CHAPTER ONE #2
“That’s right,” he said, and then, lifting his hand, he subtly waved at me to come forward like I was his trusted dog.
Even though I was railing inside, anger mixed with humiliation mixed with self-pity, I wouldn’t let any of it to show.
I wouldn’t let him win. No, instead, I’d hold my head up high, and I’d act as though this was a walk through the park on a sunny day.
I took a step forward. And then another.
Whatever I might have been feeling, whatever was crumbling on the inside of me, no one would see it.
I wouldn’t give this bastard the courtesy of my humiliation.
Fuck that and fuck him.
“She trained beside you. She ate at your table. She wore your brotherhood like a stolen cloak.” He beckoned me closer with two fingers and an expression of disinterest.
I stood straight, kept my chin level, and took another step. My eyes never left his face. Another step. It was as simple as one foot after the other. One more step. Very soon, I closed the distance between us.
“Sir Lioran does not exist.” Arthur stood up then. “Sir Lioran was a disguise. A story. A mask. The woman who wore that disguise, the woman who fooled not only all of you but her own king—”
“—you are not my king.”
The words were out of my mouth before I could do anything about them. And just as you might expect, more shocked sounds reverberated through the air around me. Arthur didn’t say anything for the span of a few heartbeats; he seemed as shocked as the rest of them.
“You will soon find, my dear,” he said finally, ice forming on every word, “that I am everyone’s king.”
This time I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut.
He cleared his throat, his eyes burning into mine, promising retribution before they lifted to take in the hall once more. “The woman who stands before you is called Guinevere.” He paused, and that fucking smile took hold of his mouth once more. “And Guinevere is the daughter of... Merlin.”
At that pronouncement, it sounded like a blast of wind had suddenly blown into the room, or perhaps it was nothing other than the sound of my own blood rushing through my ears.
Arthur nodded as if to agree that everyone’s shock was warranted. “Yes, she is the daughter of Merlin. And she’s a spy. A traitor. And a witch.”
Even though I felt like I was visibly shrinking, I took the last step between us, standing so close now that I could see the faint silver threading through his light beard, so close that I could make out every hard line carved into his face.
Perhaps a foot of cold air separated us.
Maybe less. This close, I could feel the heat radiating off him, could smell wood smoke and something darker beneath it, something that made the back of my throat tighten.
Where formality demanded I curtsy to my king, where every instinct for self-preservation screamed at me to bow my head and make myself small, I planted my feet against the stone floor and held my ground.
I lifted my chin, held his gaze, and let every drop of hatred I had—and there was a lot of it—rise up behind my eyes and burn there, steady and unflinching, like a flame that had no intention of going out.
He looked down at me, and every fiber of hatred I bore for him reflected itself in his eyes. When he spoke again, his voice was a growl that was barely above a whisper, a tone that was meant for my ears alone.
“Bow to your king.”
Every muscle in my body went rigid, fighting between my own fear and something molten that had been building in my chest since the moment I’d walked into this trap. I swallowed hard, tasting my own anger and defiance, and made no move to do anything of the sort.
The silence stretched between us until I could hear my own heartbeat, could hear the rustle of fabric as people in the crowd shifted their weight, could hear the soft scrape of steel against leather as hands moved instinctively toward sword hilts.
Arthur moved in even closer until I could see the darker flecks of blue in his eyes, and could feel that heat rolling off his skin that made the air between us shimmer. He was close enough that when he spoke again, I felt his breath against my face.
“I said bow.”
The words came out in another low growl: dangerous, edged with the kind of authority that had bent kingdoms to his will, the kind that made grown men prostrate themselves on cold stone and thank him for the privilege.
I wouldn’t be one of them.
“I will not.”
After a protracted silence, he did something that surprised me.
He laughed a short, low sound that was more contempt than amusement, and he looked away from me.
Then, before I could take another breath, he reeled back around to face me at the same moment that his hand found my face, fingers closing around my jaw.
He wrenched me around to face the room, his grip that of a man who had never once needed to ask twice.
It was a heartbeat later that I felt it: the cold kiss of steel settling beneath my chin, the flat of his blade pressed against the soft hollow of my throat.
“I could end this spy, this witch’s life, right here and now. And I would have every right to do so. After the treachery she performed against not only her king but against her king’s people...”
