THE BOLD RED suited Elia Lear, as did her clashing teal ribbons, pulling disparate parts of her costume together into a whole: so Mars had thought watching her from the barge, as she stood, eyes calm, chin up like a queen. Even as the wind tore at her skirts and hair. She bore it without wincing, as if it did not cut tears in her eyes as it did his.
Now, watching her comfort the young Errigal as the others began unloading the barge, Mars was unable to look away from her: the compassion on her face before it disappeared because she curled over Rory, the warm brown line of her arched neck. He wanted to put his lips there, or at least his hand, to show her he would support her, or nothing more if she wished.
Though it was terrible that the Earl Errigal was dead, it was good Mars had come. He’d sent Ban the Fox to Innis Lear to promote discord, and Mars knew his spy’s methods too well not to recognize the spiral of them. Errigal and his heir had been removed, putting Ban in the perfect position to take it all if he could convince someone to name him legitimate. How well the Fox did his work.
Mars clenched his jaw. Thinking of Ban turned his careful, meticulous thoughts to fire. Never before had he been betrayed like this, dismissed with so little explanation. I will not be returning to Aremoria.
It might as well have read, I will not be returning to you.
Mars had trusted that bastard. Given him every opportunity to achieve greatness. No one had expected so much of Ban as Mars had, and he’d been so very sure the Fox would rise to meet that expectation.
The king of Aremoria did not like this feeling.
He’d lost them both: Ban and Elia.
She did not even glance his way again.
Mars had thrown all aside to come here, just himself and twelve of his best men, men who’d served in the army beside him before his father died, when he was only Captain Mars, a soldier like them, fighting and aching to win and live and prove himself worthy. His mother had vehemently protested this scheme, but Ianta took his side, reluctantly, convincing Queen Calepia that Mars could not rule if he doubted himself. And he knew abandoning Elia Lear now would carve a doubt in his heart to last all his life. His sister did not know, still, of his relationship with Ban the Fox, and how tangled Mars’s feelings were for the two islanders. Doubt, yes, and desire, and a stubborn determination to be selfish for once.
The king knew it was the core of his coming here: pure, selfish need. He wanted Elia, and he wanted Ban—differently, maybe—and if Mars must set down the Blood and the Sea to get them—or one of them—or settle his tumultuous yearning—so be it.
Elia Lear had come home to reign, and Mars had followed her to see if he could shed his crown for even a little while.
“You need a drink,” the girl Aefa said suddenly to Rory Errigal, but she looked around to the folk still gathered, meaning them all.
Rory nodded against Elia—Mars unworthily wished to be the one pressed against her—and the princess helped him stand. She glanced to Eriamos Alsax and his sister Dessa. “We do have lunch at the inn. Come.” Her impossibly black eyes darted to Mars, including him, and she led Errigal down the dock.
Aefa pursed her lips at Mars, unaffected by who she knew he was. “Come you, sirs.” She flounced away, and Mars looked at Novanos, whom he knew to admire the perky, inappropriate young woman.
“Finish unloading,” Mars quietly ordered his men. “Help the Alsax and act your parts. “
Then he and Novanos followed in the wake of Elia Lear. Novanos said, “It will be easy enough for them, for they play what they are: soldiers.”
Port Comlack was as busy as it had always been, except for the frantic sense in the air, as if at any moment lightning might form out of the harsh, clear sky, and tear through town on this scalding wind. The inn where they were led was two stories wrapped around an inner court, but Elia went straight through the common room to a large table with benches on three sides. Sunlight and three great hearths lit the low-ceilinged room, heating it and casting out the briny smell of the sea. Six retainers stood along the rear wall, and a handful of regular folk chatted at a tall table, some eating hurriedly on stools by one flickering fire. Wind gusted against the shutters, riffling through the thatched roof overhead.
Elia sat Rory down and summoned immediate drink. She put her arm around his shoulder as though they were old friends—and they were, Mars knew, stamping down jealousy. He deserved her reprobation. Though he’d like to ask after Ban, to know if they’d spoken, or if she knew what had caused his Fox to turn away from Aremoria. From him. Had it been her doing? Would that make it easier to bear? What was the state of politics on Innis Lear? Where did Elia stand, and would she allow him to stand beside her? How did the wind scour the island like this, but bring with it no rain or storm?
“Rory, there is more,” Elia said, raising her voice. “My father, too, is dead.”
Shock clenched Mars’s stomach. She said it so coolly, as if unaffected, except there was a slight tremble in her hand as she reached for a pitcher of wine and poured it into cups. Pressing one into Rory’s hand, the princess put her back to Mars.
Aefa appeared before Mars and Novanos. “Well, sit down, sirs, don’t hover. Or else go stand with the retainers, since that’s your costume.”
The girl was correct: Mars stood out like this. He nodded at Novanos, who nodded more gently at Aefa. They began to step away, but Mars said, “Aefa, I would speak with your lady alone, when it pleases her.”
“It won’t please her,” Aefa said, ushering them to a different table.
Gritting his teeth for a moment, Mars put on a more concerned tone to ask, “What happened to Lear?”
