The contradiction tore at me like a blade through flesh.
Even though it wasn't my magical specialty, I'd still spent years honing my ability to read people—detecting lies in the flicker of an eye, the subtle shift in posture, the tremble of a hand, the infinitesimal break in a breath that betrayed uncertainty or guilt. That hadn't required magical acumen or the gifts passed down through bloodlines. All it had required was relentless observation, countless hours studying the minute tells that separated truth from deception, and the hard-won understanding that survival in Arthur's court depended on knowing who could be trusted and who posed a threat before they revealed their true intentions. And yetshehad walked among us—with me—her true nature concealed behind those expressive eyes that revealed and obscured with equal mastery.
I paced the length of my chambers, fists clenched, breath shallow.
I remembered the training yard—her movements there. Too graceful for most knights, yet no less lethal. Was it by design?Had that softness been calculated, meant to disarm, to charm, to draw us in? And what of our conversations when it had just been the two of us? What of our time spent in that cave during The Hunt? Were those words rehearsed, honed like weapons to win my trust?
Or had they been fragments of something real?
That was the most dangerous possibility. That both could be true. That she was what Arthur feared—a spy, an agent of Merlin sent to undermine Camelot, or an agent of the Northern Rebellion—and still the person whose presence I had come to crave more than anything.
The thought made my head ache with confusion.
And dread.
Because if Arthur discovered her before I did… before I learned the truth…
He would kill her. Or worse.
Interrogation. Torture. Execution. I'd overseen all three. I'd done far more than stand by and watch. I'd questioned, broken, and ended lives without blinking. I knew how to make a man scream without ever raising my voice.
But the thought of her strapped to a stone slab, her white hair matted with blood, her violet eyes dimming beneath iron and fire, her shrieking in pain—the tremor that passed through me then had nothing to do with battle.
“What in the bloody fuck am I supposed to do?” I breathed.
I braced my hands against the cold stone of the wall, the pressure grounding me. Camelot’s walls had once felt sacred—solid, eternal. Now they felt like a cage closing around me.
Arthur had seen worth in me when I was nothing. He’d pulled me from the gutter, shaped me into his weapon, his shadow. I owed him everything.
But I couldn’t forget the chill in his voice when he spoke of her. That wasn’t a man driven by justice. That was a manpossessed by his own desires. And though I definitely desired her too, my carnal need for her was balanced with the need to protect her. Arthur's wasn't.
Was that the king I served? Had I ever truly seen him for who he was? Or had we both become something else—monsters in the armor of righteous men?
The wine sat untouched on the table.
I didn’t need drink. I needed answers.
And only one person could provide those answers.
I would go to her. Tonight. No more evasions. No more pretending I didn’t know the truth. I would look her in the eye and speak plainly. I would tell her what I knew—that Lioran was a disguise, that she was the white-haired woman who haunted Arthur’s dreams, the one who pulled the sword from the stone.
And then I would demand the truth: why she was here, who had sent her, and what she wanted.
If she told me the truth… if she admitted everything… perhaps there was still a way to protect her.
But if she lied? If she stonewalled? If she denied?
Then I would do what I had been trained to do. I would do my duty.
Even if it broke something in me to do it.
-LANCE-
Several hours later, after making the calculated rounds through Camelot's Great Hall—where I'd worn my mask as the First Knight—I’d finally escaped to the sanctuary of my chamber. The feast had been an exercise in endurance, each smile carved from stone, each pleasantry delivered withprecision. I'd moved through the crowd of nobles and knights like a specter, accepting their toasts to my valor, deflecting their questions, all while my thoughts circled like carrion birds around a single, consuming obsession.
The venison was tasteless on my tongue. The wine, usually my faithful companion in drowning the hollow ache that gnawed at my chest, had tasted of nothing but bitter necessity. Every laugh from Arthur's table had scraped against my nerves like steel on stone, and every glance toward my king holding court had reminded me of the growing chasm between duty and desire that threatened to tear me apart.
During the feast, I'd watched as Lioran made the rounds she always did—those careful, calculated circuits through clusters of knights and nobles. Never lingering too long in any one conversation, never allowing herself to be cornered or drawn into the kind of intimate discourse that might expose whatever secrets lay beneath her carefully constructed façade.
