"But what of the ban on magic?"
"It must remain. Without it, the beast will surely awaken fully."
I frowned. "Then how am I to fight Merlin's magic with magic of my own?"
She was silent for a moment. "Camelot is still warded, is it not?"
The wards still held. They remained my one bastion of safety. Even with our fractious history, Merlin's enchantments had held strong—his magic woven so intricately around Camelot, the King's Guard, and the Iron Hounds that, to our advantage, the wards still staved off the dragon’s full awakening. These wards protected the grounds as well as my emissaries, allowing magic to be practiced without feeding or rousing the dragon.
As Merlin had explained it, the spell that fed the wards was not sustained magic. Instead, it was a one-time working. That meant the wards did not actively draw magic. The spell protecting the castle and emissaries had been cast once, seven years ago, when I first took the dragon. It was paid for in full at the moment of creation. Now, the trigger on the wards was merely mechanical, not energetic. Merlin had told me to think of the magic as a landmine, not a fire.
If only Merlin could have similarly warded the larger kingdom of Logres with as much precision as he had Camelot... But such was an impossibility, owing to the sheer size of Logres.
"Yes," I answered Blodeuwyn's question. "The wards still hold."
"Then Camelot remains protected." Blodeuwyn was silent for a moment. "The Knights of the Round Table once served you, did they not?"
"Yes."
"Each knight with his own variety of magic."
"Yes." I could not help but feel uneasy with the direction this conversation was headed. Anything to do with magic disquieted me immensely.
"Then reinstate the Knights of the Round Table—reaffirm the station of the original knights you still deem worthy and welcome new ones. Fortify your position as king by fortifying themagic of Camelot. Only then will you be able to face Merlin in victory."
The thought of embracing magic again sent tendrils of dread crawling up my spine, but I could not deny the brutal logic of her counsel. If I harbored even the faintest hope in hell of defeating Merlin—if I wished to stand against the Archmage of Annwyn without being utterly crushed beneath his ancient power—then I had to bring magic back to Camelot. That much was clearly, undeniably obvious. As much as I cringed against them, her words birthed a cold, unwavering resolve within me.
The irony tasted bitter. After years of systematically purging magic from my kingdom, after watching countless practitioners die or flee in terror, I would now need to restore what I had worked so ruthlessly to destroy. The dragon in my chest stirred restlessly at the thought, its ancient hunger recognizing the promise of power soon to be unleashed once more.
"Very well. I will reinstate the Knights of the Round Table and make them stronger than they ever were before."
-GUIN-
Camelot's Hall of Lineages stretched before me: endless stone tombs crowned with marble effigies of the dead. Cold moonlight spilled through narrow windows, highlighting their ancient inscriptions. The air tasted of the rot of death and forgotten oaths.
At the far end of the chamber,hewaited.
Arthur Pendragon stood between two crumbling pillars, his crown glinting silver against his hair. His presence hitme immediately—that terrible magnetism that bent rooms and men to his will. His blue eyes fixed on me, his expression hard.
"Come here."
Not a request. Never a request.
My feet carried me forward though every instinct screamed to turn around and run. The distance between us collapsed with each step I took, tomb after tomb blurring in my peripheral vision until I stood within arm's reach of the king. Heat radiated from him, scorching.
"You owe your king a tithe." His voice dropped lower, intimate. Dangerous. "What will you pay?"
I glanced down at the rags that covered my body. The dirt on my feet. The bareness of my legs. "I have nothing to give."
His hand caught my chin, forcing my face upward so I could see the steel of his gaze. "You have exactly what I require."
His lips captured mine before I could object, and I found myself yielding to him immediately—to the taste of him, the firm grip of his hand against my back. He tasted like smoke and fire, commanding and fierce, his tongue sliding against mine with dominant force. My fingers found his shoulders, my mind telling them to push him away, but they gripped him instead, pulling him closer.
"Your body," he murmured against my lips. "You'll pay with your body."
Stone pressed cold against my back as he lifted me onto the nearest tomb. The marble chilled through my thin shift while his hands burned trails up my thighs, parting them as if I belonged to him. Beside me, the carved face of some long-dead king stared unseeing at the vaulted ceiling.
When I brought my attention back to Arthur, he had already shed his clothing. All I could focus on was the image of the dragon sprawled across his chest, disappearing overone shoulder. Black ink was stark against golden skin. The creature's wings spread over his collarbones, tail coiling down toward his abdomen, talons splayed possessively across his ribs.
