The ice construct had been impressive; I'd grant him that. An entire replica of Camelot, complete with banners and battlements, demonstrated both power and control. But magic alone didn't make a knight. Not the kind Arthur needed at his side anyway. When steel met steel and blood soaked the ground, what good was a pretty ice sculpture?
My eyes tracked the small knight as he stood among the others, shoulders squared back, chin tilted up in defiance of his obvious disadvantages. At least he possessed pride—perhaps the only quality that might serve him well here. I had to respect that much, even if everything else about him screamed weakness.
From what I'd gathered through castle gossip and the whispered conversations that followed new arrivals, Sir Lioran's background remained frustratingly vague. No great lineage, no famous deeds preceding his arrival at court. His beginnings appeared humble enough—similar to my own before Arthur had lifted me from obscurity and forged me into his greatest weapon. But where I'd earned my place at Arthur's side throughblood and steel, this slip of a knight had apparently caught the attention of some minor northern noble whose backing was sufficient to grant him passage to Camelot's gates. As far as I was concerned, the blessing of a patron could open doors, but it couldn't forge a warrior from soft clay.
I studied the way he held himself, the careful precision of his stance that spoke of training but lacked the unconscious readiness of a man who'd faced death and walked away. I was fairly certain that the smallest of Arthur's potential knights had never seen real combat, never felt an enemy's blade part the air inches from his throat, never stood in a field where the ground ran red with the blood of fallen allies. No doubt he was precisely the type who believed tournament melees and practice-yard duels had prepared him for the brutal reality of actual warfare.
He wouldn't last another trial. Couldn't.
The Round Table required men who commanded respect through presence alone. Men who could walk into a throne room or a battlefield and shift the air with their arrival. I'd built my reputation on being exactly that—Arthur's shadow and sword, the undefeated champion whose name made enemies reconsider their choices.
Sir Lioran would learn soon enough that Camelot had no place for pretty magic tricks wrapped in borrowed armor.
CHAPTER SEVEN
-GUIN-
After the Summoning Trial, we were led to the castle’s eastern wing, where bedchambers had been prepared for us—a place for a temporary rest before the feast this evening.
I watched the others drift through the vaulted stone corridors, their armor clinking, voices echoing. Already, they moved like droplets across a leaf—clustering by affinity, pooling into early alliances. Knights with complementary magic or those from the same territories found one another quickly, their laughter too sharp, too deliberate to be genuine.
I stayed apart, and they allowed me as much since I was unknown to everyone.
“Water magic,” said a soft voice at my side, “beautiful to witness. But I imagine… terrible in battle?”
I turned.
Sir Percival had matched my stride, that boyish face untouched by courtly cynicism.
“That depends on one’s creativity.” I chided my bad luck as I'd thought myself alone.
His smile reached his eyes, the corners crinkling in quiet amusement.
“Oh, I wasn’t criticizing. Most knights are terribly unimaginative about magic. Stab this. Burn that.” He wiggled his fingers with mock menace. “But water… waterthinks. Flows around what it can’t break. That’s clever.”
“You understand the elements well for a healer.”
He shrugged. “Healing is understanding."
Then, as though in demonstration, he flexed the arm that had taken the falcon’s pain. No show, no performance. Just quiet honesty.
“Your demonstration,” he added, “was different from the others.”
“Oh?” I asked, masking the tension in my voice.
“The others showed what their magic coulddestroy. You showed what yours could create.”
“Creation and destruction: two sides of the same coin.”
"I imagine Sir Tristan would agree with you."
At that, I remembered Sir Tristan's macabre display and shivered at the memory. The man had stepped into the summoning circle like a man approaching a lover's bed—graceful, unhurried, entirely confident. The air around him had chilled, shadows lengthening despite the noon sun overhead.
He'd spoken no words as someone wheeled in a wagon upon which was something covered with a large sheet of muslin.
When Tristan pulled the sheet back, everyone recoiled at the sight of a corpse. A soldier, judging by the rusted chainmail clinging to its desiccated flesh. The man had been dead for years, evidenced by his jaw, which hung loose, and his eye sockets were empty. The dirt falling from the corpse made me wonder where Tristan had unearthed the grotesque thing.
Tristan said nothing but simply positioned his hands above the grotesque remains, palms facing downward as if warminghimself by some invisible fire. The air around him grew heavy with a dark presence that made my skin crawl. Immediately, faint pinpricks of ghostly light—cold and blue—began to flicker and dance within the corpse's empty eye sockets. The illumination pulsed, growing brighter until those hollow cavities blazed with spectral fire.
