Sword in the Stars

by Cori McCarthy

  Lam got to their feet from where they’d been speaking to the small crowd and beckoned Ari and Val to the back, telling everyone to talk to each other in their most relaxed tone. “Remember, you’re all united in your beliefs,” they added gently.

  When they had ducked behind an enormous stallion, Lam hugged her. “You all right? We heard about Sir Kay knocking the shit out of you. Gwen was pissed.”

  “I’m fine. Did it work? Did the page come back in the MercersNotes?”

  Lamarack nodded, but Ari could tell there was more. “Then some other stuff went blank.”

  Ari groaned.

  Val scowled. “We win the battles but we’re losing the war, people. Why am I the only one to see that this is pure reactive and not at all proactive?”

  “Hang on. I’ll wrap up the meeting,” Lam said. The voices in the stable rose with excitement when Lam returned to them.

  While they filed out, Ari asked Val the question she already knew the answer to simply because it hadn’t come up otherwise. “Chalice?”

  Val shook his head.

  The stable was quiet when the people were gone, and only the sounds of shuffling horses could be heard. Ari took some of her armor off, stretching her back. “Tell me you haven’t started a religion, Lam.”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Lam said. They were being shifty. Why?

  “What’s going on? Roran’s willing to stab someone for coming in uninvited, and you’re preaching… what exactly?”

  Lam laughed. “Kindness, mostly. And acceptance. For all kinds of people.”

  “My gods, you’re just… You make us all look so scrubby.” Ari found herself smiling, shaking her head. Lamarack’s grin glowed. “Okay, but don’t get attached to this little cultural revolution. I need you back in the future beside me.”

  “They’ll be much better equipped soon. Some of them are already using my pronouns.”

  “Leave it to my sibling to start humanity’s first GSA.” Val was undoubtedly pleased, giving Lamarack a smirk of pure admiration.

  Lam pulled out the MercersNotes from a small leather bag hanging from their belt and pressed it into Ari’s hand. Ari sighed with exasperation as she found the Lancelot-Arthur-Gweneviere love triangle back, but a new chapter blank. “What was here?”

  “Knights of the Round Table,” Lam said sheepishly.

  Shit. Even Ari remembered how important that one was. It was in all the versions of the legend. “Okay, how do we fix it?”

  “Stop with the fixing mentality!” Val said. “We need to set the legend floating on its own. Give it sails.” Lam and Ari stared at him. “King Arthur has to go on without us. Otherwise we’ll never be able to leave without disrupting the stupid time continuum.”

  “How do we do that?” Lam asked.

  Ari stared at the book in her hands. “We bring Arthur in on it, that’s how.”

  “Ari…” Val’s voice held such perfected exasperation. “No.”

  “He knows I’m a girl underneath all this armor, and he’s okay with it.”

  “He does?” Lam asked at the same time that Val said, “He’s not okay with it.”

  Ari stood up. “He’s like me. He wants the truth, even if the truth is challenging. And I know that’s true because deep down in me is… him!”

  “And this is where you lose me.” Val sat down on a pile of hay. “Cursed spirits, no thank you.”

  Ari turned to Lam. “I have to get in the castle. I need to talk to Arthur.”

  “You’ll need a disguise,” they said. “Sir Kay made some pretty bold statements about you not being allowed back into the keep.”

  “Good thing Suck Kay isn’t in charge. Although, I should slip in unnoticed to avoid ending up back in the stocks.” Ari turned to her childhood best friend and brought out her sweetest smile. “Val, do you have any makeover magic tucked into that corset?”

  Val raised a finely shaped eyebrow at Ari. “Always.”

  An hour later, Ari was standing in a large wooden tub, getting her back scrubbed by Val. “Gross. Everything in this time period is gross. Did you roll around in the peat, or just make a few peat angels?” Lam came around one of the back stalls, and Ari closed her arms over her breasts. “What, you get shy around them, but not me?” Val pinched her side.

  “Of course I get shy around Lam. They’re Lam.” Ari muttered, elbowing Val. She’d missed his no-filter conversations too much. Stepping out of the wooden tub, she went straight to the pile of dresses Val had procured from somewhere. “Why did you bring so many?”