“He was old,” she said, as if the answer were obvious.
The king sat carefully on a stool, balancing his elbows on the rough table, and Novanos sat across from him. A serving girl set beer down for them, and Mars made a valiant attempt not to glower.
“What did you expect?” Novanos asked in undertone.
Staring at the pale bubbles circling the top of the dark beer, Mars shook his head once. The beer smelled like new bread. He glanced at Elia, still holding her arm around Rory Errigal. Mars hadn’t spent much time with the young man, both lacking the occasion and disliking to be reminded of Ban. But he’d been told Rory was a flirt and quite good with his sword and shield. Two different girls in Mars’s castle had fallen to his charms, and possibly one of Novanos’s best soldiers. Ban had told Mars once that Rory took after Errigal, and it was easy to see. He touched Elia readily, and Mars forced himself to be glad the two friends had each other right now: he remembered too keenly the feeling of a father’s sudden death.
He wondered how Ban had orchestrated it. And if the Fox had anything to do with the death of Lear. Mars would place a heavy wager upon it. But he needed more information before he could unravel this web.
Novanos tried the beer and grimaced. Mars smiled a little at the man’s refined palate.
“You should at least attempt to relax,” Novanos said. “Use this as the only freedom you’re like to get the rest of your life. Enjoy the break from responsibility.”
“I’m going outside,” Mars said.
When his captain grunted in displeasure, Mars sourly added, “To enjoy my freedom.”
Controlling himself carefully, Mars left the inn. He stood in the street, squinting up at the bleary sun and feeling like a spoiled child. The king of a beautiful, strong country, sulking as if he’d been sent away by his mother.
He’d wanted Elia to smile. To see him and be pleased, even if she strove to hide it. He’d wanted her to need him, despite those last words she’d said to him in Lionis, and despite that he’d lied by omission for nearly their entire relationship.
But her father was dead, so she couldn’t. Even besides that, she had so many things to think about; Mars knew very well the sort of pressure she was under now, no matter what her intentions for Innis Lear. He understood better than any, yet here he was wishing her to be as foolish as he had been, to drop her responsibilities, and not prioritize her grief or her friend’s grief and the loss of a strong earl, but Mars’s miraculous arrival. It was childish of him, and beneath them both. She would never appreciate it.
Laughing bitterly at himself, Mars turned to go back inside and be patient. He would be here for her, however she would use him: that was his goal.
A dark-haired woman stood in his way.
Mars froze.
“Go with me,” she said in a voice as regal as a queen’s—if queens ruled shadows and dreams.
“Where is Elia?”
“You are not yet granted an audience with our lady, but go with me up the cliff. There is a path offering very dramatic views.”
“Very well,” Mars said, low and strangely unnerved. Heat prickled up from beneath his skin; the sky of Innis Lear was cold.
The woman nodded and led the way, her skirts swinging freely around her worn boots. She was not dressed as a noblewoman: the green of her cinched tunic was faded, though her skirts were layered and ruffled, like a distant cousin of Ispanian fashion. She wore no jewels but a few links of copper tied to her belt, and silk ribbons held back the wind-snarled mass of her hair. A plain black jacket, also faded, fit loosely and clearly had not been made for her, but for a larger man. Despite the mismatched clothing and untended hair, she was gorgeous. Her warm tan skin showed some lines of age and laughter around her welcoming lips. Mars was not so used to being attracted to people as soon as he met them, but there was a familiar wariness in her brown eyes when she glanced back to make certain he followed.
He did, a few paces behind, so as to keep from crowding her. She took quick, short strides through town, up the steep, snaking streets, and out of the cove. Some wooden stairs stained white by salt cut up off the main road, and she took them over and around jutting limestone capped with scraggly gray-green ocean grass. Wind blasted, shoving at Mars, but the woman seemed not to be affected; rather, the wind parted for her.
Mars concentrated on placing his boots carefully on the twenty or so stairs until they reached a plateau and a very narrow path, worn to limestone gravel against the grass and thin dirt. The woman climbed easily, mounting the bluff with a deep enough breath he could see her shoulders lift and fall. She waited, looking back, and when Mars joined her she began to walk again, meandering idly with her gaze directed out at the glittering sea.
Pale ribbons danced in the wind, loosening from her hair. It smelled of salt here, nothing more, because the wind scoured this place clean of all else.
After a quarter of a mile edging the cliff, the woman stopped and turned entirely to face the sea. “Can you feel the island’s fury, Morimaros of Aremoria?”
He frowned and folded his hands together behind his back. This promontory of cliff reached farther out than the rest of the south coast, thrusting them high enough over the ocean that the crash of waves on the white rocks below was only a dull rush of sound. The wind battered at his back, as if to throw him over. “I feel the wind.”
“Do you think it wants you here?”
To say what he truly thought—that it mattered not to him what the wind wanted—would cast this woman, and all of Innis Lear, against him. Mars only said, “I would like the opportunity to show I am an asset.”
“What do you want?”
“To give aid to Elia Lear.”
“Make her the queen?”
“If that is what she wishes.”
