"What have you done, witch?"
"I believe the lady isn't interested in you or your minuscule cock, Kay," a woman's voice announced as she emerged from the shadows.
Elenora stepped into the flickering candlelight—but everything about her had changed, transformed so completely that I wondered if I'd ever truly seen her before.
Gone was the teasing sway of her hips, the coy posturing and breathy laughter she usually wielded like a perfectly honed blade among Camelot's knights. The practiced flutter of her eyelashes, the way she would lean forward just enough to display her décolletage, the soft breathiness that made men lean closer—all of it had vanished as if it had never existed. Now she moved withthe deadly, fluid grace of a huntress who had finally cornered her prey after a long and patient stalk.
Her shoulders were squared, her spine straight as a sword blade, every step deliberate and measured. She didn't seduce any longer. Instead, shestalked, feral and focused, like a wolf that had shed its sheep's clothing and revealed the gleaming fangs beneath.
The air around her seemed to shimmer with barely contained power, making my skin prickle with recognition even through the haze of whatever Kay had forced down my throat.
Kay jerked away from me, turning to face her as he fumbled with his braies and stood up. His sneer twisted further, rage barely masking the flicker of fear and uncertainty in his eyes.
“How dare you enter my chambers! Get out at once, you whore!”
Elenora only smiled.
But it wasn’t the smile she used in court—no flirtation, no charm. This smile was beyond cold. Calculating. Slightly amused. Her eyes, no longer honey-brown, gleamed an unnatural green, glowing faintly in the gloom. Or maybe it was the wine and herbs that were making me believe things that weren't true—maybe my mind was unraveling.
I forced myself upright, limbs trembling. My torn tunic clung uselessly to me, and I fought to wrap what little remained around my chest, hands fumbling, stomach heaving. The bedpost was the only solid thing in a world that felt like it was collapsing inward.
And still, Elenora stood there—motionless, as if she were a statue carved from moonlight and malice. She seemed completely unbothered by Kay's furious presence, by his venomous glare, by the way he was slowly, carefully inching closer to the table where his dagger rested among the wine goblets and half-melted candles. Her breathing was socontrolled it was barely perceptible, her posture relaxed yet savage.
All the while, through the fog of whatever concoction Kay had forced down my throat, one thought hammered at my consciousness: how in the seven hells had she entered his chamber? The heavy oak door with its iron reinforcements was the only entrance to this room. Kay had turned the key in the lock himself as soon as I'd crossed the threshold, the metallic click echoing off the stone walls like a death knell. I'd watched him pocket that key, seen his satisfied smirk as he'd done so.
She hadn't opened that door—I would have heard the hinges groan, would have caught the whisper of wood against stone. The herbs clouding my mind weren't strong enough to make me miss something so obvious. No—the more I stared at her, the more certain I became that she hadn't walked through that door at all. She'd simply... materialized. Steppedoutof the shadows themselves, emerging from the darkness like some otherworldly apparition.
And those shadows behind her—they weren't behaving like ordinary darkness should. They writhed and twisted with a life of their own, reaching toward her with what almost looked like grasping tendrils, as if they were reluctant to release their mistress back into the realm of light and substance.
She shifted her stance, and that was when my gaze fell on what she clutched in her right hand—a dagger unlike anything I'd seen in Camelot's vast armory or anywhere else for that matter. The weapon seemed to exist in defiance of natural law. Where normal steel would catch and reflect the flickering candlelight, this metal consumed it entirely, drinking in every bit as if the light itself were its sustenance.
Ancient runes crawled along the blade's length like living things—twisting, writhing, pulsing with an inner luminescence that shifted from deep purple to sickly green and back again.The dagger's crossguard was wrought in the shape of twisted serpents, their eyes tiny garnets. This was no mortal weapon. This was something forged in shadow and fed on darker things than steel.
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me,” Elenora said, pulling my attention back to the steel of her eyes. Her voice was unnervingly calm.
Kay moved before she could finish. He lunged for the dagger on his bedside table, fingers clawing toward the jeweled hilt.
But he never made it.
Elenora didn’t run. She didn’t leap. She simplywas—one moment across the chamber, the next beside him. As if the space between them had simply ceased to exist.
The dagger in Elenora’s hand came alive then—glowing with an eerie violet light. As Kay reached for his weapon, the curve of her blade suddenly kissed the hollow of his throat—no pressure, just presence. Again, she moved so quickly that mortal eyes would not have been able to track her.
A single drop of blood welled up from his neck, sliding down the metal.
The dagger drank it, the blood disappearing into the blade. In response, the runes flared brighter in what could only be described as satisfaction.
Kay froze. His breath caught. The arrogance drained from his eyes, replaced by something I’d never seen in him before.
Fear.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Elenora said, her voice like frost cracking across glass. The temperature seemed to drop even more until the room was so cold that even the candle flames stilled.
Kay’s hand hovered inches from his own dagger, trembling. Rage flickered behind his eyes, but it was hollow now—gutted by fear.
“You forget yourself,” he hissed. “I am the king’s brother. Arthur would—”
Elenora laughed.