  “You think this is the first time I’ve dressed up a masc girl as a femme girl to trick patriarchal overlords? I grew up on Pluto. First things first, the dress has to actually fit. And you, Ara Azar, are not the same size you used to be. I had to estimate.”

  “I am much bigger.” Ari looked down at the muscles she’d collected along her limbs like badges of honor. She’d been lanky in the future, but she was pretty sure she wasn’t anymore. “The armor was so heavy. Took weeks to get used to it.”

  “Now you’re strapping,” Lam said, dropping a dress over her head.

  “Too short. Try the green one,” Val ordered.

  Ari shimmied out of the dress and into the green one. It did fit slightly better, although the neckline was as wide as an ocean. “What in the world?” Ari muttered as it fell from one shoulder and then the other.

  “It goes off the shoulders. Stand back.” Val pushed his sibling out of the way and positioned Ari in the dress, pulling the laces taut. When Ari felt like she’d stop breathing, Val tugged the front lower and pulled the back tighter. Ari yelped, and Val added, “You’re pretending to be a working girl, remember? You’ve got to show a little skin.”

  “Great.” She looked to Lam. “Where’s Roran?” The last thing she wanted was to trigger him by yowling while someone stuffed her in a dress.

  “He’s asleep in the back. I just tucked him in.”

  Ari let those words sink in. Lam spoke them with such care. “He sleeps in the stables?”

  “He left his family. They frightened him,” Lam said. Ari felt softer inside as she imagined the fiercest kid in Camelot. Lamarack was taking care of him. Making him feel seen and loved. Of course they were.

  Ari nearly shouted when Val finger-combed her hair, finding the first dozen of a thousand knots. “Well, this is going to take forever.”

  “Leave it down,” Ari tried.

  “Down and you look like Lancelot. Up and you’re a lady.”

  “It’s not that important.” Ari winced as Val pulled her hair again. “I just need to get in.”

  “And then you’re going to do what, exactly?” Val asked. Ari ignored him, and he added, “Oh, so you want to see the oubliette, too? It’s just fantastic. When Merlin was locked in there with Jordan, Nin didn’t blink. She loved how miserable they both were.”

  “She’s more nefarious than Merlin lets on,” Ari wondered. “Where is he, by the way?”

  “Playing with himself. Don’t get me started. Those two are up to something.”

  Ari was still and silent even though Val tugged too hard and made her eyes water. She looked to Lamarack, who nodded as if they were thinking the same thoughts, which gave her courage to voice them. “What do you think it will be like when we finally go home?”

  Val was so distracted by detangling that he spoke harsh and flat. “I’ll tell you exactly what it’ll be like. Mercer will have punished the people we left behind for our absence. All of those representatives who jumped to come to our summit have probably fallen back, taking whatever bargain might keep their planets alive. Gwen’s people, along with whatever’s left of our friends and family, will most likely end up working in a Mercer distribution factory. And if Mercer is really on-brand, they will set fire to Ketch for the show alone. The last time they blew up a planet they streamed the destruction with inspired ad placement.”

  “Fireproof boxes and smoke detectors,” Lam muttered. “I’ll never forget it. Our parent
s bought them.”

  Ari’s brain filled with images of the capital city, Omaira, up in flames. “Does Gwen think this will happen, too?”

  Val bit his bottom lip. “She’s mapped it out by now. That news bulletin was meant to reach us wherever we were hiding. To scare us. And it did, didn’t it?”

  “Gwen wanted to have the baby here.” Ari sighed. “We thought we could go back to the same night when Mercer still thought she was only a few months pregnant. But if we go back with the baby now, Mercer will be looking for them, and I still don’t understand why they demanded a baby as a down payment on peace. If we—”

  “You can’t take the baby back there.” Ari was startled by the intensity of Lam’s voice. “You’ll have to think of something else.”

  Ari didn’t know what to say while Val pulled on her knotted hair. She agreed with Lam, but that didn’t make any of it easier. It would mean going home without Gwen. Or asking Gwen to give up the baby for their safety. Both of which were impossible.

