BAN WAITED IN the hallway outside his father’s chambers, near a window and a low bench set into the smooth wooden wall. This was part of the new Keep, built of wood and plaster, with windows that opened to the southeast. Ban removed the letter from his coat. He’d written in as close to Rory’s sprawling hand as he could manage.
Leaning against the sill, Ban pressed his forehead into his arm and breathed unevenly on purpose, as if desperate to rein in a great hurt. Slip under the enemy’s defenses.
This plan would lead to getting the iron magic for Morimaros. It would prove to Elia exactly the fickle ease with which a father might overthrow a child’s love. It would undercut the stars King Lear adhered to so fanatically.
All Ban had to do was sink to the level they expected of a bastard. It shocked him with an unexpected thrill.
Base and vile, those were the words the king had used, the words Ban’s own father had never argued against. Well. They might have been meant to put him down, but Ban had learned of baseness and vile creatures when he hunted and tracked, when he cut his sword into the guts of another man, when he dug into the ground to bury a comrade or cover the shit of the army. He had seen how the earth accepted base and vile things and transformed them into stinking, beautiful life again. Flowers and fresh grasses. Colorful mushrooms and beds of moss. That was magic. Could the stars do such a thing? Never. Only the earth—the wild, mysterious, dark earth—knew such power.
Ban’s power.
He had spent the winter he was seventeen in the estate of his cousins Alsax in northeastern Aremoria, just near the borders of Burgun and Diota. That past summer he’d continued fighting alongside the foot soldiers in Morimaros’s army, all while quietly working directly for the king. He did all his soldier’s work and every low job the Alsaxes expected of him without complaint, then instead of joining his fellows for food or drink after a shift, would slip away to do Morimaros’s bidding. Often that meant infiltrating the lands of the opposition, whether that was Burgun border towns or the manor houses of rebellious Aremore nobles. He slept hungry with herds of sheep, in precarious nests beside red eagles, and in a womb of heartwood when he found a tree who trusted him entire. Always exhausted, always thirsty. When Ban was missing from the army for days at a time, La Far spoke with his Alsax commander and smoothed it over, though it took a long while to trickle down to the foot soldiers that he was more than just a slippery deserter.
But at the end of that summer’s campaign, the king had invited Ban to spend an entire two months in Lionis, working with Morimaros and La Far together on sword craft and riding and any martial skill Ban thought to ask after. It had been one of the best times of his life, for he’d been trusted and treated as though he deserved nothing less.
When he returned to the Alsax estate for the winter, it was with the king’s own letter in hand. By the king’s orders, he was not to be put with the foot soldiers again, but allowed to use the cold, muffled, snowed-in months for nothing but magical study, and given a room of his own to accommodate it.
Ban was determined to return to Morimaros as great a wizard as possible: his service to the king was the only thing forcing others to recognize his worth, and so he would shine no matter what else tarnished him.
Though some old books had been written on the subject of wizarding by observers of the art, there were no practitioners in Aremore, and Ban was left without access to a teacher. Instead, he chose to learn from the trees and beasts themselves, and studied mainly through experimentation. His small corner room on the top story of the pale limestone estate smelled constantly of pine and wax; musty bats and sweet winter berry poultices; the vibrant, spicy ink made from the heartblood of trees; and fire. He worked on a wolf-skin rug turned leather up to be drawn on with charcoal; there he etched out words in the language of trees and drew circles and root diagrams to guide him. Usually a half-empty plate of cheese and bread and cold, dry meat sat nearly forgotten beside him, and a bottle of wine he never bothered pouring into a cup. When working, he wore little besides heavy wool trousers dyed the brown of the winter forest, so he might easily paint charcoal runes across his chest, or cut the shape of his name against his collarbone.
Thus Rory found him when he shoved through the door joining their rooms, stumbling slightly from all the impassioned sex and the nearly empty bottle of wine he’d so recently partaken of. Flushed and unfocused, he blinked at his older bastard brother, surprised to find Ban even less clothed than himself and covered in streaks of ash writing in the language of trees. “Are you doing magic?” he cried.
