In fact, every single time I happened upon Merlin he was devouring some kind of food as if he could not get enough of it.
When Gawain had asked him about it the wizard had just muttered something about being stuck in a cave before wandering off. I supposed that after ten years without the comforts of the human world, I too would be craving such foods, so I did not hold it against his character even if it looked unmannered at times.
“It is sensible,” Gawain admitted as he twisted the nobs at the head of his lute before testing a few of the strings, his lips pulling into a smile when the correct note played for his well-trained ear. “Everyone is still here after all.”
Several of the tribal kings had changed their plans to head back to their territories after learning the wedding would take place with haste.
Every soul in the castle was eager to see the beautiful Princess Guinevere and handsome King Arthur wed, even if they wereoblivious to the underlying portent of magic and fate that had brought her here in the first place.
For my part, I had yet to see the omega up close since that night in the forest. Despite Merlin’s words, I just could not bring myself to believe them.
The time for believing in having an omega of my own had long since passed, having been buried behind my forge at Castle Camelot right alongside my amputated hand.
Much of me had died the day a Saxon’s sword had made quick work of my hand, cutting it off at the wrist while it still gripped my blade,Guerin, tightly. The sword my own blacksmith father had made me was still attached to my hip, but I was no longer the warrior he had made it for.
No, there was no world in which an old alpha such as me would be offered an omega.
Let alone share one with my king.
Meanwhile even as Merlin’s words rang of the truth, I still struggled with the idea of sharing an omega with not one, but three other alphas. Alphas I considered my brothers in arms.
And my king. A fact I continued to remind myself of.
“Sir Bedivere?” Gawain’s voice cut through my internal reverie, making me jump and nearly slice the thumb of the hand that was polishing the sword on the edge of the gleaming blade.
“What?” I groused, shooting the younger man a glare. He knew better than to distract me when I was working. I only had so many fingers left to work with and I did not need to slice them off in a fit of distraction.
“I believe that ifExcaliburshines any more we will be fraught with trying to find the difference between it and the sun,” he told me, nodding seriously at the gleaming blade.
I stopped the movement of my hand, examining the scrawling script that a blademaker who had lived long before I had etched into the metal.
To be even able to touch the blade of the king was a privilege in and of itself. Even the skills that my father had taught me before my becoming a knight paled in comparison with the faceless smithy who had crafted it.
“And I believe you are right,” I said with a stout nod, my ears catching the sound of approaching voices.
“Once you and Princess Guinevere marry at the shores of the lake, then you will lead the processional into the great hall,” Leodegrance’s castle steward, Lohegal, explained as he led Arthur and Leodegrance into the hall, gesturing at the pale wildflowers that adorned the tall stone columns.
“I see,” Arthur murmured, his gaze faraway as he stared up at them.
When he informed us that he would be going through with the marriage, my king’s expression had been odd. It was a mixture of reluctance and anticipation, making it hard to read how he was truly feeling about the nuptials and his future bride.
“And the feast will be roast pheasant,” the steward continued despite the king’s clear detachment from the topic at hand.
“Guinevere cannot abide by fish,” Leodegrance hurried to say, a happy smile on the older man’s face. “Her mother also could not stand to be in the same room as a trout and would run screaming whenever my mother insisted on having her favorite meal—eel and pickled cabbage.”
King Leodegrance had long been famous for his love for his first and only wife who, I had been told, died when Guinevere was but five years of age.
Prior to her appearance in our time, Leodegrance had just been an old bachelor, ready to let his brother Cador’s son, Erecus, inherit the throne of Carmeliad.
Now the kingdom would become a part of Camelot’s territory upon Leodegrance’s death, giving the entirety of the vast lakeland to Arthur.
When I was a lad, magic had been a thing of stories told ‘round the fire on a cold night. But as soon as Merlin, small and scrawny, had walked from the mists and introduced himself to Arthur all of those years ago it was like magic had returned to the land of Logres in droves.
The air buzzed with it on the night of the full moon and it had only grown since Merlin’s return. It was as if the land was welcoming him home.
Arthur’s gaze turned from the rafters of the great hall and found where we were sitting, then he jerked his head to the side in a silent request for us to join him.
“Come,” I told Gawain, grippingExcaliburin my hand as I crossed the busy hall to him, dodging the tray-laden servants until we reached the small group.
