Corvin’s name. Guinevere’s name beneath it.
She was with Galahad now, which meant she wasn’t my concern for the time being, and that was just as well because Ineeded a break from her, and from the never-ending thoughts about her that wouldn’t let up.
I drank the tea. It tasted like metal and old leaves.
Something was pushing against the edges of the world, and it had been doing so for longer than anyone had told me, and every person who might have explained it to me had their own reasons for the particular silence they’d chosen.
I looked at the window. The arrow thunk continued below. Steady, rhythmic, ordinary.
The door swung open.
Kay didn’t bother knocking; he never did. I allowed it because arguing with Kay over trivialities was pointless when I could hardly be bothered. He came into the room carrying his leather satchel under one arm, his face set into that expression he always wore just before he ruined my day.
“Here are the harvest petitions from the north,” he said, setting a second stack of papers beside the ones I still hadn’t read. “The Archbishop has sent another letter. And the envoy from Gaul is requesting an audience before the week’s end.” He paused and set his portfolio on the edge of the table. “And the Corbenic delegation arrived yesterday.”
He let that land as I put the cup down. “The Corbenic delegation... is here?”
“Lady Isolde,” he said with a clipped nod. “Along with the envoy of her father, two counselors, and twelve others.” His voice conveyed nothing, no emphasis, no inflection. Only facts, spoken in his usual flat voice, as if he were watching me through the words. “They were expected, of course; this visit has been planned since late summer.” A pause. “I assumed you remembered?” I didn’t. “She’s here to discuss trade pacts, clarification of borders, and review of the grain tariff.” He adjusted a piece of paper that didn’t need adjustment. “I’vemade plans for a reception in the Great Hall at midmorning. I trust you won’t object; it seemed fitting.”
I said nothing.
“Will that suit you?”
“That will suit me.” How had I forgotten that Isolde was coming?
Kay stared at me. And in that second, his power escaped him involuntarily. I could see it: that split second in which he appraised everything around him and saw the fissures in it. He’d done it from the time we were children, and I’d despised it then. But I disliked it even more now, though for other reasons.
He was gone without saying another word.
I sat alone with the reports and still didn’t read them.
Isolde.
The name moved through me with a sensation I wasn’t certain how to fully describe. It was something quieter and more complicated than the dragon’s pull. Not heat exactly, but something warm. The memory of her in the garden in Corbenic came back even though it was something I’d been deliberately not remembering: the smell of night-blooming roses, the full moon in the sky, her lovely face, her voice in the dark saying,I recognized the look of a man who needed air.
Ihadneeded air.
She’d followed me because she was curious, or at least that’s what she’d said. I’d stayed because I liked the fact that she was direct, that she spoke to me as if we were equals. We talked about horses for an hour and then about obligation for another hour, and when she disagreed with me, when I said something about Uther’s methods that she found defensible, she told me plainly she found them defensible. Strangely, the disagreement had felt like a doorway into something real, something that didn’t require me to perform, something that felt like fresh air rushing into a stale room.
I’d almost kissed her that night.
I remembered the weight of the moment: her hand on my arm, her face tilted toward mine, the space between us reduced to a breath. I’d leaned in. I’d crossed half the distance. And then the dragon had moved: shifted inside my chest with the slow awareness of something old and very large being slightly disturbed in its sleep, and I’d stopped. Because I’d had to stop. Because kissing Isolde would have meant something I wasn’t prepared to give her. Orcouldn’tgive her.
So I’d stopped and stepped back.
Isolde had accepted it. She’d squeezed my arm, said goodnight, and walked back toward the house with the composure of a woman who would never give anyone the satisfaction of seeing her disappointed. That composure had broken something in me. Her grace at being refused made it worse than if she’d been hurt.
We’d written letters after: careful, measured letters, the kind that spoke of horses and orchards but meant everything else. I’d told her of the foal, a chestnut with a white star on her chest that had been born in late autumn. I’d written three sentences about that foal, and Isolde had written back six, and between those sentences, we began building something that had no name but felt like it was growing toward one.
Then Guinevere happened, and along with her, the night everything fractured, and I hadn’t written to Isolde since. I hadn’t had the stomach for it, pretending we could be something we couldn’t be.
I pushed back from the table and went to get dressed.
-ARTHUR-
The Great Hall in full morning light was a particular kind of theater.
High windows let in the pale sun in long columns that hit the stone floor and scattered. The long tables were pushed to the sides, the hall opened for ceremony, and my court arranged itself in the careful clusters of people who wanted to observe without appearing to observe. Kay stood near the door while Lance was at my shoulder, having appeared from nowhere at precisely the right moment, silent and reading the room with those eyes that missed nothing.
