Ban opened his eyes and jerked off his other glove. His father was weak for never standing up to Lear on his own son’s behalf, but the king was the true enemy.
Unwilling to retreat, and thinking of how best to play the fox in this squalid henhouse, Ban slid his gaze toward the inner keep again. “Why are the kings of Aremoria and Burgun here?”
“Vying for Elia’s dowry,” Kayo said, leaning his shoulder against the black stone wall. “Though not so much for herself, it seems to me.”
Errigal barked a laugh. “So it should be, for a third daughter.”
Ban had heard as much from Morimaros weeks ago, but standing here now, so near her, the thought of her being wed made his tongue go dry. He had no right to care on her behalf.
“It will all be done tomorrow,” Kayo told him. “At the Zenith Court. Lear will choose between Aremoria and Burgun.”
“Tomorrow,” Ban said, too hushed to sound uncaring. His father didn’t notice, instead studying a party of soldiers and ladies in bright wool hurrying around behind them toward the third tower. But Kayo heard Ban’s echo, and peered at him.
“Six years it’s been since you saw her?” Kayo prodded gently.
Ban nodded.
“Come on,” Errigal said, clapping both their shoulders again. “I want a word with Bracoch, to see the lay of alliance and whether he’ll stand with Connley.”
The Oak Earl nodded, but because Ban had been looking, he saw dislike move swiftly through Kayo’s eyes. Interesting.
“You clean yourself up and join us, my boy,” his father ordered Ban. “We’ve rooms up there, can’t miss the Errigal banner. Be at dinner in the hall, too, if you want to see the princess before she’s a wife. This one,” he said to Kayo, “used to trail behind Elia, all devotion and round eyes. Now I remember it, the king even called him her dog—a tamer sort of fox he used to be, I guess!” Errigal laughed at his own joke.
“Not tame anymore, Father,” Ban said.
“Ha! So like your mother! Stars, I miss her.”
It was on his tongue to remind his father that his mother was easily found, but curse him if Ban would aim Errigal back in her direction.
“Farewell for now, Ban the Fox,” Kayo said gently, as if he knew the storm brewing inside Ban’s chest.
Clenching his fist, Ban closed his eyes and withdrew. It was appalling how easily his father set his teeth on edge, made him want to scrub his face and strip the black from his hair, be as gold-speckled as Rory. But it wouldn’t have mattered: the king, and therefore Errigal, cared only for birth stars and the orders of privilege that came with title and marriage. Ban could have been more handsome and sandy and gilded than Rory, and they would still have scorned him. One truth Ban had always understood about his father: Errigal swung to the winning side, or the loudest side, or the most passionate side, but he was rarely static. As a child Ban had struggled to follow him, to stand next to him, and win some approval. It took years in Aremoria to realize he and his father stood opposite each other across a dark and vicious chasm called legitimacy, and nothing would bridge the gap.
A figure half the yard away caught his attention.
It was her.
Elia Lear, slipping quietly along the inside of the curtain wall, toward the royal tower. She wore the dull regalia of a star priest, gray skirts snapping around her ankles, and worn boots caked with mud. She kept her chin tucked down and her hood held low, as if avoiding attention, but a warm band tightened around his chest. It was her.
She was small, though she had to be twenty, as Ban was. As he stared, her hood slipped back in a gust of wind and her hair fell free in spiral curls, dark brown and copper, shining as if spun from the very metal itself. She gathered it in her hand and tugged the hood back up. Even from this distance her eyes were wide, bright, and black as polished horn beads.
He knew he stood like a dullard, or like useless statuary, and when she did glance his way, her eyes passed over him on their way to the tower. No more than he expected, for though she had grown only more lovely, Ban knew he was harder and sharper than the mischievous slip of a child he’d been. She’d never seen him with a sword before, or with his hair so short and greased, spiked with a few tiny braids. Why would she remember Errigal’s bastard at all, or if she did, give him a second glance?
This sulking was not why he was here.
Ban gritted his teeth and turned away.
ELIA
IT WAS EASY for the youngest princess to make her quick way beneath the arching iron gate of the outer wall and across the muddy inner ward, full of people going about their day. Head ducked to hide her face and hair beneath the undyed gray wool of her cloak, and otherwise unremarkable in the drab dress of a star priest, she ignored the new construction on the north wall and avoided the maids and retainers she knew, so as not to be stopped. It was overcrowded, and smelled it, for the high keep walls blocked most fresh air from the ocean, and the number of people was nearly double that of the Summer Seat’s usual residents, thanks to the kings of Aremoria and Burgun.
She’d seen their banners from the high coast road as she and Aefa and a trio of soldiers from Dondubhan approached. Dreading meeting any other king before she’d reconnected with her father, Elia had abandoned Aefa and the soldiers to sneak alone into the keep, safely incognito in her priest robes. The retainers she could not avoid at the gate nodded solemnly when she bade them keep her secret.
The narrow passages of the inner keep had been built of rough black rock generations ago, tight for security and lacking windows but for regular arrow slits. Golden hay covered the stone floor of the family hall, rather more dusty than usual. Elia climbed the curling staircase up the first tower, hood falling entirely off her curls. She passed retainers lounging lazily in a guard hole, sharing a meat pie between them; one even had a smear of gravy marring the star on his blue tabard. They sprung to attention at her judgmental glance, muttering fast apologies, but Elia did not stay to chide them or make them glad it was not her sisters who’d caught them relaxing. The corridor near her father’s chamber widened, and a sharp ocean breeze pushed through the arched windows cut wide enough for a face to peer out. Several dogs piled in a corner, stinking of mud and meat. They wagged their tails at her as she passed.
Wishing she’d paid more heed to the state of the keep as she snuck in, Elia frowned. Her father had kept a clean home all Elia’s life. Smelly dogs had been roped in the kennels, near the goat pens, and retainers ate in the retainers’ hall on the eastern edge of the yard. She resisted the temptation to veer off into the guest tower or the great hall to make certain they were still presentable for the visiting kings. Or presentable at all! Her own people deserved a Summer Seat well-tended and bright.
Worry dragged her heels and she scuffed the thin soles of her boots on the stone floor, shoving aside seeds and dirt. Ahead, at her father’s chambers, two more retainers stood, these at least upright, beards braided and belts polished. She approached with her chin up, recognizing one, but not the other. “Seban, is my father fit for me?”
“He is, Lady Elia,” the older retainer said, though some sadness put hesitation in his answer. “Preparing for his next audience, but I’m sure you’ll be more welcome yet.”
Instead of questioning him further, she pushed straight through the door and into the chamber.