His dark eyes tracked my every step. One hand rested casually on his sword hilt, but the tension behind his expression was unmistakable. Unlike Arthur’s cold calculation, Lancelot’s scrutiny wasinstinctive.
Predatory.
He wasn’t just studying me. He wasdissectingme—the way I moved, the fact that I was so much smaller than the other contestants, my choice in magical feat. And from his expression, he didn't like what he saw.
I kept my posture loose, shoulders relaxed—just another unbothered knight among dozens.
But inwardly, I cataloged every exit. Every guard placement. Every path to escape, should I need one quickly.
I'd passed the first trial. But six more waited. Each unknown. Each likely harder than the last.
When the final demonstration ended, only thirty-five of us remained from the original fifty.
Arthur rose from his throne, crimson cloak falling in perfect, regal folds over his broad shoulders.
The room fell instantly silent.
“You have proven your magical heritage,” he said, his voice ringing with the practiced power of a man used to being obeyed. “But magic alone does not make one worthy of the Round Table.”
His gaze swept across us—sizing, measuring, weighing.
“In the trials to come, you will demonstrate not just strength and battlefield aptitude, but wisdom, courage, and loyalty. Remember this: magic is a tool to serve Logres… not a right to command privilege.”
His ice-blue eyes met mine briefly. I held Lioran’s expression steady—calm, unreadable. Not deferent. Not defiant. Exactly as rehearsed.
“Rest well tonight,” Arthur continued. “The next trial will test more than your magical ability.”
With that, the court was dismissed.
And the real games began.
The political machinery of Camelot engaged instantly with the relentless efficiency of a well-oiled siege engine. Factions moved like clockwork—precise, elegant, and carnivorous in their hunger for advantage. The moment Arthur's dismissal echoed through the great hall, nobles descended on the remaining knights like hawks spotting wounded prey.
Those bearing the crimson boar of House Redmane immediately clustered around Sir Aldric, their youngest son, clapping him on the shoulders with calculated enthusiasm while shooting meaningful glances toward the eastern lords who controlled the grain routes. The gold stag bannermen of the western mountain holds converged on Sir Gareth and Gawain, their whispered congratulations laced with promises of alliances and mining rights.
Right before my eyes, alliances crystallized with the speed of ice forming on a winter pond. Bargains were struck with handshakes that carried the weight of blood oaths. Reputations were bought and sold with subtle nods and carefully chosen words, fortunes shifting hands.
And me?
I moved through it all like smoke—unclaimed, unnoticed. Exactly as I intended.
But then I realized I hadn't escaped as unnoticed as I would have liked. Instead, several nobles bearing the silver fox sigil of the northern borderlands watched me with open curiosity. Thatemblem was unmistakable: the ancestral crest of old magic and older bloodlines.
One of them stepped forward.
I recognized him as Lord Carlisle immediately—the weathered face and calculating eyes were exactly as Merlin had described during our long strategic sessions in Annwyn's shadowed halls. The silver fox sigil standing proudly from his deep blue doublet confirmed what I'd already suspected: this was the man Merlin had spoken of with grudging respect and careful wariness.
Carlisle was a baron whose lands brushed the Standing Stones—where the veil between worlds thinned and magic still whispered through the earth. According to Merlin's intelligence network, which stretched far beyond the mystical barriers of our hidden realm, Carlisle had undergone a calculated transformation in recent months. Where once he'd been Arthur's most vocal critic in open court, challenging the king's policies with aristocratic privilege as his shield, now he played the role of the perfectly compliant noble. He bowed at precisely the right moments, offered the expected platitudes about Arthur's wisdom, and kept his true thoughts locked behind a mask of courtly deference.
But beneath that carefully constructed façade burned the same rebellious fire that had once made him Arthur's most dangerous political opponent.
His silver-streaked beard and heavy fur cloak marked him as one of the old guard—nobility that predated Arthur’s rule, and in some cases, barely tolerated it.
“An impressive display, Sir Lioran,” Carlisle said. His voice was smooth, deliberate—and low enough that no nearby knight could overhear. “Your magic reminds me of the old traditions,” he continued, eyes narrowing just slightly. “Before Arthur’s... restrictions.”
A test.
He was probing—feeling out whether I might lean toward the old ways. Toward those who remembered when magic wasn’t regulated, forbidden, or politicized.
