CHAPTER NINETEEN
-LANCE-
I found Arthur in his chamber, hunched over his writing table like a man possessed.
Candle wax pooled across an open ledger, long abandoned. Rain battered the windows, echoing the storm behind his eyes.
Maps of Logres blanketed the table, villages marked and crossed out in his bold hand. Crumpled parchments lay at his feet—lists of names, scrawled with cryptic notations I couldn’t decipher from where I stood.
“You summoned me, Arthur?” I asked, unsettled by his disheveled state. Arthur rarely let anyone see him like this—even me.
He didn’t answer immediately. He didn't even look up at me. Instead, he finished whatever it was he was writing, then leaned back in his chair as he picked up a goblet and swirled the contents, his eyes fixed on the storm. Lightning lit the harsh lines of his face.
"Lance," he said finally, his voice rough with exhaustion. He gestured toward the maps with a trembling hand, his fingers lingering over the northern territories where red ink marked villages like wounds across the parchment. "The Northern Rebellion is growing stronger."
I stepped closer to the table, studying the careful notations scattered across the maps.
Villages circled in crimson, trade routes marked with black X's, and names I recognized—lords who had once sworn fealty to Arthur now listed among the suspected rebels.
But why he suspected them remained a question.
There had been nothing concrete proven so far—no intercepted messages, no witnesses to treasonous meetings, no clear evidence of sedition beyond whispered rumors and the natural discontent that festered in any kingdom where magic was forbidden to all but the crown.
The red marks on these maps seemed to multiply with each passing week, spreading like a plague across territories that had once been Arthur's most loyal strongholds.
I studied the familiar names more carefully, recognizing lords who had fought beside us in the early campaigns, men who had bled for Arthur's vision of a unified realm.
Now their estates were marked with the same crimson that denoted confirmed enemies of the crown.
The progression troubled me—how quickly suspicion had transformed into assumed guilt in Arthur's increasingly isolated mind.
I had to imagine this was simply another manifestation of Arthur's growing paranoia.
“But that’s not what keeps me up tonight.”
He turned then, and I caught a flicker of something I hadn’t seen since our youth—before the crown had hardened him.
He hesitated, fingers drumming the goblet’s rim.
His shoulders were tight beneath the royal mantle, jaw clenched.
I saw the war behind his eyes—guarded instinct battling with the need to speak, to ease whatever troubled his mind.
Arthur was, by rule, a private man. He only emptied the contents of his mind in the direst of circumstances.
The silence dragged, thick with what he wouldn’t say, broken only by the rain against the glass and the distant thunder.
Arthur had always chosen his words carefully.
Tonight, they weighed on him more than usual.
“I’ve told no one,” he said at last, meeting my gaze. “I didn’t want to tell you either. I feared… you’d doubt me as much as I doubt myself.”
“I could never doubt you.”
He looked away, haunted. “A week ago, perhaps it was longer? I do not know—I have lost track of time."
"What has happened?" I encouraged him when it seemed he didn't want to continue.
He took a deep breath. "At the lake... I saw something. Something… impossible.”
I said nothing, just moved to the decanter on his table and, lifting the extra goblet there, poured myself a drink.
The feel of the crystal in my hand brought back nights spent just like this—planning, arguing, laughing.
Not as king and knight, but as friends. It was in these quiet hours, not in court or battle, that the man beneath the crown revealed himself.
And tonight, I could feel that man struggling to speak.
As I took the seat across from him, I noticed the shadows under his eyes and the slight tremble in his hand. This wasn’t the weight of politics—it was something deeper.
“The sword,” he whispered as he looked over at me with haunted eyes. “Someone drew the sword.”
I felt my stomach drop to my toes. Of course, I had known that Excalibur had avoided Arthur's hand for many years, ever since he had taken the Dragonmark. “The sword?” I echoed, steadying my voice. “Excalibur?” He nodded, and my stomach dropped further. “You’re certain?”
“I saw it with my own eyes.” He rose then, pacing, his gestures sharp.
"Who was this person?"
He chuckled and shook his head as if he could scarcely believe the truth himself.
“A woman." Then his gaze shifted back to the window.
"A woman unlike any I’ve ever seen before.
" His voice took on a wistfulness that didn't characterize him.
