Elia looked directly at him and said, “I forgive you.”
There was no possible response he could offer, desperate as he was to remain standing, to hold himself together.
She turned from Ban and to her sisters, inviting them all and their captains and whatever men would fit to shelter in Errigal Keep and its yards for the long, blustery night to come. Gaela agreed.
Then, very like a queen, Elia marched out of the pavilion with both Morimaros and Aefa at her heels.
The two eldest Lear sisters surrounded Ban, who felt himself entirely stunned by the swift current of destiny.
Gaela’s face was murderous. “You’d better win, Ban the Fox,” she said.
Regan kissed him, soft and scraping. She left her cheek against his to whisper, “The island will choose. Nothing else matters now.”
“I will win,” he lied, meeting Gaela’s eyes. “I will go ready those men who can move, to join Elia in the Keep.”
Their permission given, Ban hurried to do so. It took the greater part of an hour before he was on his way with a full contingent of men, behind the two queens and Earl Glennadoer, with Osli at his side, and upon arrival at the Keep, nearly another hour to settle all in their places. The wind blew, softer than before, but still urgent and waiting. He swung his saddlebag over his shoulder and strode inside.
But alone, Ban reeled still, and could not yet go to his old rooms. He leaned into the whitewashed wall, and said Elia’s name silently, no voice behind it.
The future of Innis Lear was rooted to his life or death. Him, and him alone. Ban the Fox, bastard of Errigal, would determine who wore the crown.
Was this glee and triumph building like a scream inside his chest? Or despair?
It would not do to dwell—not with so few hours left in his possession. Ban dropped his bag and hurried around the corner, where he caught a passing servant and asked after his father’s body. Wrapped and oiled, the earl had been laid out on a slab of worn granite in the cellar. Curan Ironworker and Captain Med had seen to it in the absence of both Errigal sons.
Ban went on alone, hurrying down the stone stairs with a shuttered lantern.
Usually the cellar smelled of earth and water and candle smoke, and a slight sourness, though Ban had not visited in years. Today, it burned with pine and strong myrrh to cover the inevitable stink of death.
Layers of dark linen wrapped the broad body, still daunting and wide, despite the sunken betrayal of slow rot. There was nothing to see but the shape of his father, so quiet in death. The lantern Ban had brought cast shadows over everything. His own shadow lengthened, stretching unnaturally across the slab altar and Errigal’s body.
Ban’s father had been dead for twelve days.
His lantern’s light wavered, and Ban realized he was shaking.
“I wondered if you would come here,” Rory said from the deep shadow beyond the first row of dusty wine.
“Brother,” Ban said.
“I am no such thing to you, am I? Have I ever been?”
“I’m sorry.” It gave Ban no relief to say it, thought his regret was true. Ban was sorry—sorry that Rory had been hurt and that Errigal had died as he had, that his brother would have wanted nothing so much as to die in their father’s stead. And he was sorry that Rory was now looking at him with such disgust. But Ban was not sorry for his choices, though he suspected he should’ve been. He was not sorry their father could no longer carelessly parade through life, untouchable as the stars he’d so worshipped. It was Errigal’s choices, too, his misplaced trusts and spoiled passions, that had brought the old earl to be here, lying coldly in this underground tomb. His sons at war.
Rory snorted and emerged into the broken light. He put his hand on the chest area of their father’s body and lifted a bottle of wine to his lips. It sloshed loudly; most had already been consumed.
The brothers stared at each other over the corpse. Ban set his lantern on the altar and reached out for the bottle. Rory smacked it into his hand.
Ban drank, eyes never leaving Rory’s blotchy, angry face.
Rory took the wine back. “Am I supposed to hope you live or die tomorrow?”
“Die, I suppose,” Ban said viciously.
Rory flung the bottle against the wall; it broke into three pieces, then hit the stone floor and shattered further. Rory breathed hard, while Ban did not even flinch. “Sometimes I hate you,” Rory whispered.
Ban nodded.
“I didn’t deserve this,” Rory said.
“I didn’t do any of it to hurt you.”
His brother only pressed his mouth in a grim line. “You’ll die.”
The cold agreement of his guts finally bent Ban’s knees; he crouched and put his hand to the floor for balance. “I think so, yes,” he hissed, unable to find a voice.
His brother knelt beside Ban and shoved him, then caught him and grabbed his shoulders. “You have to fight, you shit, you fox, you—you bastard.”
The word hit Ban harder than it might’ve, a bite under his heart, because in all his life Rory had never flung it at him. “I will fight,” he snarled into his brother’s face.
“Good. But you’ll lose.”
“What do you want?” Ban cried, wrenching away.
“I don’t know! I…” Rory fell back onto his behind, put the heels of his hands against his eyes. His fingers curled like claws. He heaved a deep breath and then dropped his arms. “I have always been generous to you, always loved you completely.”
“I did not doubt that. I only … do not know how … I was not made for love.” Ban shrugged, trying for indifference, but it was a jerky, offended motion.
“I know that is a lie. On your last night at least, do not lie. You were loved in Aremore. Did you never see that? The king—but … You were loved. And you loved Elia. I saw it when we were
