The Queens of Innis Lear
The sisters’ husbands waited to either side of the dais, and there was not enough space between them given the depth of their rivalry. Astore loomed to the right, grinning and loudly conversing with a handful of men out of the Glennadoer earldom, and their retainers in attendance, too. Across the other side of the dais were the Earl Errigal and a dark, quiet slip of a man in the sky blue of Errigal’s banners. With them was the Earl Rosrua. With Astore, the Earl Bracoch.
Oh, stars and worms. Aefa paused in place, realizing the man with Errigal had to be that son she’d heard so much about—the bastard. Brona had been correct in her warning of his return. Elia never spoke of him directly, but everyone in the king’s service Aefa had ever met during her time with the princess was more than happy to do so. Before she could say—she wasn’t quite sure, but something—a hand caught gently under her elbow.
“Aefa Thornhill,” said the Duke of Connley, “allow my escort to your place.”
He was six or seven years her elder, and as handsome as his wife Regan was beautiful, but in a fully Learish way: sharp white cheeks and coppery-blond hair slicked back from his face, pink lips that might’ve just been kissed, and eyes as blue-green as the ocean around Port Comlack, steady under a serious brow. Someday his face would be cragged and rough, but now it was perfect. His blood red tunic fit the sort of shoulders a girl longed to climb. Too bad he always gave Aefa a shudder; she couldn’t help but imagine him stripping her down, past clothes and even skin, to her very bones, if she ever said the wrong thing.
“Thank you,” she said, with no hint of a flirt.
“Elia hasn’t arrived with you,” he said, solicitous but quick, for it was a brief walk to the throne.
Aefa smiled like it meant nothing. “She attended the king all this morning, so presumably will come with him.”
“Presumably.” Connley smiled back at her, a charming wolf in the woods.
Yes, there it was, the shudder. Aefa disguised it with a curtsey, relieved to be already at the dais. “Lord,” she said steadily.
“We hope your lady proves as considerate of your father’s needs after this morning, and into the future,” Connley said, gently squeezing her elbow. He stepped back and nodded in a way that was not quite a bow, but managed to suggested such. “And her own.”
“I’m sure she will be,” Aefa said, mildly irritated through the general chill of his presence.
“Someone will make sure of it,” he said quietly, and she had no chance to react, for there was her father, leaning off the throne.
“My girl!” the Fool crowed. “Tell me: what is this crown in my lap made of?”
“Love,” she called back. “Love and rubies.”
“The bronze is for the love, then?”
“The bronze is the island metal, the rubies its blood. What else is love but mettle and blood?” Aefa grinned.
The Fool lifted the crown, as if to offer it to his daughter.
“The crown of Innis Lear is not made of love,” said Gaela Lear, soft and challenging. “It is made of dying stars, and lying mouths.”
Just then a great triple knock sounded throughout the hall, echoing through the wooden north wall. A signal that the king approached.
“Not for long,” Regan answered her sister. “Get up, Fool, and make way for the king.”
THIS IS WHAT they say of the last King of Innis Lear’s Zenith Court:
The day held itself bright and bold, a brisk wind rising off the sea in fragile anticipation. All had assembled by the noon hour, but the king arrived late. He shoved in through the slender private entrance with his youngest, favored daughter at his side. They swept directly to the throne, and few noticed Kayo, the Oak Earl, brother of the fallen queen, follow behind and settle himself at the rear of the dais.
Lear wore ceremonial robes crusted with deep blue and star-white embroidery, brushed and glistening. His gray-and-brown hair shocked away from his face, hanging down his back, and his scraggly beard had been shaved. Kingly gold and silver rings weighed down his gnarled fingers, and a sword with a great round pommel carved into a rampant swan hung from a jeweled belt at his hip. The youngest princess was a delicate slip of daylight as she took her place beside the throne, across from her two vibrant sisters.
The king smiled. “Welcome.”
Courtiers returned the greeting loudly, with calls and cheering. They expected great things from the next hour: a future queen, and a resettling of alliances. And hope. For far too long Innis Lear had faltered and run dry; for far too long there was no named successor; for far too long privilege and fate had danced unfettered as the king drifted further and further into the sky.
