nearly peels my grip free.
Hold on—he’s done this before. I know his next move.
I grip the hilt tighter and force his sword away. Our jaws firm, our blades dance, and the steel sings. There’s a split second where I can grab control and push him back. His eyes widen in surprise, and I slam my blade against his, once, twice, again, again. Finally, his sword falls, and I grin.
His arms lift in surrender, the mechanical one slower than his left. “Well done,” he says with a proud smile.
Progress. I gaze past my blade’s disguise to see it for what it really is: a tool, fundamentally speaking. Something I can study, learn, understand. And then, perhaps, one day, master. “Your words made me angry.”
“Then you’ll be better once you learn to fight with a clear head.”
The snow flutters around me. I pull Guinevere’s white furs tight against my shoulders. My ears are frozen. My fingertips, likewise. But my smile at Gawain’s words, confident.
“Lower the drawbridge!” someone calls.
Gawain and I glance at the northern gates as guards peel them back. Someone is riding for Camelot, and my first thought is a mixture of hope and preemptive disappointment. With every reason: the rider is too tall to be Marcus, even if the newest Knight of the Round Table is already rather tall. Nor is it Owen, as this stranger’s shoulders are much broader than my brother’s. The rider’s hair is long and dark, and his beard suggests he’s been away from any kingdom for months. He gallops in on a near-flying stallion, and I make out the tail end of a dragon tattoo on his neck when he turns his head.
From the main castle, Lancelot steps out, visibly fatigued with gray weaving through his hair from running a kingdom on the brink of collapse. He’s lost weight and sleep since Arthur’s death and Guinevere’s departure. Anxious wrinkles line his face like a map.
My father, Lord William, steps out beside him, and the two men converse with somber looks about them.
At the gates, guards call, “Sir Kay!”
“I’ll be damned,” Gawain mutters. “The last time I saw Kay, I was about to lose an arm, and he an eye. Seems my luck was worse that day than his.” He glances sideways at me and inclines his head. “Lady Vivienne,” and then leaves for the main castle. But I don’t hesitate in following.
One recent night at dinner, Lancelot spoke about Arthur’s step-brother, Kay: born to coal miners in a village beyond Camelot’s borders while Merlin kept harm and the wrath of Glastonbury far from Uther Pendragon’s first and only son. Kay was raised with Arthur in the English countryside before Merlin arrived on Arthur’s fifteenth birthday to tell him of his true purpose: grasp the gauntlet wielding the blade Excalibur and run a kingdom destined to find the Holy Grail.
Lancelot told the story through pints of ale and miniature goblets of absinthe, through tears of regret for a betrayed friendship and a torn marriage. It was a story I’d never heard before. Sir Kay, a character in Arthur’s journal of life I’d never read.
And now he’s here.
My breath is a fog as I reach the steps of the main castle. I keep far from the guards and the commotion; as the only lady in Camelot, I haven’t decided if they’ll let my place be amongst them, as Gawain does, despite my role in Morgan’s war last June.
But then my father catches my eye and beckons me to his side. He has finally given in to fashionable gentlemen’s jackets, or it could very well be that his practical cloaks were destroyed during Morgan’s wrath. I catch up with him and Lancelot as they march toward the opening gates.
“You spend too much time in that tower, Vivienne,” my father says as he clears his throat with the proper aura of a king’s advisor.
Lancelot’s eyes meet mine only briefly. “Conduct your work in the main castle, my lady. It’d ease all our minds.”
I shake my head, foregoing the expected curtsy. “The main castle doesn’t