tighter and tighter, using all his fingers to connect some stars and shatter others, until the chart was a mass of black shadows precisely placed, with only a few tiny spots of creamy parchment speckled through.
Blinking, Rowan sat back and studied the prophecy.
It was the Star of Third Birds falling between the Child Star, the Wolf Star, and the Elegance. And Terestria’s Heart in balance.
a line of starlight stretching like a road between Aremoria and Innis Lear. Rowan, somehow, at both ends
a saint for Innis Lear
a heart for Aremoria
Rowan saw the face of the Dragon of the North, her garnet-bright eye swung to stare at his soul. He stared back, and through her, until his gaze landed upon the base of the Liresfane well, where clung a single weedy white flower.
ON INNIS LEAR, deep in the heart of Connley Castle, Era Star-Seer spread a woolen blanket and lay herself down. The old oak tree in the center of this ruined black castle blocked much of the sky from her eyes with its reaching, thick branches, but Era had earned her epithet for never needing to rely on sight alone. She held all the night skies inside her heart, and could cast them up accurately with little more than a reference point.
Tonight she could see the Child Star in the north, just over the edge of the black wall. She visualized all the constellations she could not see, those partially obscured, those still dipped below the horizons, those hidden behind thin silver clouds. The old moon rose. She breathed deeply and watched as the oak bent beneath an insistent wind: the shifting branches marked out a rhythm of prophecy against the night.
For a moment, the stars themselves became burning leaves dotting the oak branches, the limbs and thinnest twigs: silver-fire leaves, the Tree of Ancestors brought vividly to life.
Era gasped and sat up, seeing the path of the future in a sudden clear stream.
She would be too late!
Knowing it didn’t stop her from tearing through the castle grounds to the stables, and pounding against the door until an ostler woke to help her saddle a horse in the darkness.
BANNA MORA
Liresfane, early summer
IT WAS THREE hours until dawn, and she was alone.
How dare Rowan leave her now, Mora thought, seething in the dim glow of a candle stub. The rest she’d snuffed when Vindomata departed, having plotted and planned with Mora, Mared, Hotspur, and Douglass over dinner and a very delicate wine. Vindomata had heated the tent with her fury, and Mora had not bothered calming the duke. Anger would fuel Mercia on the battlefield.
Besides, Mora felt very little of calming thoughts herself.
This might be her final night with her husband if his faith proved true, and he was not here.
She thought Rowan might have gone to the ruins, and she thought she might go after, except it was so dark, and she wouldn’t lower herself to chasing after him like a lovesick child.
It put a trembling in her hands until she clenched them together.
Mora paced, then lay down as she counted her breath, meaning to at least rest if not sleep.
Wind blew gently, and the sounds of camp faded a bit and then faded more, until deep quiet fell, broken only by an occasional ring of armor when guards changed shifts or a burst of laughter from other soldiers too exhilarated with nerves or anticipation to sleep. Somebody in a nearby tent enjoyed a good fuck, and that infuriated Mora all over again.
By the time Rowan folded back the tent flap and crept inside, Mora was livid. She rose in utter silence. “Husband,” she whispered, too calm.
“Wife,” he whispered back. He leaned in and bumped his mouth to hers, unadjusted to the particular darkness inside the tent.
Mora grasped the back of his neck and held him there. She kissed him, taking his bottom lip in her teeth; she bit slowly, intently, until he hissed.
Releasing him, Mora said, “The Dragon of the North told me to make myself whole.”
“I know.”
“Solas herself said such is the mission of the queens of Innis Lear: to make myself. Make myself whole and entire. Rowan Lear, I am committed to our mission here, to the will of Innis Lear. But after what Hal Bolinbroke said to me today, I must tell you: my heart will never be whole if you die tomorrow.”
“My love,” he said, “That is not how hearts work.”
“It is how mine works!” She smacked her open hand against his chest.
Catching her hand, Rowan