she meant the question as an exam, Hal nodded. She held her shoulders straight but relaxed slightly with Hotspur at her back.

“Do you know who we lost?” Hotspur asked, brushing Hal’s loose hair away from her right shoulder, gripping her hip with the other hand.

Strands of Hal’s hair slid against her skin above the narrow steel gorget protecting her neck; Hal shivered and said, “I didn’t get official reports—I doubt they’re ready yet. I know your mother fell, but lives, and we lost your cousin Vindus of Mercia. He rode at my side. I’m sorry.”

Hotspur’s hand on Hal’s hip curled into a fist, and she knocked it into Hal’s thigh. “My mother will live; I was there when she was thrown and she will live. But Vin—wormshit and baby-eaters. I did not know him as well as you, because he was always in Lionis. My aunt Vindomata will be inconsolable.”

“He and Banna Mora …” Hal paused. It didn’t matter what Vindus and Mora might have been. This rebellion put them against each other, as it had put Hal against Mora, too, by the simple fact that Mora had been Rovassos’s heir, and now the Blood and the Sea would belong elsewhere.

As they reached the muddy road, Hal pushed the horse toward the small town that surrounded Strong Water Castle. Dark gray roofs rose against the city wall, and beyond it the ramparts of the castle. Past even that was the vivid gray ocean, rippling under heavy wind.

Soldiers held the city gates, and one in Bolinbroke colors dashed forward to wave Hal on. It was a relief to see purple everywhere—not only because she missed her family crest and her title, but because it meant her mother was finally near. Nervous energy tightened Hal’s thighs against her horse, and it tossed its head in protest.

They followed the Bolinbroke soldier through the town—shutters pulled tightly closed, flags appearing in green, purple, and red, the leading colors of the rebellion: Mercian red, Persy green, Bolinbroke purple. Hal saw only a few scraps of Aremoria’s own vivid orange. They’d need to fix that fast.

The soldier led them through a bewildered crowd hurrying for shelter under the orders of more soldiers in purple and Persy green. “He gave up so easily,” Hal said. “The king had no stomach for fighting.”

Hotspur snorted. “That was part of the problem.”

The castle rose from the north of the city, across a massive arched stone bridge beneath which a tributary of the river raced toward the sea. The castle wall was gray and streaked dark by moss and weathering, its barbican blacker and newer built to fortify the gateway. Bloodied soldiers saluted Hal and Hotspur, while others lit torches: the sun was setting, and Hal hadn’t even realized it was so late. They rode over the bridge and into the mouth of the barbican, through the fifteen-foot tunnel gate. Hal glanced up at murder holes and arrow loops, and suddenly a spear thrust down into her neck from above. She heard the hiss of metal on stone, felt the weight of it and the pop as its tip cut through her gambeson, mail shirt, flesh—

Hal swallowed away the vision. She was whole; there were no assassins hiding, but only the hungry teeth of three portcullises overhead.

They emerged into a dim outer bailey, and Hotspur laughed sharply; beyond it was yet another gatehouse, even better fortified than the barbican. An attacking army could be trapped here, thinking they’d won entrance, then slaughtered with fire and arrows. Hal felt a squeeze of gratitude toward Rovassos for not forcing that end.

The inner gatehouse’s iron portcullis gaped open, too, and the only colors she saw were their own. Celeda’s personal banner hung from the crenellations. It was the lion and bluebells of Bolinbroke, crossed with a white arrow under the trio of flowers.

Hal wondered if she even would recognize Celeda. It had been ten entire years! Worse, would her mother recognize her? Hal was older now, a woman, and bloodied.

“This way,” called the Bolinbroke soldier, and picked up his pace to the inner ward.

There they dismounted—Hotspur winced when her left foot touched down, and Hal reached to clasp her arm in support.

Hotspur bared her teeth but allowed it. “I took a hit from behind, twisted my ankle to avoid being knocked to the ground. But I got him in the gut. I didn’t realize it was so bad while battle-high.” Her eyes glowed like little suns, fiery blue, and she could not seem to stop grinning at Hal, whenever Hal glanced over. Hal’s cheeks heated.

“Your mother,” Hotspur said.

Hal saw her, standing in a small crowd of nobly armored knights and commanders: Celeda Bolinbroke, regal and tall, her black hair knotted in braids, her body covered in tooled steel armor so she shone like a moon. The capelet tied over one shoulder was fresh, untainted by blood or ash, fringed in black and dyed a vibrant purple with the lion-and-bluebell crest of Bolinbroke embroidered in white and black. Celeda spoke with the men, holding sway over them with her bearing and dark charisma. One man stood too near her, in a weathered orange gambeson with a small crown pressed into the steel of his single pauldron. He had shorn hair, an equally short beard, and suntanned skin, and he stared suddenly at Hal with vivid blue eyes. Hal did not recognize him—and she knew everyone with an ounce of royal blood.

But it did not matter then who he was, because Celeda was there.

“Mother,” Hal said, the word sticking in her throat. She tried again. “Mother.”

Celeda stopped midword and turned, her surprise transforming into eager welcome. “Calepia, come here,” she said, holding out a bare hand.

The command rang through Hal, and she released Hotspur to dash for her mother.

The two women slammed together, Celeda’s arms open and Hal flinging hers about her mother’s neck. Her chest plate clanged against Celeda’s, keeping them from truly meeting, but Hal hugged tightly, tears squeezing out of her eyes. “Mom,” she whispered, breathing sweat and blood and dusty black hair.

“My Calepia, little Hal, you are so tall,” Celeda said. She herself was more than forty now, and it showed in the frowning lines about her mouth, but not in the black of her hair.

Hal laughed, “Still not so tall as you, Mother.”

Celeda pushed Hal back, holding her at arm’s length. “I’ve good reports of you.”

“And I of you,” Hal teased, unable to help it. She thought her eyes must be saucers, they felt so round and bulging.

Hotspur came up behind them, giving greetings, and Hal turned with a sweep of her hand. “This is Isarna Perseria, Lady Hotspur.”

“Lady Hotspur,” Celeda said.

Hotspur bowed. “It is an honor to meet you, having battled for your return and justice, Lady Celeda.”

“And I am most pleased to see you with my daughter, for I wish the two of you to be great friends, as I myself have been with your mother and aunt for most of our lives. Here is Commander Abovax and Commander Ios de Or, Lord Cevo of Westmore and his brother Aesmaros.” Celeda pointed at each of the men encircling them, ignoring the man in the orange gambeson. His mouth beneath the beard seemed to bend in amusement he shared only with Hal. He looked so familiar; why could she not recall his name? Hal knew Abovax from his work in the Lionis palace guard, a nemesis of her youthful pranks, and Commander Ios, too. Celeda continued, “Mata Blunt is deeper in the castle with Vindomata, meeting with Rovassos.”

“And my mother?” Hotspur asked.

Celeda made a disgruntled face. “Refusing to go to the hospital. I have her in a chair at least and a healer I brought from the Third Kingdom is at her side. If she does not die of infection she will survive, though perhaps not walk again.”

Hotspur gritted her teeth but nodded.

“And Dev?” Hal asked.

Hal’s mother hesitated; it was Abovax who spoke. “Devrus is dead, but Vindus I’ve no report on.”

“No,” said Hotspur, too softly.

“Vin is dead, too, Mother,” Hal said. Both the sons of Vindomata of Mercia, lost to Celeda’s rebellion. Hal’s guts were knots. They’d been such strong warriors—but even the best destiny could turn on an accident. Her eyes flicked to the strange, silent man in royal Aremore orange, seeking solace. But he was gone.

Just then another soldier ran up. “Lady Celeda, Mercia sends for you: the king will see you, and surrender to you, she says.”

They wasted no time on further questions or mourning, but followed fast at Celeda’s side, into the keep tower and through narrow stone corridors warm from fire and men. Hal was breathless as they entered the castle’s great hall to the sound of barking dogs echoing off the low ceilings. Benches were tipped to their sides and shoved back, and Rovassos slumped atop the high table in chain mail, his sword beside him and two rangy hunting hounds circling his feet, howling, growling, upset at his lack of response. Hal pitied the old man, even knowing it was weakness inside her to do so.

At the end of the table stood a battered Aumerle, and Hal clenched her jaw. Bolinbroke no longer belonged to him! It was hers again—her mother’s, at least. Unable to stop herself, Hal marched to him and shoved him over. Aumerle stumbled, shocked, and barely caught himself at the edge of the table.

“Calepia!” snapped her mother.

“I’m sorry,” Aumerle said to Hal, his eyes heavy, his entire body drooping.

Hal snorted, retreating to her mother’s side, and Hotspur’s. She could not forget the sickening feeling of his hand on hers, when he had offered her marriage last year as an avenue to regain her Bolinbroke lands. This was so much better.

Rovassos King lifted his head to watch. Pink rimmed his pale blue eyes. He leaned back on one hand, even in this state the perfect pose of defeated king.

“Sit,” snapped Vindomata of Mercia to the dogs. They startled, and one sat while the other raised its hackles further.

The king waved his hand wearily. “Take them out, Aumerle.”

Hal tried to calm her rough breathing as she watched Aumerle grab the dogs by their collars and drag them away, handing them off to soldiers in Persy green. He returned to his position behind his king.

“I have come, Rovassos, for what I am owed,” said Celeda.

“A swift death?” he countered.

Vindomata snarled and put her fist to the hilt of her sword. Dried blood streaked her white cheek, smearing back into her hair. She’d removed her heaviest armor and stood like a vicious wolf, ready to feast. Just like her niece Hotspur—they were older and younger versions of each other, red-haired beasts of war. “None of your bluster, old man. Give her the ring.”

The command rang against the high stone rafters of the great hall. Orange banners hung, striping the dark walls with loyalty to Aremoria.

Hal’s legs trembled. Blood rushed in her ears and she missed Rovassos’s following words, though saw his lips move through graying vision. She’d known Celeda returned to take all of Aremoria, not only Bolinbroke. She’d known, and yet—

Celeda said, “You have nothing behind you, Rovassos, no army willing to defend you against us; your choices have marred the glory of Aremoria’s throne. I am as much Segovax’s heir as you, and I have been welcomed. I have been greeted with flowers and cheering. Your lords and commanders understand you are weak.”

“All this because I gave Bolinbroke to a loyal man? I treated your child as my own,” Rovassos said.

“You stole my home!” Hal cried.

Vindomata put up a hand to halt Hal’s outburst, then tilted her chin toward the side entrance: Mata Blunt entered through it, behind her two men in purple propping Caratica Persy between them. Caratica bared her teeth in a wild grimace of pain. There was no color in her face, and streaks of ashy tears painted her cheeks. Hotspur did not go to her mother, but remained at Hal’s side as a chair was dragged forward and Caratica put into it, though she growled her pain through panting breath.

“We all are here now,” Vindomata said firmly. “Have your say, Rovassos.”

Caratica hissed a dismissal to the healers and guards, and when the heavy wooden door slammed closed it was only the king, his lover, and six women: Celeda Bolinbroke, Vindomata of Mercia, Caratica de Persy, Mata Blunt, Hal, and Hotspur.

“This is how kings die,” Rovassos muttered. “Shall I tell you, niece, so you will see it coming? Betrayed, all. Either by our bodies, our hearts, or our friends.”

“So the circle comes around for betrayers,” Celeda said, her voice thick. “I loved you once, Uncle, and you betrayed me first.”

“Tit, tat, who murdered my favorite brother? Who?”

“Not me!” Celeda snapped.

From her seat, Caratica said, pained, “It does not matter, Celeda. You have won. We have won.”

“Look at my daughter,” said Celeda, and Hal stiffened at the sudden attention. “She was a child when you forced me away, and I have missed her growing. Because of you. You may have treated her as yours, but she was mine to care for, mine to teach and train!”

Rovassos’s watery gaze met Hal’s, and Hal’s heart seemed to freeze—not with cold, but with warm dread.

“So she was,” the king said. He lifted his fist, and there on his forefinger clung the Blood and the Sea. The garnet burned deep brown-red, the pearls embracing it like tiny moons. It was the symbol of power, and all her life Hal had been conditioned to respect it, to love it. That ring had graced the hand of Morimaros the Great, and Isarnos, then Segovax, and now this merry king, this disgrace—so her mother would say, so Vindomata and Caratica, and so even Mata Blunt, who was Hal’s mother’s cousin, and for three years had lived in the Third Kingdom, too. Plotting this, Hal supposed, her world spinning.

“Give it over,” Vindomata demanded again. “You have taken more than was a king’s due, and neglected much that was. No one will regret this day.”

Rovassos tugged the ring free and held it up, staring at Celeda through its small circle. “In the end, this empty well will be all that you have, too.”

“Rovassos,” Vindomata said.

He closed his eyes and sighed.

Aumerle threw himself to his king’s side and then to his knees. “I beg you, let him live. If he does this, let him live.”

For a moment, Hal admired the man’s brave desperation, but then was filled with pity when Caratica Persy spoke, every word a struggle through her pain, sweat glistening on her lip and brow, “Will you die for him? In his stead, Aumerle? If you both live past today, always shall you plot against us.”

“No, put him in prison, and—and banish me. Anything.”

The king touched Aumerle’s mouth. “Hush.”

Aumerle fell quiet, sinking down to sit on his heels, shoulders slumped.

“Now,” said Vindomata.

Celeda held out her hand to Rovassos.

The king said, “By my word, I give you Aremoria. By this ring, and my hand. By the stars above and the earth below, by my heart and blood and—and by my tears. Aremoria is yours.”

He dropped the Blood and the Sea. It hit the stone floor with a sharp clang.

All present stared as Celeda knelt reverently and lifted the ring. She stood with it cupped in her palm, breathing through slightly parted lips.

Hal did not know what passed through her mother’s thoughts in that moment, but they caused a tremor in Celeda Bolinbroke’s hand. She clenched her fingers around the Blood and the Sea as Vindomata approached. The duke of Mercia surrounded Celeda’s hand with both her own, offering comfort. Then Vindomata pried the hand open and took the ring. Her eyes lifted to catch Celeda’s, and Celeda raised her chin.

Mercia put the ring onto Celeda’s forefinger, and then dropped to one knee. “Long may the queen of Aremoria reign.”

The lord Aumerle sank further to the floor, hands and knees against the cold stone, head lowered and shoulders shaking. Rovassos remained still, seated at the edge of the high table. But Mata Blunt knelt, and Hotspur, too, dragging Hal down with her.

Hal stared at her mother. Her queen.

Her mother.

If she’d not had both knees on the hard floor she’d have fallen.

And Rovassos said, “What else remains?”

Vindomata Mercia stood, flicked her eyes over Celeda’s, then to her sister, Caratica, and Mata Blunt—but not to her niece or Hal. “This only,” she said, and took two steps to Rovassos in the space of time needed to draw her sword.

A cry pierced the dull weight of the room’s silence just as the heavy blade cut down, stabbing through Rovassos’s neck. Blood spurted, then gushed, and Aumerle scrabbled at Vindomata, throwing himself at her arm.

The duke shrugged him off, leaning in to drive her sword harder into Rovassos, then pulling sideways so it sliced through most of his throat and the old king’s body tilted, the head falling to the side first, dragging the rest with it.

Mata grabbed Aumerle’s hair and jerked him away, throwing him hard to the floor.

Hal could not move, staring, stuck on Rovassos’s head and the unnatural angle from which it dangled, still attached by muscle and skin, as blood painted a mantle down his chest, flowing and smooth, and Hal felt it on her own skin, prickling over her collar and down her breast, over her shoulders and flaring down her back like wings.

This is how kings die, she thought, again and again. Betrayed.

Betrayed.

This is how kings die.

Miraculously, Hotspur took Hal’s hand and gripped it tight.

And Prince Hal thought, Maybe I did not survive this war after all.

BANNA MORA
Lionis, late spring

BANNA MORA OF the March had been the heir to the throne of Aremoria for seven years. There’d been a ceremony the day after Rovassos King, her granduncle, asked her sweetly if she wished to try on the Blood and the Sea. She’d known what he meant, of course, for she’d been a ward of his crown since her parents died, and she paid good attention.

In the throne room, with seven lords and generals as witness, Banna Mora had sworn loyalty to the Blood and the Sea, to the earth of Aremoria and its people, and to Rovassos himself. She had promised to uphold the honor, courage, and wit of the Aremore kings who’d come before her. At fifteen, she naturally held Morimaros the Great at the fore of her thoughts when she made that vow, but so had she remembered the faces of her mother and father: the former a lady of the esteemed Errigal clan on Innis Lear, of direct royal descent, the latter the earl of the March whose family had held the Aremore border against Burgun for three generations before the annexation.

Always Mora had been proud that the blood of both countries rang in her pulse, despite her affiliation to the vibrant hills and plains of Aremoria over the strange, rocky crags of Innis Lear. The March was wet borderlands on the northwestern coast of Aremoria, curving along the northern border with Burgun, rife with streams and lush meadows, with plentiful game and damp peatland. Hers. And if she no longer could hold all of the country, Mora was determined at least not to lose the March.

Her jaw clenched and she leaned out over the rampart of this sleek tower: the second highest of Lionis Palace, on the eastern side where Mora could watch the conquering army approach. It swarmed over the plain outside the city, a distant rainbow of violet, red, green, orange, like a meadow of wildflowers bending in the wind.

And Lionis itself cried welcome.

From the blue-gray peaked roofs of the city to its winding limestone roads, up and down the bluffs that overlooked the Whiteglass River, flags and banners flew. Arched across streets and dangling from bridges were strings of colored paper in purple for Bolinbroke, vivid orange for Aremoria, and pristine white for the crown.

Mora wished she could have gone with Lady Ianta to drink away her dread. The Lady Knight had been Rovassos’s best friend for longer than Mora had been alive—both of them merry and good with people, neither of them any better than the other at ruling. Even Mora could admit Rovassos had been only a mediocre king. He’d lived too much for moments of pleasure and made quick promises instead of considering long-term alliances and consequences. He hadn’t been strong. But neither had he been a plague of a king, or deserved to die.

Mora didn’t deserve to die, either.

So while she wished to be drunk right now, and had also considered awaiting the arrival of Celedrix in the throne room or the People’s Courtyard for a show of pride, Mora remained here, watching. Here she was no threat, but neither did she hide. She would be found, escorted where Celedrix willed it, and she would submit—submit and plead her case.

All with this hard ring of betrayal cutting against the skin of her chest.

When the letter had come for Hal three weeks ago today, Hal had spun in a dance at the thrill of her mother’s handwriting, her mother’s summons. But Mora had understood what it meant. Because Rovassos had been away in Ispania, due back in seven days, the timing gave away Celeda’s true intention. She’d said nothing to Hal, and nothing to Ter Melia or Imena or any of the other Lady Knights about why Hal rushed out of the city. Instead Mora went into King Rovassos’s private rooms and opened the cubby hidden beneath an iron sconce in the bedchamber. From it she removed a small beechwood box carved with the simple lines of the Aremore crown. Inside, cradled in undyed silk, was a thick silver ring set with a moon-cut garnet and pearls.

The Blood and the Sea.

Rovassos always traveled with a copy, one pearl shy of this original, and lacking the etching on the inner wall of the silver: Aremorix.

It was a secret only the king and his heir knew.

She wore it now on a simple chain beneath her gown. A hard, heavy burden of truth. Mora pressed her palm over the lump it made beneath the linen and silk, and glared out over the beautiful Lionis spring.

“I am Banna Mora of the March,” she murmured to herself, practicing. “Never have I taken up arms against you, Celedrix.” The honorific form of the name stoppered Mora’s throat. She swallowed again and again.

It had been stupid of Rovassos to leave his country, stupid of him to neglect his dukes and earls, to take titles so lightly and distribute them for nothing but favors, stupid of him to never remarry, never produce a direct heir and place instead Banna Mora, a half-Learish niece, in line for the Blood and the Sea.

Or perhaps he hadn’t been stupid; perhaps none of it mattered so long as Celeda Bolinbroke lived, free to plot with Vindomata of Mercia and Caratica Persy together to take powerful revenge.

Perhaps Rovassos’s only stupidity had been granting mercy to his niece ten years ago, banishing her instead of taking her head.

Celeda surely would not make the same mistake.

Sudden panic closed Mora’s throat.

The most ruthless answer to her existence was immediate execution. Not only had she been the heir to Rovassos’s throne; she was descended from better Aremore royalty even than Celeda herself, through her Learish maternal line.

Mora ought to go to her rooms and put on armor and traveling boots, take this ring and the money she had at hand, and run to Innis Lear. They would keep her alive. Her mother had been a great-granddaughter of Elia the Dreamer.

But Mora’s mother had also been the great-granddaughter of Morimaros the Second, the best king Aremoria had ever known, and it was to his line, his throne, that Mora professed love and loyalty. Just like Hal—saints and stars, Mora had met Hal face-to-face for the first time all those years ago in the small portrait gallery where a painting hung of Prince Mars, before he became king. She and Hal had fought over the history of it, and whether his eyes could possibly have been so blue, or whether he smiled at all when he was a young man because he never smiled in his portraits.

A flicker of movement drew her attention to a shadow along the far curve of the tower. Standing against the stones, safe from sunlight, was a man.

No, not a man: a ghost.

Morimaros the Great.

He was young, bearded, and blue eyed, in an old-fashioned cut of orange gambeson, boots, trousers, sword, and some bits of armor. Ceremonial war-dress, not quite ready for a battlefield. His hand was on the hilt of his sword, and on the first finger gleamed the Blood and the Sea. As surely as it hung around her own neck.

Mora’s mouth fell open, and he nodded once, solemnly.

Then Mora blinked and he was gone. Only shadows gathered, and wind pushing curls across her eyes.

She’d been thinking of him, then imagined him.

Calm and certainty swept through her.

She would survive this. Her mind conjured ghosts to reassure her of what she knew deep within. She could maneuver through this and survive.

With that Mora pushed away from the pale crenellation and charged down the tower stairs. She strode through the wide palace corridors hard enough her skirts snapped, to her bedroom where she grabbed up her sword belt and the sword sheathed there. Clutching it, she continued on quickly, past the library and throne room, turning the corner to the smaller gilded doorway that opened into the Princes’ Gallery.

Tall windows at the south let in so much light the picture frames gleamed. Painted wildflowers grew up the corners of the room, all the way to the bright blue ceiling. Seven portraits graced the walls: the most recent seven princes of the Aremore royal line. Including Mora herself.

Her painting was only an arm’s length tall, and she posed with a hawk on her arm, in an elaborate burgundy dress with a quilted bodice to suggest armor. Her sun-brown curls were bound tightly back against her head, twisted into a knot beneath a pearl-dotted crown, and black makeup lined her hazel eyes. One could see the Third Kingdom in the shape of her nose and cheeks, and her skin was a shade darker brown in the portrait than the rich tan it was in life; Mora did not mind, though she wondered at the artist’s purpose in pretending he could not mix the proper tone.

Banna Mora liked being a beautiful prince, a stand-out, skilled at knowing whom she could manipulate with her looks, and how. Some found her rather exotic for her foreign coloring; others just strange, as Mora did come from Innis Lear. There were courtiers who trusted her when she made herself more plainly Aremore, and those who felt better confidence when she let her old Learish accent play through, or wore bright lapis to hint at her Third Kingdom heritage. She flirted with some and remained coolly intellectual with others, treating them to their expectations in order to get what she needed. By all the saints and worms of earth, Banna Mora was a good prince.

Anger, an emotion she vastly preferred over fear, wrapped warm fingers around the base of her spine, and Mora chose to stand before the portrait of Prince Mars instead of her own.

Hal would know to seek her here.

Mora buckled the sword belt over her gown and then settled with her hands folded in front of her, waiting patiently. The hours she’d spent teaching herself to be still, to observe, to hold her expression calm, served her now. Though she was alone, Banna Mora would play her role as prince this final time, until it was taken from her.

Over her shoulder in the massive, life-sized portrait, Prince Mars stood in his ruddy orange uniform with his hand on the shoulder of a white charger. Both he and the horse wore plate mail, and Mars’s helmet was tucked under his arm. The blue sky behind him was striped with gray from funeral fires, and the grass beneath his feet churned to mud and blood. But the prince himself was untouched by gore. Because of the old style of painting, his features were difficult to make out, but for being square and handsome and pale. His eyes, though, maintained their fierce blue.

This old, dead prince had been confessor to so many: Mora remembered coming here to explain to his painting how she intended to make her name as great as his one day, and that her parents were dead, and that Rovassos had chosen her; she remembered, too, finding ten-year-old Hal Bolinbroke huddled beside a window, bent over her drawing pad. Hal had been the king’s ward since her mother’s banishment, and certainly was not supposed to be in the Princes’ Gallery. But Mora had only been the king’s ward then, too, not yet a prince.

We aren’t supposed to be here, she’d said, haughty instead of companionable.

The drawing pad had slapped hard to the marble floor when Hal dropped it. She gaped, then clenched her jaw and pretended to be unconcerned. I can get in through the windows, then back out again whenever I like—the tutoring room they stick me in is right above. And Mars likes my stories, and isn’t as stupid as my tutors. The math one drones on and the history one can’t tell me why King Isarnos didn’t use the river in his tactical plan against the Rusrike invasion.

It was winter, Mora answered. The river was too frozen for barges, but not frozen enough to sled across.

Hal’s dark brown eyes had widened in excitement. Oh! Why didn’t he just say that?

Can I see your art?

Biting her lip, Hal had fallen quiet, but picked up the pad of paper. Mora joined the younger girl on the ground, hiking up her dress to sit cross-legged. Together they paged through the drawing pad. Mora made the appropriate coos of appreciation at the portraits, but especially complimented Hal’s sketches of weaponry and mail. She could identify Diotan-style hilts, Burgundian buckles, and the darkening smears Hal had put on the blades to suggest Errigal iron.

Then Mora had turned a page to reveal a rough drawing of a woman’s face, her jaw and lips well marked, but the details of her eyes unformed.

My mother, Hal whispered. I might forget her face if I don’t keep drawing her.

You’ll see her again. Mora did not want to say she already had a hard time clearly recalling her parents’ features. But if you do forget the way her lashes curl, remember this: the first time I met your mother, I was only eight years old, but she knelt to put herself at my level to speak with me. I asked her about the hilt of her dagger because it had a star-shaped pink stone, and she told me a story right then, of acquiring it. Though others wanted her attention, Celeda Bolinbroke knelt there, telling an eight-year-old girl from Innis Lear everything I wanted to know about that dagger. I will never forget that, the way she made me feel, even if I don’t know what she looks like anymore, or what color are her eyes.

Hal had gripped the edges of her drawing pad so tightly she bent the thin wooden binding. Do you know other stories about her? Will you tell them all to me?

Mora allowed herself a smile now, remembering. She’d loved Hal for ten full years, and been loved in turn. She believed that. Hal would not let Celedrix kill her.

Only a year ago, Hal had knelt before Mora and sworn her life and death to Mora’s name. Lady Hal of Aremoria, she’d been dubbed, only because she could not be Bolinbroke then.

Two of Mora’s other Lady Knights, Lady Ter Melia and Lady Imena, had not joined the rebels, remaining here with the palace guard instead. Mora’s guard. Lady Talix had gone at Hal’s side, though, and of course the squire Nova Irris, too, for her infatuation with Hal. Mora did not know where the rest were—or if any would remain now, or be allowed to remain under Celedrix’s rule. Nor did she know of those who had fought, who had fallen. Rovassos was dead, but who else?

The things Mora did not know could fill a hole the size of the sea.

Horns and trumpets blared outside at the arrival of the new queen in the People’s Courtyard; she heard footsteps in the hallway, voices on the other side of the small panel door that led into the throne room itself.

If only Vindus Persy, the next duke of Mercia, had remained with her—and against the rebellion. A knightly retainer in Rovassos’s service, Vin had been assigned to the palace during the king’s absence, because Mora had asked for him. But Vin had left two months ago, called to his mother’s side in Mercia, along with his brother Devrus, still a squire in the palace. He’d known since then, Mora suspected, what was coming. Vindomata of Mercia had wanted her sons fighting beside her. But Mora would have preferred Vin to remain at her side. He should have chosen her. He’d been such a brutal comfort to her, charming and violent in equal strokes, whichever she needed most. And she did not have to manipulate him, thanks to his rough reluctance to dissemble. Even when he tried, the truth was there in his touch. Fingers curled around the hilt of his sword, pressing hard to the small of her back, the tremble of tense muscles at his jaw. And when he was amused, he always laughed. She’d been nearly ready to make him her husband and the future king of Aremoria. Would he return the favor now? Keep their association and make her instead the future lady of Mercia? Perhaps if Hal could not fight for Mora’s life, Vindus would.

But he’d left. And then Hal, too.

Even Lady Ianta Oldcastle had gone—drinking herself stupid in her leaning town house down by the docks. Every day since word had come of Rovassos’s death.

Alone, Mora would not weep; she would not tremble. She was a daughter of Aremoria and of Innis Lear and of the Third Kingdom. Three strong bloodlines united.

“I am Banna Mora of the March,” she murmured to herself again, and left it at that.

When the door opened it was not Hal Bolinbroke who entered: it was a woman in worn leather and steel armor, walking hard in war boots, a pine-green cape pinned over her oyster-shell pauldrons. Red hair braided in a crown was incongruously set with small blue flowers.

Lady Hotspur grinned and strode across the marble floor. “Mora,” she said, voice light for such a compact figure.

Mora could not return the smile, though she liked Hotspur Persy well enough. She’d witnessed the famous baiting of that Burgundian earl last year, at the Persy Tournament, and had shared a hearty meal and heartier laughter with the soldier.

But Hotspur had helped depose Rovassos, and she was here to take Mora’s title.

And behind the Wolf of Aremoria came Hal.

Prince Hal, Mora supposed, feeling the cold drain of uncertainty hardening her expression as she met Hal’s rich brown eyes.

“I knew you’d be here,” Hal said. “Didn’t I, Hotspur.”

