“Lancelot,” I tried softly, hoping to wake the alpha up, but he didn’t stir.
For just a moment I was worried he had died from his wounds, but one check on our new bond told me that he was just asleep. All four of my bonds were still intact—even the one I shared with Arthur though it was still dark and shadowed right now because of Morgana’s magic.
Henry finally came back after what felt like hours, his arms full of supplies.
“You should eat, your majesty,” he told me as he held out a piece of bread.
My heart swelled with affection for the boy as I took the bread gratefully and ate it in several ravenous bites.
Then, much to my surprise, Henry slipped through the bars of Lancelot’s cell.
“Mama Andrivete says I am small for my age,” the little boy told me sheepishly when he glanced over to see my shocked expression. “She says I can fit into the teeniest little spaces, like a little mouse.”
I watched as the boy got to work, pouring various bottles onto Lancelot’s back and making the alpha grunt even in his sleep.
“Did she also teach you about those?”
This time Henry shook his head. “No, my old mama told me about these, she used to heal people in the village.”
“Before the fire?” I asked, surprised and hoping we didn’t tear a little boy away from his mother if she was still alive. I wondered if any of the refugees who had settled into the village knew her.
But Henry shook his head again. “No, she died a long time ago. Got really sick.”
Then he lapsed into silence as he continued to spread salves on Lancelot’s battered back.
When he was done he slipped back through the bars and stood staring at me, his eyes seeming much older than they had earlier.
“I can steal the keys from the guards,” he offered, his hands gripping the metal.
It was my turn to shake my head. “It’s too dangerous. I need you to go outside of the castle gates and find Sir Bedivere’s forge. Hide there until everything is over.”
“But…”
“Promise me you won’t come out until everything is over and Sir Bedivere comes to get you,” I told him fiercely. If I was going to die there was at least one person I wanted to save from having to watch it.
Henry nibbled on his bottom lip before nodding. “Yes, your majesty. I promise.”
Then he was gone and I was alone with only the soft, even breaths of a sleeping Lancelot in the cell next door. Color had returned to his face after Henry’s earlier ministrations—not that it would matter much if they killed him too.
Pulling my knees up to my chest, I wondered just when Gawain and Bedivere would return. I knew they were trying their best to get back to me, but I hoped it was sooner rather than later.
One thing I had never considered about being lit on fire in front of a crowd before was just how much stage fright I still carried from my childhood.
There was a reason that I always hung out behind the scenes during my theater kids days, more content to paint the sets than to actually act on it and it had to do with staring out at all of the faces in the crowd and nearly hurling my dinner on them.
Now, as a slack-faced Sir Kay bound my wrists over my head I realized that I still felt the exact same as I had in the third grade when I nearly vomited all over the stage as tree #3.
The second strange thing was how eerily quiet everything was around us.
Every person gathered in front of me wore the same blank expression, not making a peep as they stared up at where I stood on a massive pyre.
To my left sat Morgana, Arthur, and a very bored looking Mordred. I couldn’t tell if the kid was watching paint dry or about to watch me be lit on fire for the entire kingdom to see, but either way it seemed as if he would have rather been anywhere else but here.
My gaze drifted over to Arthur who sat with his hands on his knees, his eyes staring forward.
Desperately, I reached for his bond the same way I had ever since he pulled me from Lancelot’s arms, but it was still dark and far away as if someone had stretched it past the point of elasticity.
No, it was clear that Arthur’s mind was far away from me right now.