  “How do we even get back?” Val asked softly. “It would take too much magic to make another portal. We’d end up gathering Merlin in a bunch of blankets afterward…”

  Ari stopped his nervous finger-combing. “Don’t worry about that part. I won’t let Merlin sacrifice himself.” If it came down to it, she had a way to get them home and free Arthur. It just meant giving up her spirit for all of eternity after she died.

  Yeah, she was definitely going to keep sitting on that one.

  She pulled a shawl over her still-knotted hair. “I have to go.”

  Lam stood and took her arm.

  Val straightened her dress. “Remember, you two are about to engage in a night of utterly sinful debauchery. Sell it, or those guards will recognize Ari and drag her out of Camelot. Or worse. Also, Ari, bend your knees. You’re way too tall in this time period.”

  Like Gwen, Lamarack didn’t have a problem acting. They kept their demeanor set on Drunk Flirt as Ari awkwardly hunched over, hanging on to Lam’s waist for support. The palace guards took no note of her as they both stumbled in. Ari and Lam needed only to cross the front hall to the stairs that led up to the various levels of the main keep, to the room they shared.

  Halfway across the floor, Ari heard the unmistakable clanking of a knight approaching.

  If it’s Sir Kay, I’m going to tackle him. I don’t fucking care.

  Lam seemed to suspect her motivation. They spun Ari around as if they were about to start a dance and threw her over their shoulder at the waist. Ari’s face was now a few inches from Lam’s glorious, leather-clad ass. Lovely.

  “Lamarack, were you not with a fetching enchantress last evening?” Galahad’s voice. Well, that was a bit of luck. “The one called Morgause?”

  Lam spoke but Ari missed it as they shuffled her into a better spot on their shoulder.

  “You should seek friendship and connection with your lovers. It will lead to a better life,” Galahad said, as if he were Lam’s dad. Ari couldn’t help smiling. “That one-lady-each-night business looks an awful lot of work from where I’m standing. My goodness, you are motivated.”

  Galahad walked on, and Lam hustled across the hall and up the tight stairwell, not letting Ari down even though she tried pinching them in the side. Once they were back in the small, dank room and the door was shut, Lam set her down and Ari had a full-on head rush. She grabbed her temples and wrestled her breath.

  She sat hard on the bed, and gingerly touched the bruise on her jaw from where Sir Kay had knocked her out. Then she took MercersNotes out of her dress pocket and flipped it open to a random page… which happened to be about Queen Gweneviere getting kidnapped. Ari snapped it shut. “Fuck that.”

  “You okay?” Lam asked.

  “Just need a minute.” Ari and Lam were silent, until she laughed. “You’re the castle heartthrob.”

  “Someone’s got to be.”

  “You teaching that GSA about the glories of being polyam?”

  “I only think being polyamorous is glorious for those of us who are polyamorous.” Lam peeled off their buckles and leather while they were talking and were shirtless now. “Case in point, if you had to share Gwen with anyone other than a clueless boy king, I know you’d have lost it by now.”

  “Your evidence?”

  “Kay.”

  Ari winced. “That’s fair.”

  Lam’s voice glowed with a new depth. “Why do you think we haven’t?”

  Ari laughed in a shallow way. “Not that I haven’t thought about it.”

  “Not that I haven’t, either.”

  Ari dared a look at Lam in the dim room. The only light came from that veiled moon outside. “So Morgause…” Ari searched for a gentle way to ask, eyes tracing Lam’s matching, delicate scars beneath their pecs. “Was she…”

  “Surprised to find my downstairs has a lot in common with hers?” Lam laughed. “I believe she was delighted, truth be told.”

  Ari fell back on the straw mattress, and Lam sat beside her. “How the hell are you doing so well while the rest of us are drowning in medieval crap?”

  “There’s beauty here, Ari. There’s a reason for this place. These people.” Lam brushed her cheek with their knuckle. “I can’t help seeing that. I loved the King Arthur story. Kay and I ate it up when we were at knight camp on Lionel, but this is so much better. It’s truer. And we’re making the legend happen. We’re inside of it.”

  “Making it happen,” she murmured. “Lam, I need you to find Gwen. Have her bring Arthur to the throne room. Alone.”

