And thenshestepped out of it.
The woman who descended from the carriage moved like she’d been practicing this entrance her whole life. She was tall in a regal sort of way, with dark auburn hair that contrasted beautifully against a gown of deep blue silk, which caught the light and held it. Her posture was the kind that gets drilled into daughters of noble houses before they can properly walk: head up, shoulders back, and chin at an angle that implied she was perpetually looking at something that was slightly above the horizon.
The court moved for her, that was really the only way to describe it: knights straightened, servants stepped aside, and the whole crowd in the courtyard seemed to exhale and reorganize itself around her passage.
Two knights bowed. I couldn’t tell which ones because their armor hid them. But the bows they gave her weren’t the half-nod they’d given me when I’d been Lioran, which was courteous but brisk, simply the acknowledgment of a peer. These were full, sweeping bows. The kind that meantwe know exactly who you are. And we know exactly how important you are.
The woman smiled at them, and her expression was gracious, warm, and practiced. It was then that I recognized her: Lady Isolde of Corbenic.
The first time I’d seen her was during the early days of the Shadow Trials. She’d appeared in the Great Hall during a feast, and I’d immediately noticed her ease with Arthur. Icould remember how she’d leaned over to congratulate him on something or other and how he’d smiled up at her, as though she mattered. But then he’d turned that icy manner of his on her, and she’d left the room, clearly disappointed.
So, why had she returned?
I pressed my palm flat against the cold stone of the wall and peered in closer. A woman near the carriage, a handmaiden from the look of her, leaned in to arrange a fold of Isolde’s blue gown, and Isolde touched her arm briefly in response, almost fondly: as though she knew the girl’s name and had for years.
The servants around Isolde were smiling, the genuine kind. I’d spent weeks in Camelot as Lioran, and I couldn’t have named a single servant who’d smiled at anyone here like that.
I didn’t know much about Lady Isolde of Corbenic beyond the outline: she was Arthur’s former betrothed. According to Percival, Isolde had been more than just a flitting interest for Arthur. Percival had said that perhaps Arthur had even loved her once upon a time. I could only assume the reason Arthur had broken off their courtship had something to do with the dragon. It seemed a fairly good reason to break an engagement when the beast within you might turn your beloved into embers.
Regardless, the question still remained: why was Isolde here now?
I watched her cross the courtyard and couldn’t help but notice that she moved like she belonged here, like Camelot recognized her and was glad she’d returned. Behind me, the guards had resolved their argument, or so it seemed, because they’d stopped their bickering. Now Lantern-jaw was clearing his throat.
“Move along.”
I moved, and I was grateful for it because I couldn’t say I was happy at seeing Isolde, something that made little sense as she was nothing and no one to me. So, why did I care?
I told myself I didn’t care why she was here. I told myself it was irrelevant to anything that mattered. And I was almost convincing.
-GUIN-
The guards led me to the newly appointed chambers of the Knights of the Round Table. Rather than the eastern tower, where we’d been located previously, the knights were now in the King’s tower, but his chambers were at the highest level of the tower, and these were a few floors beneath.
We paused in front of a door, and Lantern-jaw knocked once. The door immediately opened to reveal a dour-faced Galahad. As to what I was doing outside Galahad’s chamber? That was anyone’s guess.
“The king said we were to bring ‘er here,” Lantern-jaw said.
Galahad just nodded, and the guards released me, then turned around and left. I didn’t make any motion to do anything but just stood there, probably stupidly.
“Why am I—”
“—I’m to be your warden.”
Then Galahad pushed his door open even further, inviting me inside a space that seemed like its own form of trial. I didn’t even realize I’d moved until I was standing in the middle of the room and Galahad had closed the door around me. Only then did I notice how sparsely furnished his bedchamber was. The only things decorating the stone walls were icons. There must have been dozens of them standing close to each other, all painted with faces with dead-looking eyes, all wearing golden halos, which gleamed and shone whenever the light of thecandles hit them. The candles were placed at precise distances from each other on the windowsill, on the floor, and on the only table in the room.
There was a bed, technically, though it looked more like a plank that was raised six inches off the floor with a single gray blanket folded at its foot. And there was what I assumed was my pallet: thinner and flatter than Galahad’s bed and pushed against the far wall as if it had been an afterthought.
Why was Galahad my warden?I wondered.Why did I even need a warden?But then it all began to make sense: Arthur wasn’t going to allow me to live on my own, like Lioran. And Galahad was the only knight who wouldn’t be tempted by the sins of the flesh.
Fucking hell.
I made my way into the chamber even though I didn’t want to. Galahad walked to the middle of the room and looked at me with the same sort of detachment a doctor might have when looking at a wound that needed stitching.
“You’ll sleep there,” he announced and indicated the pallet. “You’ll rise when I rise. You’ll eat when I provide you with food. You will pray when I do.”
His tone was level and without any malice, but it was without any other emotion as well. Just plain and flat.
“I’m guessing the other chambers don’t look like this one.”
