CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
-GUIN-
I couldn't sleep.
My mind raced with thoughts of Elenora's visit—not only the lengths I'd allowed her to take with me (which now appalled me) but also her warnings and the growing complications of my mission.
After tossing restlessly for hours, I finally abandoned my bed, disguised myself as Lioran, donned his clothing, and headed for the battlements.
The night embraced me with its cool clarity as I climbed the narrow stone steps to the western wall. Stars punctured the darkness above, scattered like diamond dust across black velvet.
As I reached the top of the stairs, I froze. A silhouette stood against the starlit sky—Lance's unmistakable broad-shouldered form—leaning against the crenellations, gazing toward the distant horizon.
My first instinct was to retreat. After so much careful avoidance, encountering him alone now felt dangerous, and I was certain I was the last person he wanted to see. Yet something held me in place—perhaps curiosity, perhaps loneliness, perhaps the simple desire just to look at him.
Before I could make the correct decision (which was retreating), Lance turned, his eyes finding mine in the darkness.
Neither of us spoke. After a heartbeat of hesitation, in which I wondered whether I should just leave, I decided against it and, instead, moved forward, joining him at the wall.
The silence between us felt surprisingly comfortable—not the awkward tension I'd expected, but something calmer, like the stillness after a storm.
We stood side by side, looking out over the sleeping kingdom toward the shadowy boundary of the distant fields.
"I will leave if you'd rather be alone," I offered.
"No," he answered almost immediately. "I would rather you stayed."
That made me swallow hard, and even though I didn't look up at him, I could feel his gaze on me.
"I couldn't sleep," I finally said, keeping Lioran's voice carefully modulated.
"Nor I." This time I did chance a quick look up at him, only to find his gaze now fixed on the horizon. "The trials weigh heavily on all of us."
I sensed he wasn't speaking merely of the Shadow Trials. Something deeper troubled him—something connected to the confusion that had sprung up between us in the Whispering Wilds. But that was the last thing I wanted to discuss.
"It's peaceful up here. Above the politics and expectations."
Lance nodded. "I've always found clarity here. The world seems simpler from a distance."
I glanced at his profile, strong and serious in the moonlight. "And what clarity do you seek tonight?"
He didn't answer immediately. It was perhaps four or five seconds that the silence between us stretched.
When he finally did speak, his voice carried a vulnerability that reminded me of the way he'd talked to me in the Wilds—with a softness that seemed utterly foreign coming from the man who had slain so many without hesitation.
"I've never felt confusion like this before," he admitted, his fingers tracing abstract patterns on the ancient stone before us.
"In combat, everything is clear. Each movement has purpose; each decision has immediate consequence.
But this..." He shook his head as he exhaled, moonlight catching on the sharp angles of his face.
"This uncertainty clouds my mind like no battle fog ever has. "
"Uncertainty?" Naturally, I understood the source of his doubt, yet something compelled me to make him voice it aloud.
Lance gestured vaguely between us. "This. Whatever this connection is between us."
"Oh."
How I wished I could tell him there was nothing to be uncertain about! That beneath it all, I really was a woman. That his instincts had been correct all along. But, of course, I couldn't do that.
"I’ve always been certain about who I am, what I want. Until now."
The raw honesty in his voice caught me off guard. Here was Lancelot du Lac—Arthur’s champion, the kingdom’s fiercest sword—confessing doubt and worry. To me, of all people.
"I understand confusion well." I breathed in deeply, trying not to scent him on the slight breeze that blew up from the valley below. "Sometimes I hardly recognize myself."
Of course, he didn’t catch the hidden meaning, but it was there all the same. It was becoming increasingly difficult to play the role of two people living very different lives.
"We all play roles," Lance said. "Knight. Champion. Advisor. I find myself often wondering if anyone sees me beyond those things."
His words struck something deep within me. The vulnerability in his confession—this legendary knight admitting to feeling unseen—made my throat tighten with an almost unbearable urge to reach out and bridge the chasm between us.
Gods, how I wanted to touch him. To caress him.
To hug him even. Just to let him know that someone did see him.
