He nodded. I looked away, unable to hold the gaze of my own reflection any longer, my eyes finding refuge in the distant golden fields of Eldenvale. The wheat swayed in endless waves, burnished copper in the fading light, but even that familiar sight seemed to mock me now.
The wind from Annwyn swept through the sacred grove, carrying with it the scent of twilight flowers and ancient magic. It rustled the leaves overhead with a voice like whispered accusations, each gust seeming to carry fragments of conversations I'd had with myself in the darkest hours of the night. The same questions, the same doubts, the same desperate hunger for something I couldn't name but had always been searching for.
"You serve Arthur now," Lioran continued. "But not because you believe in him. Because youdesirehim. Because youneedsomeone to want you."
"I do not serve Arthur."
Lioran's eyes narrowed. "You would serve him your cunt if you weren't afraid of him learning your secret."
I shook my head and took a step back. "That isn't true."
"Then why do you feel guilt about your attraction toward the king?"
I couldn't respond.
Lioran stepped closer still. "Just like the guilt you feel toward Lance." He laughed. "Because you fear to tell Lance the truth—that if you could, you would take his cock and Arthur's—at the same time." He paused. "And what of the guilt you feel toward Morgan? When she licked your cunt and you loved it? That guilt burns you even more than the guilt you feel toward Lance or Arthur."
I shook my head. "Stop it."
"You’ve spent your entire life becoming what others needed—Merlin’s spy, Arthur’s knight, Lance’s lover—but not once have you asked whatyouwant. Do you even know what you want, Guinevere?"
I turned on him then, my eyes burning. "Yes. I want to be free."
He nodded once, slowly. "Then remove the mask. Confess to the lies, the obedience, the guilt."
"I can't do that."
His expression darkened. "Then... you’ll never escape the shadow because youarethe lie. You are the disease. You are the guilt."
The wind died.
The world stilled.
Lioran faded into shadow.
And I stood alone once more, panting.
Two other figures slowly emerged from within the writhing shadows—phantoms of my own making. One was the dairy maid I had once been, her simple homespun dress patched and faded from years of honest labor. Soot smudged her pale cheeks, and her feet were bare against the cold earth, innocence clinging toher like the sweet scent of fresh milk on skin. Her violet eyes held none of the hardness that had crept into mine over these past years—only the wide-eyed wonder of a girl who believed the world was fundamentally good, who thought magic was something that happened to other people in distant lands.
The other was the Guinevere I’d become in Annwyn—Merlin’s apprentice, draped in robes of twilight silk. Her hair hung in a braid woven with silver threads, and arcane symbols glowed faintly along her sleeves. This version of me stood taller, shoulders squared with the weight of knowledge and purpose. Her eyes held depths the dairy maid’s never could—shadows of forbidden spells and whispered prophecies, of nights spent learning to kill with water and ice. Power radiated from her like heat from a forge, but it was cold power, calculated and merciless.
Then Lioran materialized once more, armor gleaming. The knight’s posture was rigid with masculine authority, one gauntleted hand resting on the pommel of a sword, the other clenched into a fist that spoke of barely contained violence. This façade wore confidence like a second skin, every gesture designed to command respect and project strength. The face beneath the helm was my own, yet harder somehow, carved from marble instead of flesh.
All three began to circle me in a slow, predatory dance, their movements eerily synchronized as if pulled by invisible strings. They moved with the grace of seasoned performers in some nightmarish pageant, feet barely touching the ground as they glided around me in perfect formation. At times, they blurred into one another at the edges of my vision, merging and separating with disorienting fluidity.
“Which identity will you wear today?” they intoned in discordant unison. “The innocent? The spy? The knight? The lover?”
The forms melted together, becoming a single entity that never ceased shifting—now the dairy maid, now Lioran in full armor, now the young apprentice with eyes like bruised amethysts.
Most disturbing of all were the flashes of a crowned queen seated regally on Arthur's ornate throne, cold and utterly serene, her face a mask of beauty carved from winter itself. A golden circlet rested on silver-white hair that fell over shoulders draped in royal blue velvet. She gazed out with eyes that held no warmth, no mercy—only the distant calculation of absolute power. Around her feet lay scattered bodies, knights and servants alike, their lifeless forms wreathed in tendrils of smoke that rose from wounds that bore no blood, only the gray ash of souls consumed by some unholy fire.
The vision shifted, wavering like heat shimmer, and another form stepped forward from the shadows behind the throne—this one completely obscured by darkness. No features were visible within that writhing void, yet I could feel its presence pressing against my mind like a cold weight, utterly alien to everything I understood about myself.
“You cannot defeat me,” the shadow said, voice layered and choral, “until you know who you are.”
"I know—"
"—no," it insisted. "You do not."