Hal was in orange and Bolinbroke purple, both of which suited her creamy complexion and her stark black hair. Unlike Hotspur, Hal had no armor, only a fine jacket with a full skirt that split and flared behind her. And all that hair was loose, falling around her face and shoulders in messy waves. Her gaze fell to the sword at Mora’s hip.

But Hotspur stared at Prince Mars, lips parted. “I’ve never seen this one,” she murmured.

Hal flung an arm around Hotspur’s shoulders. “It’s the best. The only one in Lionis where he’s not got a beard.”

“Nothing wrong with a beard.” Hotspur laughed.

The new prince’s face fell as she studied the portrait behind Mora, as if she, too, were seeing a ghost.

Mora remained still, her gaze flicking between the two of them: Hotspur staid and practical, stance wide and ready for attack, but not shifting away from Hal’s embrace in the slightest; Hal’s fingers pressing slightly too hard into Hotspur’s pauldron so that the tips blanched and her nails turned pink.

Like Mora, Hal was tall, and when the new prince glanced at her, their eyes locked. “Mother will be in the throne room, and Abovax promised to knock on the wall and let me know they are ready for you.”

“What does she want from me?”

Hotspur lifted an incredulous eyebrow. “Surrender! A vow of honest loyalty. Banna Mora, you have to go through the formality. It is war, and rules of war will be observed.”

“War?” Anger sparked against Mora’s teeth when she bared them. But she smoothed her features again before continuing. “War is between kings; this was a coup. This was an illegal seizure of power. You won, but it was not war.”

“Soldiers died killing each other under orders from their commanders; that is war,” Hotspur said firmly. “You’re talking about politics.”

“Maybe.” Mora looked again at Hal, whose cheeks were actually too pale, the edges of her lips white. “I know Celeda has taken the Blood and the Sea, and I know my uncle is dead, but tell me the rest before I appear for her.”

Hal let go of Hotspur. It was a bad sign, but still Mora was surprised when she said, “Vin and Dev both, Mora. I’m sorry. There’s more, but …”

Clenching her hands tighter together, Mora pushed it all down. She could grieve later, tear something apart later, scream later. “How?” she whispered.

“Vin in the heat of battle—”

“On your side,” Mora interrupted.

Hal only hesitated a moment before she nodded.

“There was no other side,” Hotspur said, with surprising gentleness.

Mora turned away from them completely.

“I always wanted to join your knights,” Hotspur added. “I was needed in Perseria, but the stories I heard of Banna Mora’s Lady Knights, of you and Hal, your adventures—I wished to be here. It sounded glorious.”

“It still can be,” Hal said. “Mora, don’t think now, don’t react, only come with us and tell my mother what she needs to hear, and stay. Be a knight. Be—mine. You’ll be a royal knight still.”

As if Prince Mars lived and watched from the portrait, judging her, as if the funeral fires painted into the background burned for Mora’s death, Mora could only breathe thinly. In order to survive, she had to accept. She knew it. She hated it.

Hal continued, though. “Hotspur has agreed to be my second. My commander. I need one, to be a prince, to build my own court. And I need someone to tell me how to do it all. An advisor. You.”

“I want the March.”

“Yes, I think Mother will agree to that.”

Mora turned, and under her glare, Hal said, “I’ll make sure Mother agrees to that. Banna Mora of the March, still and always.”

It was so difficult for Mora to speak. She refused to allow her mind to wander away from this precise moment to Vindus, dead, or the true Blood and the Sea pressed beneath her bodice.

Hal touched Mora’s face. Clasped it in both hands, so Mora could not pull away. She said, “Banna Mora, on my knee in that throne room beyond, I promised to serve you, and I swear still to keep that vow by keeping you thriving, at my side. I need you, and even so, I think you might reject me, and all of this, and leave. But I have loved you since I was ten years old, and we have been friends—sisters, even. Please try with me. Try to change with our changing world. You can do that, because you can do anything.”

Such a pretty story. Hal was so good at making everything into a pretty story. Tears pinched Mora’s eyes. “Did you practice that?” she spat, but could not keep either her despair or her cursed fondness out of her voice.

“She did,” Hotspur said. “I thought it was good.”

“Hotspur is enamored with me,” Hal whispered.

Hotspur gasped. “I am—I am not!”

Now Mora opened her eyes in time to see the heat in Hal’s gaze when she watched Hotspur Persy splutter. Mora saw, and read it clearly: Hal was the one besotted.

Mora said, “Who would not be,” though a mean part of her reveled. While Hal had been merely a knight almost none had given any care to whom she fucked. But now—now it would be a matter of state.

Hal’s hands loosened against Mora’s face, her grip becoming a soft caress. “Will you go with me, my friend?”

With hands that did not shake, Mora unsheathed her sword, stepping back.

Hotspur sucked in a quick breath, but Hal did not move. She kept her eyes on Mora’s face.

It was the Heir’s Score. A sword of dark Errigal steel—forged on Innis Lear, with the power of iron wizards, never to break. The grip was wrapped with black leather, the crosspiece short and set with a single pearl. Through the heavy silence, Mora flipped it and offered the hilt to Hal. “Yes, Hal Bolinbroke, I will go with you. But you are friend no longer; our prince instead.”

“Both,” Hal insisted.

But of the two of them, Mora had the experience with the heavy crown, and she did not think both was possible anymore.

HOTSPUR
Lionis, early summer

THERE WERE MANY ways to make a queen:

On Innis Lear it was a bargain between the crown and the wind and the trees: to rule, a queen must eat of the starweed and drink of the rootwater; the one would kill her, the other save her. If that was her destiny.

For a hundred years it had been so, since Elia the Dreamer was reborn in a pool of starlight. Her daughter Gaela was made queen in perfect peace, surrounded by loved ones as she processed to the ancient navel well at the edge of the Tarinnish, that deep black lake called the Well of Lear; the next queen Astora was made in grief that she was not ready to take up the poison crown, torn apart by loss and hope, wishing to put a sister or cousin in her place.

The current queen of Innis Lear was made when only thirteen. Everyone knew the story, even in Aremoria: her mother died suddenly, and tradition held that young Solas rule in name only, under the auspices of her uncle or father. Many were in favor of such an arrangement, but Solas did not care which men argued and which supported her—not then, at least, though she would remember well and plan accordingly later. She said only, “Let the island have its argument.” It was always a queen’s prerogative to listen to the wind and roots, and so rootwaters were brought from a holy well and a flourish of white-blossoming hemlock. The girl crushed the flowers in her hand and licked clean her palm, then scattered the remaining flowers around her feet in a constellation of tiny white petals. She sat suddenly, numbness spreading from her core, and a priest fetched the bowl of rootwater to her. It trickled across her lips and down her chin, but some, too, carried itself down her gullet.

Her heartbeat slowed, and Solas saw blurry stars dancing; they shot from the sky and fell, three of them in a blaze of red-hot light. One growled, one roared, one breathed fire.

When the vision faded, she blinked and stood. Solas put on the crown and calmly pushed her way to the throne. Though barely yet a woman, she said, “I am as much as I shall ever be, and what I am is the queen of Innis Lear.”

Thirty years now she’d ruled, and well.

On Aremoria they rarely had queens at all. It was kings who were made—in blood, in war, in betrayal or illness or simply the gentle passing of a ring.

Celeda Bolinbroke, new monarch of Aremoria by right of successful rebellion, intended to make herself a queen, in the eyes of her people, with a tournament.

Hotspur of Perseria did not approve of tournaments. They were outrageously expensive and served little purpose but ostentation. Tourney did not mirror true warfare, despite the appearance of violence and the use of war weapons and armor. If war itself was a storm, then the tourney was the bardic description of that storm: affecting, and perhaps one might learn something of survival, but it could never prepare one for the power of blasting wind or sharp cutting rain.

She did understand that this tournament was intended for another purpose: consolidating Celeda Bolinbroke’s rule and reminding the country from which she’d been banished for ten long years exactly who she was and the queen she intended to be.

Rovassos’s magnificent pageantries had been known across Aremoria, as well as its surrounding lands, for their wonderful food and entertainments, and the epic melee at their heart. The king had sponsored one annually in the early spring, boasting the year long that his last had been the grandest of all, that the clowns had been riveting, the warriors strong, the stilt-walkers airy as ghosts; three knights nearly died in the melee, you know, and guests had come from as far away as the Third Kingdom, but naturally the awards for best bravery had gone to knights Aremore born and bred.

Wisely, Celedrix did not intend to compete in splendor with the memory of her deposed uncle’s tournaments. Hers would be a celebration, yes, of summertime, of renewal and rebirth, with mummers and clowns, the traditional presentation of colors, and newly commissioned plays celebrating the queen’s courage and triumphant return from the Third Kingdom. There would still be a melee (Hotspur had been commissioned to lead one team of knights against Corio de Or commanding the other), followed the next day by a single-combat roundtable competition. It was the roundtable the audience looked most forward to, for the opportunity to champion their favorites, place wagers, and bestow favors. The champions’ feast on the final night would bring honor to the winners by seating them with the queen, where they might be granted titles or lands, or choose squires for themselves. The food would be magnificent, the fireworks enough to blind the moon, the lovemaking abound—even maybe a marriage or two with the queen and her nobility present to witness.

The difference with which Celedrix prepared to set her tournament most vividly apart from Rovassos’s was simple: Celeda herself would compete in the roundtable.

It was bold, and that Hotspur approved of.

The melee had gone well. Hotspur defeated Corio by breaking through his first aide’s defense and catching the flag off the back of his horse. She’d managed not to kill anyone, too, and she and Corio had celebrated the fact that their melee included no casualties—the crowd might be bloodthirsty, but Hotspur and her mentor disliked wasting men.

Prince Hal told her it wasn’t a waste if their injuries served to bolster the queen’s strength, but Hotspur flicked wine in her face for such a comment.

Today was the roundtable combat. All morning the squires had participated in their own, under the careful eyes of their knights, parents, and some lords who had dragged themselves out of bed early enough after last night’s revelry. Any money won here was too negligible to draw the heaviest bettors, and what the squires earned went directly into the purses of their mentors.

The queen had watched from the royal box, a pavilion decorated in orange and brilliant white.

Now the box was empty but for white-draped chairs and sun-warmed ewers of water. The queen stood near Hotspur in battle regalia. Of thirty-eight participants from across Aremoria, only seven were women, including Celeda, Hotspur, Hal, and Banna Mora. Vindomata of Mercia was not here; she had remained at home with her husband, refusing to celebrate the success of her own rebellion, given the loss of her sons. This was hard for Hotspur, too, without hilarious, angry Vindus or his dour little brother, Dev, urging her on. Cousins, they’d trained together as children, spent winters rampaging across the snowy Perseria forests together. But everyone had lost someone, or something, and Vindomata’s absence made Hotspur uneasy. Already called the King-Killer, she should have been here to prove her friendship with Celedrix.

There would be five rounds of competition: first a joust to cut the number of participants down to sixteen. The remaining four rounds would be sword and buckler, then only sword. Hotspur hardly worried over the joust, and after winning her first round she found Prince Hal beside the royal box. The prince leaned her elbows against the temporary rail and pointed toward the far end of the field where the next combatants prepared: Banna Mora stood beside an armored horse, checking the girth. The former prince gleamed in a beautiful filigreed cuirass fitted to her shape perfectly. Steel faulds layered over her hips almost like a skirt, exaggerating her rear and thick waist. Her gauntlets flashed as she lifted her arms to pull a hood over her tightly braided brown hair.

“There’s a helmet she ought to be wearing that matches the rest of the armor,” Hal said wistfully. “With a thin circlet of copper about the top to imply her title. Though she always was recognizable.”

“You know why she isn’t wearing it.” Hotspur leaned beside Hal, letting their shoulders touch inasmuch as it was possible, with both of them in mail and gambesons. She glanced at the prince, who smiled back without her lips, only with those impossibly bright brown eyes, asking Hotspur for something she did not yet know how to give. But she wanted to. “You should have better armor,” Hotspur said, judging the worn chest plate that clung to Hal’s mail shirt. “Is that …” Hotspur lifted Hal’s arm to goggle at the rigged extra buckle fitting the plate in place. “Surely you can afford armor that fits you, Prince!”

Hal shrugged and took Hotspur’s hand, tugging their arms down. “I lent my armor to my squire Nova; she’s looking to impress today, and I’m not. This is about my mother.”

The skin of Hotspur’s palm tingled against Hal’s, and she felt it in other places, too, places extremely unsuited for public. She jutted out her chin. “Is this modesty false or true?”

“Which would charm you better?”

Hotspur’s lips parted. “The truth,” she murmured.

“Both, then,” Hal said. “It’s true, in that all my actions today should prop up my mother, and false in that I am still playing a game, for to be seen as modest and humble will add to my reputation.”

Pulling her hand free, Hotspur rolled her eyes and turned to watch Lady Ter Melia unseat Sir Gevrus. The two went a round on their feet with swords, and Gevrus fell again. Then Banna Mora mounted against a knight Hotspur did not know and gloriously defeated him with a single strike.

All the Lady Knights and the queen moved on to round two. Hal winked at Hotspur. “Think we’ll face each other before the end?”

Hotspur hoped so, but she shrugged. “I’ll win against whomever I face.”

But the lottery put Prince Hal against her mother in the second round.

The queen and Hal walked out in near unison, but then Hal broke it by waving wildly to the crowd. Purple and orange flags snapped as the people flailed and cheered—this was exactly the sort of match they wished to see.

Celeda seemed everything a queen should be in her dark orange-and-silver armor, and with her naked sword blade-down against her chest she bowed very slightly to her daughter. Hal grinned, red lips parted over her teeth. She said something that made her mother laugh, then Celeda nodded her chin at Hal’s disheveled state. Black hair spilled in messy loops out of the mail hood the prince wore, despite most being caught back in a linen cap to keep it from tangling in the chain mail. That rigged chest plate barely shone in the sunlight. But then Hal lifted her sword—it was a plain soldier’s blade, not the Heir’s Score—and swung around to declare to the crowd, “My sword the strength of Aremoria!”

Hotspur could not look away.

She hardly noticed the call to begin; Celeda and Hal circled each other, then suddenly Hal charged, engaging with a great clash of metal.

While the crowd cheered, Hotspur felt locked into the intensity of their combat: the give and take, shoving and striking steel. Celeda was clearly technically superior, and without a turn of bad luck would win eventually. But Hal’s methods were so enthusiastic it was difficult not to admire her. She smiled brilliantly the whole time, making faces of shock or determination when they were called for, and sometimes her mouth moved. At least once Celeda obviously choked back a laugh. The teasing or jokes or whatever it was Hal threw at her mother did not distract the queen, though.

The bout lasted only a few minutes, but it was longer than most. Celeda got through Hal’s slowing defense and slammed the edge of her shield into the vulnerable crease between Hal’s too-small chest plate and pauldron—where a rondel might’ve protected her. If Celeda had used the blade, it might’ve been a killing stroke. Hal swayed, turning to use the momentum, but her mother was ready for that, too, and used her heavily armored boot to shove Hal to her knees.

Hal dropped her sword and raised her hands in a flourish of surrender. She called out something to the queen, voice hoarse, and the queen laughed. The lord judge yelled the end of the match and summoned a page to dash onto the dusty field with a water sack. This the page offered the queen first; she sipped, then hauled Hal to her feet to share.

With her loss, Hal graciously offered to host from the royal box. The queen granted Prince Hal the right, and so Hal dropped her armor with an aide and climbed triumphantly onto the pavilion. There she sprawled on the throne—the throne!—and poured herself wine before any of the scrambling footmen could.

Hotspur thought she was magnificent.

Two young men sparred next, and then Hotspur’s name was called; she faced an old knight belonging to the Iork family from western Aremoria, and won. Banna Mora won her next bout, too, but Ter Melia did not. Lady Imena progressed to round three, though there she fell to Commander Abovax.

In the royal pavilion Hal gathered young nobles like ducklings. They drank and Hal occasionally leapt to her feet to toss favors at combatants and cry descriptions of the bouts in legendary terms (she ought to have been a poet). Wagers yelled all around from the benches and bales of hay where the nonroyal audience reclined, changing with the changing winners, with the groans of loss and laughing victories. Hotspur vaguely wished to be in the shade with the prince, and to take a chance grazing her thumb against Hal’s lip by feeding her a piece of apple.

Shock coursed through Hotspur when she caught herself imagining. She couldn’t think of such things with the prince! But no—that was not the source of the shock, and neither would Hotspur lie to herself. There were rumors of Prince Hal’s proclivities: gentle, delicate rumors that danced alongside the open progression of womanly lovers Hal’s mentor, Lady Ianta, had always preferred, staining the circle of Lady Knights in a wash of romance and titillating deviance put mostly to rest by Banna Mora’s own connection to Vindus Persy. And all of it had been a suitable shade of dalliance under Rovassos, the Merry King, who’d not loved women any more than Lady Ianta loved men.

Hotspur knew all of this. She’d never cared.

Neither had she considered ever that any of it might be relevant to herself.

But here she was thinking about stealing a slight touch of her thumb to Prince Hal’s red bottom lip.

Then Banna Mora appeared before her in the ring, dark and strong, and Hotspur came solidly back into herself. This was the third round, composed of only eight knights. The queen had easily powered her way through the knight she met, and now Hotspur faced Mora.

The deposed prince clasped Hotspur’s arm and nodded, determination pressing her lips together. In the sunlight, sweat shone against her rich tan cheeks. Hotspur was half a head shorter, but she was shorter than most of the men, too. She stomped her feet against the dusty, bloody field of combat to feel the solid strength of Aremoria reverberate up her bones.

“A favor!” cried Prince Hal from the royal pavilion.

Both Hotspur and Mora faced the prince. At her side the queen sat in chain mail, straight backed with a goblet of cool watered wine and a girl slowly fanning her. All waited, but for a moment Hal glanced between the two knights as if suddenly stuck on which she should favor. Only Hotspur could hear Mora’s impatient growl.

“Stupid if she gives it to me,” Mora said quietly.

“Or forgiving,” Hotspur murmured back, praying to the earth saints Hal would not come too close to her now. “To say the crown favors and trusts Banna Mora still.”

But Prince Hal vaulted over the box and strode to them. She took Mora’s hand and kissed it, giving Hotspur a temporary relief, but then Hal stepped in close to Hotspur and put her lips to Hotspur’s cheek. Hotspur’s eyes fluttered closed as if she were some maidenly child.

“My favor,” Hal murmured, then spun to face the whole of the audience and said it again much more loudly: “My favor to the Wolf of Aremoria!”

A cheer rose, along with laughter, and Mora said quietly for only the two of them: “Well done, Hal. She’ll win.”

“What!” Hotspur snapped her face toward Mora. But the former prince was watching Hal, who nodded sharply.

“Hotspur,” Hal said, “be a good sport!” Then she shrugged jaggedly, and her mouth tipped into a lopsided grin. She bowed to Hotspur just as a great gust of wind tore across the field. Pennants ruffled angrily and folk grabbed their skirts and caps.

Hal spun toward the royal pavilion.

But Queen Celeda stood tall, flanked by drooping orange banners, her head up and her dark hair perfectly in place. “Even the wind is eager for this combat,” she called.

“Yes!” Hal threw her fist into the air. She dashed off the field, mail flashing. The prince did not climb over the rail into the royal pavilion, just leaned back against it, elbows propped and long legs stretched before her. In her expression was an intensity—nearly longing, but sharper—as she stared at Hotspur.

Hotspur hefted her sword and saluted Celedrix. She caught Banna Mora’s eye, and the lady of the March did the same. Swallowing a dusty mouthful of spit, Hotspur rolled her shoulders to loosen the tension a bit, and bent her knees. The judge called the match and Hotspur attacked.

It was a good fight, but in the end Banna Mora made sure to lose. Both of them were sweating, their grunts low, neither speaking, and Hotspur did not know which of them would have been fairly victorious. Mora was strong and precise; she herself was fast and determined. Shieldless, their swords served as both offense and defense, along with hips and elbows. But when Mora turned her wrist and nearly disarmed Hotspur, Hotspur was so focused on breaking away she didn’t see Mora plant a foot where Hotspur would trip her. Mora went down, crying out as she landed on her own arm and her sword flew several paces off.

Stunned, Hotspur nearly said aloud that Mora had done it on purpose. She panted, her shadow covering Mora’s face. The once-prince shook her head, breathing through clenched teeth. “Hotspur,” she hissed. “Don’t. This is better.”

“How,” Hotspur demanded, holding her hand out to haul Mora up.

“I cannot fight Celeda in the next round. Better to lose to you.”

Hotspur understood but shoved Mora away. She despised prevarication.

The crowd was cheering again, and Prince Hal held their attention before the royal pavilion, proclaiming a story she’d heard about the Wolf of Aremoria.

Hotspur lost her fourth-round battle against Lord Aesmaros, the younger brother of the duke of Westmore, who had sixty pounds of muscle and eight years of practice on her. Hotspur thought if they’d been astride, she might still have beaten him. Aesmaros went on to fight the queen in the final round.

Celedrix won.

Raising her sword to the sky, Celeda said, “I am Aremoria, by birth and might, and I claim you as my people. My life and service is yours.”

Hal stood, flinging out her arms, and cried, “Long live Celedrix!”

The crowd screamed it back, widemouthed and smiling, throwing hats in the air and waving. The sun shone, bathing everything in warm golden light.

From her position at the edge of the royal pavilion, Hotspur had a perfect view of the moment the party of Learish men revealed themselves: in unison, nine men in the dress of common foot soldiers stepped into the ring of the tourney field, flinging hoods off their heads to display wild Learish braids and star-sign paint dotted over their cheeks and foreheads.

Two stood directly across from the pavilion, one young and dark haired, the other older, bearded, and in an orange gambeson. Hotspur could not believe the Learish men had disguised themselves in Aremore colors!

The young one cried, “Welcome, Queen! Recognized by your rights of birth and might! I am Mared Lear, son of Ryrie Lear, the sister of Solas, and I speak for Queen Solas of Innis Lear. She sends me to you with a gift for your annunciation.”

Celeda turned on her heel, head high, and gestured for her knights to lower their arms. Hotspur stepped to the rail, staring at the leader of the islanders. He was barely older than her, pale and narrow faced, but with lively dark eyes and braided brown hair. He smiled a smile that clearly belonged on his merry mouth. Beside him, the bearded man in orange gazed solemnly at Hotspur, and even from this distance she could see the blue of his eyes was as vivid as shards of the summer sky.

“Thank you for the greeting,” Celeda said. “I am amused by the timing, though appreciative of your sense of drama.”

The young man shrugged one shoulder, still grinning. “I serve my queen in every detail. Will you hear our gift?”

“We will.”

Mared nodded, closed his eyes as if recalling the exact wording of his message, and then called out:

“On the rising full moon that blessed the ascension of a new Aremore queen, Rowan Lear, the Poison Prince of Innis Lear, cast a star chart and read this prophecy for the reign of Celedrix. We share it in cheerful celebration:

When the saints are singing and the restless are reclaimed, the dragon will burn, the lion will break, and the wolf will choose the end.”

A hush swept across the tournament in the wake of his strange words, followed by a long, even gust of wind.

When the wind died, Prince Hal had moved to Hotspur’s side. Celedrix spoke to Mared Lear, thanking him and his queenly aunt for such a stirring welcome to the throne. She invited him to be her guests at the evening’s banquet.

But Hotspur heard none of that, because Hal leaned closer, her lips near enough to Hotspur’s ear that the words brushed against her skin like a caress.

“Wolf of Aremoria,” the prince murmured. “The end of what?”

PRINCE HAL
Tenne-Tiras, midsummer

CELEDRIX SENT HER daughter out of Lionis.

The retinue—consisting of Prince Hal, Banna Mora of the March, Lady Hotspur Perseria, and half a dozen retainers and aides—traveled south along the Whiteglass River to the holdings at Tenne-Tiras, in order for Mora to offer the titles personally into Hal’s hand. Tenne-Tiras was traditionally the keep of the heir to the throne, and so while it had been Mora’s for nearly a decade, it now belonged to Hal.

Less than a day’s ride from the city, Tenne-Tiras took its name from the small castle that guarded the bend of the river spilling into this valley. It had been a lookout post for the lords of Lionis in more brutal times and was settled against a rocky slope above the village, with a few outbuildings for horses and retainers. The villagers took pride in their association with princes, especially when such princes had reputations like that of Banna Mora, who had been a serious and considerate prince. Prince Hal the villagers were less sure of, as Lady Hal Bolinbroke had been a troublemaker when she’d visited before, at Mora’s side. She’d led more than one slightly drunken quest into the forest hunting for the fairy tree, or blowing her horn in the middle of the night, waking the village as she and her friends charged down deer trails like she rode at the head of an earth saint’s wild hunt. Once Hal had successfully brought down a poor cow on their night ride, and compensated the farmer with twice its price; once she seduced the daughter of the local reeve, for which there was, naturally, no compensation. It was difficult to imagine Hal with the authority of a prince would be less riotous.

She was trying, though.

For weeks Hal had struggled at her mother’s side, attended meetings and cajoled cityfolk who knew her but not the once-banished Celedrix; Hal did not drink overmuch, nor did she swear unless vivid language was truly called for; she wore what she was told and did not leave the palace to search for Lady Ianta as she desperately wished to.

Hal had sent for Ianta three times, worried about the old knight, especially after Celedrix refused to ratify a new order of Lady Knights. The group had been commissioned under Rovassos and trained to be loyal to Banna Mora, and so apparently were too dangerous when Hal could neither take them in hand herself nor even find their founder. Hotspur insisted Hal didn’t need Lady Knights, if she was allowed to make knights who were also ladies—perhaps it was better to have them integrated into her retainers and palace guard, rather than separated out. But Hal couldn’t help linking her inability to rally Ianta with her difficulties at the rest. If she couldn’t convince an old friend and mentor, how could she convince nobles openly suspicious of her mother?

The queen insisted Hal was not being sent away in punishment. “Think of this as a respite, daughter,” Celeda had said. “You were thrust into this with no preparation whatsoever—a letter from your mother you’d not seen in ten years, and two weeks later you’d been through battle and suddenly found yourself a prince. This is a moment for you to breathe, and to shore up your friendship with Banna Mora, as well as remove her from immediate danger. There are some still loyal to Rovassos who would use her, and so she must either disappear—or be imprisoned—or dead.”

Hal pictured a sword arcing across her vision, slamming hard into Mora’s neck.

Celeda took the pause as hesitation, so added, “I don’t like to entertain superstitions from Innis Lear, but with that strange prophecy still swimming through the capital, better to get the three of you out.”

Though by no means a certainty that the lion and dragon referenced in the Learish prophecy were Hal and Mora respectively, the people who’d been present had collectively agreed upon it, and spread the story wide. Hal’s standard was the Bolinbroke lion-and-bluebells, after all, and when Mora had been prince, her uniquely designed house standard had been a rampant dragon, guarding the golden sheaf of the March. They were linked, former prince and current prince, and between them, the Wolf of Aremoria.

It was a relief, Hal could admit, to ride away from Lionis.

Summer closed in around them as they veered away from the river and into the old oak forest toward Tenne-Tiras. Hal’s bones seemed to relax, and she hoped she might sleep soundly tonight for the first time since her mother’s coronation.

It was nightmares that plagued her: dreams of death, of murder and betrayal. This is how kings die. Hal always had been rather distracted by death, both in her dreams and waking, but since the rebellion, her visions of violence and self-harm had become more intense and more frequent.

Now, Banna Mora and Lady Hotspur rode at her flanks, and a small but competent stream of newly appointed personal retainers following behind. Hotspur had brought her first aide Sennos, the plain young soldier Hal had seen take her armor at the Battle of Strong Water, and Mora had a woman called Grenna, who’d been her attendant for five years. Ter Melia, formerly of the Lady Knights, served in the palace guard as Hal’s captain: she was a tall and slender woman with muddy brown hair, easily pinked skin, and a taut mouth, but brilliant green eyes that caught a person in an instant, so vivid Hal used to tease her about being a child of a sorceress. Ter Melia endured Hal’s teasing laconically, and under this new regime seemed undisturbed so long as she could serve in the same capacity for which she had trained all her life.

Hal broke the silence. “There’s supposedly a witch tree around here somewhere, huge and gnarled, probably where an earth saint died, and the tree grew out of her ribs, and her heart still beats. If we’re quiet, and listen, the gentle buh-dum, buh-dum will lead us to her.”

“All I hear is the thud of horses’ hooves,” Hotspur said, cocking her head as if to listen.

Mora slid them both a glance, not disapproving, but amused, perhaps. It was often difficult to tell with Mora these days. She said, “Weren’t you born among the roots of a witch tree, Hotspur? I’ve heard that said of you.”

Hotspur grimaced. “Not a witch tree, but there is an old yew growing in the center of the conduit court at Annyck, and that is where my mother went into labor.”

“I would like to visit that tree,” Hal said, imagining it: they used to be called throne trees, and were planted by the old lords that had ruled this land to root their names, blood, and futures to the seat of their power. Not many such trees survived, and it did not surprise her the Persys maintained theirs.

It pressed at her teeth to say something about the Wolf of Aremoria, about the legends already surrounding Hotspur—but by some silent agreement, none of them had yet discussed the prophecy amongst themselves.

“This winter,” Hotspur said, “you would be welcome at Annyck—if you can be away from your mother for so long.”

Hal licked her bottom lip before she could stop herself. It baited a warm pulse in her heart for Hotspur to so easily invite her home.

In the village of Tenne-Tiras, the new Prince Hal was not quite greeted with enthusiasm, but purple Bolinbroke ribbons had been laced around lantern posts and local white lilies tied in bunches to hang from doorways. Children waved, laughing, and some few adults, too, though perhaps they had come to see Banna Mora alive.

Hal smiled at everyone, and because of who she was, those smiles came easy and true. She even called out to the leather-smith by name, promising a commission for new boots, and the wife of the innkeeper, asking after her son who’d been at the Battle of Strong Water and recovered still from a broken arm.

