“Something inside me... answered it,” I finally said.
“Something?” His expression didn’t change as he waited for me to explain further.
“Yes, I don’t have a name for it, but it feels like something inside me that’s foreign to me, but still a part of me... I’m sure that doesn’t make much sense.” I shook my head as I took a deep breath. “I suppose what I’m trying to say is that whatever responded to Arthur’s dragon, it didn’t do so by some choice I’d made to respond. It was something underneath the choice. It was like... like recognition. As if two halves of something very old were looking at each other across...” I couldn’t finish the thought because it didn’t make a lot of sense to me, so I was sure it made no sense to Tristan. “Across the distance.”
“That frightens you?”
I nodded. “Doesn’t it frighten you?”
“On your behalf,” he answered, one eyebrow reaching for the ceiling. “Yes.”
I watched as the candle threw shadows up the wall behind him. They were long and unsteady, and for a moment he looked like a figure from some old storybook.
“I don’t know what it means,” I continued. “I don’t even know if it means anything at all. Maybe it’s the binding: just Mordred’s work affecting how I receive my own thoughts and feelings?” I said the words as if I believed them.
Tristan said nothing. He had a gift for that, too. Then he stood, and without asking, he came and took my hand, leading me to the bed. He sat down, then tapped the empty space beside him. Once I sat down, I realized we were close enough that his shoulder pressed against mine.
Then he smiled down at me. “You look like you’re nervous.”
I nodded. “I am nervous.”
“Why?”
I frowned at that. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
He shrugged. “I’m not nervous.”
That wasn’t surprising because I’d never seen him be or act nervous, ever. As to why I was nervous? I wasn’t sure. I just... didn’t know what we were or weren’t to one another. I’d assumed we were friends, but there was definitely the glimmer of something more in his eyes, and I imagined that glimmer was echoed in mine, even if I didn’t know how I truly felt about anything anymore. But, regardless, Tristan just sat there, solid, warm, and present, and I was grateful for it and for him.
After a moment, I leaned sideways and rested my head against him, and it felt good to do so. It felt like it had with Lance before... before all of this had happened.
When I thought of Lance, a deep dread settled in my gut because I had no idea what future awaited him. All I knew was that Arthur wasn’t a man who forgave easily, and that made me nervous for Lance. But for as worried as I was about him, I also couldn’t stop thinking about how close I’d come to death earlier.Galahad had absolutely planned on running my throat through with his blade. Had Arthur kept the dragon to himself, I’d most likely be dead now. And that was a thought I had trouble holding.
“I keep thinking,” I said, “about how many people in that hall agreed with Galahad: that I was someone who should be destroyed.”
“Some,” Tristan said. “Not all.”
“Galahad’s people.”
He nodded. “Though Galahad’s people were already decided.”
That was true enough.
“Why did you rescue him?” he asked.
I shook my head as I thought about it. “I don’t really know… I just… I suppose there was just no part of me that would allow him to burn when I knew I could stop it.”
“Even after he’d attempted to take your life?”
I shrugged. “I suppose so.” Then I laughed. “Does that make me a fool?”
He shook his head and his expression was serious. “No. It makes you… rather incredible, I’d say.”
Then his hand came up and rested on my back, between my shoulder blades; it was just a small pressure, as if he wanted to let me know he was there for me, that I wasn’t alone.
“Are you thinking of leaving?” I asked because I was suddenly worried that maybe after all the commotion and everything that was unraveling in Camelot, he might have opted to return home.
He was quiet for a breath too long.
