LITMIR.BIZ

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“If I speak, I will mar everything else.”

      Lear leaned toward her. A wild thing scattered in his usually warm blue eyes. Wild and terrifying. “So untender?”

      “So true,” she whispered.

      “Then let truth be your only dowry, ungrateful girl,” he rasped.

      Elia stepped away in shock.

      The king’s demeanor transformed like a rising phoenix, hot and blasting and fast. He pointed at Elia, finger shaking as if she were a terrible specter or spirit to be feared. “You false child. You said you understood me, you saw the stars with me …” Lear threw his arms up, catching fingers in his silver-striped hair. “This is not Elia! Where is my daughter, for you are not she. No princess, no daughter! Replaced by earth saints, cursed creatures!” He shook his head as if appalled, eyes wide and spooked.

      “Father,” Elia said, but before anyone else could react, the king cried out:

      “Where are Aremoria and Burgun? Come forward, kings!”

      Elia did not move, rooted to the rushes and rugs, trembling, as if holding back something so great, that to move would be to unleash it.

      “Here, sir,” spoke Ullo of Burgun. “What now?”

      Lear smiled into the stunned silence, and it was clear where Regan had gotten her dangerous expressions. “My good king Burgun, you have been on a quest for this once-daughter of mine’s love, and you now see the course of it. Would you have her still?”

      Ullo stood to one side of Elia. He bowed and glanced at her. She gave nothing in return; her specialty today. When Ullo straightened he said, “Your Highness, I crave only what was promised to me: your daughter and the price of her dowry.”

      “My daughter came with that dowry. This girl is … not she.” The last was said in a hush of awe or fear; it was impossible for any to tell.

      Ullo took the princess’s rigid hand in his, drawing her attention up to his overly sad expression. “I am sorry, lovely Elia, that in losing a father today you also lose a husband.”

      Elia choked on a laugh, and the great hall finally saw anger press through the cracks of her composure: “Be at peace with it, and not sorry, Ullo of Burgun. Since fortune and dowry are what you love, ours would not have been a good union anyway.”

      Far to the left, the Earl Errigal sputtered to hide a great laugh.

      Ullo snatched his hand away and, with a pinched face, snapped for his retainers and took his leave.

      A half-emptier great hall remained.

      “And you, Aremoria?” Lear intoned with all the drama he was able. “Would you have her? As I’ve nothing but honor and respect for you, great king, I advise you against it. I could not tell you to partake of a thing I hate.”

      The youngest princess faltered back from the vitriol, knocking into a wall of leather and muscle: the king of Aremoria. His even, shrewd gaze leveled over her head and landed fully on her father.

      “It seems, Lear,” Morimaros said, calm and clear, “Quite strange that this girl to whom you previously vowed the greatest of affections should in the course of not even an hour strip away every layer of love you once felt. What incredible power she has to erase a lifetime of feeling in one rather quiet moment.”

      “When she was my daughter, I thought her power was that of the moon when it darkens the sun, as her mother’s was,” Lear said, sour and sad. “I thought she would be my comfort and queen, as her mother was. Now she is nothing, worth nothing.”

      Morimaros turned his gaze off the king and put the full weight of it onto the daughter. “This woman is her own dowry.”

      “Take her, then,” Lear said nastily. “She is yours, mine no longer or ever again.”

      “Father,” said Elia.

      “No!” The king covered his eyes, clawed his face. “No father to you, for you cannot be my daughter Elia. My daughter Elia should have been queen, but she is nothing!”

      “No!” Elia cried. It was the loudest she had ever been.

      Even Gaela and Regan seemed surprised: the one grimacing, the other with her lips coolly parted.

      Kayo said, “Lear, you cannot be—”

      “Silence, Oak Earl. I loved her most, yet when I need her, she turns on me. She should have been queen!” Lear flung himself back onto his throne so hard it shifted with a groan.

      Kayo strode forward and went to his knees before the throne. “My king, whom I have ever loved and respected as both my liege and my brother, do not be hasty.”

      “Would you put yourself in my furious sights now, Kayo?” demanded Lear. He turned to Connley and Astore. “You two, divide this island between yourselves, in equal parts. All of it to you and your issue with my daughters. Gaela and Regan both be all the queens of Lear! There are no others!”

      “Lear!” yelled the Oak Earl, slowly stretching to his feet. “I will challenge this, I will speak. Even if you tear at my heart, too. I chose this island and your family—our family!—long ago. I have defended your countenance against rumors and detractors, but now you are acting the madman all say you’ve become. My service to you—and to Dalat—insists I speak against this wildness. You are rash! Giving two crowns will destroy this island, and for God’s sake, Elia does not love you least.”

      “On your life, be quiet.” The king closed his eyes as if in pain.

      “My life is meant to be used against your enemies, Lear, and right now you are your own enemy.” Kayo ground out the last between his teeth.

      “Get out of my sight, both of you—go together if you must, but do not be here.”

      “Let me remain, Brother Lear.”

      “By the stars—”

      “The stars are false gods if they tell you to do this thing!”

      Lear leapt to his feet again with a cry of rage.

      Astore dove between the king and Kayo. “Be careful,” he said to the Oak Earl.

      But Kayo shoved him away, angry as the king. He cried, “My sister, your wife, would hate you for this, Lear. She died for your stars, man! Was that not enough? And now you give over your kindest, best daughter? How can you? How dare you? And divide your island? Do this and you undercut everything wise and good you have ever done! One heir is all! Make one of them the queen, or this island will tear apart, and do not abandon Elia, who loves you best!”

      Lear put his nose to Kayo’s, making them two sides of a raging coin. “You say you chose us, but you do not act it. You do not believe in my stars, you do not cleave to my will, and despite always saying otherwise, you have taken no wife or rooted in your lands here. Always half here and half away, Kayo! You said you were mine, but you never were. You never were!” The king’s mouth trembled. “Go to the god of your Third Kingdom, Kayo. You have the week to be gone, and if you are seen in Lear after that, you will die for heresy.”

      The king’s shoulders heaved and pink blotches marred his cheeks. Before him Kayo bowed his head.

      Silence dropped like rain, scattered and in pieces all around, smothering everything.

      None in the great hall moved, horror and shock rippling throughout. Gaela bared her teeth until Astore put his hand to her shoulder and squeezed, his eyes wide; Regan had bitten her bottom lip until blood darkened the paint smeared there already. Connley put a hand to his sword, though whether to defend the panting Oak Earl or the wild king it was impossible to say. Beyond them, the Earl Errigal’s face was red, and he held a young man tightly by the arm. That young man stared at Elia, fury alive in the press of his mouth. Retainers gripped weapons; the creak of leather, and gasps and whispers skidded through the air.

      It was all a

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