It was well done, she hoped. Banna Mora, when she’d been the heir, had held herself at a formal distance from some folk. Hal couldn’t do that if she wanted to—especially not in a place like this where she’d thrown up in the muddy lane after dancing too drunk at the inn.

At Tenne-Tiras itself, there was an awkward moment when an ostler abortively started first for Mora, despite Hal’s brilliant orange tabard embroidered with a stark white crown, and the Heir’s Score belted at her hip. The man hurriedly corrected his mistake as Hal called out, “Ah, it is so good to see these wretched old walls again. Lady Hotspur, did you know Tenne-Tiras held this valley from a pirate incursion up the river, of all things, some eighty years ago? Our hosts here had brave grandparents, and as with all strong Aremore bloodlines, their courage breeds true.”

“I should like to hear that story,” Hotspur said loudly. “Perhaps with supper the bailiff will tell it.”

They dismounted, Hal last, and though it was Hal’s tradition to care for her own horse, Mora had convinced her they should get the formalities handled immediately: the two of them went with the bailiff, the village reeve, and the keep’s cook for witnesses up into the lord’s office while Hotspur remained to oversee their party’s settling in.

The keep’s entitling charter had been written a hundred years previous, etched into a tile of hardwood. To pass it between Mora and Hal required nothing in actuality, no ritual or even word, for the charter clearly stated the keep’s master would be the same as the heir to the Blood and the Sea for as long as that ring was sovereign over Aremoria. But Hal walked to the tile where it leaned over the plain hearth and pressed her hand flat to it. Her forefinger was encircled by a Bolinbroke ring pressed with entwined bluebells, her middle finger by a thin gold ring her father had given her before he died. Only the sword at her hip marked her as heir, and the shared acknowledgment of those in the room.

Mora sighed shortly, addressing the bailiff, “I would like wine, if you please, Imaros.”

“The lady of knights has plenty of wine in the hall, if you would join her.”

“The who?” Hal asked, turning away from the hearth. She met Mora’s startled gaze.

Imaros, the bailiff, stretched his mouth into a long line. The cook answered, “The lady of knights, Prince. She claimed you told her she might have the use of your keep.”

Hal moved too fast for ceremony, with Mora tight at her heels.

They heard the snoring before they charged through the thick arched doorway and into the keep’s long hall. Whitewashed walls lifted the ceiling a mere fifteen feet, where thick rafters striped the hall like ribs. No banner hung beside the hearth or from either wall, and that would have to change. Three tables lined up before a master table, and there, slumped at the head in a massive chair, was Lady Ianta Oldcastle.

Also asleep, curled on a furry rug at the hearth, were three hunting hounds and a young girl called Essa who’d served as Ianta’s aide for at least two years, despite her youth and tiny stature.

Hal stared for a moment, relief and anger and shock all a-war for her first reaction. Mora crossed her arms over her chest, but before she could speak, Hal laughed.

The laugh barked across the hall, and Ianta snorted as she woke, bleary eyed. Essa leapt to her feet and tripped over a dog. She yelped, caught herself, and then fell to her knees when she saw Mora and Hal. To whom she knelt was impossible to say.

“Get up,” Hal said, stepping forward and offering a hand. “Have you been caring for this great beast by yourself all this time?”

“We—we came last month, sir—my prince!” Essa stood, hand in Hal’s, and glanced over her shoulder at Lady Ianta, who currently was hauling herself out of the chair.

Ianta Oldcastle was nearing sixty, as fat as she was tall, and the strongest knight Hal had ever known. Her hair flopped in her flushed pink face, more silver and gray than the sunlight-yellow it had been in her youth. “Hal!” Ianta exclaimed. “My Mora! I knew you would come eventually. I have kept the hall warm for you.”

“Have you,” Mora drawled. Her elbows were a sharp shield as she hugged herself.

“Naturally, what else would I be doing here?”

“Hiding?” Mora suggested.

Hal released Essa and went to Ianta. “Whatever it is, I’m glad you’re here.” She threw her arms around the wide old knight and squeezed.

Ianta slowly put her own arms up and hugged the breath out of Hal. The old woman smelled of sweet wine and bitter smoke and sweat. With a heave, Ianta lifted Hal off the rush-covered floor, crushing her with affection, then set her back down. “Prince Hal, I see,” Ianta said, then nudged Hal away, swatting at her. Ianta then faced Banna Mora.

“I sent for you at your house, and at the Quick Sunrise,” Mora said.

“As did I,” Hal added, surprised Mora had not told her they’d both been looking.

“I needed away from Lionis.”

“So do we now,” said Hal, then called out, “Wine!”

Banna Mora seated herself upon a bench with her back against one of the long tables. She stretched a leg out and studied Ianta. Hal could imagine Mora’s struggle: so recently this had all been hers, and Lady Ianta hers as well—Lady Ianta especially. Rovassos’s beloved friend, the founder of the Lady Knights, Mora’s advisor and ally. Now, gone. Ianta had fled to this place where the Lady Knights had been a sisterhood, but in fleeing, she had abandoned Mora.

It hurt Hal, too. Her place had been as a second, a support structure, not the focus. She’d been allowed to be carefree and charming, with the promise of a future as Bolinbroke at Queen Mora’s back. Now Hal had to be the prince. The one responsible. Hal shuffled her feet, then abruptly plopped down in the massive chair Ianta had been using. She shrugged at the knight as if to say, Sorry, old friend, but it must be relinquished. Then Hal lifted her leg and swung it over the chair’s arm.

With the wine, brought in two jugs by boys from the kitchen, came Lady Hotspur, Sennos, and Ter Melia.

The latter’s mouth dropped open at the sight of Ianta Oldcastle standing like a great moon in only a stained shirt and long vest over a dark blue skirt and soft felt slippers, her hair loosely braided as if it were bedtime. Through Ter Melia’s eyes, Hal recognized the slovenliness to which Ianta had fallen.

But it was Hotspur, of course, who commented. “Who the fuck are you,” she demanded, eyeing Ianta hard, “to appear so, in the prince’s keep?”

Though Hal thought the tone harsh, she loved Hotspur for the unquestioning defense.

A wolf indeed, growling at her prince’s side.

Ianta saw it, too: her eyes gleamed, despite their hungover redness. She tilted up her chin. “The Wolf of Aremoria, is it?”

“I still await your name.”

“Ianta Oldcastle,” she replied.

Hotspur paused, frowning instead of furious. “You are the strongest knight in Aremoria?”

Skepticism tossed the words aside.

“Care to put me to a test?” Ianta asked.

Hal watched, rather eager. But Mora lifted her hand. “Stop, both of you. Hotspur, Ianta is understandably distraught at the events of the late spring. Ianta, Hotspur takes her career as protector of Aremoria as seriously as you ever did. If you two cannot get along and join me for wine, then get out.”

It should’ve been Hal who dispersed the tension, she realized suddenly, and too late. Would she ever learn to casually wield princely power as Mora did?

“Wine,” Hal said, and nodded to the hovering boys. They put down clay cups and Essa poured wine.

Sennos murmured something to Hotspur, then departed. He waved Ter Melia with him, though she was reluctant. She cast a look back at Hal, who nodded once, slowly. They’d be well, and if anything happened regarding the Lady Knights, Ter Melia would be sent for.

Alone, the four women sat together: Hal sprawled upon her thronelike chair, Mora at her left upon the bench, and Hotspur to her right. Ianta stood, as if she could not decide whether to sit at all. When the wine was shared around, Hotspur lifted her cup. “To Prince Hal, resident lord of Tenne-Tiras.”

“Hal,” Mora said, reaching to touch the rim of her cup to Hotspur’s, then turned to Hal and Ianta.

Ianta repeated the salute, and Hal accepted it. She drank the sweet red wine. With it bright on her lips, Hal said, “And may the memory of what we once were to each other knit us into something new.”

“There is nothing new to make,” Ianta said, then threw back the whole cup of wine, drinking every drop.

Hotspur slammed her cup on the table. “What is the point of this, old woman? If that is your attitude, I’ll never trust you. No matter what you once were, nor how strong you used to be. There is no honor in this behavior.”

Hal reached out, not for Hotspur, but Ianta. She curled her fingers around Ianta’s wrist and tugged her to sit. The old knight dragged herself to Mora’s side of the table and sat with a cranky groan.

“I don’t need your trust, girl,” Ianta said. “And honor is for the dead.”

Hotspur snorted into her cup as she drank again, and Hal poured Ianta another.

Hal said, “I have to try, Ianta. I’d rather do it with you.”

“Do what? Try what?”

“To make something new,” Hotspur said, as if it were obvious.

Hal nodded, grateful Hotspur understood. She held the wolf’s fiery gaze a moment too long, counting her heartbeats. Then she turned to Ianta. “As Hotspur says. I have to keep everyone alive now, my mother and Mora and myself. And my sister, for worm’s sake. She’s only sixteen, and I have to keep her out of the line of fire. You don’t have to help me, but I’d like you to.”

“What can I do to help?” Ianta sniffed hard, eyes on her cup of wine. “I’m an old, fat woman, a used-to-be knight with no family living and a reputation for deviance. If you bring me to your side, Hal, it will be recalling the worst things said of Rovassos—the Merry King. And myself, his consort in freakishness and perversion. Hard enough for you to strip away your proclivities without inviting me back to court.”

“I don’t intend to—to strip away my proclivities.” Again, Hal slid a glance at Hotspur, who hid her face in another drink. “And you were just as old and just as fat last year, at the height of your power. So don’t give me those as excuses.”

Ianta pursed her lips. “Then you’ll have to marry, secure the line. That will be the fastest way for you to protect your family and friends. Not through me.”

No one had said this yet to Hal’s face, though surely some had thought it, among the echelons of Lionis Palace. “Morimaros,” she began, seeking any delay, “did not marry.”

Banna Mora laughed once. “Morimaros is more my ancestor than yours, lion.”

“Mora!” cried Hotspur.

Hal, too, was surprised. To say so was nearly a challenge to Celedrix’s rule. To distract, she said, “I think I saw his ghost, at Strong Water Castle.”

“What? What is this?” Ianta asked, suddenly less drooping.

“He was standing with my mother, when Hotspur and I rode into the courtyard. I thought I recognized him, but couldn’t … place him. And he just vanished. Later … later I realized who the man looked like: it was Morimaros the Great.” Hal forced a shrug, gulping her wine.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Hotspur snarled.

But Mora said, “I saw him, too.”

Everyone stared at her. It was one thing for Hal to make up a wild story, but Mora was hardly imaginative.

“He stood beside me, on the day you returned to Lionis. I knew him immediately,” Mora said, with cool superiority. “He did not look as he does in the portrait in the Princes’ Gallery, for he was a king already. Thirty, strong, with fire-blue eyes and a traditional foot soldier’s gambeson from the last century.”

“Yes!” Hal said, more excited than competitive. “He wore a steel pauldron pressed with the crown.”

“Worms,” Lady Ianta breathed.

Hotspur’s face was pink, her lips pressed together. She looked furious.

“Hotspur?” Hal nudged her, and Mora reached over to touch the wolf’s shoulder.

Hotspur burst out, “I saw a man like that with Mared Lear! When the Learish prophecy was given!”

“Prophecy!” Ianta cried, flinging wine from her cup.

“You didn’t hear?” Mora said lightly. When Ianta demurred, Mora continued, “At the queen’s tournament. Solas Lear sent her nephew to congratulate Celedrix, and with him a prophecy for her new reign.” She took a breath, then said, rather hushed:

“When the saints are singing and the restless are reclaimed, the dragon will burn, the lion will break, and the wolf will choose the end. What do you think of that?”

Ianta shook her head slowly, a certain awe in her eyes.

Hal said, “This is incredible. To have all three of us seen Morimaros! What does it mean? Is he a ghost, or an earth saint? His body—”

“Worms, Hal,” Hotspur said. “Earth saints!”

Mora shrugged. “When the saints are singing.”

“You can’t believe in all of this, Mora. Earth saints are children’s monsters, and prophecies are—they’re shadows and wind.”

“Well, good for us then that this is not Innis Lear,” Mora said. “We won’t be swayed by shadows and wind in Aremoria.”

Hal wondered skeptically if that were true. She was pure Aremore and greatly swayed toward magical thinking.

Ianta sighed. “I would be. Rovassos would’ve been. You know he used to get me and Prince Mato to do rituals with him in the caves beneath Lionis Palace, to summon earth saints back to us. When we were children.”

“Another reason he was no fit king.” Hotspur shoved a jug of wine at Hal.

“How can you dismiss it, Lady Hotspur? What do you think the prophecy means?” Ianta took the wine from Hal and poured for them both.

By now, Hal’s mind trembled with a tingle of inebriation. They’d not eaten since leaving Lionis; nor had Hal had much an appetite of late.

“A trick from the queen of Innis Lear,” Hotspur said. “They are fond of such things.”

Hal snorted. “Is she in league with the earth saints, too?”

Mora pointed at Hal. “You are the one who told me stories of King Morimaros vanishing when he died—either his body absconded with to be buried with his lover on Innis Lear, or by the very earth saints themselves. No—I’m not saying I trust this specter, the opposite, in fact. Prophecy ruins good men and women; it twists us up, inside and out, and what is the point? What would an earth saint expect to happen from such a proclamation? What would Solas Lear? There was no direction, no action to take!” Mora clenched her jaw for a moment, and Hal was stunned by the shock of fury in her eyes when she continued: “Even if it is real, it is also a trick.”

“You mean they want something else from Aremoria.” Hal rubbed the bridge of her nose.

“They who?” Hotspur demanded.

“The queen of Innis Lear? Or the earth saints themselves!”

Mora flattened her hands upon the table. “That is the way it goes in the stories.” With that last word she cast a glance at Hal, the teller of tales, the story-maker.

It was true. Hal nodded wearily. “Yes, in the stories, a prophecy is usually not exactly what anyone expects, especially if earth saints are involved—but when it happens, it’s obvious what it meant all along.”

Hotspur stood again. “So we live our lives. We honor our friendship. We act ourselves—I would never choose for Aremoria to end.”

“I might break,” Hal muttered.

Mora glanced at Hal, and Hal did not know what to do except hold her gaze.

Lady Ianta said, “Are you ready to burn, Banna Mora? A dragon, indeed.”

The former prince bared her teeth.

“And who, or what, are the restless?” Ianta continued. She swept her gaze across the three of them, drinking deep. “What a puzzle.”

The wine in Hal’s stomach soured. Still, she poured another drink.

LATE THAT NIGHT, Hal followed Ianta into the chamber in which she’d been—well, not sleeping, exactly, but throwing all her stuff.

“For what I found in the cellar,” Hal said, holding up a vial of honey liqueur and a bottle of burnt whiskey. “Tell me more about Rovassos’s rituals.”

Ianta poured herself into a short, soft armchair beside the cold fireplace and held out her hand for the whiskey.

The prince smacked the glass butt into Ianta’s palm and slid onto the floor, sitting cross-legged with her back against the stone hearth. This was a small room, but cozy with tapestries and thick braided rugs. The bed pressed into the corner, covered with a shaggy fur and plump woolen pillows. It smelled of Ianta’s sharp pipe smoke, horses, leather, and sword oil besides. There, tucked against the door, leaned Ianta’s huge broadsword. It had no name, but needed none, either.

The former Lady Knight popped the lid off the whiskey and drank. She opened her mouth after and sighed in satisfaction. Hal put her tongue out and tipped the vial of honey liqueur for a single drop that splattered down, coating her best muscle. Ianta gave her the whiskey and Hal drank that, with the honey sweetening the burn so it lifted up through her face and skull and into her brain. The prince’s lashes fluttered, and she thought, If it were poison, how fast would I realize?

The flavor might fool her into thinking it was safe, and nothing would change, but suddenly Hal would simply stop. Fall dead, never knowing it. Would that make her final heartbeat into a ghost itself? A specter of a prince trapped outside of death because she’d never seen the moment approach?

Or Hal’s skin might flush, she might feel her throat close, she might sense the painful creeping of poison through her veins, locking her muscles with cramps until her heart burst and her bowels let go and her teeth cut into her own cheeks—a slow, brutal death.

Surely that was to be preferred.

“Why do you want to know about magic and rituals?” Ianta asked, leaning over to snatch the whiskey back. They’d not stopped drinking since the afternoon, and both moved with the purposeful care of inebriation.

Hal said, “The kings of Aremoria aren’t supposed to need magic, so what did—what did Rovassos want with it?”

Ianta groaned at Hal’s directness. “Legitimization.”

“What? He was the son of Segovax, who was the son of Isarnos, who was the nephew of Morimaros the Great. That is as legitimate as it gets.”

“But not the oldest child of Segovax—that was Vatta Gaunt, your grandmother.”

“And maybe a bastard, definitely a woman.”

“Pff, it was a coward’s lie that she was a bastard.”

Hal chewed her bottom lip. “Rovassos wanted to prove to others he was meant to be king?”

“To himself, truly.”

“He wanted a prophecy to create his legacy. The stars say I am king, and so you cannot deny me.”

“It does work for the queens of Innis Lear,” Ianta muttered.

“Because they already have power.”

“So Prince Hal cannot use magic for power, because she does not already have it. What a paradox, ha!”

Hal knocked her head back against the stone hearth. “Do you believe in earth saints, Ianta?”

“Yes.”

“No joke nor equivocation?” Hal felt her pitch rise. “Just yes.”

Ianta drank again, then smiled. “How can you not believe, after what you’ve seen and heard?”

“I’m afraid to believe, and afraid not to. And why shouldn’t I be afraid of magic here, guiding the future?” Hal blinked. She thought of her hand on her sword, its blade cutting straight forward into Hotspur’s belly. The Wolf’s mouth gaped open—and then Hal imagined her crying out for an entirely different reason: Hal’s tongue against her throat, her fingers digging into Hotspur’s well, the taste of sweat and the curve of an arched back.

Prince Hal shivered and pulled her knees up, pressed her forehead against them.

“Fearing magic is already losing,” Ianta said acerbically.

Hal laughed. Her shoulders shook. She was entirely screwed.

“We would slip down through a secret stairway cut into the limestone,” Ianta said. “There are a few doorways into those passages in the backs of star chapels, or what used to be star chapels, throughout Lionis. Or you can get in by the gaping black maw of the cave mouth, right at the riverside to the northwest of the bluff beneath the palace. There is an altar there, the sheered-flat base of a stalactite. We would hold hands, me, Vaso, and Matomaros. Me, standing alongside two princes. We called out to the earth saints to greet us, we who were related to the greatest of Aremore kings. At least Rovassos and Mato were. Vaso had found a cypher in the Queen’s Library with old words in an ancient Aremore dialect, little chants and spells for healing and elf-shot, for talking to the trees as they do on Innis Lear. So we read it and made up our own songs. Nothing happened, though we all fell a bit more in love with one another every time.”

A great sigh issued from Ianta, and the chair creaked as she stretched.

If there were a song for falling in love, Hal would—

The prince crushed her eyes into her hands, then looked up abruptly to say, “Come back to Lionis with me. I need you.”

“Hal, no. There’s no place for me there.” Ianta frowned, lines dragging at her lips and eyes, her neck sagging.

“There is, though.” Hal got to her knees, setting the honey liqueur aside, and clutched her hands together to keep from seeming to beg. “I need more allies. You know me! I’m a trickster, a charmer, a lover—not a leader. I can make people break into the throne room with me, or put honey inside Abovax’s gauntlets; maybe I can command a small company, but not an army! Not an entire kingdom. What if they see me, Ianta, really see me? What if my mother does?”

Hal clasped her hands over her mouth. She’d never say such a thing sober. Thank the saints Hotspur had not heard—or worse, Mora.

“Hal.”

“Please, Ianta. You founded the Lady Knights. You know how to make things happen in Lionis Palace.”

“There are no Lady Knights.” The bitterness and certainty in Ianta’s voice stunned Hal.

The prince said, “We are temporarily disbanded, but informally. When I— I only need to prove myself capable as a prince and I can make them again.”

“No, Hal. Don’t you see? The Lady Knights were always a lie. Rovassos …” Ianta stopped, closed her eyes.

After a moment, Hal said, “We were not a lie. We mattered—to one another. How can you discount that? Mora and me, and Ter Melia and Talix and Imena—and our squires, we made names for ourselves, proved women could be effective knights. Not just one-offs and foot soldiers, but with intention and purpose! We don’t break this easily.”

Ianta leaned forward. Her pale blue eyes shone with tears, pink rimmed, and her face was flushed blotchy and uneven. “That is what I thought, Hal. I thought we mattered. I thought I had carved a place for myself! Me! A woman, a lover of women, and all I ever wanted was to be allowed to be what I am. To serve as a knight, to lift these powerful hands in service to my king, with might and blade and vows like any man. To flirt with beautiful women and love them and still be honored. I thought my king understood that, respected me and loved me. I thought he saw me. He was my best friend, Hal, but becoming a prince will make a liar out of you, too.”

Hal shook her head, too shocked to speak. Her lips hung open.

“It’s no use.” Ianta fell back against the chair. She wiped her hands down her face and then let them lie in her lap, hugging her belly. “Give me more of that drink.”

With a shaking hand, Hal did so. She whispered, “What are you talking about, Ianta? What lie did he tell you?”

Ianta drank from the bottle again, hissed through her teeth, and said, “When word came that he was dead, I went to the library to get the signed charter for my Lady Knights. I didn’t know what would happen, and I wanted it on my person, not moldering in a trunk or desk, not where it could be taken from me. From us. But there was no charter. I bullied two clerks into searching, and there was no record at all! We were nothing but a whim, Hal. A favor, granted by a king to his friend. He didn’t believe in us—in me! He gave it to me because he loved me and wanted to make me happy. Without actually doing anything. Without protecting it, or enacting change.”

“I’m so sorry, Ianta.” Hal touched her knee, let her hand make a fist in the skirt.

The lady of knights put her hand atop Hal’s head. “Don’t let them make you a liar, Hal.”

“I—”

“Listen to me, Hal Bolinbroke.” Ianta tugged Hal’s hair until Hal tipped up her face. Then Ianta changed her grip to Hal’s chin and held it hard. “I do know you. You love stories. As do I. Stories are how we change minds, you and I. You tell them whether they’re true or not, and you exaggerate what’s real to make a better story. That can serve you as a leader. Making a better story. But it might not serve you as a person. You can’t be only a story, or you have nothing. And while people might be excited by a story, they can’t love it; they can’t be loyal to it. Don’t just tell a story that you’re a prince: be one, truly, or don’t even try.”

Hal swallowed thickly. “Come back with me to Lionis, Ianta. Come with me and help me be real. There will be a place for you, with a queen, and a prince who loves you, who knows well what space you tried to make in the old palace, with the Merry King. We will make it anew, and everything will be better. Stronger. My mother returned from exile like a brilliant fire, to burn away the rot in Aremoria, and we can help her, we can be part of her new world.”

Ianta narrowed her eyes and released Hal with enough force to push her away. “You’re doing it even now. Stories—lies.”

Hal’s breath came a bit harder than she liked. She didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t prove Ianta’s point. “Can’t a story also be true? If I take a true thing, and dance pretty words around it, the prettiness doesn’t ruin the truth. A good story isn’t a lie.”

“Hmm.”

Pressing her advantage, Hal lifted the vial of honey liqueur. “If I put this on my tongue, then drink whiskey, it doesn’t make the whiskey any less whiskey. But it goes down smoother.”

Ianta laughed out of nowhere. “Saints, I am drunk. And you have always been like this. I do miss you, Prince of Riot.”

“Then come back with me!” Hal grinned. She was drunk, too, so she pushed away the uncertainty, the questions of selfhood, rulership, prophecy, and future, and just smiled. It was a lie.

“Promise me something first.”

“Anything!” Hal meant it entirely, but Ianta glared as though her vision were doubling, until Hal lifted her hands in giggling apology. “Anything, if I can.”

“Better.” Ianta took a deep breath. “If you are going to be a prince, find something that is exceptionally true—exceptionally pure and right—and hold that in your center. So that you do not lose yourself inside the story you build about yourself.”

Hal intended to nod very seriously, to put on the appearance that she would search hard for such a thing. But she did not need to: she knew exactly what single thing in her life was exceptionally true and right, exceptionally bright. Simply exceptional.

Standing, the prince of Aremoria swayed. The floor tilted, and Hal grabbed the arm of Ianta’s chair. “Oops,” she said. “I have to find Hotspur!”

“Tomorrow,” Ianta said, and shoved Hal away.

The prince stumbled, grunting as her stomach knotted, and fell upon the bed. She rolled, fully dressed, until she lay sideways in the center, hugged a pillow to her stomach, and passed out.

HOTSPUR
Tenne-Tiras, midsummer

HOTSPUR WAS FINE.

That was not a lie, nor a story, but simply the truth. Though she’d have preferred a posting with more direct action, Hotspur recognized the importance of helping Hal Bolinbroke, even if that aid came in the form of what amounted to taking a holiday at Tenne-Tiras.

Though to most, the schedule Hotspur set would not have suited leisure.

Hotspur and Banna Mora led the retainers and knights in daily battle drills, they foraged in the woods and hunted, they rarely spent time off their feet—but to Hotspur, that was relaxing. She could not simply drink and read all day, or wander with Lady Ianta in idle philosophical argument the way Hal could. Mora said, when she heard Hotspur’s frustration, “Perhaps that is what makes her suitable to be the prince of Lionis.”

“She’s the lion, regardless of the rest,” Hotspur said in complete seriousness. The two glanced across the courtyard at Hal, who was stretched in the sun with a smile that showed off her teeth.

“Prickly and proud,” Mora said. “But mostly a glutton. Yes, she is certainly the lion.”

Hotspur wondered what made Mora a dragon, and if she was wrong to make such assumptions—or to be thinking of this at all!

Within a few days of settling into the prince’s company, Hotspur had earned her reputation for ferocity. Even beyond the distant legends they’d heard of the Wolf of Aremoria. Isarna Persy was more intense in person; while everyone there had skills for war, Hotspur never seemed to spare thought to her personal safety. She’d dive for an opening even if it risked a bone-bruising hit, used her body for leverage to push past the defenses of men larger than herself, leapt from her horse before it went down, or chose the most precarious position for ambush if it also provided the best concealment. Lady Ianta reminded her again and again from the sidelines that an injury would leave her unable to do her duty, but Hotspur snapped back that injury was better than drunkenness.

She liked best sparring with Hal—not because of the prince’s sly smile, nor the whip of Hal’s thick black hair, nor Hal’s breathless gasps when she was nearly skewered. It was not even for the entertainment factor, as Hal told stories when she sparred, painting the details of an epic as she and her opponent circled.

The sky is bare and black and the sun obscured, as from either side of the field two champions walk! A whisper of their names courses along with the shaky wind; the hopes of one nation versus the despair of the other. If only the champion Persy were not favored so by the wolves of earth, perhaps she might be felled by a mere mortal of county Bolinbroke!

Here Hal might put on a face of stark fear, backing slowly from Hotspur, while the circle of retainers and knights leaned in for the next word: A star streaks suddenly across the sky, from the north to the east where Bolinbroke was born! A sign from the heavens—maybe this time, maybe now, the champion of fire will fall! And we, who love her and fear her, shall—

Hotspur rarely allowed Hal the time to finish her wild tales, jumping impatiently in with a surprise attack. It didn’t matter: Hal beat Hotspur back at least as often as the prince ended up on her ass with the blade of Hotspur’s practice sword at her neck.

And that was why Hotspur preferred to be partnered with Hal: because working together pushed them both to grow. With everyone else, Hotspur was either the superior fighter, or overly concerned with teaching. Unless she fought Mora, in which case Hotspur concentrated too hard on not dying, for Mora held within her a deep, rigid fury that, when it blazed up during combat, promised to devastate the world. (This, Hotspur thought, would be what made her the dragon.)

But with Hal, she was so well matched, so in tune, they could almost be dancing, and each got a little bit faster, a little bit stronger.

The first time Hal kissed her, the two were hiding from rain in the keep armory, treating leather in companionable silence. Hal lowered the leather greave into which she’d been rubbing oil and touched Hotspur’s cheek, and when Hotspur looked over, Hal put their lips together.

It was warm, soft, and dry. Hotspur liked it.

She said as much, then told Hal to do it again. Hal smiled, and the smile turned mischievous. “I will,” the prince promised, and directed her attention back to the greave. She did not kiss Hotspur again at that moment, a fact that twisted Hotspur’s stomach up in knots.

For an entire day she worried she’d done something wrong, been a bad kisser, and then kicked herself for even caring. She was the Wolf of Aremoria, and refused to be drawn into the games of a consummate flirt.

That evening Hotspur made the retainers under her command go out in full armor for a march. They exhausted themselves climbing hills, pitching tents, clearing the road of a tree that had fallen in the light storm. If one could do it in armor, Hotspur promised, how much easier would it be in mere gambeson and uniform?

When the company returned, late into the night, only Ianta remained awake. The old knight leaned against the wide door to the hall, a bottle of wine in one hand. She laughed at Hotspur, a gentle rumble of humor that put Hotspur’s back up. Stomping past, Hotspur was glad her rattling steel plates could wake up the entire keep. But then Ianta offered her the wine, and Hotspur took it. She jerked the cork free and drank. The cool white wine was a surprise, sugary and tart. Hotspur blinked and gave it back.

“Wolf,” Ianta said affectionately.

Hotspur opened her mouth, but did not yet know if she counted Ianta Oldcastle enemy or ally. For Hotspur, there was little in between.

Ianta said, “You should decide if her attention is going to make you angry, or make you happy. Both together will drive her mad, and we cannot afford a mad prince.”

“I have to decide? She is the one who …” Hotspur stopped at the look in Ianta’s eyes. The old knight had been fishing for information, and Hotspur had just provided it. She bared her teeth. “You watch out, Ianta Oldcastle.”

