Mordred resisted the urge to look at Merlin, keeping his eyes on the king. He hunted for the right words while a distant part of him wondered when he had allowed himself to care about Arthur. Startlingly, it seemed the precise moment had already come and gone without his notice.
“Iam upset about it, naturally,” Mordred said evenly. “She is a ward of Camelot, betrothed to a knight of the Round Table, about to be formally titled as the Queen’s Sorceress. And yet she was still roughly apprehended in the street by a glorified priest and accused of wrongdoing.”
Mordred did not have to fabricate anger. His blood burned at the mere thought: a cloaked monk pulling a shortsword on Nyneve for protesting their arrest of a young boy accused of thieving. Though Mordred had not seen the arrest itself, Merlin’s monks had no right to exact justice on a citizen of Camelot, especially a child.
And they certainly had no right to touchher.
“Yes, yes, I’ve already spoken to them,” Merlin said hurriedly, brushing his robes with the back of one hand. “Won’t happen again.”
“I appreciate your attention to this matter, Merlin,” Arthur said, picking up his simple circlet from the table and settling it onto his brow.
Mordred watched the king and his sorcerer exchange a few hushed words. He hoped Arthur understood that if anyone else had grabbed Nyneve by the forearm and drawn their weapon,Mordred would have torn their throat out. Or held them down while the sorceress did it herself. But Merlin’s growing influence meant the monks occupied a strange place in the city’s hierarchy, one that no one understood and most were too uneasy to inquire about directly. The High Court’s courier being able to slip past Merlin’s wards and appearwithinthe castle had rattled everyone, Mordred included. And that fear made it much easier to enforce a new authority.
A dangerous game, indeed.
Numbly, he watched Arthur stride past him, Merlin at his side, the two of them laughing. Camelot’s king turned to look over his shoulder, met Mordred’s gaze, and winked. Mordred wished it made him feel any better.
He wanted to believe the king. He wanted to believe all that death and strife to liberate Camelot and the surrounding villages had not been for naught. And most of all, despite the very nature of his creation, Mordred wanted Arthur to genuinely believe he would make a good king. He did not know why it mattered to him.
But it did.
Mordred drew in a deep breath and adjusted his sword belt before forcing himself to walk out of the king’s study. In the corridor, cloaked monks lined the wall like soldiers, their faces hidden under their wide hoods. For Arthur’s protection, Merlin had insisted, offering it up like a rare jewel.
As he made his way to the great hall, Mordred’s mind ran so thickly that he barely felt the first tug on his sleeve. With the second pull, he turned to find Morgana at his side. She was dressed too finely for a ceremony in someone else’s honor: a deep sapphire kirtle, ermine-trimmed surcoat flowing from her shoulders, heavily jeweled collar circling her slim throat.
“You sent a note,” Morgana said, flicking long lengths of dark hair over her shoulder. “I know we only have a little time, but it’sbetter than nothing. I’m sorry we haven’t yet been able to gather properly. I have been so very busy.”
Mordred glanced down the corridor toward where the mouth of the throne room yawned, the din of the gathered court audible even from here. “Why are you dressed like this?” he asked, wondering if he had erred with his simple aketon and trousers.
“Ah,” Morgana said with a sharp smile. “I suppose you’ll find out, won’t you?” For a moment, her expression faltered, the familiar weariness creasing the corners of her eyes. Her hand tightened on his wrist. “I am doing what I must, Mordred.”
“Morgana,” he implored, unease climbing up his throat. “Tell me what is going on.”
She pulled away, her expression sharp and feline again, not a hint of that exhausted sorrow he knew so well. “You sent me such an interesting letter last moon,” his guardian said, preparing to strike in the same way a snake might. Mordred sighed. All he could do was take her venom. “So I made sure to meet with your little sorceress the day I arrived.”
Despite himself, Mordred stood up straight, his heart beginning to race beneath his sternum.
Morgana smiled at his reaction, pleased as a cat with a mouse between its paws. “Not a single stitch of enchantment, you should know,” his guardian said, patting his shoulder. “Though I’m absolutely going to tutor her. Such talent.”
“What?” Mordred asked hoarsely. “No, no, Morgana. There must be something. Perhaps she has spelled you, preventing you from seeing the working, too.”
Morgana’s laugh rang out in the corridor, drawing the attention of a handful of noblemen about to enter the throne room. He felt the eyes of the monks by Arthur’s study land on him like searing embers.
“Oh, foolish boy,” she said, reaching up to brush his hair away from his forehead, just as she had when he was small. For amoment, her lower lip quivered, as if she might cry. But then the woman Morgana showed to the world returned with vengeance, her face a mask of aloof amusement. “You’ve defied the very laws of your nature. You’ve fallen in love.”
Mordred’s mind tumbled uselessly. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Morgana laughed and patted him on the shoulder before striding away, leaving him standing there like a fool. He did not know precisely how long he might have remained there, lost to the world, had one of Guinevere’s handmaidens not appeared from a corridor leading off the main hall.
“Mordred,” she said, her brow creasing at his expression for a moment before he put his mask back on, just as Morgana had taught him. “This way.”
He went, because it was at least a direction, and that stopped him from feeling utterly adrift. The handmaiden led him back down the corridor, heading deeper into the castle. Once the sounds of the gathered court died down, his sensitive hearing caught the edges of an argument, the voices familiar. Another few paces confirmed his suspicions: Guinevere and Nyneve.
“What madness has bespelled this godsdamn night?” he muttered under his breath, alarm needling his skin as the handmaiden brought him to a closed door. Beyond it, he knew, was one of the queen’s small libraries; she encouraged all the citadel’s learned servants to borrow from Camelot’s moderate treasury of books. He put his shoulder against the door. Guinevere’s handmaiden nodded.
“It is not what we agreed to,” came Nyneve’s voice, hot with anger, pulling at him with the strength of ten plow-horses. Morgana’s words that he would prefer to discard echoed in his mind. Was this love? Infected to the bone by a single night in her bed, thinking of nothing but her, all his usual cunning and guilelost to her clever rosebud mouth, barbed insults, and dagger-like smile?
Setting his jaw, Mordred slipped through the door, pulling it closed behind him.
“You were not invited,” Nyneve spat at the same time the queen tried to tell him to come in.