Lear called out, “Today is an auspicious day, friends. As my father obeyed the stars, and his father before him, so I bow to them now by offering this announcement: The stars have aligned to provide your king the understanding that his reign comes to a swift end. It is time for me to divest myself of cares and responsibilities, to pass them on, as time passes, to younger and stronger persons.”
Murmurs of general accord and interest skittered about the hall, but no one interrupted as Lear continued, “Therefore we must see our daughters settled before the end, which comes at Midwinter.”
Yes, here was the moment of destiny:
“Astore, our beloved son.” Lear turned to his eldest daughter’s husband, who nodded firmly.
The king then looked to the middle husband. “And you, our son Connley.” The Duke Connley murmured, “My king,” and nothing else, for all knew the lie of any love between them.
The king continued grandly, “You have long held discord between you, and we know that when we die very likely war and strife would erupt between you as you each would try to claim more of the other’s.”
“Father,” said Gaela, “there is a single sure way to stop such an outcome.”
He held up his hand. “To stop this, we will divide our lands now between your wives, according to the stars, and our youngest daughter, Elia, whose suitors have waited patiently to hear her choice.”
“And would wait longer still, good Lear, for the chance,” called the king of Burgun with a smile in his voice.
Lear returned it. “Indeed.”
The king of Aremoria said nothing.
Kay Oak stepped forward, a hand hovering protectively near the youngest daughter’s shoulder. “Lord,” he said, going briefly to his knee. “Your kingdom wants for a single crown. Why—”
Lear cut him off. “Worry not! We will name our heir now, as the stars have prophesied. And our heir will be crowned at dawn after the Longest Night, as has been since the first king of our line.” Lear looked at Gaela, his ferocious and tall eldest, then cool Regan, the middle child, then Elia, his precious star, finally in her turn. That youngest stared rigidly at her father. She did not even seem to breathe.
Did she suspect what was to come?
The king spread his hands again, chest puffed and proud. “The stars of heaven proclaim the next queen of Innis Lear shall be the daughter who loves us best.”
In the silence, nearly everyone looked at Elia, for all knew she was the king’s favorite. But Lear had not said, the daughter I love best.
Though all three women were practiced at projecting to the world the face they chose, each gave something away in that moment: Gaela her hunger, Regan her pleasure, and Elia her utter disgust.
“Eldest,” the king said, “it is your right to speak first.”
Gaela laughed once, loud as a man. “My father, my king,” she called, moving before the throne to perform for the entire court. “I love you more than the word itself can bear.” Her voice made the phrase into a growling threat. “My devotion to the crown of Lear is as great as any child ever bore for her father, more than life and breath, and I will defend my love with all the strength and power of Lear and Astore behind me. The truth of my words is in my stars: I am the Consort Star; I rise to the Throne of Innis Lear.”
Nodding with elaborate satisfaction, Lear said, “And you, Regan? How do you answer?”
Regan did not immediately move to join Gaela before the throne, but her husband put his hand on her back and gently pushed. She spread her hands in a simple gesture of supplication. “I love you, Father, as my sister does, for we share a heart and we share stars. I ask that you appraise me at her same worth.” For a moment, her words hung in the air. Connley’s hand slid up the brown arch of her neck, and Regan frowned, then smiled up at her father as if she had only just now realized some vital truth: “Yet, Father, in my deepest heart I find that although Gaela names my love, she stops short, for there is no other love that moves me so much as my love for you.”
The king smiled magnanimously at Regan, then Gaela. The sisters glanced at each other, as if they could sharpen their smiles against each other’s teeth.
“Well said, daughters,” said the king of Innis Lear, before looking to his youngest.
She stared back.
“Elia, our joy?” the king said tenderly. “What will you say?”
Silence thundered throughout the great hall.
Courtiers leaned in, to hear the first breath she took in answer. All she had to do was be honest, and the island would be hers. All she had to do was tell the world what it already knew: she loved her father, and always had.
But when Elia Lear spoke, she said, “Nothing, my lord.”
“What?”