“For Hal, always.”

Hotspur did not sleep soundly. She tossed in her narrow bed, ground her fists into her eyes, and wished she had something to punch. When she did doze, her dreams were rampant with war—but not sex, thank the saints.

At dawn she launched out of her room and had been stretched and working with her horse for an hour before anyone else appeared.

When Hal had arrived, Hotspur glanced hopefully at her, then away, hiding her face until the prince wandered on. Hotspur ought to march over and demand another kiss—no, an explanation. She didn’t need pity kisses.

Burying her face against the strong muscles of her horse’s neck, Hotspur felt a prick of fear.

“Hotspur,” Banna Mora called. “Come show me the underarm twist you used to disarm Belavias two days ago.”

Hotspur gathered herself and said, “It will be harder for you, because you’re taller.”

Mora said nothing else, only tossed Hotspur a practice sword.

“Did you work on this with Vindus?” Mora asked when they paused to dip water from the well. “He used some similar footwork, seeming to retreat before a strong blow as if he were unconcerned with appearance, only winning, and I admired it. Or perhaps all Persys have this way in your blood.”

Hotspur said, “Yes, we learned the basics together, and I suppose it’s a bit of both.”

The lady of the March nodded, glancing up at the sky: it was streaked with white-gray clouds but would not rain. A cool breeze fell against their cheeks.

Though Mora would never admit so aloud, she very clearly missed Vin.

“You were lovers?” Hotspur asked. She’d suspected but not known.

“We were.”

“So you think … it’s all right to have another knight for a … lover?”

“Of course. Better a knight than a footman or attendant, or someone with so much less power that neither can find comfort. Are you looking for a lover? You’re nineteen?”

“Just,” she whispered.

“A merchant’s son, perhaps, or one of the queen’s many cousins. Though you ought to take care with fellow nobility—marriage will always be a consideration. And get yourself prophylactics. You can have a lover when you’re a lady knight, but not a baby.”

Hotspur bit her lip, thinking about that kiss. If she got what she was nearly certain she wanted, she wouldn’t need to worry about quite a few things.

“But you said another knight.” Banna Mora moved closer, taking her mentoring role very seriously. “Is there one who’s caught your eye? I haven’t noticed you … oh.”

Hotspur’s freckled cheeks blushed, and she inadvertently fluttered her eyes as she looked away.

“Did Hal proposition you?” Mora demanded, but gently. “She flirts with fence posts, you know.”

“It is wrong?” Hotspur burst out.

“Does it feel wrong?”

Squirming, Hotspur said, “Maybe we should fight again.”

Mora agreed, but as they took their stances, she said, “Hotspur … Isarna. It’s only wrong if it feels wrong. Or if Hal pushes you where you would not go.”

Hotspur wrinkled her nose and shook her head in denial; as if anyone could make her do a thing she did not want to do. She attacked suddenly, and after a flurry of back and forth, locked her sword with Mora’s and said, “Don’t call me Isarna out of tenderness.”

With a laugh, Mora freed herself and pressed her advantage.

That night, near midnight, Hal gently shook Hotspur awake, leaning close to whisper in her ear, “Don’t make a sound, and come with me.”

Though exhausted from the calisthenics she had put herself through before bed, hoping to sleep hard—which Hotspur had been, or Hal never would’ve slipped unnoticed into her room—she silently pulled on jacket and trousers and boots and followed Hal through the corridors of the keep.

“Where are we going?” she whispered once they were outside.

Hal smiled, and in the moonlight her eyes were vivid black pools against her white skin. “Shhh!”

The prince led the knight across the midnight courtyard and into the trees. They walked along a deer path cutting narrowly through the underbrush. When they were what Hal deemed sufficiently distant from the keep, she said, “We are going to find the witch tree.”

Hotspur nearly laughed. It was a ridiculous mission, but this was the first time Hal had chosen Hotspur for antics. Thin moonlight flickered as they passed under leaves. Shadows pulled in blurry shapes all around, frogs sang, and crickets, too. She and Hal moved quietly, though their shoulders brushed young trees with little whispers, and spring-green blackberry brambles snapped back.

“Listen for her heartbeat,” Hal said, pausing suddenly. She was taller, and bent her head toward Hotspur’s so her loose black hair fell like shadows around her face. “Remember?”

“I do,” Hotspur whispered, though it was her own heartbeat she could hear.

Hal touched a finger to Hotspur’s collar where the skin was exposed. “Buh-dum, buh-dum, buh-dum.”

Hotspur swatted her hand away. “I said I remember.”

“It’s said,” Hal said merrily, walking on, but with a glance back over her shoulder so Hotspur could see the flash of a smile, “that if two people meet under a witch tree, when the moon is high, their promises will last forever.”

It was a half-moon tonight, only just risen, sending oblong streaks through the trees.

Hotspur reached forward and brushed her fingers against the nape of Hal’s neck. The tips of her fingers tingled, and Hotspur drew a long, quiet breath.

They said no more, but their movements became part of the midnight forest, the rhythm of it all, and Hotspur wished to stop Hal and touch her again.

Some two miles from the keep, they walked out of the trees onto the bank of the Whiteglass River.

“Oops,” Hal said. “I guess I was listening to the gall of the river, not the heart of a witch tree.”

Hotspur laughed. Loudly. This was exactly where Hal had intended to bring her. The river rushed, catching moonlight and pulling it into the water with little reflecting ripples. Against the rocky bank, tiny whitecaps sloshed. They were south of where the royal road bent away from the Whiteglass.

“Hotspur,” said Hal. She took both of Hotspur’s hands, pulling their bodies flush together.

“Look up,” the prince whispered.

The sky glowed with stars: bright silver, white and pink and yellow, pinpricks of illusory color, a rainbow shattered and tossed into billions of points. There the half-moon, a chunk of magic that hung, only the saints knew how, so near one could count its gray freckles and pockmarked shadows. Hotspur took a deep breath, her body filling up with a sensation she hardly knew how to name: awe, peace, longing. Love, maybe.

And then Hal kissed her a second time.

ROWAN
Innis Lear, early autumn

ROWAN LEAR WAS more attuned to the whims and will of his island than any who had ever lived, and thus he alone recognized the ghost for exactly what it was.

He’d been aware of her for years—first as a goblin story told to frighten children into behaving (If you don’t come inside this instant, the Ashling Lady will steal you away and hide you beneath the roots until you are dead!) and later as an unsettling voice in the wind, not quite in rhythm with the rest of the island.

She was a discordant wail, a note of Innis Lear’s melody gone sharp.

Unlike most parental threats, and unlike the slippery, disinterested spirits that flitted and ducked between shadows in the White Forest, the Ashling ghost did sometimes murder children. First she seduced them, lulling them into a fantasy of comfort and friendship, then she grew jealous of their other loves, and finally she drew the child into the darkness of night with longing words and dancing lights. Until the child tripped over a cliff or became caught in the river and drowned.

Over the years parents began weaving garlands of thin ash branches to hook over their babies’ rockers, to show the Ashling Lady their children already loved her. Perhaps it kept some safe, perhaps not. Rowan was inclined to believe that performing love never satisfied anybody, but a ghost was nobody, and magic liked a sympathetic display.

Because the island did not worry overmuch about the Ashling ghost, Rowan did not, either—until he was eighteen and she tried to kill him.

Rowan had been the heir to the hemlock crown from the moment he was born to the queen’s sister—the queen herself choosing to remain childless. He’d spoken the language of trees before he said his first words of Learish, a thing his father, Earl Glennadoer, resented strongly enough to forbid Rowan the whispering tree tongue whenever he lived in the north with the earl’s people. (And Rowan was doubly forbidden from revealing this stricture to his mother or aunt.) The Glennadoers had been cursed for generations never to birth strong magic in their line, and the arrival of Rowan ought to have been viewed as an end to such malediction. Except that Rowan was a boy, and for a hundred years only queens had taken up the hemlock crown, since the last king’s broken mind had nearly broken the island, too.

It put young Rowan in a strange position: the hopes of the entire Learish people rested on his not falling to madness. He fought the pressure by giving himself entirely to Innis Lear, stealing secretly away to eat hemlock under the stars. He survived only by the grace of the rootwaters, and the winds named him their Poison Prince for his devotion. Though the islanders did not know why he’d earned the appellation, they liked their prince’s dangerous nickname. Rowan became the island’s vessel: he bled for the rootwaters, he breathed for the wind, he understood the calculations of star prophecy, and he worked every spare moment to be exactly as the island wished.

This meant that—as well as being Solas’s heir—Rowan ended up serving as translator, priest, judge, farmer, or shepherd if someone required it of him. He also strove to meet his father’s pitiless expectations, becoming, too, a warrior. Though not so bearish and brutal as a Glennadoer should be, Rowan had mastered sword, bow, and some tricks of battle magic by the time he was an adult.

But dedication to being the best king Innis Lear had ever seen left little space for friendships.

If asked, Rowan might have said he was content with the companionship he had, counting on the roses in the queen’s garden at Dondubhan, a small book written by Elia the Dreamer, the island itself—and Connley Errigal.

It was for Connley that the Ashling ghost tried to kill the Poison Prince of Innis Lear.

The two young men were friends firstly because they both were wizards; the sort who balanced each other perfectly. While Rowan acted always with purpose, moving in tandem with roots and stars toward a future approved by Innis Lear, Connley lived in moments. Like the wind, he was one thing against the shimmering leaves of birch and another pressed to the black stones of the Summer Seat. He smelled of whatever nature surrounded him, changed the tune of his sighs often, and was always in motion: a slight sway as he sat upon a bench in the great hall, fingers tapping one after another, pacing slow steps along the coastal road for no reason other than refusing to still or settle. Butterflies drifted in his wake, and he often fell to sleep embraced by the roots of a tree instead of recalling where to find his bed.

While Rowan was a practical wizard—suiting a prince—Connley earned a reputation for stranger witchcraft. Perhaps because he tended to wander and appear where he most was needed.

Or perhaps because he was beloved by the Ashling ghost, and accepted her mark with serenity.

As the younger child of Corius of the March and Cealla Errigal, both of whom died when he was but five years old, Connley was a lonely boy. He was thin and gangly, with bright tan skin of mixed Third Kingdom ancestry and deep brown curls, hazel eyes more green than brown, round and perpetually wide over his broad cheeks. He rarely smiled, though his expression usually fell toward a wondering, curious state rather than anything too serious or frowning. And always beneath those attentive eyes a line of black ashes was drawn, down like tears toward his jaw. The mark of the Ashling Lady.

Rowan knew Conn had heard her yearning song before he even knew what it meant, and that he never had minded giving his love to the Ashling ghost. “She is sad, and I comfort her somewhat,” Conn said to Rowan once, when the prince was sixteen and Connley thirteen. It had not satisfied Rowan, but as long as Innis Lear said no word to him that he should cast out the Ashling or bind her away from Connley, Rowan supposed the condition would hold.

The two young men met often at the Summer Seat, or at the rootwell in the White Forest, and always when the royal family tended upon Queen’s Keep at the southwestern tip of the island, where swords of Errigal steel were forged. Because both young men spoke the language of trees fluently, they were able to hold some conversations in secret. Connley would drift away to the wilderness with a handful of holy bones, and Rowan would follow in order to explain to Conn the political ramifications of their casting. Or Rowan would take Connley by the wrist up to the roof of the Keep and show him the pattern of the stars and how the island winds pushed clouds across this star or that constellation in order to aid Rowan in the wording of a new prophecy. They learned to bend tree branches together for a temporary shelter and how to send messages through a flock of birds, the way of soothing a ragged storm and why some flowers bloomed in Connley’s footsteps and others latched on to Rowan’s hair with their sharp thorns to ask for his blood. Connley could silently coax a tree to shed rotten bark; Rowan chattered with the crows and learned jokes from them.

The Ashling Lady joined them sometimes, soothing to Connley and like a creeping worm up Rowan’s spine. The younger man would relax and smile at a secret she told him; the older would listen to the anxiety with which the trees murmured back and forth, aware of the chill in the air. Innis Lear disapproved of the ghost, that was certain, but never did a thing about her. Perhaps it could not (a thought which did not occur to Rowan for several more years).

And for her part, the Ashling ignored Rowan until the day he kissed Connley.

They’d been repairing a section of stone wall near the village of Hartfare in the White Forest, and they had gotten it into their heads that they might find a perfectly shaped stone of pink granite if they raced to the sparflower meadow. For once, the idea had not come from roots or wind or stars, merely their own desire for exploration. Eighteen then, Rowan was finding it more and more rare to have an afternoon of liberty. Because of this exceptional license, he felt ready for something that day. What he did not know—until they achieved the meadow with its scatter of tiny white sparflowers, where floating dandelion seeds gave the warm summer air a quality of otherworldliness. Neither he nor Connley wore much because of the heat, only trousers, and in Rowan’s case a loose sleeveless vest in dark blue that opened over his chest; in Connley’s case merely a leather thong from which hung two tawny ghost owl primary feathers.

Connley crouched in the meadow with his hands steepled against the earth and his dark curls a soft halo around his face, and Rowan realized what he was ready for.

He had considered it occasionally—sex, that is—and usually with Connley as his partner in exploration. That day the Poison Prince was so taken with the image of slender, dark Connley communing with the island flowers that he strode across the meadow and put his hand into Conn’s thick hair. He gripped it, hard, and slowly pulled a surprised Connley to his feet. Conn’s lips parted as he met Rowan’s passionate gaze.

Rowan used the leverage of his greater strength and height to draw Connley against him, then kissed him openly, eagerly, firmly.

Startled, it took the younger wizard a moment to respond; then he dug his fingers into Rowan’s ribs and smiled into the kiss.

The Ashling ghost screamed.

Because of her liminal existence, Rowan had never heard her voice fully before—the ghost was a whisper he could not quite parse, a breeze twisting counter to the gusting urgency of the island wind. But with his lips against Connley’s and their naked chests pressed together, her voice could be heard clearly:

Mine mine mine!

And then came a shriek more furious than an autumn gale, and it pierced the meadow, tearing away at the summer warmth.

Connley jerked back, but Rowan curled his fingers into a fist, still gripping the younger man’s hair.

The prince replied in the language of trees, He is not yours, Ashling bitch.

“Rowan,” Connley chided, his expression pained.

Rowan let go and Connley turned away, hands out placatingly. Rowan still tasted the flavor of Connley’s tongue.

My Connley. Mine, the Ashling Lady hissed. Cold, ghostly fingers slashed across Rowan’s face. He stomped his foot upon the meadow grass and shoved his hand against the air, palm flat. The gesture pulled at the wind and sliced through her wails, because he was the Poison Prince of Innis Lear.

Connley, the ghost said again.

“I’m sorry, Rowan,” Connley said mournfully. In the language of trees he said, Lady, do not fear him, or that you might lose me. I am yours. He brought one finger to the streak of ashes on his right cheek, as if to remind her he wore her tears.

That afternoon Rowan had conceded, leaving Connley in the meadow with his haunt, but as he stalked back to Hartfare the prince vowed to discover a way to neutralize her before she murdered his friend.

But in the heart of the night, as Rowan Lear slept on a low straw bed inside the duke of Hartfare’s summer cottage, he suddenly could not breathe.

The air in his throat froze, thickening with frost and bile, and Rowan woke, clawing at his neck. He flung himself out of bed, wide eyed, mouth moving open and closed: he could not whisper even in the language of trees. The ghost wrapped her cold spirit around him, pricking his skin and hardening his bones. Rowan charged outside, throwing himself through doorways and into the garden. He fell to his knees, and with sheer will controlled his body’s struggle to breathe. Head aching, he crawled along the furrowed earth, shouldering through rows of leeks and pumpkin vines, until he found the well at the edge of the yard.

Rowan used dirt-covered fingers to dig into his mouth, pulling at the frozen threads of magic. He tore them out, gagging, yet still could not breathe. Hissing laughter burned in his ears, skittering over his cheeks and his bare back like tiny whips.

But the Ashling ghost did not know of the bargain Rowan Lear had made with the rootwaters when he was only a child: at his distress, the well answered. Cold water seeped up through the stones, up through the earth itself, soaking the ground all around him and turning it to mud.

As his vision blackened to blotchy shadows so different from the nighttime darkness, Rowan used the rootwater mud to slap hash-marks in the language of trees across his chest, collar, and throat. Open, he wrote, and breath of wind and then his own name, which was as much a name of magic as hers. Rowan. Ash. Both part of Innis Lear.

And then he could breathe again. Then he was free.

Rowan Lear rolled onto his back in the holy mud and promised himself and the stars twinkling overhead, beyond the tall trees of the White Forest, that he would discover the true name of this monstrous ghost.

As with most things, her vulnerability was hidden within her love: her true name was a mystery Rowan solved by first contemplating the name of the one she loved best. Connley Errigal.

Three weeks later, Rowan summoned the Ashling ghost by her true name, told her he knew what she was, and if she ever went against him, or against the interests of Innis Lear, he would destroy her.

IN THE FIVE years since that night, the Poison Prince and the ghost had maintained their uneasy truce.

Today, it was a different tension that drew Rowan out of the Summer Seat and to the half circle of standing stones known as Lear’s Teeth. Recently, across Innis Lear, every star priest, every person who heard the voice of the wind or read the prophecies of the stars, saw the same stars in every message. Though the prophecies and blessings ranged in topic—what children would be born before the Longest Night, or when it next would rain, and how long it would take the earl of Rosrua’s son to reach the Third Kingdom—ever since that rebel queen had risen in Aremoria and Rowan had cast her a prophecy, tucked within every new prophecy were a trio of constellations that rarely appeared together.

The Dragon of the North.

The Lion of War.

The Wolf Star.

The wind itself had whispered into Rowan’s ear of this strange communion, and the warning had echoed from the mouth of his young cousin Era Star-Seer, a prodigy in the science of augury. Even his mother, Ryrie Lear, had seen visions of these three creatures in the woven threads of her loom. Queen Solas said to Rowan, “When it is time for us to know, we will,” and dismissed the worry. That was Solas Lear’s way: she knew the temper of Innis Lear and refused to act upon dire prophecy without clarity or a goal of her own—to do otherwise unbalanced the world. At her nephew’s telling frown, she only added, “Until we do know, we will watch, and listen.”

Nothing in her words forbade Rowan following his anxiety, and so he came out to Lear’s Teeth on the night of the autumnal equinox to draw a massive star chart.

Set at the pinnacle of a cliff overlooking the glassy gray ocean, Lear’s Teeth were seven granite stones, rough with pale moon lichen, uneven and sharp at the top so they cut up against the sunset. The stones smiled in a crescent, half a circle ready to mark the edges of Rowan’s chart.

He was, as a grown man, tall, lean, and well-muscled from labor and warcraft, with white skin that gilded in the sun but never freckled, and long white-blond hair. His eyes were coppery brown with flecks of gray, the set of his jaw elegant and square. Celestial tattoos and the hash-mark scars of wizardry decorated his chest, belly, and arms, and Rowan always dotted a daily constellation against his stomach or cheek or forehead with white clay.

The twilight sun poured vivid orange arrows against the western sea and opened the curtains for stars, and Rowan dropped the leather bag from his shoulder, removed his boots and long jacket, his shirt and the small braids from his hair. He pulled from a pocket three crushed hemlock petals and quickly ate them, eyes lifting to the sky and lips murmuring a song for the wind. He knelt, body tense, and studied his internal world as it slowed and drained away, as the poison began its work. Just before he reached the point of paralysis, Rowan took up a small pouch of rootwater filled this afternoon from the well in the rose courtyard, and he drank a sip.

With rootwater on his tongue and hemlock in his blood, Rowan whispered in the language of trees, Your will be done.

He lived.

And when he felt his energy blaze again, Rowan fetched the leather bag that leaned against the base of the central standing stone. Using Lear’s Teeth as half his circle, he dug iron spikes into the earth to mark the edges of a full starfield, then looped long undyed threads of wool around the whole of it. He scattered salt and the ashes of summer leaves in four directions and then began the painstaking process of drawing constellations with chalk dust and white clay. His movements were a dance as he avoided smearing the stars: he marked the Dragon of the North, the Lion of War, the Wolf Star—though this time of year the Dragon barely appeared until late, late in the night, and the Wolf Star was a spring star. He marked Saint Terestria, his birth star, the Salmon and Summer Throne, and twenty-one more constellations.

With thin wool lace and strings of butterfly wings that shed orange and blue scales upon his fingers, Rowan carefully put clouds across his earthen sky, set the direction of the wind and the angle of those final golden rays of daylight. With blood cut from just below his left collarbone, he marked the thin crescent moon that chased the setting sun.

This work showed Rowan basic prophecies, questions to probe further, and a scatter of answers.

But Rowan wanted more. From his bag he took out a bone-carved box and dropped nine holy bones into the palm of his hand. Three of black horn, three of gleaming seashell, and three of polished oakheart. The Poison Prince planted his feet at the southern edge of the starfield and closed his eyes. This is a prophecy for Rowan Lear, your vessel, he said in the language of trees.

The island wind replied, Poison Prince! Rowan of Worms!

He threw the holy bones in an arc and listened as the wind trilled loudly enough that he did not hear the smaller bones as they hit the earth. The air smelled of salt and thin smoke, and tendrils of his hair caught in the wind, stroking his shoulders and neck.

Turning, Rowan immediately saw the seashell bones had landed each upon the Dragon, the Lion, and the Wolf.

The remaining six bones spelled out a prophecy he’d waited more than ten years to see:

Begin.

HERE IS HOW an earth saint is made:

The king is old, and dying. He dozes upon a plain chair on the balcony outside his study, too tired even to replay moments of his life or to analyze his choices and mistakes and triumphs as he was wont to do in stronger years. His country is not at war and the harvest proceeds well across the land: that is enough today. Occasionally, though, he thinks he hears his name called out, the nickname nobody uses anymore, because he is too much venerated by those who remain.

As the violet tongue of twilight licks against the roses carved into the balcony rail, something steps from nothing, there at the first edge of shadows.

The something is a man, or looks like a man. Small and rough, he bears his shoulders like a soldier, but wears a green silk jacket cut out of fashion, from an era as old as this king. His hair tangles in little braids and knots around bone-and-horn charms; his mouth relaxes in a natural frown; his eyes are muddy, dappled forest ponds. Flecks of silver haunt his black pupils. Perhaps he is an earth saint, but he is entirely alive: their agent, then, their hand in the world of wind and stars.

For a long while he studies the old king, waiting as shadows lengthen across the balcony to kiss the king’s slippered toes. Age bends deep lines around the king’s closed eyes, has painted his beard white. What remains of his hair is hidden beneath a plain wool cap that is nothing like a crown.

The stranger shifts forward along with the evening shadows and the old king snaps open his eyes. Their fierce blue catches on to the stranger, and he says, “It’s you.”

Not a stranger after all.

“It’s me,” the shadow man whispers, kneeling beside his old king.

“Did she come with you?” The king peers beyond, searching.

“She remains on Innis Lear, always.”

The king’s eyes drift closed again, and he grips the arms of his chair. “Yes. I know. I should have been there when she died.”

The other has no comfort to offer.

“Her sister did it,” the king whispers, an undercurrent of anger charging his helplessness. “Called her name again and again until she couldn’t resist. I knew. I ought to have been there, how could I not have been there?”

But that is an impossibility: her sisters died long before she did. The old king’s memories play against one another, muddled and changeable. The shadow man touches his king’s knee, the most he can give.

At the touch, the king looks up again. “You are so young.”

“Nearly as old as you,” the shadow man answers sourly.

That makes the king smile. He was so fond of this fox in his youth. It’s good of Aremoria to send a familiar spirit to him now.

The shadow man asks, “Are you ready?”

“I’m tired, yes.”

“Then come.”

The king’s jagged pulse slows as he lets go, not eager, but accepting. The sun is gone and the wind smells tenderly of roses from the gardens below.

At exactly the moment the old king dies, the shadow man puts his hand over the king’s chest and pushes. They fall back into shadows and vanish.

THERE IS LIGHT inside shadows: silver-gray and even, without cracks or variation.

THE TWO FALL out again but not into wind or stars; into the rootworld where earth saints dance, velvety and sharp toothed, beautiful and monstrous. They reach out to welcome this chosen king, who is already so much a part of them by intention and blood and spirit. Dead and alive, both and neither, drifting in between.

Only the court of earth saints can make a new earth saint, filling his mouth with shadows and turning his bones to misty moonlight; the old king loses his name, and his memories are their memories now, and the memories of Aremoria. The king is the land, they say, but not all kings—only the ones the earth saints choose.

ONCE ON INNIS Lear an earth saint was almost born: drawn alive into the rootworld, enfolded by ash trees and willpower and desperation, she transformed but could not be reborn—not on Innis Lear, where there are no saints to sing her bones into moonlight or pour shadows down her throat. The rootwaters cannot do it alone. She is half of one world, half of another, and clings to what she lost: love, a name, her almost-children.

She is a haunting, an unsettled specter of Innis Lear’s past. She cries out in the wailing wind, yearning, confused, and she disturbs even the strong magic of Innis Lear.

DEEP IN THE rootworld of Aremoria, the earth saints put a crown upon the old king’s head, made of roots and worms and ancient pearls, and when they stand in their circle, every crown is a jewel in the larger crown: thus is the earth saints’ court a system of intentions, whispers, hope, and hungry shadows. They are weaker than they used to be, always weakening since their magic was cleaved away by a furious wizard a thousand years ago. This is the end of their strength, to make this last new saint.

He will matter in the days to come, for the earth saints have sensed an opportunity creeping nearer and nearer, as new kings and new queens rise and fall. This is a long trick they play, to end their fading doom and regain their stolen magic. To take it back from Innis Lear. For that, they need a wizard, or two. One to break open the star roads again, and one to anchor the roots of sleepy Aremore trees into a singular voice.

But there are no wizards in Aremoria. The earth saints will have to make one.

BANNA MORA
Lionis, late autumn

IN ONLY ONE place did Banna Mora of the March feel safe to slide the Blood and the Sea onto her forefinger. It was a small tower room, high in a turret crowning the riverside parapet of Lionis Palace. Cubbies and shelves lined the stone walls, stuffed with rolled pennants and crisp orange Aremore flags. Tapestries were folded inside stacked pine boxes and carved trunks, and the entire room smelled heavily of lavender and rosemary to keep the mice away. Mora liked to climb the ladder and close the trapdoor behind her. Alone, she’d sit on one of the trunks, knees pulled up, surrounded by flags and symbols of Aremoria. There were a series of poles just outside the turret, visible from the Whiteglass River, and every morning a contingent of palace women raised the proper pennants to signal who was in residence.

Today, just below the glorious new crown-and-sun flag of the rebel queen, flew Hal’s purple flag with the lion and bluebell of Bolinbroke. Beneath that, the Westmore eagle snapped in the wind alongside the Blunt crossed-spears, and the striped flag of the Alsax. Lastly, there was Hotspur’s plain Red Castle. There’d been no green of Perseria, nor Mercian arms for weeks. And though the golden sheaf on its field of iron gray should have flown for the March, it was never ordered up. Saints forbid attention be drawn to Mora’s status.

She turned the thick band of the Blood and the Sea around and around her finger, barely able to see the glint of pearl and garnet in the light of the single candle set upon the floor.

This was her birthday, a month past Halfsies Day. She was twenty-three. It had been nearly half a year since she’d been a prince.

Last year for Mora’s birthday, Hal had surprised her with a small feast tucked inside her quarters, and dragged along a few of the Lady Knights. They’d gotten drunk and talked of nothing but gossip and recent theater and the weather and who might win at Rovassos’s tournament in the spring.

But today she was alone, and would be so unless she made herself otherwise. Who should she go to, though? Seeking out Ianta felt seditious, for though the woman had been convinced to return at Hal’s side from Tenne-Tiras, Ianta buried herself among the common folk, telling sack-fueled stories of her glory years. The other Lady Knights had been reassigned far and wide, Mora’s lover was dead, and Hal and Hotspur were single-minded in their affair. All Mora’s living family were across the sea on Innis Lear.

Sometimes still Mora considered returning to that rocky stump, but though it had borne her, it was not her home. Aremoria was, and had been since she was eight years old. Her hopes had blossomed here along with her muscles and will, along with her desires and fears and all her power. This sweet wind, these luscious forests, fertile hills, and sweeping valleys, the clearwater rivers and cycle of seasons one after another after another in regular fashion.

Mora ought to go north to the March and at least be alone on her own land. She ought to return to her room and have her best dress brought out, her hair oiled and braided, paint applied to her eyes and mouth and cheeks; she ought to give the true Blood and the Sea to Celedrix as ultimate proof of her loyalty. Fall onto her knees and swear her heart to the queen, then calmly ask for permission to go.

It would be enough. Banna Mora knew she could find pride in the work of holding the March: armed and in command, lady of her own lands, city, and castle. Eventually she might marry one of the Alsax or the oldest of the Everus sons, for they’d been on Celedrix’s side of the battle, and then Mora’s children would carry bloodlines always loyal. Mora could survive to be a grandmother, a respected commander of her own making.

She turned the Blood and the Sea around her finger again.

She could not live like this: no dragon existed forever in a cage, even if it was an elegant one, even if she could hide herself away as she did now, crouched over the palace as if it belonged to her. It did not belong to her.

Banna Mora was not a dragon.

The ring lived most days tucked into a small gilded box, beneath a false bottom. The box she kept on the hearth in her bedchamber with several similar in plain sight. It was an ember alive in her heart, dangerous to hold in the palm of her hand. Treason to even have it, worse to hide it. So long as she did, Mora kept alive a hope that one day she could wear it openly. But she could see no avenue to such reward, not with Celedrix powerful and surrounded by equally powerful friends.

