BAN THE FOX wandered his way north through the White Forest, a lightness to his step. If he could, in this dense forest, he’d run.
He might never complete his spell, but it was enough to carry the promise with him, a threat beneath his fingers instead of lodged, poisonous, in his heart.
Ban yelled his pride, leaping into the air, sharing his joy and his thanks with the trees. But instead of their fierce whispers, full of love—something darker seemed to echo back.
Wind crashed overhead, tossing the canopy. Yellow leaves rained down, and Ban stopped, closed his eyes. He could not quite grasp the words.
He swiveled, searching for water, or exposed roots: there, an elm leaned on raised earth, three roots curling through the grass like worms. Ban crouched by it, grasping the roots in both hands. He leaned down and whispered against the cool brown bark: I’m listening.
For a long moment, nothing changed. The snap of branches alerted him to the presence of a large animal. A very low crackle sounded nearby, small enough to be a slinking snake, just the brush of scale against deadfall, or a young rabbit hunched beneath ferns.
Regan.
The lonely name hissed on the wind, and Ban startled to his feet.
Regan! screamed the White Forest.
A wail came after, high and mournful.
Regan Regan REGAN!
I’m coming, he said to the wind. Show me the way.
Ride, said the elm tree, and the branches shuddered. From beyond them came a gentle, curious whicker. Startled, Ban said, “Horse?” He pushed around the old elm’s roots and there it stood: the horse from Errigal Keep he’d lost in the storm. It—she—was ragged and still saddled; he ought to remove all the tack and rub her down, give her rest, but the wind snapped hard against the canopy.
Regan! The forest cried again.
Muttering an apology, Ban mounted and urged the horse after the wind.
* * *
FOR SEVERAL HOURS Ban rode, east and then slightly south, and then straight east again, galloping when he could to the farthest edge of the White Forest, where narrow fingers of it reached between high karst hills. He ate in the saddle, relieved himself only when he and the horse both needed water. In early afternoon they climbed one of the hills. The horse’s hoof clopped on the naked stone, and Ban smelled salt on the wind.
Sun narrowed his eyes as he peered for some sign to follow. The wind blew steady and wordless, but moaned through the tiny crevasses in the karst. There would be sinkholes and caves here. There was little else about this part of the island Ban knew, except that if he found the road and turned north, by nightfall he’d be at Connley Castle.
“Regan?” Ban said plainly, then again in the language of trees.
Nothing but empty wind.
He squeezed his legs, and the horse walked on, picking carefully. An hour later, he smelled smoke through the shade of the valley. “Regan?” he yelled.
And after another few minutes, “Lady? Are you here?”
He stopped the horse and climbed down, wrapping the reins in one hand to guide her with him a few steps off the graveled road. Pine trees surrounded them, spicy and crisp, and Ban walked over a soft bed of fallen needles to touch his bare hand to the soft, thready bark of one.
Sister, he said, where is Regan Lear?
Close, so close, but she will not speak to us, brother, we cannot hear her, the tree whispered sadly.
Fear took his breath for a moment, but Ban still pressed his forehead to the tree and sighed a blessing onto her grove. Still this way?
yesyesyes, all the pines shivered and danced.
Ban couldn’t think for the fear rushing through his veins to hiss in his ears. He moved on at his horse’s side, pushing as fast as he could.
“Regan!” he cried again.
“Hello?”
It was not her voice, but another woman’s. Ban dropped the horse’s reins and hurried.
Even rushing he was still quiet, and thus startled the retainer who paced along the southwest perimeter of a small meadow camp. “Ah, shit!” she gasped when Ban appeared, wild, out of the trees. Helmetless, but wearing a rusty pink gambeson of Astore and mail sleeves, the woman went for the sword at her belt before recognizing him. “Ban Errigal.”
“You came with messages from Gaela,” Ban said. “Where is Regan?” He strode past the woman, toward a wagon unhitched from the pair of horses set to snorfling at what used to be long grass and clover.
“There, sir,” the retainer said, but Ban had already seen.
Two unmoving bodies.
Regan curled beside a thicket of hawthorn roots, from which sprung a short, bent tree with no leaves, only dozens and dozens of bloodred berries. Her long dark hair was loose over her back and covering her face, spread in a fan of curls over Connley’s chest.
The duke was dead.
His lovely eyes had not closed completely, leaving a slit of blue-green to shine in the light. Blood speckled otherwise bloodless lips, and yet more dried blood cracked against the splayed-open jacket, his torn shirt still half wrapped about him, along with a surprisingly untarnished bandage. One hand hid beneath Regan; the other lay at his side, palm open and empty.
Ban could not move. Not Connley, no.
No.
