“She did,” Kayo whispered again.
“She did.” Brona smiled. It was a dangerous, flat smile.
“I did not believe in it! Or I would have been here. I thought … I didn’t think of it when I left because it was ridiculous. Stars do not know such things—they are merely lights in the sky!” Kayo pulled away from her. “How can you—”
“Listen, Kay Oak of Lear.”
It was not his name. She said it, though, with raw certainty, and it echoed in his skull like a spell. Brona had, with four words, rooted him here.
He was rigid. He did not want to hear more. He could hardly breathe.
“Two years ago, rumors reached Dalat’s ears: if the queen did not die on her appointed day, she could not be the woman the stars had ordained. If fate’s finale proved wrong, what of the start?” Brona’s voice was hollow now, but not soft. She was angry.
Kayo understood.
The moon flashed behind a swift-moving cloud, then was bright again. Time sped, it seemed to him, and the island trembled.
Brona said, “It was not only Dalat in danger, do you understand? It was her daughters and their entire legacy. There might have been war if Connley had convinced enough people that Dalat was not the true, star-ordained queen. And if she was not, how could her daughters be true? How could their foreign blood belong to Innis Lear? Do you see? If Dalat did not die…” Brona shook her head. “But she did.”
“Was it—Was it Lear?” Kayo could hardly bite out the words. “Did he murder my sister for his stars?”
“Lear would do nothing. He knew of the brewing danger, but he was ever paralyzed by heaven. He said again and again that Dalat must have faith, because she was his true queen—their daughters, his daughters—and the stars would offer satisfying answers. Hold with me, he said, have faith with me, we will do and be as the stars require. For that is what we must always do.”
Kayo tried to crouch on the ground for balance in this dizzying, swaying world, but Brona held him upright.
“If I had been here,” he said, “I would have protected her—you should have! And … he did not protect her. He—”
“Now, Kay Oak, listen to me.” Brona knelt, and he collapsed with her. They faced each other on the rough moor, and Brona closed her eyes. She drew a deep breath.
Kayo’s eyes burned; his heart pounded in his ears and wrists and temples. All the sky was darkly silver.
And Brona Hartfare shocked him to his soul by speaking in the language of the Third Kingdom, “This is my choice, son-of-my-mother. I make it for myself, your mother’s-daughter, and for your sister’s-daughters, and I ask that you accept it now. I ask that you give yourself to them, to their protection, for they will need your heart-strength and generosity. Never tell them of my choice, but keep them well. Son-of-my-mother, I love you.”
Kayo dragged himself free with a cry, turning away as if to retch. But there was nothing, nothing inside him except grief and regret. He gripped the roots of a strong tree, bending against them.
Brona’s hand found his shoulder.
He squeezed his eyes shut, and tears leaked through his curled lashes.
“I have said these words, Kay Oak, every night and every morning for a year and three days. The island’s roots and the wind of our trees know what Dalat of Taria Queen and Innis Lear has asked of you. It knows what she asked of herself.”
Kayo did not think he was as strong as the daughter-of-his-mother. He barely felt Brona’s touch as he dug his fingers into the cold earth around the oak’s roots, as if he could grip the very heart of this dangerous, unforgiving island. To strangle it, to bury himself, or only to grasp hold, he could not say.
THE SISTERS MET in a pavilion erected over the rocky Errigal moor, built of canvas in the neutral gray colors of death, with massive torches flickering bright against the black sky.
Innis Lear raged, tossing flags and leaves sharply, grabbing at anything not tied down. The wind stung the eyes of retainers and servants, tore at the horses’ manes, rattled tack, and shoved wagons. Half the tents could not be put up, taking thrice as many men to hold and stake down, and even then the gale blew harder.
The youngest princess had sent word, offering instead the shelter of Errigal Keep, but the eldest denied it. Let the skies scream at our meeting, she said to the messenger.
And so they arrived.
Wind gusted from the north, drawing the cries of the island in its wake, from the mountains, karst flats, cliffs, meadows, and moors, arrowing toward the iron marsh, toward the daughters of Lear.
Gaela Lear had brought with her an army twelve hundred strong from Dondubhan, with more following at a slower pace—though some from those barracks had deserted, running here to the daughter they knew best from her time at the northern star tower, and out of friendship with Rory Earlson. The Astore army camped in a wide, flickering fan to the west, right up to the edge of the White Forest. To Regan’s bloodred banner five hundred from Connley had joined, and the Earl Glennadoer as well, with his mud-and-feather-painted soldiers.
Toward them from the fortress of Errigal Keep came the party of the youngest Lear daughter, all in the midnight blue and white of Innis Lear itself, dotted throughout with the wintry pale blue of Errigal. Her force was the smallest, a bare two hundred from Errigal and the surrounding farmland, but four hundred and then three hundred more had arrived today with the Earl Rosrua and Bracoch. Plus their dead father’s hundred loyal retainers, not a one of whom had broken toward Gaela and Regan.
The wind roared, tearing at hair and tabards.
None could predict what might happen this night,
