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.”
Hal intended to nod very seriously, to put on the appearance that she would search hard for such a thing. But she did not need to: she knew exactly what single thing in her life was exceptionally true and right, exceptionally bright. Simply exceptional.
Standing, the prince of Aremoria swayed. The floor tilted, and Hal grabbed the arm of Ianta’s chair. “Oops,” she said. “I have to find Hotspur!”
“Tomorrow,” Ianta said, and shoved Hal away.
The prince stumbled, grunting as her stomach knotted, and fell upon the bed. She rolled, fully dressed, until she lay sideways in the center, hugged a pillow to her stomach, and passed out.
HOTSPUR
Tenne-Tiras, midsummer
HOTSPUR WAS FINE.
That was not a lie, nor a story, but simply the truth. Though she’d have preferred a posting with more direct action, Hotspur recognized the importance of helping Hal Bolinbroke, even if that aid came in the form of what amounted to taking a holiday at Tenne-Tiras.
Though to most, the schedule Hotspur set would not have suited leisure.
Hotspur and Banna Mora led the retainers and knights in daily battle drills, they foraged in the woods and hunted, they rarely spent time off their feet—but to Hotspur, that was relaxing. She could not simply drink and read all day, or wander with Lady Ianta in idle philosophical argument the way Hal could. Mora said, when she heard Hotspur’s frustration, “Perhaps that is what makes her suitable to be the prince of Lionis.”
“She’s the lion, regardless of the rest,” Hotspur said in complete seriousness. The two glanced across the courtyard at Hal, who was stretched in the sun with a smile that showed off her teeth.
“Prickly and proud,” Mora said. “But mostly a glutton. Yes, she is certainly the lion.”
Hotspur wondered what made Mora a dragon, and if she was wrong to make such assumptions—or to be thinking of this at all!
Within a few days of settling into the prince’s company, Hotspur had earned her reputation for ferocity. Even beyond the distant legends they’d heard of the Wolf of Aremoria. Isarna Persy was more intense in person; while everyone there had skills for war, Hotspur never seemed to spare thought to her personal safety. She’d dive for an opening even if it risked a bone-bruising hit, used her body for leverage to push past the defenses of men larger than herself, leapt from her horse before it went down, or chose the most precarious position for ambush if it also provided the best concealment. Lady Ianta reminded her again and again from the sidelines that an injury would leave her unable to do her duty, but Hotspur snapped back that injury was better than drunkenness.
She liked best sparring with Hal—not because of the prince’s sly smile, nor the whip of Hal’s thick black hair, nor Hal’s breathless gasps when she was nearly skewered. It was not even for the entertainment factor, as Hal told stories when she sparred, painting the details of an epic as she and her opponent circled.
The sky is bare and black and the sun obscured, as from either side of the field two champions walk! A whisper of their names courses along with the shaky wind; the hopes of one nation versus the despair of the other. If only the champion Persy were not favored so by the wolves of earth, perhaps she might be felled by a mere mortal of county Bolinbroke!
Here Hal might put on a face of stark fear, backing slowly from Hotspur, while the circle of retainers and knights leaned in for the next word: A star streaks suddenly across the sky, from the north to the east where Bolinbroke was born! A sign from the heavens—maybe this time, maybe now, the champion of fire will fall! And we, who love her and fear her, shall—
Hotspur rarely allowed Hal the time to finish her wild tales, jumping impatiently in with a surprise attack. It didn’t matter: Hal beat Hotspur back at least as often as the prince ended up on her ass with the blade