CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
-GUIN-
With a flick of her hand, candles located around the perimeter of the room burst into flame—no flint, no spell. Just will.
Magic. Effortless and terrifying.
“We won’t be disturbed.”
I studied her, wary but grateful.
“Thank you,” I said finally. “For… everything you just did for me."
“Are you injured? Did Kay…”
I tightened the sheet around me. “No. You arrived before…” My voice caught. The words refused to form.
“Good.” She nodded once, and the fire in her eyes dimmed to something gentler. She gestured toward two chairs that were covered in thick fabric and dust. With a wave, the dusty fabric covering the chairs simply vanished, revealing soft damask beneath.
“Sit. This conversation requires comfort.”
I sank into one of the chairs, legs shaking. The sheet pooled around me like a shroud as Elenora settled across from me with the fluid grace of a cat, her honey hair catching the candlelight. She settled into her chair like a queen claiming a throne, posture precise, gaze steady.
“How do you know who I am?” I asked. I’d wanted to know for weeks.
“I’ve known since your second night in Camelot."
“How?”
Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Because I saw you in your dreams.”
“Dream-walking?” I whispered, remembering how she had given me a trinket to ward against exactly that. “You’ve been spying on me in my sleep?”
“That’s one way to describe it."
"I don't understand."
She folded her hands. “When you dream, your mind creates a landscape shaped by your truest self—free of the illusions you wear while awake.” Her voice turned instructional, almost detached. “Dream-walking is an ancient art. Forbidden now, of course. Arthur deemed it too invasive, too revealing."
"Yet you still do it?"
She laughed. "Of course."
I leaned forward, wanting to fully understand what this meant. "What does dream-walking mean exactly?"
She shrugged. "It means I enter into another’s dreams—into their memories, fears, their desires. Everything you hide while awake becomes exposed to those who know how to see, how to look for it.”
A chill crept over me, tightening around my ribs. “That’s a violation of the highest order! You entered my mind. You rifled through my most private thoughts—without my permission.”
“Yes, I did.” She didn’t flinch. No shame. No apology. She traced a finger along the arm of the chair. "Dream-walking requires crossing boundaries most consider sacred. I've made peace with that necessity long ago."
“Why would you do such a thing?” The words scraped from my throat like glass. The thought of Elenora walking through my dreams, my memories—it was almost intolerable. Did that mean she knew about Merlin and my mother? About my feelings for Lance?
The bile rose faster than I could swallow it down.
Elenora didn’t flinch.
“I dream-walked into your slumber because something about ‘Sir Lioran’ was…
off." She was calm, almost clinical. “Magic speaks to those who know how to listen. And yours speaks like water—fluid, adaptive, feminine. Even hidden beneath male illusion, it pulses in the rhythm of the sea. Most men’s magic seeks to control. Yours responds. It feels. That alone marked you as other.” Her lips curved faintly.
“Your disguise is good. But magic recognizes its own.”
“Tell me what you know about me,” I whispered, terrified to hear the answer.
She nodded, folding her hands in her lap as though recounting an ordinary evening.
“Your third night in Camelot, I dream-walked into your sleeping mind. You dreamed you were in Annwyn—training beneath the twisted trees where the light bends, your white hair loose in the twilight breeze. You wore your true form. And you answered to Merlin.”
My breath caught.
She smiled at my obvious concern. “I saw him correct your water form with that quiet patience of his."
"Then you know Merlin?"
"Of course." She paused. "Shall I return to your first question regarding what I know about you, or shall we follow this new line of discourse?"
"What you know about me."
She nodded. "While you were asleep, I watched you training with Corvin—a man who used to consider himself one of the king's own."
I felt my stomach drop at the mention of Corvin and breathed in deeply. "And then?"
"Then you dreamed of the Standing Stones—of your first crossing between realms. The fear, the awe... it was all there.”
"Perhaps my dreams were nothing more than unconscious lies."
She leaned forward slightly. “Dreams don’t lie. They reveal. And yours opened like a book. I knew almost immediately that you were Guinevere. You were from Annwyn. And you were here—for a purpose.”
My heart slammed in my chest.
“Does Arthur know any of this?” I breathed. “Have you told him?”
She didn’t even blink. “If I had, you’d be rotting in the dungeons. Or dead—your head on a spike, your body burned to ash. You’d not be sitting here, wrapped in a stolen bedsheet, questioning my intentions.”
