IT WAS A cold, crisp morning when Gaela led her retainers out of Astora.
They headed north across the foothills to Dondubhan Castle, where her husband had already claimed the winter throne, and Gaela was eager to join with him. Two nights of angry storms had cleared out the remains of summer, scouring the hills of the last flowers and painting ice farther down the jagged peaks of the Mountain of Teeth, always a sharp ghost in the far distance. Her army marched quickly, a surging river of pink, black, and silver across the moors. They passed the Star Field silently, all eyes turned in respect, for even the least religious knew that this was where the kings and queens of the past rested, where stars and rocks came together to merge heaven and earth.
Gaela reveled in the cold wind, though winter itself she despised: layers of wool weighing her down, and the constant snow of the north trapping her inside, where there was little space to breathe or loom large. Tight quarters, sweat, pine-sharp incense, and fire all the time, wet socks from melting ice, all were oppressive and overwhelming, heavily laden with memories. Dalat had loved the winter, been fascinated by ice crystals and the patterns of snowflakes, sometimes even leaving open a window, and wasting wood to beat back the cold. She would wrap herself and Gaela and Regan in massive bearskins to watch the snow fall, so crisp and quiet.
This was before Elia arrived, loud and interrupting.
Gaela could not stand the smell of fur in the winter.
But it was not yet that darkest part of the year, and Gaela led her army to join with Astore at the seat of her childhood. Together they would push south to take back Lowbinn and Brideton, crushing Connley’s arrogant claims while he sat in Errigal. If he would take the iron for himself, then Gaela saw no reason to let Connley think to keep any of the north.
Her only regret was leaving before Osli had returned from delivering letters in Errigal. But it was taking her longer than it should have, and Gaela could not wait.
Slivers of cold wind cut inside her throat as she breathed deep to call an order to move her retainers faster. Now that they’d crossed around the Star Field, their destination was visible.
The castle at Dondubhan embraced the Tarinnish, the largest, deepest lake on Innis Lear. Its name meant well of the island in the language of trees, and was one of the few words all still recognized. Even in the height of summer the black waters were cold with runoff from the mountains.
Gaela led her men from the karst plain of the Star Field down toward the marsh surrounding the lake and the river it fed. They met with the West Duv Road, narrow here, and built of stone to lift itself out of the muck to cross the Duv River over three thick stone arches. No more than two horses could walk abreast for the final hundred feet of the approach to the fortified first wall of Dondubhan. The wall rested on foundations as old as the island itself: a handful of massive blocks of blue-gray basalt gifted to the first people from the earth saints, pushed out of the roots in fully formed boulders and columns. If the stories were to be believed. Again and again, over generations, earls and kings had built the walls taller, adding an inner castle and fortified towers and longer arms of the wall to curl halfway around the Tarinnish. When the moon was brightest, the castle rock glowed, as eerie as swamplights or wandering spirits.
This afternoon, beside the dark blue and white swan flag of Lear, Astore’s salmon crest flew from the tallest tower, snapping in the bitter wind. Men on the forward ramparts held up their hands to greet Gaela and her men, flying a matching banner. The drawbridge sat open, like a wide, wooden tongue, but her army was forced to wait while the iron-toothed gate was lifted for them to pass.
Gaela jogged her horse through the twelve-foot tunnel and into the forecourt, his hooves tapping lightly.
They rode to the center, and Gaela pulled her horse up, calling behind for her captain to halt and bring in only the first squad of retainers: the inner courtyard was filled with soldiers, blocking the edges so her men would not all fit as they should.
Her husband waited, astride, at the fore of his own men.
Sun glinted off Astore’s chest plate, formed of three arched salmon in a trefoil. His helmet was hooked to his saddle, but otherwise Astore dressed in full war regalia, including the great sword on his belt. Fifty of his best men swept to either side of him, equally ready for battle. Behind him, the five thick blue towers of Dondubhan rose, shading him with their authority.
