“An unremarkable lineage,” Mordred said at last. I turned to him; his expression was unreadable beneath his heavy hood. He traced slow, absent patterns along the silver chain at his neck. The triangular crystal pendant there—his focus and channel—remained inert against the folds of his midnight-blue robes.
“Lioran’s heritage appears to be that of minor water mages from the northern provinces,” I said softly, my words for his ears alone.
Mordred nodded. “Stranger things have happened.”
The ambiguity in his tone prickled along the edge of my awareness. Even now, after decades of battle and diplomacy, Mordred remained unreadable. And I hated it.
Lioran stepped away from the altar, the faint echo of the ritual’s magic still humming around him like a song half-forgotten.
Though I couldn't hear his exact words, I could see Agravaine berating Lioran about his humble origins and the absence of aristocratic blood in his ancestry. Lioran said nothing; he still appeared rather shocked from the trial itself and simply stood beside the altar, staring forward as though something was haunting him.
"And now," Mordred said, his voice carrying through the chamber with quiet authority, "the second half of the Riddle of Blood awaits. You must walk through the doorway, Sir Lioran. Accept what your blood has revealed. Face what secrets lurk within your mind."
I watched Lioran's throat work as he swallowed.
Every knight before him had hesitated at this threshold. The second half of the Riddle of Blood stripped away pretense, dragging hidden truths into daylight. Shame, guilt, ambition—the doorway revealed it all. Some candidates had emerged broken, their darkest moments displayed for all to witness. Others, like Galahad, had walked through with heads held high, their secrets mundane enough to pass without consequence.
Lioran squared his shoulders and approached the shimmering archway.
He stepped through.
The air around the doorway rippled, then erupted into numerous images—fragments of memory given form. I leaned forward, intent on studying every detail.
The first vision materialized: Lioran as a younger man, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, standing before a weathered cottage. A woman—his mother, perhaps—lay sick in a rough-hewn bed. I watched him press coins into her palm, far more than a peasant boy should possess. His face twisted with shame as she asked where he had gotten them.
The image shifted. Lioran in a merchant's stall, pocketing food while the vendor's back was turned. Small thefts. But in the name of survival. The kind of desperation that drove good people to compromise.
Nothing that concerned me. Poverty had bred these choices.
The third vision bloomed: Lioran training in secret, moonlight streaming through the gaps in an old barn roof. He moved through sword forms with clumsy determination,practicing strikes against a post wrapped in old sacking. No teacher guided him. No master corrected his stance. He had learned alone, stealing knowledge from watching others, cobbling together technique from observation and stubborn repetition.
That explained the raw edges in his fighting style—the brilliance mixed with gaps in fundamental technique. Self-taught. Ambitious enough to pursue knighthood despite having no proper instruction. That spoke to his character, not conspiracy.
Another vision emerged: Lioran standing at the edge of a cliff, looking down at Camelot from some distant vantage point. The wind whipped his cloak around him as he stared at my castle with an expression I recognized all too well—longing mixed with resentment. The look of someone who wanted desperately to belong to something far greater than themselves, yet believed they never would. A man who saw the walls of power and knew he would always stand outside them because he didn't believe he belonged.
The visions faded.
I sat back, processing what I'd witnessed. Theft born of necessity. Self-taught skill born of determination. Outsider's resentment born of exclusion.
All perfectly reasonable secrets for a knight of humble origins to carry. Nothing that raised alarm. Nothing that suggested conspiracy or connection to Carlisle's machinations. And nothing that would point to any relation to the white-haired beauty. I had to admit—that was the most disappointing part.
And yet.
That nagging instinct refused to quiet. The dragon within me stirred, its interest in Lioran undiminished despite these revelations. If anything, the beast seemed... amused. As thoughit knew something I didn't. As though it saw past the surface to some deeper truth the Riddle of Blood had failed to capture.
Or perhaps I was imagining the whole thing, and this was yet another instance of the dragon's will seeping in to eclipse my own.
Lioran emerged from the doorway, his face pale but composed.
Mordred studied him. "Your secrets are modest ones, Sir Lioran. You may take your place among those who have passed the Riddle of Blood."
Lioran bowed and stepped aside.
-GUIN-
I drew in a breath, steadying my posture.
I couldn’t afford to collapse under the weight of truth, not when I was still standing before my peers. My heartbeat pounded, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. Somehow, I held my expression in place.