Occasionally some daring younger son of a Rovassos loyalist would approach Banna Mora, to convince her to take advantage of Celeda’s vulnerable new government. Only yesterday a cousin of Aumerle had cornered her and whispered a rumor he’d heard that Celedrix had murdered Vindus and Devrus of Mercia in order to undercut the power of Vindomata and so that she could marry her own daughter to a prince of the Third Kingdom. This cousin had said, to Mora and others, that Celedrix already had sent messages to her allies in the desert, and by this time next year Prince Hal would have a husband not of Mercia. And how could Vindomata be angry, for her sons both were dead?

Convenient.

Mora disliked to think of an assassin cutting Vindus down as he fought at Hal’s side. It was hard to imagine what had gotten the best of him fairly, despite Mora knowing anyone could take a mortal blow, no matter their skill or strength, when the moment came. Though she’d not been in love with Vin, she’d assumed he would one day be her king. A fair assumption, never needing further analysis, because Mora had never once imagined losing her place. Losing her future. Her identity.

And this present life killed her slowly. The restrictions on her behavior, her voice, her heart—all of it chafed Mora raw. She could not disagree with anything, not act for her own benefit, nor even for a friend without casting a shadow upon them. She could not be herself, she could not be strong.

Banna Mora thrust to her feet, jerking the Blood and the Sea off her finger. No more sitting feeling sorry for herself. She had to act: that was the only way forward.

If the Blood and the Sea were the thing giving her hope, tying her to the past, she had to get rid of it.

She stuffed the ring back into the inner pocket of her gown, just under the collar of the bodice. Hooking her finger in the trapdoor’s latch, she threw it open and blew out the candle.

Cold wind carried the murmur of Lionis Palace to her ears, the constant, rough noise of humanity, and the scent of the river. Mora strode along the ramparts, past a few palace guards taking a break from duty. She lifted her skirt to hurry down the tower stairs, then continued purposefully through the airy corridors of the palace.

Once, these corridors had belonged to her. The marble and pale limestone, the pillars and polished wood panels, the carved windows and balustrades, the peaked arches and sitting rooms, the paintings and statues and gardens. All of it. Hers.

Mora slowed to touch the smooth curve of the wall and breathe in the pine and clove smell of a fresh wreath hanging there. Winter smells, the air of home.

This would be the end. She was choosing it, not Hotspur. Not the Wolf of Aremoria.

The next palace page she saw, Mora asked after Prince Hal. A moment later another page dashed up to her with the news Hal was in her bedchamber. At midafternoon.

Banna Mora set her jaw and did not pause to speak with the few courtiers she knew and liked, nor did she bother to nod at those she mistrusted. Usually she did both, knowing her life depended on maintaining a careful balance of independence and humility. When Rovassos was king, Mora had enjoyed the game, lived for the intricate dance of loyalty. Now it grated on her, offensive and wounding.

The current heir to the throne of Aremoria kept her rooms in an old study, transformed incompletely into a bedchamber and sitting room. Mora knocked to no response. Flattening her hand, she pounded with the heel and called Hal’s name. When again there came no answer, Mora grasped the handle and shoved open the door.

Light poured into the study from the tall balcony windows, illuminating the large room as it had always been, but for new purple hangings and a rather more complete set of wine and liquor bottles on one of the bookshelves. Books were stacked on the sofa, several half open, and a crumb-covered plate waited on the round table to be cleaned, beside a cup fallen on its side, the dregs of dark wine staining its rim.

Mora frowned and closed the door, then went to the small arch and stepped down into the bedchamber itself.

Hal Bolinbroke, Prince of Aremoria, was sprawled facedown and sideways across the bed. Pillows had slumped on the floor, the quilt was mussed beneath her, and one boot still clung to her foot. The hearth was black. Hal’s back swelled slowly, stopped, and deflated, then did it again, more raggedly. Mora stared.

The prince was a mess. Mora understood the responsibility was hard; the meetings, duties, and conflicting agendas were enough to need a drink or a fuck to sleep at night. But Hal had Hotspur. Hal had friends, and had her mother home. She had her charm and skills. The new prince needed to quash this inner turmoil—whatever it was keeping her from standing, from trying harder.

When they were younger, Hal had sometimes become inconsolable for a time. Deep sorrow, morbid thinking, and a yearning for impossible things had coated her spirit, dampening it and putting her in bed sometimes for days. Mora had believed it a childish malady that would be cured by adulthood and responsibilities—and especially by her mother’s safe return. As a child, Hal could afford her moods. As a prince, the heir to a powerful kingdom, she could not.

Just as Mora opened her mouth to wake Hal, the prince groaned. Her body shuddered and she groaned again. Softly, desperately. The pace of her breath tightened and drew shallow.

A nightmare.

“Hal,” Mora said.

Hal whimpered and dragged her fists toward her chest, pulling the quilt with her.

“Hal.”

The prince’s lips parted for another soft cry, and her eyes popped open. Sitting, Hal spun onto her knees, staring around as if unaware of her surroundings.

Mora remained still, hands turned out in peace. “Hal, you’re safe, you’re in your bed.”

“Worms,” Hal gasped. She closed her eyes and drew in several long, deep breaths. “Mora,” she croaked. “What are you— Oh, sun and stars, Mora. I don’t—I don’t know how to do this.”

The prince of Aremoria bent forward, hands atop her head, twisting her fingers in her hair. Those shoulders trembled again, but with a sob.

Mora frowned. She stepped nearer but was uncertain what to say.

Hal wiped her face, then swayed as if dizzy. A strange stillness cut the air of the bedroom, and then Hal dove toward the side of her bed, gripped the mattress, and vomited onto the floor.

Disgusted, Mora crossed her arms over her chest.

“I’m sorry,” Hal whispered, wiping her mouth. She stumbled up, reached for an old shirt thrown over the back of a chair, and wiped her entire face.

Mora went for the pitcher of water. It sloshed half full, and she flung open the trunk beneath the small square window and dragged out another shirt. She dumped the water on it, and brought it all back to Hal.

“Come here,” Mora said, gripping Hal’s arm and pulling her to the foot of the bed, away from the splatter of thin pinkish vomit. Mora touched the wet shirt to her friend’s forehead and the back of her neck. She gave the shirt to Hal and, with a prim sigh, perched on the mattress, then gathered up the mess of Hal’s black braid. Unlacing the tie at the end, Mora carefully loosened the hair and combed it with her fingers. She held it carefully, watching the flush fade from Hal’s cheeks.

The prince breathed into the wet shirt, mopped it down her neck, and then dropped it to the floor atop the splatter of vomit.

It smothered some of the acrid smell.

“I’ll send for a bath,” Mora said.

“Wait.” Hal reached for her hand. “I don’t— Mora, I’m sorry.”

The tremor in the prince’s voice, and the gentle grief, infuriated Banna Mora.

“For what, Hal?” she demanded. “Being a drunkard? Many kings are so. Nightmares? Everyone has nightmares. But you learn to leave them in bed. Or are you sorry for stealing everything that belonged to me? For never thinking about what your mother was doing to me and to us? What is it you’re sorry for, Hal Bolinbroke?”

The prince tilted her splotchy face up to Mora’s. She shook her head slightly. “For not being able to give it back to you. I don’t—I don’t want it.”

“You don’t … want it.” Mora wanted to scream. It had been part of Mora’s heart and spirit, her dreams and her destiny, and Hal dismissed it so easily as something one could want.

“Mother told me yesterday—we have to solidify the line of inheritance immediately. She already—already arranged it. There’s a prince from the Third Kingdom, of course, who she knows well, and it’s already done. I’ve been engaged for months and didn’t even know it.”

Mora went cold, thinking of that Aumerle cousin and his accusation that Celedrix had murdered Vindus because she never intended a marriage alliance with Mercia.

Hal didn’t stop, digging her fingers into her mess of hair. “Married this time next year! And—pregnant fast. Saints, I’m—I’m going to throw up again.”

“She’s right,” Mora said softly—a softness of danger, of gathering storm clouds, not tenderness or friendship. “Instability is the greatest threat to Celedrix’s rule right now. It’s your responsibility, Prince.”

“I can’t— I don’t want to be responsible for Aremoria! I don’t want to command or rule. I don’t want to have to choose who lives and dies—I can’t see something like that—like that again. I only ever wanted to be your knight. I want to never live in terror that everyone is thinking how best to cut my head off, or murder my mother. And Hotspur! Saints and worms, I dreamed it was her, dead in my arms. All my dreams are dreams of death, Mora. Bloody or stupid, I don’t … I don’t want it.”

To Mora’s horror, tears blazed behind her own eyes, threatening to spike out. “It’s yours, though. I thought you were stronger than this. I’d never have knighted you—made you my first!—if I’d suspected how you’d shatter under pressure. How dare you let all of us down. Better to be defeated by a worthy opponent than—than—” Mora flung her hand out.

“This,” Hal finished for her. “Me.”

“Yes.” Mora stood. She backed away. Her hands shook. The Blood and the Sea burned at her breast. How could she entrust it to this creature before her? Hal was too selfish, too afraid to lead. Broken. She would let Aremoria fall to pieces.

Mora could not give over the Blood and the Sea like some kind of benediction.

She turned and left without another word, nearly running into Hotspur as she exited.

“Mora,” the knight said, startled enough to step back.

“Help Hal get her shit together, Hotspur Perseria,” Mora snarled, “or she’ll have to face me one day, and my sword.”

The lady of the March shoved past the knight, heart thudding beneath her ribs, hard, dull: a death knell.

The death of hope, and the death of Aremoria beneath Hal Bolinbroke’s wretched hand.

HOTSPUR
Lionis, winter

THE FIRST WINTER of Celedrix’s reign was mild, but Hotspur remembered the strife.

Lionis Palace was a mess of agendas and politics, factions and families vying for new authority and the queen’s favor; there were enemies to be rooted out, alliances to be made and remade, executions to perform, petty squabbles, gossip, defense concerns and messages from the least secure borders. Hotspur acted as the prince’s chief of security, as well as Hal’s right hand, and consulted with the generals in the war room on strategies for holding the north and east against the perpetual Diotan raids and the press of the Rusrike. Hotspur was constantly on her feet, rushing from meeting to dinner to the garrison to her own shift at Hal’s side, to something appalling like a dress fitting. The formal occasions were the worst, required as she was to converse calmly or even flirt—her best flirtation happened in the form of single combat—or stand for hours at a time at Hal’s shoulder while Hal in turn stood at her mother’s. Rarely did Hotspur find a moment’s quiet, even with the prince, for when they did manage to slam together they rarely chose to relax.

Despite being pulled in so many directions, Hotspur was happy. Maybe she shouldn’t have been, given the state of the country’s politics, and the delicate, torturous war of words that slowly established Celedrix. How could Hotspur be happy in spite of her mother’s crawling recovery and her aunt’s grief and anger, or especially in the face of Hal’s constant, violent dreams? But through it all a golden thread wove itself, luminous and constant and secured between the strong folds of Hotspur’s heart: she was in love.

Thank the saints and worm-eaters she was busy enough, or Hotspur might spend every moment glowing in Hal’s direction. She even sometimes thought gratefully on the fact that their affair came with an expiration date—else the potential of living so blissfully for the rest of her life might’ve overwhelmed her.

But for the time being, Hotspur couldn’t help but constantly contemplate the prince’s lips and talented fingers, biting her own tongue or surreptitiously ducking into an alcove to press her forehead against cold marble wall and try, try, try to calm down so she did not arrive flushed for a meeting with Commander Abovax or skip through a security briefing.

Any progress Hotspur made in managing her emotions and body were undone the instant she turned a corner and there was Hal, smiling like she’d been saved. That smile devastated Hotspur, especially when it blew away the shadows of stress under Hal’s dark eyes, or straightened her spine, like Hotspur was the only god Hal believed in.

Hotspur became skilled at discovering Hal’s hiding places, for the heir to the throne tended to disappear when not nailed down by witnesses or specific duty. The Princes’ Gallery was a favorite, though others could find her there so it tended to be an escape when she had only a few moments to breathe. The secondary kitchens were another favorite, and once Hotspur even discovered Hal kneading bread with a cap holding back her hair, covered in sweat and flour. The prince fled to the kennels occasionally, to pretend she was checking on the dogs and considering a plan for a winter hunt. The worst were the nights—and days—Hal slipped her guards and vanished from the palace itself. At least she only went to the Quick Sunrise to find Ianta and lose herself in cheap sack.

None of it bothered Hotspur much, for a soldier needed her outlets, and there was no mistaking that being thrust into the role of Aremore prince had forced Hal to front herself as if at war. The prince did her duty, charmed those Celedrix specifically instructed her to charm, and played her part with beauty if not grace. It was only that Hal did not seem to come into herself or find any mask of princedom to inhabit fully. None of it satisfied her. Instead, as the winter passed, Hal grew more and more hollow. More and more restless.

Oh, Hotspur doubted anyone noticed but her, and perhaps Ter Melia, who had known Hal the longest of all the palace guard. Ianta, surely, could see the difference, but Hotspur did not ask the sloppy knight; she suspected Ianta was a shell of herself, too.

It had been a blow, losing Mora.

Hotspur did not blame the lady for going home to the March, for needing to get far away from Lionis and the ghosts of all she’d lost. Even if Mora had remained, Hal could not rely upon someone else for strength—not Mora, and not Hotspur, either, not forever. Someday Hal would marry, and Hotspur would leave. Thus, Hal had to find her footing alone. There was no choice, not for a prince.

“Hal, tell me what you want most,” Hotspur said one night—morning, truly—as she escorted the prince home from the market district off the river that once had been prosperous with merchant families but now had given over to sailors’ haunts.

“You!” the prince laughed, breath puffing hot into the cold winter night. She tugged Hotspur to a stop and grasped her face. Hal’s kiss was clean and firm, despite her inebriation, and Hotspur let her have it, melting closer for warmth and pleasure. They kissed in the street, witnessed only by other late wanderers and the two royal soldiers who followed behind.

Dragging her mouth from Hal’s reluctantly, Hotspur smiled and nudged her lover on. “I mean for you, for Aremoria. What do you want to be? Or to—to happen?”

“Seriously?” Hal glanced down at Hotspur from the corner of her eyes.

“Absolutely serious. You can’t want things to remain as they are forever.”

“Some things,” Hal said softly, weaving her fingers with Hotspur’s.

At such moments, Hotspur wanted forever, too.

That early in the morning, Lionis held itself quiet, the wind gentle, if crisp. Hotspur kept her gaze ahead, watching through the dark for danger and to avoid puddles of frozen shit. Beside her, Hal smiled, relaxed in her city at night. At least Prince Hal had that going for her: she adored Lionis, every piss-stained gutter and moonlit cobblestone, every tucked-away gable and blue-painted door, the blacksmiths and cobblers and milliners. All the people. Hotspur admired it, not knowing how to expand her own love for Perseria—the rolling farmland, the creak of winter trees, the hard humor and constant readiness of the folk—to a city so filled with strangers.

At a corner, just before they turned onto a broader avenue that put them in a neighborhood of spreading manors and walled gardens, Hal paused, tugging Hotspur with her to the dim red glow of a small street altar. Tucked in a narrow alley that hardly could be called such a thing, and beneath an arch buttressing the two tall buildings, the altar was little more than a barrel that smelled of old wine. Its lid was covered in soft wax, and three candles had nearly burned out, melting together. Set between them was a wooden slab carved with a crude woman’s face wearing a crown. The queen. These street altars were supposed to be easy blessings, to focus people on Celedrix’s power and status. But someone had smeared black down her cheeks to make her into a version of Saint Halir, who had cried tears made of mud for some trespass Hotspur couldn’t remember. She’d never paid much attention to the varied earth saints and wizards of Aremoria’s ancient past. Until recently, she’d never had reason to care.

Hal touched the image, not quite lifting it out of the wax. “A story.”

“What?”

“That’s what I want. Is it too much to ask? I want to make a good story, one that will serve everyone. Make my mother proud, and my people, too.”

“I think you should work to make your family and people proud, and let historians worry about telling a good story.”

Hal shook her head. “I think we shape our own stories. We must. Especially if we don’t fit into stories as we’re supposed to.” The prince kissed Hotspur lightly, and Hotspur understood with a weight in her stomach what Hal meant: her. Them, together. They didn’t fit as they were supposed to. Women in love with each other.

But Hal continued, “My mother returned home after ten years, and she used that—she was unknown, but she made that an advantage by setting it against Rovassos. She had a blank page with which to reinvent herself. But I don’t. I have to work with what I have, and I’m just a knight. A rather wild one, with a reputation for plenty of flaws. But my best skill is making people listen to me. So I should be able to make people listen when I say I can do this.”

“You don’t believe it yet, so how can you convince anyone else?” Hotspur put her arm around Hal’s waist.

Hal hugged her, then turned her rosy cheek against Hotspur’s. “It’s my fault Mora left. I drove her away with my—with a moment of weakness. I’d had a bad dream, and was hung over, and sometimes I am … just like that. Morose. Afraid. There’s something wrong with me.”

“Oh, Hal.”

“I told her I couldn’t do it, and I didn’t want to. She told me to get my shit together, and then she left for the March before I could do anything.”

The soft tremble in Hal’s voice brought out an answering tenderness in the Wolf of Aremoria. “You should be able to say such things to your friends,” Hotspur whispered. “You can say it to me, and know I believe in you still. I won’t stop believing in you, Hal, and you can use that.”

Hal shivered and kissed Hotspur again, there by the makeshift altar.

In retrospect, that early morning conversation should have warned her.

On the third Threesday in a row the prince was utterly impossible to find, Celedrix barked at Hotspur that if she could not keep track of her royal ward then perhaps another security captain ought to be appointed. Hotspur gritted her teeth and when she had the chance, she yelled at Hal until the prince grimaced and flirted and distracted Hotspur with those very skillful fingers. But the next week Hotspur followed Hal as she slipped out of the palace and casually made her way to a star chapel hidden between two taverns and a flower shop. There Hal joined in a small congregation of earth saint worshippers.

Hotspur could not believe her eyes. The chapels of Lionis maintained themselves well enough with birth chart commissions and provided services to foreign believers, and of course the Lionis Cathedral had once been the grandest in all the neighboring countries, including Innis Lear. But Aremoria itself had shed its devotion to small gods and stars generations ago. The people looked to the monarch to lead them, in body and spirit; to the Blood and the Sea.

Being herself, Hotspur did not wait for the end of the prophecy casting, but burst in, shoving people aside until she got to Hal, and roughly grabbed the prince’s arm. “You are mad!” she cried, drawing attention. “Come with me, now.”

“Hotspur,” Hal said, not pulling away, though she cast an apologetic look at the gray-robed priest.

Hotspur growled and dragged the prince out into the snowy street.

Furious, Hotspur’s pace was clipped and fast, and Hal dashed around her, flinging herself in Hotspur’s way. “What’s wrong with you?”

“You hide away every week to do this? Your mother needed you, and it reflected badly on me, Prince, to not know where you are! And—and here is where I find you! With star priests? Earth saints!”

“You saw the ghost!” Hal hissed, putting her face right in Hotspur’s. “You heard the prophecy!”

“Why does it matter? It doesn’t need to shape our choices.” Hotspur tried to scoff, but it came out demanding.

“How can it not matter? I love you, Hotspur, but sometimes you baffle me.” Hal stopped, panting.

On the street, folk stared at them, giving a wide berth to the two women. Hotspur didn’t know how to care, and she didn’t know how to respond. Except there was one phrase ringing in her ears.

“I love you, too,” Hotspur said.

They stared at each other in stony silence, Lionis City pulling and shifting around them like a river.

Then Hal grabbed her hand and ran toward the palace; Hotspur dug in her heels, afraid suddenly as she’d never been in her entire life.

But the prince dragged her on, gasping, laughing, putting on a massive clownish frown, in through the barbican and under the outer curtain wall, through the People’s Courtyard and into the palace, up the stairs and down the hall until finally they burst into Hal’s room.

A few months ago, this room had been a royal study, and it held still the wall-to-wall shelving, the tall windows that opened up onto a broad crescent balcony, the grand desk beside the huge stone hearth. But since Hal had claimed it, small indications of her presence had appeared: sword belts hanging from the back of a tall chair; open sketchbooks piled on the floor beside the balcony windows where the best light could be found; a half-empty bottle of wine sitting open on the hearth beside elegant silver candlesticks. It smelled like her, too, all leather and oil and the plain tallow soap she liked best.

Hal took her through the small arched door, down two shallow steps into the bedroom. “Hotspur,” she said, almost like a warning, and then whirled around. She kissed Hotspur hotly, and began tearing at the buttons of Hotspur’s leather coat.

“Hal!”

The prince reluctantly disengaged, though she brushed her lips to Hotspur’s, and walked backward until her calves touched the short foot of her bed. She fell dramatically back, arms spread, and hit flat onto the puffy mattress hard enough the ropes beneath creaked. “There’s a drink in that flask on the chair,” she said.

Hotspur fetched it and uncorked it to the smell of sharp liquor fumes.

“It’s Ianta’s whiskey, so caution,” Hal said in a laughing tone, her eyes on the whitewashed ceiling.

Being plenty reckless when there was need, Hotspur knocked it back: the shit threatened to burn her eyes out of their sockets.

Gasping hot, pricking air, she sat on the bed and thrust the wooden flask at Hal.

The prince sipped.

“This would strip bloodstain out of leather,” Hotspur hissed.

But Hal’s smile as she tossed the flask aside was incandescent. “Come here,” she said, pawing at Hotspur’s belt.

Hotspur unbuckled her sword and carefully placed it beneath the window, then bent to slowly untie her boots, all while eyeing Hal sprawled on the mattress. Once her boots were kicked off, she rushed two steps and flung herself over Hal’s hips with the ease of a young knight vaulting onto her favorite horse. Hal laughed and bucked under Hotspur, and Hotspur leaned forward eagerly: their mouths met, tingling with liquor, and it wasn’t long before Hotspur was stripped from the tight leather of her vest, loosing her breasts beneath the folds of linen shirt. Hal pushed the shirt up, grasping at Hotspur’s ribs and clawing gently at her back.

All muscle, Hotspur moved easily as she liked, forcing her lover’s hips down into the bed with her own thighs, feeling the strength in Hal’s stomach engage. Hal raised her arms to her sides, then over her head, and opened herself up to whatever Hotspur wanted.

Hotspur wanted everything. Even if only for a little while.

It was a relief, in that moment, for Hotspur to give herself entirely to Hal, unthinking, just feeling and reacting, grasping her blanket, Hal’s hips, Hal’s hands. Hotspur flushed, shivering and ticklish, the slightest touch putting a gasp in her mouth. She bit her lip as Hal bit her ribs, trailing kisses to her hipbone, and biting there, too. This was Hotspur’s favorite: urgent sex, both of them sweaty and naked and eager, but nobody in a hurry. Hotspur put Hal where she wanted her, then gave over control when Hal pulled her hair, and they were sideways on the mattress, full of laughter and wet cries. When Hal slid fingers inside her, Hotspur arched and maneuvered to her knees over Hal, pressing down on Hal’s hand. Hal said her name, again and again, the sound running together until it meant nothing, but was everything to Hotspur.

Hotspur always collapsed when she finished, melting into a contented daze, though she rarely slept. Empty humming songs wandered her mind as she drifted, until she returned to some sweaty awareness. Hal’s head rested on her shoulder, her leg across Hotspur’s, her hand flattened against the curve of ribs under Hotspur’s right breast. She breathed deeply, rather dissolved herself, and Hotspur closed her eyes again. Contentment lifted her high, spreading Hotspur out like a subtle warm wind, a glow of sunlight melting this frosty winter.

Hal whispered, “Nothing matters more than this, Hotspur. As long as I have you, I’ll survive. We’ll get older side by side, in matching armor. I can see us at Annyck, kissing under the shadows of that goblin tree. Two ancient old ladies, arguing probably: you want to take horses out for a race, despite the aching in your joints; I want to have sex, despite my dried-up, wrinkled well.”

Hotspur stroked Hal’s black hair; she did not take the words seriously, only the sentiment, for Hal was engaged to a foreign prince, and this would not last. Nothing lasted in war.

The prince nuzzled her mouth against Hotspur’s collarbone. Hotspur murmured, “All right, my lion.”

Hal pinched her hard. “Don’t even say it.”

“Ouch! Hal, you’re ridiculous. You don’t need earth saints or star priests; you don’t need anybody else to tell you what you are!”

“You really don’t care about it, Wolf of Aremoria? The end? Choosing the end?”

“I know all that matters is my heart, and yours.” Hotspur shoved at Hal in order to put her hand against the prince’s chest. The skin was chilled again already, and Hotspur hugged Hal tighter against her. “I believe you can do this. Yourself. You don’t have to be a lion, just Hal Bolinbroke.”

Hal said nothing, and they fell into quiet. How wonderful it would be, Hotspur thought suddenly, to go home to Annyck, like Hal said. To bring this woman, this prince home to her mother and father, to her people, and introduce her like a husband. The Wolf of Aremoria married to the Lion Prince, raising royal babies together. Then they would not need a foreign prince for security. The thought was so large, and so useless, Hotspur said, “I would make you Hal Persy, if I could.”

“Oh, worms.” Hal laughed awkwardly.

Some catch in her voice opened Hotspur’s eyes just in time to see a tear spilling down Hal’s cheek.

Both shocked and affectionate, Hotspur kissed the tears away, nibbling with her lips, and flicked her tongue out to delicately fan Hal’s long eyelashes. Hal kissed her mouth deeply, clinging to Hotspur’s head.

Finally Hotspur pulled back. “It would be so much easier if one of us were a man.”

Hal groaned and flopped onto the bed. “No, that wouldn’t work.”

“Oh?”

“If you were a man, I wouldn’t desire you—where would be your mysterious depths, these the only soft pieces of you?” Here Hal touched a finger to Hotspur’s bottom lip, then to the tip of her nipple, then danced those fingers lower along Hotspur’s belly to the start of her riot of dark orange nether hair. Hotspur wrinkled her nose and gently slapped Hal’s hand away.

“And if you were a man?” Hotspur asked primly.

“Why, I’d waste away for want of being a woman!” Hal put that same dramatic hand to her forehead.

“Can’t you even imagine it? If I were a man my desires would be the same. All for you.” Hotspur glanced her nose against Hal’s nose.

“I can imagine.” Hal grimaced. “It’s just a terrible fantasy to indulge. I am a woman, and anything else displeases me. Why, even if I were a sexless tree, I’d still be a woman.”

Hotspur laughed, entirely free of worry, truly joyful.

Silence gasped between them as Hal stared at her, suddenly still. She whispered, as if afraid to speak aloud.

“Hotspur, you make me feel so alive with rushing blood, with a lightning heat, and awe enough to fill an entire ocean. I want you for my partner. I want it so very badly, and I hate that I don’t know how to tell a powerful enough story to make you my king.”

“Maybe you’ll think of a way,” Hotspur said, not believing it, but neither caring. She slid a hand from Hal’s knee, along her strong thigh, to her hip, and Hotspur knew she could live in this moment for the rest of her life.

BANNA MORA
The March, spring

BANNA MORA OF the March and Aremoria faced the massive bear of a man that was Owyn Glennadoer; sweat and blood slicked the grip of her sword, her throat was raw, and she limped from a bone-deep bruise down her left hip and thigh, received hitting the ground when she was unhorsed.

Glennadoer’s armor was a terrifying patchwork of blackened steel and spiked leather, edged in tattered fur. His helmet had been covered over with black fur, and a necklace of bear teeth smiled across his broad chest. Blood striped his beard, and his sword was so gore splattered Mora wouldn’t have been surprised to hear Glennadoer had driven his blade down the gullet of a bear and torn the beast in two.

She clenched tighter to the simple buckler she’d swiped from the muddy battlefield, and evened her breathing as best she was able. Calm and speed were her only allies against Glennadoer: he was larger and so much stronger than Mora. Behind her, an army of the March—her army—struggled to live, yelling, growling, moaning their final efforts against this brutal force the Earl Glennadoer had led across the channel from Innis Lear. Her people were overwhelmed, losing, and there was nothing Mora could do except fight. There would be no retreat—Glennadoer had them surrounded to the south and east, Burgun held the north, and the ocean itself provided boundary in the west.

Baring her teeth, Banna Mora screamed and again attacked the monster before her.

He cut suddenly left, bending and sliding his shield under her strike; his entire colossal body shifted aside from her. Mora dashed back, then whirled with all her might to attack his flank. Glennadoer laughed once, parried with his sword, and sliced at her. She dodged and swung with her buckler. It clashed hard against his shield; they shoved apart. Glennadoer struck, and Mora blocked, then cut in immediately despite the tear of pain burning down her side. She nearly caught him, but he smashed his shield against the flat of her sword and lifted a heavy foot to shove her back. Mora skidded, tripped, and fell hard.

Gasping, she turned over and pushed up despite the numbness tingling from elbow to fingers. She’d dropped her sword. As she managed a crouch, she punched up with her buckler. It connected with his helm in a clash that rang out above her grunt of pain.

Owyn Glennadoer laughed again.

The sound boomed against her and fury flared hot in her heart. Mora charged, bent over, bracing her buckler with both fists and all her strength behind it, and she collided with his gut.

She knocked him back, slammed up with the buckler, hit his chin. Dropping it at his cry, she locked her arms around his waist and flung herself to the side.

They both went down, and Mora twisted just enough to land on top. But there was no breath in her body, her vision blurred in black-and-silver spots.

Glennadoer rolled and got his gloved fingers around her throat. “Yield, you beast,” he growled. “Before I have to hurt you.”

Choking, she snarled. Blood coated her teeth. Flailing, she punched at him. Glennadoer lifted her head and knocked it into the mud.

Pain blackened her mind as she passed out for a moment, coming to almost immediately. But Glennadoer had gotten to his knees. A dagger glinted in the milky sunlight, and he touched it to her throat where his hand had been before. “You are mine, Banna Mora. Say it, or I’ll bleed you out, here and now.”

Mora turned her head to spit and the ground bucked under her like a stormy sea; nausea crawled up her chest.

“Ah, fuck.” Glennadoer tilted her onto her side and yelled in Learish for a healer, then he called out, “Banna Mora is the prisoner of Owyn Glennadoer. Lear has taken the field.”

