-GUIN-
Galahad returned from breakfast as the morning light went pale gold through the window. His prayer beads were wound around his left hand, as usual. They were the amber ones he used for the Drenath sequence.
Drenath was the god known for pain and purification through suffering, the burning away of weakness.
“The body is the crucible. Pain is the fire. What survives the burning is worthy of the Boundless,” Galahad whispered once he walked into the room and saw me.
Apparently, Drenath’s teachings were meant to instill the idea that life’s hardships refine character. He was also the god who believed in punishing oneself for one’s sins, hence the latticework of scars on Galahad’s back, all interweaving like some macabre vine.
When he walked into the room, he moved like a man who’d trained himself to take up no more space than was necessary. His golden hair caught the light and almost reflected like a halo. Galahad was, objectively, beautiful, and that seemed to make everything worse.
He looked at the untouched crust of bread that was still sitting in front of me.
Then he looked at me.
“You haven’t eaten.”
“No.”
A pause. “You eat when I tell you to eat.”
I felt my eyes narrow of their own accord. “Why am I here?”
His chin came up a fraction. “You’re a prisoner of—”
“—I know why I’m in Camelot.” My voice was steady. I was surprised, actually, by how steady it was. Hunger did something to steadiness; it stripped away the wobble of social consideration, leaving only the load-bearing structure. “I’m Arthur’s political prisoner. That was the arrangement.” I looked at him. “Nowhere in that arrangement, though, did it say I’dhave to become a follower of your religion. What’s more, Arthur never mentioned anything about starving me. And never did he say I should be awakened seven times a night to recite prayers to gods I don’t worship. So I’m asking you directly: why am Ihere? In your quarters. Under your authority specifically.”
The prayer beads went still in his hand.
“The King determined that my supervision would best serve—”
“—what are you afraid of?”
The question landed. I watched it land.
“I am not—”
“—I have no magic.” I held up my hands, palms out. The binding was invisible, but I could still feel it. “I have no weapons. I have no allies. I can’t reach anyone outside these walls. I’m at least ten pounds lighter than I was two weeks ago, and I’m so tired I’m having trouble tracking this conversation.” I lowered my hands. “What exactly do you think I’m going to do? What threat do you need this much control to contain?”
Galahad was very still, but he said nothing. His jaw worked once as his hands closed at his sides. There was a long gap of silence between us when he finally opened his mouth again.
“You speak,” he said very quietly, “as though understanding my methods is your right.”
“I speak,” I argued, “as though I’m a person.”
He didn’t respond but just rubbed his prayer beads through his fingers as though they were giving him patience he could apply to the situation. And, for all I knew, maybe they were.
“I will not close my eyes against corruption,” he began the Kaelthar Litany, but then interrupted himself. “You will undergo the Solvaine purification bath this morning.”
Then his voice returned to its usual register, measured, certain, and calm, as he finished the prayer. He gestured toward the center of the room, and I stood up, knowing there was no usein fighting this or him. Galahad, I’d come to learn, had patience that didn’t expire. If I didn’t do as he said, he simply waited until I did.
I knew what the purification bath was. He’d put me through it once already, and it wasn’t fun. I’d endured the bath the first time by going somewhere else in my head, and I hoped I could do the same this time.
“Undress.”
The water had been drawn from the deep well and left in the stone corridor overnight before he carried the metal tub inside. I knew this because he’d told me in the same tone one might describe a poultice for a wound.Cold water purifies what warm water merely cleans.When I stepped toward the basin and put my hand in the water, the cold hit like a fist.
I undressed. I’d stopped being ashamed of this particular humiliation ever since Arthur had paraded me in front of the male court. Shame requires a kind of energy I no longer had to spend on it.
