“I’ve made you an earl. My Oak Earl,” the king of Innis Lear had said to him, four days ago at the Summer Seat. “Found you a steward and good stone manor. You’ll oversee several villages, and their reeves will report to you. The land is yours.”
They’d walked along the yard together, during the break between rains that morning, in search of where Elia had hidden herself. “Thank you, Lear,” Kayo said carefully, rubbing his hands together against the dank ocean wind. It was late spring, but his bones had not yet thawed from the long winter. He’d months ago given in to Learish fashions, wrapping himself in wool and dark leather, and a fur-lined coat with a hood. His headscarf clung around his neck; Kayo couldn’t quite bear to leave it behind.
He’d been given a choice: stay, become the Oak Earl, and sever ties of family to the Third Kingdom, rooting himself permanently to this island and the fortunes of the Lear dynasty. Or go. Be a caravan master, wander and travel, serve the empress, but lose privileges of family on this island, become no more than an honored guest when he chanced to pass through.
Traditions and training pulled him toward the Third Kingdom, where he’d lived half his life, where he’d spent years building a reputation as a negotiator to run his own caravan on behalf of the empress one day. But a part of him had belonged to Innis Lear since he’d been sent to foster with Dalat as a boy. She’d been more a young mother to him than a sister, and her foreign husband had welcomed Kayo without fuss. This island had been her home. She’d loved it here, the fluffy sheep and harsh wind, the eating ocean and hearty, temperamental people. The roots were so deep and mysterious, Dalat said, she felt as though God had put her here, in a place where her curious spirit would never fall to satisfaction.
Kayo felt the same sense of mystery, though it unnerved him where Dalat had been intrigued.
Kay Oak of Lear. The witch of the White Forest had named him so the night of the first anniversary of Dalat’s death.
My Oak Earl, Lear himself had said.
They did not communicate, the witch and the king, of that Kayo was certain. So how did they call him by the same Learish name? What mystery of this island’s roots explained that? Did the trees whisper names into the king’s dreams?
Lear had put a hand on Kayo’s shoulder, there in the front courtyard of the Summer Seat. The king was some thirty years Kayo’s elder, and it was apparent by the silver in his loose brown hair, the wrinkles making his long face longer.
“Kayo, I know yours to be a difficult decision,” the king said. A seriousness focused his blue eyes in a way Kayo was unused to; usually Lear appeared more dreamy, looking through people and walls. “To choose one loyalty over another, exchanging family and name for family and name. But I must insist, just as I must consolidate what I can now. There are those on this island who would challenge me. And my girls. And for that, I would have you stay. Be mine.”
Kayo frowned, knowing plenty about those who would challenge the king. But Lear smiled and continued, “I’ve had a prophecy read for you, and your stars are rather interesting, Kayo. One thing is certain: we will be great friends so long as I am king. So”—Lear winked like a mischievous child—“tell me you will stay, and be my brother.”
It was said on Innis Lear that their king had been born under two constellations: the Twin Star, and the Star of Crowns. One promised he would be pulled in many directions, and the other that he would be king. But as the third-born son it had been very unlikely he would rule, unless tragedy struck the crown. So he believed, so all believed. But the last great king, his father, trusted in the prophecy and named Lear his heir, but Lear was a boy and full of dedication to the stars. He left the island instead, to study in the greatest star cathedrals on the continent for years. His brothers had remained, learning the laws and the people. When the king grew ill, Lear was sent for, and he returned, taking up his heavenly work in the chapels and towers of Innis Lear. The great king died, and his final wish was that Lear take the crown, witnessed by his first and second sons, witnessed by his retainers and earls, witnessed by dukes and healers. But Lear refused. The stars were his vocation: he was crowned for the stars, not by them, he argued. How better to serve the people, the kingdom, than as a royal star-reader, the most gifted and precise of them?
In only three short weeks from this refusal to take the throne, both his brothers were dead. By accident, and by sudden illness. Lear had no choice but to take up the crown in the midst of tragedy, and never again questioned the will of the stars—if he had not, his brothers might well have lived. His devotion had been a thing Dalat admired in her husband, for her heart, too, was devoted to a singular faith.
But Kayo’s was unsure. He questioned God and also the stars, constantly, and could think of a dozen interpretations one might apply to the Twin Star and the Star of Crowns that would spool out very differently than Lear’s. As he’d learned, the way everyone on Innis Lear must learn, what stars meant and how the prophecies worked, he’d come to realize they could function as a decision-making tool. When he faced a choice, a prophecy could suggest one path, and upon hearing it, Kayo immediately knew if he agreed
