LITMIR.BIZ

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Dalat was dead, the Fool attached like a wart to the king, and Gaela had no use for poems. Poems did not create power, and Gaela intended to be king when her terrible father died, or sooner. Nothing would stop her.

      The urgency of the soldiers now thrummed in Gaela’s bones, lending satisfaction to her resolve. She wished she could march with her army to the Summer Seat, drag her father to his knees, and take the crown. How her satisfaction would grow at the sight of him bowed before her, trembling and afraid. Did my mother die on her knees? Gaela would ask. Did you touch poison to her lips with a kiss, or put it in her nightly mug of warm honeyed milk? Did you ever trust me as she trusted you? Of course, he never trusted anyone or anything except the vicious stars. And so Gaela would thrust her sword into his neck, and watch as he gasped and gargled, as he sank into an undignified pool of blood at her feet.

      But no matter how she longed to take the crown in such a way, it was not the most direct, most efficient, or even most secure path. No, the people of Lear took their king-making seriously, claiming them fast and hewing hard to the anointment and the secret, specific traditions of the island’s roots. Gaela would have to bide her time, wait for the king to name her his heir, and then give the island her blood and spit on the longest night of the year. As was right.

      To do it by any other method would invite Connley to challenge her—curse him, his ancestors, and his perfect stars, and curse Regan for marrying into that line and giving the dog a stronger claim. Though Gaela wanted war, wanted a chance to release all the fury and aggression inside her heart more than most anything, she did not want a war with her sister on the opposite side.

      So here Gaela Lear stood, amidst her personal army, performing for the folk on Connley’s border, sending a brutal message without quite making a firm challenge.

      The soldiers had formed up for the melee. With a ferocious smile, Gaela abandoned her perch and ran to join them. Her movement served as signal, and the two sides slammed together, all yelling and chaos, with some few laughing as Gaela laughed. She drew her sword and aimed for the nearest soldier; he had plenty of time to block with his buckler and sword, but the force of her charge shoved him back. She bared her teeth and twisted, shoving at him with all her might. He spun, and Gaela dove farther into the battle.

      A flash of light to her left had Gaela turning hard, lifting her own buckler as she dodged under the attack and slammed the edge into her attacker’s face. It caught his helmet with a clang, and he stumbled back, falling hard. Gaela swung around, just in time to see the next attack.

      She lost herself in the frenzy of danger, in the cuts and blocks, in the fight to prove herself. She kept on as the battle raged, her teeth clenched, alert, pounding again and again toward the center of the horde. Pain jolted through Gaela’s body with most blocks; she cried out; she screamed. She reveled. This was the nearest she’d come to war, to the desperation and danger: some men would die in this game, and some would be injured too badly to fight again for a long while. Their swords should be blunted, or wrapped. This should be less deadly, but Gaela did not care. She would survive, and she would win, today and tomorrow. It was not reckless. It was vital. Her husband could never understand how this brought her to life as nothing else did, how she needed the immediacy of this danger. This—this—brought her to the edge of her strength, made her feel the mettle she possessed in the very core of her bones. When she fought, Gaela knew she did not need any root blessing or star prophecy.

      She was born to be king.

      Suddenly, Gaela found herself in a break of soldiers, facing one man. This soldier was huge, blond-bearded with pocked scars on his young pink cheeks, and clearly he had built his uniform from castoffs that did not quite fit. His sword and buckler were borrowed from the Astore armory, and they were stamped as such. But he did not take his eyes from hers, even when she lifted her chin so the sun caught the red blood at the corner of her mouth. She smiled, and it smeared her teeth.

      He planted his feet in a very strong defensive pose.

      Gaela dropped her buckler and attacked.

      Her two-handed grip gave her strength and leverage, which mattered as his size negated any reach advantage she’d have gained by fighting with her shield.

      Blood roared in her ears, and she shouldered in past his block, nearly bashing his cheek with her pommel before he twisted and shoved her back hard enough she stumbled. With a spin from the inertia, she drove hard again, hacking at his sword, each clang of metal filling her heart with joy. He was good, using his weight, but still slower than she was. Soon they were the only fighters, all others watching the show.

      It was brief but glorious, and Gaela risked a low cut up under his reach, so enthralled she was with the rhythm of their game. He blocked it, chopping with his buckler so the reinforced edge caught her upper arm, numbing the entire limb. She cried out, shocked, and dropped her sword from that hand. It swung off-balance in her other and the man pressed his advantage as she valiantly blocked again, again, and then with his boot he stomped on her thigh.

      Gaela went down.

      The soldier dropped everything to catch her arm, lifting her to her feet again in a smooth gesture.

      He did not hold on when she was steady, and the entire movement appeared so natural, so easy, the gathered soldiers cheered.

      Gaela liked a soldier who would win and still save her face. The fingers of her shield arm tingled as blood rushed back into them. Gaela sheathed her sword and rubbed her hands together, smiling for her opponent and all the soldiers. “Well fought, man. Give me your name, that I might invoke it when I speak with my husband.”

      “Dig,” the large young man replied.

      She lifted her thin eyebrows. “No other?”

      “None, lady.”

      “Then, Dig of Astora, welcome to my army.”

      Just then, a horn sounded from the ridge to the west. Gaela clasped Dig’s wrist, then released him and strode heavily toward the camp. Her body ached with weariness, but she was glad of it.

      Osli jogged up, chainmail ringing with the movement. The captain pushed her hair out of her face, dragging it through sweat, and said, “Lady, should I order the end of the games today, or do you want them to run the tower drill again?”

      “Drill once more, then have the beer shared out here on the field before everyone returns to camp.” The princess smiled at her young captain, a girl of only nineteen with nearly as much ambition as Gaela herself. “Then you should join me for whatever news comes with this horn, and we’ll share wine while we plan tomorrow’s games. Bring that Dig soldier, and choose two more exemplary men to reward.”

      Osli nodded sharply and darted off as Gaela climbed the steeper section of the hill, reaching the long flat plain on the crest where her army had set up camp. Most tents were simple single-pole shelters or lean-tos, ringed wide about fire pits. The supply wagons made a crescent at the south end, and smoke rose there as folk cooked a hearty meal. Fifty men and women and ten wagons to keep her three hundred soldiers tended and fed for this weeklong campaign. She’d ordered them to act as though the supply from Astora City had been cut off, as it might be in real war.

      Her eye caught the trio of horses stamping near her tent, a much larger canvas shelter with seven poles and crowned by the Astore banner. One of the horses was her own, its head lowered and rear hoof up in relaxation, but the other two were still dressed and saddled, eagerly drinking from the trough set before them. They were Astore’s horse and one of his stewards’.

      Gaela looked all around, and spied him there, a good distance from her, atop a promontory where he’d have a good view of the valley below. Likely he’d witnessed only the final moments of the melee, and now was eying her towers and bastilla.

      She made for her tent to divest herself of mail and gauntlets with one of the apprentices, denying her husband the pleasure. A boy in a pink tabard waited at the entrance, and she dragged him in so he could undo the buckles under her left arm that held her small chest plate over the mail.

      It

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