"—hair like moonlight, skin pale as snow, and her eyes…” His voice dropped.
“The color of amethysts. She pulled Excalibur from the stone.”
I choked on my wine. “That’s—inconceivable.”
“You think I’m mad?” His eyes flared as he turned to face me.
“No, of course not. But… perhaps it was nothing but a trick of the mind, Arthur? An illusion?” I set my goblet down slowly.
Arthur slammed his fist onto the table, scattering the maps. “I know what I saw.”
I stared at him. “But only you were chosen. Only you could draw the sword.”
“So I believed,” he said quietly, sinking back into his chair as he shook his head. “But she drew it—effortlessly. Then dropped it back into the lake, like it had burned her." He paused and swallowed hard, and I could see he was lost in the memory. "When she tried to flee… I caught her.”
I studied his face, searching for signs of madness or wine-fueled fantasy. But I saw only raw confusion. I’d known Arthur since boyhood, through blood and battle. But I’d never seen him like this—shaken, awed, confused.
“Who was she?” I asked. “Someone from court?”
“A scullery maid.” He shook his head as he reached for his goblet of wine once more. “The sword that refused kings chose a kitchen girl."
I frowned, and then the pieces of this puzzle began to come together. "The woman you were searching for—"
He nodded, interrupting. "Yes, it was her. The very same."
I was quiet as I considered it, and in considering it, still did not understand how it was possible. “You’re certain it was Excalibur?”
Arthur met my eyes and nodded.
“It was Excalibur." His tone was defeated. “I know you doubt me." He chuckled without humor. "I did, and still do, doubt myself. I had begun to think I’d imagined it."
"I understand."
"And because I doubted myself… tonight—earlier, I returned to the lake, Lance. I called for Nimue.” He paused. “When she surfaced, the stone was empty. The sword was gone. I asked her if what I had witnessed was real—if a servant girl had truly drawn my sword. Nimue confirmed… everything.”
He exhaled sharply, then drained his goblet in a single motion.
Then he looked over at me with sharp eyes. “The sword has chosen again, Lance. And this time, it has not chosen me.”
I didn't know what to say, so I remained silent, simply reviewing everything he had just admitted.
His gaze locked on mine. “Do you think I’m delirious?”
“No,” I answered, raising my hands to steady him. “I believe you, Arthur. I do.”
He exhaled, voice low. “She pulled the sword from the stone like it was nothing—a child’s toy. Then she dropped it into the lake as if it had bitten her. That is why it hasn’t returned to the stone. Only the one who drew it can restore it.”
“And she was a maid, you said?”
He nodded. “By her clothing, a scullery maid.” He dragged a hand through his hair, worsening the mess. “I confronted her, but then…” He hesitated, suddenly uneasy.
“Then?” I pressed, bracing for the worst.
“The lake rose and—attacked me. Then a fog—thick as smoke—began to obscure everything. I couldn’t see my own hand before it. It… the fog shielded her. As if the water itself were guarding her.”
A chill rippled through me—deeper than the storm beyond the windows.
The air thickened, heavy with the weight of what he’d just admitted.
If this was true—and I had no reason to doubt him—it wasn’t just a strange encounter.
It was a reckoning. A servant girl pulling Excalibur meant the gods had turned their gaze away from Arthur.
Truly, the very foundation of Arthur’s rule trembled.
The balance of Logres, already fragile, now teetered precariously.
I had thought it bad when the sword denied him years ago, but always in my mind, I assumed it would reconsider. Now, to find this truth…
“We have to find her,” I said. “If someone in Camelot carries that power—” I stopped. “Unless you already have?”
Arthur shook his head. “I’ve searched the entire castle. Questioned every servant. No one knows her. No one’s even seen her.” He clenched his jaw. “I don’t even have her fucking name." He paused. "It's as if she's a ghost—she's simply vanished.”
“She may have fled to her village,” I offered. “Afraid of what she’s done. Of what you might do in response.”
His expression darkened. “Is that what you would do were you in her position—flee?"
I paused, considering. “Perhaps. I cannot say for certain. But knowing I’d been chosen by the sword that crowns kings…” I watched his face closely. “That’s a dangerous truth to carry.”
His jaw tightened.
"And yet… if the sword truly chose her—”