As they cantered back to the citadel, Mordred did not reveal that he had no intention of taking Guinevere beneath the hill. For all her cleverness and fortitude, she had no magic. She would never survive. But Nyneve Or’Afon? She had plenty of power.
And Mordred had a feeling the Druid girl would be foolish enough to walk through a faerie door entirely of her own will.
Chapter Thirteen
Nyneve
Every sound in the wide, stone-walled room seemed to dig claws deeper and deeper into Nyneve’s head. Her heart raced as though she were being hunted. More than anything, she wanted to turn and run from the chamber, refusing to stop until she reached the river. There, she’d tear off her clothes and submerge herself beneath the waters until the rush of the currents swept her away.
But absolutely none of that was possible, so she took a long drink of ale and motioned for the next knight to come forward. He moved with a limp but pulled himself up onto the old, scuffed wooden table just fine.
The tournament had continued despite the events of last night’s feast, though torrential downpours moved in halfway through the day. The king wanted the tourney to continue, some kind of defiant statement in the face of the Fey attack, but when two horses slipped so badly in the mud that a young boy of sixteen summers was killed and a horse had to be put out of its suffering, he was finally persuaded to call for a pause.
Nyneve and Galen’s tent beside the ring had turned into a mud pit, so they were attending to competitors’ injuries insidethe keep. She’d been dismayed to find a line had already formed before she’d even managed to haul all of their supplies from the tournament grounds to the castle. Luckily, a number of Camelot’s healers had come to assist, including Elaine, who was exceedingly competent. She was expertly stitching a head wound farther down the table, and Nyneve felt glad to have her near.
“What seems to be the problem?” Nyneve asked the knight before her, wiping perspiration from her forehead with the flat of her forearm.
“My knee,” the knight explained, pulling up his gambeson to reach for the cuff of his hose, which were tucked into mud-splattered boots.
Nyneve took a deep breath. “Did something happen today?” she asked.
“I slipped,” he replied. Something felt off about his tone, but she ignored it, well aware of how piss-poor her mood was, and watched the man roll up his hose.
“Could you do the other as well?” she asked, glancing up at him. “So I can compare your knees. It helps me identify swelling or misalignment.”
The knight paused, his eyes meeting hers. A leer crossed his face, and Nyneve braced herself. “I would disrobe entirely for you, love,” he said.
“I’m quite all right,” she replied, wrinkling her nose like she’d smelled something terrible. “Just the other leg of your hose.”
The chatter of tourney competitors awaiting treatment seemed to swell into something impossibly loud, battering Nyneve’s eardrums. It was only a little warm in the hall, but sweat trickled down her lower back nonetheless, the sensation making her skin crawl.
The knight did as she asked, thankfully, and she crouched down, examining both knees carefully. The one he complainedabout was perhaps slightly swollen, but without obvious signs of bruising or injury.
“Lower,” the knight urged with a bawdy laugh. “If you would, lass. Lower. And a bit closer.” The man spread his knees.
On any other day, Nyneve might have known how to handle this properly. She might have done as Galen suggested a fortnight ago: immediately call him over and hand off the care of any patient who gave her trouble of this sort. But Nyneve had too recently endured the searing pain of her binding’s punishment, nearly ruined a very pretty gown, and ended up in a dangerous bargain with Mordred. She had no patience left.
At the mere thought ofhim, all sense fled Nyneve, and she lunged forward.
“That’s a good lass,” the knight laughed, misreading Nyneve’s movement. But the demeaning delight fled his eyes the moment her hands wrapped around his throat.
“I could strangle the breath from your lungs. I could break your knees,” she spat in his face. She cocked her head to one side, pleasure flooding her as the man looked at her with fear. “Have you ever broken a knee before, Sir Knight? It’s quite awful.”
“Nyneve!” cried Elaine, but the blonde healer’s words were distant, barely registering in Nyneve’s mind. As the man grappled for her wrist, she released one hand from his throat to claw her fingertips into his swollen knee, reaching her Threads of magic toward his bones. How easily she could shatter and snap?—
“Lady Nyneve,” came a voice just to her left, somehow cutting through her rage when Elaine’s words could not. She whirled to face whoever spoke to her, hand leaving the knight’s throat. He doubled over, gasping for air.
Sir Mordred Pendragon stood there, arms crossed, one brow raised, looking entirely unruffled, untroubled, fresh as agodsdamn daisy—as though he hadn’t spent his evening clawing his way out of her enchanted waters.
“That is an unconventional treatment,” he said to her, amusement moving across his features like a heatwave. “I would love to learn more about its benefits.”
She bared her teeth at him even as her heart rate slowed. She let go of the knight’s knee, her breath coming in a ragged gasp. All at once, the reality of the situation broke over her head like a winter gale of ice-cold air. Gods’ blood, she’d nearly strangled one of the king’s knights, overcome by that same rage that had devoured Uccu’s son.
She took a step back, her hands at her sides, trying to get herself under control. With a heavy exhale, she leaned against the stone wall, which was delightfully cool, her mind tumbling. Elaine arrived at her side, one hand landing on Nyneve’s elbow.
“I’m all right,” Nyneve said, turning to the woman.
“Nasty man,” Elaine said in a whisper, gesturing toward the knight on the table. Her eyes skipped to meet Nyneve’s. “Don’t blame you one bit. But let Mordred handle him now.” The healer squeezed Nyneve’s arm, glanced over to nod at Mordred, and then turned on her heel to return to her patient.