“What do you want from me? Is this blackmail? Another form of leverage? Did you save me from Kay just to own me yourself?”
Elenora’s expression changed—the warmth vanished, the mask slipping just enough to reveal cold offense beneath it. The room chilled. The candle flames flickered low, as if her power had exhaled.
“I am nothing like Kay." Each word was razor-sharp. "Never compare us again."
I swallowed hard. The shift in energy was unmistakable. I lowered my voice as I realized how deeply I'd just offended her. “I apologize.”
A long silence stretched between us.
Then, finally, I found the courage to begin again. "First things first, you are clearly not the courtesan you pretend to be."
Elenora smiled—cold, proud, unrepentant. Then she rose from the chair with the poise of someone who had worn every mask—but bowed to none.
“A courtesan?" she laughed and then shook her head. "No, I am far, far more than that.”
As she stood there, smiling down at me, her appearance began to change.
The honey-blonde hair darkened from its warm golden hue to the deepest raven black I'd ever seen, darker even than Lance's hair.
But it wasn't merely black—threads of midnight blue wove through the darkness like veins of precious metal.
Her eyes followed; the warm brown irises that had seemed so inviting sharpened and brightened, transforming into the most piercing emerald green, shot through with flecks of gold.
But it was more than just her coloring—her bone structure seemed to refine itself before my eyes as well.
Her cheekbones rose higher, creating elegant shadows across her face, while her lips grew fuller and took on a more vivid coloration, as if stained with wine.
The soft, approachable features of Elenora the courtesan melted away, replaced by something far more aristocratic and dangerous.
Even her posture underwent a complete transformation.
Where before she had carried herself with the practiced sensuality of a woman who lived by pleasing others, now her shoulders pulled back with an unconscious, regal strength.
Her spine straightened, her chin lifted slightly, and suddenly she commanded the space around her with the authority of someone born to power.
This woman, whoever she was, radiated danger and majesty in equal measure. This was no mere courtesan. This was a sorceress revealed—powerful, unveiled, and breathtakingly beautiful.
I stood, clutching the sheet tighter around myself, uncertain whether she was friend or foe.
A storm of fear and fascination surged through me as I stared at her.
My fingers twitched with the impulse to reach out, to touch her and see if the vision was real, if her skin was actually warm or the cold porcelain it appeared to be.
But something warned me that touching her might be like reaching into fire—beautiful, yes, but consuming, destructive, and painful.
"Who are you?" My voice was a whisper.
Her smile was cunning. "My name is Morgan le Fay."
I recoiled instinctively. The name alone was enough to send a chill down my spine. "Morgan le Fay? The legendary sorceress?"
She gave a slow, mocking bow. "The very same."
I took several steps backward until my legs hit the edge of some covered piece of furniture, fear beating a wild, erratic path through me.
Her name alone carried weight—legends of dark magic, forbidden arts, and powers that could rival Merlin's own.
My throat felt dry as parchment as I forced the words out.
"I've heard stories about you."
"I daresay there is not a person alive who has not."
Merlin's tales of Morgan le Fay opened in the chambers of my memory, each as vivid as the day he'd recounted them.
Morgan: the enigmatic sorceress with a penchant for mischief and mastery over illusions so convincing they could ensnare even the sharpest minds.
He spoke of her black magic—of a power heavy with promise but polluted by her own desires.
Merlin warned of her allure—the ability to seduce secrets from the powerful and unravel the ambitions of kings like Arthur, using dreams as her playground. I remembered how he spoke of her banishment from Camelot, painting her as a specter of vengeance, eternally seething beneath royal gaiety.
Yet in those stories lay kernels of another truth. He spoke of a woman who, before she was scorned, dreamed of magic triumphant—not chained—but free. Morgan, Merlin had said, bore the burden of old magic, magic that danced at dawn and whispered in twilight: untamed.
She took a step closer to me. "Tell me, beautiful, what stories have you heard of me?"
I nodded. "Warnings is probably a better word."
Her smile was quiet and sharp. "Let me guess: the dangerous witch who betrayed Merlin? Or perhaps the corrupted pupil who defied his teachings? The woman who dared to question his authority?"
"Something like that, yes."
She stepped closer. I could feel the weight of her gaze like a hand against my chest.
"And what do you think, Guinevere?"
She began to slowly circle me.