Regardless, I didn’t move.
Behind him, Arthur said, “Drop your weapon, Lance.”
Lance didn’t move either. Instead, he just looked at me as I looked at him.
And neither of us breathed.
-ARTHUR-
The ride back to Camelot was silent.
I set the pace: hard, fast, no stops, and no one questioned it. The riding party fell in behind me without a word. Even Lance, who’d known me long enough to read every register of my mood, kept his mouth shut and Nero two lengths back.
Good.
I didn’t trust myself to speak yet.
I’d entrusted Gareth with Guinevere, and she now sat in front of him with her hands bound before her. Corvin was seated on another horse I’d purchased from the tavern owner (and paid significantly more than the thing was worth), his hands bound behind him. He rode between Kay and Agravaine. It wasa damned good thing the sun was in full ownership of the sky; otherwise, Corvin’s shadows would be near unstoppable.
The dragon had gone quiet once she was back in my sight. Not dormant, never fully dormant anymore, but settled. It was now just a low, satisfied heat behind my ribcage.
I kept my eyes on the road, and soon the gates of Camelot rose against the bright sky, the light catching the gold inlay of the portcullis. The guards scrambled as soon as they saw us, and soon the sound of hooves on cobblestone replaced the soft thud of packed earth. I stopped Cabal in the central courtyard beside the fountain.
The marble statue of me gazed serenely over a marble Excalibur and represented a time when my life had been infinitely easier than it now was.
I dismounted without looking at it.
“Lance.”
He was already there, awaiting my order.
“Take Corvin to the dungeon.” I handed off my reins to a stable boy without looking at him either.
There was a pause and barely a breath from Lance in response. Then: “Understood.”
I heard Corvin’s low exhale from somewhere behind me, not in protest and not in surprise. Just acknowledgment. He’d always been pragmatic, even when I’d considered that a virtue. Later, we’d have words. Well, we’d have considerably more than words, but not today, and not in a courtyard full of witnesses.
I turned.
Guinevere was still on her horse with Gareth behind her.
She sat straight-backed in the saddle with her silver hair loose around her shoulders and those fucking eyes fixed on me with an expression that had no business existing on the face of a prisoner. Not defiance, exactly. Something more specific than that. Something that looked disturbingly like refusal.
I walked to Gareth’s horse and looked up at her.
“Down,” I said.
She got down. Not quickly.
I took hold of her bound wrists and turned toward the north tower. The door to Mordred’s domain stood at the far end of a covered walkway, set into stone that was older than the rest of the castle. The wards around it were visible if you knew how to look: a faint shimmer at the threshold, like heat rising off summer stone.
“Don’t try anything,” I whispered down at her. “You won’t like the consequences.”
She said nothing as she fell into step beside me. Not behind.Beside.
I noted it but didn’t comment.
We crossed the courtyard, and I still refused to look at her. What was more, the heat building within me that was now spreading throughout my body was enough to make me want to punch myself. The fucking dragon was beyond pleased to have her so close to us. I wasn’t.
