CHAPTER FIFTY #2
The venison was tasteless on my tongue. The wine, usually my faithful companion in drowning the hollow ache that gnawed at my chest, had tasted of nothing but bitter necessity.
Every laugh from Arthur's table had scraped against my nerves like steel on stone, and every glance toward my king holding court had reminded me of the growing chasm between duty and desire that threatened to tear me apart.
During the feast, I'd watched as Lioran made the rounds she always did—those careful, calculated circuits through clusters of knights and nobles.
Never lingering too long in any one conversation, never allowing herself to be cornered or drawn into the kind of intimate discourse that might expose whatever secrets lay beneath her carefully constructed facade.
Much like my own, her laughter had rung hollow across the vaulted stone ceiling.
She'd raised her goblet at appropriate moments, nodded with practiced solemnity when discussions turned to matters of honor and duty, and deflected personal questions with the skill of a master swordsman parrying deadly strikes.
But I'd seen the tension in her shoulders, the way her eyes constantly swept the room like a cornered animal seeking escape routes.
It was always the same with her—she remained for precisely as long as protocol demanded, fulfilling her obligations as a would-be knight of the Round Table, and then she disappeared into the sanctuary of her bedchamber.
Tonight had been no different. The moment she deemed her duty satisfied, she slipped away from the revelry with movements so subtle that most wouldn’t have noticed her departure.
With the exception of me.
As soon as she vanished through the great oak doors, I did the same, abandoning my own goblet of wine and the boisterous company of my fellow knights. But where she sought solitude, I sought answers.
I wasn’t going to knock on her door.
No. This demanded silence. Infiltration. No warning, no mask of pleasantries, or time for her to craft another lie. I needed truth—raw, unguarded, immediate. The kind only shock could pull from a person’s marrow.
My fingers brushed the dagger at my hip—not out of intent to harm, but to steady myself. I wasn’t here as a knight or spy. I was here as a man chasing a ghost tangled in silk and steel.
From where I now stood outside the castle's imposing walls, I tilted my head back and noticed her window was open to the night air, a rectangle of warm golden light spilling out into the darkness like a beacon calling to the lost. The wall stretched before me—an ancient, unforgiving face of cold stone weathered by centuries of wind and rain, its surface scarred with the deep grooves and shadows that held secrets older than Camelot itself.
The stonework rose intimidatingly high, the mortar joints filled with moss that had taken root in the smallest cracks.
Gargoyles leered down from hidden perches, their grotesque faces twisted into permanent grimaces that seemed to mock my foolhardy intentions.
The air around the castle walls felt heavy with the weight of history, thick with the accumulated whispers of conspiracies and betrayals that had played out within these stones for generations.
Luck—or fate—had intervened. A long-dead vine clung to the wall like the skeletal remains of something once living, now twisted into a ladder by time, the sun, and wind. I didn’t question its providence. I accepted it.
I took a breath.
Then another.
And climbed.
The vine cracked and groaned under my weight, its brittle limbs shuddering with every step I took. Tiny splinters sank into my palms, but I barely felt them. My focus narrowed to the placement of hands and feet, the pull of my muscles, the sickening lurch of gravity tugging at my heels.
The courtyard stones stretched far below—pale, sharp, waiting. The stones would not forgive a mistake. They would not forget. Fall, and I was dead. It was as simple as that.
I kept climbing.
The truth was only a few steps away.
And I would have it.
Each movement demanded absolute focus. I banished thoughts of what awaited me beyond the window or far below, were I to fall.
There was only the climb—testing each handhold, finding footholds where the vine thinned and the stone turned jagged.
The wall bit into my palms, drawing blood in tiny, stinging beads I barely registered.
It was too important to fail.
With a final heave, I reached the ledge. There I paused, breathless—not just from exertion but from the certainty that everything was about to change.
Would she wear her disguise? Or would she appear as her true self? Or worse—what if she wasn’t here at all?
I peered inside.
The chamber looked empty at first glance. Still. Quiet. The dying embers of a fire glowed in the hearth, throwing soft shadows across the floor. I couldn’t see the bed from my angle.
I slid over the sill and landed in silence.