  Ari stood before the empty throne. This place was the grandest and most neglected hall in the enormous castle. The vaulted ceilings hung with wheeled chandeliers and the stone walls wore pennants and tapestries—but there was no life to it. No spark.

  No legend.

  Even the throne was still far too big for Arthur’s young frame. She flashed back to a different Arthur. The body in Nin’s cave. The aged man with a gray beard. His face worn, as if a hundred tragedies had befallen him in a span of only twenty years or so. Ari ran her fingers over the symbols that had been magically carved into the wood. Old Merlin spared no expense when it came to making sure that his boy king impressed those who visited the kingdom.

  On the purple seat cushion, Ari found a worn wooden box with a clunky metal latch.

  The perfect size for a chalice.

  Ari’s fingers twitched, and she swore she heard Kay in her head, ribbing her for her impulses, but she unlatched the box and swung it open.

  It was empty.

  “But Gweneviere, I—” Arthur’s voice snapped to a stop. Ari spun around. Gwen had tricked Arthur here, from the look of mild betrayal on his face. How very Gwen.

  “And you’re not coming out until you sort this,” Gwen hissed, such a boss that Arthur stepped back while Gwen shut the double doors behind her.

  Ari and Arthur were alone.

  “You came back. You shouldn’t have.”

  “There are tons of things I shouldn’t do.”

  Arthur stared at her outfit. Ari had decided against her armor for the first time since she’d arrived at Camelot. She wore a man’s tunic, her arms and scars on show. She’d bound her breasts but there was no denying that her frame didn’t hold the same imposing weight without the bulk of her armor. Ari opened her mouth, but Arthur beat her to it, eyeing the box in her hands. “So you found my chalice. Maybe I should try it out on you. I don’t know what it does.”

  Ari showed off the empty box. “It’s not here.”

  Arthur moved forward, taking the box and relatching it. “This wood is magic. The chalice is only there if I open it. Merlin gave it to me.”

  “So open it.” Ari smirked, and Arthur looked amused at first, and then grouchy.

  “I want you out of my kingdom.”

  “Why? Because I have breasts? Or because Gweneviere prefers—”

  “You lie, and you… direct me. A lot.” He seemed to shrink in the presence of the throne. He
moved to the other side of the room, setting the box down on a large, rectangular table.

  “Yeah, that is definitely not the right shape,” Ari murmured before she could stop herself.

  “What?” Arthur shouted so loudly it echoed. “What does that even mean? You have a problem with everything I do, including the shape of my table?”

  “That’s the abridged version, truth be told.”

  Arthur took a deep breath. His blond hair was lank today, the summer humidity missing. “What do you want from me?” he asked, so exhausted Ari caught a flicker of the Arthur she’d seen in Nin’s cave, unrested. Unresolved. A few millennia from now, his voice was going to be the only saving grace when Mercer attacked her planet.

  He was only able to save her because he was lost. How had Morgana described his curse?

  His soul flits in and out of reality like a bird with a broken wing.

  “Arthur, I…” Ari cleared her throat. “You have an important legacy. I want to help you.”

  “You sound like my queen.” He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. “How? How do I make all this change? I told you in the woods, I’m supposed to answer questions that I’ve never even fathomed. I’m supposed to help people I do not know. It’s impossible.”

  Ari took his hand and pulled it from his eyes. She held his fingers, almost sweetly. Arthur was clearly surprised by her gentleness and stared at her calloused palms. “You stop being afraid of what you don’t understand. That’s how. And you trust your knights. You make a true bond out of their loyalty.”

  “How am I supposed to trust any of you?” Arthur said quietly. “You’re all lying. You probably want my throne, my kingdom. My wife,” his voice choked up. “Well, you can have the throne. I never wanted it in the first place. But I need Gweneviere.”

  Ari grabbed his shoulder to keep him from staring at the throne so forlornly. She turned back to the small, magical box. “The enchantresses gave you an incredible gift, Arthur. You’re supposed to use this to bond with your knights.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t… know.” Ari heard Val’s voice in her head. Give it sails. And then Lamarack’s enamored whisper about the joy of making the legend happen. Ari reached into her pocket and felt the curled shape of the MercersNotes on King Arthur and his knights. “I have to show you something. Something to help explain why you should trust me. How you can trust me.”