Kay wouldn’t have told him—not when he was so obviously scared to death of Morgan. And Morgan wouldn't have told him either. So why, then, had Lance’s gaze lingered so long on me during the trial—searching, questioning, as though he were trying to see beneath the mask I wore?
And why had he said the things he had about the girl in the memory I'd had to sacrifice, a girl whom I assumed had to have been me as a child?
You’re being paranoid,I told myself.You’re exhausted. That’s all.
The magic binding my disguise to me felt heavier than ever, dragging like chains around my limbs. Each breath required conscious effort to maintain the illusion. The enchantment pulled at my reserves like a slow leak in a dam—constant, subtle, wearing me down.
My fingers trembled as I unfastened the ceremonial sword belt and let it fall. The thud reverberated through me like a heartbeat. The weight of my deception was crushing me. It had been all along, but now it hung even heavier.
I ran my hands through my illusory hair, feeling the phantom texture of coarse male strands. How much longer could I endure this? How long before the woman inside me refused to be silenced? I couldn't help but think of what Morgan had told me—to forge my own path, my own way.
I caught my reflection in the polished curve of my shield. Sir Lioran’s face stared back—flawless, calm, composed. But beneath the glamour, my true self clawed against the boundaries, like a butterfly desperate to escape a chrysalis too tight, too old.
My magic rippled under my skin. The illusion faltered.
I let it fall.
The disguise dissolved in a shimmer of mist and light, melting away like smoke. My shoulders sagged under the sudden relief, and I felt myself—mytrueself—settle back into place.
I stepped toward the mirror on my washstand with slow, reverent steps. The woman staring back felt like a stranger.
This was me. Guinevere. But I hardly recognized her.
The tears came slowly at first, like the first drops before a summer storm. Then the dam gave way. Great, shuddering sobs wracked my body as months of silence, secrecy, and strain poured out of me all at once. I cried for the loss of the parents whom I would always consider my true parents, even if they weren't related to me by blood.
I wept for Lance—his touch, his gaze, the dangerous tenderness I hadn’t anticipated. The feelings between us were built on lies but felt frighteningly real. I wept because eventhough I couldn't tell him the truth, he still wanted to protect me anyway when I didn't deserve it.
I clutched the edge of the washstand, trying to muffle the sound against my hands, but the grief was louder than caution.
I wept for the memory I'd given up, though I couldn't recall exactly what it was—just that there was an empty hollow within me that hadn't been there before. Whatever the memory was, it was gone now. Irretrievable. Something important sacrificed to prove I belonged here.
But I didn't belong here. And I was beginning to feel that truth more and more deeply.
I wept for Merlin, my father. The man who had never truly claimed me. Who had sent me into this place with barely a warning. Did I matter to him at all? Or was I simply another piece in his endless game?
I even wept for Arthur. Because he wasn’t the tyrant I’d expected. He was a man—deeply wounded, deeply burdened—and suddenly, that made everything so much harder. It made vengeance feel hollow. It made justice feel blurred.
And most of all, I wept for myself—for Guinevere, the girl caught between two worlds. Between magic and steel, between daughter and spy, between the woman I was and the man I pretended to be.
I was so tired of being divided.
When the sobs finally subsided, leaving me hollow but somehow cleaner, I raised my hands and called to the water.
Moisture drew from the air and coalesced into a perfect sphere above my palm. Within it, memories began to form—miniature scenes that spun like glass figurines:
My escape through the Standing Stones, terror burning in my lungs. My training in Annwyn, mastering water that refused to obey until I learned to listen to it. My first night in Camelot, disguised and shaking beneath heavy armor.
Each memory shimmered in the suspended sphere like light caught beneath ice.
This was my life. Fragmented. Stolen. Chosen.
But it was stillmine.
And there was more to it. Not just the moments I'd expected to define me—but the ones that had changed me despite my intentions. Conversations with Percival, his quiet kindness dismantling the armor I wore even when I wasn’t in disguise. The confrontation with Kay and Morgan’s unexpected rescue—proof that darkness did not always come from where I expected it, and neither did light.
And Lance. Always Lance. Looking at me with eyes that seemed to see through everything—beneath the armor, beneath the magic—to something startlingly real.
And Arthur…
