“Is she? Or was she waylaid by Dindrane to get advice on how soon a lady can wed a knight?” Mordred sat back, leaning on his elbows.
“Does Arthur know you are here?”
“Does he know you are here?” Mordred had all the confirmation he needed in her expression. His own turned serious. He sat up, leaning toward her. “Guinevere,” he said, the lamplight low and flickering in his dark-forest eyes. “My uncle is a good man. But he is not a good husband. And he never will be.”
“It is not like that,” Guinevere whispered.
Mordred lifted an eyebrow. “What is it like?”
“Like…a partnership. But it is not the partnership I thought it would be. And I am trying to discover what I want it to be.”
Mordred reached up and ran his fingers along a strand of hair that had escaped her braid. He tucked it behind her ear, his fingers lingering there. She shivered.
“Are you cold?” He leaned closer. His eyes held her there. His eyes that were always watching, always seeing. Mordred always noticed her. Whenever she was in a room, she was the center of it for him. She knew that. Just as she knew she would never be the center of anything for Arthur.
Mordred closed the distance between them, brushing his lips against hers. The same spark she had felt at his hand was there, intensified. She gasped, and he drew her closer, pressing his mouth against hers. His hands were at the small of her back, her hands in his hair. She could taste how much he wanted her, how dark and smoldering his desire.
She had never known what it was to be desired. It was sweeter than damsons, more intoxicating than wine.
He grabbed her arm, sliding his hand along it to move her hand from his hair to somewhere else. But his fingers pressed her wound. The jolt of pain startled her out of the hungry haze she had lost herself to.
She pulled back, putting her free hand to her mouth. She shook her head. “Mordred,” she whispered. “We cannot.”
The light burning in his eyes slowly dimmed, like that of smothered coals. He hung his head. “Please forgive me. I would never hurt Arthur. I would never take something he loves. But, Guinevere…” Mordred looked back up, pain and pleading in his face. “He does not love you. I will. I do.”
She did not answer. She could not, frozen by her own internal strife. Had she betrayed Arthur? She was not his wife. Not really. And Mordred was right. Arthur did not love her. He had never asked anything more from her than friendship. She was a companion to him, but never a priority.
To Camelot, she was queen. In her heart, she was a girl who had lost her way. She was Guinevere, and she was not even Guinevere. She was without a purpose. And she desperately wanted to be wanted.
All this time she had thought of what she was denying Arthur by being his wife. Tonight, like a blade to her heart, she felt what she was being denied.
Mordred interpreted her silence as a dismissal. He stood. “Forgive me,” he whispered again. Then he left the tent.
Guinevere pulled her knees to her chin, wrapping her arms around them. How had things gotten this complicated? Fighting the Dark Queen herself seemed simpler than trying to be a queen who was not a queen, to a king who did not need her.
How much had Arthur sacrificed over his lifetime, how much of what he wanted to do and who he wanted to be had he given up to keep Camelot safe?
Would she do the same? Would she live forever next to him, beside him, waiting for him to need her?
No. It was not enough. She would go out, find Arthur, and kiss him. Surely it would feel like it had with Mordred. Everything felt new and different, everything had changed. She would use a kiss to change everything with Arthur now.
But what if she kissed him and nothing changed? What then? That unspoken space between them was safe. If she closed it, they could never go back.
Lancelot was brave enough to jump from her cliff, not knowing what bottom would greet her. Guinevere would be, too.
There was a footstep outside the tent. She looked up, hastily wiping the tears from her face. She did not know who she hoped to see. Brangien? Lancelot? Arthur?
Mordred?
The man who came through wore a black cloak, a black hood, and carried a large burlap sack. She had never seen him before.
“Good night, little queen,” he said.
She did not have time to scream before everything went black.
Men are hungry fools.
If they cannot eat it, wear it, or use it, they kill it anyway. They spread like fungus through the heart of the world. Lift a rock, and there: man.
But that is not quite right. At least fungus grows and feeds other life. Men only devour. Everywhere they reshape in their image. To their needs. Forests are felled for their homes. Fields are forced to bear their fruits, their grains, their decisions. A fungus only kills. Men change. Men demand order from nature. Men melt rocks and form metal, biting iron to pierce and slay. What can she do against such poison?
She has been pushed back too far, for too long. But Merlin, the great defender of men, is sealed away. Chaos curls from Camelot. Where there is chaos, there are cracks. And where there are cracks, secret things can grow.
She has been waiting for all the seeds she planted to sprout and grow, tangle, choke out what the usurper king has tried to claim. She needs the queen-not-queen and her heart of chaos.
But someone else has taken her.
Guinevere awoke to the sound of rushing water. It was worse than the splitting ache of her head.
“Good morning, my lady,” a man said.
Guinevere sat up, then regretted it as the world spun. “I am not your lady,” she said.
“But you are Arthur’s lady, which suits my needs much better.”
Holding a hand to her head, she blinked until the room came into focus. It was a dank hovel. A few holes near the ceiling let in knives of sunlight that did little to cut through the gloom of the small building. The walls were rock, roughly fitted together. The floor was packed dirt, scattered with chunks that had fallen from the walls. She could see no water, but she could hear it, all around.
The man stood over her, hands clasped behind his back. He was shorter than Arthur, but broader. There was a thick power to him, the brutal strength of the boar. His hair, which had been braided back from his face, was traced through with streaks of gray like iron. His eyes were neither cruel nor kind. They betrayed no emotion, no expression. It was somehow more chilling that way. She wondered if they moved when he laughed. She suspected they did not.
Maleagant, revealed. She had liked him better blurred. She had liked him better with Arthur at her side.
Guinevere tucked her legs beneath her. Her clothes had not been disturbed, though somewhere her hood and the jewelry Arthur gave her had been lost. Movement caught her eye and she looked behind her to see two other men standing next to a heavy wooden door. The door was the only part of the structure that looked new.