still wears her green leather slippers. “You’re staring, Connley,” she bites out.
“What’s wrong? Who’s not coming?” He climbs off the bed and bends to retrieve the ruined letter.
Hotspur tenses, ashamed of what he’s about to read.
“Daughter,” he murmurs, and his shoulders tense as he reads the entire thing.
“I will go to her, and demand she reconsider,” Hotspur insists. “This is ridiculous.” She stomps to the trunk and gets her binder, then thrusts it at her husband.
Silently, he helps her position it and tie it well enough to flatten her breasts, but restrict no movement. Next goes a fresh shirt and the dark green tunic, and finally she sits on the edge of their mattress to allow him to remove her stockings so they may be replaced by riding trousers. When her legs are naked, Conn pushes between them, hands on the insides of her thighs, just over her knees. His fingers indent her flesh, and he tilts his face to look at her. “I believe these dreams of hers. You have magic in your bones, Isarna. I’ve said it before. You understand it fundamentally.”
“The dreams aren’t the part that matter—I don’t care about that. My father is my father, and maybe magic has—has contaminated me since birth.”
“Magic isn’t a disease.”
Hotspur growls dismissively and shoves at his hands, trying to close her knees. “She can’t just not come. She can’t abandon us.”
Connley is stronger than he looks, and she’s not truly trying to get away. “Isarna, what are your dreams about?”
Her lashes flutter. Her left shoulder jerks in a shrug.
“Isarna.” This time her name is punctuated by digging fingers.
(Isarna, whispers a faraway oak tree.)
Hotspur hisses through her teeth. “Stop.”
Fast as a mouse, Connley lets go her thighs and grabs her hips, pulling her off the mattress and into his lap. He wraps his arms around her waist, holding his own elbows to lock her tight.
Arms braced awkwardly out, Hotspur stares down at him, torn between offense and arousal. He meets her stare openly, his wide brown-green eyes unashamed. Slowly her arms lower and she puts her hands into his curly brown hair. She makes fists, hard enough his eyes water. “I’ll bloody your nose if you make me.”
“Then bloody it.” He pulls his head from her fists until she must rip hair from his scalp or release him.
With a cry of frustration, she lets go, flinging herself backward. Her shoulders land on the mattress; her arms cross over her face.
Conn breathes deeply for a moment, then gently slides his hands up her ribs and tugs her upright again. “I know you dream: you murmur and sweat and cry out in your sleep. Is it like you to dream badly over war? I’d not have believed so.”
Hotspur speaks with her hands against her eyes. “I am not afraid of war.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“Choice. Failure. Regret? Star roads opening and swallowing the world. What if everything breaks? I’m afraid of that. And, One for Innis Lear, one for Aremoria.”
“Do you know what it means? Certainly? Or are you simply afraid that you do?”
She lowers her hands. “I don’t know. But in my dreams I’m so afraid. I dream of wolves and lions and roads made out of lightning. I take my sword and stab it through my own guts! I choose one thing and lose everything else. Why are choices like that?”
“They’re not, always. You won’t lose me, no matter what you choose.”
“What if I lose myself?” The Wolf of Aremoria breathes softly, lashes fluttering with emotion.
Her husband says, “Aremoria knows what you are. If you hold on to Aremoria, you hold on to yourself.”
“I’m not sure that means anything,” she replies, wryly amused.
“I know what you are, then. Hold on to me.”
Almost against her will, Hotspur leans her forehead against his.
THE PROBLEM WITH prophecies is this: one for Innis Lear, one for Aremoria is as simple as it gets, and yet, is that one the same one as the first? Or are they two individual ones? One person? One queen? One magic, sky, sun? A one to be shared, a one to be won? A one to die or claim or love or lose?
Faith, the Poison Prince would say, and the Witch of the White Forest pull a clarifying card, while the Star-Seer shrug and admit that without knowing the sky the moment the prophecy first was offered, untangling it is impossible. Lady Hotspur would groan and Hal Bolinbroke applaud, laughing, and perhaps comment that one is always a poor number