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Arthur’s eyes flew up to meet his, a flash of helpless rage within them. And perhaps resentment too.
“Life is that simple for you, is it?” his voice was low and silky.
Dangerous.
“Why make it complicated?” Lancelot said. “I followed my Destiny. Found you. Pledged my allegiance. The rest doesn’t matter.”
Arthur’s chin snapped back as if he’d been punched. His eyes, wounded.
Lancelot didn’t know how he was the cause of Arthur’s pain, but he immediately regretted it.
“Doesn’t matter…” Arthur echoed.
“What she did to us…to my men…doesn’t matter?”
His hands fisted at his sides as he stared at Lancelot, blue eyes blazing.
“Did you enjoy it, then?” he rasped. “I-I saw…she made me watch...”
Lancelot cocked his head, regarding Arthur as if he’d grown two heads.
And in a way he had. He was clearly experiencing emotions at the moment that Lancelot didn’t understand.
“Of course I did not enjoy the torture,” he said calmly.
But his calm seemed to only incense Arthur more.
“It’s done. I don’t dwell on it.”
A humorless smile stretched Arthur’s lips before settling into a grimace instead.
“How fortunate for you that you feel so little,” he said, his tone sincere.
“How unfortunate for me that I feel so much.”
Lancelot didn’t know how to talk to him in this state. He couldn’t really empathize.
But he did know one thing:
“If I could have saved you from this demon, I would have. If slaying her all over again would appease you, I would drag her back from hell and bring her head to you on a platter. I wish I had been strong enough to defeat her back then, but I wasn’t. Perhaps I could have challenged her anyway, but I couldn’t risk losing. Losing would mean that I would be imprisoned or dead, and we would no longer be together. I couldn’t risk that.”
Arthur stared at him, stunned.
Lancelot could guess why. He wasn’t one to talk much. That was probably the longest monologue he’d ever uttered to anyone.
For a long time, both of them were silent. Arthur faced the horizon, his eyes tracking the slowly setting sun and the fast-approaching storm clouds. Thunder rolled in the distance.
He was a beautiful, magnificent male, Lancelot reflected.
He’d seen all kinds of beauty before. Natural and magical. In people, in objects and spaces. He admired them, but they never moved him. They were all just scenery. Not like Arthur.
Arthur moved him.
“Why did you choose me?” the King asked, his voice husky deep, his eyes as stormy as the skies.
“Why do you stay? I have not been a real king since…” he swallowed down the rest of the sentence.
But Lancelot understood.
