“I owe him nothing but what he has already received. How do you stand here now, defending him, when he banished you, cast you aside, like there was nothing he owed to you? Like you were not brothers. What for?”
Lear blinked. He scrubbed at his eyes and dragged those offending hands into his wild hair. “Banished?” he murmured, and his mouth curled up into a sneer. “My betraying brother! Would he dare show himself?”
“Ah no, Lear! Ha!” the Fool danced up and between Lear and Kayo. “This is not your brother but mine, a darker Fool than me, but still a fool.”
Gaela laughed harshly. “He is at that.”
“Why are you turning your father out?” Kayo asked her.
“Lear has heard my accusations of misrule and chaos sown in my home, and does not defend himself or his men. So I judge them unfit for this place.”
Lear cackled, a child unattended, and aimed his words to the sky. “Regan will welcome me, and Connley!”
Kayo frowned. “Connley cannot be trusted, Your Highness.”
“But my other, brighter daughter Regan will take me in. Her love has always been true.”
“You are mad,” Gaela said wonderingly.
Lear fell silent. All around, retainers barely breathed.
Kayo’s frown encompassed the entire yard. “Be kind, Gaela, you see how it is with him. He needs you to be a daughter.”
“As I needed my mother?”
The Oak Earl said nothing, shattered—as he should have been—by the reminder.
Gaela held her hands out, uncaring now for her uncle’s opinion. He was as in love with inconstant Lear and as stupid as Elia. “If Lear needs my council, he should listen to me. Father, I care not where you go, but you will not stay here, not with all your rowdy men. Revel in kinship with the beasts of the field, or ask some poorer of your lands to house and feed you! Discover whether you are truly beloved of these people. I think you will be surprised.”
Kayo’s eyes were shadowed, so low and glaring was his brow. “Would your people shelter you, Gaela?”
“I will withdraw my protection of you, Kayo, if you do not watch your tongue.”
“They would shelter Elia.”
Gaela bared her teeth. “I will shelter my people, because I will be their king.”
Lear stepped nearer to his eldest daughter, peering into her face. “It is no wonder I find no comfort nor nurturing grace here; this daughter has none in her. She is dried up, barren of life, deprived of motherhood for being her own mother’s death omen.”
Gaela slapped him.
The king staggered back, and around him blades grated free of sheaths.
Kayo hauled at her arm, crying her name. She swung, knocking Kayo off her.
She faced her father and his circle of retainers, and all Gaela saw was a rotting old man who had always been sick: with star prophecy and loss and bitter fanaticism. Her stomach churned; she thought she might vomit, but Gaela Lear did not show weakness. She did not shy from battle. She would calm herself, then strike deadly, as a commander and king. Gaela seethed, sweat on her temples, and hissed a fatal verdict to her foolish father: “I do not care what you do, live or die, only do it out of my sight. Go to my sister if you would, throw yourself at Connley.”
Lear reeled back into the arms of his men, all dragging away, gathering what they could to leave. The Fool flapped his coat but said nothing, staring at his king as he stumbled.
“Why do you hate your father so deeply? It cannot be from Dalat’s death, not still. It was not Lear’s fault,” Kayo insisted.
“He has never denied his guilt, and you were not here to see otherwise.” She turned her hot brown eyes to her uncle. “You were not here, and so could not save any of us.”
His mouth went rigid. “That is my great regret, and for it I will not abandon him.”
“What about us?” Gaela shoved herself toward him, glaring right into his dark gray eyes. “Do not abandon us, Uncle. Let that old man go.”
“He needs my loyalty.”
“You should obey your new, better king!”
“Yet you are not that, Gaela Lear. And perhaps never shall be.”
Fury darkened Gaela’s sight with spikes of crimson. She grabbed her uncle’s collar, drew her knife, and slashed it across his face.
Kayo cried out, thrusting free of her grip. He stumbled, hands up and pressed to his cheek and eye. Blood poured through, as red as Gaela’s anger.
A king had no need of brothers, nor uncles, she thought viciously, and cried, “This Oak Earl is no more. As the king before me stripped him of his titles, so do I. If he is seen upon my lands again it will be his death. Now get him out of Astora.”
Gaela turned and raged back into the halls of the castle, mortally bruised, with her mother’s name on her tongue and a curse in her heart.
TEN YEARS AGO, INNIS LEAR
KAYO OF TARIA Queen did not know how to be a farmer. His people were caravanserai and noble governors, though he supposed perhaps five hundred years ago his ancestors might have herded goats along the dry steppe of the Second Kingdom.
This wave-racked island squished beneath his boot; vibrant green moss and lush short grass surrounded him in this valley, marked by scatters of tiny yellow and purple flowers whose names Kayo did not yet know. He thought he recognized a mountain thistle—he could understand a fellow creature’s need for such a protective layer. Kayo tugged his own bright purple coat tighter, looking beyond the meadow to where, at the curve of the shallow stream, a cottage was tucked. Smoke lifted from the chimney; he was expected. Kayo wrinkled his nose at the long-haired cow chewing at a large bale of hay, and wandered toward the hill behind the cottage. It was bare of trees, but bright green, too, and little white sheep made slow grazing trails.
