CHAPTER FIFTY
-LANCE-
I sat alone in my chambers, the goblet of wine beside me grown warm and forgotten.
The feast in honor of the Sacrifice Trial was due to begin any moment. For all I knew, it might already be in full swing. But I was not in the mood for revelry.
Maps and reports—Arthur’s urgent requests—lay scattered on my bedside table, untouched since dusk.
I hadn’t been able to focus since my meeting with Lioran.
Discipline, my closest ally, had abandoned me.
My thoughts were now the true battlefield—one I couldn’t navigate, no matter how many wars I’d survived.
I'd tried drowning my thoughts in wine. It hadn't worked.
My mind kept circling back to her—to what I'd seen in her chamber: the image of the most beautiful woman I'd ever beheld, fingering her wetness while calling my name.
The memories burned in my head like a brand seared into flesh—permanent, painful, impossible to ignore no matter how deeply I attempted to drown them.
The vision rose again—her skin silvered by moonlight, her breath caught in a sound I shouldn’t have heard, her body curved in pleasure as she whispered my name.
Gods help me, the memory burned like fire behind my eyes. I could not rid myself of it, no matter how many times I told myself I shouldn’t have seen it. No matter how fiercely I tried to bury it in guilt and shame.
It had answered questions I hadn't dared to ask regarding Lioran—why I'd felt that strange pull toward him, why I'd stared too long, cared too much, felt so protective. Because Lioran wasn’t a man. Of course. And now I understood.
Relief had come first, sharp and sudden.
But now came the consequence.
Now came the need.
It clawed at me, relentless and dangerous.
I couldn’t stop thinking of her—not just the image I’d witnessed, but everything.
Her wit. Her strength. Her eyes. The way she moved, not just with skill, but with intent.
Purpose. The way she'd listened. The way she'd looked at me.
And behind all of it, a secret—cleverly hidden, but never fully erased.
Never far from my mind was Arthur's obsession with her—the way his voice changed when he spoke of the mysterious woman, the way his eyes grew distant and hungry. I was just as bewitched by her as he was. Only he still didn't know the truth…
"Gods." I swore through clenched teeth, then stood up, flinging the goblet across the chamber. It struck the stone wall with a dull, ringing thud, wine spraying like blood across the stone.
The silence that followed was deafening.
I pressed my palms to the table, chest heaving as I leaned over, trying to master the storm in my mind. The wine hadn’t helped. Nothing could. I was unraveling. Slowly. Steadily.
Thoughts of the woman posing as Lioran fought with thoughts of Arthur, and shame rose within me.
I thought of him—the king who had saved me, raised me from nothing.
I owed him everything. But the man he'd become?
Cold. Consumed. Obsessed. It was the dragon—I knew it was.
It was the same path his father had followed.
“I should tell him,” I muttered as I shook my head. “It’s my duty.” I took a deep breath. "I should fucking tell him."
I knew what I should have done: revealed her. Delivered her to the man who hunted her.
But the thought made my stomach twist.
Because I remembered Arthur’s voice when he spoke of her. "Logic dictates I should kill her," he’d said. "But my body argues otherwise."
There had been something in his tone—something dark, something dangerous. Not love. Not even desire—no, it was more than just desire. Possession.
Would he hurt her? Punish her? Use her and then what—discard her? Destroy her?
Could I be the one to place her at his feet, knowing what he might do to her?
I stood and turned to the window, gripping the stone frame so hard my knuckles burned. The night wind brushed against me, but it brought no calm. Only more questions.
What did I believe?
I remembered our talks—hers and mine. I remembered laughter by the fire, sparring matches that ended in breathless silence.
I remembered the way I felt so comfortable with her that I shared pieces of myself I'd never shared with anyone else.
I remembered the way she looked at me, the awe and the need in her eyes.
Yes, she’d lied to me.
But I’d seen glimpses of something honest underneath the facade. Her kindness to those around her. Her hesitations. Her convictions. Her strength of character.
I knew deception. I’d lived among spies and soldiers and men who wore masks every day. But what she carried wasn’t malice. It was fear. She hadn’t come here to destroy. She had come here because she had to; I was fairly convinced.
