She’d said it with no expression, but Tear knew his mother well enough to recognize the disquiet in her blue-green eyes.
At fourteen, Tear Connley was tall and slightly awkward, having not yet grown into his height. But none who looked upon him would doubt the regal lines of his jaw and cheeks and brow, nor the strength of his family nose. He was colored exactly as his mother: straight blond hair that tended toward red-gold, lovely blue-green eyes, and unblemished skin as smooth and light as cream. His lips were pink and sometimes the tips of his cheeks, too. If he smiled, he would be beautiful. But Tear rarely did.
He looked like a prince, which was why two people in this hall had already asked him if he was the young Aremore heir who had been sent by his father for the memorial. Tear tilted his chin down, both times, and said only, “No,” slanting his gaze toward where the real prince sat, resplendent in orange and white like a summer’s day, with only a finely embroidered strip of pale gray silk tied to his arm.
Abandoned by his mother, so she could more freely gossip and plot with her array of Connley cousins, Tear leaned his shoulder against the corner of a stone pillar, softened by time and darkened from hundreds of hands. He’d pulled his bloodred coat on to cover the mourning gray wool that he’d worn out on to the Star Field for the procession at dusk. Tear was beginning to be aware that the bolder color made him shine, instead of drawing him wan as it did his darker father. His mother approved, having raised him to use every weapon in his arsenal.
The great hall was crushed with people, most blending together in their mourning shades of white and gray, though some still wore jewels and silver that sparkled, in hair and at wrists or waists. Tear played a game with himself, trying to name every faction, and invent some plot for them to discuss. His own young cousins were mostly girls, and so they did not desire to spend time with him, given that he did not flirt or pretend to protect them. The boys were all ten years Tear’s elder, thanks to his parents’ long wait for children. Those boys had little interest in his cold quiet and used to call him his mother’s daughter when they were younger and stupid enough to forget he would be their duke. Though Tear had hardly minded. They would be his allies when the time came, because he knew everything they wanted, and he would be in position to grant it, or not. And because he was, in many ways, his mother’s daughter. She taught him very, very well, and he learned, adeptly and eagerly.
Someday Tear would wear the ducal chains; someday he would rule Connley and control the entire eastern edge of Innis Lear, down through the wealthy Errigal lands. Everyone on Innis Lear would love or fear him, or perhaps hate him. Anything, he thought, so long as their feelings were strong. His mother had told him, Make the people want you for you, not your stars. Give them a connection to your flesh and blood and purpose, my boy. As we connect ourselves to the rootwater.
He certainly wasn’t following that advice while leaning apart from the crowd, so, taking a breath, Tear pushed clear of the column. He began a measured pace deeper into the room. He wound through clusters of adults, some laughing, some gossiping intensely with concerned faces. All were drinking warm wine from braziers hung over the hot coals. Tear took a cup himself and drank half of it down, despite knowing it would bring the pink out in his sharp cheeks.
His goal was the prince of Aremoria, Morimaros. Several years Tear’s elder and here, his mother said, to court one of Lear’s daughters.
Tear stepped up beside the prince, hoping his solemn expression lent age and wisdom to his features.
Morimaros nodded, dark blue eyes flicking across Tear’s face. “From Connley?” the prince said.
Tear bowed. “The duke’s only son.”
“We hear fine things about your mind and ambitions, young Connley,” said the Earl Rosrua’s son, likely to take the title any month now. He stood at Morimaros’s opposite side. “We’ll welcome you to our ranks.”
Again, Tear bowed, though more slightly. What he had heard of the heir to Rosrua was not to be repeated before any Aremore. “I hope Dondubhan is impressing you,” he said to Morimaros.
“It is. Your people are very united.”
A strange response, Tear thought, having expected to speak about the massive black Tarinnish or the spreading Star Field or the ancient, strong ramparts of the castle itself, the twelve-foot-thick walls or the watchtower. This was significantly more intriguing. “We are. It must be so in Aremoria, too.”
Morimaros paused, as if realizing he’d been caught in an odd comparison. “I think … it is like the difference between our forests and yours. Here, you have fewer kinds of trees. Pines, oaks, and smaller trees in the south, but only the hardiest here in the north, where there are trees at all. They stand strong and alone against harsh circumstances, but still the forests are thick and immortal. Aremore forests have hundreds of kinds of trees. They do make forests—vast, amazing forests—but they are not so singular.”
Tear understood in his gut, immediately.
But the Rosrua heir chuckled. “It’s because our trees talk, you know, Your Highness. Like
