Hal reached out, not for Hotspur, but Ianta. She curled her fingers around Ianta’s wrist and tugged her to sit. The old knight dragged herself to Mora’s side of the table and sat with a cranky groan.
“I don’t need your trust, girl,” Ianta said. “And honor is for the dead.”
Hotspur snorted into her cup as she drank again, and Hal poured Ianta another.
Hal said, “I have to try, Ianta. I’d rather do it with you.”
“Do what? Try what?”
“To make something new,” Hotspur said, as if it were obvious.
Hal nodded, grateful Hotspur understood. She held the wolf’s fiery gaze a moment too long, counting her heartbeats. Then she turned to Ianta. “As Hotspur says. I have to keep everyone alive now, my mother and Mora and myself. And my sister, for worm’s sake. She’s only sixteen, and I have to keep her out of the line of fire. You don’t have to help me, but I’d like you to.”
“What can I do to help?” Ianta sniffed hard, eyes on her cup of wine. “I’m an old, fat woman, a used-to-be knight with no family living and a reputation for deviance. If you bring me to your side, Hal, it will be recalling the worst things said of Rovassos—the Merry King. And myself, his consort in freakishness and perversion. Hard enough for you to strip away your proclivities without inviting me back to court.”
“I don’t intend to—to strip away my proclivities.” Again, Hal slid a glance at Hotspur, who hid her face in another drink. “And you were just as old and just as fat last year, at the height of your power. So don’t give me those as excuses.”
Ianta pursed her lips. “Then you’ll have to marry, secure the line. That will be the fastest way for you to protect your family and friends. Not through me.”
No one had said this yet to Hal’s face, though surely some had thought it, among the echelons of Lionis Palace. “Morimaros,” she began, seeking any delay, “did not marry.”
Banna Mora laughed once. “Morimaros is more my ancestor than yours, lion.”
“Mora!” cried Hotspur.
Hal, too, was surprised. To say so was nearly a challenge to Celedrix’s rule. To distract, she said, “I think I saw his ghost, at Strong Water Castle.”
“What? What is this?” Ianta asked, suddenly less drooping.
“He was standing with my mother, when Hotspur and I rode into the courtyard. I thought I recognized him, but couldn’t … place him. And he just vanished. Later … later I realized who the man looked like: it was Morimaros the Great.” Hal forced a shrug, gulping her wine.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Hotspur snarled.
But Mora said, “I saw him, too.”
Everyone stared at her. It was one thing for Hal to make up a wild story, but Mora was hardly imaginative.
“He stood beside me, on the day you returned to Lionis. I knew him immediately,” Mora said, with cool superiority. “He did not look as he does in the portrait in the Princes’ Gallery, for he was a king already. Thirty, strong, with fire-blue eyes and a traditional foot soldier’s gambeson from the last century.”
“Yes!” Hal said, more excited than competitive. “He wore a steel pauldron pressed with the crown.”
“Worms,” Lady Ianta breathed.
Hotspur’s face was pink, her lips pressed together. She looked furious.
“Hotspur?” Hal nudged her, and Mora reached over to touch the wolf’s shoulder.
Hotspur burst out, “I saw a man like that with Mared Lear! When the Learish prophecy was given!”
“Prophecy!” Ianta cried, flinging wine from her cup.
“You didn’t hear?” Mora said lightly. When Ianta demurred, Mora continued, “At the queen’s tournament. Solas Lear sent her nephew to congratulate Celedrix, and with him a prophecy for her new reign.” She took a breath, then said, rather hushed:
“When the saints are singing and the restless are reclaimed, the dragon will burn, the lion will break, and the wolf will choose the end. What do you think of that?”
Ianta shook her head slowly, a certain awe in her eyes.
Hal said, “This is incredible. To have all three of us seen Morimaros! What does it mean? Is he a ghost, or an earth saint? His body—”
“Worms, Hal,” Hotspur said. “Earth saints!”
Mora shrugged. “When the saints are singing.”
“You can’t believe in all of this, Mora. Earth saints are children’s monsters, and prophecies are—they’re shadows and wind.”
“Well, good for us then that this is not Innis Lear,” Mora said. “We won’t be swayed by shadows and wind in Aremoria.”
