Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Nyneve
If Nyneve were completely honest with herself, she would be able to admit that the most important thing she could do right now was go back to the cottage, lie down on the pallet, and pretend her hands were Mordred’s elegant, long-fingered ones until she could think clearly again.
But Nyneve’s pride would not allow such a thing, so instead she hurried down the keep’s dark stone corridors.
She needed to get to the infirmary and put her mind entirely toward work.
Not the taste of him—woodsmoke and the metallic edge of cold rage—or the way all his hard angles slotted perfectly into her soft curves.
Not how it would feel to take him inside—
“No,” Nyneve muttered under her breath, apparently too loudly, because a passing page looked at her with a quizzical expression. She ignored him and continued on her warpath.
Mordred had clearly been given a good amount of power in his bargain. He was certainly capable of putting her under a thrall—because what else explained how she’d just behaved?
What mattered, she repeated in her head for the tenth time, pounding down a tight spiral of stairs, was that the seeing stone was firmly in the pocket of his aketon.
That’s why she’d let the kiss linger for so long, almost becoming something else entirely.
He was more likely to change his trousers or tunic and find the stone too soon, but Nyneve had only seen him in that one aketon, a dark, stormy shade of blue that—annoyingly—did wonders for his pale complexion.
She prayed to whatever goddesses would listen that he wore the garment whenever he descended under the hill.
From the conversation with Guinevere, Nyneve thought it might be soon.
It only had to be before he discovered the tiny stone, hardly bigger than the fingernail of her pinky finger, dressed in crushed columbine petals and an old Druidic charm.
Nyneve had nearly made her way out of the warren of corridors at the heart of the keep, taking the patchwork of shortcuts Galen had shown her.
But in the emptiness of a small antechamber, the hairs on the back of her neck suddenly prickled.
She spun on her heel, staring into the dimly lit, yawning corridors that branched off in all directions like a spiderweb.
Her breath came fast and hard, too quickly for her brief walk.
“Is everything all right?” someone asked at her side, making Nyneve nearly jump out of her skin.
“I—yes, I just . . .” she stammered, trying to compose herself before glancing toward the man who had spoken. Her stomach plummeted when she saw the knight who’d harassed her in the infirmary. Sir Oran, she was fairly sure.
He smiled at her, a thin veneer. “Why don’t I escort you back to the physician’s cottage?” Sir Oran asked, his hand landing on Nyneve’s hip. She stared at it incredulously, a gold band etched with an odd fish-like symbol on his index finger winking in the torchlight, mocking her.
She jerked away, stepping to the side. “I am quite all right,” she told him, seeing no need for courtly politeness as she scanned the corridors up ahead, trying to remember which one to choose.
Her mind felt like a tureen of pudding left out at the end of the feast for servants to collect in the morning.
“Lady Nyneve,” Sir Oran said, moving to block her way. “You do not seem all right. You seem as though you need assistance from a man of chivalry.”
Her patience had run dry—with herself, with the world, and most certainly with men. “Might you know where I can find one, then?” Nyneve snapped, shooting Oran a withering look as she, yet again, stepped around him. Despite the knight’s size and age, he moved well, matching her steps.
“I am trying to be kind,” Oran said, his face turning red as he shoved dishwater-blond hair away from his clammy forehead. “Look at the state of you. Your chemise showing, your kirtle askew. What have you been up to, girl?”
Reflexively, Nyneve glanced down at herself.
Oh. Well, she supposed her garments could be neater, but there were certainly more important things in the world.
With a huff, she straightened the neckline and then smoothed her skirts.
“I was out on the ramparts,” she told Oran, tipping her chin up to meet his gaze.
“Killed a few Northmen with a bow far too large for me to bend, but I managed. What did you do for Camelot today, Sir Knight?”
Nyneve had hoped someone would have come along by now—the castle was always bustling, even these back passageways—but as she spoke, she realized that due to the attack, it might be some time before the usual hum of the keep resumed.
Apprehension filled her blood like venom.
She ran her gaze down Oran’s body reflexively, sizing up an opponent like she’d been taught.
The air in the chamber went still and heavy, like time had slowed.
Oran shrugged. “I taught a fatherless girl her fucking place, for one.” And then he lunged for her.
