This morning’s marks had smeared slightly, as they often did, for Elia spent much of her time brushing errant, wind-tossed curls away from her face. Her companion, Aefa, often made sure to wrap a veil or scarf about Elia’s hair, or insisted on using ribbons or at least braids to keep her hair in place, as befit a princess, if not a prophet. Elia could not help preferring to leave it free, tended by nothing but bergamot oil from the Third Kingdom, and perhaps a few begrudged decorations near her face. It put her in contrast to her sisters, neither of whom would leave their bedrooms without their costumes fixed and perfect.
Aefa was ever despairing that Elia made her worst choices whenever she did so with her sisters in mind. Such fussing was what a lady’s companion was for, and as her father, Lear’s truth-telling Fool, was always willing to argue, so did Aefa uphold the family tradition. It was enough to make the princess grateful for these stolen moments alone.
Sitting, the princess hauled the leather bag into her lap and unknotted the thong holding it shut. She pulled out a folded wooden frame and a roll of parchment to fix to it so she could mark the progress of star appearances onto a simple chart.
Elia’d wagered this morning with the men in the Dondubhan barracks that it would be tonight the Star of First Birds finally moved into position to sparkle exactly over the distant peak. Danna, the star priest mentoring her, had disagreed when she told him, so he watched from the roof of the star tower at this very moment, while Elia had climbed here, even higher, to see first. The dignity of winning mattered more to her than the handful of coins she had bet.
Oh, how shocked her father would be at such a wager.
For a moment, she wished he was here with her.
Her smile reappeared as she imagined refitting the tale into a shape palatable for Lear. Assuming she won, of course. If she lost, she’d never confess it to her father.
This youngest princess favored her late mother in most ways, being small and sweetly round, and warm brown all over: skin and eyes and hair that spiraled in ecstatic curls. Her father was tall and pale as limestone, with the straightest brown hair in the world. What she lacked in his looks, she made up for by sharing his vocation to the stars.
Lear would say, The Star of First Birds is brighter than other stars, and she moves unlike any other. Out of their fixed pattern, and yet with her five sisters. The Stars of Birds fly through all the rest, influencing the shapes and constellations. When you were born, my star, the First and Third Bird stars crowned your Calpurlugh.
She knew the patterns of her birth chart by heart, and the brilliant star at its center; Calpurlugh, the Child Star, symbolic of strong-heartedness and loyalty. The Star of First Birds was purity of intention and the Third flew near to the roots of the Tree of the Worm, so her Child Star attributes were affected—or distracted—by holy thoughts just as much as unseen decay. Her father said the influence of the Worm in this case meant Elia would always be changing others or the world in ways she could not see or predict. Elia wondered if holy bones or some other wormwork might have a different answer, but Lear refused to taint his royal star readings with such base matters, so she couldn’t say. To him, the stars were beyond reproach, disconnected from death, filth, animal lust, or instinct. All the magic of the world existed beneath the stars, and beneath them magic should remain.
Ban would know which tree to ask, Elia thought, then covered her lips with her fingers as if she’d spoken aloud. That name needed be banished from her heart forever, as the boy himself had been banished years ago.
Disloyalty and longing twisted together in the back of her throat. It went against her instincts to deny herself even the memory of him, yet for so long, she’d done exactly that. She breathed deeply and imagined the feelings diffuse out of her with every breath, making her cool and calm as a star. Singular. Pure. Apart. She had learned long ago that stray passions needed to be leashed.
It was difficult, for Elia was a daughter of Lear. All her family were born of the same material, and all tended toward high emotions: Gaela, the eldest, wore her anger and disdain like armor; Regan was a skillful manipulator of her own heart as well as the hearts of others; and the king caught his grief and leftover love up in layers of rigid rules, though they never quite contained him. Elia, unfortunately, had loved too easily as a child: the island, her family, and him, the wind and roots and stars. But love was messy. Only the stars were constant, and so it was better to be exactly what her father wanted: loyal, strong, pure starlight. A saint for Innis Lear, rather than a third princess.
Thus was she able to bear the weight of Gaela’s disappointed glares, and answer Regan’s sly mocking with simple courtesy. She was able to swallow her longings and her worries and any joy, too, as well as the enduring sorrow that her sisters did not care for her at all. She was able to bear up under the weight of Lear’s rages and soothe him instead of lashing out to make things worse as
