Obediently, Elia sat, hands folded in her lap.
“We shall leave you clad in this plain star priest gown, and bring you with me to this meeting with Aremoria and Burgun. Will they see their sought princess, or only a servant of heaven?”
Though her father’s smile was large and infecting, Elia was not enthusiastic. “Should we play games, Father? They might be offended.” Her thoughts drifted to those last letters she’d received, and she wondered if Ullo was capable of seeing past an unadorned dress, or if Morimaros of Aremoria had been honest when he said he wished for a star reading.
“And what should happen then?” Lear raised spiky brows. “A retreat? If either king is so easily put off of you, then now is the time to discover it. They will not attack us; they will not risk their trade with the Third Kingdom, nor the access to our rubies and gold and iron.”
It was true Innis Lear was rich in resources and minerals, and their location put them between sea trade and Aremoria, though Aremoria could always trade overland with the vast desert kingdoms to their south and east. It was also true Aremoria would risk any trade they established with the Third Kingdom if they consumed Lear, dethroning Dalat’s line, which was also the line of the empress. And Burgun couldn’t defeat Lear if they tried. Alliances mattered much more to their small country. But Elia had no intention of marrying either king, and so she supposed she could play along.
“Very well, Father,” Elia said, and Lear’s smile spread into a wicked old grin. With a groan he knelt, reaching under the low oak frame of his bed. Before she could offer aid, he made a sound of triumph and dragged out a small clay pot.
“Is that oil? It must be rancid now.” Elia leaned away.
Her father started to stand, then shook his head and gave up without much effort. He handed the pot to her. “Open it.”
The orange glaze and black rim proved the pot to be from the Third Kingdom, but it was small enough to fit easily in her hands. She pried off the lid, where wax still clung from an old seal. The lingering perfume of bergamot oranges brought tears to her eyes. She was used to the smell, for her uncle the Oak Earl bought copious amounts in trades on her behalf, just as he had for Dalat over the years. But this, surely, had been a pot touched and admired by her mother. Those gentle hands had caressed this smooth glaze, cupped the base as gently as Elia did now.
Inside curled a thin chain of silver woven into a delicate net, and studded with tiny diamonds—no, merely island crystals, but in Elia’s palm they glinted like shards of fallen stars. “Father,” she whispered, just barely remembering Dalat’s hair bound tight in a thick roll that curved from ear to ear, along her nape, and dotted with the same tiny sparkling lights.
“This will be enough of a crown, my little love, my favorite.” Lear stood very slowly, but Elia was too stunned, admiring the sleek dripping silver, to notice in time that he needed aid to rise. The king moved behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “I remember how to do it, though it has been so many … long years.”
Elia closed her eyes, flattening her hands on her stomach. This would infuriate her sisters when they saw, for both would demand this artifact of their mother for themselves. Gaela because she felt she deserved all Dalat’s mementos, because they’d been the closest, because she was the eldest and would be queen; Regan because she liked to deny Elia small things, and as ever would support Gaela’s claim.
No doubt Lear had hidden it in the tiny clay jar in order to keep it to himself. And now, he set it where he willed it, upon his favorite daughter’s head. All beings shall in their proper places be set, he’d written in his letter. A sliver of worry slid coldly through Elia’s heart. But Lear’s slow, steady hands soothed her, as he twisted her hair into a long smiling roll, and her shoulders relaxed. His tugs were more tentative than Aefa’s, and the story he told as he worked was a story Elia had heard before: the first time Dalat had agreed to allow her husband to braid her hair, and the terrible time they’d both had of it, neither giving up for hours and hours, until Lear had made such an utter mess Dalat had burst into tears.
“I was devastated, of course,” Lear said, as he always did, “but not nearly so much as your mother. When Gaela was born, we learned together, though Gaela declined to sit still, and then Regan’s hair was easy. By the time you were born, I was nearly an expert, even Satiri said so.”
As always, Elia wished to ask him: if he’d been an expert, why had he never taught Aefa, or Elia, or anyone, after he sent all Dalat’s attendants away, letting Elia’s own hair go dry as gorse in the summer?
But she knew the answer, though her father would never agree: it was the depth of his grief. And she knew, too, that sometimes Lear’s version of the past was woven equally of truth and pleasant fabrication. So long as the stories harmed none, she could not bring herself to challenge them. Especially when they involved Dalat.
“There,” the king said, caressing Elia’s neck and squeezing her shoulders.
Elia lifted her hands to carefully explore the silver and crystals in her hair; Lear had set them in carefully, a web of starlight, she imagined, with a few tiny pins. Simple and elegant. A starry crown for a star-blessed princess.
AEFA
SOMETIMES AEFA OF Thornhill thought she was not hard enough to survive Innis Lear, but when such doubts plagued her, she remembered what her mother would call her,
