“What do you want?”
“To give aid to Elia Lear.”
“Make her the queen?”
“If that is what she wishes.”
The woman smiled, broad and knowing. “Did you wish to be king of Aremoria?”
“There are too many differences between our situations. I was always made to be my father’s heir. Elia was not.”
“Wasn’t she?” the woman said sharply. “What do you know of how she was made?”
“Who are you?” Mars demanded. “That you speak to me this way?”
Her lovely black eyebrows lifted. “I thought you were only a soldier.”
He sighed in frustration, and the wind seemed to huff back, shoving at him, tugging at the sword at his hip. Mars stumbled and turned to gaze inland, toward the northern moors, dark and silvery despite the glaring sky. “I am a stranger to you, and you challenge me without knowing me, regardless of my rank or name.”
“You are no stranger to me; your name is on the wind, set there by many voices.”
“Then you are a stranger to me.”
“Why are you here, Morimaros?”
“To help.”
“We do not need Aremore might.”
“That is why I did not bring any.”
“Your name, your presence, is more than enough. You are a living threat, and you know it.”
“Then use me! Let Elia use me.”
“Tell me: why are you here?”
The wind slammed so hard the grass hissed and roared like its own ocean.
“I want to help Elia.”
“Why are you here?” Her voice lowered, and Mars felt it through the wind.
“I told you. Now give me your name, woman.” He put his hand on his sword to stop the wind from slapping it against his thigh; too late he realized the threat of the gesture.
“Shh,” the woman murmured, touching her lips and then holding her hand out flat toward the moors.
The wind settled.
That graceful gesture; her dark Ispanian flavor; the wary, powerful eyes: Mars saw her in double, then, one figure herself and the other his Fox. Ban was slighter, more desperate, but there was no doubt in Mars’s heart.
“You’re his mother,” he said, stunned. But he should have guessed right away. Brona Hartfare, the witch of the White Forest. Mars felt a pang of dismay for noticing her beauty, as if it would let Ban down. As if the Fox’s respect still concerned him.
She said, “And you’re his king.”
“Not by his word,” Mars snapped, his only defense. “He chose you. Your island.”
Brona studied him, not as pleased as she ought to be by the revelation. He thought of Ban, writing that note, sending it off, and could not help but wonder how easy a choice it might have been. Had Mars ever mattered to Ban the Fox?
The king turned swiftly away so she might not see the pain crawl over his face. Ah, stars, Fox, he thought, nothing but a name and a sorrowful curse.
“You set him here to pull the island apart—for your benefit. For Aremoria.”
“I did.” Mars barely managed to keep his voice from diving to a whisper. Not from guilt—he would not apologize for acting as a king, not to any but Elia herself. Yet this was Ban’s mother, and speaking with her made him feel strangely closer to his Fox.
“Did you know how he would excel at it?” She seemed curious now, more than anything.
“I hoped he would. Lear was not a good king.”
“You expect me to believe that was your motivation? The good of our island?”
Mars turned back to her. “It was a part of my motivation, and if you do not believe me, there is no point discussing further. All I have is my word, here on your island.”
Brona Hartfare nodded. “I believe you. But what I’ve heard of Morimaros of Aremoria is that he is an excellent general, a liberal king, invested in the betterment of his people. It seems a king like that might have predicted my son’s actions.”
“I thought all his choices would point in my favor, because Ban would always be loyal to me.”
Now Brona slanted him a look. Almost pitying. She said, “All Ban has ever wanted was for someone to be loyal to him. So while everyone allowed the stars to make these paths for us, for him—Ban became his own star.”
Mars stared at her, understanding there was something in her words older than he could possibly come to terms with, more mysterious and strange than any man of Aremoria could fathom. But he felt the truth in them.
“What—Will you tell me what he’s done? He’s not here—with Elia. Where is he?”
The Fox’s mother sighed. “With Regan certainly, and Gaela, too, most likely. Beyond that, you could say more surely than I what he is responsible for.”
Mars heard the implication there perfectly: the witch meant Mars should know what he himself was responsible for. “I would have him at Elia’s side,” he said. “For that is where I intend to be, if she allows it.”
“How unfortunate it is, King, that we cannot control the path of a storm.”
There were a hundred things Mars could have said to defend Ban Errigal: that he was not chaos, that he had meant so much to Mars, that she should have cared better for her son, if she was so concerned with his behavior now. That the Fox had been determined and wounded, afraid and jealous and desperate for a friend, or a leader, or at least for a decent man to appreciate everything that Ban could offer, which was exactly what the king had been.
In the end, Mars said nothing.
Brona asked, “Do you love my son?”
“That doesn’t matter anymore,” Mars answered, harshly, for he had, indeed, loved the man. Trained him personally, lifted him up, trusted him! Simply enjoyed his thorny company. And missed him when he was gone.
She tilted her head and said, with the first lilt of maternal tenderness he had noted in her: “It matters to me.”
That hurt the king, and he struggled not to show it. Instead he only nodded, and said, “I did. But I can no longer.”
The
