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