I turned back to the window and looked out at the training yard for a long time. The dragon sat very quiet in my chest, and I couldn’t tell whether its silence meant it was satisfied or whether it was simply waiting to see what I did next.
That was the problem with the dragon. Even after all these years, I still couldn’t always tell the difference.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
-ARTHUR-
I dressed before dawn and didn’t bother calling for a servant.
The buckles on my bracers took longer than usual because my hands weren’t entirely steady, and I stood at the window for a long moment, looking out at the courtyard while I got them sorted.
The fountain was catching the first light of the morning. A stable boy crossed the cobblestones below, moving quickly with his head down, the way people moved when they’d heard something the night before and weren’t sure what it meant.
The whole castle had that quality this morning: low voices in the passages, servants who met my eyes and then immediately looked away. When I stepped outside my door, I was quick to walk past hers. I just... I didn’t want to think about her. I wanted tonotthink about her. And that was why I was headed for the stables.
Two guards near the east corridor stopped talking when I rounded the corner and then resumed too quickly after I passed. I knew what they were talking about, what the whole castle was talking about: everything that had happened last evening.
I didn’t want questions yet because I didn’t have answers. I was hoping those answers would come to me this morning while I was on my ride.
The stables were quiet and warm when I walked in. The horses shifted in their stalls, and Cabal was already tacked. Young Nathan had seen me coming from across the yard, the way he always did, and he’d prepared Cabal for me. I gave him a pat on the head, a nod, and a quick word of praise, and the boy walked away a little taller in his boots.
Isolde was already there, just as I’d hoped she would be. She had her back to me because she was checking her mare’s near hind, but she didn’t startle when I walked over. Instead, she straightened and looked at me once, the way a person looks when they’re deciding whether or not to speak. She didn’t speak, and that was the right choice.
Instead, she dismissed her escort with a single look and mounted her horse. I followed suit, and soon we were through the gate, just the two of us, the dawning morning, and the road unrolling ahead.
We rode for a while in silence as the castle fell behind us. The fields were damp and cold, the long grass silver at the tips, and a low mist sat in the hollows between the hills. Still, neither of us spoke. I’d expected the silence to sit poorly: there was just too much still burning in me, but strangely it didn’t. Instead, Isolde gave the countryside room to exist between us, and somehow the countryside used it.
By the time we reached the ridge, I felt fractionally less like a man who’d spent the night putting out fires. And when she finally spoke, I was beyond pleased to hear her voice.
“What happened last night?”
I wasn’t surprised by the question. Isolde was frank, and she was a woman who cut directly to the point, so I presented allthe details: the ruined bedchamber, Galahad wounded, the frost forming on the walls. She listened to me carefully.
“She nearly killed him,” I finished. “Galahad believes it proof that she carries a demon inside her.”
Isolde frowned up at me. “Do you think she carries a demon?”
I smiled. “I don’t believe in demons.”
Isolde rode quietly for a moment, her mare picking the way along the ridge path without any guidance. A bird called somewhere in the tree line and then stopped.
“Why now?” she asked as she turned to face me.
I glanced at her and took in her lovely face and her polished expression. I didn’t respond but waited for her to further explain.
“She’s been in your custody for... what, a month?” The question was patient, not pressing. I nodded. “If she intended to kill Galahad, why would she wait until last night to do it? Furthermore, she’s in a fortress full of men who would cheerfully see her hanged, and she knows that. Not only that, but her magic was bound by Mordred. I can only assume that breaking through that binding must have cost her something. So, I repeat my question: why now?”
I didn’t answer immediately, because I was searching for exactly the right words. Finally, I settled on: “I don’t know.”
She nodded as if that was the answer she’d expected to hear. “Do you know what caused the binding to fail?”
I shook my head. “I admit there is much about this I don’t know.”
She let that sit. The horses cantered on. Below us, the fields stretched south toward a tree line that had gone hazy with mist. And behind us was the first smear of Camelot’s towers, receding further and further into the distance. And that was its own kind of relief.
“It seems to me,” Isolde said carefully, “that Galahad must have done something to her to cause Guinevere to react the way she did.”
There was no malice in her comment, just the logic of it, delivered cleanly and without flair.
