always be glad to have more daughters.”
It made Hal’s heart twist with hope and bitterness, for on an island that believed so vehemently that a person’s heart could shape their reality, perhaps she and Hotspur might have been happy forever.)
On the seventh night of her stay at Dondubhan, Hal knocked on Era Errigal’s narrow door an hour before midnight. The king’s tower was slightly smaller than the queen’s, and it overlooked the walled town that stretched north from the fortress around the eastern bank of the Tarinnish. This room was on the top of three floors, and the corridors were drafty and freezing. Hal huddled under a wool blanket she’d tossed over her shoulders to cut the wind even better than her leather coat. The edge of it pulled over her head like a cowl.
Era opened the door and gestured hurriedly for Hal to enter, then peeked beyond her as if worried they were being spied upon. Hal’s amusement died on her lips as she noticed the third person in Era’s small room: Connley Errigal. Hotspur’s husband. He stood robed in a blanket that added bulk to his slight frame. Behind him the fire crackled, casting his shadow ominously toward her. In Dondubhan, he was the only person Hal had avoided. She knew if she could win him over, he would help her with Hotspur, but Hal could not imagine being kind to him.
Hal smiled, grateful habit had taught her lips to make a happy shape without any feeling behind, and said, “Connley.”
“Prince.”
She could think of nothing to say. With him witnessing, how could she ask Era what the stars would say about winning Hotspur back?
Era closed her door and rubbed her hands together. “Hal, Connley is the … sixth best prophecy maker on Innis Lear; his voice will be valuable.”
“Sixth?” Connley murmured, small petulance bending his frown, but his eyes were friendly at the disparagement. Hal remembered these two were cousins, and so their banter might be affection.
“I might’ve asked Rowan to come—he’s the second best,” Era answered with a shrug, “but more hostile.”
Hal glanced at Connley, thinking surely the hostility ought to be between herself and him, but the witch nodded. He said, “The kings of Innis Lear are susceptible to reading their emotions into the stars.”
“We wouldn’t want that,” Hal answered, both serious and ironic. She walked to the fire and stripped off her gloves, setting them against the narrow hearthstone.
Era and Connley set the single stool atop the hardly larger table, then shoved the table beside the short bed, clearing the floor between the hearth and the narrow glass window. They spread a blanket over the braided rug and knelt. Era summoned Hal, and the prince plopped down cross-legged. She let the wool blanket slip off her shoulders, making a nest around herself.
While the Star-Seer pulled out her holy cards and shuffled them, Hal studied Connley. He was pretty, with large round eyes and brown curls glinting softly in the firelight. They hung around his wide tan cheeks and down his neck messily and free, and Hal wondered if Hotspur liked grabbing a handful. She clenched her jaw. Connley’s hazel eyes flicked to Hal’s, and he offered her a sad smile, barely there before it was gone.
Hal wondered what he saw when he looked at her, and then with a brutal pinch of self-loathing, asked it aloud.
Connley’s surprise showed only in the brief curl of his fingers against his thighs. Then he leaned back and stared at Hal, looking her up and down, and even through her it seemed. “You’re … hungry. But not with your body. It’s your heart, and that is how you were born. You make friends so that you can feel like your heart’s well can be filled, though you understand by now it never will be.”
The condemnation fell so calmly from his lips, Hal nearly didn’t connect the words to their meaning. Slowly, her understanding caught up, and she felt it: the black emptiness, the pit gnawing at her insides, and there—a flash of steel and blood spattering hot across her face and neck.
Hal jerked backward. “No, that isn’t true.”
The witch shrugged one shoulder and accepted Era’s stack of cards. He shuffled slowly, watching Hal.
Era took chalk from a small box and began sketching a star field upon the blanket spread between them. She asked Hal and Connley to press their knees to the corners and hold it tight. “The stars right now,” she murmured. “Requests?”
Connley asked, “What is your birth