To Aefa’s eyes, she was a piece of the forest come boldly and uniquely alive.
With the forest’s guidance, it did not take them long to find the king’s camp.
Brona crouched at a small fire, roasting a spitted squirrel. Beside her, Kayo leaned on an old log, filthy from the storm and in a hunter’s simple brown coat and tunic; only his very finely made boots suggested at his rank.
“Kayo!” Elia rushed forward, leaving Aefa to gasp at the earl’s injury.
A bandage wrapped his head, crossing over his left temple, cheek, and eye. A vivid purple bruise streaked beneath his right eye, and there was blood in the white of it, making the gray iris seem to shine. Sweat glistened at his upper lip and brow. The bandage was bloody brown at the lower edge, as if the wound beneath had bled in the night.
He smiled when he saw his niece, but it was a smile of sorrow and nostalgia, the memory of a smile more than the fact of one. “Starling,” he said, standing. “I will live.”
“If he does everything else I say,” Brona snapped.
“He will.” Elia pressed her fingers to his forehead. “I think you’re feverish.”
Her uncle shook his head and murmured, “You’re supposed to be in Aremoria.”
“This is exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
Aefa’s father leapt up from where he’d lounged in restless sleep against an old stump. “You’re here!”
“Dada!” Aefa threw her arms around his lanky waist, then hopped up to kiss his cheek. Lear’s Fool looked gaunt and terrible, stinking like wet dog and sweat. “Mother will not approve of this appearance when you return.”
“Maybe you can convince the king,” the Fool sang softly, and let her go in order to hug Elia, too.
Kayo said, “If anyone can.”
“Is he near?” Elia asked. Birds darted from one bright tree to the next, arguing over something.
“Past that hill of hawthorns.” Kayo pointed weakly. “I’ll show you.”
“No.” Elia lifted her chin and even raised onto her toes to get more in his face. “Stay with Brona and obey her as you would a queen. As you would my mother. I will not have you die of some fever.”
Her uncle turned his head to the witch, Brona, who nodded, her mouth pressed in anger and distress. Aefa knew she certainly would do what that woman said.
Elia took off toward the hillock covered in twisted hawthorn trees. Aefa followed, unwilling to leave Elia alone for this confrontation, be it tender and forgiving or rotten and final. Beyond the hill, the forest opened onto a meadow where a small stream played over flat rocks, branching into tiny tributaries and keeping the grass soft and green. Sunlight shone down unmarred, and motes of leaves and earth floated amidst moon moths and brilliant blue butterflies that shouldn’t have survived last night and the cold morning. Ferns clung in bunches between the narrow streams, almost like giant pillows. And upon them lounged Lear, the king. “Wait here,” Elia said, but Aefa excelled at choosing the right commands to follow.
The king’s feet were bare; scraps of a robe and trousers hung off his thin frame as he leaned back on his elbows, face turned with a smile to the bright sky and clear sun, like a basking cat, unaware or uncaring of his surroundings, lost in the pleasure of light. That shock of silver-streaked hair spread around his shoulders like a mane, and greenery was woven into a crown upon his head. Aefa recognized the feathered leaves and clusters of tiny white flowers: hemlock. It was a coronet of poison Lear wore.
“Elia,” she whispered. “It’s starweed.”
The princess froze, no doubt worried he’d eaten some, or meant to.
“Father?” Elia said carefully as Aefa hung back to give the king some illusion of privacy.
Lear glanced up, his expression opening like a bright dawn. “Ah, pretty spirit, do come join me on this bank here.”
Elia knelt in the damp grass beside him. “No spirit, sir, but flesh. Your daughter Elia.”
The old king frowned. “My daughter went over the sea—I sent her there. But you do look like my wife, pretty spirit.”
“Take my hands, Father. I am no spirit.”
Aefa could hear the struggle in Elia’s voice, and clenched her hands into fists, wishing to tear the difficulty away, or bear it instead.
The king frowned at his daughter. “Will you pull me into dreams? There are roots here, whispering. They would hold me under the earth forever, and as much I deserve.”
“You hear the voice of the trees?” Elia whispered. She glanced to Aefa, and Aefa did her best to smile encouragingly. It was a good sign, for the star-touched king to be listening to the wind.
But a shudder pushed down Lear’s body, and Elia grasped his cold, dry hands, bending to kiss his knuckles. The king pulled free.
“Let me wipe them,” he said, clucking his tongue. “They smell of mortality.”
Elia laughed, a small, helpless thing. “Yes, Father, they do.”
He pursed his lips. “What do the stars smell of, do you think?”
His daughter opened her mouth, but shook her head in astonishment and ignorance. “I suppose they are clean smelling, like fresh water.”
“My youngest smelled of goats,” the king murmured. He closed his eyes, holding her hand to his chest. “Or some sharp, spicy oil her mother always wore. It spread to her baby skin, and I never remember a time she smelled like her own self instead of my
