CHAPTER SEVEN
-MORGAN-
I found Corvin exactly where I knew he’d be, stalking the obsidian courtyard like a caged predator.
Moonlight slid across the polished black stone, catching in the ripples of his footsteps.
The courtyard amplified emotion, a clever bit of old magic worked into the foundations of Caer Gwyll.
That meant that every agitated step Corvin took sent tiny fractures of red light spreading through the stone.
I settled against one of the courtyard’s columns, my arms folded loosely as I watched him carve the same restless path through the dark stone.
The moonlight was generous with him; it caught the sharp line of his jaw, the proud set of his broad shoulders, and the controlled violence in his every stride.
Even furious, even fractured, Corvin of Blackhollow moved like something carved from the wild edge of the world.
He was all coiled muscle and quiet danger, amber eyes burning with whatever war he was waging inside himself.
I would not have been surprised to learn that Corvin was some ancient war god given flesh and breath and sent to earth to tempt the unwary.
He had hard angles everywhere and muscle that spoke of the many hours he’d spent honing himself into a weapon.
He had the kind of body that promised both protection and danger in equal measure, depending on which side of his blade you found yourself.
There was nothing soft about the man, nothing yielding.
He was all savage edges and ready strength, the kind of man who moved through the world like he owned every inch of space his body commanded.
A finer specimen of man I’d rarely encountered, and I’d encountered rather a lot of them.
“You’re going tonight, aren’t you?”
He didn’t startle at my voice, didn’t even break stride. He’d known I was there from the moment I’d settled against that column, watching him. Such was the nature of his shadow magic: that quiet, unnerving awareness woven into his blood.
“They talk of strategy and tactics,” he spat. “While she rots in Arthur’s cells.” His hand tightened around the hilt of his sword. “Did you see them? Planning a rescue like it’s some elaborate game of chess.”
The obsidian beneath his boots continued to flare crimson with each step he took.
“She might not have the time required for their precious timeline to play out.”
His voice dropped until it was raw with something deeper than anger, and he began pacing away from me again.
“They’ve all forgotten there’s a person, a woman, who could face execution any moment Arthur decides he’s done with her.”
“I agree with Merlin. Arthur won’t harm her. She’s too important to him.”
Corvin gave me an expression that said he wasn’t pleased with my response.
I just shrugged as I reached out with my perception.
It wasn’t a spell, just the natural talent I’d always had for reading people.
And I wasn’t surprised by what I found. Corvin’s aura pulsed with jagged spikes of fear, rage, and something softer, something wounded, something that cared too much.
“Will you at least take me up on my offer?” I continued.
He turned to face me then, and in the sharp amber of his gaze, I could read it plainly: he had no memory of the offer I’d made him earlier when he’d been too consumed with the need to act to truly listen.
The words had passed through him like smoke through a window.
I let the silence stretch a beat before I spoke.
“With my ravens, I can be your eyes and ears inside those walls, Corvin.”
“With all due respect, Morgan, I don’t need your eyes or ears.”
I smiled as I shook my head at him. “You’re just as stubborn as I remember.”
He looked at me then and offered me the smallest of apologetic smiles. I moved toward him, letting my gown whisper against the stone. “Do you remember when you first came to court?”
“To Camelot?”
I nodded and kept my voice low, intimate. “Everyone wanted the mysterious knight from the borderlands. The one who fought like a shadow and spoke nothing but truth to any who would listen.”
He stopped pacing and began to eye me warily, like he had a very good hunch where this conversation was leading.
I stepped closer. “I wanted you too, you know?”
“I didn’t know.”
I nodded, giving him a grin that had earned me my last few bed partners. “You were the only knight I ever desired and never got to experience.”
My fingers brushed his arm, letting a tendril of magic highlight what I knew was one of my best features, next to my eyes, of course: the curve where my neck met my shoulder, exposed by my carefully arranged collar.
Corvin stepped back, gently but firmly. “Morgan.”
It was just my name, but the way he said it told me everything I needed to know. I smiled once more up at him, but this time it was bittersweet.
“You’re a ravishing woman,” he started, but I held up a hand to stop him.
“I know.”
At that, he laughed, and I laughed with him.
There was a strange camaraderie between us, and there always had been, even though neither of us knew the other well.