“Regan,” he whispered, then noticed her shoulders shift very slightly with breath.
Sinking to his knees under the weight of stunned grief, Ban suddenly had a sick, confusing thought: his father might not be dead after all. Air passed Ban’s lips and over his tongue, filling his lungs, but he could not feel it. Ban was choking on life, gasping and dull.
“She won’t move,” the Astore retainer said, pressing. “I can’t get her to answer me, or eat or drink.”
“What happened?” he managed to whisper.
“Connley and Errigal killed each other.”
“He’s … he’s dead, then.”
The retainer put her hand on Ban’s shoulder. “Since last night. Though Connley lasted almost past dawn. Regan wanted to take him home. She was trying to save him.”
Ban struggled to his feet and moved to the fallen couple. “Regan,” he said, then knelt again, touching Connley’s arm first. It was cool, and some stiffness of death had set in. Ban shook his head, protesting. The body should have been cleaned before that, or buried in roots. Regan could have—should have—asked the roots to take him, fresh still, for the worms of dreams and rebirth to feast upon. He said so, in the language of trees, but quietly. The hawthorn shivered; its roots rippled in agreement.
Regan clutched her husband’s body, her taut, trembling arms the only sign she was aware of anything else in the world.
Ban kissed Connley’s forehead. He could not press the eyelids closed.
Tears flooded Ban’s throat. He leaned his forehead on Connley’s, smelling sour death and urine and the full, bright scent of limestone and clay. Stars and worms, Ban was sorry. He shouldn’t have left the Keep. He should have remained to see his father dealt with, remained and—and witnessed. If he had not been with Elia, might he have saved Connley’s life?
Turning, he put his hands on Regan. “Lady, you must let go. Help me put him in the roots.”
Nothing.
“Regan.” Ban shifted nearer to her, wrapped his arm around her back, and brushed her cool mass of brown hair away from her face, gathering it together gently. Her eyes tightened shut at his care. She was peaked and splotchy, her lovely cheeks streaked with blood and dirt and tearstain.
“No,” she whispered, as harsh as winter rain.
“Yes, Regan. Come with me.”
She shuddered, then looked. “Ban?” Her voice was soft and lost.
He nodded and kissed her temple. He left his lips there, blowing warm breath into her hair. She shuddered again and in one swift move thrust up and seized him.
“Gone,” she said, low in her throat. “There is no more of Connley at all, anywhere.”
“I know,” he said, holding her with all his strength. Using it to prop up his own heart.
The lady did not cry, but she held on to him long, as the sun moved away, the breeze lilted east to southeast, and shadows fell all around. Ban listened to the hush, to Gaela’s retainer trudging back to the small fire and stirring it up again, evidence of her discomfort and attempt to give them privacy. Evening birds came out to sing, against the discordant tune of crickets.
“It’s time,” Ban said finally, stroking Regan’s tangled hair.
They stood. Regan stared hollowly down at her husband, while Ban faced the hawthorn.
Take him, he said. This is His Highness, Tear Connley of Innis Lear, a part of this island born, and part of it forever.
The hawthorn shivered, tiny clusters of haws blinking in the twilight.
Regan said, He saw me. She gripped her belly hard enough to pinch her flesh through the shift she wore.
Roots lifted up from the earth, stretching, reaching for Connley. The shadows yawned, and the wind said, With us.
Behind them, the horses shied away from the trembling ground. Clay parted, roots looped up, grasping the duke’s neck and wrists, his waist and thighs and feet. They pulled him down, into the earth.
Regan cried out wordlessly, up at the first stars filtering through the twilight.
Connley vanished, embraced by the hawthorn at last.
“I’m sorry,” Ban said, staring where the duke had just been, longing to see that unique color of Connley’s eyes once more, or marvel at the ambitious twist of his mouth. Regan heaved and nearly collapsed, but Ban caught her.
“It’s my fault,” he said, thinking of his cowardice at having fled the Keep last night.
The lady fell still against him. Dangerously still.
Blood sang in his ears: he was at her mercy, suddenly, beholden to a wolf who’d just lost her mate.
“No,” Regan said, leaning away. In this newborn darkness, she was an eerie tree-shadow, a haunting spirit. Her crystalline eyes flicked to her husband’s shallow grave. “This is the fault of our fathers.”
The truth of it took his breath away.
And Ban could make both their fathers pay. As if everything had whispered and urged him to just this moment, with every breeze at his ear and choice in his heart, since the sun rose this morning. Or even longer. Since he’d come home from Aremoria, since he’d fallen in love with a star, since he’d been born.
Before he thought any deeper, Ban pulled the walnut from his jacket, dropped it onto the earth, and crushed it beneath his heel.