Ianta and her son, Isarnos, had come out with La Far to meet the king and his men for a picnic lunch, and the breeze was gentle, the cool wine relaxing. Nearly enough to help Mars clear his thoughts.
He’d joined his army ostensibly to inspect their winter camp, but truly because he needed time away from the princess, to build up defenses in his heart. To think without her presence diverting him, always. Instead, she had loomed even larger in his mind. Mars thought of her first when he woke at dawn, for he knew she, too, would be awake, and high on his ramparts saying farewell to the stars. He thought of her again when the wind brushed through curling leaves just beginning to turn the same dark copper that streaked her hair. His boots, all the boots in the army, reminded him of hers, peeking from beneath her dresses, a flower suddenly revealing thorns.
Leaving had made him long for her even more.
He sighed, and Ianta patted his knee sympathetically.
“What’s that you have, my prince?” Novanos asked Isa, and the prince leaned around his mother and stretched a skinny arm across her lap, offering something to the soldier with grubby hands. He carefully opened his palm to accept it, then showed the small yellow rock to Mars.
The king smiled. It was one of the ribbed stone beetles often found trapped in the cliffs or the limestone of Lionis Palace. Old stories said they were ancient animals transformed by earth saints into rock, as punishment for a crime that varied by the family telling it. Mars reached to pluck it from Novanos’s hand. The beetle was the size of his thumbnail. He said, “I spoke with a man from Ispania who thinks this is a natural process, a thing that happens to some creatures when they decompose, the way our flesh rots and falls away.”
“I’m eating, Mars,” Ianta said.
But Isarnos climbed onto his knees and eagerly poked the stone beetle. “Do you think if we could break inside it, there would be a hollow where its flesh rotted? Or turned to dust, or is all still there, preserved perfectly?”
“Maybe it is beautiful crystal like a geode,” Novanos suggested.
Isarnos gasped in delight.
“Break it open and find out.” Mars gave the beetle back to his nephew.
“Then it will be ruined, if there’s nothing but stone.”
The Twice-Princess nodded, dabbing her mouth with a cloth. “Then have it gilded, and save it forever. Always full of secret possibilities.”
The young prince stroked the ribbed shell and leapt to his feet. “If I find more, I can break one open and still have another to keep!”
Mars laughed, well pleased by his nephew’s strategic and forthright conclusion. The boy dashed through the line of soldiers enjoying their own lunch just down the hill, dodging toward the saddled horses. Most of the men remained with the camp, completing the necessary winter adjustments; this was only an honor escort so that the king did not ride alone.
Novanos got up, too, and trailed after the prince. He shared a glance with the Twice-Princess that told Mars he was facing an inquisition.
“So, Mars, how are your troops?” Ianta scraped soft cheese off the platter between them with her finger, and popped it into her mouth.
“The army is bedding down in the east. They’ve repaired Fort Everly’s spike wall, and should be wintered well. I’ll ride north toward Burgun next, but not get too close to the old line. Wouldn’t want to upset them unnecessarily yet.”
“Are you going to the west coast where the navy is?”
“I will have to tell them to nest or remain prepared for assault if I do.”
“You haven’t decided yet?” Genuine surprise lifted his sister’s voice.
Mars ran his hands over his skull, scrubbing at the thick hair. It needed a new shave.
“Tell me what troubles you most, big brother.” Ianta poured a little more wine into Mars’s cup.
“If I want Innis Lear more than anything, I should go and take it now, when they’re divided. That will be best for Aremoria, with the least risk to us.”
“But there’s something you want more?”
“Aremoria should be—it is—my only concern.”
“You are Aremoria.”
“Father told me how this would be. That being king separates me from all else. That my love—my attention—belongs to my people first, and to myself, rarely.”
“Even the sun is affected by the clouds, by rain and the moon.”
“But are the sun and moon lovers?” he said, amused at the turn of the conversation, but also inexplicably hurt by it.
Ianta laughed. “I suppose you’d have to ask the sun and the moon.”
Glancing up at the sky, scalded silver and nearly impossible to behold by the brilliant sun, Mars nodded.
His sister said, “You could be lover to Elia Lear.”
“She is her own sun, no moon for mine.”
Ianta clapped her hands as though she’d caught him in a trap. “Her own sun! Mars, are you in love with her?”
Fiercely uncomfortable, he sat up. “If I take Innis Lear now, she’ll hate me.”
“Aremoria will be stronger if you have a queen,” Ianta murmured, wheedling. “Haven’t you thought of that? Maybe stronger with a queen than with a conquered Innis Lear.”
“I have an heir.”
“Isarnos is my heir, too, you know, and I might want to protect him from your throne.”
“Or give him to Vindomatos’s daughter?”
Ianta shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind retiring to that north duchy. And strengthening our ties along Burgun’s border. Aremoria wants for you to have your own queen and your own heir.”
“If Elia marries me, I could maybe have Innis Lear, too, in the end,” Mars said.
“And if you go for her island first, she might never willingly marry you.”
“Willingly!” Aghast, Mars stared at his sister. “I do not want a queen unwilling, Ianta, and I’m … offended.”
“Then put the navy to nest for the winter,” she pressed.
This was no counseling, not Ianta’s usual give-and-take questioning, meant to help Mars decide what his choices
