Tessa Gratton - The Queens of Innis Lear

Morimaros gave over the letter and uncorked the brown glass bottle of wine with his teeth. The writing was roughly scratched into the parchment. Ban read:

To the honored King Morimaros of Aremoria,

We of Innis Lear invite you to join us at our Summer Seat for a rare celestial occasion. The Zenith Court will commence some two weeks from the writing of this note, on the full moon after the Throne rises completely to mark the ascent of the Queens of Autumn. The greatest of our island shall attend, and we look forward to introducing you to our youngest, with whom you have corresponded these last months, with hope I am certain in your heart. We are eager to set our daughters onto their star paths, and know your attendance will aid us in that desire.

With the blessings of the stars in our words,

Lear

Ban managed to remain calm, despite the implications involving Elia Lear. He read through the letter again, and Morimaros swung the bottle of wine toward him.

Trading his thirst for the burn of memory, Ban took a long drink. It was sweet and crisp, very easy to swallow. Not like the wine and ale of Innis Lear. Not like the hard yearning that tugged at him even now to go back. To touch the iron magic of Errigal again. To set things right and show his father and that king what he’d become. A confidant of this king, a renowned soldier and spy. Important. Necessary. Honored.

Wanted.

“Did you know her?” Morimaros asked, interrupting Ban’s sputtering thoughts.

“The youngest princess?” Ban lightly avoided her name.

But the king did not.

“Elia,” he said simply, and then easily continued. “She is the star priest, we hear, preferring this to her title. Though I met her as such, once, a long while ago. When her mother died, I traveled to Innis Lear for the year ceremony. Princess Elia was only nine. It was my first time in another country, acting as Aremoria. Though my father lived still, of course. He didn’t die until I was twenty.” Morimaros took back the wine and sipped at it. Ban studied the king, trying not to imagine him speaking with Elia, touching her fingers. Morimaros was gilded and handsome, a strong man, and one of the only good ones Ban had ever known. Elia deserved such a husband, and yet, he could not imagine her living here, in Aremoria, away from the twisted island trees, the harsh moors, the skies overwhelmed with stars.

Ban shook his head before he could stop himself. He’d thought of her, though he’d tried to forget those years before he’d been the Fox. Thought of the smooth brown planes of her cheeks, her black as well-water eyes, the streaks of improbable copper in her cloud of dark brown spiral curls. Her warm mouth and eager young hands, her giggle, the wonder with which she dug into tree hollows with him, whispering to the heart oaks, to the roots, to the sparrows and worms and butterflies. He’d thought of her most when he was alone in enemy camps, or washing blood off his knife, or cramped and stinking for days in the hiding holes the roots made for him. She saved him, kept him quiet, kept him sane. His memories of her made him remember to stay alive.

“Did you know her?” Morimaros asked again.

“Barely, sir.” And yet more entirely than Ban had known anyone in his life. She once was the person who’d known him best, but Ban wondered what her reply would be, if asked the same question today. In five lonely, bloody years, she’d not written to him, and so Ban had never sent word to her on the wings of these Aremore birds. Why would she want to hear from a bastard now, if she hadn’t before? And now they were grown.

The king said, “I’ll leave next week. Sail around the south cape to the Summer Seat.”

Ban nodded absently, staring down at the dirt beside his toes.

“Return to Innis Lear with me, my Fox.”

His head snapped up. Yes, he thought, so viciously he surprised himself.

King Morimaros watched Ban with clear blue eyes. His mouth was relaxed, revealing nothing—a special skill of this king’s, to present a plain mask to the world, holding his true opinions and heart close.

Home.

“I … I would not be a good man at your side, Majesty.”

“Ban, here and now call me Mars. Novanos would.”

“When we discuss Lear it reminds me too keenly of my place, sir.”

Morimaros grimaced. “Your place is at my side, Ban, or wherever I put you. But I know how that old king thinks of you. Is his daughter cut of same cloth?”

“As a girl, Elia was kind,” Ban said. “But I do not know how I can serve you there.”

The king of Aremoria drank another portion of wine and then set the bottle firmly in Ban’s hand. The Fox recognized the low ambition in Morimaros’s voice when he said, “Ban Errigal, Fox of Aremoria, I have a game for you to play.”

THE YOUNGEST DAUGHTER of Lear threw herself up the mountainside, gasping air cold enough to cut her throat. She hitched her heavy leather bag higher on her shoulder, taking the steeper path in order to reach the top on time. Her fingers scrabbled at the rough yellow grass, and her boots skidded on protruding limestone. She stumbled and ground her skirts into the earth, then dragged herself up to the wide pinnacle, finally reaching her goal.

Elia Lear lay flat, rolling onto her back, and sighed happily despite her raw throat and the dirt under her fingernails. Above, the sky tilted toward night, edged in gentle pink clouds and the indigo silhouettes of the mountains cradling these moors. She shivered and hugged her arms close to her chest. This far north on Innis Lear, even summer breathed a frosty air.

But the solitude here, as near to the sky as she could hope to reach, was Elia’s greatest bliss. Here, it was only her spirit and the stars, in a silent, magnificent conversation.

The stars never made her feel angry, guilty, or forlorn. The stars danced exactly where they should. The stars asked her for nothing.

Elia glanced up at the purple sky. From here she had a clear view of the western horizon, where at any moment the Star of First Birds would appear and hang like a diamond at the tip of the Mountain of Teeth.

All around her, the golden moor swept down and away in rolled peaks and valleys, marred by jutting boulders like fallen chunks of the moon. Wind scoured the air, hissing an upland song from the northwestern edge of the mountains, heading south toward the inner White Forest and east toward the salty channel waters. The princess could have felt quite abandoned out here, but the shadowed valleys hid roads and some tiny clusters of homes; it was where the families lived, those who cared for the sheep and goats grazing this land—some of which could be seen freckling the hills with gray and white.

If Elia looked down to the south, she would see the star tower clinging to a limestone outcrop, built centuries ago by an old lord before the island was united, for a military stronghold. The first King Lear had confiscated it for the star priests, opened up the fortified walls and left them to crumble, but with elegant wood and slate from the south he had lifted the tower itself taller, until it was the perfect vantage point for making accurate star charts and reading the signs on every point of the horizon. Elia had lived and studied there since she turned nineteen last year, and every morning she dotted white star-marks onto her forehead to prove her skills as a priest and prophet. She did not yet consider herself a master, but hoped one day she might.

This morning’s marks had smeared slightly, as they often did, for Elia spent much of her time brushing errant, wind-tossed curls away from her face. Her companion, Aefa, often made sure to wrap a veil or scarf about Elia’s hair, or insisted on using ribbons or at least braids to keep her hair in place, as befit a princess, if not a prophet. Elia could not help preferring to leave it free, tended by nothing but bergamot oil from the Third Kingdom, and perhaps a few begrudged decorations near her face. It put her in contrast to her sisters, neither of whom would leave their bedrooms without their costumes fixed and perfect.