Their presence was unsettling, and I realized I’d been standing there longer than I’d ever intended. I drew my cloak tighter and began walking back toward the castle, leaving the ravens and their silent judgments behind. The courtyard faded into shadow, but their dark eyes remained with me.
She’s right. Guinevere is right in everything she said to me.
It was as simple as that. There were no other arguments available. She was right, and she’d known she was right, and she’d left me standing in a courtyard in the middle of the night with proof that I wasn’t, in fact, broken, but also with absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do with any of it.
My fingers moved up to my jaw once more where she’d hit me.
The skin wasn’t even tender anymore, but my hand stayed there anyway, pressed lightly against the bone, and I walked through the dark of that courtyard with the torchlight guttering above as something moved through my chest that had no name I was willing to give it.
Because to name it meant to face the reality of who she was, who I was, and the fact that I loved her now just as much as I’d always loved her.
-GUIN-
I should have taken advantage of this opportunity to escape, or at least to try to. Why Lance had left me unchaperoned, I couldn’t say. It was an oversight on his part and something completely out of character. My magic was still bound, yes, but my legs weren’t. I could have bolted for the tree line and disappeared into the darkness of Thornhallow Forest.
Yet, I kept walking in the direction of Camelot, thoughts of escaping a lost cause. Why? Because my body refused even the thought of escaping. And I supposed that made a certain sort of sense. I was so thoroughly worn down from lack of sleep and food that the idea of even trying to attempt to flee was entirely too much. It was as daunting as the notion of scaling a mountain.
And then there was Corvin, still stuck in the dungeon. I couldn’t leave him. Iwouldn’tleave him. Ever.
So instead, I replayed everything that had just happened between Lance and me as I walked to Galahad’s bedchamber, feeling the weight of the world pressing down on my shoulders. My thoughts included Lance’s mouth: the way he’d moved without warning, like a man who didn’t ask permission because he’d never needed to. I couldn’t get the smell of him out of my nose: iron, leather, and something underneath which was so uniquely his.
And then I remembered my fist connecting with his jaw. Even though my hand still ached, I almost smiled.
I didn’t understand him. That was the honest truth of it. He’d brought me to that spot deliberately; there was no way it couldn’t have been deliberate. The same wall, the same view, thesame air that had settled around us the first time we’d stood there, back when I was still Lioran.
But why?
He hated me. Or he’d decided to hate me, which in his case amounted to the same thing. He’d come to my cell to tell me as much. I remembered the set of his jaw when he’d said the awful words, how certain he’d sounded, like a man closing a door he never intended to open again.
And then he’d sent me food through Tristan. And then... tonight... he’d kissed me. The man made absolutely no sense.
I stopped walking once I reached Galahad’s door and then just stood in front of it. The wood was dark oak, iron-banded, solid as a judgment. A thin line of candlelight showed beneath it. He was awake, then. Yes, of course he was awake; he was always awake.
Whatever had happened between Lance and me, it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know how to interpret it. And it didn’t matter that I didn’t know what it meant.
The only thing I knew for certain was that I’d been honest with him about what I’d said, and I hadn’t held back. And that was something I didn’t regret.
I lifted my hand and knocked.
Three times.
Then I straightened my spine, rolled my shoulders back, and waited. Whatever of the gods was next in the rotation of my prayers, I was ready. Or close enough to ready that the difference didn’t matter.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
-GALAHAD-
She stepped through the door alone, which meant Lancelot had walked her to the threshold and left her there like a package he’d grown tired of carrying.
I set down my psalter and watched her cross the room. She moved differently than she had a week ago. Something had loosened in her spine. I’d worked hard to put proper humility there, and Lancelot du Lac had undone it in a single evening.
I didn’t believe him, of course: didn’t believe it when he’d made his announcement that the king meant to question the prisoner in his solar. Yes, I’d said nothing, but that was simply because there was nothing to say. Lancelot outranked me, so I’d swallowed down my disbelief.
But I’d thought about it since. In fact, I’d thought about little else.
The demon inside her was more sophisticated than I’d credited it previously. That was the only explanation that made sense. Lancelot du Lac had never lacked for women. He was the kind of man women ruined themselves over freely and without coercion. For him to show up outside my door at the height of the dark night, there had to be something working on him that wasn’t natural. I was convinced the demon had reached throughher and found the weakness already living in him: his emptiness and his hunger. The demon had simply fed it.
Which meant the demon was stronger than I’d previously assessed. Which meant I’d been too gentle with her.
