It is likely we will remain at Errigal until it is time to travel north for Midwinter, when you and I will meet again and finally become queens together. Keep our father if you like, or send him here, where it may do the Earl Errigal good to be forced to reckon with Lear’s deterioration. Bracoch may join us, and I understand from Connley that Astore is heartily courting Glennadoer.
I have opened the navel wells throughout Connley lands, and I suggest you do the same in Astore, no matter your apathy. It is the best way to Glennadoer’s heart, for that family has always bled like wizards.
There is an owl haunting my dreams—a great, tawny ghost owl that must be a messenger or an earth saint. Connley’s cousin Metis told me of a stag that lay down along the Innis Road the same afternoon as the Zenith Court, its branches of antlers pointed toward the center of the island. Write to me if you hear of other such things, that the island is waiting for us.
I have written to Elia. I hope you are correct that she will find it in her to stand as we bade her stand, and not give in to the will of a different king.
Yours above all, sister-queen,
Regan
REGAN
REGAN, LADY CONNLEY, almost-queen of Innis Lear, stood naked but for a thin white shift hanging off her shoulders and down just past her knees. It brushed her hips, her small belly, the tips of her breasts, dappled by early morning shadows that cut like lace through the canopy of the White Forest. She wore no paint nor jewels, no slippers, and her brown hair fell free in soft waves. Her eyes fluttered under closed lids, her mouth relaxed in a low, gentle prayer in the language of trees.
She greeted the forest, saying her name and her mother’s name, and the names of her father’s mother and grandmothers, then a litany of favored earth saints. On long, bare feet, Regan walked over mossy rocks to the edge of a creek. Crouching, she touched the water, listening to the reply of the trees.
Welcome, beautiful witch. We know you.
This was the realm of Brona Hartfare, but Regan had come to use the power of the White Forest without the help of Brona; the woman had tried before, to no avail. The babe Regan had lost last month was the culmination of the elder witch’s best efforts. Everything going forward was up to Regan herself. And produce a child she must: the future of Innis Lear depended on it, as well as her relationship with Connley. He loved her, but if she did not bear the next ruler, he would focus all his determination on taking the whole island from Astore. And he would not care if Gaela was lost in the process.
Connleys had once been kings, and he’d see it so again, one way or the other. It worried Regan, as much as it inflamed her, his noble rage and confidence the sunlight to her darker, inconstant shadows. They would merge and unite into a glorious dawn, but to protect her family, it must be through Regan’s issue. Her husband insisted. At Midwinter, you must earn the blessing of the island over your sister, which should be simple. You are the queen of the island already—you hear its voice, you bleed with its holy rootwater. There is no other way.
I do not want to take it from my sister.
At the cost of what, Regan? Always waiting for Astore to rise up, for Gaela to be restless and bite, to wipe my name from history, without our own blood to give this land life. And what of your dreams? Perhaps when you are queen, when you are the star-ordained and island-blessed queen, the rootwater and stars will give us a child. Have you thought of that?
Regan had not, though she saw that Connley had for a long time been convinced. She’d not thought he kept anything secret from her. She said, Let me have this time, then, to get with child again, to show you I can, that I will. Before the Longest Night.
He had agreed, but he insisted they come to Errigal Keep, for Connley to treat with the earl and secure the long-held alliances between their families. In preparation for war against Astore, just in case the tides turned. Or even as guard against invasion, if Elia bent as he assumed she would. They already had Glennadoer with them, as Connley history demanded, and they would do best to remind Errigal of this loyalty.
This land of Errigal’s was a barren landscape, raw with iron. Regan worried at her chances of conceiving here at all, much less carrying a child. Yet, it was just beside the White Forest, the most pure of heart of the island: in some places the trees leaned together so ancient, groping, and thick, no star or moonlight ever shone upon the churning black earth. Things unknown to the stars might be born here. And that ancient star cathedral waited somewhere inside it, ruined and alone. If Regan could find it, and uncover the holy well, perhaps that rootwater could restore her womb. Perhaps her dreams would bring peace instead of urgency or despair.
There had to be something she could do, that no healers or witches had heard of before. If she was an ally of the rootwater, the forest should tell her.
Regan stepped into the cold creek, relishing the shiver as her thighs tingled with raised hair and her spine chilled. She knelt, her knees parted enough to welcome the water inside her. No sun pierced through the arcing boughs of the oak spread over this narrow section of creek: all was shadow. Regan buried her hands in the water, digging into the