From the corner of my eye, I could see Lance’s jaw tighten as his hand instinctively moved to his sword, which he always kept at his side.
But I didn’t know if he was doing so in defense of me or in defense of Arthur.
Perhaps he’d be the one to run me through with his sword after Arthur slit my throat.
“Merlin believes himself clever,” Arthur continued. “He plants his seed in our midst, cultivates his spy among our brotherhood, and waits for the harvest.” A pause. “He shall keep waiting.”
A murmur moved through the crowd like wind cutting through dry grass.
But it wasn’t the sound of men eager for blood.
The sound was nervous, uncertain. It was the hum of men who’d pledged their loyalty to a king who was capable of slitting a woman’s throat in cold blood.
Whatever I was, spy, witch, or both, even hardened knights shifted on their feet at the sight of the king’s blade at my throat.
Even the loyal and the cruel had their limits, and most men, it seemed, drew those limits somewhere around the public slaying of a woman.
It didn’t make them good; it only made them human.
“Camelot hasn’t stood for centuries on sentiment,” Arthur continued.
“We’ve endured Merlin’s tricks, his schemes, his philosophy of chaos disguised as righteousness.”
His eyes returned to my face. “And we will also endure this newest of his threats against us.”
Then he paused for the space of a few heartbeats before he pulled his blade from my throat. “The witch won’t die today.”
He said the words with the same tone he might use to announce a change in the morning’s training schedule: flat and final. I couldn’t help but notice how Lance’s expression blanched then and he took a small step back, pulling his hand back from the pommel of his sword.
“Death is the end of usefulness, and she isn’t yet useless.”
Part of me wanted to call on my water affinity and drown the fucking lot of them, but I couldn’t do that. Not when I was surrounded by incredibly magical knights. And all of them against me wouldn’t be a fair fight: I’d be dead before I hit the ground.
“Take a very long and close look at her. At this ravishing beauty who stands naked before you, with her perfect face and body. And recognize her as exactly what she is: a poison, a plant.”
It took everything within me, every shred of courage I still possessed, but I turned my gaze along the row of courtiers and let it move down the line of them, deliberate and unhurried.
Some looked away, but others didn’t. Kay’s pale eyes moved over me like a blade finding the seam in armor.
There was no heat in his gaze, or rather, there was heat, but it was heat made precise, heat made into a tool.
There was the promise of retribution in his eyes.
And when he caught me watching him watching me, the thin line of his mouth curved up at one corner into the slightest smile of acknowledgment and a promise.
Agravaine stood three paces behind Kay. His gaze remained fixed on my body, and his expression held that careful blankness he wore like a second skin, but his eyes were another matter.
He didn’t bother to school them, obviously didn’t see the point of it since I was being paraded around like a prized pig.
But Agravaine wasn’t looking at me the way a man looks at something he desires.
He was looking at me the way a man looks at something he intends to use.
I moved past him, farther down the row. If they wanted to stare at me, I’d give them a closer view. A better view. I’d prove that not one pair of eyes in this room had bested me. Yes, I was standing here completely naked before them, but no, I wouldn’t cower.
I stood in the wreckage of it: stripped to nothing, the torchlight moving across my skin like it had something to say, but I didn’t cover myself. Didn’t cross my arms over my breasts. Didn’t cover my sex with my hand.
I’d survived worse than eyes.
Instead, I let my gaze move across them the way Arthur had walked the aisle: deliberate and unhurried.
I dared them to look away from me. Some of them did, but some of them didn’t.
Most of the men watched me, their eyes landing on various parts of my anatomy, and not all of them were polite about it.
I found Percival. His eyes were on the floor, a dull red climbing his neck toward his ears. I was grateful to him. Like Percival, Lance was looking at anything but me, mostly at the wall. He was still, rigid, like a man holding something shut by force of will alone.
At the back, near the pillar, Gareth stood with both hands locked around his sword belt, his knuckles bloodless and white.
He’d given me his cloak once. It was during a particularly freezing patrol.
There had been ice on the ground, and I’d, or rather, Lioran had been shaking.
Gareth had his cloak off his shoulders before I could refuse.
He was looking at me now, in the eyes, with an expression that couldn’t decide which wound was worse: my deception or Arthur’s treatment of me.