CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE #2
Before I could respond, Arthur glanced up at me, his expression one of exhaustion mixed with desperation. “Where is she?” His voice cracked.
I didn't know what to say.
He jumped up from his throne and began pacing the small confines of the chapel as I continued to worry that the entire structure was going to cave in upon us.
"I don't understand how she has simply disappeared!" Then he immediately stopped walking and turned to face me. "Where is Lioran?"
"Lioran?" I repeated, frowning.
"Yes! Bring him to me at once!"
"What does Lioran have to do with any of this?"
"Just—get him."
"Arthur, the last thing we want is for any of this to get out. If word spreads that you are looking for a wife—"
"—GET LIORAN!"
With that, Mordred popped his head back in through the door. "Did you call for me, sire?"
I turned to face Mordred, eager to give him an errand so we both could avoid his murder. "Would you locate Lioran and bring him here?"
"What do I tell him?" Mordred asked, looking perplexed. "The king is supposed to be in his bedchamber ill!"
"Tell him the king…" I started impatiently, shaking my head. "Tell him whatever the bloody hell you want to tell him, just bring him here!"
Mordred simply nodded and disappeared through the old oak door once more. When I was alone with Arthur, I turned to face him, my jaw tight.
"Arthur, you must hold yourself together."
He turned to face me. “I know you doubt my sanity," he began, his chest rising and falling with his escalated breathing.
"But she’s not a dream, and she's not a ghost, Lance! I felt her magic. I saw her pull the sword.” His fists clenched at his sides.
“And yet… every fair-haired woman in Logres was brought here—and nothing.”
I stepped forward cautiously. “Perhaps we missed a village. A remote settlement—”
“We’ve been thorough,” he snapped.
"The North is impossible to fully search, Arthur."
He shook his head as if he were lost in his thoughts and hadn't even heard me. "It’s as if she vanished into mist.” He paused then. "Mist," he repeated and then began nodding. "Yes, I must speak to Lioran at once."
"What does Lioran have to do with this?"
"He has the same affinity for water she does," Arthur explained as he looked up at me.
"Then you believe he knows her?" It seemed far-fetched at best.
"I don't know what I believe."
It wasn't just Arthur's obsession with this woman that was causing me unrest. It was what might happen if he actually found her. His obsession had grown darker with each passing day. One moment he spoke of bedding her. The next, he talked of threats, of removing rivals to the throne.
“Perhaps she fled Logres,” I offered carefully. “If she truly pulled the sword, she’d know the danger she was in.” I paused. "She could have escaped to Annwyn."
Arthur’s grip tightened around his goblet. “No one crosses the Standing Stones and lives.” His jaw tensed. “She’s here. She must be. Hiding. In plain sight.”
The doors opened, and Mordred returned with Lioran trailing behind him.
The northern knight's expression betrayed confusion—perhaps even wariness—as he took in Arthur's disheveled state and our surroundings.
I could only hope he hadn't seen the maidens leaving the chapel, as that was something I had no way of explaining.
Arthur crossed the room in three strides, his urgency so palpable that Lioran actually took a step back.
"Your Majesty," Lioran greeted, though his voice betrayed his uncertainty.
I pushed off the wall and moved between them before Arthur could say something he might not want to. "Sir Lioran, the king seeks information regarding a certain woman—"
"—a woman with magic," Arthur interrupted, his voice sharp. "Water magic, specifically. Like yours."
Lioran's shoulders stiffened. The change was subtle—a barely perceptible shift in his stance—but I'd spent enough years reading opponents in battle to notice. His jaw tightened. His fingers curled slightly at his sides. He appeared to be even more uncomfortable than he was when he'd walked in.
"Water magic?" Lioran repeated. "Your Majesty, I don't understand. What woman?"
Arthur stepped closer, and I resisted the urge to physically restrain him. "I need to know if you've encountered another water mage. Someone with exceptional power. Someone who could—" He stopped himself before I had to. "Someone skilled beyond… ordinary training."
"I have not come across any such woman here," Lioran started.
"No," Arthur nearly interrupted, shaking his head with impatience. "Not here. In the borderlands. Or… anywhere, for that matter."
Lioran frowned, his gaze darting between Arthur and me. "This woman you're searching for—what is her name?"
Arthur shook his head. "I don't know. But her appearance—" He paused, and something almost reverent crossed his features.