And despite myself, I’d come to know her—not Lioran, not the illusion, but the woman inside the disguise. The one who laughed. The one who watched everything and everyone with intelligent eyes. The one who felt so damn real it made everything else seem fake and false.
So how, then, could this same woman be a spy? Perhaps even an assassin? How could she be someone sent to dismantle Camelot from within—the kingdom I'd sworn my life to protect?
The contradiction tore at me like a blade through flesh.
Even though it wasn't my magical specialty, I'd still spent years honing my ability to read people—detecting lies in the flicker of an eye, the subtle shift in posture, the tremble of a hand, the infinitesimal break in a breath that betrayed uncertainty or guilt.
That hadn't required magical acumen or the gifts passed down through bloodlines.
All it had required was relentless observation, countless hours studying the minute tells that separated truth from deception, and the hard-won understanding that survival in Arthur's court depended on knowing who could be trusted and who posed a threat before they revealed their true intentions.
And yet she had walked among us—with me—her true nature concealed behind those expressive eyes that revealed and obscured with equal mastery.
I paced the length of my chambers, fists clenched, breath shallow.
I remembered the training yard—her movements there.
Too graceful for most knights, yet no less lethal.
Was it by design? Had that softness been calculated, meant to disarm, to charm, to draw us in?
And what of our conversations when it had just been the two of us?
What of our time spent in that cave during The Hunt?
Were those words rehearsed, honed like weapons to win my trust?
Or had they been fragments of something real?
That was the most dangerous possibility. That both could be true. That she was what Arthur feared—a spy, an agent of Merlin sent to undermine Camelot, or an agent of the Northern Rebellion—and still the person whose presence I had come to crave more than anything.
The thought made my head ache with confusion.
And dread.
Because if Arthur discovered her before I did… before I learned the truth…
He would kill her. Or worse.
Interrogation. Torture. Execution. I'd overseen all three. I'd done far more than stand by and watch. I'd questioned, broken, and ended lives without blinking. I knew how to make a man scream without ever raising my voice.
But the thought of her strapped to a stone slab, her white hair matted with blood, her violet eyes dimming beneath iron and fire, her shrieking in pain—the tremor that passed through me then had nothing to do with battle.
“What in the bloody fuck am I supposed to do?” I breathed.
I braced my hands against the cold stone of the wall, the pressure grounding me. Camelot’s walls had once felt sacred—solid, eternal. Now they felt like a cage closing around me.
Arthur had seen worth in me when I was nothing. He’d pulled me from the gutter, shaped me into his weapon, his shadow. I owed him everything.
But I couldn’t forget the chill in his voice when he spoke of her. That wasn’t a man driven by justice. That was a man possessed by his own desires. And though I definitely desired her too, my carnal need for her was balanced with the need to protect her. Arthur's wasn't.
Was that the king I served? Had I ever truly seen him for who he was? Or had we both become something else—monsters in the armor of righteous men?
The wine sat untouched on the table.
I didn’t need drink. I needed answers.
And only one person could provide those answers.
I would go to her. Tonight. No more evasions.
No more pretending I didn’t know the truth.
I would look her in the eye and speak plainly.
I would tell her what I knew—that Lioran was a disguise, that she was the white-haired woman who haunted Arthur’s dreams, the one who pulled the sword from the stone.
And then I would demand the truth: why she was here, who had sent her, and what she wanted.
If she told me the truth… if she admitted everything… perhaps there was still a way to protect her.
But if she lied? If she stonewalled? If she denied?
Then I would do what I had been trained to do. I would do my duty.
Even if it broke something in me to do it.
-LANCE-
Several hours later, after making the calculated rounds through Camelot's Great Hall—where I'd worn my mask as the First Knight—I’d finally escaped to the sanctuary of my chamber.
The feast had been an exercise in endurance, each smile carved from stone, each pleasantry delivered with precision.
I'd moved through the crowd of nobles and knights like a specter, accepting their toasts to my valor, deflecting their questions, all while my thoughts circled like carrion birds around a single, consuming obsession.