Pride at his win made Rory blush, and he leapt to his feet again, rubbing dirt off his cheek. He stood before Elia exactly as she and Ban had stood, only Rory was taller and had to bend to put their noses together. She was beautiful and smelled like spice cakes and flowers, and her faded red dress was ever so slightly too small for her growing body, tight at her hips and little breasts. Rory knew why he felt as he did, knew what his parts were telling him, thanks to all those years of being friends with the women in the kitchens and the town, his familiarity with all manner of gossip and talk. And Rory also knew that it was just how the world worked, and he wanted to love his body and everyone’s, because despite his parents’ problems, or because of them, Rory remained generous.
And so Rory kissed Elia.
He kissed her, and he smiled, touching her face with both hands before stepping away. Elia stared, lips parted, and then her black eyes darted behind him toward Ban.
Rory glanced over his shoulder and saw perhaps the worst thing he’d seen in his entire life: Ban, his brother, still as stone, and staring at Rory as if the wind had frozen, the new-budding meadow flowers had withered, and the sun had turned black. As if everything Ban was or could be had been snatched away, and it was Rory’s fault.
“Oh,” Rory said, then grimaced. “Oh.”
Ban did not move, nor did Elia.
Heaving a sigh of intense martyrdom, Rory said, “I don’t have to do that again.”
The words snapped Elia out of her daze. She touched her mouth, then touched Rory’s chin. She said nothing, but her agreement was clear. Strangely, Rory didn’t mind, because she smiled, and so they were still friends.
Elia walked to Ban. She took his hand, and put it against her heart. You know, she said in the language of trees.
Though she spoke to his brother, Rory knew also. He saw it suddenly in Ban’s every breath: love and love and love.
It didn’t break Rory; instead it seemed to knit something tighter inside him. Ban would be happy, and so Ban would stay.
With a smile and a merry yell, Rory grabbed up a flat stone and flung it into the lake. He marched along, toward the ruins, expecting they’d follow or not.
That night, after dinner and the king’s Fool’s fantastic recitation of a battle poem, one that Rory knew several verses to already, he followed Errigal when the earl retired. He very seriously, very earnestly, told his father that Ban and Elia would be a good match, that their babies would be iron strong and star bright. Errigal turned red but said nothing.
A few weeks later, Ban was sent to Aremoria.
Part
THREE
THE FOX
LAST NIGHT A crow had perched outside his too-narrow window, yelling bloody murder: Ban could no longer ignore his mother.
So he’d left before dawn, taking one of his father’s lanky horses.
Once through the black gates of the Keep, Ban gave the horse her head, urging her up the rocky path toward the White Forest of Innis Lear. The horse leapt forward, eager to race, as if Ban’s jittery energy translated through seat and saddle. Ban leaned forward, his cheek near the horse’s neck, and they shot into the trees with a crack and slap of branches and yellowing leaves.
As Ban traveled, he built thin layers of emotional armor around himself, to perhaps hide from Brona all the hope and fury and fault that roiled darkly in his heart like gathering storm clouds. He knew himself to be an excellent liar, having spent years as the Fox, but as a boy, his mother had always seen right through him.
For a long while the horse made her own way along a deer path and then a creek bed, dashing then walking again, hopping over fallen branches, picking her way carefully over mossy ground. Ban only kept her nose pointed north and west, toward Hartfare.
Around them the forest woke, chirping and buzzing with the last of summer, the flies and bees and happy birds whispering a welcome to him. He murmured back to the rich shadows and voluptuous greenery: low ferns glistened with dew, moss and cheerful lichen climbed the trunks of the trees, and the thick canopy of leaves turned the light itself glassy green. Here, inside the White Forest, was the only place the island’s roots still held any joy.
This was what needed most to be restored, once Lear’s oppressive rule had ended, once his legacy was torn apart. The heart of the island would thrive, and its rootwaters spread to every edge once again. Ban would make it so himself, and Morimaros would allow it, because the king of Aremoria understood balance, and could be made to understand the workings of root magic on Innis Lear, even if there was no faith under his crown.
And it would be easy, if Ban’s father’s state was any indication.
Last night Errigal had wrapped his heavy arm around Ban’s neck and said, “If it were not for the year between your birth and your brother’s, I might wonder if some earth saint had not switched you in the night. You my true son, and Rory the cur he’s proved himself to be.”
“Peace, Father,” Ban had said through clenched teeth. “You still do not know his true heart.”
Errigal had thrust Ban away. “You keep defending him and I’ll charge you as an accomplice, boy! Deny you both!”
“I am no accomplice, my lord, I only wish to find him.” Ban touched the hilt of his dagger, for he wore no sword to dine with the duke and his lady. “It is hard to believe this villainy of Rory. Because he is my brother.” It should have been what Errigal said: I can hardly believe