The words pounded through her skeleton and hot tears burned the corners of her eyes. She closed them, swallowing back thin vomit.

The call spread and she panted shallowly, trying not to allow her breath to touch her stomach. Aches pulsed throughout her body and she was glad to lie still, despite defeat. A healer arrived and put water to her lips, asked about her injuries. She answered, aware Glennadoer remained at her side, speaking with captains of his own, giving orders to take prisoners, but only important ones and those who could be moved quickly across the channel. They’d sail before dawn, when the tide was in their favor.

Mora understood she’d be on one of those boats.

These Learish bastards! They’d come across the channel to claim the March as part of Innis Lear in the name of Banna Mora’s own dead father, as if she did not hold it in his name! And she couldn’t stop them. But they’d never keep it, Glennadoer knew that—not against the full might of Aremoria. They had no true claim—it was hers—and to sail here, fight, and now relinquish their win was further madness. The Glennadoers were monsters, throwing lives away for—for fun! They must’ve grown ferociously bored over the winter on their cold island.

When the word came to bind her, she gripped the healer’s arm and said, “Put me on my feet.”

The man protested, but she sneered at him and called, “Glennadoer. Take me on my feet if you would have a royal prisoner.”

Glennadoer grunted and stared down at her with light brown eyes. His helm was gone, all his wild brown hair pressed down with sweat and blood in the same shape. He said, beard moving stiffly, “Very well, princess.”

And he hauled her to her feet.

She threw up immediately.

The healer cursed, complaining with very familiar language to the Earl Glennadoer.

Mora’s throat burned, her vision wavered, but she kept her feet under her. Chin up, she allowed the healer to clean her face and strip away her gauntlets so she might be shackled.

It gutted her pride to stand there and allow a soldier in faded Learish blue to bind her. They did not remove her armor, and she’d lost her weapons in the battle.

“Your forces fought well,” Glennadoer said, looming just behind her left shoulder. They stared out over the slope of the field, at the fallen bodies and red mud, the lines of prisoners and the movement of Learish soldiers and healers. It was mostly a blur to Mora, who needed to lie down again but would not give in.

“Not well enough,” she responded after a long pause.

Glennadoer laughed. “You thought we had half the number we do.”

Mora gritted her teeth, sending a fresh ache around her skull.

“My son obscured them from your scouts,” Glennadoer said.

“Not very honorable.”

The earl laughed the same vibrant, booming laugh. It made Mora’s stomach turn over again from the pounding in her brain. “Honor rarely survives battle,” he said.

Mora had heard such sentiment before, and to hear it mirrored by the shape-shifting Glennadoer made her—almost—like him, just the slightest bit.

A horse approached, and she felt the earl turn to it. Mora did, too, but slowly, breathing in her shallow, painful way. But when she saw the rider, nausea and pain faded as if washed off by a great fall of light and clear water.

Perched atop a blood-spattered white horse was the most stunning man she’d ever seen. His carriage was straight and slender, despite the bulk of shimmering chain mail and the star-shaped chest plate glowing at his breast. Pale of skin and shaved clean, his jaw was sharp and square, his eyes a glass-brown and gray like polished tiger iron, and thick braids fell around his shoulders like white-gold ropes. A blue leather coat hugged his shoulders, dotted with steel studs in clusters and patterns like stars in the sky.

“Father,” he said in Learish.

Mora’s lips parted, and the sour battlefield air rushed down her throat as pain slammed into her again. It throbbed with her pulse. She would fall to her knees if she did not sit soon, and curse her spirit to the darkest saint’s grave if she knelt before this particular man.

Glennadoer’s son was Rowan Lear, prince and heir to the island crown.

“I’ve caught Banna Mora for your hostage,” Glennadoer said, voice full of humor.

Rowan dismounted and strode toward them, eyes on Mora. She blinked and struggled to maintain focus. He was a hand taller than her, but stopped far enough back she could hold his tiger-iron gaze.

“Banna Mora,” he said, voice surprisingly soft.

“Rowan,” she replied, more harshly. She’d not seen him since they both were fifteen, nearly a decade ago. The prince of Innis Lear had traveled to Lionis where King Rovassos had named Mora his heir in an elaborate ceremony and week-long celebration. He’d been weedier then, not grown into his dramatic features, and coolly unfocused, as if seeing a world beyond Aremoria. She’d been distracted by the weight of the Heir’s Score at her hip.

It took all of Mora’s willpower, in her concussed, battle-weary state, not to put her hand over her chest plate to feel the ring concealed against her breastbone.

“Take her to the cliff and put her in my tent,” Rowan said to someone behind her. “Clean and care for her, and ready her as best you can to leave.”

Mora curled her mouth into a sneer, but Rowan bowed to her, despite the fact that Mora no longer met him in rank.

She said nothing for the roar of blood in her ears, the pounding pain, and her trembling knees. When the healer touched her shoulder, she melted into the stretcher. Mora attempted to ignore the voices in her head telling her to get up, to argue, to keep fighting. There was information she needed, at the very least: How many of her soldiers were dead, how many dying, who captured alongside her? What did Glennadoer intend to do with the March? Her March, now subdued? Celedrix ruled over a messy Aremoria, nearly a year since her rebellion, but she was not so weak that she could not throw Innis Lear off her lands. In fact, an enemy to defeat might bring some of her bitching nobles together.

Banna Mora drifted in a tumbling river of aches and nausea as the stretcher carried her nearly a mile to the bluffs overlooking the sea. Even the thought of opening her eyes roiled her stomach. The March stretched a hundred miles in the north of Aremoria, along the western coast north to Burgun, pushing east toward Perseria: wet lands of river deltas and fertile fields, with the crumbling ruins of a cliff-side temple carved into rock and built up into natural caves. This was said to be the home of that ancient wizard who furiously broke the land apart and created Innis Lear. It had been her father’s, and his before that, and then Mora’s since her parents drowned crossing back to the island. Now it belonged to Owyn Glennadoer. Soon Vindomata of Mercia would retake it, or maybe Hotspur. Mora groggily hoped it would be Hotspur.

The healer and two soldiers helped her off the stretcher when they passed into the thick shade of a tall canvas tent. She did not open her eyes, even as the shackles were removed and she was stripped bare.

When a soldier touched the chain at her neck, she glared at him. Even the dim light stabbed at her brain. “Leave it,” she said, curling her fingers around the thin leather pouch hiding the Blood and the Sea.

They obeyed. The tent was stark, fit for a campaign and lacking the ostentation of Aremore royal tents. A bath was filled and Mora gave over to their ministrations. She was gently bathed and her tender head washed. She was given simple bread and a broth along with very watered wine. Time lost coherence as Mora sank in and out of sleep. But it was sleep, not unconsciousness. The healer spread a salve on her open wounds, binding all, and murmured that the swelling egg at the back of her skull was not too large nor hard.

The fur bedding, intended for the prince of Innis Lear, was warm and comfortable.

Candles were lit, and then she was abandoned to her own devices, unshackled. Mora was no threat in this state. Her body hurt everywhere and, though her stomach had settled, if she moved too quickly knives of pain slashed her brain and she grew faint.

She held the wool jacket they’d given her tightly closed over the loose tunic and long shift they’d dressed her in. Leggings waited on a stool, but Mora didn’t relish the thought of getting back out of them to relieve herself. As it was, she suspected this clothing belonged to Rowan Lear, too. Plain linen for the shift, but the tunic was embroidered with lines of blue hash-marks she knew to be the language of trees.

Mora drank the last of the watered wine from the large mug they’d given her and lay back. She slept immediately, only to be woken by a soft hand on her bare ankle. “Banna Mora.”

Opening her eyes, she winced at the headache—duller now, but there—and the strange fire aura the candles cast in her vision.

The prince crouched beside her in a sleeveless blue tunic and leggings, his glorious white-gold hair loose and falling damply down his chest. Tattoos marked his white biceps: more hash-marks, constellations, and a cuff depicting the nine phases of the moon.

“Rowan,” she croaked.

He held out a mug. “Drink.”

Getting her arms under her to push up and sit took three tries. He did not offer aid, for which she was both grateful and resented. Her arms shook, but she succeeded.

Behind the prince, the tent entrance had been pinned open, and darkness pushed close. “What time?”

“Several hours before dawn. My ship leaves shortly.”

“I need to piss.”

“In a moment.” Rowan offered the mug again.

Scowling, Mora took it and drank. Her need to relieve her bladder was not urgent. This wine was just as watered as before, weak and near tasteless. She sipped slowly, knowing better than to guzzle in her state.

“You aren’t my hostage, Banna Mora,” Rowan said, startling her.

Mora narrowed her eyes and set the mug onto the floor rather hard. “Fuck you.”

A smile pulled his mouth unevenly. “I remember when we were both heirs to magnificent thrones, cousin, and I would not renew our acquaintance with such a power imbalance as hostage and sovereign.”

She scoffed. “Why did you invade Aremoria if not for hostages?”

“My father was bored and wanted to flex his muscles, and the stars and the wind required that I join him.”

“Oh, wormshit, Rowan.”

He said nothing in response, but regarded her steadily. The candle flame caught at the gold in his eyes and turned it to matching fire. Mora remembered Glennadoer had said, My son obscured them from your scouts.

She glanced down. There was magic on Innis Lear. She knew it, remembered it, remembered her young brother who had gossiped with butterflies and trees even when he’d been barely old enough to walk. “You won’t be able to keep the March,” Mora said to the rippling surface of the watered wine.

“I don’t need to keep it.” I have you, his tone added.

Pressing her mouth shut, Mora refused to snap back what a waste of blood this had been if he’d only attacked for some prophecy. Except—he’d been the one to cast the prophecy for Celedrix, the one announced at the tourney. Had he known Mora was considered part of it? What game did Rowan Lear play?

“I want you to go home with me,” he said.

“You have me under your power, no matter what you say about equal titles.”

“No.” He touched her chin, tipping her head up. “Mora, if you will not go with me of your own accord, I’ll leave you here in this tent, with six of your soldiers we’ve captured. Once we’ve gone, you can return to your queen and live whatever life she allows you, whatever life you’ve had since Rovassos died.”

Mora forced her breath shallow again, and slow, and forced herself, too, not to tug her chin free of his touch. Her body tightened into aches as she sat so still. The bed below her tilted and turned as if she were drunk. Her skull throbbed; her left side was near numb with pain. But she would not shift for comfort. “Why would I go with you, only to be subject to the same denigration I face here in Aremoria?”

“Innis Lear would love you, and welcome your presence. Does Aremoria offer the same?”

“Of course,” Mora lied.

Rowan released her, his hand falling to his knee. “You belong on Innis Lear, if for nothing else than to hear the wind again, to drink the rootwater. To visit your brother and great-grandmother before she dies. To meet your cousins again, none of whom have seen you since you were a child. Your blood is in our island.”

“My blood is in my veins, and I feel its heat whatever land I walk,” she replied viciously.

That brought a smile again to Rowan’s mouth. “We leave shortly. If you will go with me, you need to choose in the next few moments. I’ll go, and send in a retainer to hear your answer. I hope you pull on boots and come. I promise to show you everything Innis Lear holds, of strength and passion and magic.”

With that, Rowan Lear stood. His hair brushed his tunic with a whisper, and he was gone.

Grimacing at the pain, Mora fell back, giving in to a moment of abject suffering. Tears leaked from her eyes and she moaned softly.

It twisted her heart to think of leaving Aremoria: it was hers. Her country, her destiny, hers. Or it had been. She slapped her hand against her breast; the lump of leather hiding the Blood and the Sea filled her palm.

Would Celeda even ransom her if Mora were taken hostage by Glennadoer and his royal son? Or just leave Mora to languish on Innis Lear, pretending the loss was a tragedy but eager for the excuse to be rid of a troublesome potential challenger to the throne?

She knew the answer.

Anger, hurt, and an old yearning she could barely name choked Banna Mora; when the retainer ducked inside for her intentions, the lady of the March demanded her boots and the return of her armor. She would not set foot on Innis Lear a half-dressed invalid.

No—only as a lost heir coming home.

PRINCE HAL
Lionis, spring

HAL BURST INTO her mother’s study. It was a long mirrored room with white and deep gray molding, the narrow vaulted ceiling painted with a tangle of grapevines as if the room were an arboretum. Two tall cages guarded the door, each with seven finches hopping, chirping, fluttering their wings. At the far end, Celeda’s desk sat between unlit braziers and was surrounded by a cluster of men. The queen watched Hal, quill paused in hand, face blank.

Walking the length of the room was a quick ordeal under the eyes of those advisors and her mother’s disapproval.

“Mother,” Hal said. She’d obviously come from the bath, in a hastily donned gown laced unevenly and her thickly braided hair dripping down the back of her neck. There’d not been time to wait when Nova told her the news.

“Leave us,” Celedrix said. She signed whatever she’d been preparing to sign and slid it toward her steward. The rest bowed and departed, but for Abovax, a grizzled soldier in Aremore orange Hal had known since she was a child, who now commanded the palace garrison. He watched with a skeptical look, leaning against the wall behind the queen’s left shoulder.

Hal took a deep breath, tried to be calm, but couldn’t. She complained, “You should have sent for me!”

“Why?”

The cool voice infuriated her, but Hal pressed her mouth shut, seething a moment. Celeda’s lifted eyebrows declared her limited patience, and she folded her hands together atop the shiny lacquer of her fancy desk. The Blood and the Sea was an understated reminder of her power, and Celeda mirrored that restraint in her presentation: she wore a plain dark red robe with a black mantle circling her long neck and spread out over her shoulders, back, and chest. Her hair—as dark as Hal’s, but lately showing some gray in delicate threads—was bound up in a plain but elegant roll. Garnets pinched her earlobes, and a thin line of black had been applied to her lashes.

Hal groaned in frustration. “The March is taken by Innis Lear! Banna Mora is a hostage!”

“Ah, it is good to know what sort of crisis my heir will rouse herself for.”

Such delicate condemnation stole Hal’s breath away.

Celeda gestured to one of the thin chairs tucked against the wall of mirrors. “Have you eaten today?”

“Mother!” Hal stormed close enough to slap her hands on the desk. Abovax frowned at her, but Hal leaned toward her mother. “What are we going to do?”

“Hotspur leaves as soon as her company is ready, to retake the March.”

“I want to go with her.”

“No.”

“I am good at soldiering, Mother, let me do something I’m good at!”

“Your presence in the field is not necessary—I don’t believe Innis Lear intends to retain what they’ve taken, and soldiers under the Wolf of Aremoria will be enough. Vindomata will come from the east with men from Mercia for backup.”

Hal stared, still leaning over the desk. “They don’t intend to keep it, because there’s been no message from Solas Lear? You think they’d have declared war some other way?”

“There has been no war between Lear and Aremoria in generations, and we have been the strongest of allies since Morimaros’s reign. They would not break it now—this is Glennadoer flexing his muscles, or he wanted Mora for some purpose of his own.”

“What purpose?”

Again, Celeda gestured toward a chair. Hal clenched her teeth and went to it, grabbing it by the back. She swung it around to sit backward, recalled she wore a dress, righted the chair, and sat hard. “What purpose?” she asked again.

“Work it out for me.” Celeda’s eyes, a lighter brown than her daughter’s, held evenly upon Hal.

Fine, Hal could break this situation into its parts, if that would prove something to her mother. She said, “It … depends. If Glennadoer acted on his own he might want Mora for alliance, or he might be doing it against Solas, not against us. But he’s married to her sister—his son is the heir to their crown. It doesn’t make sense he’s causing her problems.”

“A father might wish his son, who is heir to a crown, to marry well.”

Hal’s eyes bulged. “You’ve got to be joking. But then why wouldn’t they offer for her? With a messenger or a letter? Besides, it’s not a good match. She’s already Learish, it would be like marrying anyone from his island. She’s not a prince anymore, and is … in an awkward position with the Aremore throne. If Rowan Lear and Banna Mora married it would be condemning of … well, of you.”

“Especially when I have more than one eligible daughter of my own,” Celeda said in a way that should have been amused but certainly was not.

“You don’t think it’s for marriage then?”

Celeda shrugged one shoulder. “If it is, I think it has little to do with alliance or lack thereof with Aremoria. Innis Lear is the sort of place more concerned with their own power and bloodlines than those outside its borders.”

“And Mora’s bloodline is …” Hal crossed her arms around her stomach.

“Better than ours,” her mother said, and this time she was darkly amused. “Thanks to the recklessness of Morimaros the Great.”

The prince, wise for once, chose not to disagree. Hal licked her lips, thinking. “Then maybe this is a game, or a test? A reminder of their strength after the rebellion. Their challenge to a new queen?”

Celeda smiled grimly. “That, my daughter, is exactly the sort of behavior to expect from a queen of Innis Lear. Especially after that performance at my tournament last summer.”

“How will you answer then? If they’ve taken Mora hostage, how will you respond? Pay ransom, or send a force to steal her back?”

“It will be some days before a ransom could be begged.”

“But you already know what you will do.”

“How I act depends on many things, Calepia. How swiftly Hotspur retakes the March. The phrasing of the ransom request. If they even make such a request. It is possible Mora is less a hostage and more a willing Errigal lady returning to her family.”

“You have to sue for her return, Mother—show her you want her back. She’ll come home.”

Celeda remained silent.

“Don’t you want her home?” Hal paused to regain her ground. “Banna Mora chose us, this place, over Lear. She gave everything of herself to Aremoria.”

“And we took it away from her.”

“She’s not your enemy,” Hal said, absolutely certain.

“She is perceived to be so, by many. And constantly rumors rise and fall about her loyalties, about what she would do if given a chance to retake the throne. Perhaps it is better for her to be on Innis Lear.”

“No!” Hal stood. “It makes you look weak to fear her like that.”

“It made me look weak to allow her to attend my court, to keep the March.”

“That was the right thing to do. She is not Rovassos, and you are not Rovassos, swayed by temper! Mora is a good woman, a strong knight, and she was a brilliant heir. You look stronger to have her as an ally.”

Again, Celeda remained quiet, unblinking.

Hal glanced almost desperately toward Abovax. The commander grunted. He said, “When Banna Mora is here, you reflect poorly, Prince.”

“I …” Hal gaped at her mother. She could think of no response.

“The true heart of the matter, daughter, is that I do not know if Banna Mora is my ally.”

“Treating her like no friend at all will certainly make her an enemy. You must show her loyalty if you would have hers.”

Celeda shook her head. “You are naive. Queens do not perform loyalty, it is owed to them. And either a queen has it, or she does not. Do you recall Rovassos performing friendship, loyalty? With his charm and favors? Those things came into conflict frequently and he had no core integrity. He did not know how to trust anyone. That is what lost him his head. I do know how to trust, but I am careful with that trust.”

“I trust her,” Hal said softly. She went around the desk and to her knees beside her surprised mother. The queen turned slightly in her chair, hands falling to her lap. Hal said, “I trust Banna Mora, Mother. Your Majesty. Do you … trust me?”

Celeda’s lips trembled slightly, her hesitation telling Hal the answer. “I want to,” Celeda replied, just as softly. “I love you.”

Hal lowered from her knees to slump back on her heels, head bowed.

“Why are you giving in to the characterization of the lion of the Innis Lear prophecy?” Celeda asked.

Her head snapped up. “What?”

Celeda did not move; her eyes looked through Hal, toward some future or chance invisible to her daughter. “Breaking, daughter. You have been dubbed the lion, and instead of it making you bright and brave, you act as though you are breaking, just like in the prophecy. Giving credence to the entire thing.”

“You don’t … it’s a … you don’t believe in destiny or that we need the approval of spirits and stars.”

“Oh, but we need the approval of Aremoria, Calepia Bolinbroke. Aremoria is its people, and sometimes its people consider spirits and superstition! How do you think we shed old religions? How have the kings of Aremoria made themselves into the ultimate authority?”

“Stories,” Hal whispered.

“Extremely good stories. I’d have said legends, for when you say stories it sounds like a children’s pastime, and this is no game.”

“I know that!” the prince climbed to her feet, awkward in her anger as she looked down at her royal mother.

Do you? the queen’s eyes wondered.

Hal said, licking her lips, “I know it matters, Mother—less the prophecy itself and more what people believe it means.”

“It means what you, or what I, or what the Aremore people say it means!” Celedrix rarely lost her temper, and the snap was quiet, but plucked like a tense thread of anger. “And you have said nothing about this prophecy! You neither embraced it, nor denied it, nor made it a great joke! You should have found a way to make it your tool rather than ignore it, and if you cannot see that, you have learned nothing this year.”

Hal swallowed. “I thought confronting it would give it more power.”

“Perhaps, but it would be power under your control. Not under Banna Mora’s, or any ally she makes on Innis Lear.”

“Mora won’t use it against us. She won’t act against us.”

The queen sighed. “Everyone changes. Over time, and through trauma. You must see how allowing this prophecy to ring throughout Aremoria uncontrolled is a terrible plan. Find a way to use it, Calepia. If you already had, perhaps Mora would still be at our sides. Why can’t you be better at this?”

Her mother’s disappointment was like tiny, icy knives. “I didn’t have a mother to teach me to be better,” Hal said. “I had Banna Mora, and Lady Ianta. I am the one who was here.”

“I know.”

This time, Celeda’s voice was tender. There was sorrow in the queen’s eyes, and she held out her hand. Hal took it. Celeda’s skin was cool and dry, paler than Hal’s, the curve of her neck elegant, and Hal felt ungainly, calloused and strange.

Hal knelt again, and touched her cheek to her mother’s knuckles.

“Learn from me, Hal,” Celeda said. The nickname was a breath of relief, though still strange on her mother’s tongue. “I know you can do this. You are my daughter, and you have survived much. You can rise above your past, and your struggles. This incursion from Innis Lear is a call to any of our enemies who would take advantage of a weakened Aremoria. And we are weakened, Hal, because of my rebellion. Because I took a crown instead of inheriting it. Though I am a better king than Rovassos, my line is not secure—and won’t be until you are married and bear a child or two—”

“Saints, Mother.” Hal made fists against her lap.

“Echarmet cannot be here until next year because he serves in the Mother of All Mothers’ army, as their princes are expected to serve. But he will help you, and I know him well. You will be friends, if you can be open to such. Make it to your marriage, Hal, and all will be well. It will not matter what Banna Mora does; we will have the strength of the Third Kingdom behind Aremoria, and the promise of a stable succession.”

If she was trying to comfort Hal, her mother’s words played to the opposite effect. How could a country be stable if its leader was heartbroken? And surely she would be so if forced to give herself to this prince. Hal already belonged to Hotspur.

She thought of the prophecy, and wondered if she could use it, but not exactly as her mother said.

“If …” Hal did not move from her supplication. “If I can make myself into a better version of the lion prince, and prove the Wolf of Aremoria is mine—that she will choose the end for me—would that be enough?”

Celeda turned her hand to cup Hal’s cheek. “Perhaps.”

Hal shivered, a seed of doubt in herself planting deep, even as she thought this was a chance to carve space for herself and Hotspur, just as Ianta had tried to do, in the halls of power. “Thank you.”

“You may go,” the queen said gently.

THE OUTER YARD of the palace garrison teemed with soldiers, attendants, and horses as Hotspur readied her troops. Hal moved through easily, mostly ignored since she wore none of her armor nor signals of status. She’d straightened her gown, at least, before coming out here, but hadn’t allowed herself time to get her sword or have anything fancy woven into her braid. She had her Bolinbroke ring, and the ring inherited from her father; nothing else.

She spied Hotspur standing with Sennos atop a wagon already half loaded with canvas and pegs and rope for setting camp. Hal made her way nearer, stopping ten paces out to yell, “Lady Hotspur!” in a clear voice that rang out over the clatter and harried conversation.

Hotspur’s head lifted from her consultation with Sennos, and she smiled. “Prince Hal!”

Hal held out her hand as she walked to the wagon. “Come down for a proper farewell.”

The Wolf of Aremoria hopped down on her own, landing smoothly. She straightened and took Hal’s hand, bowing over it as she ought to her prince.

But Hal pulled her close without warning, and kissed her. Hal took Hotspur’s face in her hands and held her firmly as Hotspur stiffened in surprise. The kiss was tender, though, and thorough. There could be no mistaking it.

When she let them part, it was only a breath, and Hal murmured, “I wish I was going with you.”

“Hal,” Hotspur said hotly, “all my soldiers are watching!”

Hurriedly, Hal whispered, “If I were a man, as you said before, wouldn’t they cheer? Wouldn’t they thrill at the prince’s favor? Speculate on our connection, on the alliance apparent between Perseria and Bolinbroke? Your nearness to the crown? So make them cheer, Hotspur! You are beloved of their prince.”

Hotspur’s hands, which had settled tensely against Hal’s hips, clenched tight. The knight leaned away just enough to meet Hal’s gaze: there was fear, speculation, wonder in Hotspur’s wildflower blue eyes. For a moment, she did nothing, and all around them the soldiers waited, just as tense as her hands had been.

Then Hotspur kissed Hal laughingly, wrapped her arms around the prince’s loosely bound waist, and dragged her close. Hotspur hugged her, kissed her, and smiled all the while. When she pushed away, it was with a gasp, and Hal was breathless, too.

The Wolf of Aremoria spread her arms, one hand clasping Hal’s. “I can’t lose with a send-off like that,” she declared. It was not quite a yell, but others heard. And Hotspur bowed again over Hal’s hand, still with their gazes locked. “My prince,” she said.

“Go with all the blessings of Aremoria,” Hal said, sweeping her attention from Hotspur to everyone. “Take back the March in my name, and Banna Mora’s name, under the crown! Then come home to me, triumphant.”

“So it shall be done,” Hotspur promised, still merry. She threw her fist into the air. “For Aremoria!”

And the garrison exploded in answering cheers.

BANNA MORA
Innis Lear, spring

ROWAN LEAR SANG to Mora the entire journey across the sea to Innis Lear.

She curled up on those same furs and blankets from his campaign tent. The Learish barge was cramped, for it had been built to carry trade goods and sailors, not a royal army. Mora’s injuries kept her supine, fighting the roll of waves beneath the ship, unable to fall asleep, but too worn and sick for waking.

And so the prince of Lear sang. At first, sitting with his back to the wall, he chose faster songs from Aremoria, with ridiculous rhymes and subjects far too raunchy for royal lips. As his energy waned, he murmured old folk songs with the sort of looping refrains best suited to harvest work and prayer. Sometimes he tossed in a song in Learish, with whispered wind-words, that Mora understood to be more spell than prayer, and those soothed her, though she’d never admit it. Finally, Rowan drifted into lullabies and gentle love songs, his voice soft and low, filling Mora’s ears with light.

They made port in the late afternoon and Owyn Glennadoer rode out with half the force he’d taken to the March toward the Summer Seat, where the queen resided this time of year, and where her sister—Glennadoer’s wife—lived, too. Rowan led the rest overland to Queen’s Keep and Mora was settled in a large room where she slept nearly an entire night and day upon the soft bed.

Queen’s Keep had been the seat of the Earls Errigal a hundred years ago, until Elia the Dreamer made those earls into dukes, shifting their seat north to the once-Connley lands. Mora’s own family were Errigals, though her line flowed from Sin Errigal’s second husband, making Mora very removed from the ducal chain but closer to the throne of Lear itself—Sin’s second husband had been a grandchild of Elia.

Mora barely remembered the Keep, having visited rarely. Connley Castle had been her home then, or the Summer Seat or Dondubhan if they were following the queen. Still early in her recovery, Mora hardly left the rooms assigned her, resting at first in the massive wooden bed, then graduating to the heavy chairs beside the hearth. Her meals were brought to her, and she bathed every day. Tight braiding was out of the question so long as her skull and scalp remained tender, and thus she allowed her stiff curls free to flare out. But one woman—Trin, a sturdy milk-skinned brunette whose family had long served the Keep—was brilliant with ribbons and managed to softly wind them into the front of Mora’s hair so the dazzle of curls was held out of her face.

As her bruises healed and her hip strengthened, as the knot on her head lessened and her nausea reduced, Mora luxuriated in the attention the women gave her skin and hair in the form of spicy-smelling oil, silk, and the finest linen. Trin brought piles and piles of dresses, skirts, over-gowns, aprons, shifts, and jewelry out from storage. Mora would be back in leather and trousers and heavy boots soon enough, so enjoyed the silk slippers and layered gowns while she could.

Mora began to explore the Keep, from the spindly lookout tower to the thick black stone wall that cupped its base. Built into the craggy rocks of this small, lone mountain on Innis Lear’s southeastern foot, the Keep was a marriage of ancient black rocks and pristine limewashed walls, hung with not only the midnight blue banners of Lear, but iron stars and silver sunburst pennants. The air outside smelled of smoke and the tang of iron thanks to the rows of chimneys lined along the slope of the mountain where iron wizards smelted and hammered and crafted the finest, strongest weapons the world had ever seen.

The first night that Mora joined Rowan Lear and Barra Ironwizard—the royal guardian of Queen’s Keep—in the great hall for dinner, a week after the defeat of the March, she learned just how informally they held themselves at the Keep. The iron wizard clearly did no more to dress for dinner than throw off her leather apron from her day at the forge and push her hair off her face with ashy hands, leaving gray streaks behind on her ruddy forehead. Rowan wore a dark sleeveless tunic that fell to his thighs and plain leggings, good boots, and nothing else but bands of iron and copper circling his arms. His hair was pulled half back, with no decorative ribbons or charms. It was very attractive—for a farmer. If Mora hadn’t known him to be a prince, how might she have been able to tell him from the rest of the crowd? Seated at the long tables were retainers in dark blue, women she recognized as attendants and minor ladies, a star priest from the nearby town of Steps, the army healer, children, wives, husbands, and anyone not currently helping to bring food from the kitchen. It was a wild mess of people and dogs. Laughter lifted up to the dark wood rafters like smoke. Small boys dashed past her, and Rowan fed a hairy dog from his own hand.

