The Queens of Innis Lear. Tessa Gratton

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СКАЧАТЬ assaulted by the damp air blowing down from the chapel above. This was the oldest chamber in the church, carved high into the side of the mountain long before any dukedoms, when the island welcomed people into its bleeding heart.

      Regan lit no candles from the small storage alcoves. In violet darkness, she steadily ascended. Her thin-soled slippers tip-tapped against the stone, echoing forward like a gentle warning. She paused to toe them off at the top of the stairs, proceeding forward in bare feet. The passage was not long, but it narrowed in the center before widening again, like a birthing canal. Or that was how Regan imagined it, her smile brightening.

      The Navel itself was merely a stone rectangle cut into the mountain, with a ledge carved along the walls for sitting. The entrance through which Regan had arrived looked directly across the twenty-foot length and through two narrow stone columns, outside into the dark valley below. Astora City was a warm glow, and beyond, velvet hills lifted gently away, before the stretch of purple sky.

      A six-pointed star had been carved through the roof, allowing moonlight and starlight to shine dimly in. It was not the proper time of year or night to serve its greatest function, at the apex of the Longest Night Moon.

      Regan moved directly below the skylight, where the slate floor had cracked with age, and knelt beside the only adornment: a stone water basin carved beside a deep, narrow well. The well was covered with a wooden lid, so Regan shoved it aside. She dipped her fingers into the stale, tired water, ruining the dull reflection of the night sky, and touched the wet blessing to her cheeks, her lips, and then the linen over her belly. Her hand remained there, cupping the only star Regan cared for: the new pinprick of light in the deep recess of her body.

      She bowed her head, a smile continuing to play at her lips, and thought of the life in her, the dynamic, dangerous spark. Her breath was low and long, deep and content. Not a feeling Regan was accustomed to, being a woman of sharp, fierce ambition. She rarely experienced anything like peace in her heart. Satisfaction, however, was a thing she’d recently come to know quite intimately, and she was pleased to discover how the one could lead to the other.

      The stars grew bolder as she waited, and color fled the sky until it was black as black could be.

      Regan imagined the moments approaching again and again: her stern sister’s mouth falling open in surprise; their embrace; the tense, rough argument, followed by renewed dedication to each other. It was a thrill to anticipate the special, unique pleasure of being of one mind with Gaela, the most ferocious, the great pillar of her heart.

      Of course she heard her sister approach.

      A clatter and grunt, the oddly gentle ringing of metal, like a song.

      Regan straightened her shoulders, held her penitent pose.

      Behind her, Gaela burst into the room with a quiet curse.

      “Sister,” Gaela said harshly. Not from anger or irritation, but for herself. Gaela wielded her words and movements like armor and war hammers. Regan preferred her own thorns to be small and precise and subtle, though no less deadly.

      Settling back onto her heels, Regan sang out in the language of trees. Sister! One of the only such words Gaela understood.

      Gaela Astore fumed out of the shadows, stomped to Regan’s side, and fell hard to her knees. She wore leather and wool, an empty sword belt and a skirt of mail. Her hair was twisted back like the roots of an oak, pulling her forehead wide. She was a beauty, despite herself, Regan had always thought: a slice of moon, magnificent and dangerous.

      “This should be filled in,” Gaela said, gesturing at the old well. “Why did you wish to meet here? After all these months.”

      Regan waited, patient with Gaela as with no other.

      Gaela’s eyes roamed her sister’s face and body, coming to rest on the hand still curled at Regan’s belly. “Yes,” Gaela whispered. And her mouth broadened into a toothy smile.

      Regan grasped Gaela’s hand and flattened it against her belly, pressing their hands together there. “The future queen.”

      “Or king,” Gaela answered, fisting her hand in the layers of Regan’s skirt, and dragged her sister toward her. They embraced. For so many years this had been a piece of their goal: Gaela on the throne of Innis Lear, with Regan’s children for her heirs. Gaela had been sixteen when she swore to her sister, fast and secretly, that no child would lock into her womb, she would make sure of it. We will be king and queen of Lear, iron-strong Gaela had promised her willow-thin fourteen-year-old sister. No matter husbands or rivals, it will be you and me, our bodies and our blood. Regan had kissed her cheek and promised.

      Regan kissed her again now, and touched their cheeks together. She braced for the next step.

      The lady-warrior took Regan’s shoulders in demanding hands and said, “How long?”

      “I only was certain five days ago, and so it will come in the earliest weeks of spring. You are the first to know.”

      “You must marry, and fast.”

      “We’ll say we eloped already, and everyone will believe it.”

      Gaela’s brows lifted. “Of the neat, passionless Regan Lear? I have my doubts.”

      “But, sister”—Regan’s lips pressed a secretive smile—“they will believe it of me with this man. That we were forced to hide our passion from the king.”

      “Who is the father?” Gaela growled.

      This sparked a brilliant fire in Regan’s eyes: shards of brown and tan and a blue just like their father’s, tossed together in a tempest that seemed a gentle brown when beheld from the distance most gave between themselves and the sly middle daughter. Only a handful of people stood close enough to know Regan had slices of her father inside her eyes. “Lear will be so furious, Gaela,” she whispered, glee and cruelty warring in the thin tone. “And Astore, too. It is the worst and the best I could do.”

      Understanding passed swiftly to Gaela. “Oh, Regan, my love, you did not.”

      “Connley, Connley, Connley,” Regan said, differently each time. First casual, then wicked, then deep in her mouth, as if she could taste him buried there.

      Gaela thrust herself to her feet. “His grandfather despised our mother! His mother sought for years to marry our father! You give Connley the hope of the crown now?”

      “His children only.” Regan slid to stand as well. “And a knife in our father’s heart.”

      “So, too, it will divide us, all the more because my husband and your lover are chiefest of rivals.”

      “It is done.”

      “You should have discussed it with me!”

      “You did not ask my advice when you chose Astore!”

      “Ah! But Astore was the obvious, only choice! He is fierce and, by our father’s and other men’s reckoning, worthy of the crown. The anticipated alternate, should the line of Lear fall, because of his proven strength and his blasted stars. I chose him to play the part I want him to play. He thinks already to have a crown from me. Connley will not rest with that. Does he fear you? I will not believe if you say he does.”

      Regan СКАЧАТЬ