They leaned together, Gaela’s bloody knuckles smeared against Regan’s soft palms, foreheads touching, eyes closed.
“Did you know about the prophecy?” Gaela asked, in a bare breath of a whisper.
“There are so many.”
“About Mother’s death.”
Regan stiffened, wary.
Gaela struggled to breathe without trembling. “The stars say she will die on the sixteenth anniversary of her first daughter’s birth.”
“No.” Regan pulled back to stare at her sister’s face. Studied the stain of tears and pink, swollen eyes.
“I heard Satiri say it, and she doesn’t believe it, but they were talking about the baby. That it doesn’t matter if it’s a boy or a girl, because what matters already happened. She already has a first daughter.”
“Satiri doesn’t like prophecy, maybe she misheard.”
Gaela shook her head. She rubbed her eyes with the backs of her wrists. “Satiri doesn’t mishear, and she doesn’t gossip. I turn sixteen in eight years.”
It was twice as long as she’d already lived.
“I should die instead,” Gaela said. She released Regan and reached for the spearhead again: a spade of iron, the tip jagged and sharp. She put it to her neck and pressed, but Regan took hold of her wrist and dragged it away.
“No, you can’t. You can’t do that.”
“Better me than our mother.”
“It won’t stop it, if that’s the prophecy. Say again what Satiri heard.”
“The queen will die on the sixteenth anniversary of her first daughter’s birth.”
Regan pressed her lips into a line, thinking, her eyes flicking between her sister’s. “You have to live, Gaela. With me. I need you—I don’t have my own stars, you promised to share with me yours. And—and that prophecy is about the day of your birth. You already were born, Gaela,” Regan said with gentle, cold certainty, disturbing in a girl of only six years. “It’s too late.”
Too late.
Gaela stared at her little sister, breathing hard and fast. She’d already killed her mother, before she even knew she could.
This occurred to her like a tiny seed: if she’d already done the worst, it didn’t matter what terrible things she had yet to do. So the eldest daughter of Lear gripped her sister’s hand, and promised never to let go.
It was too late for anything else.
ELIA
NO ONE STOPPED her as she wandered back toward Errigal Keep, dazed, bloody, with nothing but an ornamental knife in her drooping fingers. As Elia entered the front court, she was not recognized quickly, because of the slump of her shoulders, and her tangled, half-braided hair. Her skirt trailed behind her in tatters, the front hem muddy and tripping her, but she did nothing to lift it up.
“The queen,” someone murmured. But she could not be. Not now, not yet. Elia angled toward the side of the Keep; she needed to get to her room, wash up. No, she needed to find Gaela—no, Aefa … or … Her thoughts scattered. Her pulse pounded, and every thread of wind beat with the same rhythm, as if Elia herself were the core. My sisters!
A man ran toward her; she stopped to wait on his urgency. What could matter? Her sisters both were dead. She was the only remaining daughter of Dalat and Lear. Elia blinked. Her eyes were dry, her entire body dry as a mountain peak. Had Ban—
Morimaros of Aremoria reached her, gently panting. Behind him careened Aefa, running full tilt. Blood marred the king’s face, making his eyes sharp as blue fire. He’d shed his plate armor, down to crusty gambeson and trousers. Blood stained the collar of his shirt, and she wondered miserably it if had ever been any color but red.
He grasped her shoulders, said something of his relief.
Aefa flung herself into Elia, knocking her from Morimaros. “Gaela is dead! We did not know if Regan…”
Elia nodded, allowing the hug, arms limp and stolen dagger cold. “Regan, too.”
Aefa yelled for water, spared her friend a warm kiss, and dashed off to find Kay Oak and tell him the queen had been found.
The king of Aremoria said her name again. He touched his fingers to her cheek, extremely careful around the blossoming bruise. “You’re otherwise uninjured?” he asked softly.
Elia could hardly catalogue the extent of her wounds, so myriad, so small, and internal they were, slashes to her heart.
After a bruised silence and several steps, Morimaros spoke again. “You said Regan is also dead?”
“Gone, at least,” Elia whispered. She did not know if death had come to her furious, mad sister, or peace, or only soft darkness.
Morimaros studied her, then cupped her elbow. “Ban is going to die.”
She gripped the little knife tighter. “You mean he’s not dead yet.”
“Soon.” Morimaros took Elia’s other hand. “The day is yours, lady,” he said, and what began as a hesitant, sad voice grew in strength and volume. “This island is yours, too, Queen Elia of Lear.”
It shook her.
Around them soldiers and retainers knelt. Elia’s heart trembled as she tried to speak, or offer a mask of stately grief at least. But the knife was in her hand, and she burned to use it. As men said, Hail queen, and Elia of Lear, and Long under the stars may she reign, Elia stared at Morimaros’s weary blue eyes. “Take me to Ban, before he dies.” She strode forward without an answer from him, but made herself glance and nod to the lines of soldiers, turn her empty palm out to them in thanks and acceptance, in blessing.
Morimaros led her into the Keep, but suddenly Rory Errigal was there, crying her name. She did not give him anything. Rory smoothed his fingers over the aching side of her face where Regan had hit her, but she fisted a hand against his mail and shoved at his chest. “Not yet,” she said. “Take me to Ban.”
The earlson hesitated, concern streaked over his freckled features, but gave in with a reluctant nod.
No one stopped her after that.
Ban the Fox lay dying
