The kitchen maids chimed in agreement as Nyneve dug her fingernails into the wooden railing and tried with all her might not to believe what she’d just said. But she still greedily drank in Mordred’s form as he lined Rook up with the tilt. There seemed no clear place where the knight ended and the destrier began.Unbidden, her mind leapt to a wild place—imagining herself entangled with him in such a way, so lost in each other that all delineations and identities fell away.
Nyneve bit down on her tongue and then tried to shake the image from her mind. She pushed her curls off her shoulders, heat pricking her skin, her face growing hotter. She’d grown accustomed to the ways of her clan. It hadn’t been uncommon to do whatever she pleased with her paramour of the moment. Pleasure freely given, freely taken, always at will. But here in Camelot, no such customs existed for unmarried noblewomen, not with so many concerns about lineage and heirs.
As a squire handed Mordred his lance, she attributed her feelings to simple frustration, lacking the freedom she had with her people. Nothing more. But her heart still quickened when the steward dropped his hand, sending both knights racing toward each other. She knew little of the technique and skill behind jousting, but the ease with which Sir Bellicus hefted his lance, perfectly aimed at Mordred’s chest, made her anxious.
Nyneve found herself clinging to the railing beside the kitchen maids, who were shouting encouragement to Mordred, as the two knights pounded down the tilt field toward each other. All other sounds faded away—there was just the heavy drum of hoofbeats, her own blood throbbing in her ears, and the thunder of her heart thrashing against her ribs.
At the last possible moment, Mordred lifted his lance and shifted his weight ever so slightly, flicking away Sir Bellicus’s lance as if it were nothing more than a pesky fly, and then slammed his lance straight into the opposing knight’s breastplate. The crowd roared as Mordred’s lance shattered and Sir Bellicus tumbled from his horse. Beside her, the kitchen maids shrieked in delight, clutching each other’s hands, and Nyneve found herself giving into the fervor when Elaineexcitedly grabbed her shoulder, face flushed with heat as she gave a triumphant whoop.
Mordred pulled Rook up, twisting in the saddle to look at the wreckage in his wake. A squire caught Sir Bellicus’s horse, soothing the animal. Galen appeared from the field’s entry gate and moved quickly toward the felled knight.
Nyneve should, too, she knew. When she began to head toward the stairs at the end of the stands, she told herself it had nothing to do with Mordred and everything to do with fulfilling her duties. She kept one eye on the field, the other on her path, as she jogged down the steps. Mordred dismounted and began to walk Rook toward the top of the field just as Sir Bellicus got to his feet with Galen’s assistance, yanking off his helm. The physician helped him remove his heavy mail, revealing a sweat-stained tunic.
Even from twenty or thirty paces away, Nyneve could see that the defeated knight was absolutely fuming. She drew even with Mordred, and their eyes met for the briefest of moments. Then Galen called for Nyneve at the same time a page approached Mordred, holding out a bow and quiver of arrows for inspection, saying something about upcoming events in the tournament.
Nyneve gathered up her skirts and broke into a run, but Bellicus was already shoving Galen away. He shouted something, moving at a jagged pace toward Mordred, whose back was to the field. Galen looked at Nyneve with an alarmed expression as Bellicus pulled a dagger from his belt. Her heart leapt into her throat as he shouted a string of curses about Mordred’s bastard birth and Merlin’s prophecy, stumbling along the tilt.
Galen reached to grab the knight’s arm but failed, so Bellicus raised the dagger and sent it flying. Nyneve’s breath caught in her lungs as Mordred stepped to the side, preternaturally aware of Bellicus’s attack, pushing Rook over with his shoulder. Thedagger embedded itself in the dry grass where the destrier had been standing just a moment prior.
Before Nyneve could even process exactly what was happening, Mordred reacted. One moment, he held Rook’s reins loosely, his attention given entirely over to the page, and the next, he’d plucked the bow from the boy’s hands, strung it, spun to face the field, and sent an arrow flying. Nyneve felt as though she watched the arc of the arrow forever, its crow-feather fletching shimmering blue-black in the spring sun.
The arrow sailed through the air with a whistle, catching Bellicus by the sleeve of his tunic and pinning him to the tilt fence. The crowd went utterly silent. Then, still in full mail, only his helm removed, Mordred stalked toward the older knight, his face a mask of cold fury. He grabbed Bellicus by the front of his tunic and leaned in close.
