Autumn on Innis Lear was a harsh transition: flowers died and the wind blew unceasingly. Leaves transformed to red and hot orange in a day; by the end of a week nothing remained but twisting gray branches, bare as bones. The moors ached with fog, the flat karst plains south of Connley Castle groaned as the island itself hunkered down to prepare for ice and snowstorms. The harvest required every able body—including Rowan, including all the nobility of Errigal, and every resident, too, but for the priests and elderly, who held fires strong and cast prophecies or spoke to the sky that they might know the turn of coming storms. As she had no skill with the grass-cutting, Mora went behind the line of blades to bundle and lift the harvest into wagons, or carried great pitchers of beer and honey water, or wrangled babes in the castle while their mothers and fathers and siblings trekked out to the field. She determined she’d rather pull the plows herself than babysit again in the spring.
There had been no word from Celedrix of Aremoria, though a letter from Lionis had arrived at the end of summer, clearly addressed to Banna Mora of the March.
My friend,
I know you are well, and I know you take care of yourself. If I can help you, I will, but I beg you to remember who you are, and what you have been named.
Your friend
Hal Bolinbroke, melodramatic and keen. Mora could have rolled her eyes. Instead, she folded the note tight and tucked it into her pouch, alongside the Blood and the Sea.
Now, just a month before the Longest Night, Banna Mora and Rowan Lear arrived in the Glennadoer lands.
There is a dragon in the north, Sin Errigal had said, and in the months since Mora had heard enough prophecies woven with the dragon, the lion, and the wolf to acknowledge she ought to listen. She came to seek out this northern Learish dragon.
The way had been harsh, for the road passed through the Jawbone Mountains, skirting the Mountain of Teeth itself. The trees here were all stubby and short, tucked into crevasses and clinging to the narrowest streams. Snow coated the peaks and cliffs, but the ocean winds kept the lowlands free of it. Ice was another story, and Mora learned to chip it off everything, gladly wearing the mittens Rowan had provided, and wrapping her legs with bulky wool. They led their horses more often than not, into the press of wind. There was little room for conversation during the journey, except at night when they made camp against boulders or on the narrow banks of the frozen creek that tucked and wove along the road. Fire came easily, thanks to Rowan’s magic, but still they slept near each other, under a bearskin tent so low they crawled inside and couldn’t sit up at all.
Rowan sang constantly, humming to himself or crooning at the woolly cows they passed. More often than not, the wind stole the melody from Mora’s ears.
But the journey had lasted only a week, as Innis Lear was not terribly large. This northern tip cut up past the mountains in the shape of a prow, and Glennadoer Castle nestled in a valley where the only river that poured north out of the mountains split. It was like a castle from the oldest saint stories, a crumbling tower with a wall and barbican, perched atop a mound of earth dragged there by the first settlers. Some claimed the mound was itself the ruin of an even more ancient castle, built by folk a thousand years ago when Innis Lear still clung to Aremoria.
The sight of it filled Mora with trepidation.
What a place to live, to grow, to raise children. Rowan paused along the road. Ice glittered before them, turning the path into millions of fallen stars. There was even ice at the tips of Rowan’s hair.
The prince stared down at his father’s kingdom like an exile, and Mora considered offering a comforting word; but that would have been ridiculous. This was his home.
When they were near enough to see faces on the warriors guarding the barbican from its high wall, the iron gate rose and children poured out. Mora faltered, stunned, but Rowan laughed and let go the reins of his horse to jog forward and greet them. Nearly ten of them, old enough to run but none of them near adulthood, and all covered with cloaks and so much wool