Hal wondered skeptically if that were true. She was pure Aremore and greatly swayed toward magical thinking.
Ianta sighed. “I would be. Rovassos would’ve been. You know he used to get me and Prince Mato to do rituals with him in the caves beneath Lionis Palace, to summon earth saints back to us. When we were children.”
“Another reason he was no fit king.” Hotspur shoved a jug of wine at Hal.
“How can you dismiss it, Lady Hotspur? What do you think the prophecy means?” Ianta took the wine from Hal and poured for them both.
By now, Hal’s mind trembled with a tingle of inebriation. They’d not eaten since leaving Lionis; nor had Hal had much an appetite of late.
“A trick from the queen of Innis Lear,” Hotspur said. “They are fond of such things.”
Hal snorted. “Is she in league with the earth saints, too?”
Mora pointed at Hal. “You are the one who told me stories of King Morimaros vanishing when he died—either his body absconded with to be buried with his lover on Innis Lear, or by the very earth saints themselves. No—I’m not saying I trust this specter, the opposite, in fact. Prophecy ruins good men and women; it twists us up, inside and out, and what is the point? What would an earth saint expect to happen from such a proclamation? What would Solas Lear? There was no direction, no action to take!” Mora clenched her jaw for a moment, and Hal was stunned by the shock of fury in her eyes when she continued: “Even if it is real, it is also a trick.”
“You mean they want something else from Aremoria.” Hal rubbed the bridge of her nose.
“They who?” Hotspur demanded.
“The queen of Innis Lear? Or the earth saints themselves!”
Mora flattened her hands upon the table. “That is the way it goes in the stories.” With that last word she cast a glance at Hal, the teller of tales, the story-maker.
It was true. Hal nodded wearily. “Yes, in the stories, a prophecy is usually not exactly what anyone expects, especially if earth saints are involved—but when it happens, it’s obvious what it meant all along.”
Hotspur stood again. “So we live our lives. We honor our friendship. We act ourselves—I would never choose for Aremoria to end.”
“I might break,” Hal muttered.
Mora glanced at Hal, and Hal did not know what to do except hold her gaze.
Lady Ianta said, “Are you ready to burn, Banna Mora? A dragon, indeed.”
The former prince bared her teeth.
“And who, or what, are the restless?” Ianta continued. She swept her gaze across the three of them, drinking deep. “What a puzzle.”
The wine in Hal’s stomach soured. Still, she poured another drink.
LATE THAT NIGHT, Hal followed Ianta into the chamber in which she’d been—well, not sleeping, exactly, but throwing all her stuff.
“For what I found in the cellar,” Hal said, holding up a vial of honey liqueur and a bottle of burnt whiskey. “Tell me more about Rovassos’s rituals.”
Ianta poured herself into a short, soft armchair beside the cold fireplace and held out her hand for the whiskey.
The prince smacked the glass butt into Ianta’s palm and slid onto the floor, sitting cross-legged with her back against the stone hearth. This was a small room, but cozy with tapestries and thick braided rugs. The bed pressed into the corner, covered with a shaggy fur and plump woolen pillows. It smelled of Iant
a’s sharp pipe smoke, horses, leather, and sword oil besides. There, tucked against the door, leaned Ianta’s huge broadsword. It had no name, but needed none, either.
The former Lady Knight popped the lid off the whiskey and drank. She opened her mouth after and sighed in satisfaction. Hal put her tongue out and tipped the vial of honey liqueur for a single drop that splattered down, coating her best muscle. Ianta gave her the whiskey and Hal drank that, with the honey sweetening the burn so it lifted up through her face and skull and into her brain. The prince’s lashes fluttered, and she thought, If it were poison, how fast would I realize?
The flavor might fool her into thinking it was safe, and nothing would change, but suddenly Hal would simply stop. Fall dead, never knowing it. Would that make her final heartbeat into a ghost itself? A specter of a prince trapped outside of death because she’d never seen the moment approach?
Or Hal’s skin might flush, she might feel her throat close, she might sense the painful creeping of poison through her veins, locking her muscles with cramps until her heart burst and her bowels let go and her teeth cut into her own cheeks—a slow, brutal death.