Someone understood him. That beneath the polished armor and reputation, I saw the man who carried the weight of others' expectations like a second sword across his shoulders.
That I recognized the loneliness in his eyes because it mirrored my own—two souls playing parts that sometimes threatened to swallow them whole.
But, of course, I couldn't do that. The words died on my tongue, strangled by the web of deception I'd woven around myself. How could I offer him honesty when my entire presence was built on lies? How could I promise to see the real Lance when he didn't even know my real name?
The irony cut like a blade. Here we stood, two people yearning to be known, yet both trapped behind masks we couldn't remove.
His was forged by duty and reputation; mine by necessity and survival.
The distance between us felt simultaneously as thin as parchment and as vast as the kingdom spread out below.
"What would you be if not a knight?" I asked, genuinely curious, wanting to change the subject to something easier on my heart.
The moonlight lit his profile as he turned to the distant hills. "A teacher, perhaps. Training boys like I once was. Poor. Unconnected. Giving them the same chance Arthur gave me."
The simplicity of his answer revealed depths I hadn't expected—no hunger for personal glory burning in his voice, no carefully concealed ambition for power or recognition.
Just the quiet, steady hope of offering someone the same opportunity that had transformed his life.
It wasn't the response I'd anticipated from a man whose name was whispered in taverns and sung in ballads across the realm.
This wasn't the voice of someone driven by conquest or the intoxicating rush of battle, but by something far more profound—gratitude. A debt he felt compelled to repay.
The revelation shifted something inside me, like pieces of a puzzle clicking into unexpected alignment.
Here was a man who had reached the pinnacle of knightly achievement, who could have anything he desired, yet all he wanted was to extend his hand to lift others from the same darkness he'd once known.
It spoke to a character I hadn't dared hope existed beneath the polished armor and legendary reputation.
And it made me sick to hear it. Because I'd never imagined Lancelot had this level of depth to him. It made things more difficult—my mission here more difficult—my belief system more difficult. Infinitely so.
"I would have thought you’d want even more fame."
He shook his head, faintly amused. "I’ve had more than enough. Glory fades. But helping someone rise… that lasts." He turned to me, eyes thoughtful. "Arthur saw something in me when I had nothing. I want to do the same for someone else."
It took everything within me not to reach out and touch him—not to trace the line of the faint scar that ran along his jaw, not to feel the warmth of his skin beneath my fingertips.
Everything within me screamed to lift up on my tiptoes and press my lips to his, to taste the words he'd just spoken, to answer his vulnerability with my own.
The urge was so strong it felt like drowning in reverse—as if I were being pulled upward into something I couldn't name, couldn't have, couldn't even acknowledge.
But not being able to act on any of it was choking me.
The space between us felt charged, electric with impossible desires.
This wasn't just attraction—this was something so much more dangerous.
This was the kind of wanting that could unravel everything I'd worked for, everything I'd sacrificed to be here.
And yet, standing in the fading light with Lance speaking of redemption and second chances, I felt myself teetering on the edge of throwing it all away.
"And you?" he asked, gently turning the question back on me. "If not a knight, what would Sir Lioran be?"
The question sliced through me. For one terrifying moment, I nearly answered as Guinevere, not as Lioran. But then I remembered myself and paused, turning my gaze toward the horizon—toward Annwyn’s distant border as I realized Lioran's and Guinevere's answers were much the same.
"I think…" I said slowly, choosing each word with care, "I would still serve. But not with a sword. I’d try to mend what’s broken. Stitch together what others have given up on—between people, between kingdoms, between ways of thinking."
He watched me, quiet for a long time. Then: "That’s a strange ambition for a warrior."
"Maybe that’s why I became one." I looked up at him once more. "Because ultimately, I want peace."
He studied me as if trying to read past the words or fully comprehend them. "You speak like someone who’s lost something."
"Haven't we all?"
He didn't say anything immediately, but I watched as something shifted in his expression—a flicker of understanding, perhaps recognition of shared wounds neither of us had named aloud.
When he finally nodded, it was slow and deliberate, as if he were acknowledging not just my words but the careful truth between them.
"I owe you an apology."