Mars swallowed it painfully and whispered another truth. “I loved him.”
“I know.” In the darkness it was difficult to see; only a flicker of distant light from the Keep and torches lit along the ramparts overhead offered any break in the night. But her eyes shone, sharp and black and teary. “Please don’t kill him.”
The words cut between them; Mars stepped back. “He might kill me instead.”
Elia surged forward and grabbed his face—too hard. She dug her fingers around his jaw. “Don’t let him do that, either,” she commanded.
Mars felt the breath of her words slide along his chin, and he finally kissed her.
He kissed her slowly and desperately, as if her lips were his destiny, shaping him with every glancing touch or press or bite. An inexorable progression from who he’d been before, to who he would be now.
She hardly moved at first, except to allow it, then her clutching fingers relaxed and she touched his cheeks gently. He lifted her by the elbows and pulled her firmly against him, tasting the salt of tears on her mouth, the tang of lip paint, her softness, and then her power when Elia suddenly kissed him back.
Wind slipped around her and tugged at him, coiling around his neck, fingering his short hair and eyelashes. It giggled and whined. Elia slid her hands down his chest, grasped at his arms, at his ribs and waist, shifting and moving exactly like the wind she was.
Mars held her head in his large hands, kissing her until he needed to breathe. Then he leaned back enough to catch her blurry, fluttering gaze. She licked her lips.
“I love you, too,” the king of Aremoria said, hoarsely. And, “Do you forgive me?”
She’s said so much to Ban at the pavilion: forgiven him, her blessing and condemnation both.
Elia asked, “Should I forgive the man or the king?”
Slowly, Mars shook his head. He was both. Always.
“I will do what you tell me to do,” he said, touching a thumb to her bottom lip. “Whatever that is. Anything you order, right now.” He ran his thumb along the soft skin, then let go. His entire being longed to hold her closer, to beg Elia for what he wanted, to sink onto his knees before her, even as a king. “And forever from now, I will be honest with you—even if it makes Aremoria and Innis Lear enemies, for politics or trade or anything. I will tell you the truth.”
“Mars,” she said carefully, as if tasting the flavor of the nickname. “And Morimaros. Man and king.”
“I wish we could be only one thing, choose only one thing.”
Elia said, ferociously, “I don’t want to be chosen above all things, one thing most of all. I want to be a part of someone’s whole.”
He was silent a moment, studying her. “Do you remember all those weeks ago, at the Summer Seat, when you said I was the Lion of War and as such always apart from your Child Star? That they could not exist in the same sky, because of how they are created by the shapes around them?”
She nodded.
“What would happen if the eye of the lion were named Calpurlugh? It is only semantics; it is only what some old man said long ago, that makes such a thing impossible.”
“New shapes,” she murmured glancing up at the sky. “You want to make new shapes.”
“I don’t know what else a king is good for,” he said ruefully.
Elia Lear took his hand, the one missing its royal ring, and drew a long breath. She tilted her head toward the wind as it teased wisps of her curls free at her temple and ear. She said, “Fight for me at dawn, Morimaros of Aremoria. I will be ready, with a crown of hemlock.”
AEFA
NO ONE NOTICED Aefa hang back from the procession that made its way through the darkness toward the Keep. And none noticed her wander to the crowded great hall where a fire blazed in the massive hearth. Folk huddled here in pairs and family groups, whispering, drinking, lulling children to sleep. They shared blankets and tossed bits of food at the hairy dogs, everyone stuffed together against the cold wind outside. Waiting.
Aefa continued to carefully hold the hemlock crown on a spill of midnight blue wool. It shivered with her breathing, and she did not know what to do with it.
Sighing, Aefa dragged herself over to the thronelike chair beside the fire. She collapsed onto the floor, scooting her bottom against the fresh rushes until she leaned against the throne. Legs crossed, she gently placed the crown in her lap.
The poison hemlock was lovely: fresh, tiny white flowers in clusters, shooting out in starbursts off a central, pale green stem with small violet blotches. Elia had braided the stems together, over and over, until the crown itself was a gangly, intricate circlet of nothing but constellated flowers.
Aefa skimmed a pale finger against some petals, barely able to feel their soft response. Her thoughts were filled with a gentle awe. This pretty, natural thing was the kingmaker here. Poison. Death and rebirth through the cold rootwaters was what made kings on Innis Lear. If her best friend weren’t facing it, Aefa might have smiled at the simplicity.
In order to earn the trust of the island, one had to trust it with one’s life.
Aefa shut her eyes. Elia was willing. Elia was being so brave about it, or in denial—there was a trait that showed strong in the Lear bloodline. But no, Aefa believed Elia meant this faith with all her heart.
If only Aefa did.
Perhaps it would be easier to take the leap herself, to entrust her life to the rootwaters, than it would be to watch Elia eat this poison, to watch her grow numb and fall, to be desperate that the waiting waters would purge the poison from her blood and
