Nyneve hesitated. She was immensely fond of the calm, competent healer, particularly when Elaine had a little too much ale at the end of the day and spoke more freely. They’d already grown close.Tooclose—because Elaine wasn’t safe around Nyneve.
No one was.
She closed her eyes, a sea of emotions battering her ribs. Nyneve’s least favorite memory rose from the place where she had carefully locked it away: her hands wrapped around Eirys’s throat. The priestess had done her best to drag Nyneve away from Uccu’s son. And she might’ve killed Eirys for it, too, had her priestess not been particularly clever with Druidic charms.
Nyneve opened her eyes. “Elaine,” she began, taking a deep breath and bracing herself to drive the healer away. But then that tender, bottomless ache sang out from her marrow, threatening to pull her down into the dark. “That sounds lovely,” Nyneve breathed, because she was selfish and lonely and tired.
“I’ll make myself scarce,” grumbled Galen, but he winked at Nyneve as he made for the living quarters in the back of the cottage.
A little while later, Nyneve was freshly bathed and dressed in the second, more formal gown the queen had gifted her: a rich sapphire cloth that clung to her curves.
“It’s much easier than I thought it would be,” Elaine exclaimed as Nyneve finished showing her how to braid her hair into a crown. When the healer smiled up at her, Nyneve understood why Elaine often had a kind but stern expression on her face.
Elaine of Astolat was quite striking when she smiled, and Nyneve knew very well how dangerous a young woman’s beauty could be.
“Here, sit,” the healer said excitedly, interrupting the Druid girl’s thoughts as she gestured for Nyneve to trade places with her. “Your turn.”
Nyneve stood little chance against the coziness of it all: a fire crackling in the hearth, rain beating down on the cottage’s roof, Elaine finger-combing her hair. She had missed this kind of intimacy with other women, the simple act of sitting togetherand gossiping. After the accident, no one, save for Priestess Eirys, would even speak to her.
But now here was Elaine, who had little idea what Nyneve truly was, smoothing oil over her hair and giggling as she told a story about Galen.
“So you grew up here—at court—then?” Nyneve asked, glancing over her shoulder.
“I did,” the healer replied, gathering up a new section of Nyneve’s heavy curls. “It was hard as a child, being the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman. But when Mordred came to train as a page, he... oh, I don’t know. I feel terrible about it, but he took the brunt of that stigma, I suppose.” An odd flutter beat gossamer wings in the depths of Nyneve’s stomach when she heard the knight’s name, but then Elaine let out a snort of laughter. “All the other little bastard children in Camelot got some reprieve,” she continued. “Then the queen arrived. Even though she was barely more than a girl herself, she demanded better of this place.”
Nyneve was unsurprised that Guinevere had possessed the same iron-clad will as a child. “What was Camelot like then?” she asked, passing Elaine the jar of hair oil.
The healer hummed in thought. “Frightening,” she admitted, looking up as Galen trudged out of the living quarters to throw another log on the fire before disappearing again. It both amused and worried Nyneve how much he clearly wanted her and Elaine to grow closer. “Constant war. Endless raids. It felt like everyone was always holding their breath. People were there one day and gone the next.”
Nyneve’s childhood was much the same, even on her father’s lands. She opened her mouth to say so, but then the memories suddenly pressed heavy, smoky hands against her face, shrill cries resounding in her ears. She swallowed hard, pushing it away. “And what about Merlin?” she asked instead.
Elaine’s hands went still on Nyneve’s hair. “Merlin is no friend of ours,” the healer said, her tone cool. “Be careful around him.”
“Oh, I am quite disinclined toward men of his nature,” Nyneve replied archly. She tried to organize everything the Deceangli Druids had said about the ancient sorcerer in her mind, hoping to glean something useful from Elaine.
The healer let out a breath. “I am glad to hear it,” she said, beginning to work through a different section of Nyneve’s hair. “Though I should hardly think Merlin, nor anyone else, would have much interest in going up against Mordred to claim your affections.”
Nyneve’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?” she asked blankly, twisting in her chair to meet Elaine’s gaze.
The healer raised one thin, golden brow. “Surely you jest,” Elaine laughed. “Come now, Nyneve. Sir Mordred isobviouslyinfatuated with you.”
Nyneve’s mouth hung open as heat crept along her cheekbones, her stomach somersaulting at Elaine’s preposterous idea. She certainly couldn’t explain to her friend that just the other evening, she’d looked right into Mordred’s eyes and seen his naked intent to drive his sword into her chest.
“We’ve known each other since we were children,” Elaine said meaningfully, mistaking Nyneve’s silence for disbelief. “And I’ve seen the way he looks at you. I’ve never seen him look at anyone like that before.”
Nyneve imagined Mordred had never so blatantly planned to kill anyone at court before. Perhaps Elaine could not tell the difference between bloodlust and the more carnal kind.
“You’re lucky,” Elaine said with a sigh when Nyneve still could not manage to find the right words, parting another section of her hair. “The man I care for will never return my feelings.”
Nyneve drew in a deep breath, her thoughts running fast as river currents. “Elaine, a man would be a fool not to fall for you,” she said, fully meaning it, but also finding this direction of conversation much more palatable.
“I fear Sir Lancelot du Lac is no fool,” Elaine murmured in return, almost to herself. “Gods, it’s so pathetic, Nyneve. I cannot take my heart elsewhere even though I know he’ll never be able to love me.”
Though Nyneve could recognize Lancelot’s storied position within Camelot’s court, and she certainly understood he was the kind of handsome favored by most, she did not find anything particularly compelling about the older knight. But Elaine? She was so wise and startlingly funny. Those hazel eyes saweverything. The healer had a grounded, humble kind of self-possession that Nyneve deeply envied.
“Why not?” she asked, pulling away from Elaine, surprised at how angry she was on the healer’s behalf. “Because of your birth? Your station?”
Elaine said nothing for a long moment, watching Nyneve carefully, like she was waiting for the Druid girl to understand something that was really quite obvious. But before Nyneve could reach any conclusions, Galen burst out of the living quarters.
