Her arms tightened around him, but he barely moved.
“Connley,” she breathed, his name disappearing into the wind. The wagon tilted as they started up a hill, and Connley moaned again. His eyes moved; she saw a glint of them. Bending over him, she put her ear to his lips.
“Regan,” he whispered, barely. She knew the sound of her name from his mouth, in all forms, but not this, not from a voice weak and hurting.
“Regan,” he whispered again. “Don’t lose yourself when I’m gone.”
“Stop,” she hissed.
She couldn’t wait for the altars.
“Stop!” Regan screamed, slapping the front of the wagon. “Stop now!”
The driver pulled the horses back, and everything went still but for the wind. Even the punishing rain had ceased.
As carefully as she could, Regan shifted her husband to the wagon floor and began untying the canvas above their seat. When enough had been pulled free, she shoved it away: rolling black and vivid purple clouds pushed at the southwest edges of the sky, but in the east it was clear, stars glittering just like sharp shards of glass. Not for me, not from me, Regan thought, kneeling, holding the side of the wagon for support. Dark forest sprawled at the bottom of the hill behind them: this length of the West Ley Road poured through a deep valley between stretches of moorland. It was hours still to Connley Castle and her altar, that deepest seat of Regan’s power.
“Lady?” Osli, from Gaela’s retinue, stood still, silhouetted against the stars. She had aided Regan, she had driven the horses, she had kept the other ladies and retainers at Errigal Keep from following.
“Help me put him now against the earth.”
With Connley spread against damp, yellow grass, Regan pushed Osli back and then took off her heavy outer dress. She knelt in wool shift and stockings to undress him, quickly, unwrapping his wound. He breathed slowly and shallowly, skin too pale, she thought, but the moon was behind the storm, and the sun too far away. Another storm, one made of blood and bile, had formed a violent bruise that covered Connley’s chest, ribs, and stomach.
He was bleeding inside.
There was nothing she could do alone. Nothing any healer could do.
Water pattered off distant forest leaves. Wind glided more gently now over the moorland, teasing before dawn like a weary sigh.
Save him, Regan told the wind. Tell me what to do, she said to the earth. She brushed her hands on the grass, tugging. Tell me. Help me.
He is dying, the wind whispered.
We cannot save him, said the trees.
“No!” Regan cried. She tore up chunks of grass, then grabbed her own hair, pulling until it burned. Tears filled her eyes. She blinked hard, leaned over him so the tears fell onto his face. “Wake up,” she said, and wrote heal on his cheek using the cool slip of her tears.
Please, she begged the island. Innis Lear, I am your daughter, and I would give you anything to save him.
Below her knees, the ground shifted. A small ripple, as if from a tide pool. Regan flattened one palm against the earth and the other over his sternum. Tendrils of earth crawled up his sides, like tiny worms.
Saints of trees and stars, she whispered, birds of the sky and fire, worms of the dreamtime, lend me strength!
Connley shuddered as the earth entwined him.
The sky brightened along the eastern horizon, creamy and gilded.
Regan grasped the small knife she’d plucked from her husband’s boot and slashed the back of her wrist. Blood dripped onto his chest and she wrote heal, wishing with all her power that the rootwaters still flowed freely, that she could bathe him in the navel well, find the nearest star chapel and break it open until the island’s heart-blood pumped out and over Connley.
Wind jerked at her hair, and she dragged her heavy overdress against Connley’s legs, blanketing him up to his belly, keeping him warm.
Hidden inside the wind’s voice was a sorrowful whisper: Lost and fading, it mourned already.
Then I will die, Regan cried.
This was the limit of earth magic, and star prophecy, too: neither could force a body to do what it was not capable of doing on its own. Roots might encourage, water direct, wind gift with speed, stars shine hope, but if something was too broken, not even the blood of the island or the tears of the stars could mend it.
Regan kissed him. She opened his mouth with hers, tasting the corners of his lips, the edge of his teeth, and he tilted his chin, sighing a harsh breath. Connley kissed her back. One hand found her neck, slid up to her skull, fingers dug roughly through her tangled dark hair. A spark—the last star Regan might ever claim. His grip tightened, then went slack as his arm sank slowly again. His breath softened. Hitched.
“No,” she whispered, and the knife in her hand flipped; she aimed the point at her ribs, pausing just a moment to lift her voice to the wind: My heart for his, my life blood for his, take it, take anything.
Weight hit Regan’s shoulder as Osli tackled her, knocking the witch to the ground and snatching at the knife with quick skill.
“No!” Regan screamed, and again, gasping, crushed beneath the other woman’s weight.
“My lady would murder me if I let you die,” Osli said. She tossed the knife far away, pinning Regan still. Regan tried to reach for her husband. Her fingers only grazed his hair.
“Get off me,” she ordered, but in a quiet, desperate whisper.
The captain obeyed.
Regan crawled nearer to Connley, tucking her cheek against his shoulder from upside down, and wrapped one arm around his head.
Sunlight flashed in a long line at the horizon, a signal to the dying night.
ELIA
DAWN BROKE THROUGH the storm clouds lingering over
