It washer.
Her strength, her bearing, her defiance in the face of impossible odds.
The truth I could no longer deny: my feelings were real. They always had been.
I couldn't sleep. The air hung thick with unsaid things. Tomorrow, I would watch her more closely. Try to find a way to speak with her alone. Not to accuse—but to understand.
That, at least, I could justify to Arthur. No knight should be condemned without cause. I had built my entire life on precision—on certainty. And I would not abandon that now.
But even that excuse, as noble as it sounded, rang hollow in my heart.
Because the truth—the most dangerous truth of all—was that I didn’t want her punished. I didn’t want her gone. I wanted her here. With me.
The revelation stole the breath from my lungs.
Was it desire? Yes. But it was also so much more than that.
She'd entered Camelot in secret. She'd lied, and I should have hated her for it.
But I didn’t.
I only wanted to understand her. I wanted to know why.
And in the quiet recesses of my mind, when I conjured the image of her softly whispering my name—my name—with an unmistakable yearning lacing her voice, her delicate head thrown back against the cool stone of her chamber in the dim light... it dawned on me that she had already claimed a piece of me, something I might never hope to recover.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
-KAY-
The eastern corridor to the knights’ quarters stretched before me, long and silent.
Cold moonlight pooled through the narrow windows, throwing the passage into soft shadow. I pressed myself into an alcove between two stone columns, the chill of the wall biting through my tunic.
Camelot's stones knew me. They’d heard the whispered strategies Arthur later claimed as his own. They’d absorbed the weight of my footsteps as I paced alone at night, deciphering enemy movements while Arthur received songs and praise for battles I’d all but choreographed.
The tapestries lining the corridor depicted scenes of valor, triumph, and sacrifice—none of them mine.
How many campaigns had I planned in silence while Arthur basked in the glory? How many victories borehisname when it had been my calculations, my foresight, that ensured their outcome? Even as boys, the pattern had taken root. Arthur's laughter carried farther. His mistakes were forgiven faster. His sword, his smile, his blood—all golden.
And I, ever the moon to his sun, was left to make brilliance out of shadows.
Arthur was marked for legend, while I remained the footnote. The foundation no one praised, the scaffolding discarded once the monument stood tall.
Bitterness coiled in my chest, familiar and acidic. I tasted it now as I had a hundred times before.
Then I heard the telltale sound of footsteps. Someone was coming. The sound pulled me from the abyss of my own thoughts, which was just as well. I did not enjoy the poison my own mind concocted for me.
Lioran. She passed my alcove, unaware of the storm she walked beside.
I stepped forward.
The shadows peeled off me like a second skin.
"A moment of your time,SirLioran," I said, letting the title curdle in my mouth like spoiled wine.
She turned.
For a heartbeat, her mask slipped—just enough. Then it was back, composed and sharp.
