“It sounds complicated.” He flopped onto the furs and put his forearm over his eyes. “It is. Why do people get bored with peace? Why is a border seen as a challenge rather than a barrier?”

A threat is coming, he had said. We need more time. I need to give you more. But it is nearly here, and I dare not delay. You must go to Arthur. But why me? she had asked. Your power is so much greater than mine. What if I cannot protect him? You are afraid of the wrong thing, he had said.

He set her down, hands lingering at her waist. She stumbled. Now that the threat was past, shame claimed her. How could she be strong, how could she complete her mission, if she could not so much as cross a river? An apology bloomed on her lips. She plucked it and discarded it. Be what they expect. She straightened carefully. Regally. “I do not

Today, the brave warrior who saved my queen—” The crowd roared in approval again, and Arthur let them carry on. Guinevere raised her hand, acknowledging the people, though her only role in this narrative had been to be in peril and be saved.

Me, she thought. Guinevere. She imagined stepping into the name as she had stepped into the clothing. Putting it on sound by sound, piece by piece. Draping it over herself, and then cinching it up tight so it would not slip away. It was a complicated name. So many pieces. She would have to be very complicated to fit it.

This version acknowledged the magical elements—the story could not be told without them—but made them so minor they were afterthoughts. The Lady of the Lake was merely a prop to get the sword back to Arthur. Not one of the few magical beings who had sided with him against the Dark Queen was present. But Camelot had abandoned magic; perhaps even its

Arthur was trying to carve a nation of ideals from the wild and hungry land, and the land was not giving up without a fight. Only someone who knew the subtle paths and seeping reach of magic could ever hope to protect him against it. She had seen his knights in the magical forest. Their terror gave her some hope. She was no Merlin and never would

“Only Guinevere? Nothing else? I know the power of names.” His words hit her with two meanings. Names that were titles gave power among men. True names gave power among the things that came before men. She focused on the torch to make her voice cheery, like it. “Guinevere, when spoken by you, has power enough.”

Guinevere closed her eyes, but now that she knew what the fear was—that it was real, not simply foolishness—she found it easier. The shame of her terror of water had been almost as great as the fear, and without shame, the fear could be faced.