CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
-KAY-
The next day unfolded exactly as planned.
Throughout morning drills, I positioned myself just within Lioran’s periphery—a constant pressure at the edge of her awareness, like a thorn buried beneath armor.
When she spoke with the others, I held her gaze across the yard, expression unreadable, watching her struggle to focus on the conversation while knowing I was observing her every move, every word, every gesture.
Her discipline surprised me. Even under silent siege, she didn’t falter. Every movement, every tone remained convincingly masculine—her disguise honed to the edge of steel.
But what intrigued me more were the men around her.
Galahad watched her too long, his exhausting and irksome goodness twitching at something he couldn’t name—ripples on water without sight of the stone.
Percival drifted closer during sparring, protective without realizing it, like a dog sensing danger before the rest of the pack.
And Lancelot… he kept his distance with the type of restraint men reserve for temptation they refuse to name.
Even the Orkney brothers watched her more than they should, no doubt drawn to her for a reason they did not know nor understand.
It confirmed what I suspected: Lioran had embedded herself in Camelot deeply. Her eventual exposure—when I chose to detonate it—would crack Camelot’s foundation like glass beneath a hammer. And I could not wait for that moment.
In fact, I would call my mood today downright giddy.
At midday meal, I pressed my advantage, reminding her just who was in charge.
When Arthur praised her, I added my voice—sweetened praise with just enough rot beneath the surface to curdle in the ears of the right listeners. Polished, deferential, and perfectly barbed. I watched her face as each word landed, waiting for the mask to slip—just a flicker, a twitch, anything.
Nothing. She held.
But I could feel the strain beneath her skin. And it pleased me. This whole game pleased me to no end because I was the one calling all the shots.
Where Arthur ruled through charisma and command—drawing men like moths to flame—I moved in shadows.
My influence came not from strength or spectacle but necessity.
I was high-born by circumstance, not merit—elevated, yet never revered.
Close to the throne, but never central. A ghost at the edge of glory.
Camelot’s great hall made that fact unavoidable.
Stone walls loomed with depictions of Arthur’s triumphs, each one a monument to my absence.
At the high table, I sat three seats from the crown, a distance that may as well have been a mile.
Light from the high windows gilded his brow. It never reached me.
But not for much longer.
Years of invisibility had sharpened my sight. What began as humiliation—measured against Arthur’s myth—became clarity. While knights chased fame in tourneys, I spun webs. Not for glory—but control.
Servants carried whispers. Messengers revealed who sent what and to whom.
Stablehands remembered who left at midnight and why.
My network wove itself through Camelot, quiet and unseen—yet unshakably strong.
And it was all culminating—all the work I had done, the traps I had laid, all of it would soon bear fruit.
In the name of Lioran.
That evening, I sent instructions to Lioran—a sealed note in which the message was clear—just in case she had changed her mind. She needed to understand who now pulled the puppet strings.
Come tonight. Alone. And not as the knight. I want the woman, not the illusion. Defy me—and by dawn, Camelot will know exactly what lies beneath Sir Lioran’s armor.
I chose the messenger with the same art I applied to every operation—a plain-faced man, utterly forgettable, with a mind like a ledger.
I had secured his loyalty years ago, paid for in silence over a gambling debt that nearly ended in blood.
He would remember Lioran’s reaction in exact detail—every flinch, every pause—insight no written reply could match.
While I awaited his return, I reviewed the evening’s preparations.
My chambers were locked down—extra wards layered beneath mundane enchantments to detect even the subtlest magical intrusion. A sealed letter detailing Lioran’s secret sat with my most reliable agent, accompanied by explicit instructions: deliver to Arthur if I fail to cancel by morning.
Wine waited on the table, steeped with mild relaxants—enough to dull her magic and make it inoperable.
Then the relaxant would also soften any physical resistance she might put up and blur her consent, thus making my seduction easier on me.
Yes, there were occasions when a woman's defiance sparked something savage in me—the thrill of conquest, the satisfaction of breaking resistance.
But tonight called for different pleasures.
