“That sounds like a prophecy,” she teased morosely.
“It’s experience.”
Hal didn’t push, hoping her silence was invitation enough.
The wizard said, “I was born a bastard, on a starless dawn. Told I was nothing by enough people who mattered that when Elia told me I was good, when Mars told me so, I didn’t believe them. When Elia told me to be better, to choose differently, I never did. But you are.”
“Mars,” Hal murmured, unable to let it go that her wizard used the king’s nickname.
Her tone put a real smile on the wizard’s face. “He’d have liked you, but his patience was limited.”
Hal snorted. They walked in contemplative silence for a bit. Then Hal asked, “Will you stay with me?” She stared ahead at the widening street, then up at the blue-slate roofs of the changing neighborhood. Folks had emerged from their beds to move about on early-morning errands despite the rain. Shutters opened and the gutters ran with bathwater and piss. She meant forever.
“No.”
The abruptness stuttered her steps, but Hal pressed on. She’d expected something mysterious. For a time or Until I’m needed elsewhere. Or, until the star roads blaze, and I bring the lion’s heart home.
That same part of Hal that had gone quiet on Innis Lear—or rather, been overwhelmed by a new, darker understanding of what was right—held her tongue. Instead of teasing, arguing, or fretting, the prince nodded.
“You won’t need me,” the wizard said.
“What if I do?”
He shook his head and put his hand on her shoulder. “Need and want are different, Hal.”
Before he could move away, Hal hugged him. The wizard fell still, but slowly returned her embrace. “I needed this,” she whispered.
“Me, too,” he said with no little regret.
CHARM
Lionis, spring
PRINCE HAL MARRIED Echarmet of Kurake Queen on the balcony of her former chambers, overlooking a crowded People’s Courtyard. The sun flashed and hid behind rapidly moving clouds, lending the day an uncanny sensibility, as if the Luminous winked upon the union.
Charm wore scarlet and silver, with his Sun and Moon blades crossed at his back, silver god stripes painted from lips to chest, and his corona powdered silver to match. He felt large and strange upon the crescent balcony, but Hal put her hand upon his arm and lifted her chin with a smile. It comforted him: her vivid red style complemented his. She had pearls in her hair, garnets the size of his thumbnail sewn to her tunic, and an ancient cape of orange velvet said to have graced the shoulders of every monarch upon his marriage since Morimaros the First. The words Always for Aremoria were embroidered down the back in the just-as-ancient language that had given birth to Aremore, Ispanian, and Diotan. Charm told her quietly that she looked magnificent, and that he was proud to stand as her husband, proud to share his desire for her though she could not return it. Her smile turned a little sour, but she laughed it off before facing the Aremore crowd to give them what her people needed: hope, stability, and laughter.
The Aremore wedding ceremony was brief, little more than a declaration and a speech, as they held hands uplifted before their audience: Charm kissed her knuckles and Hal kissed his mouth, smelling to him of floral soap and nervous sweat.
Hal’s speech was short and pretty: she spoke of Aremoria as a people, a land of prosperous abundance, if they worked together, if they found ways to be strong. She told them a marriage between herself and the Third Kingdom would be a model, to welcome new strength into their Aremore family, and she invited all present to make promises with her to defend their homeland, and be happy.
Applause followed Hal and Charm inside; they went to the receiving hall where sideboards had been laid out with expensive Ispanian sweet wine because it was Hal’s favorite, and roasted meats and delicacies native to Aremoria and the Third Kingdom. Hal was relieved of the weight of the orange cape, and Luminous Phetira put a band of beaten silver around Charm’s wrist, marked with the sunspot of God.
In the Third Kingdom, the only requirement for a marriage was that the girl or Mother involved declare to four Mothers that she had chosen her husband, and state what their marriage names would be. Before the toasting began, before she ate a bite, Hal stood before her mother and said, “I am Hal Bolinbroke, born Calepia, daughter of Celedrix and Aremoria, and here is my husband, Echarmet of