she shook her head, then smiled for him, putting the happiness she’d felt before into her face, into the tension of her grip on his hands. It was just that for a moment she’d remembered the last vows she’d made, nearly nine years previous: in the receiving gallery at the Lionis Palace, swearing herself to the throne of Aremoria, and to the service of her king, and then one by one her personal knights had promised themselves to her. First Ladies Ianta and Brevia, Talix and Lanna Ritus, then the women not quite knights yet: Imena, Ter Melia, and even that damned Hal Bolinbroke, the most devoted and charismatic of all. Her Lady Knights, glorious together that day, and for years after, building an Aremoria for Banna Mora to rule with them at her sides, her heart’s armor, her companions.
Disbanded, broken, pulled into pieces.
Mora’s body flushed with anger, and she recalled the words of the dragon: When your world burns, you must learn to breathe fire.
Ignoring the marriage ritual, blood roaring in her ears, Banna Mora kissed Rowan Lear. He was her husband already, her partner in power.
Distantly aware of laughter, of approving cheers, Mora kept her mouth against Rowan’s. He kissed her back, nibbling her bottom lip, and then slid his cheek along hers. “Mine,” he murmured against her ear.
She lifted their bound hands and ripped at the wool knot with her teeth. It was not made to hold them, and so the binding tore away in her mouth. Mora spit it out and glared triumphantly at the people with a wide smile. Rowan put his arms around her, laughing, and he called, “So my wife declares, so it shall be.”
Queen Solas gave her agreement, and flowers filled the air, tossed toward the stone ceiling, and children leapt high to catch them again.
There next came feasting, benches and tables lined tight together and spilling out into the yard. Mora ate gladly, feeding Rowan meat and candied apples, teasing him that she intended to keep him in bed for days and days so he ought to prepare his body now. They drank, and the queen told her that Glennadoer—Owyn, she called him, which Mora might never accustom herself to—had been so eager for his wife she was already pregnant at their wedding.
“So might I be,” Mora said to Glennadoer, who laughed outrageously and raised his wine to his son’s potency. Mora lifted hers, too, and enthusiastically drank the rest of the wine down. She floated and laughed, held her husband’s hand, and slapped her palms on the table eagerly when Ryrie called for the center of the hall to be cleared for the dancers.
They were thirty young men and women in white, with flowers in their hair and ribbons that trailed loosely behind them as they spun in patterns. No music but for stomping feet, staccato yips, and brisk, bright whistles. Their spirals and outbursts, their straight-backed turning, turning, turning, dazed Mora and she leaned into her chair at the high table, head lolling as her vision blurred: they became the starry sky.
Her fingers twined with Rowan’s, and she realized her dizzy guess was correct: when the dance came to a sudden halt, star priests immediately joined the dancers. The priests moved their human stars into two arcing patterns, and then the queen’s favored priest, a tall woman with sun-yellow hair named Aeli, called out that each arc was a birth chart: Mora’s and Rowan’s. She said, “Here the lady’s Dragon Eye,” and two star priests gave brilliant orange wildflowers into the hands of a cluster of dancers. Then Aeli said, “And the lord’s Saint Terestria,” and other priests gave those dancers sky-blue flowers. On and on the priests marked all the dancers with either Mora’s or Rowan’s birth stars, until the dancers were all a piece of prophecy.
“And now,” Aeli said, “the charts slip together, fates entwining as their hearts and futures entwine.”
With a clap, a dancer hopped into motion, and they all shifted, coiling together as if the two star charts slid against each other, overlapping into a single chart.
Mora laughed and glanced at Rowan. He caught her eye, smiling, and lifted her hand to kiss her knuckles.
Their future was read to eager listeners, though Mora herself sighed happily and drank more wine. The queen leaned forward, as did her sister, and Glennadoer, Sin Errigal with Connley attentive at her side—strange their little Errigal prodigy was not here.
Solas asked a clarifying question, and together the royal family argued