Ban frowned from the center of the wolf-skin and settled his hands on his knees. The fingers of his right hand were blackened. In his left he held a trio of black raven feathers. He did not have the patience after midnight to walk his brother through his attempt to whisper a secret to a distant cluster of ravens with a thin rope of pine smoke.
“I am, yet it is late, and I should rest.” Ban eyed his little brother: the loose trousers and bare feet, the fur-lined robe and tousled hair, the long pink scratches distorting the flare of freckles down his neck. Ban pressed his mouth together. Rory had barely been here two weeks and already had a lover—or three.
“I want to know how to do magic,” Rory breathed, kneeling beside Ban.
This wizarding belonged to Ban, it was the only thing of his own, and he did not want to invite Rory to share it. Rory already had so many things that should have been his older brother’s. Ban said, “Listening to the wind demands quietude of the heart, peaceful breathing, and willingness to be still, brother. None of which are skills you cultivate.”
“Your heart is not quiet, either, brother.”
“I can see your flush right now.”
“You just disapprove of my nightly activities.” Rory’s smile was all teasing and smug delight.
“I do, but that makes my words no less true. You’ll never learn magic if you fix your attention and passion so firmly on a course of loud spirit.”
Rory nudged Ban with his elbow. “So that is why you eschew the naked entertainments? For your magic?”
“That, but for the more obvious reason, too.”
“What?” the earlson laughed.
“You could father a bastard,” Ban hissed.
“If he’s like my brother, Ban, it would be quite the thing! I welcome it.”
The bastard scowled, but his brother threw an arm about him, still laughing, and quite obviously meaning every word. “Never fear, Ban, no power in the heavens or the roots could get my lover with child by me.”
Ban began to sneer a reply, but caught the angle of his brother’s smile. “Is that a man in there?” he asked, hushed.
“Erus Or,” Rory confided. “He is strong.”
“You have to stop, you have to be careful.” Ban gripped his brother’s arms. “Didn’t you hear of the man Connley executed for the same?”
Rory shrugged him off. “I’ll be fine. This is Aremoria, not home. Besides, Connley killed that man because he was married to Connley’s cousin and betrayed her, not because he betrayed her with another man.”
Unsettled, Ban went to the window and gripped the cold stone sill. Even if he desired to, he could never take such risks in his position, despite Morimaros’s favor, despite his success in war. All Ban had was the thin iron rod of his reputation.
And there was his golden brother Rory, laughing with the carefree certainty of his own invincibility.
This plan of Ban’s now, three years later, would do all it needed to do: ruin Errigal and tear into the island’s foundations, work toward Morimaros’s goals and prove to Elia she’d done no wrong. But most of all, it would hurt Rory, stripping away his easy confidence. Ban was a wizard revealing the truth of the world to show Rory that people are terrible sometimes and unfair, that one does not always deserve what one receives, and that there are consequences to living carelessly.
That, Ban was willing teach his brother.
The snap of leather warned Ban that his father approached, clumping up the stairs as if already upset. That would work in Ban’s favor. He crumpled the letter in his hand and put both fists over his head, elbows jutting at the window casement.
“Ban!” Errigal snapped. “What is this?”
Ban straightened, his eyes down anxiously, and hurried to tuck the false letter away, in a pocket close to his heart.
The earl was alone, dressed in casual linen and wool, a sword belt strapping his tunic down, sheathing a plain soldier’s blade. Errigal put his fist against the pommel and glowered. “Why did you put that up so quickly, son?”
“It’s nothing,” Ban said, giving a tight shake of his head. His lip throbbed where he’d cut it wrestling Rory.
“Oh ho? Then why seek to hide it from me?” Errigal came forward, large hand outstretched. “If it is nothing, then nothing shall I see.”
Ban grimaced to hide the thrill of battle rising again in his veins. “It is only a note from my brother, and I’ve not finished reading it. What I’ve read so far makes me think it’s not fit for you to see.”