The woman smiled, broad and knowing. “Did you wish to be king of Aremoria?”
“There are too many differences between our situations. I was always made to be my father’s heir. Elia was not.”
“Wasn’t she?” the woman said sharply. “What do you know of how she was made?”
“Who are you?” Mars demanded. “That you speak to me this way?”
Her lovely black eyebrows lifted. “I thought you were only a soldier.”
He sighed in frustration, and the wind seemed to huff back, shoving at him, tugging at the sword at his hip. Mars stumbled and turned to gaze inland, toward the northern moors, dark and silvery despite the glaring sky. “I am a stranger to you, and you challenge me without knowing me, regardless of my rank or name.”
“You are no stranger to me; your name is on the wind, set there by many voices.”
“Then you are a stranger to me.”
“Why are you here, Morimaros?”
“To help.”
“We do not need Aremore might.”
“That is why I did not bring any.”
“Your name, your presence, is more than enough. You are a living threat, and you know it.”
“Then use me! Let Elia use me.”
“Tell me: why are you here?”
The wind slammed so hard the grass hissed and roared like its own ocean.
“I want to help Elia.”
“Why are you here?” Her voice lowered, and Mars felt it through the wind.
“I told you. Now give me your name, woman.” He put his hand on his sword to stop the wind from slapping it against his thigh; too late he realized the threat of the gesture.
“Shh,” the woman murmured, touching her lips and then holding her hand out flat toward the moors.
The wind settled.
That graceful gesture; her dark Ispanian flavor; the wary, powerful eyes: Mars saw her in double, then, one figure herself and the other his Fox. Ban was slighter, more desperate, but there was no doubt in Mars’s heart.
“You’re his mother,” he said, stunned. But he should have guessed right away. Brona Hartfare, the witch of the White Forest. Mars felt a pang of dismay for noticing her beauty, as if it would let Ban down. As if the Fox’s respect still concerned him.
She said, “And you’re his king.”
“Not by his word,” Mars snapped, his only defense. “He chose you. Your island.”
Brona studied him, not as pleased as she ought to be by the revelation. He thought of Ban, writing that note, sending it off, and could not help but wonder how easy a choice it might have been. Had Mars ever mattered to Ban the Fox?
The king turned swiftly away so she might not see the pain crawl over his face. Ah, stars, Fox, he thought, nothing but a name and a sorrowful curse.
“You set him here to pull the island apart—for your benefit. For Aremoria.”
“I did.” Mars barely managed to keep his voice from diving to a whisper. Not from guilt—he would not apologize for acting as a king, not to any but Elia herself. Yet this was Ban’s mother, and speaking with her made him feel strangely closer to his Fox.
“Did you know how he would excel at it?” She seemed curious now, more than anything.
“I hoped he would. Lear was not a good king.”
“You expect me to believe that was your motivation? The good of our island?”
Mars turned back to her. “It was a part of my motivation, and if you do not believe me, there is no point discussing further. All I have is my word, here on your island.”
Brona Hartfare nodded. “I believe you. But what I’ve heard of Morimaros of Aremoria is that he is an excellent general, a liberal king, invested in the betterment of his people. It seems a king like that might have predicted my son’s actions.”
“I thought all his choices would point in my favor, because Ban would always be loyal to me.”
Now Brona slanted him a look. Almost pitying. She said, “All Ban has ever wanted was for someone to be loyal to him. So while everyone allowed the stars to make these paths for us, for him—Ban became his own star.”
Mars stared at her, understanding there was something in her words older than he could possibly come to terms with, more mysterious and strange than any man of Aremoria could fathom. But he felt the truth in them.
“What—Will you tell me what he’s done? He’s not here—with Elia. Where is he?”
The Fox’s mother sighed. “With Regan certainly, and Gaela, too, most likely. Beyond that, you could say more surely than I what he is responsible for.”
Mars heard the implication there perfectly: the witch meant Mars should know what he himself was responsible for. “I would have him at Elia’s side,” he said. “For that is where I intend to be, if she allows it.”
“How unfortunate it is, King, that we cannot control the path of a storm.”
There were a hundred things Mars could have said to defend Ban Errigal: that he was not chaos, that he had meant so much to Mars, that she should have cared better for her son, if she was so concerned with his behavior now. That the Fox had been determined and wounded, afraid and jealous and desperate for a friend, or a leader, or at least for a decent man to appreciate everything that Ban could offer, which was exactly what the king had been.
In the end, Mars said nothing.
Brona asked, “Do you love my son?”
“That doesn’t matter anymore,” Mars answered, harshly, for he had, indeed, loved the man. Trained him personally, lifted him up, trusted him! Simply enjoyed his thorny company. And missed him when he was gone.
She tilted her head and said, with the first lilt of maternal tenderness he had noted in her: “It matters to me.”
That hurt the king, and he struggled not to show it. Instead he only nodded, and said, “I did. But I can no longer.”
The ocean crashed below them, and the wind rushed past, twisting and tossing up dry grass in tiny whirlwinds. There came a moaning, a sorry cry, and Mars somehow knew it was the voice of Innis Lear.