star, Prince Hal?”
“The Lion of War.”
The Star-Seer laughed softly and Connley said, “The Lion already graces this sky, and the Dragon’s Eye. Add Saint Terestria, and the Elegance. We should give in and just add the Wolf Star.”
Hal leaned forward as the star priest marked little white dots onto the dark blue linen. She said, “Saint Elegar.”
Era lifted her gaze without lifting her head. The gray rim of her irises drew Hal forward as they had before, and she would fall into those twin wells if she did not catch herself.
“I’m sorry,” Connley murmured.
“What for?”
“The thing I said.”
Hal studied him a moment; the flicker of his black lashes, the fluttering pulse strangely visible under his jaw. She nodded.
“Take the bones and throw them, Hal Bolinbroke,” Era commanded, tossing a rough-spun bag into her lap.
Pulling out the nine holy bones, Hal cupped them all and brought them to her lips. She flared open her hands, dropping the bones over the linen night sky. Era made a face, and Hal asked, “The usual?” For she knew by now it would be: The dragon, the wolf, the lion.
Beside her, Connley began putting the cards down, each laid over the corner of the last in a continuous, tight spiral.
“Yes,” Era said. “The worms are gathering with the dragon, the Wolf Star, and your Lion of War. Those are bones of transformation and mystery, and so I think now that you are together, the future is changing. But I still cannot see clearly past next month.”
“Something terrible is going to happen on the Longest Night,” Hal said.
“Terrible, or wonderful. Wonderful things can change the future, too.”
Hal took a deep breath, studying the cards as if she could read them herself. “If we, together, are changing the future, how do I direct it?”
Era said, “You asked that Saint Elegar be included, and here the Saint of Trees bone landed in the center of Elegar’s stars. I confess I’ve little experience with Elegar’s influence, because she’s an Aremore earth saint, but I believe it means you were right to suggest her presence, for the Saint of Trees is sanctification. Elegar is a saint in many pieces, yet whole …”
“I wanted to know how to heal this rift between Innis Lear and Aremoria. Between Mora and me—well, my mother.”
“That is a good question,” Era said, nodding. “Many times the problem with prophecy is that it offers us so many answers, but we don’t know which questions to pair them with.”
“I do feel like my heart is in pieces, and that our lands are … broken. They should be united. We all should be. Is there anything about bringing things together?”
“Only the three together changing everything: the dragon, the lion, the wolf. Together. But this, the saints must be planted, is a prophecy I’ve never seen before, and in the valley of Lear a new mouth opens. Opening is a frequent theme, but what is the valley of Lear? Whose mouth?”
Connley hummed softly. “You can’t,” the witch said, answering Hal rather than his cousin. One of Connley’s hands moved over the cards, never touching, but palm flat as if he could feel some heat lifting from the spread. “You alone cannot heal Innis Lear and Aremoria. It requires balance. One for Innis Lear, one for Aremoria—you are neither one. Your instincts will keep you in pieces, but a sacrifice makes you whole.”
Hal took a deep breath, tasting the words, swallowing them down into her gut. “Sacrifice what? Aremoria? My crown? Hotspur?”
“Nothing will keep Isarna whole,” whispered the Witch of the White Forest.
“Where do you see that?” Hal demanded, hating to hear Hotspur’s given name on her husband’s lips.
Era slapped her hands down onto the spiral pattern of holy cards. Connley jumped, then shuddered up and down his entire body. “What did I say?”
Hal leapt to her feet. They were trying to scare her: her heart raced, filling her ears with an ocean’s roar. From the floor, both witches stared up at her with wide eyes, round as moons and wells. “You don’t know her. Hotspur has always been whole, whole unto herself, and unbreakable. If nothing can keep her whole it’s because nothing can break her apart.”
With that vicious pronouncement, Hal stormed away.
She fled, furious, up and up to the roof of the king’s tower. Hal slammed shut the heavy wooden door, leveraging all her weight to make it loud, and stalked across the roof to the door in the crenellated wall between two turrets. It led to a