Impressed, Gaela nudged her horse nearer to his. “Husband, you’ll leave me no time to don my own plates.” She put a hungry smile on her face. “Though glad I am to see you so fine and ready to chase our great purpose.”
Astore did not smile in return. His pale face remained rigid. “That will not be necessary.”
Gaela narrowed her eyes. “You have not reclaimed the border towns without me.”
“I will.”
“But why?”
“You are my wife no longer, and have no cause to ride beside me.”
The eldest princess laughed loud, for all these retainers to hear and take to heart. “Yet you are my husband, and thus married to the ascending queen of Innis Lear. But perhaps my father’s mind has infected yours, and you, too, will betray the woman you’ve professed to prefer?”
“Get off your horse, Gaela.” Astore flicked his gloved hand, and ten of his men dismounted, approaching her. She knew them all, had practiced with some. They willingly had called her their lady. Only two did not readily hold her in esteem.
“I will not,” Gaela said, heart racing as she readied for battle.
With a small sigh and a tightening of his lips, Astore nodded. Then he said, “Detain her.”
The men moved, and those of Gaela’s command who had pushed into the forecourt shifted nearer to her in returned threat.
“Stop,” Gaela ordered Astore’s men.
They did. A few glanced nervously at their lord.
“Astore, what is your cause to take up this absolute folly?” Her mouth curled with distaste.
The duke said, loudly for all, “The lady’s crime is treason against her father, for until Midwinter he remains the king of this island; and further treason against myself, her lord and husband.”
“Oh, Col,” Gaela said. The thrill she felt was nothing of terror, only anticipation. “I am Gaela Lear, daughter of kings and empresses, and these men around us belong to me and my island. Not to you—unless you are mine.”
“Restrain her,” Astore said, confident in his authority.
Standing in her stirrups, Gaela called, “Do so yourself, if you would be more a king than me.”
Her husband lost all the remaining pink in his face, lips blanching straight and white as worms. With a sharp jerk, Astore pushed his horse right up to hers.
Gaela stared at his pale eyes and smiled. She swung down off her mount. Though not in full raiment, Gaela had traveled in dark leather armor and a mail skirt with heavy wool trousers. Hanging from the saddle was her grandfather’s own broadsword. The pommel was shaped like a swan, and set with blue topaz in the simple cross guard. She strode the short distance to Astore’s horse and gripped the ankle of his heavy boots. “Arrest me, if you are able.”
He nudged her away and climbed out of his saddle. Because Gaela did not back off, he landed a hand from her, their chests aligned.
“I came here,” Gaela said, “to lead a charge against Connley and take this north for us, husband, but you greet me as if you do not know me, as if you could be anything without me.”
Astore gripped the handle of his sword in its piscine sheath. Softly he said, “You betrayed me, Gaela, years ago in deed, and now in defiance. Our marriage was a lie, and you have proved never to care for Astora or my people. You’ve cared only for your own ambitions. When my men sent word of what you did to the Oak Earl—your own uncle—I knew you’d lost yourself as your father did. I will join with the Kayo to take this island back for Lear. Elia will be a fine—gentle and womanly—queen for us.”
Gaela said nothing: a prescient regret silenced her.
She was going to kill her husband this afternoon.
The thought made her dizzy, but she relished it.
Astore put his hands on her shoulders. “I will keep you very well, or even, if you like, arrange for escort to your mother’s people. But here, near power, you are a danger to yourself and this entire island. And can be no fit wife for me, because of what you’ve done to yourself.”
“You would put me aside in favor of drooling babies?” she murmured. “Choose children of your own line over ambition and a crown? Oh, I misjudged you, Col.”
“Yes, you did. I have ever wanted that crown, and I mean to fight for it, still. But what is the point of a crown without a legacy?”
“Power, together, to make a legacy for every child on this island, Col.” The depth of her disappointment in him surprised her, and that surprise stirred matching anger.
“You lied to me from the beginning. You never wanted me. You have never wanted any man. Though you professed to want a king. What kind of partnership is that, to have worked together based on such a lie?”
