I leaned back on the mattress, staring up at the darkened ceiling, letting the silence settle around me.
The Riddle of Blood had shown me who I was.
The question now was—what would I do with that truth?
-ARTHUR-
Earlier That Same Day
The last candidate of the Riddle of Blood Trial—Sir Hadrian—passed through the doorway. I watched his secrets spill into the air—an affair with a married woman, debts unpaid, a brother's betrayal avenged with violence. Nothing that disqualified him from service.
"The Riddle of Blood has spoken," Mordred announced, his eyes sweeping the chamber. "Fourteen knights remain. You have proven your blood carries no taint that would dishonor your king or the Round Table." He took a breath. "Two more trials await you."
The candidates bowed as one. Relief washed across several faces. Others maintained their stoic composure, as though they'd never doubted the outcome—of course, Galahad was among them.
As we walked from the Hall of Lineages, I gestured for Mordred to follow me from the ritual chamber. The stone walls swallowed the murmurs of the remaining knights as we moved into the adjacent gallery, away from prying ears.
"A strong showing," Mordred said, his long fingers tracing the silver runes embroidered into his midnight robes. "Though I must confess, Sir Rogeric's connection to the House of Ravencroft surprised me. I hadn't realized his grandmother married into that bloodline."
"The Ravencrofts have always been prolific." I stopped before the narrow window overlooking the training grounds. "What did you make of Kay's results?"
"Predictable. He has always envied you, always believed he should have been king—that is no secret." Mordred's voice carried no judgment, merely observation. "Though his dedication to your service appears genuine enough."
I nodded, my thoughts already drifting from Kay to the knight who had occupied far too much of my attention of late.
"And Lioran?"
Mordred's pause stretched a heartbeat too long. When he spoke, his tone remained measured, but I had known the man long enough to detect the undercurrent of uncertainty.
"An interesting case, Your Majesty."
"Interesting." I turned from the cold stone of the wall to focus on Mordred's even colder expression. "That is rather diplomatic phrasing."
"His blood revealed... very little." Mordred moved to stand beside me, his gaze distant as he, no doubt, recalled the ritual.He met my eyes, the blue one sharp with intellectual curiosity, the black one fathomless.
"Do you read anything into it?"
He cocked his head to the side and then shook it. "It could be as simple as his claims—peasant stock, no notable ancestry to trace. Common blood sometimes appears this way, Sire. No great deeds to anchor the visions. No significant bloodlines to illuminate the path backward."
"Or?"
"Or there is deliberate obscurement." Mordred's thin lips pressed together.
"And? What are your thoughts?"
"I detected no active magic during his portion of the trial. No wards, no glamours. If someone hid his true lineage, they did so with remarkable subtlety."
I thought of Lioran's expression as those memories played out. The shame, the determination, the hunger. All of it rang true. And yet the dragon within me coiled tighter whenever the young man drew near, as though recognizing something I couldn't see.
And what the bloody hell was it? What did the dragon know that I didn't? And why wouldn't it fucking tell me?
"Have your spies discovered anything of interest regarding Lioran?" I asked Mordred. "Anything that would explain the gaps in his story, his quite muddled ancestry?"
"Nothing of immediate concern." Mordred clasped his hands behind his back with that precise, measured gesture that had become as familiar to me as my own breathing. The silver streak in his dark hair caught the pale light filtering through the chamber's tall windows as he straightened to his full height. "We located the noblewoman who sponsored his entry into the trials—Dame Yseldra, as he claimed. She is precisely what one would expect from his description: an obscure northern widowof modest holdings, possessed of enough wealth to sponsor a promising young man but hardly significant enough to warrant deeper scrutiny from the crown's agents."
Mordred's eyes remained fixed on something in the middle distance as he continued his report. "Her estate lies in the borderlands between here and Carlisle's territory. Remote enough to avoid regular oversight, prosperous enough to maintain her charitable patronage. She keeps to herself, pays her taxes promptly, and by all accounts leads the unremarkable life of a minor noble managing her late husband's legacy."
"And yet she did not come to court to watch her protégé perform?"
