I raised the goblet, hesitating. The truth was that I believed Kay. He didn't want me out of the competition because then whatever plans he had for me couldn't come to fruition. So, on this point, I could trust him. I took a small sip of the wine. Slowly. Shallowly. It was too sweet at first, then bitter—coating my tongue, almost crawling down my throat. My stomach turned, but Kay gestured for me to keep drinking. Each swallow was heavier than the last. Each time I sipped, Kay motioned for me to take another sip. Soon, I had finished half the contents of the goblet.
He leaned against the table, ankles crossed, watching me. That thin smile curved his lips again—never reaching his eyes.
“You don’t understand the gift you are.” His voice was softer, stranger, almost awe-filled. “Because you don’t grasp the…complicatednature of my relationship with your king.”
He traced the rim of his goblet with one long, pale finger, the motion slow and deliberate—almost hypnotic. The gesture should have been innocent, even elegant, but there was something predatory in the way his fingertip followed the curve of the gold-rimmed vessel. Each revolution was measured, controlled, like everything else about Kay. The soft whisper of skin against metal filled the silence between us, a sound that somehow felt more threatening than it had any right to be.
His eyes never left mine during this languid display, watching my reaction with the same calculation he brought to everything. The finger continued its lazy circuit—once, twice. When he finally lifted that same finger to his lips, tasting whatever residue of wine clung there, his smile sharpened. Casual in appearance, perhaps, but every fiber of my being recognized the danger coiled beneath that deceptively relaxed pose.
“Arthur, for all his virtue, for all his glory—hasneverbeen able to inspire in me what you just did by walking through that door.”
He sipped his wine with exaggerated pleasure, never breaking eye contact. When he lowered the goblet, a single crimson drop clung to his lip. He wiped it away slowly, deliberately.
“Arthur has everything—the crown, the sword, the love of the people." He cocked his head to the side. "Well, with the exclusion of the Northlands, I suppose." Then he nodded. "Glory that should’ve been shared between us, at the very least.” Bitterness seeped into his tone like rot. “But I wonder… would hetrade it all just to possess you, the way I do now? The way I own you…”
The wordownhit me like a slap. My skin crawled beneath his gaze, every blink a calculation, every breath a threat. He wasn’t lookingatme—he was measuring his ownership of me.
Rage ignited in my chest—white-hot and sudden. Not at what he planned to do to me. Not even at the violation waiting for me like a noose tightening with each passing second.
No.
What burned through me was that word.Own.
Kay thought he owned me. Believed it with the same certainty he wielded his sharp tongue and sharper intellect. The arrogance of it made my teeth grind together, jaw clenched so tight pain shot through my temples.
I'd faced death and lived to tell of it. I'd pulled the legendary sword from the stone. I'd infiltrated the most dangerous court in Logres while maintaining a disguise that could unravel at any moment.
And this bitter, twisted man thought I washis?
My mind raced through options I'd already exhausted hours ago. Fight—but the wine was already dulling the edges of my magic, making my connection to water feel distant, muted. Run—but where? Kay had clearly warded the room, and even if I managed to escape the castle, he'd expose me before dawn broke—then I'd be a wanted criminal. Scream—and bring guards running to discover exactly what I was hiding. Kill him—the letter with my truth would be delivered to Arthur.
Every escape route circled back to the same truth.
I had no way out.
The room seemed to close in, shadows stretching long and hungry as his presence grew to fill every inch.
"You don't own me."
He chuckled without humor. "Oh, but, girl, I do. Fully. I now own every decision you make. Just as I own your body. I own your reactions, I own your magical abilities… I. Own. You."
In a twisted way, I supposed he did. Kay held all of me in the palm of his hand like a fragile bird, and at any moment, he could crush it, crush everything I'd worked so hard for.
And yet he still didn't know my true name. It seemed like it hadn't even dawned on him to ask. In all his gloating, all his threats and possessive declarations, Kay had never once demanded to know who I truly was beneath the carefully constructed lies. And that was when I decided he wouldn't own this part of me. My name—my real name—would remain my own. It was the one piece of myself I could still protect, still keep sacred and untouched by Kay's manipulations.
He could threaten my mission, control my movements, and hold my life hostage with his knowledge of my deception. But he would never possess the truth of who I was at my core. That belonged to me alone.
As for the rest of this horrible quandary, I would figure it out. I had to. The thought of remaining under Kay's thumb for any extended period made every nerve in my body rebel against the idea. Because there was absolutely no way I was willingly going to submit myself to Kay's twisted games for much longer than necessary.
Tonight, yes—I had no choice in that matter. He held too many cards, knew too much, and had me too thoroughly trapped in his web of threats and implications. The wine was already clouding my judgment, and I was in his private chambers, alone and vulnerable. There was simply no way around bending to his will, at least for now.
But once I could clear my head, once I could step back and assess this nightmare with the tactical mind Merlin had trained me to use, I would find a way to thwart him. I would find hisweakness—everyone had one. I would discover what leverage I could use against him, what secrets he might be hiding that could turn the tables.
I just needed time. Time to think, time to plan, time to figure out how to escape this trap without destroying everything I'd worked so hard to build. My mission couldn't end here, in this chamber, at the mercy of Arthur's bitter foster brother.
I swallowed the bile rising in my throat, forcing my expression into stillness. But the wine was working against me—clouding my mind, blurring the edges of my thoughts. A cold sweat slicked my back.
Daughter of the greatest sorcerer alive, reduced to a pawn in another man’s power game. The thought made me ill.
