The tiny mage shifted in her seat before she spoke. “If all that happens as you theorize, it means—”
“Yes.” Gawain nodded. “It means this crisis is no one’s fault but our own.”
“And your device. You’ve made that using your gifts, have you?” Ratamun said, his anger gone, hunger replacing it. “There’s never been anything that could track power before. Does it work?”
Gawain hesitated. “I believe so.” He didn’t answer the first question and quickly wrapped the device back up, tucking it away.
Ratamun’s chin jutted forward, and he called out louder than the murmurs around him, “I think we should do it.”
The room erupted. Gawain wasn’t bolstered. He clasped his hands tightly, knuckles going white. Naiam tapped her hand on the table, the thick gold ring she wore echoing like a gavel with each strike.
“We will take a vote,” she said as the room quieted. Her eyes were dark, and all the lilting of her voice had gone. “Will you excuse yourself?” she asked Gawain.
Gawain, shoulders tight, stiffly nodded as he rose and left the room, not through the main entry stone that entombed them but into a side chamber directly behind him.
Lancelot’s chair scraped against the floor as he stood abruptly. “I would like to excuse myself as well.” He moved before anyone acknowledged him.
Vera started to follow, remembered that they were already suspicious of her, and settled back in her chair.
Arthur gave her hand a soft squeeze. “Go on,” he whispered.
She darted to follow, noting Naiam’s tight-lipped disapproval and feeling it on her back the whole way. Vera didn’t care. She slipped into the side chamber and closed the door. It was little more than a closet, a stone dungeon with no windows.
Gawain pressed himself into the corner. “I’ve signed my death warrant,” he said dully, though his eyes were wide and skin pale. “It would have been enough to tell our secret, but suggesting we sacrifice our gifts … I’ll be executed.”
“You won’t.” Lancelot took Gawain’s face between his hands, giving the mage’s roving eyes a focal point. “We aren’t going to let that happen.”
Gawain looked like he felt sorry for Lancelot. “The authority you have does not carry the power you think it does,” he said in a monotone.
Lancelot sighed, patting him on the cheek with an exasperated laugh. It set Gawain off. He pushed Lancelot’s hands away. “Did you not hear what I told you in there? About how we get our gifts? Stabbing in the heart. Lancelot, I have more than a thousand powers.”
“You’ve killed that many people?” Vera said quietly.
“No.” The animalistic urgency cleared from him, bringing back the Gawain they knew as he thought about the numbers. “More were—” His mouth twisted, moving soundlessly as his face reddened. “Shit. I’m not in the room. I can’t say it. I should have said it before.” He groaned and shook his head. “Over two hundred and fifty human beings have met their end looking into the whites of my eyes. Do you understand?” His voice rose frantically.
Lancelot reached for him. “You were only—”
“No,” he snarled, reeling away. “I am a monster. Look at me like I’m a monster.” Lancelot didn’t. Vera knew she didn’t either. Gawain stumbled back against the wall. “Fuck.” He crushed his hands against his face.
“What’s a Retention Spell?” Lancelot asked abruptly.
Gawain sighed. “It makes a gift impossible to steal on death, disincentivizing killing amongst mages. Viviane invented it. She had more gifts than most mages combined.” Had they known that alone … that those gifts weren’t won by her brilliance in the laboratory but by her willingness to end life, would they have ever trusted her? Would they have trusted any of the mages?
The door opened, and they all tensed at the combination of movement and noise, relaxing some when it was Arthur who entered the already crowded room. Gawain moved like he was about to kneel, but he wasn’t fast enough.
Arthur hugged him, muttering, “Thank you.” As he released Gawain, he said, “That was selfless and courageous to stand against all of your upbringing—”
“My upbringing but also my choice, Arthur. No one forced me to keep being a mage.”
“How old were you when you became a mage?” Arthur asked. “Did you have to kill to receive your earliest gifts?”
Gawain shook his head. “We’re all given our second power, marking the start of life as a mage. I was seven when Merlin gave me mine.”
“On receiving that, you were also inducted into the secrets you were magically bound to keep. Then there was war, and you did what we all did in battle.”
Gawain’s voice chirruped in the start of a protest that Arthur would not hear as he continued. “And you were made the youngest member on the high council of mages. And today, you stood against them as no one has ever done, and it just might save the kingdom and save magic for all of us. I’d knight you for a second time if I could.”
Gawain dared to look hopeful, searching Arthur’s gleaming eyes. “Did they approve—”
