LITMIR.BIZ

      THE QUEEN WAS dead.

      And dead a whole year tonight.

      Kayo had not slept in three days, determined to arrive at the memorial ground for the anniversary. He’d traveled nearly four months from the craggy, stubbled mountains beyond the far eastern steppe, over rushing rivers to the flat desert and inland sea of the Third Kingdom, past lush forests and billowing farmland, through the bright expanse of Aremoria, across the salty channel, and finally returned to this island Lear. The coat on his back, the worn leather shoes, the headscarf and tunic, woolen pants, wide sack of food, his knife, and the rolled blanket were all he had come with, but for a small clay jar of oil. This last he would burn for the granddaughter of the empress.

       Dalat.

      Her name was strong in his mind as he pushed aside branches and shoved through the terrible shadows of the White Forest of Innis Lear, but her voice … that he could not remember. He’d not heard it in five years, since he left to join his father’s cousins on a trade route that spanned east as far as the Kingdom knew. Dalat had been his favorite sister, who’d raised him from a boy, and he’d promised to come back to her when he finished his travels.

      He’d kept his promise, but Dalat would never know it.

      Wind blew, shaking pine needles down upon him; each breath was crisp and evergreen in his throat. Every step ached; the line of muscles between his shoulders ached; his thighs and cracking knees ached; his temples and burning eyes, too. He was so tired, but he was nearly there. To the Star Field, they called it, the royal memorial ground of Innis Lear, in the north of the island near the king’s winter residence.

      First Kayo had to get through the forest. God bless the fat, holy moon, nearly full and bright enough to pierce the nightly canopy and show him the way.

      It seemed he had stumbled onto a wild path: wide enough for a mounted rider, and Kayo recalled the deer of the island being sturdier than the scrawny, fast desert breeds. He’d hunted them, riding with a young earl named Errigal and an unpleasant old man named Connley. They’d used dogs. His sister had loved the dogs here.

      Dalat, he thought again, picturing her slow smile, her spiky eyelashes. She’d been the center of his world when Kayo was here, adrift in this land where the people were as pale as their sky. Dalat had made him belong, or made him feel so at least, when their mother sent him here because she had no use for boys, especially ones planted by a second husband. Dalat had smelled like oranges, the bergamot kind. He always bought orange-flower liqueur when he found it now, to drink in her honor.

      His sister was dead!

      And dead an entire year. He’d laughed and sung around bright fires; he’d slept curled in camp beside his cousins during the hottest hours of the day, when the sun colored the sky with sheer, rippling illusions. His heart had been satisfied, if not quite full, even though she’d been dead already, buried on this faraway rock.

      Kayo stopped walking. The edge of the forest was near, making its presence known by a bluish glow: moonlight on the rocky moor beyond. Behind and around him the forest sighed, swelling with a warm, wet breeze that nudged the trees into whispered conversation.

      “Who are you?” a high voice asked.

      A boy stood just out of his reach, but Kayo already had his curved knife drawn, a leg thrown back to brace for attack. In the dark, shadows shifted and danced, and the boy stood near a wide oak tree, against its dark side, hidden from stray moonlight.

      “Kayo of Taria Queen,” he said, sheathing his knife back in the sash where it belonged. He pulled his scarf off his head, letting it pool around his neck and shoulders. This made his gray eyes clearer, and he hoped friendly to the boy, even with his foreign clothes and skin.

      “I don’t know you.” The boy said it with finality, despite being very small, no older than ten years, skinny, and with a snarl of dark hair. He was not pale, though his features were narrow like those of the islanders. Except the strong nose and gremlin-round eyes. Southern Ispanian, Kayo thought: those refugee tribes roaming and homeless, pushed out by the Second Kingdom’s wars.

      Kayo nodded his head in a polite bow. “You know of me, boy. My sister was the queen, and I’ve come for the year memorial.”

      “The princess is there already.”

      This information was useful, though strangely offered. Lear had three princesses, after all, though the youngest must be this boy’s age. Perhaps the boy only cared about the child he knew best. Such was the way of youth. “Do you know how the queen died?” Kayo asked. He’d heard rumors of misdeeds, of suspicion, of mystery, and perhaps the child could give him the unvarnished truth to point him the way of revenge.

      The boy tilted his face up to put narrowed eyes on the sky. “The stars.”

      “The stars killed her?” What nonsense was this?

      “She

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