“No,” she whispered, as harsh as winter rain.
“Yes, Regan. Come with me.”
She shuddered, then looked. “Ban?” Her voice was soft and lost.
He nodded and kissed her temple. He left his lips there, blowing warm breath into her hair. She shuddered again and in one swift move thrust up and seized him.
“Gone,” she said, low in her throat. “There is no more of Connley at all, anywhere.”
“I know,” he said, holding her with all his strength. Using it to prop up his own heart.
The lady did not cry, but she held on to him long, as the sun moved away, the breeze lilted east to southeast, and shadows fell all around. Ban listened to the hush, to Gaela’s retainer trudging back to the small fire and stirring it up again, evidence of her discomfort and attempt to give them privacy. Evening birds came out to sing, against the discordant tune of crickets.
“It’s time,” Ban said finally, stroking Regan’s tangled hair.
They stood. Regan stared hollowly down at her husband, while Ban faced the hawthorn.
Take him, he said. This is His Highness, Tear Connley of Innis Lear, a part of this island born, and part of it forever.
The hawthorn shivered, tiny clusters of haws blinking in the twilight.
Regan said, He saw me. She gripped her belly hard enough to pinch her flesh through the shift she wore.
Roots lifted up from the earth, stretching, reaching for Connley. The shadows yawned, and the wind said, With us.
Behind them, the horses shied away from the trembling ground. Clay parted, roots looped up, grasping the duke’s neck and wrists, his waist and thighs and feet. They pulled him down, into the earth.
Regan cried out wordlessly, up at the first stars filtering through the twilight.
Connley vanished, embraced by the hawthorn at last.
“I’m sorry,” Ban said, staring where the duke had just been, longing to see that unique color of Connley’s eyes once more, or marvel at the ambitious twist of his mouth. Regan heaved and nearly collapsed, but Ban caught her.
“It’s my fault,” he said, thinking of his cowardice at having fled the Keep last night.
The lady fell still against him. Dangerously still.
Blood sang in his ears: he was at her mercy, suddenly, beholden to a wolf who’d just lost her mate.
“No,” Regan said, leaning away. In this newborn darkness, she was an eerie tree-shadow, a haunting spirit. Her crystalline eyes flicked to her husband’s shallow grave. “This is the fault of our fathers.”
The truth of it took his breath away.
And Ban could make both their fathers pay. As if everything had whispered and urged him to just this moment, with every breeze at his ear and choice in his heart, since the sun rose this morning. Or even longer. Since he’d come home from Aremoria, since he’d fallen in love with a star, since he’d been born.
Before he thought any deeper, Ban pulled the walnut from his jacket, dropped it onto the earth, and crushed it beneath his heel.
ELIA
THE KING DID not wish to leave his meadow.
Elia urged their return to Hartfare before dark, but Lear sank stubbornly back against the earth, or pretended to be asleep, or simply ignored her. His eyes drifted up and up, always toward the pale blue sky, awaiting the absent stars.
Finally, Elia asked Aefa to return to Hartfare for dinner, to gather blankets and whatever else she and her father might need to sleep under the stars. The girl began to protest, but Elia smiled sadly and promised the trees and wind would warn her of danger. It would be a clear night, and they would manage until her return.
Aefa left at a run, and Elia sat down beside the king again. She said, “My Aefa will come back with blankets, with wine and some bread, and you and I will curl up to watch the stars be born. How does that sound, Father?”
He sighed contentedly, and leaned back onto the grass, and fell truly asleep.
Overwhelmed with affection, with fear and longing—and anger—Elia picked up his hand and clasped it in hers. He was so ruined, so wracked by madness and guilt, she shouldn’t be angry. She did not have the luxury, though she wished, for a fleeting moment, that she could rage and hate him, as Ban had done.
Struggling for peace, Elia simply closed her eyes and whispered to the nearby ash tree. I’m listening.
So are we, the ash tree said, shaking a little so that three oval leaves drifted down to kiss the rushing creek beside them.
Elia remembered another ash tree, at the heart of her mother’s garden at Dondubhan. It had been the queen’s sanctuary against the harsh winters of the far north. Cherry trees had bloomed a blushing pink, and juniper had always been green, with tiny pale blue berries in the fall. But the ash itself had leaned over the queen’s favorite bench. The morning Dalat had died, the first black buds had peeked out from the pale branches, later to bloom into deep purple flowers. Roses hugged the keep wall, the barren vines hooked against the huge gray stones. Elia, only eight years old, fled from her sisters to the garden, going first to the rose vines. She grasped one in her hand, squeezing the copper thorns until they hurt, until the curved spikes bit into her skin. The pain had focused Elia away from her churning stomach, and away from her uncertain but swollen grief.
A cold wind had blown gently through the evergreen fingers of the juniper, shaking its voice in sad little gasps to mirror her own muffled panting.
Elia Elia Elia, the wind seemed to whisper.
Her face had crumpled. She’d let free a wail, small as a kitten’s cry, and closed her eyes. That morning, it had felt the only way: releasing the hurt a bit at a time, through soft cries and the pricks on