Surely that was to be preferred.
“Why do you want to know about magic and rituals?” Ianta asked, leaning over to snatch the whiskey back. They’d not stopped drinking since the afternoon, and both moved with the purposeful care of inebriation.
Hal said, “The kings of Aremoria aren’t supposed to need magic, so what did—what did Rovassos want with it?”
Ianta groaned at Hal’s directness. “Legitimization.”
“What? He was the son of Segovax, who was the son of Isarnos, who was the nephew of Morimaros the Great. That is as legitimate as it gets.”
“But not the oldest child of Segovax—that was Vatta Gaunt, your grandmother.”
“And maybe a bastard, definitely a woman.”
“Pff, it was a coward’s lie that she was a bastard.”
Hal chewed her bottom lip. “Rovassos wanted to prove to others he was meant to be king?”
“To himself, truly.”
“He wanted a prophecy to create his legacy. The stars say I am king, and so you cannot deny me.”
“It does work for the queens of Innis Lear,” Ianta muttered.
“Because they already have power.”
“So Prince Hal cannot use magic for power, because she does not already have it. What a paradox, ha!”
Hal knocked her head back against the stone hearth. “Do you believe in earth saints, Ianta?”
“Yes.”
“No joke nor equivocation?” Hal felt her pitch rise. “Just yes.”
Ianta drank again, then smiled. “How can you not believe, after what you’ve seen and heard?”
“I’m afraid to believe, and afraid not to. And why shouldn’t I be afraid of magic here, guiding the future?” Hal blinked. She thought of her hand on her sword, its blade cutting straight forward into Hotspur’s belly. The Wolf’s mouth gaped open—and then Hal imagined her crying out for an entirely different reason: Hal’s tongue against her throat, her fingers digging into Hotspur’s well, the taste of sweat and the curve of an arched back.
Prince Hal shivered and pulled her knees up, pressed her forehead against them.
“Fearing magic is already losing,” Ianta said acerbically.
Hal laughed. Her shoulders shook. She was entirely screwed.
“We would slip down through a secret stairway cut into the limestone,” Ianta said. “There are a few doorways into those passages in the backs of star chapels, or what used to be star chapels, throughout Lionis. Or you can get in by the gaping black maw of the cave mouth, right at the riverside to the northwest of the bluff beneath the palace. There is an altar there, the sheered-flat base of a stalactite. We would hold hands, me, Vaso, and Matomaros. Me, standing alongside two princes. We called out to the earth saints to greet us, we who were related to the greatest of Aremore kings. At least Rovassos and Mato were. Vaso had found a cypher in the Queen’s Library with old words in an ancient Aremore dialect, little chants and spells for healing and elf-shot, for talking to the trees as they do on Innis Lear. So we read it and made up our own songs. Nothing happened, though we all fell a bit more in love with one another every time.”
A great sigh issued from Ianta, and the chair creaked as she stretched.
If there were a song for falling in love, Hal would—
The prince crushed her eyes into her hands, then looked up abruptly to say, “Come back to Lionis with me. I need you.”
“Hal, no. There’s no place for me there.” Ianta frowned, lines dragging at her lips and eyes, her neck sagging.
“There is, though.” Hal got to her knees, setting the honey liqueur aside, and clutched her hands together to keep from seeming to beg. “I need more allies. You know me! I’m a trickster, a charmer, a lover—not a leader. I can make people break into the throne room with me, or put honey inside Abovax’s gauntlets; maybe I can command a small company, but not an army! Not an entire kingdom. What if they see me, Ianta, really see me? What if my mother does?”
Hal clasped her hands over her mouth. She’d never say such a thing sober. Thank the saints Hotspur had not heard—or worse, Mora.
“Hal.”
“Please, Ianta. You founded the Lady Knights. You know how to make things happen in Lionis Palace.”
“There are no Lady Knights.” The bitterness and certainty in Ianta’s voice stunned Hal.
The prince said, “We are temporarily disbanded, but informally. When I— I only need to prove myself capable as a prince and I can make them again.”
“No, Hal. Don’t you see? The Lady Knights were always a lie. Rovassos …” Ianta stopped, closed her eyes.
