King's Justice: The Knights of Breton Court, Volume 2 by Maurice Broaddus

boulevards in the city, Herron High School provided a classical liberal arts education. With an emphasis on the arts, it steeped their students in great historical thought, the school aimed to prepare them for college. According to the brochures, the school's curriculum was structured around an art history timeline and emphasized the classic art and literature of many cultures.
      The five minutes until homeroom bell clanged, sharp and grating. Isabel "Iz" Cornwall closed her locker after slipping her backpack into it. Sunken cheekbones bookended a face with a long nose with a stud, slightly notched where it had been broken in the past. Slim, short, hair dyed black, she had an unadorned face of simple beauty which would rise to gorgeous with the right make-up application. A tattoo of a dragon crawled along the base of her back. This was the third day this week she wore her blue jeans. Her nose was no longer sensitive to her own smell. She pulled a white cardigan over her pink T-shirt, covering her braless, small breasts. The T-shirt was worn yesterday, but she hoped no one would notice under the cardigan. She pressed her books to her chest, eyes downcast, slouching to be unnoticed.
      "Damn girl, you wearing those clothes out." A black girl with a thick frame, large breasts, and thighs like oaks, her thick black hair had been processed into straight hair. Blue contact lenses didn't hide a wide nose and full lips which faced her in the mirror, and she took out her self-loathing on the world around her.
      "Leave me alone, Andret."
      "Just saying, you may want to give your outfit a rest. It's getting ripe enough, I bet them jeans could find their own way to school by now."
      Iz lowered her head to push by. Andret hooked her arm in front of her.
      "What? You too good to speak to me now?"
      "She ain't got nothing to say to you. I might have a word or two though." Tristan Drust spoke with the timbre of command though she chewed a piece of gum with an open-mouthed flourish. Draped in a hoodie, her head crested with a thick nest of braids, most of which were dyed mauve. Big-boned and sturdy, without a trace of fat, anyone who knew anything about posture would have noticed how balanced her stance was. She knew more about fighting than most men. Her amber eyes with gold flecks counted off the girls with military precision. Andret was the mouth, the alpha of the group. Her wing girls could tussle, but if Andret was taken out quickly, they'd lose heart for a fight.
      "Enter the dyke," Andret said.
      "Now you've gone and hurt my feelings." Tristan squared up against Andret. Her eyes flashed challenge, a silent push. Andret inched forward, a tacit shove back.
      In the end, much of life could be reduced to lessons learned on the playground. Random encounters, bullies and bullied, friends and foes, the workplace of life all gathered in the same place. There were those who were simply not meant to get along with one another. Spaces not meant to be inhabited by both parties without rage bristling off each other, ready to jump off. Without boiling up in them, a living fire that needed to lash out and scorch the earth about them just under the surface, a seething they didn't know what to do with; once the veneer was scratched it erupted.
      Iz appealed to Tristan's better nature, preaching about finding better ways to respond to hostile situations rather than let them control her. "Blessed are the peacemakers" was a luxury Iz could indulge, but there was a reality she didn't understand: not everyone played by the rules of peace and some people just needed to be knocked on their ass. Folks who believed others infringed onto what was theirs and what the world owed them. Otherwise the world walked over you, the way so many had abused Iz. People like Iz needed people like Tristan.
      Moving her weight to her back foot, Tristan knew how to throw a punch. She struck with her shoulder, not her arm. She pivoted her hip