I nodded. "My father was a foot soldier. He died in disgrace—accused of cowardice. My mother worked as a washerwoman.”
It had been a hard life. A life I’d buried beneath polished steel and knighthood. A life I'd rather forget.
"You have come such a long way. I never would have guessed—"
"—because I don't speak of it. It is information I keep close." I cleared my throat, suddenly uncomfortable with the fact that I was sharing too much. Furthermore, I didn't understand what was driving me to say as much as I had. Usually, I was a man of few words. At the moment, though, I appeared to be incapable of shutting my own mouth. I blamed Lioran and his blasted way of making a man want to spill his secrets.
"Anyway," I continued, "Arthur saw beyond all that. He believes birth determines where we begin, not where we finish.”
Lioran nodded solemnly. “An honorable way of thinking."
We moved deeper into the Wilds. I watched him walk—light on his feet, his awareness attuned to everything: the weight ofthe air, the way branches curved toward or away from us, the faint tension beneath the mossy earth. It wasn’t just training. It was instinct.
“Keep alert,” I told him, though I didn't need to. For some strange reason, I didn't like the sound of the silence stretching between us. “The forest might be beautiful, but it's never harmless.”
He nodded and gave me a quick smile, and that was when I sawit—that spark of something in his eyes. I could have sworn it was attraction or perhaps admiration. No, it was more than that—there was desire there in his gaze. It was the way his eyes lingered on me—just a touch too long. And too ardently.
The man desired me—it was obvious. And I did not know how to feel about it.
“Tell me about your mother, Sir Lancelot,” he said, then seemed to remember himself and his station compared to mine, adding quickly, “If you care to and you don't mind my asking?”
I did mind. I usually minded. Ishould haveminded.
So, why didn't I?
Was this some form of enchantment he was weaving around me? Some subtle spell I couldn't detect? In the last ten minutes or so, I had been acting completely unlike myself—my entire personality upended, my usual guarded nature stripped away like armor carelessly discarded. The knight who never spoke of his past was suddenly offering up memories like tribute. The man who kept his pain locked behind steel walls was letting a virtual stranger glimpse the scars beneath.
It was madness. Pure and utter madness.
I found myself studying Lioran's profile as he waited for my response, searching for some sign of magical manipulation. But there was nothing—no shimmer of sorcery, no telltale signs of enchantment. Just those keen eyes and that strange ability to make me want to bare my soul.
“My mother worked herself to the bone for us,” I started, surprised by how steady my voice was.
"Us?"
I nodded. "My mother, my sister, and me." I took a deep breath, thoughts returning to that time so long ago. “We barely scraped by—never had enough.”
“I assume your knighthood changed all that?”
I nodded. "Were it not for Arthur, I am quite certain the three of us would be dead."
"The king saved you."
"That he did."
"And your mother and sister? Do they live near Camelot?"
I swallowed hard, the words catching in my throat like thorns. "A fever swept through Logres two years ago." The memory hit me with unexpected force—the frantic ride home when word reached Camelot, the way the cottage had felt too quiet, too still when I finally arrived. I paused, my jaw clenching as I fought to keep the tremor from my voice, trying to force back the flood of memories that I hadn't visited in years: the smell of sickness that had lingered in the air, my mother's wasted form beneath piles of blankets, my sister's small hand growing cold in mine.
"I lost them both within a fortnight of each other."
The admission hung between us, cutting deeper than any wound I'd taken in battle. I'd spoken of their deaths to no one—not even Arthur knew the details, only that I'd returned bereft, the last of my family. We had never discussed the pain that had changed me, made me harder.
“I’m sorry.”
At the shaking of the underbrush, I held up a hand. “There.”
Beneath the shadows of an ancient oak, something moved.