Perhaps the goddesses were still hearing Nyneve’s prayers, because she got her hand to her dagger fast enough to slide it against Oran’s belly as he came close. The man was smart enough to freeze, his eyes meeting Nyneve’s with a glint of surprise that pleased her.
“You wouldn’t dare,” Oran sneered, leaning into the point of her dagger. He focused all his attention there, not even bothering to see what Nyneve’s free hand was doing in her skirts.
In a quick movement, she brandished her second dagger and pressed it against Oran’s throat before he seemed to quite understand what was happening. She smiled even though her bound magic thrummed against her ribs, stirred up by the danger—and the thrill of the hunt.
“Are you sure, Sir Oran?” she hissed, letting the blade bite into the skin near a pulsing vein. His face paled. “Sure enough to bet your life?”
The sound of voices echoed down one of the corridors.
In her peripheral vision, Nyneve saw lamplight bouncing in the gloom.
When Oran stepped back, she let him, eyeing the passageways up ahead.
All at once, she recalled her path—left for the front of the keep, where the main infirmary was.
She glanced back at the knight, disgusted to find a bulge in the front of his trousers.
“Do not touch me again,” Nyneve commanded him, pointing one dagger blade-first. “Do not even speak to me again.”
Even though she’d had the ability to bleed him like a pig only moments ago, Oran laughed.
“I will do whatever I please, girl. I’ve earned nothing less, putting my life on the line for Arthur’s kingdom,” he spat.
A hunger she did not like gleamed in his eyes.
“You won’t always have your daggers. You won’t always be so quick. ”
Her bound magic keened so hard that Nyneve’s vision went black with the effort it took to contain it. Pain wracked her body, sweat breaking out on the small of her back. “Stop,” she whispered, flattening one hand on her collarbone.
When Nyneve managed to open her eyes and draw in a deep, shaking breath, Oran was gone, but a group of handmaidens was about to enter the chamber. She sheathed her dagger as quickly as possible, as the woman at the front—older, her braid graying—was already peering at Nyneve.
“I’m all right,” she said before the woman could ask. Then she straightened, eyeing the younger girls at the back of the retinue. “Be careful around Sir Oran.”
The lead woman halted, her lantern swinging gently at her side. “Of course,” she said with a nod. “The queen’s letters warned us about him some time ago.”
Nyneve’s brow furrowed. “The queen’s letters?” she asked. She seemed to be the only one in the group of women now crowding the small chamber who did not understand.
“The embroidery her handmaidens pass around,” the woman said in a low tone, watching the other corridors. “Examine it very closely. Fine work, it is.” Then she pulled away, leading the women down a passageway without a backward glance.
Though her heart still pounded against her ribs, Nyneve found herself smiling.
Leave it to Guinevere to weaponize something like embroidery.
For all the trouble Mordred continued to cause her, at least she had the queen’s attention.
Maybe even her friendship, one day, though Nyneve was getting ahead of herself.
That old, lonely ache pulsed beneath her breastbone.
She drew in a deep breath of the keep’s stale air, pushed a curl out of her eyes, and then carried on her way to the infirmary.
When she got there, Galen and Elaine had the situation firmly in hand.
The critically injured were bundled up in cots behind the tall curtain, tended by a small army of healers under Elaine’s command.
All that remained were less critical injuries, including the ragged gash on a man’s arm that Galen was trying to sew up.
Even from across the room, she could see it was going poorly.
Galen’s eyesight was not what it used to be, and he seemed to be struggling to thread the needle.
She and Elaine had spoken with him just a few days ago about asking for help when he needed it, which he had roundly ignored, it seemed.
Nyneve called his name, putting her hands on her hips. The physician’s head snapped up. “Nyneve, thank the gods,” Galen called as he spotted her. “Get some clean water and the yarrow paste, please. And then thread this godsdamn needle!”
She stifled a laugh and nodded, feeling more at ease.
She knew without a doubt she could actually do something about the troubles here: wounds to close, lives to save, and lives to end gently, if need be.
Fishing a hair ribbon out of her pocket, she gathered her curls into a quick braid, ducking into the stores they kept in the castle.
Rushing over to the table, she set the supplies down and asked, “What happened?”