I wanted to fuck her swiftly, efficiently, without the drawn-out struggle that sometimes entertained me.
It had been a while since I had released, and now the thought of filling her cunt with my seed thrilled me.
What if I were to get her with child? How perfectly ironic that would be—one of Arthur's knights carrying my bastard.
Hmm, no. That would play against my plans—at least for now. Perhaps it would be best to loose my cum across her face instead.
Regardless, the real anticipation lay in what would follow.
Once her body had been claimed and her last illusions shattered, I could savor the true prize: watching her face as understanding dawned.
Seeing the exact moment she realized how completely she'd been outmaneuvered, how thoroughly I'd stripped away not just her clothing but every pretense of control she'd maintained.
That moment of perfect comprehension—when she understood that everything she'd thought she was maneuvering toward had been usurped by me—that was what I hungered for most. When the hunter becomes the hunted.
This was the contrast between Arthur’s power and mine. He ruled by divine right and natural charm. Lancelot dazzled with swordsmanship. I had no such gifts. But I’d taken the lesser tools fate gave me—observation, discipline, strategy—and forged them into something sharper, something deadlier.
Arthur’s court had always recoiled from what I represented—a necessary function wrapped in discomfort. I was the sewer beneath the palace: unseen, indispensable, and condemned all the same. That hypocrisy never stopped grating.
Well, not for much longer. Soon the sewer rat would be sitting at the head of the table.
The servant returned.
Lioran had agreed to the meeting.
The details—her pallor, the tremor in her hands, the long silence before accepting—were everything I needed to hear. Lioran hadn’t refused. Mission outweighed pride. Whatever had brought her to Camelot was worth the cost.
She would come. That was all that mattered.
As I prepared for the evening's encounter, I allowed myself to explore my motivations that existed beyond strategic advantage, to examine the deeper currents that drove my actions, the ugly drives I’d learned to dress as reason.
This was more than politics or appetite.
It was the need to dominate someone whom Arthur had taken under his wing.
It was the need to taste the favors of a woman whom Lancelot was clearly besotted with.
Night settled over Camelot. Torches flamed along the corridors; guards kept their dull, predictable rounds.
I checked my chambers once more—locks, wards.
The wine gleamed like amber at the center of the room.
The fire burned low, encouraging convenient darkness.
Everything sat where it would do the most damage.
The hour came. I lowered myself into the chair with the slow patience of a predator. Anticipation pressed behind my ribs like a held breath.
Whatever information she provided (and I was determined to get to the bottom of exactly why she was here), whatever leverage her secret created, whatever satisfaction her submission offered—all would serve my carefully constructed position within Camelot's complex power structure.
The game that had begun with my discovery of her true identity would continue long after tonight's encounter, each revelation and submission building toward a larger transformation in my status and influence.
Lioran had come to Camelot thinking herself clever. By dawn, she would know what it cost to underestimate Arthur’s foster brother—the shadow who saw the fractures others missed and learned to break them, one precise strike at a time.
In the dim corridors of memory, I still saw my younger self watching Arthur lift the sword to cheers and glory—a boy crowned by fate while I, the elder, stood sidelined.
I had studied, trained, and prepared. He had not.
That moment, like so many others carved from years of being second-best, fed the quiet fire in my chest—a fire banked but never extinguished.
Tonight, I would taste a fragment of the power that had always been denied me. Tomorrow, I would seize more. The future belonged not to the golden boy but to the one who watched, waited, and struck where others were blind.
I took a slow sip of my wine—the one I hadn't tampered with—savoring its weight and the darker flavor of what was coming. Soon, the woman calling herself Lioran would arrive. And with her, new doors would open—corridors I had never been allowed to walk.
Let Arthur have his crown and his legends.
I would take the shadows.
And tonight, the shadows would give me their first true reward.
-GUIN-
Kay’s ultimatum carried me down the corridor like a condemned prisoner. Each step toward his chambers felt like I was walking into a noose. The air grew colder, the torchlight jittering across stone walls that leaned in, shadows stretching long and cruel.