CHAPTER SIX #2
But inwardly, I cataloged every exit. Every guard placement. Every path to escape, should I need one quickly.
I'd passed the first trial. But six more waited. Each unknown. Each likely harder than the last.
When the final demonstration ended, only thirty-five of us remained from the original fifty.
Arthur rose from his throne, crimson cloak falling in perfect, regal folds over his broad shoulders.
The room fell instantly silent.
“You have proven your magical heritage,” he said, his voice ringing with the practiced power of a man used to being obeyed. “But magic alone does not make one worthy of the Round Table.”
His gaze swept across us—sizing, measuring, weighing.
“In the trials to come, you will demonstrate not just strength and battlefield aptitude, but wisdom, courage, and loyalty. Remember this: magic is a tool to serve Logres… not a right to command privilege.”
His ice-blue eyes met mine briefly. I held Lioran’s expression steady—calm, unreadable. Not deferent. Not defiant. Exactly as rehearsed.
“Rest well tonight,” Arthur continued. “The next trial will test more than your magical ability.”
With that, the court was dismissed.
And the real games began.
The political machinery of Camelot engaged instantly with the relentless efficiency of a well-oiled siege engine.
Factions moved like clockwork—precise, elegant, and carnivorous in their hunger for advantage.
The moment Arthur's dismissal echoed through the great hall, nobles descended on the remaining knights like hawks spotting wounded prey.
Those bearing the crimson boar of House Redmane immediately clustered around Sir Aldric, their youngest son, clapping him on the shoulders with calculated enthusiasm while shooting meaningful glances toward the eastern lords who controlled the grain routes.
The gold stag bannermen of the western mountain holds converged on Sir Gareth and Gawain, their whispered congratulations laced with promises of alliances and mining rights.
Right before my eyes, alliances crystallized with the speed of ice forming on a winter pond. Bargains were struck with handshakes that carried the weight of blood oaths. Reputations were bought and sold with subtle nods and carefully chosen words, fortunes shifting hands.
And me?
I moved through it all like smoke—unclaimed, unnoticed. Exactly as I intended.
But then I realized I hadn't escaped as unnoticed as I would have liked. Instead, several nobles bearing the silver fox sigil of the northern borderlands watched me with open curiosity. That emblem was unmistakable: the ancestral crest of old magic and older bloodlines.
One of them stepped forward.
I recognized him as Lord Carlisle immediately—the weathered face and calculating eyes were exactly as Merlin had described during our long strategic sessions in Annwyn's shadowed halls.
The silver fox sigil standing proudly from his deep blue doublet confirmed what I'd already suspected: this was the man Merlin had spoken of with grudging respect and careful wariness.
Carlisle was a baron whose lands brushed the Standing Stones—where the veil between worlds thinned and magic still whispered through the earth.
According to Merlin's intelligence network, which stretched far beyond the mystical barriers of our hidden realm, Carlisle had undergone a calculated transformation in recent months.
Where once he'd been Arthur's most vocal critic in open court, challenging the king's policies with aristocratic privilege as his shield, now he played the role of the perfectly compliant noble.
He bowed at precisely the right moments, offered the expected platitudes about Arthur's wisdom, and kept his true thoughts locked behind a mask of courtly deference.
But beneath that carefully constructed facade burned the same rebellious fire that had once made him Arthur's most dangerous political opponent.
His silver-streaked beard and heavy fur cloak marked him as one of the old guard—nobility that predated Arthur’s rule, and in some cases, barely tolerated it.
“An impressive display, Sir Lioran,” Carlisle said. His voice was smooth, deliberate—and low enough that no nearby knight could overhear. “Your magic reminds me of the old traditions,” he continued, eyes narrowing just slightly. “Before Arthur’s... restrictions.”
A test.
He was probing—feeling out whether I might lean toward the old ways. Toward those who remembered when magic wasn’t regulated, forbidden, or politicized.
Dangerous territory. Especially here.
“I’m honored by your notice, my lord,” I said, my voice even. “I seek only to serve where my talents are most needed.”
A non-answer. By design.
Carlisle’s gaze sharpened. And then—amusement. A small, knowing smile touched the corner of his mouth. He recognized the maneuver: neither allegiance nor defiance. A precise balancing act.
“Indeed,” he said quietly. “From what house do you descend?”
I swallowed hard, the weight of deception settling like cold steel against my ribs. This was going to be a sticking point, but I had no alternatives.
"I hail from no great houses, my lord," I answered, keeping my voice steady despite the thundering of my heart. "My lineage is... humble."
Carlisle's weathered brow furrowed, confusion flickering across his features. In a world where bloodlines determined everything—from land rights to marriage prospects to the very armor on one's back—a knight without noble ancestry was an anomaly that defied explanation.
"Then who champions you?" he pressed, his tone sharpening with genuine bewilderment.
This was the moment I had been dreading. I swallowed again. "Dame Yseldra of Fenwick Vale, my lord."
I held my breath, waiting for recognition to dawn in Carlisle's eyes—if Carlisle knew the political landscape of the far north (which, of course, he did), then he would also know that Yseldra was as loyal to the old ways as it was possible to be.
My connection to her would hint at the same about me.