“Give it to me, boy, or I’ll take great offense.” Errigal thrust his hand out again.
“I think it would give offense either way.”
“Let me have it.”
With seeming reluctance, Ban withdrew the letter. Eyes cast down, he added, “I hope—I truly believe, Father—that Rory wrote this only to test my virtue. He hasn’t known me since he left our cousins, with me still in Aremoria last year, and only hears what men in the king’s retinue say about me: that I am a bastard and therefore not trustworthy.”
Errigal made a growling noise of frustration and snatched the letter. He so violently unfolded it that the edge pulled and tore. Ban crossed his arms over his chest and knocked back against the wall, easily pretending anxiety. This was the moment this would tell him if Errigal was as terrible and easy to turn as Lear.
As his father’s mouth moved along with the words he read and his large eyes narrowed, as his lips paled under his beard, Ban suddenly realized there was a sick thread of disappointment wound through his spine. Some part of him had hoped Errigal was better. That the earl could not believe so easily his own son would betray him. It was that same cursed piece of Ban that had yet to stop yearning for approval from his father. Ban clenched his teeth.
“This reverence for age keeps the best of us out of power,” Errigal read in a broad, disbelieving voice. “We don’t receive our fortunes until we are too old to enjoy them. Because we wait for our fathers to—” The earl’s hand twitched. “We must speak of this together, for you would have half of his revenue forever, and live beloved of your brother.”
Silence fell, but for the cool wind bringing the far-distant clangs of smithies and a howl out of the great forest. Errigal slammed the side of his fist to the wooden wall. “Conspiracy,” he whispered, staring past Ban out the window. “Is this—Can this be my son Rory? Has he the heart to write this … I would not think so.”
Ban put his mouth into a careful frown, though he wanted to hit Errigal, to knock him down and step on his throat, to show him exactly how much this hurt.
Errigal glanced sharp and hot at Ban. “When did you get this? Who brought it?”
“I found it in my room.” Still he did not latch his gaze onto his father’s, knowing his fury would shine through.
“Is it his hand? Your brother’s hand?”
Ban shook his head. “Were the subject good, I would swear it’s Rory’s writing, but being what it is … I cannot say yes. It does not seem written in his words, even.”
“It is by his hand.”
The words sounded like death blows, dull and hard and promising raw blood to come.
The earl crumpled the letter. All his blunt teeth were bared. “And a feast prepared for this ungrateful whelp! Ah! Find him, so I can disabuse him of this notion his father is too old and weak to govern.”
Ban held his hands out to stall Errigal, and let him see the anger now. Errigal could read it as he liked. “Wait. At least until you can hear from his own mouth what he intended with this letter! We do not know if he wrote it, we do not know if he meant it—maybe he is testing me, as I said.”
“Ban!” Errigal ground out the name through clenched wide teeth.
“Father.” Ban put hands to Errigal’s broad shoulders. “Don’t do as Lear did. If you go violently against Rory and it’s merely a mistake, that is a gap in your honor, not his. Look at the chaos Innis Lear is experiencing already, with Kay Oak banished and the princess, too. Connley and Astore are ready at each other’s necks. We need Rory to be innocent of this.”
The earl’s jaw worked, his hairy brows dipping in uncertain anger. “All this is a disaster, you are right about that. If my own son … ah. He cannot be such a monster.”
“He cannot,” Ban murmured, only half in guilt.
The two leaned together at the window, both breathing hard, though for different causes.
“Ah, Ban.” Errigal sagged, and Ban dropped to the floor, kneeling. “Child against father—it is not natural. It is against the stars, and yet the stars warned us. These eclipses, these signs of division, of friend against friend, loves lost, what can we do? Heaven and earth, I love that fine, wretched boy. He must be as good as you, as loyal. Look at his stars! He was born under such good stars.” The earl thumped his head back against the wall and shut his eyes. “Discover the truth, Ban. Discover it.”