Though initially frozen with distaste, Mora gazed out and remembered similar scenes from her youth. This was exactly the sort of casual meal her parents had once shared at Connley Castle with the duke of Errigal and their spiraling, sprawling families. Cousins everywhere, fighting over who would be served first, folk clearing their own trenchers and sending the youngest cousins to the kitchen for more bread. Taking beer with them for the cook.

Rowan saw Mora standing at the threshold and lifted a hand to beckon her.

She moved, slowly, attention focused on Rowan. Let the horde of Learish folk gape at her, at her regal bearing and the scarlet swoop of gown that dragged through the fresh lavender rushes. They were used to Third Kingdom blood on this island, darkening several family lines, but Banna Mora had been heir to the throne of Aremoria.

The iron wizard called for another chair and moved hers over. “You look entirely recovered,” Barra Ironwizard said, offering a cup of wine. “I hope you don’t mind my saying so.”

The prince cut a slice of juicy mutton from the platter before him and gave it to Mora, glancing at her with a half-smile. He said, “Her gaze is tight and there’s a wan cast to her cheeks still; when she is healthy again, she’ll bowl you over with the power of her beauty.”

Barra saluted with her own wine while Mora narrowed her eyes at Rowan. “And you would know that how? You’ve not seen my beauty since I was fifteen.”

“Faith, Banna Mora.” He proceeded to cut the meat into bites for her, which she only allowed for knowing it was considered a compliment and marker of status on Innis Lear.

Once she’d had her first taste, Mora said to Barra, “I would like to see your work, when I am ready to venture into the forges.”

“My honor, princess,” the iron wizard said, a flush in her cheeks likely due to wine more than emotion. Barra was a good twenty years Mora’s elder, unless the depth of her wrinkles was due more to iron dust than age. Humor shone in her bright brown eyes. “If any of the iron speaks to you, perhaps the prince will commission a sword to your name.”

“There already exists a blade of Errigal steel under my name,” she replied with the calm of old anger.

“Oh? I should love to commune with it.”

Rowan said, “The Heir’s Score, Barra. And it is not here.”

“Ah, apologies, Lady March,” Barra said quickly. “Naturally you speak of the sword you’re owed.”

Mora nodded, and chewed another piece of meat despite the slow creeping throb beginning at the base of her skull.

The next morning, Rowan Lear turned up at Mora’s chambers, politely requesting audience through her attendant Trin.

They met beside the stone hearth in her room, its fire roaring. Mora wore a long, heavy gown of dark purple and a shawl draping her shoulders, for though it was late spring on Innis Lear, the sea wind chilled her. But she liked the heavy shutters open so she could look out at the steely sky. Rowan held casual in his sleeveless tunic. He was a Glennadoer, after all; his father’s people had scraped and suffered for centuries high on the worst frozen peaks of the island’s north shore. This chill would be nothing to him.

Mora asked, “Have you histories of the Glennadoers? I would like to read such a thing.”

“You’ll have to ask me what information you would have,” Rowan said. “Glennadoers are deeply invested in history, but not in such civilized pursuits as writing those histories down.”

“Perhaps you ought to begin.”

Rowan sat back in a chair, hands relaxed on the carved arms, knees spread; he was fully in possession of himself and his space. “Perhaps I ought.”

In response, Mora held herself stiffly as she sat across from him. She did not offer him a drink, though Trin hovered by the arched doorway. “Does it bother you that you’re not as huge as your father? He’s intimidating even when he sleeps.”

“Have you seen him sleep? He snores like a bear.”

She smiled slightly. “What do you want?”

“I’ve heard from the Summer Seat: a rider arrived late last night. My aunt welcomes you home, Banna Mora, and offers to place a title around your shoulders, as you are your mother’s heir.”

“I thought such things passed to Connley when I accepted Rovassos’s entitlement.”

“Your brother divested himself of worldly titles three years ago.”

Mora frowned. She’d not heard. But again, she’d not—of late—sought any information, either. “How does he live?”

Rowan glanced out the north window, a distant smile softening his handsome features. It was fondness, Mora guessed, and felt an entirely uncalled-for twinge of jealousy. “Conn is caretaker to the old star cathedral in the heart of the White Forest. He lives on whatever he likes.” The last was said with a hint of amusement Mora did not quite understand.

Irritable, she said, “So like a hermit.”

“Some call him the Witch of the White Forest, which is a title in and of itself, though none any queen or king may bestow.”

The memory of butterflies invaded her thoughts: pale pink and yellow, like tiny floating blossoms; elaborately striped orange wings batting at dark hair; luminescent blue scales smeared down a dusky cheek. “I want no titles from Solas Lear, either. Not now.”

Rowan frowned. He leaned forward, one hand out as if he might touch hers. Wisely he refrained. “The wind expects you to take a title, as do the stars.”

“Do you do everything the stars tell you?” Mora asked, not bothering to hide the edge of sarcasm.

“For twenty-four years it has served me well.” This time he did touch her, but only a gentle brush of finger on knuckle. “Will you walk with me, on the ramparts?”

She agreed.

The wind scoured southerly, leaping over the low mountain to swarm the Keep and slip, slide, rush with the noise of river rapids down toward the marsh and the town of Steps. It grabbed her curls and tugged, slapped the hem of her gown against her ankles. Instinctively, Mora grasped tighter at Rowan’s wrist beneath her hand—a formal gesture he’d offered as they slowly climbed the stone stairs to the wall. Rowan opened his mouth, but whatever sound he made, laugh or gasp, was dragged away.

Mora sighed hard, just to hear her own breath compete with the gale. Her eyes watered under the onslaught and she released Rowan, turning her back to the north to let the wind cascade around her shoulders. It drew her gaze south to the dark green of the marsh, the thatched cottages in town that gleamed golden. Ragged moorland grass bent in the wind, as did the small, spindly trees. The horizon was too hazy to make out the distant ocean.

Rowan touched Mora’s shoulder. The prince stepped to the thick, black crenellations and reached into the empty air. His long hair pulled in all directions. This time when his mouth moved, Mora heard his words hissing and harsh in the language of trees. He suddenly fisted his hand as if he could grasp the wind and jerked his arm down.

The wind stumbled and died.

In the sudden silence, the world itself felt hollow.

Rowan Lear smiled proudly at Mora’s shock. He whispered something else, and a breeze danced around him, flicking the tips of his white-gold hair. It brushed her cheek like a cool kiss.

Mora stepped back. Rowan’s smile softened. “This is better for conversation.”

“You planned it—you knew how strong the wind was today.”

He stepped toward her. She touched the crenellation at her hip, holding on to it. Rowan said, confessing, “I wanted to impress you.”

Mora replied coolly, “Think you to be the first man to try it?”

The prince held her gaze. “Perhaps I would rather be the last.”

Her lips parted as awareness struck her: of her own body, the way the copper belt pressed against her hips and the brush of linen over her unbound breasts, the tickling breeze at the nape of her neck.

“Someone’s coming from Errigal,” Rowan murmured, startling her. She’d expected further flirtation. With his chin, he gestured over her right shoulder. Mora turned. Along the north road, around the edge of the mountain to the east, came a small party of riders in armor and a wagon painted blue as the sky.

“Grandmother,” Mora whispered.

She wished the wind were wild again to steal away her dread.

THREE CREATURES WATCHED from a hill crowned by mossy ruins as Isarna Persy led her army into the March. They stood, tall and thin as moonlight, between visible and not, waiting, wondering what their near-made wizard would do.

One, the youngest, blinked cornflower eyes and spoke in a voice like the flutter of sparrow’s wings, Why struggle for this? Why not fade as perhaps we are meant to? Everything dies.

The eldest answered, hissing in the way of wind through lightning-charred branches, You remember death, or so you believe, but that was a death of transformation. For us now, it would be complete nothingness. Loss of entire existence and memory. Who would not fight against such an inevitability? They can save us. She can save us.

You want us to trade her life for power.

Oh no, we want them to do it.

HOTSPUR
The March, spring

THE BREEZE, SCENTED with lavender and apple blossoms, ruffled the long grasses of the valley, touching every soldier with a kiss or tease; the Red Castle pennant snapped once, twice, and wisps of Hotspur’s hair danced, untamed by braids.

Hotspur thought she heard—but no, she shook wild thoughts away and glanced up at the crumbling shadow of whatever keep or tower had guarded Liresfane field hundreds of years ago.

A bird swept off the ruin, cried out, and glided across the tops of spring-green canopy lining the southern fall of the hill. Hotspur saw nothing else, but she shivered. Something had been there, she was certain.

“Hotspur?” Sennos said.

She shook her head. “I think it will be clear tomorrow; those clouds will not give us rain.”

THE NEXT DAY, under a bright sun indeed, Lady Hotspur routed the remnants of Glennadoer’s army from the March. Her force did not even require aid from Vindomata’s Mercian troops, and clearly the Learish men had not been ordered to hold anything. Most were gone, having left only a symbolic company so it appeared they had taken control of the territory. They didn’t even enter Marchtown or attempt to breach the castle seat.

All in all, Hotspur was cranky, but the six-day ride to achieve this had been beautiful, and here was an easy triumph to take back to Lionis and the queen, and certainly it indicated that Banna Mora would not be harmed or held hostage. They’d return her for some equally symbolic ransom, or with gentle politicking.

Vindomata brought Hotspur through the town and up into the castle, where they ate healthily with their first aides and captains, and caught up with what they’d missed of each other’s lives. Hotspur learned her mother Caratica was faring better, well healed after the winter, though still in pain and walking with difficulty. She disliked canes or an arm for support, but would accept them, Vindomata said.

Then she smoothly asked her niece if Celedrix had ordered the assassination of her sons.

Shocked, Hotspur set down her cup of honey wine. It had been well watered, more of a sweetened, tipsy water than real mead. “Aunt, you cannot believe such rumors.”

“Can’t I?”

“Celeda has always been your friend.” Hotspur pressed nearer, to keep her voice hushed. “She had no reason to turn against you or undercut you so. You were allies and she’d only been back days! Who could she have gotten to do it?”

Vindomata, statuesque and as redheaded as her niece, nodded once. But her skin tightened around her eyes and she did not soften the angry pull of her mouth.

Hotspur touched her wrist. “It is an ugly rumor because—because their deaths were so surprising to all. And unlikely. A sudden, unlikely tragedy, Aunt.” Thinking of Hal, she suggested, “People want a story to explain it.”

“Vindus was strong,” Vindomata insisted, slamming her fist on the table.

“Yes.”

“Your uncle is drinking himself to death.”

Hotspur frowned. She knew her uncle less well than she’d have liked, for he was no warrior. “I am sorry for it.”

“I cannot give him more sons to see die. I am too old, and I cannot …” The Duke of Mercia closed her eyes. “Tell me it was worth it, Hotspur. Tell me it was worth my sacrifice to overthrow Rovassos. Is Celedrix a glorious queen? Does she live up to what she promised us? Does my old friend deserve all the blood of my sons?”

Mouth dry, Hotspur could only take her aunt’s hand in both her own. “I …” She swallowed, shook her head. “Celeda is pulling Aremoria together, but deserve? That is not how we can measure war and death, Vindomata. We cannot think like that, and be soldiers still. It is not a fair question.”

“Fair?” Vindomata scoffed lightly, a glint of murder in her eyes.

Hotspur steadied herself and met the gaze. She held her ground and wished Hal were here, to tell Vindomata a magnificent story about her sons.

THAT NIGHT THE Wolf of Aremoria dreamed of the ruins at Liresfane, of walking among the vine-covered and mossy remains. She reached the center, where a pile of black stones rose to waist height. It had been a well once, and in the dream Hotspur could see blood filling it to the brim. The blood soaked through the cracks and crumbling mortar, and instead of fear or revulsion, Hotspur felt the same merry awe she felt when Prince Hal kissed her.

They have stepped upon the same land, now, said a wicked, whispering voice. The one from Aremoria, and the one from Innis Lear.

BANNA MORA
Innis Lear, spring

SIN ERRIGAL WAS the tiniest old woman Banna Mora had ever seen. She was so slight Mora was certain that even in her own weakened state she could lift her grandmother in her arms like a baby.

Not that Sin needed it: the old duke moved stiffly but quick and well, and even if she’d faltered a moment, everyone nearby would’ve leapt to her aid. Nearly all the Keep—retainers, servants, wizards—pressed into the yard to greet her as she and her elderly attendants were helped out of her wagon. Mora was swept along in the crowd, glad to be lost among them, for the chance it afforded her to observe.

It had been fifteen years since Banna Mora had seen her grandmother, and even then Sin had been old. The wrinkles that had already lined her light brown face gouged now, and her dark freckles seemed to have blurred with age. Her lips were so thin as to nearly vanish, and her earlobes drooped and dragged under the weight of several rough iron rings. But those dark eyes still snapped with fire and wit, despite being sunken farther into her skull. Wisps of white hair curled tightly at her temples, free of the wide green-and-gray scarf wound about her head and otherwise hiding her hair. The robe she wore drooped off her bony shoulders like the musty wings of an ancient swan.

Rowan escorted Sin to a chair by the massive hearth in the great hall. A footrest was brought, and more chairs for her Errigal attendants, stools for Rowan and Barra Ironwizard, benches pulled up, and then in a flurry there was wine in a heavy pitcher set in the feet of the fire to warm for Sin herself.

Sin seemed content to be coddled by her prince, who eagerly dragged his stool to her knee and already had engaged her in spirited conversation. But the duke laughed, revealing she lacked many of her teeth, and patted Rowan’s cheek like he was a child. “Where is she?” Sin’s voice rose above the fracas, bright and young sounding.

Mora strode forward.

“Ah,” Sin said, boldly eyeing Mora up and down. “You’re looking like a queen.”

Rowan Lear seemed to release a breath of relief at the words; Mora tensed further.

“I should have been one,” Mora said.

“May still be,” replied her grandmother.

Rowan caught Mora’s gaze. “The stars will tell us,” he said.

Sin added, “The worms, more like, with this one.”

“Ah, Grandmother,” Rowan said, though they were barely related by blood, “together then, though surely the heights to which our Banna Mora reaches are best known by the moon and her stars.”

“Your Banna Mora?” Mora said, lifting one eyebrow.

“Banna Mora of Innis Lear,” he said so simply it would’ve been rude to deny it.

Taken aback, Mora held out her hands, and her grandmother took them. Sin squeezed, displaying strength still in those knobby fingers. “Come to me in the morning,” the duke said. “I’ll have a day with my long-lost granddaughter apart from this madness.”

“Yes, Grandmother,” Mora said.

Sin released her, though it was not quite a dismissal. The old woman nodded at an empty stool. Rowan offered her wine.

It was time for a strategic withdrawal: retreat to consider her position and balance advantages versus disadvantages. Yes. And to calm her racing heart. With a careful smile, Mora admitted her head was aching and perhaps she should lie down.

The narrow look Sin Errigal gave her suggested that her grandmother saw through the lie but chose to allow it.

MORA SPENT THE afternoon fretting, a state of mind she despised. But her usual methods of dealing with such feelings involved swords and war games, which she was still not fit for. So Mora requested parchment and charcoal sticks, and pushed together the three tables in her chambers: the largest meant for taking meals, the elaborately carved side table from the hearth room, and the table that held the ewer of lavender water beside her bed. Though not all the same height, she managed to raise the side table with a folded tunic and one of the romance books.

With that suitable surface, Mora spread out the pale leather, held down the rolling edges with a clay cup and the fire poker. Thus she was able to spend hours sketching out alternate battle plans by which she might have held the March against Glennadoer and his wizard son. It seemed impossible; a refreshing, frustrating challenge.

By the time the sun set, her cheeks were smeared with char and one of the sticks was worn to a nub. The leather was covered in directional arrows and rubbed-out cavalry charges. She couldn’t have won, with circumstances as they’d been. Exhausted and aching, especially in her back and shoulders from hunching over the awkward tables, Mora ate cold meat and apples, then collapsed into bed.

She woke more ready to sit with her grandmother, though once again faced uncertainty. What should she ask first? After the family and her brother, after Sin’s own health—surely she no longer performed the ducal duties, and had passed the chain to one of the sons of her first marriage. A Rory, no doubt, as that had ever been the tradition in the family.

In truth, Mora longed to ask Sin Errigal about one man: Morimaros the Great.

Just thinking of it raised her temperature. Sin had known him, had been married and a mother when he died fifty years ago. They must have met at Dondubhan for the Longest Night, or at the spring naming festival. Sin Errigal would have insight into the prophecy from the tournament, and an opinion about Morimaros’s ghost, surely. As Trin wound her hair into a loose—very loose—infinity knot at her nape, Mora felt a sick satisfaction that Hal was not here to speak with Sin about their shared idol.

Mora asked for lip and eye paint, and Trin hid her surprise and pleasure most neatly. The dress was the same red wool she’d worn yesterday, but the one Mora felt the most confident and handsome in. Gold went in her ears and at her wrists. She briefly considered the Blood and the Sea, but no, that must remain her secret. Mora flattened her hand over it, to feel the hard ring press against her breastbone.

Then she swept out of her chambers, led by a small servant girl to the grand room Sin had claimed.

Shown in as expected, Mora moved through the doorway between the antechamber and the bedchamber with her face a mask of calm and her best royal bearing.

The huge bed had been shoved against the window to clear the floor, and rugs rolled away to bare the smooth black stones. Sin Errigal crouched alongside Rowan Lear, both of them leaning over a spread of sky charts and spiraling star cards like two old crows arguing over a shining ribbon. It seemed neither had changed or slept since yesterday, though surely that wasn’t the case: Sin’s head was bare, and the hints of white curls Mora had noticed yesterday were all the hair she had. Freckles and age spots decorated her brown scalp, and Mora realized lines had been drawn between several of them at her crown as if to mark out a constellation.

Rowan didn’t even notice Mora’s entrance, bent as he was and pointing at a gilded card with a silver worm curling between the branches of a black-and-red tree. “This, though, Grandmother,” he said urgently. His white-gold hair was loose like a cape around his back and shoulders.

“Good morning, Granddaughter,” Sin said, leaning back. Her legs were folded tightly beneath her.

The prince stood in a single, smooth motion. “Banna Mora.”

Mora let herself be shocked by his undressed state, and showed it in her expression: he was barefoot, in trousers and a vest hanging open over his hard, pale chest. Like the constellations marked on Sin’s scalp, Rowan had dots of white paint scattered below his collarbone and down his abdomen. The Salmon constellation dove toward his left hipbone, its nose obscured by the edge of his vest. At his temple, knots had been tied into his hair as if by agitated fingers.

For a moment, neither said a word. Mora breathed through parted lips, staring at him with growing excitement. The moment she noticed, she snapped her mouth shut and shuttered her gaze, replacing any interest or eager surprise with haughty expectation. “You are informal, Rowan Lear,” she said.

“You are repressed, Banna Mora Errigal,” he replied in the same cool tone.

A bolt of outrage held her silent.

Sin grunted and said, “Fool boy, leave us alone.”

Disappointment tinged the smile Rowan gave Mora before he bent to kiss the crown of Sin’s head. “I’ll send you some food, shk maomi.”

“Something hot and soft for my old teeth, and think about what I said.” Sin wagged her first two fingers at him. “The Tree of Ancestors and the Bird of Sacrifice.”

“And you don’t discount the earth saints,” Rowan said over his shoulder to the old duke. He bowed elegantly to Mora and slipped past.

Then she was alone with her grandmother, still crouched on the floor like a tiny bird born of tree roots, surrounded by prophecy and stars.

Mora clenched her teeth and stared. Sin patiently returned the look, blinking sometimes, and tilted her head in contemplation. Finally, Mora sighed, toed off her slippers, and sank to the floor beside her grandmother. The red skirt pooled around her, nudging aside several boldly painted holy cards. Mora folded her hands in her lap and looked expectantly at Sin. “I am glad to have a day with you.” She hesitated, thinking of the endearment Rowan had used. It sounded like the Mother-tongue of the Third Kingdom.

“We were talking about you,” Sin said mischievously.

Mora refused to inquire. She glanced at the spread of cards and messy sky charts, but neither did she wish to ask after holy bones. “What is shk maomi?”

Sin scowled. “It is ‘small mother,’ very informal. You were right about Rowan.”

“Do you speak their language?”

“Some. My father was a son of a second-line family.”

Second-line family was a rough translation of the Third Kingdom way to denote relationship to the empress, Mora knew, and Sin’s second husband—Mora’s grandfather—was the Learish-born son of a Taria Queen daughter-line, a woman who’d married Elia the Dreamer’s first son, Bannos—Mora’s namesake.

It was an ideal opening to inquire about that same Bannos’s father: Morimaros the Great.

Yet Mora found she could not—not with the holy cards staring up at her, bright and colorful in their magical lies. She’d fostered in Aremoria young enough to have lost any faith in the cards or star prophecies. In Aremoria the king was all the religion the people needed. Or ought to need.

Hard to imagine Celeda Bolinbroke anyone’s god.

That’s the problem with a coup, isn’t it? Mora thought viciously. If one murders the consecrated king, one’s own rule can never quite be so hallowed.

“Such anger,” Sin murmured. “Give me your hand.”

Unthinking, Mora obeyed. Her grandmother spread Mora’s left hand open, palm up, and traced a tickling circle, then small hash-marks along her thumb. Mora felt a tremble through her bones and fought to keep from curling her fingers into a fist. It was anger, Sin was precisely correct.

Mora deepened her breath. The Blood and the Sea was a weight around her neck.

“Fire,” Sin said. “You must go north for the Longest Night, Banna Mora.”

“Northern Innis Lear? Glennadoer land.”

Her grandmother nodded, lips pursed, bony old hands cupping Mora’s.

“Why?” The Longest Night was more than six months away.

The old duke said, eyes bright, “There is a dragon in the north. And it is waiting for you.”

PRINCE HAL
Lionis, summer

IN HER ELEMENT, and motivated by passion, Hal Bolinbroke was a glory to behold.

At the center of a crowd, playing her audience like the strings of a harp, the prince made herself into a rare beast indeed: everybody’s friend.

Don’t you hope the prince wins her wager with Lord Aesmaros, a courtier might say, and his companion agree, though neither recalled exactly what the wager was about. It did not matter, for they wanted Hal to win it. And they wanted to be heard to say so.

Did you hear how the Wolf of Aremoria raged on behalf of Banna Mora in the corridor outside Celedrix’s study, and how the prince appeared to tame her with little but a smile and a touch?

I did—except I heard it was no touch, it was a kiss to envy.

When Lady Hotspur appeared at a welcome dinner for the new ambassador from the Third Kingdom wearing a thin silver bracelet with an amethyst exactly the color of the Bolinbroke arms, everyone knew from whom the gift had come.

Rumors drifted up from the city that Prince Hal dropped by a different tavern most nights, drawing a crowd and spreading liberal benevolence in the shape of copper and beer. Some older, more traditional members of the esteemed Aremore nobility disapproved, naturally, but not Hal’s peers, not those sons and daughters of Lionis who benefited from her generosity—both by following her to some such tavern evenings, and by joining her at invitation-only affairs in the palace. Themes for such parties abounded—legends of Aremore past, earth saints, Third Kingdom splendor, Learish goblins—and the cost of admission was naught but a bottle of liquor, a rare book, or an even rarer metaphysical theory. Philosophies were shared, history argued, and Hal herself often read from the diaries of Morimaros the Great, unless a professional poet attended, in which case they had recitations and songs and new compositions in honor of, usually, Lady Hotspur of Perseria, who blushed and fumed and glared affection at the prince.

Some accused Hal of adopting the habits of the Merry King himself, but she would answer such critiques, Ah, you see, I make no promises and bestow no favors. This is not the work of politics, this is the work of cultivating the minds and imaginations of Aremoria. For the future benefit of our people. My friends shall take our arguments and learning to politics, perhaps, or to the country or the royal libraries, better and stronger for having laughed, recited, debated vehemently.

So long as the queen herself did not disapprove, what could anyone do?

Those who attended the private parties and tavern hauntings swore to mothers and fathers, to anyone who asked, that it was only drinking and education, with perhaps the occasional celebratory kiss—nothing untoward. Nothing like the Merry King’s rumored debauchery. Ianta Oldcastle did not attend the palace soirees, though occasionally she was spotted in the prince’s company when Hal ventured into a tavern near the river.

And indeed, at the height of summer, when the queen opened the People’s Courtyard for a festival, the prince’s flock took themselves to the streets and amidst the palace celebration, cheerfully arguing, sharing their songs and high spirits—their liquor, too. They proved to many that the nature of their revelry was righteous, if rambunctious.

It was a magnificent summer—except for the absence of Banna Mora, who remained hostage to Innis Lear.

They had no direct word from her, only a statement from Queen Solas that Banna Mora was her guest, and of course negotiations could be engaged with if the new queen of Aremoria disliked the situation. It was very delicately worded—Hal saw the letter herself—and even she was forced to admit Solas did not want war. Though what she wanted, other than to cause trouble, remained unclear.

“Mora must return home!” Hotspur had yelled at Hal, in the broad back room of the Two-Headed Cat, surrounded by multiple third sons of earls and the daughters of rich merchants. And Lady Ter Melia and Nova Irris watched closely, the latter of whom lately had been raised from former squire in a former band of Lady Knights to sergeant in the palace garrison under Hotspur’s command.

Hal shrugged. “If Mora wanted to return, don’t you think she could see it done?”

“Not if she’s a prisoner!”

“She is a guest—we have to take Solas Lear’s word on that at least.” Hal put her hands on Hotspur’s waist, sliding close enough to murmur in her ear. “And we have to do this carefully.”

“Do what carefully?” Hotspur hissed back in Hal’s.

“Support Mora, without giving in to any demands from Innis Lear.”

“It’s disloyal. If it were you I’d be on that island already, crushing anyone in my path to get to you.”

Hal kissed Hotspur’s open mouth. She wanted to rage for Mora, too, but first she needed to do as her mother had commanded and create a foundation of trust and loyalty here in Aremoria. To the Lion Prince. Hal’s lips slowed; she pressed her forehead to Hotspur’s. “I know you would, I want to do the same, I only …” She could not lie to Hotspur. “I have to be strong here before I can be strong there. Strong enough to reinstate the Lady Knights and petition Mora to come home that way. An honor for both sides. Help me.”

Hotspur nodded, knocking their skulls gently—for Hotspur, gently. It still bruised a tiny bit.

“Talk about her,” Hal said, “but don’t yell about her. Don’t seem angry. Remind people why we trust and love Mora, and why she belongs with us.”

“I’m not good at such things as you are, Hal.”

“You lead your soldiers. It’s the same.”

“I command my soldiers. It’s not the same.” Hotspur pursed her lips and shoved Hal playfully away.

Princess Vatta asked, a few nights later, what it was like to be in love.

Hal’s younger sister was seventeen and beautiful, with smooth black hair and an oval face that was a perfectly cool tan, with pink bow lips and dark eyes tilting up at the outer edges; her dark Ispanian looks came via the old First Kingdom on their grandfather’s side.

The sisters were in the Princes’ Gallery after a small formal banquet recognizing the christening of two new ships in the Aremore navy, the first commissioned by Celedrix since coming into power. Hal had taken the Princes’ Gallery over, very rightly, as her own sort of audience chamber, attached as it was to, but also behind, the queen’s throne room. She’d defeated the palace steward in an epic war over the fate of Banna Mora’s portrait, arguing that every prince whose portrait was displayed had eventually no longer been a prince, just as Mora no longer was a prince; what did it matter that most transformed because they became the king, whereas Mora’s transformation had been a bit more brutal? It was a two-week war: Hal only won by presenting herself for her own portrait with no jokes nor distraction, and allowing that Mora’s be moved to one of the less brightly lit walls.

Hal did not know her little sister Vatta well, for while Hal had been made a ward of the king and lived in Lionis during their mother’s exile, Vatta had lived with their father in Bolinbroke for the first four years, and after his death been sent to Ispania to live with distant girl-cousins in the isolated, if gorgeous, Sivaro Mountains. The cousins were rather devoted to an old monotheistic religion that branched off First Kingdom teachings, and their mentorship suffused Vatta’s character with gravitas, despite her youth and relative lack of faith. Her attitude was properly Aremore: Vatta liked, she said, the philosophy of the religion, for it respected women’s inherent power, but she was disinterested in the superstitions about behavior and dress and life after death.

When Vatta asked about being in love, Prince Hal smiled her best stalling smile, aware she was surrounded by other eager listeners, and Hotspur, too, tucked in the far corner, stuck in passionate conversation with one of the sons of Iork.

“What is it like being in love?” Hal leaned toward her sister, a hand propped on her knee—she still wore predominately a noble knight’s clothes of trousers, shirt, and long fitted vest in expensive, boldly dyed material with embroidery to show off the effort. Most royal gowns were too heavy and layered in the skirts for combat, though Hal was working on designing something in between—when she leaned over, so did four of the seven young people gathered around, including Vatta. “It is like always knowing who you are,” Hal said. “If you become uncertain of a thing, you can remember that in your heart, you are known by the woman you love, who loves you in return. There is always warmth to turn to, if you are sad or afraid. Always a hand that will reach back to you. It is like having your own, personal queen.” Hal made her smile less charming, more dreamy, which was not even a lie. “A queen who will be at your side, looking out for you, and your family, and your people.”

Vatta narrowed her eyes, amused. But she smiled back and said, “How wonderful.”

“It is.”

“I would like to be in love.”

A young man practically batted his eyes at Vatta as he said, “So would I!”

Hal laughed. “It will happen when it does—of all the stories I know, love’s narrative is the most unpredictable, for I would not have expected to find it in a gruff, stubborn warrior like Lady Hotspur.”

