The Queens of Innis Lear. Tessa Gratton

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СКАЧАТЬ allow it to make him bitter.

      “With so sweet a lady as you beside me, bitterness would be impossible,” he replied.

      Elia demurred, but her father laughed approvingly, and the Fool pointed out that some bittersweet flavors remained longest in memory.

      Morimaros of Aremoria would turn thirty in just over a month, several days before this year’s equinox. “But it was the equinox itself the night I was born,” he offered.

      “Ah,” King Lear intoned excitedly, putting a sour tilt to Ullo of Burgun’s smile.

      “That is helpful,” Elia said, repeating her charge of marking down stars and counting forward as she’d done first for Ullo. The Aremore king had been born in the Year of the Sixth Birds, and on that autumnal equinox, an hour before dawn in Aremoria, it was the Lion of War that crowned the sky. Elia glanced at her father, whose eyes narrowed on the chart. “That constellation holds your counter star, Elia,” he said testily.

      “It is, my lord,” she agreed. “The Lion of War, rampant and constant as Calpurlugh, but instead of a stationary constant, it circles the same piece of sky, protecting or confining.”

      Morimaros cleared his throat. He had not moved nearer to her for his reading, but maintained his stance at the fore of his retainers, shoulders back and hands folded behind him. “Is Calpurlugh not the Eye of the Lion? It has been years since my astronomy lessons, but I thought they were pieces of each other.”

      “Pieces that never see one another, yes,” Elia said. “They are not in sequence together, but only one or the other. Depending on the stars around them, it is either Calpurlugh or the Lion that shines, never both.”

      “Alas,” Ullo of Burgun said.

      “But the Lion is bold, and on an equinox dawn as this is, he is isolated but surrounded by … possibility.” Elia felt an unusual urge to couch her reading, for this was a lonely one, and she could imagine it heartbreaking for a man already isolated within a crown. It was not a future she would choose for herself.

      Morimaros did not seem affected, though, or particularly invested in the reading. His blue eyes remained calm, and he showed neither disappointment nor pleasure, as if none of this mattered at all.

      Irritated to feel she’d wasted her time, when he had requested this reading in his letter—had it been his only way of flirtation? Appealing to her interest though he shared it not at all?—Elia straightened. “I am weary, sirs,” she said, “and my companion must have arrived by now. I must see her and rest after my travel down from the north.”

      Immediately, Morimaros bowed, accepting her withdrawal.

      The Fool clapped his hands. “I would go with you, to see Aefa.”

      “Please,” Elia said.

      Lear put a hand on Ullo’s shoulder, but said to both kings, “You will see my Elia again at tomorrow’s Zenith Court, where all I have promised will be decided.”

      The king of Aremoria said, “I hope I may speak with you, Lear, further?”

      Truly, Elia thought as she kissed her father’s cheek, it was her father that Morimaros had come to treat with, not her. He obviously wished alliance and dowry; not a queen, not herself.

      Ullo offered his hand, and she took it, glad he at least bothered to pay her personal attention, even if his eyes lingered too long on her neck, on her wrists and the line from breast to waist. Tomorrow she would be rid of both these kings.

      The king of Burgun escorted her out of the courtyard, the Fool following behind with a weird, affected gate. When they emerged into the inner yard, Elia angled toward the family keep. “Thank you,” she said.

      “I hope we can continue our courtship, even beyond tomorrow.”

      “I have … enjoyed your letters,” she acknowledged, thinking of Aefa’s recitations.

      Drawing her nearer, Ullo said, “I would rather your good opinion than your father’s. Aremoria may be a great commander, but I rule from the heart, and I want only what is best for my people. I think you are it, and beautiful.”

      Though uncomfortable at the touch of his hip to hers, Elia appreciated the honesty. “I will not favor Aremoria over Burgun based on these stars.”

      His smile was radiant.

      The Fool’s face appeared between hers and Ullo’s. He smiled madly, showing all his teeth. “I was born under a grinning moon, see?”

      “I do,” Ullo said, laughing as though charmed. He took the hint, and stepped back from Elia, bowing over her hand. “Until tomorrow, princess.”

      The king of Burgun and his maroon retinue passed beyond her, marching at a leisurely pace toward the guest tower. Elia wondered at the wisdom or folly of putting both kings in the same place. They clearly did not get on, and they had been at war for two consecutive summers. Had it been her father’s decision, and had he done so with a mischievous mind? Or merely at the suggestion of the stars?

      “I think you would make a great queen,” the Fool said, touching her hair. She suspected he’d found one of the crystals pinned with the silver web. Elia turned her head. The Fool’s eyes were so like Aefa’s, though the white lids drooped heavier with age despite his being nearly two decades younger than Lear. She smelled spiced meat on his breath, and the earthy fresh henna in his hair.

      Elia put her fingers on his red-stained bottom lip. She did not want to be any queen, nor did she feel suited to the job. “Hush, before the stars hear.”

      “The vault of heaven does not listen to fools,” he said brightly, and danced her across the yard.

       FIVE YEARS AGO,

       ASTORA

      THE STAR CHAPEL of Astora was built into the surrounding mountains, formed of heavy limestone and plaster, painted generations ago with gold flake and indigo to make the first chamber like the vault of heaven. Regan Lear passed through it, unconcerned with the public sanctuary. Heads turned as star-kissed priests and the prayerful noted the middle daughter of their king gliding through sharp and smooth as a galley in calm waters. Not since her elder sister’s wedding to their duke two years ago had Regan come into this chapel, but she was immediately recognizable. Against the martial Gaela Astore, who covered herself most days in armor and the raiment of men, it was perhaps a surprise to gaze upon such a sleek, feminine princess. Regan’s gown was voluminous and pale as the sky at dawn, dragging behind her in a perfect half-circle of oystered layers. She wore a veil of thin silver chains woven through her curls, and looped beneath her chin from delicate brooches at her temples. A dripping crown of rain.

      And most startling of all, this princess smiled.

      Today was the first day Regan had been truly happy since her mother died.

      She СКАЧАТЬ