But no sooner had my boots touched the floor than she bolted upright in her bed, clutching the bedclothes to her chest, eyes wide.
Immediately, her hand flew to the side table, fingers closing around the hilt of a dagger.
Moonlight spilled through the open window behind me, catching the blade’s edge while throwing a sliver of light across her face.
"Lance?" she breathed, her voice trembling as she turned to face me.
Her eyes met mine, and my breath caught.
That silver-white hair tumbled like moonlight poured in liquid form, falling over her shoulders and vanishing beneath the linens.
Her shift clung to her in delicate folds, glowing faintly in the soft moonlight.
But it was her face—her true face—that struck me almost off-balance.
There was no trace of Lioran here.
No illusion, no disguise, no man’s mask to hide behind. Just her. The woman I’d suspected. The woman from Arthur’s dreams. The woman from mine.
High cheekbones. That hair. And those eyes—violet, shifting like dusk over water, wide with alarm but quickly narrowing into wary focus. I saw the flicker of fear… and then the decision to mask it. Her spine straightened. Her grip held.
But she didn’t move to resume her disguise. She made no attempt to reconstruct the lie. Perhaps she knew there was no point. Perhaps she'd been waiting for this moment just as I had.
I stood frozen, stunned not by the deception but by the sheer beauty of its unraveling. Then, finally, the question that had been carving me hollow broke free from my throat.
“Why?”
Just one word, but it carried every wound, every suspicion, every night of doubt I’d endured. She didn't respond right away, so I continued.
“Why this deception? Why infiltrate Camelot under false pretenses?” I took a step closer. Then another. My voice lowered, but it struck harder as the shock was quickly overcome with anger. “Why lie to us all?”
"I had no choice. Women…" Her voice shook. "Women aren't permitted in the trials." Her voice—no longer bearing Lioran’s practiced depth—held the same cadence I’d come to recognize. But now, stripped of the mask, it carried a softer lilt, rich and melodic, yet higher-pitched—feminine.
I said nothing at first. I just stared.
She held my gaze, even as her breath hitched. A slight tremor ran through her as she clutched the linens tighter. The moonlight framed her in rays of silver—catching on the delicate bones of her wrists, the same ones I’d seen wield a sword too many times to count.
"That doesn’t explain why you joined the trials," I said at last, my voice colder than I intended. "Or what you’re doing in Camelot." I paused. "Are you an assassin? A spy?"
"No." She swallowed hard as she shook her head. Then she looked down, cleared her throat, and met my eyes again, as though summoning her nerve, her courage. "Please believe that I only wanted to serve my king. To use my magic for something that mattered. But as a woman… that was never an option."
Simple. Too simple. I wanted to believe her—but truth and deception had worn the same face for too long.
"Then why approach the sword? Why approach Excalibur? You knew what the sword meant, the weight it carries. You knew it was off-limits—meant for Arthur's hands alone."
She swallowed hard, and when she spoke, her voice was barely a whisper. "I didn’t intend to touch it at all. It was only when the Lady of the Lake appeared to me. She… she insisted I try." She paused and took a deep breath. "I didn't intend to draw the sword, Lance."
I couldn't... I couldn't handle the familiarity in the shortened version of my name.
The way it rolled off her tongue so easily, so naturally, as if we were still comrades who shared jokes and ale in the great hall.
As if she hadn't spent weeks deceiving me, making me believe she was someone she wasn't.
It reminded me too much of the mistake I'd made in trusting her—in allowing myself to see her as an equal, a brother-in-arms worthy of my respect.
During our training sessions, every shared moment of understanding when we'd sparred in the courtyard, every night we'd sat by the fire discussing strategy and honor.
.. all of it felt tainted now. Poisoned by the knowledge that she'd been playing a role, studying me, learning when and how to strike.
"Do not call me by that name."
The words came sharper than I intended, and I saw the way she flinched.
She dipped her head, her voice quiet as she corrected herself, "Sir Lancelot."
I took a step forward.
She reacted instantly—throwing the bedclothes aside and rising to her feet, her posture guarded, body tense. Clearly, she thought I might attack her. And that bothered me more than I could say.