Lear’s calm demand echoed in the mouths of others. What had the princess said? Why? What was this game? Did the king and his daughter play it together, or was it a trap?
Elia spoke up. “Nothing, my lord.”
Lear smiled as to an errant puppy. “Nothing will come from nothing. Try again, daughter.”
“I cannot heave my heart into my mouth, Father. I love you … as I should love you, being your daughter, and always have. You know this.” Elia’s voice shook.
“If you do not mend your speech, Elia,” the king said, glowering, “you will mar your fortunes.”
Swallowing, Elia finally took a very deep breath. She smoothed hands down her skirts, and said, “If I speak, I will mar everything else.”
Lear leaned toward her. A wild thing scattered in his usually warm blue eyes. Wild and terrifying. “So untender?”
“So true,” she whispered.
“Then let truth be your only dowry, ungrateful girl,” he rasped.
Elia stepped away in shock.
The king’s demeanor transformed like a rising phoenix, hot and blasting and fast. He pointed at Elia, finger shaking as if she were a terrible specter or spirit to be feared. “You false child. You said you understood me, you saw the stars with me …” Lear threw his arms up, catching fingers in his silver-striped hair. “This is not Elia! Where is my daughter, for you are not she. No princess, no daughter! Replaced by earth saints, cursed creatures!” He shook his head as if appalled, eyes wide and spooked.
“Father,” Elia said, but before anyone else could react, the king cried out:
“Where are Aremoria and Burgun? Come forward, kings!”
Elia did not move, rooted to the rushes and rugs, trembling, as if holding back something so great, that to move would be to unleash it.
“Here, sir,” spoke Ullo of Burgun. “What now?”
Lear smiled into the stunned silence, and it was clear where Regan had gotten her dangerous expressions. “My good king Burgun, you have been on a quest for this once-daughter of mine’s love, and you now see the course of it. Would you have her still?”
Ullo stood to one side of Elia. He bowed and glanced at her. She gave nothing in return; her specialty today. When Ullo straightened he said, “Your Highness, I crave only what was promised to me: your daughter and the price of her dowry.”
“My daughter came with that dowry. This girl is … not she.” The last was said in a hush of awe or fear; it was impossible for any to tell.
Ullo took the princess’s rigid hand in his, drawing her attention up to his overly sad expression. “I am sorry, lovely Elia, that in losing a father today you also lose a husband.”
Elia choked on a laugh, and the great hall finally saw anger press through the cracks of her composure: “Be at peace with it, and not sorry, Ullo of Burgun. Since fortune and dowry are what you love, ours would not have been a good union anyway.”
Far to the left, the Earl Errigal sputtered to hide a great laugh.
Ullo snatched his hand away and, with a pinched face, snapped for his retainers and took his leave.
A half-emptier great hall remained.
“And you, Aremoria?” Lear intoned with all the drama he was able. “Would you have her? As I’ve nothing but honor and respect for you, great king, I advise you against it. I could not tell you to partake of a thing I hate.”
The youngest princess faltered back from the vitriol, knocking into a wall of leather and muscle: the king of Aremoria. His even, shrewd gaze leveled over her head and landed fully on her father.
“It seems, Lear,” Morimaros said, calm and clear, “Quite strange that this girl to whom you previously vowed the greatest of affections should in the course of not even an hour strip away every layer of love you once felt. What incredible power she has to erase a lifetime of feeling in one rather quiet moment.”
“When she was my daughter, I thought her power was that of the moon when it darkens the sun, as her mother’s was,” Lear said, sour and sad. “I thought she would be my comfort and queen, as her mother was. Now she is nothing, worth nothing.”
Morimaros turned his gaze off the king and put the full weight of it onto the daughter. “This woman is her own dowry.”
“Take her, then,” Lear said nastily. “She is yours, mine no longer or ever again.”
“Father,” said Elia.
“No!” The king covered his eyes, clawed his face. “No father to you, for you cannot be my daughter Elia. My daughter Elia should have been queen, but she is nothing!”
“No!” Elia cried. It was the loudest she had ever been.
Even Gaela and Regan seemed surprised: the one grimacing, the other with her lips coolly parted.
