The question sliced through me. For one terrifying moment, I nearly answered as Guinevere, not as Lioran. But then I remembered myself and paused, turning my gaze toward the horizon—toward Annwyn’s distant border as I realized Lioran's and Guinevere's answers were much the same.
"I think…" I said slowly, choosing each word with care, "I would still serve. But not with a sword. I’d try to mend what’s broken. Stitch together what others have given up on—between people, between kingdoms, between ways of thinking."
He watched me, quiet for a long time. Then: "That’s a strange ambition for a warrior."
"Maybe that’s why I became one." I looked up at him once more. "Because ultimately, I want peace."
He studied me as if trying to read past the words or fully comprehend them. "You speak like someone who’s lost something."
"Haven't we all?"
He didn't say anything immediately, but I watched as something shifted in his expression—a flicker of understanding, perhaps recognition of shared wounds neither of us had named aloud. When he finally nodded, it was slow and deliberate, as if he were acknowledging not just my words but the careful truth between them.
"I owe you an apology."
The shift in his tone pulled my attention back to him. I turned from staring at the horizon to find Lance's expression shadowed with something that looked like regret.
"For what?"
He drew a breath as though fortifying himself. "When you first arrived at Camelot, I doubted you. Just as everyone did—as many still do." His jaw tightened. "I looked at your stature, your modest origins, and decided you didn't belong here. I even spoke to Arthur against keeping you in the trials."
I'd suspected as much—seen it in the way he'd watched me those first days—but hearing him voice his thoughts aloud still stung.
"Arthur protected you," Lance continued. "Said he believed everyone deserved a fair shot, regardless of birth or appearance." A bitter smile touched his lips. "The king saw what I couldn't. Or wouldn't."
Arthur. Again. Another facet of the man I'd been sent to destroy, glinting in the moonlight like an unexpected jewel. The tyrant who'd banned magic, who'd burned my village to the ground, who'd killed my parents—that same man had defended my right to stand among these knights when his own champion had questioned it.
I didn't want to know this. Didn't want these complications muddying the waters of my mission that had, at one time, been clear—things were infinitely easier when they were black and white, good and bad, right and wrong.
"I regret my actions now," Lance continued, his voice rough with self-recrimination. "The way I judged you so unfairly—the way I spoke against you. You've earned your place here as much as any knight in these trials. More than many, if I'm honest."
I looked up at him and gave him a small, grateful smile. "Don't dwell on it. I'm accustomed to people thinking such things."
"That's not the point." Frustration bled through his words. "I should have been better. I shouldn't have fallen into the same trap that everyone else did." His hand curled into a fist against the stone. "I should have allowed you to demonstrate your abilities free from unfair judgment. I'm angry with myself about it."
I studied him—this proud warrior—genuinely tormented by having misjudged a supposed nobody from the north. The contradiction between Lance's reputation and the vulnerable man before me grew more pronounced with each word he spoke.
"I forgive you, Lance," I said softly, holding his gaze. "And if I forgive you, then you need to forgive yourself."
The silence that settled between us wasn't uncomfortable or empty. Instead, it deepened into something almost tangible, heavy with unspoken understanding and the weight of secrets we both carried. In that quiet space, I became acutely aware of how close we stood, how the moonlight played across the sharp angles of his face, and how his breathing had synchronized with mine without either of us realizing it.
"If you could be anywhere else," he started, not looking at me as he changed the subject, which was just as well because I didn't want to focus on regrets, or the past, or anything that wasn't this moment. "Where would you go?"
His question struck me as precisely what it was—imagining possibilities. What if we were given the chance for an entirely different life? To make choices for ourselves that might have seen us in far different situations than we now faced? What if we hadn't answered fate's calling and, instead, had carved our own paths?
"Somewhere near water."
"Near water where?"
"A lake or the sea, somewhere I could hear the rhythm of the waves, where the water reflects the sky so perfectly you can't tell where one ends and the other begins."
"There's something honest about water," he offered with a nod as though we both were admiring the same painting. "It doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is."
I swallowed hard at that. Lance turned to look at me then, and for the first time since I'd known him, his smile was completely unguarded—genuine in a way that transformed his usually serious, battle-hardened features into something softer, more vulnerable.
This was Lance without his armor of duty and formality, without the weight of his reputation as Arthur's most feared knight pressing down on his shoulders. In the pale light filtering through the castle's ancient stones, he looked younger somehow, more like the man he might have been if fate had chosen a different path for him—one that didn't require him to be Arthur's shadow and sword hand, always ready to kill or die at his king's command.
In that moment—standing beside him beneath the stars—I felt a dangerous longing. Not just for him, but for a life unburdened by disguise. A life where I could be seen, fully and freely, as Guinevere, as the woman I was. A life that was so much simpler—where I was just a woman and he was just a man, and we were facing each other with no deception, no lies, just the beauty of honesty.
