Lancelot announced the winner as she presented the woman with her prize. Vera caught Arthur’s eye in the crowd, clapping with the rest. She saw pure, untarnished joy—certainly, for the day’s goodness, for the sense of community among his people—but this, what she saw right now, she knew to her core it came because of her.
Vera had never been happier in her entire life than she was right now, staring at Arthur through the crowd. He started toward her, and she tore her eyes away to congratulate the woman once more before turning back to him.
Vera knew what she wanted to say and felt a thrill of nerves course through her. “Arthur, I—” she said as he got close enough to hear, but he didn’t stop. Without breaking his stride, Arthur slid one hand around her waist, pulling Vera to him and kissing her without hesitation.
Her hands went to his chest, grabbing his shirt and clutching him to her as if afraid he might change his mind at any second. When Vera felt the tip of his tongue tease a caress across her own, she gasped only to keep herself from moaning in pleasure. She pulled back from him and pressed her lips together.
“I don’t know how I’m going to leave,” she said as soon as she trusted her voice, letting her selfish thoughts win out and feeling the heavy sting of guilt that followed. She had to get home to her parents—to her father. And she wasn’t Guinevere; she didn’t belong here.
Arthur was a master of his emotions, and Vera had become nearly as masterful at reading him. She saw him try to tamp down his elation with a heavy swallow. “I don’t want you to leave,” was all he said. Her heart would have leapt were it not all fouled by magic’s intervention and Vera’s inevitable, necessary departure.
He kissed her—tenderly this time. Slowly. As he pulled away, he thought better of it, instead resting his forehead against hers. Such untamed desire in his eyes—ah, of course. The potion to make him want her. Arthur didn’t know he’d been drinking it. She had to tell him.
They had not even broken their embrace when a sound echoed through Camelot. It was the multi-toned dissonance, its quality the contrast of rich and shrill, and its unnaturally loud volume planted a sense of dread in all who heard it. It was a horn’s blast, but different from the one the day the boar got loose. Arthur had told her of this horn, that it was made to be a siren. That was the purpose of it, never to be blown except under the gravest of circumstances.
When it blared its torturous call, it was met with more terror than it would have received had it not come at a time when it could crush such brazen bliss. The cries were more panicked. Many people ducked as if the horn was a dragon in the sky, swooping down to set them aflame. Frenzy erupted.
Arthur tensed, but he did not immediately let go of Vera. He held her a fraction of a second into the turmoil, a frozen pool in the roiling waters, and kissed her once more—for Arthur knew what the horn meant. Whatever was coming, whatever reason the alarm was raised, it all came back to one thing.
Camelot … life, as they knew it, had ended.
The heavy quiet in the throne room offered a reprieve from the shattering chaos outside, but it was not better. It was the stillness of waiting for awful news and praying it was the least sort of awful rather than the most.
When Arthur had released Vera from his embrace, he kept hold of her hand, pulling her to tail behind him as he entered the cacophony. She bore witness as a remarkable order unfurled among the knights and Arthur. Foreign to her, for them it was as natural as breathing. She hadn’t seen Elaine all day, but now she was there, right next to Vera with a protective hand on her back, her eyes hard, and the lines of her square face set. All of them—all the king’s guard and his knights, save for Randall and Lancelot, found Arthur as if summoned by some invisible force. Arthur climbed atop a barrel one-handed, for he hadn’t let go of Vera.
His eyes searched the knights, falling on Edwin. Vera watched their silent exchange in awe as Edwin wove through the others and climbed up next to Arthur. He closed his eyes, his face drawn in concentration, as he cupped one hand around the front of the king’s throat. It would have looked like a threat were it not for Arthur’s calm, which spread from him like a rush of warmth on a cold day.
When he spoke, his voice was amplified by a gift flowing through Edwin’s fingertips. The people quieted at his call, and not only because of its volume. That wave of consolation came through his voice, too. It felt like the taste of caramel; just as it slowed the tongue in eating, Arthur’s voice slowed the swelling panic.
He announced that the people would be welcomed to the keep and set Percival to lead, reminding them of all the protections in place, assuring that he would give more information as soon as he could, and above all, that he would exhaust every resource to protect them. Vera felt so small in his presence that she was embarrassed to be touching him, like he was too great a force to be lassoed to the ground by her.
When Lancelot and Randall dashed through the throngs with a soldier between them that Vera recognized from the wall, everything rushed back into motion.
“Tell me,” Arthur said without any formalities as he stepped back down.
“Two thousand by my estimation,” Randall said. “They’re a day’s ride out, but one rode ahead. We’re apprehending him.”
Now, in the throne room, they waited for the messenger. Two thousand was small for an invasion, making that an unlikely explanation. Vera naively thought this was good news, that it saved them from the weight of dread closing in, but it did not ease the tensions. Two thousand was too large a force for anything that wasn’t sinister.
They were all gathered: the whole king’s guard, Matilda, and both of Camelot’s mages. Vera was frightened. They were all in hushed conversations with one another or staring at the door expectantly, except Tristan. Her eyes found his, and a memory bloomed in her mind.
Vera stood on a vast and smoldering field dotted with dirt hillocks for a crop she couldn’t guess at, smoke rising in curling tendrils in unnatural jewel colors, shades hinting at magic. It might have been beautiful if she’d not been able to taste the acrid odor of roasted flesh and something grossly metallic. The hillocks’ uneven spacing, the awkward sizes … her eyes focused through the smoke’s haze and the expanding light of sunrise. Bodies. Body parts, not dirt. The sharp slap of the smell of blood, the beginnings of decay, and the looming understanding that this was her doing.
Vera—Guinevere—Vera turned in place, her face a careful mask of calm. She was the architect of this bloodshed. All the lives wiped clean from existence on this battlefield were on her hands.
When she turned, she nearly bumped into Tristan at her shoulder, strong, muddied and bloodied. He wasn’t to be fooled by her façade. He saw the truth; Guinevere was destroyed. For a fraction of a second, his chin quivered. He gripped her elbow and surveyed the wreckage.
That was it.
Vera blinked the memory away.
Tristan offered a thin smile across the throne room that she couldn’t return. The gravity of what had just happened—a memory, a real memory—pressed down on her. That had been different. That wasn’t like Merlin’s memories or the things that felt like a dream in the sensory tub. Vera remembered. Her own memories. Did that mean that she—
The doors flung open. The messenger was rushed in, supported on either side by two of Camelot’s soldiers. He wasn’t bound nor flanked from behind by any additional guards. He wore no armor and was only held beneath the arms by the soldiers because he’d collapse on his own. Arthur was on his feet first. The guards got the man a chair as Lancelot brought water. Arthur knelt before the man, peering up into his face with intensity, an impressive amalgamation of scrutiny and compassion.
The man’s breaths came in ragged, unsteady heaves. He wouldn’t be ready to speak for some time. Arthur turned to the soldier at his right. The soldier cast about himself uncertainly and only spoke after Lancelot gave him a curt nod.
“It—it was a Saxon invasion on Crayford, sire. The ones to come are refugees. Survivors. The entire city’s been destroyed. This is Robert, their town steward.”