Kayo said, “Lear, you cannot be—”
“Silence, Oak Earl. I loved her most, yet when I need her, she turns on me. She should have been queen!” Lear flung himself back onto his throne so hard it shifted with a groan.
Kayo strode forward and went to his knees before the throne. “My king, whom I have ever loved and respected as both my liege and my brother, do not be hasty.”
“Would you put yourself in my furious sights now, Kayo?” demanded Lear. He turned to Connley and Astore. “You two, divide this island between yourselves, in equal parts. All of it to you and your issue with my daughters. Gaela and Regan both be all the queens of Lear! There are no others!”
“Lear!” yelled the Oak Earl, slowly stretching to his feet. “I will challenge this, I will speak. Even if you tear at my heart, too. I chose this island and your family—our family!—long ago. I have defended your countenance against rumors and detractors, but now you are acting the madman all say you’ve become. My service to you—and to Dalat—insists I speak against this wildness. You are rash! Giving two crowns will destroy this island, and for God’s sake, Elia does not love you least.”
“On your life, be quiet.” The king closed his eyes as if in pain.
“My life is meant to be used against your enemies, Lear, and right now you are your own enemy.” Kayo ground out the last between his teeth.
“Get out of my sight, both of you—go together if you must, but do not be here.”
“Let me remain, Brother Lear.”
“By the stars—”
“The stars are false gods if they tell you to do this thing!”
Lear leapt to his feet again with a cry of rage.
Astore dove between the king and Kayo. “Be careful,” he said to the Oak Earl.
But Kayo shoved him away, angry as the king. He cried, “My sister, your wife, would hate you for this, Lear. She died for your stars, man! Was that not enough? And now you give over your kindest, best daughter? How can you? How dare you? And divide your island? Do this and you undercut everything wise and good you have ever done! One heir is all! Make one of them the queen, or this island will tear apart, and do not abandon Elia, who loves you best!”
Lear put his nose to Kayo’s, making them two sides of a raging coin. “You say you chose us, but you do not act it. You do not believe in my stars, you do not cleave to my will, and despite always saying otherwise, you have taken no wife or rooted in your lands here. Always half here and half away, Kayo! You said you were mine, but you never were. You never were!” The king’s mouth trembled. “Go to the god of your Third Kingdom, Kayo. You have the week to be gone, and if you are seen in Lear after that, you will die for heresy.”
The king’s shoulders heaved and pink blotches marred his cheeks. Before him Kayo bowed his head.
Silence dropped like rain, scattered and in pieces all around, smothering everything.
None in the great hall moved, horror and shock rippling throughout. Gaela bared her teeth until Astore put his hand to her shoulder and squeezed, his eyes wide; Regan had bitten her bottom lip until blood darkened the paint smeared there already. Connley put a hand to his sword, though whether to defend the panting Oak Earl or the wild king it was impossible to say. Beyond them, the Earl Errigal’s face was red, and he held a young man tightly by the arm. That young man stared at Elia, fury alive in the press of his mouth. Retainers gripped weapons; the creak of leather, and gasps and whispers skidded through the air.
It was all a trembling mountain ready to erupt.
They say Elia alone remained calm. The calm of the sun, it seemed, that need do nothing but silently stand. She reached out and put her trembling hand against Kayo’s arm. “Father, stop this,” she said.
“I do not see you,” Lear snarled.
She closed her eyes.
Kayo said, hard and firm, “See better, Lear.”
Then the Oak Earl turned and swiftly hugged Elia again. He cupped her head and said, “Stand firm, starling. You are right.”
Again, Elia Lear remained silent.
Before going, Kayo said to Gaela and Regan, “May you both act as though everything you’ve said today were true, if you have any respect for your mother’s heart.”
The entire court watched him stride away from the throne. At the rear he paused, turned, and flung a final word at the king: “Dalat would be ashamed of you today, Lear.”
With a flourish, he departed, and his going burst open the threads of tension that had held the Zenith Court together: it erupted into noise and fury.
ELIA
ELIA STOOD ALONE in the center of chaos: she was as still as the Child Star, fixed in the north. All around her men and women moved and argued, swelled and pressed, pushing and pulling and departing in snaps of motion.
