Sword in the Stars (Once & Future #2) - Cori McCarthy Page 0,19

will be someday. It’s impossible to see most of the time, and it doesn’t excuse anything, but… our Merlin’s having a hard enough time with his body changing so rapidly. He doesn’t need to suffer a literal split personality.”

“You’re right.” Ari kissed Gwen’s fingers. “You’re going to be the best mom, lady.”

Gwen glowed, stars shining in her brown eyes from the narrow window. “I’m scared. The good kind of scared, I think.”

“I’m pretty sure that, at least, is the way it’s supposed to be.” Ari leaned in for a kiss, not caring that they were no longer behind a tapestry, but Gwen turned away.

“Merlin’s right. You shouldn’t have named yourself Lancelot. Jordan showed me the pages of her book… how they disappeared and reappeared. This is a dangerous game.”

“Lancelot is the knight who loves Gweneviere. Who else could I be, Gwen?” Ari’s pulse quickened. “I have to lie about who I am to survive here. My gender. My time. My planet. Being Lancelot was the only way I could keep up this damn charade without completely losing my—”

“They don’t get to be together, Ari! Not in a single one of the stories. Arthur stands between them. Their love is… thwarted. It’s a tragedy.” Gwen rested her head on Ari’s breastplate, but Ari couldn’t feel her through the armor. “And this? This is going to hurt.”

Ari’s sword clashed with Lamarack’s outside the stables. They’d left their side open for Ari’s short dagger again. She tapped Lam on their—rather striking—red leather armor with the blade’s handle. “Dead. Again. Your kidneys are important, Lam.”

“Remember while you’ve been practicing swordplay every day in this medieval paradise, I’ve been mucking stables.” Lam hunched on a hitching post, lifting the snarling dragon of their helmet to reveal a face stained with sweat and dirt. She missed Lam’s makeup and piercings. She missed their near-constant flirtations. It had always been her favorite distraction.

“Wouldn’t say it’s been a paradise. I killed a kid barely older than Merlin.”

Lam studied her, waiting for more. “Is this Hector?”

Ari nodded. “We joined up on the road. He was a runaway. Never stopped singing but he knew all the edible vegetation and how to skin dinner.” She let the rest out fast. “He saw my breasts, freaked out, went to report me for impersonating a knight. We fought and I knocked his head against a rock by accident. He died slowly.” She left off the part about digging his shallow grave with her bare hands. Ari started cleaning her sword.

“The young here are never young. And the old are dead.”

“What?”

Lam wiped their face. “We were still young in our future. In the eyes of the galaxy and government. Not kids, not adults. It’s how we slipped through Mercer’s fingers.” Ari wondered where they were going with this. “Here we’re adults. Middle age. Halfway to a quick death.”

“Some of us have always been old at heart.” Ari thought of Gwen who was queen at sixteen, married at eighteen, pregnant by nineteen. All on purpose. “I’ve put up with a lot since I arrived on this stupid planet, but if it’s turned my lovely Lam morose, I’ll never forgive it.”

“Not morose. Philosophical. We can only do so much with the time we’re given.” They motioned to the small kid who trailed Lam like a puppy. He held up a pail of water. Ari shook her head, and he put it down sadly. “And these people aren’t given much time at all.”

“I won’t give them a pass for forcing us into genders that aren’t ours. Or thinking my vagina is a demon curse.”

“Hell, no.” Lam put their wrist on Ari’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t ask that. But see, there’s Roran over there, always watching. He’s trans. But he doesn’t know that word or that there are so many more like him. Or that one day someone like him won’t be stuffed into a dress, made to feel like he’s come out all wrong.”

Ari examined her sword. Lamarack had never spoken like this before, fear and anger wrestling in their tone despite their soft words. “Does he have family? Friends?”

“He has me,” Lam said.

“And how are you doing with the constant misgendering?” Ari shut her eyes tight. “It’s breaking me.” Her body had been a liability ever since she’d crashed into this time period, needing to be a man to have any semblance of power. The constant fear of being found out was cresting toward body shame, which left her longing for Gwen. To feel her touch. To