I was very still.
The room held the same temperature it had held before, and even though I rebelled against the idea, I felt that on this subject, Corvin was telling the truth. That, or Merlin simply hadn’t enlightened him on whether or not he intended to free the dragon from me.
But I didn’t like the math there. Because if Merlin wasn’t attempting to strengthen the dragon, and Merlin couldn’t intervene where the dragon was concerned, then that meant there was no hand on the wheel. And the dragon growing stronger was simply happening because I wasn’t powerful enough to contain it.
The dragon was quiet. Even it understood that this answer belonged to me alone. It didn’t offer commentary. It simply waited, patient and warm, the way it always waited, and I had the sudden sharp awareness of how completely I’d become its house.
I took a breath as Corvin looked at me. There was one last question for which I wanted a true and real answer.
“Are you the Fox?”
There was a beat of silence at that, and it wasn’t the reflex of a man protecting himself. This was something more considered: the pause of a man making a final, private decision about the kind of thing he was willing to be.
“Yes.”
It was a simple and direct answer, and there was no apology in it. Just the word, set down like something he’d been carrying for a long time and had decided to put on the floor for me to pick up.
I felt something in my expression close.
Not loudly. There were no raised voices. No speeches. No reaching for the rhetorical gravity of the moment. The last of the administrative distance simply collapsed, and what replaced it had nothing to do with kingship or intelligence or the long strategic interests of the crown.
This was personal.
The dragon threw another image at me again. But this time it was different: slower and more detailed. I let it come. And when it showed me how Corvin had thrust himself all the wayinside her and the joy of release passed over his face, I was already rolling up my sleeves. Both of them. Past the elbow. The fury and the dragon had become, in this particular moment, impossible to distinguish from each other, and I no longer cared to distinguish them.
I was also aware that this was no longer an interrogation. Corvin had nothing left that I needed. What happened now served no strategic purpose, would yield no information. I knew that. I knew it the way I knew my own name.
But I proceeded anyway.
Because I wanted to.
-GUIN-
I’d been brought to a training yard just after dawn, which in Camelot meant cold air that hadn’t decided yet whether it wanted to be fog or frost. A guard had knocked on the door, informed Galahad that I was to meet the king in the training yard, and then he’d walked me across the inner courtyard to a smaller practice yard that was tucked behind the armory.
Arthur was already there. He had his back to me, and he was working through a form with a wooden practice sword.
He heard us coming, but he didn’t turn.
“You’re late,” he said.
“I was escorted,” I answered. “Complain to the escort.”
He turned then, and something shifted in his face, something that became the expression of mild amusement. Or maybe it was mild irritation: it was difficult to tell. He held out a practice sword, hilt first.
I took it.
He didn’t come at me immediately. Instead, he watched me hold it.
“Show me your guard,” he said.
I showed him, and he corrected my grip without comment. His hand closed over mine and adjusted the angle by maybe two degrees. Then he stepped back.
“Again.”
“Can I ask—”
“—No, but you will anyway.”