And I’d certainly always wished I could have known him in a more carnal way.
I imagined this man, with the power of his shadows and the strength of his body, could ravage a woman in ways most men couldn’t.
What a shame I might never experience it firsthand.
“You love her, don’t you?” I didn’t need to specify who. The courtyard stones beneath us shifted from angry red to a softer, deeper purple: the color of longing, of truth recognized.
He looked away from me, which was answer enough. “I need to reach her before Arthur does something... we will all regret. I... I don’t care what Merlin says.”
I didn’t need magic to read the rest: the subtle softening around his mouth when he spoke of her, the desperate edge to his determination that went beyond duty to Merlin.
“Well, then.” I straightened, letting my attempted seduction fall away like a discarded cloak.
It was very rare for a man to turn me down.
In fact, I believed Corvin was the only one.
Or perhaps the only one who had lived to tell of it...
In my youth, I had been rather... sensitive. “There are... things you should know.”
“Things?”
I nodded, letting a flash of genuine feeling show on my face. “I can’t say what it is about you that appeals to me so much,” I began. “Perhaps it’s merely because you’re the only man to ever refuse my advances.” At that, he chuckled.
“I wouldn’t consider it a refusal of your advances per se.”
“What would you call it?”
He looked me up and down, his eyes settling on my bust before they found my face. “There have been many nights in the past when I imagined what it would be like to bed you.”
“And?”
He nodded, as though anticipating the question. “And then Guinevere came into my life.”
I smiled. “And it’s that reason that I’m going to offer you some unsolicited information. Because I recognize the look of someone who would burn down the world for the woman he adores. And I find I rather like that quality in a man.”
The truth, if not the whole truth.
He nodded once. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet, for you won’t like the information I have to tell you.”
“No?”
I shook my head. “But it’s something you should know, all the same.”
The courtyard held its breath. That was the only way I could describe it. The obsidian stones had gone quiet beneath us, the red fractures fading, and even the night air seemed to pull back. I wasn’t surprised, for the truth could be a very ugly thing.
“What I’m about to tell you,” I said, “I tell you because you’ll need to know it before you walk into that castle. Not after.”
He went still. “Tell me.”
I didn’t soften the blow because softening it would have been condescending, and Corvin deserved better than that.
“Lancelot was the first man to ever fuck her.”
The silence that followed was absolute.
I watched Corvin’s face carefully because I had the ability to read the precise moment a person’s interior world rearranged itself, and that moment had just hit Corvin like a heavy stone wall.
He didn’t crumble, but men like Corvin rarely did.
Yet something behind his eyes went very, very still.
His jaw tightened, and his left hand, which had been hanging loose at his side, closed slowly into a fist.
“How do you know this?”
“How do I know any and all things?” I asked with a smile. “Dreams.”
It was the partial truth, but the version that would land cleanest.
“Dreams can be misleading.”
“Guinevere and I have formed... a sort of friendship, you could call it,” I continued. “And women tell each other things that would surprise men.”
“Then you know this for certain?”
I nodded. “And Lance isn’t the only one who desires her.”
“Arthur?”
I nodded again.
“Has he—”
“—I don’t know,” I answered honestly.
Corvin turned away from me, took three steps toward the far edge of the courtyard, and stopped. His back was to me, and his broad shoulders squared against the dark. The obsidian beneath his boots pulsed a deep, bruised indigo. I’d never seen the stones turn that particular color before.
“I assumed... that is to say...” He swallowed audibly.
“I’d overheard Arthur mention she was no longer a maiden. So, naturally, I assumed if it wasn’t him who had deflowered her, it was one of his men.”
He inhaled deeply. “At the time, I would have bet money it was Lance.”
Then a sigh. “So why am I so surprised to hear as much now?”
It wasn’t a question he wanted me to answer, so I gave him a moment. And he took that moment before he turned back to face me.
“Did he force himself on her?”
“No. Lance wouldn’t force himself on any woman. You know that.”
He swallowed hard, and there was another silence, this one longer.
I moved to stand beside him then, not touching, just near. The night air between us was cool and still. Below the courtyard wall, the forest of Caer Gwyll breathed in the dark, ancient and indifferent to the small human suffering happening above it.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I said.
“Do you?”