Baring her teeth in a mean smile, Gaela said, “I wanted a king—that much was true. But I have always intended to be that king myself, and toward that, on this cursed island, my stars provided a singular path. I have what I needed from you now, you foolish man, and I can finish the rest myself, without the need to share my crown.”
“I loved you,” he snarled, as if it would make a difference to her.
Gaela ended her smile. “I respected you, but no more.”
His face blazed red with his outrage, and he yelled again, “Seize this woman!”
Gaela eyed his retainers. She met their gazes with her own severity. “No one here has the authority to arrest the ascendant queen of Innis Lear, Col Astore, but she can challenge you herself.”
He put his hand again on the pommel of his sword. “I would die before I let you drag me down.”
“Same, husband.” Gaela reached, and the soldier Dig was at her side, putting her sword in her hand.
She did not wait, but swung it instantly, and with all the strength of her body. Astore barely blocked in time, stumbling. Gaela followed through with her shoulder, knocking him aside. He grunted, and before he could react, she drew the knife from her belt and stabbed it expertly between the buckles of steel plate, directly under his arm.
Astore’s mouth gaped open, and he looked down at her hand on the hilt.
Gaela pulled the knife free. Blood gushed through the quilted wool of his gambeson, pouring red and hot. She had learned from him, that very first year, how to always find a mortal stab.
“You misjudged me, too, Col,” Gaela murmured, opening her arm for him to slump against her. She caught him under his opposite shoulder, and carefully lowered Astore to his knees. “You always underestimated my ambition and my commitment. I would do anything for my crown and island, even let you paw at me, let you put your seed in me, thinking that it might ever take root. You’ve looked at me since I was a little girl like I was the thing to bring you what you wanted. But always you were the tool to bring me mine. I married you, and then I became you. Remember that as you die. Your honor is to have made the strongest king Innis Lear has ever seen.”
Breath wheezed from his lips, but Astore couldn’t catch enough air to speak.
“Men of Astore and Lear!” Gaela cried, standing with her dying husband against her hip, the murder weapon brandished and dripping a single long line of blood onto her wrist. “You have until his blood stops running to choose. Against me, and there will be a massacre here today, all the legacy of the fine Astore spirit become one of death and waste. Or with me, and we will ride out this afternoon to take all of Astore’s ancient lands back in the name of our duke, husband to the new king of Innis Lear.”
A gasping silence answered her first, and Gaela gripped her husband’s neck, wishing for battle, hoping the men chose poorly, that she would be forced to throw Astore’s body to the ground and let her rage free. To let herself go, to finally unleash and fight until triumphant or dead.
Her smile was fearsome to behold.
Astore held on to her hips, face pressed to her side. She stroked his hair, tugged it in the way she’d learned he liked, during their long marriage. But he was past such desire; he slid forward, blood spattering the packed earth as he slowly fell, but caught himself on his palms. His body shook with effort; Astore collapsed.
Several cries of sorrow rang out, but none leapt forward to attack.
More of Gaela’s retainers had by now pushed into the forecourt, pressing hard and crowding.
“Gaela Lear!” yelled Dig in his bearish roar.
“Gaela Lear!”
“Gaela Lear!”
She held up her hand for silence. It fell, swollen and ready to burst again with further violence. Gaela shook her head in mock sadness.
Finally, one of the duke’s first captains knelt, drawing his sword. He held the blade in one gloved hand, then kissed its guard. “Gaela of Astore and Lear!” he said, opening devoted eyes to her.
Gaela nodded regally, then crouched to grasp her husband’s shoulder and roll him onto his back. He groaned. Blood coated his front and side. His chest hardly rose. Gaela touched his mouth gently, brushed her knuckles along his jaw. Strange how numb she felt, though a recognizable flutter of angry grief waited behind the coursing thrill in her heart. She would feel it soon: a sorrow of necessity, a lost ally. Men were fools, with backward priorities always turning their heads. Astore would have gained everything by letting Gaela reign as she wished, if only he had curbed his own desires.
Then the duke of Astore died, and his wife placed the knife that had done it across his heart.