Light in the east turned the central tower of Dondubhan Castle into a black silhouette. I will be air, and I will be rain, and I will be dust, and I will be free, she thought to herself, another old desert prayer. Maybe Dalat would see her own mother again, soon. Maybe death would feel like dry desert wind.
Returning to the bed, she slipped out of her robe and under the wool blanket with her husband. Pillowing her head with her arm, she lay on her side to study him. There already had been wrinkles at his eyes and mouth when she first met him, stepping off her ship and onto this rocky island. She’d come from the Third Kingdom via five foreign ports, meeting kings in all, and eating new foods and singing new songs. But the look in his warm eyes, blue as a shallow lake in a face pale as melon rind, caught her immediately and never let go. He was so much older than she, with a purity of passion like she’d never before known. Nothing got in the king’s way when he set his heart on a thing, especially when that thing came as a mission from his stars.
Dalat had been glad to be such a mission. Destiny was romantic, and not something the Third Kingdom empresses put much stock in: hard work and loyalty made queens, they said, not prophecy. But there was little room for adventure without faith.
The queen of Innis Lear sighed. Here she’d had twenty years of destiny, and she would not go back and change a moment. Dalat kissed her husband. “Gaelan,” she murmured against his mouth.
He had refused for so long to speak of this moment; now she would give him no choice. This they would experience together; he owed her that, because he loved her. Because his stars and his enemies had built this cage around her. She would kiss him as she died, exchange vows of love once more, and then he would know that his faith in the stars was true and right. He would keep his faith and be able to love their daughters. Without her. Be both father and mother.
Her fingers tingled: the poison would numb her and put her to sleep, Brona had promised, and she would die in a daydream.
“Gaelan, wake up.”
Her husband frowned, groping for her. She guided his hand, and he woke as he found her. “Dalat,” he whispered, eyes unfocused. He licked his lips, blew a long breath, and rolled his shoulders, all with his hand gripping her waist.
“Dawn is here.” Her voice wavered.
“What is…” The king sat up swiftly. “Morning. Gaela’s birthday! My love—Dalat. You’re alive.”
Her smile was tired. Dalat felt heavy, her limbs slow as cold honey. “I love you,” she said.
Gaelan gathered her against him, eager to push their bodies together. “I love you, more than everything.”
“Hold me … tightly.”
He obeyed, and stroked her braids, his mouth at her ear as he said, “I have thought, over long nights, that if you did not die, if your heart still beat this morning, if your spirit was as glorious as ever, we should rename you only my wife, and make Gaela our queen. She could be ready now, to make the bargain. That would fulfill the prophecy well enough for all the stars. A new queen, reborn, and crowned with her own name, her own glory. The old queen’s death symbolic. And it ties neatly with star and moon cycles of death and rebirth.”
The king leaned back, smiling proudly, triumphantly, until he saw the tears in Dalat’s eyes. The slackening of her mouth. “Dalat?” he whispered.
“You did not tell me any of that. You … wouldn’t talk to me,” his queen managed. Her chest hurt. And her stomach. “I asked you, and I asked you, in so many ways this year, to…”
“What? This? I did not—could not risk changing anything with words!” Gaelan curled his long fingers around her bare shoulders. Her head lolled, but with a great strength of will Dalat lifted it again.
“My heart was strong enough,” she whispered, horrified, so very heavy now, and scared. “I only die because I thought there was no other way. For my—us.” I thought you would never bend. I thought … my daughters would be torn to pieces by Connley and—and Glenna—Glenn—and …
“No, you aren’t dying. You’re here, with me. What is wrong?” Gaelan shook her, then released her shoulders to grasp her head. The queen’s arms flopped against the bed.
“I thought you were too afraid to lose me, or else lose your stars. I thought you would never make a plan in case they failed.” Was she saying it all out loud, or only trying to? Dalat could barely tell. But Gaelan’s face contorted as if he could hear her. “So I made a plan on my own,” she said.
This time when her head dipped back, Dalat could not lift it.
“No!” the king cried, laying her down. He bent over his wife. He slapped her; when her head turned from the force it did not turn back.
Her eyes drifted shut. His frantic, beloved voice faded in and out as he argued with her, as he demanded to know what she’d done. His lips on her mouth, her face, his wet lashes brushed her cheek. The damp kiss of tears. Or gentle rain. Or
ELIA
THE NIGHT CAME to its end when the roots of the Thorn Tree vanished under the western horizon, while its branches still stretched toward the seven constellations that in this hour of this month were known as the Mantle.
Five hawthorns huddled in a line down the lee of the rocky slope, protected from the harshest sea winds. The trees had given Scagtiernamm its Learish name: Refuge of Thorns.