As if she heard her name, though it was impossible across the loud, echoing gallery, Hotspur glanced at Hal. Her freckled cheeks were flushed and the swell of her breasts quick with excited breath—Hotspur had on a dress with a tight bodice, for she liked such restrictions, Hal had discovered. They weighed on her like armor and were therefore of more comfort, she insisted, than any lightweight tunic or man’s jacket such as Hal wore. To show her appreciation for Hotspur’s skirts, Hal had pulled Hotspur into a narrow stairway that served for staff access between grand halls and galleries and libraries. Hal knelt and ducked under Hotspur’s gown, kissing and clawing up past her stockings to the hard expanse of bare thigh. She’d hooked the thigh over her shoulder and made love to Hotspur’s hot, delicious well.

Just the thought of that stolen moment made Hal lick her lips and recall the feel of Hotspur’s trembling, bucking ass, taut in her hands.

Laughter brought the prince back to herself: Vatta’s laughter, and that of the rest of the young people.

They laughed at Hal, who must have missed something while staring at Hotspur.

Vatta said, “I do believe you’re madly in love, at least, sister.”

Hal embraced the teasing, allowing it to bolster her story.

“It will make it harder,” Vatta continued, “when you marry Charm of Kurake Queen.”

“Perhaps, little sister,” Hal said, “when he meets you, he will fall madly in love with you, and you with him, and then you both will know what it is like. Aremoria will gain the alliance, and I will keep a queen for my own heart.”

Too perfect a story, perhaps, but Hal liked the balance of it.

AN ASSASSIN TRIED to murder the queen the morning of the first zenith after midsummer, and nearly succeeded, except Abovax saw the glint of steel at the last moment and cried out, giving Celeda enough warning to dodge and take the man out herself with a grappling move she’d learned from a general in the Third Kingdom. (The general with whom, it turned out, she had a third daughter, a brown nine-year-old bastard named Tigirsenna who’d been sent for and would arrive in Aremoria soon.)

The only silver lining to the attempt on Celedrix’s life, aside from her survival, was that it could not be blamed on Banna Mora. Hal answered the danger by making a speech before the court in the full regalia of a knight: she shone in mail and her Aremore-orange tabard, and over her head a personal banner hung, which was the usual lion-and-bluebell arms of Bolinbroke, but on a field of that same blunt orange, outlined in purple.

“If you would murder our queen,” she declared, “best do the same to me, for as I live I will take up my mother’s ring and use every mode and method of our beloved country’s strength to hunt you down and remove your head.”

Hotspur stood at her left shoulder, just as proud, but grim and ferocious.

That week a blessing appeared, scrawled with orange paint across the external wall of the Lionis Cathedral:

May the Lion Prince protect us.

“Fuck me,” Hal muttered as she stared at it. Hotspur clapped her hand onto Hal’s shoulder, laughing.

It was working. That was a good thing.

“I’m the prince of Lionis, not the Lion Prince,” Hal insisted that night, exceedingly drunk in the Quick Sunrise, Ianta Oldcastle’s favorite haunt. It was the least fine of the taverns in which the prince drank, for the Sunrise existed too near the river to be approved of by nobility.

“Subtle distinction,” Ianta drawled.

“It’s not subtle.” Hal stumbled on the word three times before managing to hit the right sounds without slurring.

Ianta snorted and waved for Nova to pour more sack. “Where is Hotspur?”

“She doesn’t—she doesn’t like it when I’m in this mood.”

“What mood?”

Hal shook her head, then flattened her hands on the table to steady herself. “Drunk, Ianta. Obviously!”

“Is that a mood, or a state?”

“Or an act?” Nova murmured. Her blond hair curled shaggy around her face, and she presented herself most often as a boy, except when flirting with Hal.

Hal stomped her boot on the balcony floor, doing her best to rattle the table. “It is all those things, drunkenness. An act to create a state, because of a mood.”

“Fascinating.” Ianta knocked her knuckles against Hal’s forehead like one might greet a door.

“Just like death,” Hal said, shoving at Ianta’s hand. “An act, a state, a mood! Death never stands still, it can be made, it can be caused, it can be enacted, and therefore is an act. One can be alive or dead, and if dead one is in the state of being so. And as for a mood—oh, alas.” Hal put her face in her own hands.

Nova folded her arms. “I don’t see how it can be a mood. How can you feel dead, for if you know what death feels like, you must have been in the state of death, from which one does not recover.”

“It is a mood,” Hal said, muffled by flesh. “My mood has been death for fully a year.”

The prince knew she was ridiculous but could not push through weary, cottony drunkenness to care. Alcohol could poison a person. Likely not a pleasant way to go, despite how pleasant drinking could be. This floor might give out and all of them crash down through shards of floorboard, crushing those below, every one of them dead of puncturing beams, head wounds, slow bleeds.

The sky could fall.

Hal laughed at herself.

Hotspur was unsympathetic to Hal’s raging hangover the next day.

Tigirsenna of Celeda Queen arrived alongside the first harvest, when Aremoria remained hot as hearth fires in the afternoon, but the nights cooled with rapid promise, and soon the tips of maple and oak leaves dipped themselves in gold and scarlet. The girl was nearly ten, nearly as tall as Hal, and filled with nearly more energy than any five young men. Her eyes were a shade lighter than the warm brown of her skin, her thick black hair roped tightly and set with lapis beads, and she bounced on her toes constantly while demanding answers of her older sisters in accented but fluent Aremore. Hal liked her, and liked how she distracted the palace from Hal for a bit. Royal bastards were good for that. The queen engaged in her own gossip campaign to remind Lionis that in the Third Kingdom, the get of a queen was legitimate the moment the queen declared it so, and what Aremore would wish to be less civilized than the Mother of All Mothers? Hal approved of that, too, and added her own agreeable opinions whenever possible.

In fact, she had thought—again and again—that the worst impediment to making Hotspur her consort was the necessity of children. But if Aremoria could follow the traditions of that centuries-strong Third Kingdom, and the queen’s womb being the only proof of legitimacy needed, Hal could keep Hotspur and just get some good-looking man to put a baby in her as fast as possible.

Fortunately for all, Tigir exuded artless charm and was only as well behaved as an eager pup, but for occasional bouts of frustrated cussing in one of the lower forms of her native tongue. Hal insisted upon being taught such delightful words, and they made a game of it together, bonding irreversibly, as sisters should. Even Hotspur adored Tigir, and spied right off that Tigir’s carriage and skinny, lithe arms suggested she’d been studying swordwork for a couple of years already. Tigir proudly showed off her skills with the Sun and Moon blades of the Third Kingdom, and that was how she and Hotspur became friends.

Hal emerged from the small library within the palace walls one morning, having shared spiced milk with both her sisters as they interviewed a potential history and philosophy tutor for Tigir, who might second as instructor for Hal in her Third Kingdom vocabulary. The prince felt good, a thin book of Ispanian poetry in her hand and a smile upon her face.

She had slowly developed a court of her own, a true prince’s court, with webs and layers of support, and everyone saw Hotspur as belonging to Hal—not only her first advisor and personal commander, but her partner and lover, the foundation of being a true consort. Maybe Hal could make it real—not only a story, not only a charming mythology, but real. Maybe she and Hotspur could sail to Innis Lear as princes to negotiate Mora’s return, and wouldn’t that be a strong trick? A political triumph? It would certainly put to bed rumors and speculation regarding that cursed prophecy. If the world saw Hotspur and thought, the prince’s consort, then Hal had won. The wolf had given herself to the lion, and that would be the chosen end.

Hal strove to not think about earth saints, or the strange yearning she sometimes felt toward that vision of Morimaros in the heart of Stone Water Castle, as if magic had touched her once and she could not help wishing for its touch again. She drank and gossiped and danced and argued, and she no longer secretly attended star chapels or tilted her head up to the stars for a moment—only a moment. Hotspur had been right about that, her mother had been right about that.

As Hal turned to stride happily down the palace corridor, she saw Hotspur in battle regalia, her hood down against her shoulders and that fiery hair coming out of its braids with crackling energy. Hotspur was furious, but Hal hadn’t seen her for an entire seven days, since she led her soldiers out for training exercises and to meet up with Sir Corio de Or to help with winter preparations at the coastal Fort Ferbrovax.

“Hotspur!” Hal threw out her arms to greet her lover, grinning, for surely that ferocious expression could have nothing to do with herself.

But Hotspur jutted a finger out hard against Hal’s chest. “Stop, you idiot,” she growled. “You are ruining me!”

Panic drowned the prince in cold water and she grabbed Hotspur’s shoulders, hissing for quiet as she pulled them aside to the wall. Three maids clustered nearby, staring, and behind Hal the library door remained open so that any could hear.

“I don’t care if someone hears,” Hotspur snapped. “Isn’t your game for show? Don’t you want the public to gossip about the lion prince and her wolf?”

“Not bad gossip,” Hal said, low and quick. “What are you so angry about? I haven’t even seen you in days.”

Hotspur set her jaw. She jerked free of Hal’s grip. “When I left, when I gathered my soldiers before the garrison to ride out, one of my sergeants said, ‘How can we leave without your kiss goodbye?’ because you weren’t there, and last time I rode out, you—Hal, it was impertinent and appalling.”

Hal grimaced to hide her true feelings of triumph and adoration. “It was a tease, because he loves you, he wants you to be happy and feels comfortable. Not insubordinate.”

“Hal, I know what it was. And I dealt with it mildly and efficiently—but then I thought about it, I’ve had a week to think about it, and as I did I became angrier and angrier!” Her voice rose again.

“Why?” The prince kept hers low, as if to teach Hotspur some guile by example.

“I see what you’re doing. I’ve heard the gossip and rumors, and while I watched my men enact their orders, my plans, I realized this is your plan. You’re commanding an army, and I’m one of your fucking soldiers. You’re playing me, too.”

“I don’t lie to you, Hotspur,” Hal said as earnestly as possible. It was even true.

“But in this moment you’re more upset that someone might see us argue than that we are arguing at all!”

“I’m not worried about arguing with you because I know we can push through it. We’re strong together! Why should I be worried?”

“Push through it like we’re pushing through Mora’s kidnapping by a foreign government?” Hotspur yelled.

“Getting Mora back is the plan!” This time Hal yelled, too. Then she stepped closer to Hotspur, reining herself down. “Not all the plan, but a large part of it.”

“You’re stronger already, Hal, you should push your mother again to bring Mora home. Right now. Let’s go right now. Prove to me this is your agenda.”

“Prove to you? You should believe my words alone.”

“I like action,” Hotspur bit out. “Action matters more than words.”

“Action,” Hal muttered, eyes moving over Hotspur’s flushed expression, her hairline damp with sweat, her pink lips, her jutting chin, the line of her pulse beneath her seashell ear—invisible, but Hal knew exactly where to find it. She wrapped her hand there, against Hotspur’s neck, and pushed back.

Hotspur’s eyes widened and she let herself be shoved against the wall. The tapestry billowed with their sudden movement, and Hotspur’s errant curls stuck to the green wool.

Hal kissed her, hand still hard on Hotspur’s throat, trapped between them. Her aggression, her command, was clear. The knight didn’t stand a chance of disobeying, and suddenly threw her hands up into Hal’s hair, dragging them even closer, lifting herself up so Hal had to let go of her throat to take her waist and help as Hotspur climbed Hal to wrap her legs around the prince.

Right there in the corridor they kissed. Hal pinned Hotspur, completely aflame and only distantly concerned that although anyone obviously witnessing had fled or hidden, this was extremely public. Hotspur seemed disinclined to care at all. She ground herself into Hal, squeezing with arms and legs, and Hal knew she’d have bruises from the press of chain mail but used her entire body to prop armor-heavy Hotspur, to serve Hotspur, kissing and biting. She relished the tear against her scalp, and relished the soft moan that grew inside her lover.

And the prince of Lionis gasped in triumph and awe when Hotspur came just outside the Queen’s Library, her back arched and mail shirt shivering like the sound of wind through autumn leaves. Hal held her, breathing hard, as Hotspur dropped her head onto Hal’s shoulder. She hung there, limp but for the squeeze of her thighs around Hal’s hips and the tremble of her arms.

Hal laughed, a panting, dizzy laugh, soft and low.

When Hotspur opened her eyes the fury remained, but she kissed Hal again and shoved her away, then kept shoving until Hal dashed in front of her on wobbly legs, all the way back to the prince’s bedchamber.

BANNA MORA
The White Forest of Innis Lear, late summer

THE WHITE FOREST of Innis Lear grew from the heart of the island, thick and ancient and full of shadows. It began a mile north of Queen’s Keep, extending up like an outstretched hand toward Dondubhan Castle and the Tarinnish in the north, reaching toward the eastern coast through Errigal lands, and in the west just creeping into the Taria dukedom and its capital Astora City, the largest city on Innis Lear.

Though sometimes called the Royal Forest, for these days its entirety was held in the queen’s name by the Earl Hartfare, most folk preferred the older name.

The oaks guarding the southern border were massive trees, and between them was a road, dirt packed and narrow, but clearly marked by midnight blue flags bearing the Child Star emblem.

Banna Mora rode across the threshold, leaving behind bold sunlight in favor of cool green dapples and the gray glint of morning dew. She breathed deeply, grateful to be entirely free of aches, pain, and nausea; she was healthy and strong, in leather armor and an open brown jacket. She and Rowan Lear were on their way north to Connley Castle, following behind Sin Errigal who had wished to return for the birth of her newest great-niece or -nephew. The old duke would travel slowly by wagon, turning the full-day’s journey into at least three, and Rowan had persuaded Mora to this diversion.

Birds trilled and the air lived with drifting seeds and spears of sheer white sunlight cutting through from the thick canopy. A brook gurgled nearby, slipping around rocks that gleamed like iron and silver.

Rowan sang.

A rambling riddle-song at first; his voice broke pleasantly around Mora, and she relaxed in the saddle. This borrowed horse shivered with energy, but obeyed her slightest motion. When they left the forest behind again, Mora promised her a solid run.

A shower of water and nuts plopped down around Mora as the tree above her shivered. She gasped and lifted an arm to block the tiny, sharp seeds.

Rowan said something in the language of trees. Hiss hiss whisper Banna Mora hiss, it sounded like to her. Then, “I’ve asked it to behave.”

Mora frowned back at the tree, then spread her glare to encompass the entire forest. “Why shouldn’t it behave?”

“You haven’t even said hello.” There was teasing in his voice, and Mora narrowed her eyes at him.

Unlike her, Rowan was not dressed for battle or formality. His blue robe hung open off his shoulders, over an undyed linen shirt and plain black pants. Even his boots slumped, worn and well loved. His sword rested flat across his mount’s rump, attached to the saddle just like his pack and rolled blanket. All that white-gold hair had begun the morning braided in loops, but it was so fine wisps trailed free.

Though Mora wished to think he appeared nothing like a prince, she couldn’t lie to herself: he was exactly what a prince of Innis Lear should be. She sighed heavily. “Teach me to say hello.”

Surprise filled his face, swiftly replaced by arrogant humor.

They rode in silence for a few moments, then he said, “Say this,” and followed it with a short phrase of puffed air and whispers.

Mora did her best.

A breeze blew back at her, making the leaves above dance.

“What did I say?”

“Hello, as you asked.”

She repeated the word. Hello.

Rowan smiled. “It more specifically means something like, ‘I ask that you welcome me,’ but ‘hello’ suffices.”

“Does it.”

His smile took a turn toward sublime.

Mora nudged her horse faster, and it shot immediately forward. Behind her, Rowan’s laughter echoed.

For hours she rode ahead, alone, and after the first two she paused at a fork in the path. One way shifted slightly west, the other continued due north. No sign nor marker indicated which was the proper path. Mora supposed she’d have to wait for Rowan and might as well dismount to stretch and relieve her bladder.

But she’d only just tensed to swing her leg over when the wind blew, spinning around her in sunwise circles, then sped off down the western way. The thin, leaning trees shook their leaves, and curling, dead leaves from last year tumbled along the ground.

The northern path waited quiet and still. Puffs of seeds hung in the air, caught in hazy peace.

Though the contrary nature of her mood—her personality—urged her to turn into the quiet north, to deny the wind, Mora was neither a fool nor spiteful, and so she let the wind pull her west.

Hello, Mora said, and again, Hello. Practicing.

Hello, the wind replied after her third attempt.

She gasped, and the wind gasped back, mimicking her noise exactly.

Because she was alone, or at least without human company, Mora let herself smile just a little bit.

The horse trotted happily, and Mora patted her neck, so at ease that she put tiny braids into the horse’s rough flaxen mane. The breeze stuck with her, humming, if wind could be said to hum, and Mora supposed on Innis Lear it might. She warmed sufficiently that sweat gathered in the small of her back and she shrugged out of her jacket, laying it over her horse’s withers. Then Mora stretched, touching the lined braids on her own head. Trin had spent three hours last night weaving Mora’s hair back from her forehead and temples. They felt slightly crooked to Mora’s exploring fingers, but Trin would get better with practice. The ends were loose in a flare at the back of her skull.

She ate two of the carefully wrapped boiled eggs as she rode, stopped at the stream to water herself and the horse, and continued on, letting her mount choose their speed. The horse seemed as content now to meander as Mora herself, and she managed to slip into a state of peace.

Enough time passed that Mora believed she’d chosen the wrong path and Rowan had continued north. Good that she could take care of herself, camp, hunt—though it would be a challenge with only sword and knife. A snare would do, or perhaps she could catch a fish. If not, she carried enough cheese and bread and wine to get her easily through tomorrow as well. So long as she pointed the horse’s nose in the same direction, there was no part of the White Forest more than three days ride across.

So unconcerned was Banna Mora that it was rather a surprise when the path widened into a meadow, and before her rose a huge limestone temple.

Pale walls climbed at least twenty feet, swarmed by dark green vines blossoming in white and gentle blue. The grass grew to her horse’s knees, but for a path around the entire building. Mora slid to the ground and followed the path. The horse wandered behind her, munching on the last summer grass. Mora didn’t care, though she ought to have.

This was the old star cathedral, protecting a navel well. She’d been here before as a very small child.

Four arms spread in each of the cardinal directions, and some of the heavy stones crumbled slightly. As she circled the cathedral, Mora squinted in the bright sun. High overhead the clouds that at dawn had been thick now striped the sky in sheer waves. Three violet butterflies danced a few feet above her head, bobbing in the tender breeze. They reminded her of her little brother, though she’d not seen him in years.

Mora’s body fell still and her heels seemed to stick to the ground. Her brother was caretaker here. Rowan had said so.

The Witch of the White Forest.

Hello, she whispered, and then took a deeper breath to push the phrase stronger.

The wind lifted, too, pressing grass against her knees with a whisper of its own.

There came a reply, clear in the language of trees. But Mora did not understand it. She marched back to the front of the cathedral, the south, where waited a thick wooden door carved with flowers and grinning earth saints and tiny birds. It stood half open.

“Hello?” she called in plain Learish. “I’m not fluent in tree tongue.” And Mora knew she spoke like an Aremore royal, despite her Learish birthright.

“Oh, hello!” came a hurried response. The voice sounded from above.

Mora backed up, bumping into her horse. The animal shifted against her fondly.

“I apologize,” the voice came again, as a young man walked easily along the top of the southeastern wall, a neckbreaking distance from the meadow floor. He was nearly naked, but for a loincloth draped loosely from his hips. He had curling brown hair, narrow shoulders, and bright tan skin. Mora could see no more against the brilliant blue-and-white sky. He said, “Most visitors here know the language of …”

The young man lifted a hand to shade his eyes. “Banna Mora?”

She put her hands on her hips. “Come down, Connley!” she snapped. “Carefully, before you …”

Mora trailed off, too, and they stared.

She wished she could see his face clearly.

After a long, still moment, Connley whispered in the language of trees, moving away, along the southeast wall at a much faster pace than Mora was comfortable with. The wall was two feet thick, but it wouldn’t matter if he tripped on a vine or some crumbling stone scattered beneath him. She followed him around the side.

When Connley reached the eastern arm of the cathedral, he followed its length and spoke again—it sounded like a gust of wind and sprinkling rain. But the tree nearest the wall bent, reaching a branch as thick as Mora’s leg out toward him, and Connley stepped onto it light as a bird. Mora thought her heart would stop.

He grasped another branch, then walked fast and sure down through the tree, until he reached the trunk and climbed the rest of the way like a human instead of a wild spirit.

Mora took a deep breath and waited for him to face her. First, her little brother touched his palm to the tree’s gray-brown bark and murmured, and only then did he turn.

As with her grandmother Sin, Mora had not seen Connley since she’d left for Aremoria. He’d been five. Only eight herself at the time, all her memories of him were distant and dreamy, memories in which their parents played full parts. Butterflies and singing wind, a mobile made of scarlet leaves, and quiet—she remembered best of all that he’d been ever so quiet as a child, unless he laughed. And always there was dirt on his face.

Just like there was now.

Two streaks of charcoal or thick gray paint had been carefully applied, beginning under his eyelids and pulling toward his jaw. The stark color brought out the green in his irises. She didn’t remember his eyes at all, but now he was grown, she recognized their Aremore father’s: light brown with rings of green in the center. Likely Connley did not know himself they were Corius March’s eyes. His skin was darker than she’d thought, though living nearly naked under the sun might account for that. He was slightly shorter than her, small seeming, but stout and hard muscled. Not a threat to her unless he was fast.

Except for the magic. If he was the Witch of the White Forest—already, so young—there was no telling what he could do. That tree had lifted him from the cathedral wall.

And evidence of that power was etched into his flesh. Hash-mark scars spoke voiceless spells against his skin, just under his left collarbone, in a line along the opposite hip, and in tiny rows down both inner forearms. A spiral had been scarred just over his navel. Around his neck hung a leather thong with three sleek, tawny feathers.

Mora had not the slightest idea what to say to him. Fortunately, Connley seemed to be suffering the same problem; he stared at her, too, expression lost.

They’d written sporadically as children, but she’d made less of an effort when Rovassos named her his heir, and when she’d led the pack of Lady Knights and everything in her life had been set and happy. It had hardly mattered to Mora, then, to be friendly with her Learish cousins. Her leash had been too tight, she realized now.

“Banna Mora,” he said again, and Mora was annoyed he’d found his voice first.

“Connley,” she replied.

“You, ah …” He glanced behind her, then to either side. “You’re alone? I was expecting …”

“Rowan? He moved too slow.” Mora gestured dismissively.

Connley nodded, then licked his bottom lip. “Do you want … are you thirsty? We can see to your horse. She’s tired.”

He didn’t move. Mora didn’t move. She felt she should say something profound. Embrace him. Find a memory to share. “I am. And you … Rowan doesn’t wear proper clothes, either.” She put the authority of a commander in her disapproval.

Once more, Connley glanced past her, clearly hopeful not to be alone with her very much longer.

Mora grunted and turned to her horse.

Connley had a small cottage built between two large ash trees a short walk from the cathedral. The ashes’ limbs wove together to form the skeleton of his roof, which had been thatched with lavender and smelled like paradise. As she unsaddled her horse and rubbed her down, Connley said softly, “You can let her loose. She’ll be safe to forage on her own here.”

“Is that what you do?” Mora asked.

Her brother nodded with a smile. “The forest provides. I have a garden, and gifts always from Hartfare and others who come to taste the navel waters.”

“You aren’t a star priest.”

“I leave that to Rowan, among others.”

“What were you doing on the wall?” Mora demanded.

“Sweet-talking the vines to let go some of their suckers on the east. The wall needs to last. One of the oaks has agreed to host that vine.” With that casual statement, he ducked barefoot into his cottage. Mora wasn’t sure if she should follow.

She stood alone in the shade, wondering how she’d come to this, so off-balance, so unsure of her authority.

The White Forest murmured all around, delicate and merry.

Connley nudged his door back open and emerged, in trousers now and holding two clay cups. “Honey wine?”

Even knowing how quickly such sugary alcohol overwhelmed her, Mora eagerly accepted.

Together brother and sister settled on a log whose bark had been scraped away, and the wood polished to a cherry shine. The ends were carved with hash-marks.

The offered wine was clear and delicious, and Mora drank too fast. To her relief, her brother seemed content to sit quietly. A blue butterfly fluttered to them and landed on Connley’s knee. Mora stared at it; she could make out individual scales on its wings, which together were as large as her hand. It gently batted those wings and crawled a finger’s-length up Connley’s thigh. He put his hand there, and it hopped onto his knuckle.

Her brother lifted the butterfly nearer to his face, smiling at it.

That decided her: he was not of this world. Mora huffed—a laugh, a snort, she wasn’t even sure herself.

Connley took her amusement gracefully, and with his other hand pointed into the tree above them. She glanced up, startled, to see a small owl perched there, staring down at her with round yellow eyes.

In the middle of the day.

“She’s watching you,” Connley murmured.

It was a ghost owl, with a creamy, heart-shaped face and tiny white beak. Her shoulders were a light brown, tawnier as the wings tapered back. Speckles dripped down her belly, and her talons gripped the branch carefully, without gouging bark. Hello, Mora said in the language of trees.

The owl seemed to shrug.

Connley laughed prettily. “Birds aren’t always interested in talking.”

Glancing at her brother, Mora realized the feathers he wore down his chest were ghost owl feathers.

“Not hers,” Connley said, “but probably related.”

“You’re so odd,” Mora said, giving in to the urge to be blunt.

His smile faded and the cast of his expression turned almost grave. The blue butterfly lifted off his knuckle with a few lazy strokes of its wings. Shivering, Mora realized Connley suddenly seemed ageless. Wise, magical, an illusion cast by the forest itself, a projection of its spirit.

The dark turn of her thoughts disturbed her. She longed for the clean lines of civilized Lionis; cut glass and stone-carved flowers, cobbled roads and limestone arches linking the buildings. Manicured trees and blossoms that carefully spilled from window boxes.

“I was raised by the forest,” Connley said finally.

Guilt bit at her: she ought to have insisted he come to Aremoria with her, after their parents died and she had a place of her own. But he’d had Sin Errigal and all the Errigal cousins to keep him safe. She’d chosen her home.

Connley touched her wrist, so lightly she saw it more than felt it. “Don’t, sister. You were raised by a city. By libraries and warriors and a king. I wasn’t unhappy. I’m not. This is my cradle, this island.”

It was too intimate for having known each other again a mere hour. She withdrew her hand and glanced back at the ghost owl. The moment she met the bird’s gaze, the owl spread her wings and leapt off the branch: not a whisper in the wind as it skimmed over their heads, dipped up and over the cottage, and vanished.

Mora felt oddly alone.

Then: singing.

The wind pushed her hair off her ears and delivered a low, distorted song.

She knew Rowan Lear’s voice, but also that he was some miles away still.

A succession of shivers pulled down her spine and Mora finished the cup of mead.

But Connley’s face lit with unadulterated relief. “Rowan,” he said, pushing to his feet. “I’ll—I’ll meet him.”

And then Mora was truly alone with the forest, the wind, and her discomfiting uncertainty.

STARS DAZZLED IN the black sky when Mora woke.

The men had attempted to give her the narrow cottage bed, but she’d rolled her eyes and spread her blanket upon the ground outside. So thick was the grass her sleep was immediate and comfortable, much better than most camping she’d experienced as a soldier. The hot mushroom soup and honey wine in her belly helped, assuredly.

Silence—utter silence—greeted her waking. Instead of rich and peaceful, the midnight forest felt oppressive. Wrong.

Mora held her breath and kept very still, but there was nothing: no night frogs or whispering breeze, no shivering plants or crickets or concealed hunters. She could hear the beat of her heart.

On her feet fast, Mora quietly loosed the knife from her shin sheath and gripped it backward, holding it close before her like shield and weapon both. Rowan was not on his bedroll. Sneaking carefully on her toes, she went to the cottage door: it opened easily, and inside was dark. “Rowan? Connley?” she whispered. Nothing.

She felt her way to the window and unlatched the shutters: starlight filtered through, but it was scant. Mora peered at the small room. The bed was empty, that was certain, and she saw no sign of either her brother or of struggle. He and Rowan had both left her alone by their own choice.

Anger spurred her outside and down the path to the cathedral. Her knife remained in hand and she maintained her quiet movement, aware danger might still be present, though doubting it.

The cathedral shone dully against the night sky, and it was barely brighter in the meadow, without trees to block the stars. She stormed to the south to find the door open enough to walk through, so she did.

Mora stopped. Starlight fell down from the open sky—there was no roof at all, as was the case with most such cathedrals, even the one in Lionis. The dark sanctuary opened before her. Its limewashed walls had been painted with black constellations and bright flower-bursts of red, blue, yellow that she could just barely make out.

The prince and the witch were at the heart of the cathedral, where all four arms came together in a cross, with the navel well in its center. Rowan leaned his hands on the stone rim, peering down into it; his white-gold hair spilled free, falling against the well and even into it, being so very long. Across from him Connley touched the well, too, but his head was tipped back to the stars above.

One of them was speaking softly, or was it a song?

As Banna Mora stared, she heard another noise: water. A gurgle, growing louder but still only like the murmur of a slow stream.

Then Rowan leaned back. Water appeared like a black, rippling mirror of the sky, rising to the edge of the well. Mora’s lips parted in surprise. The water halted, the surface dancing calmly there, licking at the ends of Rowan’s hair and the tips of his fingers.

Connley dipped his hand into the water, and brought it, dripping, to his mouth.

“I hope this will clarify my prophecies,” Rowan murmured.

“You still argue with the stars?”

“Everyone does who converses with them—their voice is a growing babble.”

Though Mora was certain she’d made no sound, Rowan’s head snapped toward her. Connley followed his gaze.

“Banna Mora,” Rowan said tenderly. He beckoned for her. “Come taste the rootwater of Innis Lear.”

She stared at the black eye of water pressing up from the well. It pulsed, and though she’d never admit it to any but herself, she’d have sworn it was the same rhythm as her heartbeat.

“No,” she said, and backed away, eyes stuck to that water until her reaching hand found the corner of the threshold and she stepped out through the narrow opening, into the meadow again. Her heel caught on loose earth and grass scratched at her boots.

Mora breathed a gasping, deep breath, then went determinedly back to her bed.

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