Not only that, but it made natural sense that Arthur would choose her. Her lineage was old, recognized, legitimate, and documented in every record house in the kingdom. But that was just her suitability on paper. Whatever existed between them extended far beyond that. What was more, I couldn’t find itwithin myself to dislike her. She was entirely likable and she was a good woman.
My stomach did something complicated, and I pressed it flat. I would not allow myself to feel anything.
Then, in an attempt to school my wayward thoughts, I thought about what this meant for her: to be traded like property. I’d watched enough of their interactions to know she felt something deeply for Arthur, and he obviously returned those feelings. Yet, the way he’d framed their engagement had sounded so cold, so obtuse. Furthermore, to have their engagement announced over her head like a verdict... My sympathy for Isolde was genuine, and it sat poorly beside the other thing I didn’t want to even recognize: my own jealousy.
“The match I have chosen to take as my wife,” Arthur continued, “brings into the royal house a lineage that built the foundations of this kingdom long before any mortal king drew breath.” He took a breath and nodded. “I announce my betrothal to Guinevere of Annwyn,” he continued, his lips breaking into a smile. “Daughter of Merlin, who will be Queen of Logres.”
It was the second time that my stomach bottomed out, and this time I felt as if I might keel over and retch right here and now. If Arthur had walked up to me and backhanded me across the face, I would not have been more blindsided. In fact, I was in such shock I couldn’t even trust that my ears had reported the truth in his words.
But it was the reaction of the court that insisted I had heard correctly. First, there was nothing but silence and confused expressions. Then the hall broke open, and the sound hit me from every direction, all at once. I couldn’t have told you what individual voices said because they all compressed into a single roar of shock that seemed to push the air out of the room. I was aware of it the way you’re aware of water closing over your head:distantly, with the clarity that comes just before you stop being able to breathe.
Through all of this, I watched Isolde go very still in the way that only someone practiced at surviving public humiliation can manage. It was a stillness that wasn’t calm but a performance of calm. Underneath that composed exterior, though, I was sure she was coming apart.
As for me? I didn’t know what to think. And when Arthur turned his head and looked directly at me, it was all I could do to hold his gaze. I couldn’t read the expression in his eyes, but I could feel my own narrowing of their own accord as I realized he’d just ensnared me in the ultimate trap.
He smiled at me, and that smile reeked of victory, of my own defeat. I could feel my breath coming in shorter and shorter gasps, and it was all I could do to look away from the smug expression on his face. I found solace in the floor, but then my attention soon returned to Isolde once more, and I watched as her composure held for another three seconds. I watched it hold, and then I watched something behind her eyes crack. Her chin came up, and her hands, which had been folded at her waist, pressed together until her knuckles went pale.
She looked at me as I looked back at her, and neither of us moved.
I thought:It should be you up here. You know it. I know it. Every person in this room knows it.And then I thought:And still he chose me.
That second thought arrived without my permission, and I buried it so fast I nearly choked on it. Because what it was, underneath the horror that had locked every joint in my body, what it was beneath the cold, pragmatic mapping of every escape route snapping shut one by one: Corvin in the dungeon, the dragon that had stopped Galahad’s blade, the prisoner whodidn’t refuse the king... what lived beneath all of that was something I absolutely could not afford to think.
He’d chosen me.
Not Isolde with her ancient bloodlines and her freely given presence, not the diplomatic match that made sense on paper, not the woman who had walked into this court with her head held high and her future apparently secured.
He’d chosen the prisoner, the woman he’d thrown into a cell. He’d chosen the woman who had used her magic against him. He’d chosen the prisoner, and I had no fucking idea why.
A flicker of something moved through me, something dark, warm, and absolutely vile. I recognized it for what it was and felt the floor tilt under my feet. It was, strangely, the feeling of winning.
I wasn’t supposed to feel that. I was the daughter of Merlin, sent here to betray this man. What was more, I believed in what we were fighting for. I’d seen firsthand what Arthur’s crown cost the people beneath it. I had reasons, stacked, sorted, and examined from every angle, as to why Arthur Pendragon was the enemy.
And still, I looked at him.
He was watching me with those blue eyes, and his face was doing the thing it always did in public, revealing nothing at all. It was the king’s face, the armor face. But he was watching me the way the dragon watched me, with that specific quality of attention that had no diplomatic name.
This wasn’t only strategy, although it wore the name of strategy. Yes, strategy and diplomacy were the container, the respectable shape he’d poured the decision into so it would fit inside a formal announcement. But the contents were something else. The contents were those of a man who could have chosen any woman in this room or any woman outside of it... but he’dchosen the one he’d locked in a cell because he couldn’t let her go.
This wasn’t about love. It wasn’t even about desire. Fuck, I didn’t imagine that Arthur even liked me very much. He’d made this move because it was the only one left to him. It was the only answer to the question of what was to be done with me.
And that meant my cage had just gotten a little bit larger, but that was all. I was still in a cage; only the bars were gold now. Yes, they might have been wrapped in silk and luxury, and they came with a crown, but they were still bars.
I heard the court around me, knights exchanging rapid, murmured sentences, a woman near the front wall making no effort to hide her shock, the careful silence of the men who understood the political implications and were already calculating what this meant for their position. I heard all of it, but I processed none of it.
My hands were flat at my sides, and I didn’t know when I’d pressed them there. I couldn’t even feel my fingers.
Mordred, at Arthur’s left, looked like he’d swallowed something sharp. The blankness had cracked, and beneath it was something that looked a lot like shock. But that shock only lasted a split second before he reassembled his face into the nothingness it usually was.
Arthur held up his hand again, but the noise in the room didn’t die immediately. It took longer. That itself was information.
“The betrothal stands,” he said, and the finality in his voice wasn’t a threat, exactly. It didn’t need to be. “Arrangements will be made in accordance with the dignity of the crown and the lady’s station.”
The lady’s station.Yesterday, my station had been: prisoner.
I watched him as he descended the dais, watched as the crowd parted for him. He walked toward me, and I stood where I was because there was nowhere else to retreat and because my legs had apparently decided to stop accepting instructions.
He stopped in front of me and smiled down at me. Up close, I could see the line of his jaw, as well as the slight tension there. His eyes gave nothing away, and yet they also wouldn’t leave my face.