Pressure throbbed in her skull; her heart was a dull, fading drumbeat. Sweat tingled against her spine, beneath her breasts, flushed on her cheeks. Emptiness roared in her ears, shoving everything back—back—back.
Her stomach and lungs had always served her well—breathed for her, turned her food into spirit, given her song against fluttering nerves—and now, now they betrayed her.
As her father had.
Suddenly Elia bent at the waist, clutching at the empty pain in her stomach. She opened her mouth, but there was no cry. Only a silent gasp. Her eyes were not even wet.
She turned and ran, brushing past the king of Aremoria, ignoring the call of her name from too many familiar voices.
She had done nothing wrong!
In her hurry, she took the long way out the main doors and across the yard, stumbling toward the family tower. She clutched at the retainer stationed at the entrance but said nothing as she passed, up the stairs, up and up, one hand hitting hard against the black stone wall. She did not pause, blinded by shock, until she reached her room.
Rushing to the window, Elia stared out at the cold ocean and panted. The wind slipped in and tickled her skin, scouring her with unease. She closed her eyes and listened to the warning—too late! The voices obscured themselves in her ears; she was too out of practice with the language of trees.
The old magic of Innis Lear, bleeding through its roots, carved into the bedrock of the very island, a language of the hunt and fluttering leaves, a magic Elia had abandoned. She’d cut herself off from that comfort long ago, choosing instead the stars and her father. Choosing the cold, lovely heavens and those constant, promising stars.
The earth changed, human hearts changed, but the stars never did. Everyone Elia had known who listened to the trees and leaned in to the roots of magic had left her.
She had thought it was enough to be her father’s truest star.
She’d thought it was a test, and if she remained that true star, all would be well. She’d thought her father understood her, that they knew each other better than anyone else.
And, a voice whispered from deep in her heart, she’d thought she was better than her sisters. Pride had kept her from breaking in the Zenith Court. Pride had kept her from saying something ridiculous to placate her father. From simply opening her mouth and playing the game.
“Love shouldn’t have to be a game,” she whispered to herself, and to the uneasy ocean.
“Elia.”
She spun, stumbling in surprise. The king of Aremoria had followed her.
“Your—Your Highness.” Her voice seemed foreign, a raw rasp emerging from her throat. As if she’d been screaming for hours.
He frowned, though it barely shifted his stolid face. “Your distress is understandable.”
Elia did not know how to reply without shrieking.
The king took a deep breath. When he sighed, his broad shoulders relaxed under the orange leather of his coat. “I am sorry for what your father has done. We will leave in the morning. Pack only what is personal. When we arrive in Aremoria, my sister and mother will have you supplied with any needs.”
She opened her mouth but said nothing. The king waited, watching her with steady blue eyes. She looked away, at the walls and furnishings of her room. It was perhaps smaller than a king might expect. But it was warm and bright from the cream-and-yellow blankets and tapestries she and her mother had chosen, embroidered with spring green vines and pastel wildflowers like a woven spring day. Elia could see Dalat here still, a ghost smoothing her hand along the pillows, telling a story as she tucked Elia into the bed. The wooden ceiling was crudely painted with star patterns against a day-blue sky, a gift from her father so she could recite their names as she fell into sleep. Light and ocean breeze slipped through a single window. No glass panes had been put in, for Elia preferred a heavy shutter she could open when she wished. She’d been so happy in this room, and then so alone.
Finally, she glanced back to the king. She thought of what he’d said in her defense, and was grateful. “Thank you, Your—Morimaros. I am grateful for your—your aid. But I cannot marry you or go with you.”
Surprise actually found a long pause on his face. It parted his lips and lifted his brows. Both bare hands opened, and he twitched his wrists as if to reach out. “But, Lady Elia—”
Elia shook her head, distant from her own body. “I cannot—cannot even think of it.”
“Ah,” Morimaros breathed. Understanding smoothed away his surprise. “You are grieving. But go with me, in the morning, to Aremoria. You need time and distance from Lear’s terrible judgment, and I would give it to you.”