"She's beautiful. A face you would not forget.
Hair the color of moonlight. Silver-white.
Violet eyes. Pale skin. Delicate features but…
strength beneath them. And her magic—" His voice dropped. "Her magic felt ancient. Pure."
I cleared my throat, interrupting him before he could say anything more. As it was, Lioran was looking at him as if he'd sprouted another head.
"Have you seen any such woman?" I asked the small knight.
Lioran's throat worked as he swallowed. His knuckles whitened where his hands had formed fists at his sides. I was surprised to admit it, but it seemed as if he might actually know something.
"Your Majesty, I..." Lioran began, then stopped. When he spoke again, his voice had steadied, though the tension remained in his frame. "I am sorry, but I have no knowledge of such a woman."
Arthur's eyes narrowed. "Your magic is remarkably similar to hers. The way you manipulate water, the precision of your control—it's too close to be coincidence."
"Similar magic doesn't mean—"
"—where did you learn it?" Arthur demanded. "Who trained you?"
"I'm self-taught, sire," Lioran replied quickly. "I'm the only water mage I know of from my village. From anywhere in the northern borderlands, truth be told." His jaw tightened. "All the other water mages in those regions... they're gone."
"Gone?" Arthur's voice cracked. "Gone where?"
Lioran cleared his throat and appeared decidedly uncomfortable. "Dead or driven into hiding."
He didn't have to finish the sentence—they were gone owing to the king's stance on outlawing magic. Most likely, they were all dead. The words hung in the air like an accusation, though Lioran's tone remained carefully neutral.
Arthur's expression darkened. His shoulders sagged slightly, the manic energy draining from him as Lioran's words sank in. "Then you know nothing of this woman?"
"I apologize that I do not."
For a long moment, Arthur simply stared at him, perhaps searching for some sign of deception. But Lioran held the king's gaze—steady despite the nervousness I had witnessed moments before.
"You may go," Arthur finally said, his voice hollow.
Lioran bowed, perhaps a bit too quickly, and retreated from the chapel. The door closed behind him with a resonant thud that seemed to echo Arthur's defeat.
Arthur turned to face me, frustration visible in every line of his face. "She has to be somewhere, Lance."
I said nothing. What could I say? That his obsession was consuming him? That this mystery woman—if she even existed—might destroy him more thoroughly than any enemy's blade?
Instead, I simply nodded.
He began to pace again, frustration radiating off him in waves. He needed air. So did I. A break from Camelot, from Mordred, the court, the knights, the responsibility—all of it.
“Come riding with me,” I said, stepping closer. “Let's get some air, away from this stifling court."
He looked at me, searching for something—sense, maybe, or comfort. Then, with a weary nod, he followed.
-KAY-
The procession of fair-haired women wound through the old chapel like a ribbon of pale silk.
I watched from the shadow of the treeline, jaw tight, trying to puzzle out what game Arthur played now.
Two days. Two full days the king had claimed illness, barricading himself in his chambers. We were left to our own defenses, occupied by the never-ending, inane chatter of the court. I'd handled more tedious lordling squabbles in forty-eight hours than in the previous month combined.
But now this. Women filing into the old chapel like penitents seeking absolution, their gowns catching the late afternoon light as they moved in nervous clusters up the weathered stone steps.
What in the bloody hell was going on?
I had never known Arthur to attend chapel services or religious ceremonies.
And if the interest had taken him suddenly—if some strange fever had seized hold of his calculating mind—he certainly would not have come here, to this crumbling monument to forgotten gods.
The chapel's stones were blackened with age and neglect, half its roof torn open to the sky where storms had already ripped away the slate.
Weeds choked the walkways, and the wooden doors hung askew on rusted hinges that groaned like tortured souls with every gust of wind.
I counted the women in line. Twenty, perhaps more. All with hair in varying shades of blonde, from deep honey-gold to the palest pale. All young, all comely enough to catch a king's eye.
Was this some strange attempt by the king to find a wife? But Arthur had never shown interest in taking a wife. He'd made that clear to every lord who'd pushed their daughters forward, every alliance that required a marriage bed.
Given the humbleness of the maids' clothing (no silk, no velvet, no embroidered hems that would mark them as ladies of standing), these were certainly not daughters of nobles. Servants then? Perhaps a few merchants' daughters at best.