Was that the way to save everyone, to be everything and fail at nothing? To give up this power and responsibility?
Or was that only what she thought she wanted, because she was afraid?
Elia, whispered the trees.
The witch is calling your name.
Your girl is calling your name.
We are calling your name.
Elia stood and held the hemlock carefully in her hands.
Sisters,
Our father is dead.
I send this letter in four copies, to find you either at Dondubhan, the Summer Seat, Astora, or Connley Castle, hoping to reach you in one of the corners of Innis Lear.
He died with me, suddenly, underneath a starry sky. I suspect you would prefer it had been painful, but he was at peace.
The island is not.
It longs for a king, and we must choose now amongst ourselves. We must be enough together to meet the island’s needs. Come to me at Errigal Keep, and we will decide there, where the iron sleeps.
Regan, the trees told me of your loss—I am so very sorry that your husband, too, has died. I know you loved him. I am learning something of love lately, and I hope you are finding strength in Gaela as always, and in the presence of Ban Errigal, and in knowing Connley’s bones will always be part of the stones and roots of Innis Lear, which were so loved by you both.
Your sister, Elia
AEFA
IT BOTHERED AEFA greatly that her lady still carried her crushed, dangerous flower crown.
Obviously it was hemlock, and the king had died wearing hemlock, and Aefa did not think anything symbolic or sentimental was worth the risk of Elia getting the poison on her fingers or accidentally swallowing some. Or worse just having it close to hand, and then deciding in one sad moment to die.
“I’m not suicidal,” Elia promised softly when Aefa tried (for the seventh or eighth time) to coax the crown from around the princess’s arm where she wore it hooked around her elbow like a large and deadly bracelet.
The reassurance was good, until Elia added, “Though I cannot promise to never eat it.”
Aefa’s huge eyes must have said plenty, because Elia hugged her and kissed her cheek and swore not to die by her own hand.
This was only marginally encouraging.
It had been four slow and worrisome days since the night Elia vanished and reappeared, and nearly a week since the fateful storm. Once Kayo could move, they’d traveled from Hartfare to Errigal Keep in a small, rather funereal procession, leaving the king under guard in the meadow where he’d died. They did not announce his death, but it was an impossible secret to keep on an island so tense, so ready to believe the angry wind was personal, an ominous message rather than mere late-season weather. The news seeped out, and by the time their party had reached the Keep, the doors were thrown open to them despite the order from Regan Connley that none be allowed to enter—none but her own people in Connley colors or those under the banner of Ban the Fox.
It was good to be in a well-functioning castle like Errigal Keep in the midst of mourning, because if the inner workings hadn’t been so solid, Aefa and her mother would’ve been hard pressed to keep everything running alone. They seemed to be the only two folk in all the world not brought low by sorrow. The Fool had been Lear’s friend for twenty years, and Kay Oak wore a face like he’d lost a brother—with what was left of his face. Even Brona grieved, though for the dead Earl Errigal more than the king. Wasn’t that a surprise. The Keep was full of mourning—for the earl and Connley, too. The iron wizard had ordered all the fires in the valley banked in deference, and the Keep’s cook had organized a group of women to venture into the White Forest in order that they might bathe Errigal’s body in rootwaters.
In the great hall, Aefa hummed to herself, an old wormwork prayer for new growth, while seated at Elia’s feet with a length of dark blue cloth in her lap. She sewed a white star across the breast of the tabard, for Elia to wear when her sisters came: the colors of the house of Lear, but Elia’s own standard instead of the swan. Perhaps a crown of stars or a spray of hemlock would’ve been more appropriate, Aefa thought darkly, but her skills with a needle were more suited to this large, basic pattern.
“This is an excellent idea,” her mother Alis Thornhill, had said yesterday, when Aefa had been hunting around through old cloth in the storage room beside all the companion ladies’ quarters. They’d chased out a last Connley cousin, who’d opted to flee north, but the rest of the Keep’s women from highborn to low- had remained, making a welcoming home for their youngest princess. Alis had especially taken to Sella Ironwife, married to the Keep’s wizard.
The women gathered in the great hall most mornings—the wind pounded constantly, dragging at the moors and snuffing out all fires but those carefully contained in hearths. They brought the day’s work to their quiet, kind lady, watching Elia from the corners of their eyes as they chattered. The women certainly had a lot to say about Ban Errigal. They mused on his roots and his prowess, wondering whether he might stay on once his brother inherited the Keep—they assumed Rory would return home, innocent. Especially now that Elia was home, too. Surely Rory was soon to follow. Because Ban was gifted with iron, with all forms of magic both secretive and strong, most women refused to consider aloud that the bastard might have betrayed Rory on purpose. Though Aefa could tell by the glances shared that they suspected it was so.
Elia
