Likely, it was intentionally both. Everyone connected to a crown played games; that was the nature of it, she was learning, and so Elia needed only discern who played them for power, and who for love.
“My Morimaros would say this, frequently,” Calepia explained to Elia.
“Mars’s and my father,” Ianta added. She paused, then spoke again. “My brother told me you read his birth chart for him at the Summer Seat.”
“I did.”
“How delightful. We don’t have them done in Aremoria anymore. Or”—she winked—“we aren’t meant to.”
The Elder Queen said, “Your father himself taught you prophecy and the stars?”
“He did. My father was his father’s third son, and he spent his youth preparing to be a star priest. It was not his preference to leave the chapels and rule, but one does what one must for family and country.”
“And then he used his influence to rebuild the domination of the stars under his crown,” Twice-Princess Ianta said. “To overthrow the earthly ways of your ancestors.”
Calepia answered with a wry note, “There must be some benefits to becoming king.”
Elia glanced up, wary of being tested. But Calepia’s attention was on her daughter, and the two Aremore ladies shared some private humor.
“Tell me of my son’s stars,” Calepia said.
Elia hesitated briefly. “His Lion of War is a glorious but lonely birth star.”
Calepia made a strange purr of annoyance, then said, “My birth chart gathers dust in a corner of my treasury, inked in gold and set with some tiny rubies. It’s rather more worth its weight in jewels than usefulness, here.”
“What were you born under, if I may ask?” Elia said.
“The Elegance,” the queen said with a suggestion of hidden pride in the corner of her mouth.
“A star of resolution,” Elia said, digging through her memory for more. “And diplomatic promise. Do you know what the moon was?”
“I don’t remember.” Calepia sipped her spicy milk, eyeing Elia over the decorative pearls. Elia did not press.
“I had my holy bones cast once, at a festival,” Ianta said. “Do you do that?”
Elia shook her head. “The holy bones are the most direct connection to the wisdom of earth saints, and my father forbids them in his court.”
“In Aremoria, girls will play spinning games where you turn in circles the same number of times as years you are old, then stop and pick out the first star you see, and that is the star of the boy you’re meant to marry.”
Smiling, Elia said, “I have seen girls say a boy’s name the same number of times as it is days since the full moon, then toss stones to see what constellation they fall into, for the same outcome. It is not such things my father dislikes. He minds nothing that comes only from the stars. It is seeking signs in the shape of a flock of geese or in the scatter of autumn leaves that he believes … taints the perfection of star prophecy.” Once, Elia had been quite skilled at throwing the bones, thanks to Brona Hartfare, but she’d not owned a personal set since her father discovered her huddled in a corner of the winter residence at Dondubhan when she was twelve, giving secretive readings to a handful of his retainers. He’d forbidden her the bones because they were low and filthy, but the incident had begun their more serious star lessons together. She said, “Father disbelieves anything that is only a reflection of stars—like the cards—could offer true providence.”
“And do you believe in the providence of star paths, Elia Lear?” Calepia of Aremoria asked evenly, without judgment.
Elia opened her mouth; the answer was not forthcoming. She was wary of seeming a superstitious fool to these ladies. Though they were kind, they also were vetting her, since their son and brother clearly wanted her for a wife. They would wish to know if Elia could be convinced or compelled to give up the stars if she married Morimaros. There was no state religion in Aremoria any longer, none but king and country.
But Ianta answered first, in a wistful tone. “It has always seemed to me that the moon is a powerful creature. When I look at her, no matter her shape, I feel something.” She touched a hand covered in rings over her heart. “Perhaps a power pulling me down my path.”
“Perhaps,” the Elder Queen said, “you feel something born in your own self.”
“That is what my brother would say. He thinks the sky too distant to know what’s best for us,” Ianta told Elia.
Elia nodded. “I once knew someone who would argue that the roots of trees or the leavings of cows are closer to knowing our destinies than the cold stars.” She wondered where he was at that moment, what he was doing. How he worked to keep his promise.
Ban.
She could at least think his name now, surely, without suffering.
Ianta laughed bright and hard. “Ha! I should like to meet this friend who thinks of cow shit as a divining tool.”
“I think…” Elia folded her hands. “I think that the stars might see farther than we can imagine. Maybe when we’re born they do see how we will die, or how, overall, we will conduct our lives. Like a shepherd on the top of a mountain can see how the flock turns in the valley below. But it is the hounds and children nipping at the heels of the sheep that determine the immediate way. So we must make our own choices, and consider the stars only advisors. Not judges or rulers.”
“Wise, child,” Calepia said.
From the door, Aefa said angrily, “Would that your father were wise before he was old.”
All three ladies at the table glanced
