yelled again.
Wind blew, pressing and thoughtful—curious even, Connley thought, though he could not stop staring at his wife. There she stood, red hair shorn wild, fists on her hips, in a dark blue overdress, screaming at the sky—at the very island itself.
“If she can’t understand me, translate,” Isarna demanded.
Lady, are you here? Connley said in the language of trees.
She listens, said the wind.
“She’s here,” Connley told Isarna. His mouth felt dry, his heartbeat erratic. There was Mared, and Sennos of Perseria with a handful of Isarna’s retainers. Errigal cousins and servants dashed out from the pantry and kitchen.
“I’m here, Ashling ghost! And I am not leaving!” Isarna bared her teeth in wolfish challenge.
Wind gusted, shoving Isarna from behind. She stumbled forward, then spun, and spat on the ground. “I’m not leaving.”
This time the wind slammed into Isarna from two sides, tearing at her hair. Isarna screamed, but not in fear or panic: in rage.
Connley said, as loudly as he could in the language of trees, Ashling, don’t hurt her, she is my wife.
you are mine
my Connley
mine!
He said, I can be your son and her husband, Lady. Can you not have more children than one?
Isarna panted with the effort of standing within the shredding wind; it ripped at her from all sides, gusting, tearing, spinning up and down like a whirlwind.
Era Star-Seer appeared beside Connley, and Mared, and also Sennos with Isarna’s sword in hand.
“Hotspur,” Sennos said, thrusting the hilt toward her, into the wind.
She wrapped her hand around the grip and smiled at her aide. “Ash!” she cried. “See?”
With one violent motion, Isarna flipped her sword blade-down and took the grip in both hands. Bracing herself, she slammed the point into the packed earth of the yard. She grunted and yelled with effort, her entire body a tremor of force, driving the sword into Innis Lear.
Connley did not breathe, though around them people cried out. Her instinct for magic was like nothing he’d ever seen.
The wind dragged dirt and grass into Isarna’s eyes, and those nearby, too. The trees—the oak from the heart of the black keep loudest of all—cried Hotspur! A word that did not translate into their language, and so every person understood it as the roots and leaves and winds bent splinter tongues and ripples of air to make the sound:
“Hotspur!” cried Innis Lear.
A cheer lifted from the ramparts of Connley Castle, from the yard and windows, as every witness clapped or gasped or yelled in surprise and triumph.
Isarna held her sword, leaning on it, panting and staring directly ahead, where wind spun, holding thin yellow ash leaves in suspension, in a dance and flourish.
“Connley Errigal is mine,” Isarna said.
The wind blasted at her once, and the ash leaves slapped Isarna’s face, then fell naturally, shivering, to the yard.
mine
The Lady of Ashes whispered mournfully, pulling cold fingers through his hair as she faded. Connley took a shaky step toward Isarna, put a hand on her shoulder.
Isarna startled in surprise, but she let go of the sword and turned to him. One eyebrow raised, her cheeks flushed with shock and power. Her chest heaved, there was sweat on her brow, and her ruined curls stood out in tangles as if lightning had struck just beside her.
“Isarna,” he said.
She grasped hold of his tunic and jerked him nearer to her. She put her mouth on his.
Connley gasped, surprised, stealing her breath from hot lips, and Isarna kissed him, taking his face in both hands. He was dazzled, but Isarna let go: she took his hand and dragged him back toward the passage leading into the black keep. Ignoring the cries of her name, the onlookers calling questions, she pulled Connley stumbling behind her.
“We’re doing this now,” she said when they were alone with the oak tree and four corner altars in the empty privacy of the ruins. None had followed them: everyone knew better.
“Doing what?” he asked, genuinely confused, blood ringing in his ears.
Isarna leaned closer and put her hand over his groin.
“Isarna,” he breathed, stepping away.
“Listen to me, Connley.” She let him escape but kept her gaze leveled on his. “I win battles. That is what I do. I fight, and I win. I finally understand the strategy to take Innis Lear. I have your rootwaters inside me right now, I have confronted the wind itself, before family and witnesses, and now I will put you, my husband, my very own witch, down against this earth and have sex with you—those are the ways of the magic of