against him, and twists her neck to hold his gaze. The prince grasps her hips, pulls her closer, where he is eager.
“Whisper in my ear, Douglass of Burgun,” Vindomata commands. “Whisper a vow that you will find upon the battlefield Hal Bolinbroke, and make certain to kill her.”
His body shudders, but he clenches her close to him and puts his mouth against her jaw. His beard is soft, his lips harder, and he says, “Gladly.” His hands dig into her hips, and he kisses up to her ear. “I will call her out, and cut her down, or else die myself.”
AT THE EDGE of the March an old woman’s dreams push her out of bed, and, fussing, she walks all day to the fane hill. Crumbling blue-gray rocks fall in ways that suggest once a building rested here, but there are no doorways nor a center; the once-walls spread in four directions, tumbling down the slope. Trees grow through the rocks, their strong roots making further mess of any former shape, and if narrow stairs once rose in that corner, now it is a bulky, jagged hedge of blackberries and wild roses. The old woman climbs inside where the earth is damp and carpeted thickly with flowers, so near they weave together and make a tapestry whose patterns the old woman can almost recognize. She walks across its ruffling colors to a mound of rocks. It smells of water here, and she is thirsty.
The first rock is difficult to lift away, but not the second, nor the third, fourth, fifth, or sixth. Soon the mound is shorter, and the old woman can see a black mouth. It gasps, belching a puff of stale, dank air that lingers on the wind like the smell of sweet wine.
AT THE RAIL of a war barge, Banna Mora hesitates. The wooden plank angles away from her, leading to the docks, and the road winds beyond, toward March Castle where Hotspur and Vindomata and all their destinies wait. It is not that which makes her pause. No, it is all of Aremoria.
Before her.
Aremoria, the land of her people, her land, and Mora knows this is why she exists.
She knows it so completely, perhaps it is the only thing she knows. She is the great king who will reunite the two lands. One Innis Lear, and one Aremoria. The same.
What will change within her the moment her foot touches this earth again? Nothing? Everything? After nearly two years Mora cannot recall the smell of her home.
“It’s time,” her husband says.
IT’S TIME. THE winds of Innis Lear whisper the words, the hemlock-tinged words, blowing them across Aremoria. Those who can hear, do.
A SOLDIER SNORTS awake, jerking against the wheel of a supply wagon—
Twin girls in a town nudged against the Diotan border gasp and stare at each other—
The ostler at Tenne-Tiras thinks he hears his prince’s voice, spins—
Ianta Oldcastle, where she leans upon a narrow balcony outside the rooms she’s been given as part of Hal’s council, hears it. Her eyes glint with tears of joy, and tears of anger, for why did she not hear such things years ago, when she was younger and ready? Why now, when her heart is—
(The wizard hears it, too, but this is not for him, not his answer.)
One for Innis Lear
one for Aremoria.
LADY HOTSPUR SLAMS into her bedchamber on the second level of March Castle, aiming for her trunk of clothes. Tight in her grip is a violently abused letter, and her mouth presses a flat line. She hits one knee to the floor and tosses the letter aside to better use both hands for flinging open the trunk. Atop is an overdress, which she shoves in the back corner to get at the trousers beneath. Standing, she strips off the gown she’s wearing, elbows and curls tangling; Hotspur growls; something rips.
“Not coming,” she spits to herself as she throws the gown away and begins snatching at the ties of her plain bodice. “Not coming!”
“Shall I help with the ties?” Connley, her husband, asks tentatively from the center of the bed, where he kneels atop the blankets, surrounded by holy bones. When she stormed in, he froze with surprise.
Hotspur whirls, fingers stilling. She stares at him, cheeks aflame, then shakes her head and jerks the ties free. She shimmies out of the bodice and strips off the underdress, leaving her bare to the waist. Her underwear is leggings wrapped to her thighs and short linen braes. And of course she