should know, and use it, to help you and be what she must.”
The queen took his chin and pulled him up. Charm stood as Celedrix hauled his face to hers, their noses nearly touching. She said, “But you will do as I command.”
Swallowing, Charm whispered, “Yes, I must.”
“I will live six months, or maybe two years, but not much longer, I suspect, and then Hal will be queen, and I want her to have every day she can to come to it, to be ready. To choose. I will fight to make that space for her, fight my enemies and hers, and die when it is time. My mother-line will survive.”
The sound that escaped Charm was not mature, nor strong, but that of a young boy seeing his hero for the first time in the gloried Hall of God’s Daughters. She had promised him that day, too, that her mother-line would live, and grow, and if he wanted to be bold, he would join her.
PRINCE HAL
Dondubhan, early winter
THE ZENITH DAY dawned beautifully. Bold sunlight attacked the remaining dregs of snow, brightening the very air itself to tearful white.
They used the lower yard of Dondubhan for the tournament, it being larger and situated beside the barracks for ease of access to weaponry. The royal dais rested before the chapel, facing east, and rugs had been laid all around it for spectators. Dark blue banners rose high behind the chairs reserved for the queen and her party: one—the tallest—glared with a pure star at its center, and the rest were embroidered with the royal birth stars: one for Ryrie Lear and then each of her children.
In the yard, the snow that had not yet melted (and would not until spring) had been trampled down into the mud, and spread with thick layers of hay. The field of combat was marked with chalk and poles at each corner, tied with four colors: blue for Innis Lear, black for Glennadoer, orange for Aremoria, and purple for Bolinbroke.
The teams were well matched, Prince Hal thought, and though a percentage of her spirit knotted up with tension, most of her had given in to the urge to enjoy herself and treat this as a holiday entertainment. She had Ter Melia competing in horsemanship; two of her mother’s retainers, Bax and Belavias, competing in the strength challenge and ax respectively; Rianor, a Persy captain on borrow from Hotspur’s retainers would represent Aremoria in lance; and Catrin Glennadoer, as Hal’s retainer, would stand for her side in archery. The final two competitions would be magic, for which the wizard had reluctantly agreed to join, and sword, which Hal herself took up.
She did not know if she could defeat Hotspur one to one, as they’d always been evenly matched, and Hotspur was the one of them who’d never stopped fighting. But Hal felt her team could win in every other category but strength, where Glennadoer himself would play.
Hal had taken up a corner of the yard tucked against the armory tower for her team’s base, populating it with extra retainers to act as squires and a few Dondubhan servants willing to keep the Aremore side supplied with food and drink and bandages. One of those servants had wrapped the portable rail with orange and purple to mark the space theirs.
As she waited to be called to the field, Hal scanned the crowd, marking the place across the yard where Rowan Lear and Glennadoer stood together, both in black and blue, wearing mail and leather armor: Rowan’s more traditional and spectacularly bright, his father’s studded with spikes and fitted at the shoulders with giant jawbones. Hal spied Hotspur pacing the rampart of the inner curtain wall with a scowl, hair glaring red in the sun.
Hal grinned.
The wizard appeared at her shoulder. “This should be interesting,” he murmured. He was not smiling, but a lightness in his eyes gave the impression of excitement. He wore a plain brown gambeson edged in leather and a brown wool shirt and trousers. At his belt was a short sword, and leather gauntlets hugged his wrists. Like hers, the wizard’s dark hair was braided thickly away from his face and bound in a tail still hanging with multiple charms of bone, horn, and yarn.
“Will you win?” Hal asked.
He looked across the field at Rowan Lear and nodded.
Hal spread her arms to call her team to her. “Gather in, you who would die for Aremore glory.”
It was majestically said, and her players smiled, even Catrin Glennadoer.