“I shall, Father,” Ban said, pressing his forehead to his father’s fist. He let his mouth twist and his eyes burn where the earl could not see.
Stars. Always the stars of birth. The blindness of old men, the weakness of their faith. Easy weapons to turn against them now that Ban understood power better.
Hurrying down stone stairs worn in the middle from generations of soldiers’ boots, Ban made his way to the kitchens where he knew Rory to be already, flirting with the cooks and maids as they prepared the feast.
Ban paused just outside the bend into the sweltering kitchen, catching his breath. He heard his brother’s voice trail brightly up the stairs from the larder instead. A young woman pressed past Ban, carrying a full platter of steaming bread. She smiled at him, but Ban’s attention was all for the story his brother told.
“… and though battered and bruised, Ban the Fox had clutched in his hand the underwear of the commander of the Diotan forces!”
The triumphant words spread into a shout of laughter and cheers from surely a dozen throats. Ban stepped down, steadying the sword at his belt. A cluster of young people—retainers in Errigal sky blue, two servant boys in their aprons, and even some young women covered in flour and smiling under sweat-curled hair—surrounded Rory, all of them crushed into the space around the long butter table, ducking their heads around the jars of butter and cream hung on hooks to keep free of rats and insects.
“You were supposed to be telling stories of your own exploits,” Ban said softly, affection warming his belly beside stinging guilt.
“Ban! Ha! Worms!” Rory held out his arm. “You tell them a story about me, then.”
Ban smiled tightly, aware that though his presence didn’t quite crush the spirit of the room, he most definitely quieted it. They’d accepted him, to be sure, but he had not earned their ease. “Rory, I have an urgent matter for your ears only.”
“After, then,” Rory promised, grimacing wildly for his audience. He snaked through them, coming up to Ban. “What it is, brother?”
“Wait,” Ban said, leading Rory up into the kitchens again, and out one of the rear corridors toward the strip of earth between the kitchens and the inner stables. The evening sun shone, still high enough to glare over the outer black wall of the Keep. Ban put his shoulder to the rough wall and pulled Rory very close. “You spoke with Father as soon as you returned today?”
“Yes, I told you that, just before bathing.”
“And not again? Not recently?”
“No.” Rory’s brow wrinkled.
Ban nodded as if confirming suspicions. “Did he seem well? You parted on good terms?”
“What is going on?” the legitimate son eyed Ban crown to boot.
“He’s furious at you for something,” Ban said evenly.
“Furious? At me? What for?”
“I don’t know, but he raged at me for it, just now.”
“I must go to him. Discover the cause.”
“No, Rory, wait. He is in a killing manner. You should leave for a few days.”
“Leave! I just arrived!”
Ban took a long, calming breath. “Let me be your ambassador. Go to Brona’s house where you know you can be safe. I will send to you what I discover, and when you should return.”
Rory bit his bottom lip, as he’d done in uncertain times as a boy. It struck a blow to Ban’s conscience, but not so deep that he altered his words.
“Trust me, Rory,” he said. “Go.”
“Some villain has done me wrong,” Rory said softly.
For a moment, Ban thought he’d misjudged his brother and that Rory saw through the pretense and accused him. But no, Rory just took Ban by the shoulders and dragged him into a crushing embrace. Slowly, Ban brought his arms up. “Go armed,” he murmured, and Rory jerked.
“Armed?”
“You cannot be too careful—these are strange times. Fathers against children…”
“Like the king,” Rory whispered in a hollow, suddenly fearful tone. “He spoke of the eclipses as portents, and our father, too, was on edge over the whole business. Banishment and disloyal daughters, and some eclipses. He must be hunting danger—oh, worms of earth.”
“Yes,” Ban said through gritted teeth. Their ears pressed together.
“I go, but with your love, brother,” Rory said. “And you remain with mine.”
Ban hugged his brother, learning something himself. This was the lesson: while Ban had used his father’s greatest weaknesses against him—mistrust, bullish ambition, and obsession with star-signs—against Rory, Ban had used only virtue.