After a moment, Hal said, “We were not a lie. We mattered—to one another. How can you discount that? Mora and me, and Ter Melia and Talix and Imena—and our squires, we made names for ourselves, proved women could be effective knights. Not just one-offs and foot soldiers, but with intention and purpose! We don’t break this easily.”
Ianta leaned forward. Her pale blue eyes shone with tears, pink rimmed, and her face was flushed blotchy and uneven. “That is what I thought, Hal. I thought we mattered. I thought I had carved a place for myself! Me! A woman, a lover of women, and all I ever wanted was to be allowed to be what I am. To serve as a knight, to lift these powerful hands in service to my king, with might and blade and vows like any man. To flirt with beautiful women and love them and still be honored. I thought my king understood that, respected me and loved me. I thought he saw me. He was my best friend, Hal, but becoming a prince will make a liar out of you, too.”
Hal shook her head, too shocked to speak. Her lips hung open.
“It’s no use.” Ianta fell back against the chair. She wiped her hands down her face and then let them lie in her lap, hugging her belly. “Give me more of that drink.”
With a shaking hand, Hal did so. She whispered, “What are you talking about, Ianta? What lie did he tell you?”
Ianta drank from the bottle again, hissed through her teeth, and said, “When word came that he was dead, I went to the library to get the signed charter for my Lady Knights. I didn’t know what would happen, and I wanted it on my person, not moldering in a trunk or desk, not where it could be taken from me. From us. But there was no charter. I bullied two clerks into searching, and there was no record at all! We were nothing but a whim, Hal. A favor, granted by a king to his friend. He didn’t believe in us—in me! He gave it to me because he loved me and wanted to make me happy. Without actually doing anything. Without protecting it, or enacting change.”
“I’m so sorry, Ianta.” Hal touched her knee, let her hand make a fist in the skirt.
The lady of knights put her hand atop Hal’s head. “Don’t let them make you a liar, Hal.”
“I—”
“Listen to me, Hal Bolinbroke.” Ianta tugged Hal’s hair until Hal tipped up her face. Then Ianta changed her grip to Hal�
�s chin and held it hard. “I do know you. You love stories. As do I. Stories are how we change minds, you and I. You tell them whether they’re true or not, and you exaggerate what’s real to make a better story. That can serve you as a leader. Making a better story. But it might not serve you as a person. You can’t be only a story, or you have nothing. And while people might be excited by a story, they can’t love it; they can’t be loyal to it. Don’t just tell a story that you’re a prince: be one, truly, or don’t even try.”
Hal swallowed thickly. “Come back with me to Lionis, Ianta. Come with me and help me be real. There will be a place for you, with a queen, and a prince who loves you, who knows well what space you tried to make in the old palace, with the Merry King. We will make it anew, and everything will be better. Stronger. My mother returned from exile like a brilliant fire, to burn away the rot in Aremoria, and we can help her, we can be part of her new world.”
Ianta narrowed her eyes and released Hal with enough force to push her away. “You’re doing it even now. Stories—lies.”
Hal’s breath came a bit harder than she liked. She didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t prove Ianta’s point. “Can’t a story also be true? If I take a true thing, and dance pretty words around it, the prettiness doesn’t ruin the truth. A good story isn’t a lie.”
“Hmm.”
Pressing her advantage, Hal lifted the vial of honey liqueur. “If I put this on my tongue, then drink whiskey, it doesn’t make the whiskey any less whiskey. But it goes down smoother.”
Ianta laughed out of nowhere. “Saints, I am drunk. And you have always been like this. I do miss you, Prince of Riot.”
“Then come back with me!” Hal grinned. She was drunk, too, so she pushed away the uncertainty, the questions of selfhood, rulership, prophecy, and future, and just smiled. It was a lie.
“Promise me something first.”
“Anything!” Hal meant it entirely, but Ianta glared as though her vision were doubling, until Hal lifted her hands in giggling apology. “Anything, if I can.”
“Better.” Ianta took a deep breath. “If you are going to be a prince, find something that is exceptionally true—exceptionally pure and right—and hold that in your center. So that you do not lose yourself inside the story you build about yourself.”
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