In an hour, the dawn would break on her eldest daughter’s sixteenth birthday.
The past week had been tense: less laughter, and the music forced in the hall. Gaela had stomped in her soldier’s boots and Regan pulled too hard when she separated locks of Elia’s hair to braid. The king held their youngest daughter too tightly, and watched Dalat as if she might fall without warning into the deep black waters of the Tarinnish. Elia had asked her softly, twice, Mother, what is wrong with everyone? And both times Dalat cupped her daughter’s warm brown face in a hand as black as night, smiled, and replied only, Tomorrow is your sister’s sixteenth birthday.
The queen could bring herself to say no more.
For my birthday this year, Elia had said, I would like my own set of holy bones. Like Regan’s, and Brona’s. There are nine holy bones, and Father says nine is the exact number of stars in the Lion of War, which is the constellation surrounding my birth star. And I will be nine years old.
Our Calpurlugh, Dalat had murmured, gently pinching Elia’s cheek. The queen had recalled her youngest daughter’s last birthday, when all she’d asked for was magic. Brona had braided tiny white flowers into Elia’s hair—starweed, as dangerous as any prophecy—and with a whispered word in the language of trees, the flowers burst into silver-white fire, exactly like a crown of stars. Elia had been pleased, but this terrible idea had blossomed in Dalat’s heart.
This morning, the queen chose an indirect path for her wandering, to mimic her usual ramble though the castle, but she knew her goal. Finally, when she reached Gaela’s chamber—not so far from her own as she’d made it seem—Dalat touched her hand to the smooth wooden door. A castle guard noted her from several paces down the hall where he was posted, and she smiled. His eyes politely flicked away.
Entering quietly, Dalat shut the door again behind her. Her first child maintained a sparse outer room, to discourage entertaining or comfort of any kind. Still smiling, the queen walked past the simple chairs at the cold hearth, a pile of leather armor, a stool stained from boot polish. Gaela did so prefer caring for her own tools. Pride lifted Dalat’s smile wider.
Both her first and second daughters slept in Gaela’s bed, and though she’d expected it, the image of Gaela curled protectively around her sister Regan wiped the smile from Dalat’s mouth. She closed her eyes against a swift cut of grief.
Dalat went straight to the window. The heavy winter shutter had been pried open and set on the floor, leaning beneath the sill. Damp wind spat at her, and no wonder her girls huddled beneath a heavy bearskin, imported from the Rusrike. The queen tightened the knot holding her robe closed. She put her hands on the stone sill and leaned out, but the walls of the castle were so thick that even bending fully at the waist her head barely peeked past the edge. Below, the sheer drop angled straight down to the Tarinnish’s black waters. Beyond, the foothills of the Jawbone Mountains. She could see miles and miles of the north island. None could approach this way without being seen. It was desolate and silver under the late horned moon and the scatter of winter stars. In the distant east, Dalat spied a hint of velvety blue. She breathed deeply, her stomach pushing against the corner of the window.
In the Third Kingdom, the sun would be up already, for the days were longer there. Her people would be breakfasting, spilling crumbs of biscuits and drops of last night’s wine onto the sand to honor God’s creations.
She hoped God would forgive her.
Putting her back to the window, the queen gazed at her daughters. She had tried to teach them about God, but not as earnestly as she might’ve. One zealous parent was enough for any child. And her people’s God was also the stars, after all, and the earth; God did not need or beg worship, but only sought love. So long as her daughters loved, they knew Dalat’s God. And these two would always love each other, of that she had no doubt.
She knelt at the side of Gaela’s bed, wishing she did not have to say goodbye. But here was the flaw in her husband’s faith: when there was proof to be had, its lack could kill. Dalat had heard the whispers, the threat to her children: those stars decreed she was the true queen of Innis Lear, and the true queen would die on her daughter’s sixteenth birthday.
If she did not die, she could not be the true queen.
It was a suffocating paradox. Die, or her legitimacy died. And with it her daughters’ future. Her husband’s faith.
Dalat pushed a puff of curls back from Gaela’s temple and kissed her cheek. Her husband had not wanted Dalat to bear any daughters, as if that on its own would defeat the prophecy. Four years of marriage passed before Dalat had stopped trying to convince him otherwise, and took the matter onto her own shoulders. From the moment she’d told him of their child, the king had been afraid. Even small moments of happiness were overshadowed by his fear. That was the greatest tragedy of it all, to Dalat: every father should know joy in his first child.
Dalat had loved Gaela with all of her soul to make up for it.
That eldest daughter slept with her lips just parted, so even in the dream world everyone could see her teeth. Regan’s eyes flickered under her lids, one hand beneath her cheek, the other fisted in the blanket. They’d spent all the previous day together, with Elia, too, and Brona Hartfare, who knew everything. Who waited alone right now at the Dondubhan well, writing prayers into the water, reciting Dalat’s promise to herself and to the wind and roots of Innis Lear. Dalat understood the magic of this place, though had never claimed it. The island would embrace her daughters if they allowed it to: Gaela, a piece of iron already, still forging herself; Regan, who reached as the wind reached, thirsty as roots for life; Elia all joy, a little piece of luminous God.
They would protect one another, and, she hoped, their father. With her death, the king would need them, turn to them. Gaela would understand her father’s faith in the stars was true, finally, and he would see this was none of Gaela’s fault. They could love each other, and they only fought because they were so similarly stubborn and set in their own righteousness. But when Dalat died, they would come together. And Regan and Elia.
The queen bent across her eldest and pressed a kiss to Regan’s mouth, which frowned now in her dreams. Her mother’s kiss smoothed the girl’s lips. Regan relaxed, and the dream slipped away, leaving only peace.
Dalat left them to sleep the rest of the night away.
She nearly did not go to Elia’s room.
Her baby. Curled at the foot of her bed in a twist of blankets, Elia’s hair was impossibly tangled, for the little girl rejected her cap and picked it all free of its braids nearly every night. Dalat climbed into the bed and grasped Elia’s waist, dragging the girl against her belly. Elia groaned and snuggled closer. “Mama?”
“Yes, baby.” Dalat buried her nose in Elia’s curls, smelled the dirt and sweat under that sheen of bergamot. Elia was eight years old and should have been getting over this childish disregard for bath time, but it was so sweet when she still snuck into the jars at Dalat’s mirror and overused the expensive oil from the Third Kingdom. To smell just like her mother. Dalat laughed happily, squeezing her.
Elia’s eyes popped open. “Mama!”
“I’m sorry, baby.” Dalat kissed Elia’s head. The queen shut her eyes and hummed a few notes from an old desert prayer she barely remembered, until her daughter had been quiet and still for many long moments.