“If you hate me so deeply, challenge me properly. I dare you,” he growled, so low Nyneve barely caught his words. “But not my horse, Bellicus. Do notevertouch my godsdamned horse.”
With that, Mordred released the man and stepped back. Bellicus said nothing, breathing hard, fear etched into his features. When Mordred shifted his weight forward, Bellicus flinched, but the knight only yanked his crow-fletched arrow free of the tilt fence. Then he turned and stalked back toward Nyneve, who was frozen to the spot.
Their gazes met for a heartbeat before her eyes slipped to his broad chest, the taper of his waist, and then, finally, without even meaning to, the green ribbon tied around the pommel of his sword, fluttering in the breeze like an omen.
Chapter Eight
Mordred
“He insulted Arthur,” Mordred said with a shrug, setting his goblet down on the deep windowsill. The evening sun turned the mead to a mirror of gold. “I hardly think you would have acted differently.”
The knight at his side let out a scoff. “Please, Mordred,” Sir Lancelot du Lac spat. “You only went after Bellicus once he threw the dagger at Rook.” Lancelot took a long drink from his goblet, his free hand closing into a fist. “Pity that you value a horse more than our king.”
Mordred crossed his arms, leaning back against the stone wall. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He was not going to punch Lancelot at the Founding Day feast. “Are you the King’s Champion, Lancelot?” Mordred asked in a low voice, letting an edge creep into his tone. “Or are you his bastard’s governess?”
Despite a great hall filled to the brim with important court members, Lancelot still lunged for him, sloshing his wine onto the slate floor. Mordred dodged the knight with a laugh, though he knew it was not quite fair. What chance did even the mostexceptional of mortal men have against an immortal Fey warrior born of a wound torn in the midnight sky by divine hands?
“Lance,” came a voice from Mordred’s shoulder—soft, but with an implicit warning. “Mordred. Why am I always finding you two at each other’s throats?”
Lancelot’s fingers tightened around the stem of his goblet as he looked down at his feet instead of answering King Arthur Pendragon’s question. Mordred, however, turned toward the king, taking another long, lazy swig of mead.
“He is irritating,” Mordred offered Arthur, meeting his gray-green gaze. The king was dressed in his usual feast day finery: imported velvet festooned with shimmering thread, thick rings on nearly every finger, his boots freshly polished. And yet, Mordred often found himself taken aback by howordinaryArthur looked. Middling height, middling build, middling features, hair a forgettable shade of sandy brown, his naturally pale skin deepened by years of riding into the sun. It was only his eyes, so bright with cleverness and guile, that seemed worthy of the stories people told about Camelot’s regent.
Arthur sighed, though Mordred caught the way one side of his mouth slanted with amusement. “Lancelot, you are indeednothis governess,” the king murmured, reaching out to grip his champion’s shoulder. “He is right on that count.” Then he turned back to Mordred, looking up at him. “And if you were going to pin Bellicus to the tilt fence with an arrow, perhaps it should have been due to an offense against me, not Rook. No matter how lovely a horse he is.”
“Yes, my liege,” Mordred replied with a bow of his head, knowing this was a gentle reprimand, likely intended to calm Lancelot down more than anything else. The older knight was directly responsible for much of Arthur’s early successes. Mordred was always willing to acknowledge Lancelot’s skills and talents, which were not few. But in Modron’s name, the man hadbeen picking him apart since he was barely ten-and-two. It got old.
“My apologies, Your Highness,” Lancelot replied, sweeping into an even lower bow. Would he truly be the King’s Champion if he did not outdo everyone at every moment?
Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Mordred looked over his shoulder and through the tall, narrow window at his back. Torches lit Camelot’s winding walls, strung with flower garlands. Most of the noble-blooded citizens and the court’s guests were gathered in the great hall for the annual feast celebrating the day of Camelot’s founding. Many things could be gleaned tonight if one stayed relatively sober and sharp while the rest of the court devolved into drunken revelry.
“Lancelot, if you would, please smooth things over with Bellicus?” Arthur said, bringing Mordred’s drifting thoughts back to the present. The king tilted his head in the direction of the entrance archway, where Mordred saw the knight limping into the hall, his wife at his side.
“Why would I do that?” Lancelot demanded, bewildered. “I didn’t cause the problem.”