As far as Camelot was concerned, Yseldra was a dangerous champion to have, yes, but she was also the only Northern noble who was willing to risk her own neck to support this mission.
My job was to quell any suspicions Arthur might have about me in connection to her.
Carlisle's features relaxed, uncertainty giving way to thoughtful consideration.
"I am not familiar with her or her house," he admitted, though his tone held no suspicion—merely the resigned acknowledgment of a man who understood that the northern territories were vast and sparsely populated, their minor nobility as numerous as they were obscure.
Did I believe him? I wasn't certain. While it was possible he did not know Yseldra personally, Carlisle was a man who made it his business to know most things.
"We should speak further when time permits, Sir Lioran."
I struggled to comprehend why a lord of Carlisle's evident stature and political acumen would seek my company at all. My lineage was humble—even my champion was no one of note. I was simply a knight representing a minor house from the northern reaches, unremarkable in wealth or influence.
Moreover, my performance in The Summoning Trial had been deliberately restrained, carefully calculated to appear competent but unremarkable.
By all reasonable assessments, I should have been utterly forgettable to a man like Carlisle—just another knight seeking glory in Arthur's trials, possessing neither the bloodline nor the demonstrated talent that typically attracted the interest of established lords.
With careful deliberation, he raised two fingers to his chest—positioning them just over his heart in what appeared to be a casual gesture.
But it was much more than that, and I recognized it immediately. An ancient gesture. A sign of magical fellowship. Nearly forgotten in modern Logres.
Forgotten, but not gone.
-LANCE-
I studied the knights who had survived the first trial with the practiced eye of a man who had measured countless opponents. Thirty-five knights stood in the Great Hall, their summoned constructs still fresh in my memory—some brilliant, others merely adequate.
Kay's presence here surprised no one. Arthur's foster brother had a gift for surviving anything, cockroach-like in his persistence.
The sharp-featured bastard stood apart from the others, arms crossed, his expression carrying its usual sneer.
I had seen him cut down better men with nothing but words, his tongue deadlier than most knights' swords.
Sir Galahad had passed, as expected—he was and always had been highly powerful. Sir Gareth of Orkney and his brother, Gawain of Orkney, as well. Both were proven warriors who'd earned their reputations in blood and steel. Men who looked the part they played.
But two names stood out, unfamiliar weights on an otherwise known list.
Sir Tristan of Lyonesse was the first.
The exotic knight was all grace and flowing movement, dark curls catching the morning light.
But I'd seen what he'd summoned—shadows and death given form, creatures pulled from the grave itself.
Necromancy. The word tasted foul even thinking it.
A man who commanded the dead posed questions I didn't care for.
What kind of knight built his power on corpses?
What battles had he fought that required such dark magic?
I made a mental note to watch him. Men who trafficked with death often found themselves too comfortable with creating it.
Then there was Sir Lioran of the borderlands.
I frowned, gaze settling on the slight figure among the rest of them.
He was entirely too small. Too delicate.
The kind of build that belonged in a monastery, not a battlefield.
Arthur could claim he wanted the best and brightest, but the Round Table needed more than clever party tricks.
We needed warriors who could stand in a shield wall, who could turn back invasions, who inspired fear in our enemies just by appearing on the field.
And Sir Lioran looked like a strong wind might knock him over.
The ice construct had been impressive; I'd grant him that.
An entire replica of Camelot, complete with banners and battlements, demonstrated both power and control.
But magic alone didn't make a knight. Not the kind Arthur needed at his side anyway.
When steel met steel and blood soaked the ground, what good was a pretty ice sculpture?
My eyes tracked the small knight as he stood among the others, shoulders squared back, chin tilted up in defiance of his obvious disadvantages.
At least he possessed pride—perhaps the only quality that might serve him well here.
I had to respect that much, even if everything else about him screamed weakness.
From what I'd gathered through castle gossip and the whispered conversations that followed new arrivals, Sir Lioran's background remained frustratingly vague.
No great lineage, no famous deeds preceding his arrival at court.
His beginnings appeared humble enough—similar to my own before Arthur had lifted me from obscurity and forged me into his greatest weapon.
But where I'd earned my place at Arthur's side through blood and steel, this slip of a knight had apparently caught the attention of some minor northern noble whose backing was sufficient to grant him passage to Camelot's gates.
As far as I was concerned, the blessing of a patron could open doors, but it couldn't forge a warrior from soft clay.
I studied the way he held himself, the careful precision of his stance that spoke of training but lacked the unconscious readiness of a man who'd faced death and walked away.
I was fairly certain that the smallest of Arthur's potential knights had never seen real combat, never felt an enemy's blade part the air inches from his throat, never stood in a field where the ground ran red with the blood of fallen allies.
No doubt he was precisely the type who believed tournament melees and practice-yard duels had prepared him for the brutal reality of actual warfare.
He wouldn't last another trial. Couldn't.
The Round Table required men who commanded respect through presence alone.
Men who could walk into a throne room or a battlefield and shift the air with their arrival.
I'd built my reputation on being exactly that—Arthur's shadow and sword, the undefeated champion whose name made enemies reconsider their choices.
Sir Lioran would learn soon enough that Camelot had no place for pretty magic tricks wrapped in borrowed armor.