“Tell me,” Gaela insisted.
“Gaela,” Brona snapped.
Unused to such command, the eldest daughter of Lear glared, but she saw then the source of Brona’s upset.
Kay Oak struggled to get out of the bed, naked, with a bandage covering his eye. He groaned, and Gaela felt a thrill of anger and guilt. She ground her teeth together. “Get out, Uncle, before I remember my proclamations about your banishment.”
Brona went to his side, grabbing a shirt and helping him into it. As they dressed him, Gaela worked to slow her heated blood. Kayo moved stiffly and leaned hard on the cane Brona handed him once his boots were on. “Be gentle with yourself,” Brona murmured.
“Try to rest, love,” Kayo said. He moved carefully toward the door but stopped before Gaela. “First-daughter-of-my-mother’s-only-daughter, your future rests on the death of Brona’s son, so do not treat her poorly tonight.”
Gaela had forgotten that. She blinked, scowling. “Did you know? About Dalat?”
“I told him, a year past her death,” Brona said, nudging Kayo away by the shoulder and putting herself in Gaela’s line of fire.
Kayo left, slowly, feeling the way into the dark hall with his cane.
Alone with the witch of the White Forest, Gaela suddenly felt trepidation.
“Come, sit.” Brona knelt by the hearth, slid all her cards into a stack, and shuffled slowly.
“I don’t want a reading.”
“I know. I’m asking questions about my son.”
“That isn’t my fault.”
Brona glanced at Gaela from beneath her lashes, her face tilted toward the cards in her lap.
“It isn’t.” Gaela plopped down on the hearth rug and crossed her legs. She leaned forward, peering through the gentle orange light at Brona. “Ban the Fox made himself.”
“As you did. Do you think those things disconnected?”
“I think my mother had a hand in making me, in ways I did not know until tonight.”
The witch nodded and flipped over three cards: two from the suit of trees and one bird. Gaela could not identify them further.
“Well?” Gaela asked when Brona flipped three more cards, then three more, but remained silent.
“I thought you did not want a reading.”
Baring her teeth, Gaela said, “I want to know why my mother trusted you, and not my sisters. Not me.”
“She did trust you, Gaela. She trusted you to protect Regan and Elia and grow into a strong queen.”
“She didn’t say goodbye.”
“In some ways she did.”
Gaela pursed her lips. Her neck ached from the weight of all her hair coiled atop her crown and the layers of clay sculpting it in place. She ought to have rinsed it clean and smeared these decorations off her cheeks. Flattening her hands against the soft wool of her skirt, she carefully asked, “Did my mother leave me a message? Did she say anything about me?”
“She loved you, Gaela. She said to Kayo that this fate was her choice, and he must understand that. So, too, must you.”
By now Brona had spread all twenty-seven cards atop her cloth, in five circles that spiraled atop each other, so only the top layer of cards was completely visible. The steady glow of embers cast them in umber and shadows, the roots and feathers and bright stars, the splashes of water and several moons in several shapes. Splatters of blood and new-budding flowers. “What will you do, in the morning?” Brona asked, placing the bones down one at a time, instead of tossing them in a scatter.
“Be king.”
“If my son lives.”
“You sound doubtful. Have more faith, Brona Hartfare. Ban is wild and vicious, and—though not easily—he might defeat the steady, predictable king of Aremoria.”
Brona stood abruptly, scattering the cards. “You will never give up the crown.”
Standing, too, Gaela said, “Should I?”
“You made a bargain.”
“And I will find a star prophecy claiming only I can rule, else Innis Lear will fall to ruin. Something even my baby sister cannot disprove. Is that not how it’s done by kings on Innis Lear? Besides, what else could be done with me? Kill me? I think not. The island needs me. Worry not, Brona. I will rule, and Elia will make your son happy enough. Both of them at my side, for what other choice will they have?”
For a long moment Brona studied Gaela, and the warrior queen held the witch’s flickering gaze.
Then Brona lowered her eyes. “What choice, indeed?” she murmured, then turned to the narrow table pushed against the wall.
Gaela watched as Brona chose folded paper pouches and a stoppered vial, adding a pinch of this and drops of that into two clay cups. She brought them to Gaela and handed both to her. Gaela sniffed: sweet and soft, with a hint of spice.
The witch fetched a bottle of wine and poured some into both cups. She took one and raised it. “To the queen of Innis Lear, then.”
“Those past and future,” Gaela agreed. She drank the wine. The spices filled her nose, making the flavor strong and bright. “This is good.”
The witch smiled softly, licking a drop of wine from the rim of her own cup. “My own recipe. It is even better warm.”
“Have you no warming pot? Our next cup should be so.”
“You might set the cup against those embers: it is strong enough not to crack with the heat.”
Gaela downed the wine, then poured more, settling her cup just inside the dark stone of the hearth, tucked where the embers might heat it more quickly.
Brona held her own cup between her palms, nestled in her lap. They both were quiet, listening to their shared breathing, to the tender shifts and cracks of the red-hot embers. Gaela wondered if Dalat had shared such wine with Brona, long ago. And she wondered if she would remember the color of her mother’s hands at all, if she herself did not share it.
“Gaela, do you understand at all what your mother sacrificed for?” Brona asked, as tenderly as the fire.
When Gaela went to speak, she became strangely unsettled, for her words arrived reluctantly. Gaela had
