The training grounds behind the eastern barracks smelled of dust, oiled leather, and the sharp metallic tang of practice steel—the standard, time-tested perfume of men who preferred beating each other with iron to doing an honest day’s labor.
By late afternoon, the sun stretched long, amber shadows across the packed earth.
The perimeter wall was lined not just with the usual cluster of bored squires hoping for a concussion to liven up the watch, but with senior knights, courtiers, and merchants who had abandoned their stalls to watch.
Word had leaked out of the administrative wing.
Some said the newcomer had been spending her afternoons taking lessons from Princess Rowena, while others whispered he was learning old Welsh sorcery—or that he had accidentally blown the roof off the scriptorium just to see if the rafters would hold.
Nobody really knew the truth.
They only knew that today, Sir Gawain had agreed to a rematch, and in a court where half the entertainment consisted of watching men argue about land they didn’t own, nobody wanted to miss the fallout.
Arthur stood quietly in the shade of the high gallery, her arms folded over her chest.
She didn’t lean forward, and she didn’t offer commentary.
She simply watched, her gaze fixed on the center of the ring with an expression that suggested she expected the stone flags to crack at any second.
Before Gawain even stepped through the archway, Mordred had already dismantled the morning’s pretenses.
She had spent the last twenty minutes running through warm-ups against Kay and Agravain, leaning casually on her crossguard and offering much too cheerful advice on their footwork just to put the entire yard on notice.
Kay was currently rubbing his shoulder, glaring at her with a magnificent mix of bruised pride and utter exasperation.
“Right,” he muttered, loud enough for the front row of squires to catch every syllable.
“Next time I’m checking the rosters before I step anywhere near him.
He doesn’t even break a sweat, and he still finds a way to look entirely too amused about it.”
Agravain, adjusting his belt with a dark scowl, spat into the dirt.
“Next time I’m bringing a hedge-wizard and a salt circle.”
Galahad was already leaning so far over the stone railing he looked ready to tumble into the mud.
“Did you see that?
He didn’t even parry Kay’s third strike—he just twirled past his shoulder like he was waltzing at a feast.
Rowena’s been drilling him on balance, and honestly?
It’s terrifying.”
The crowd buzzed, the whispers weaving a nervous web across the stone walls as men who had spent their entire lives trusting the simple mathematics of a broadsword tried to comprehend an opponent who treated steel like an inconvenient draft.
Everyone wondered what the Princess had done to him.
Then Gawain stepped into the ring.
He stood opposite Mordred, his golden hair catching the late sun, his expression set in the earnest, unyielding severity he brought to every single matter of honor.
He believed entirely in the mathematics of combat: reach, mass, footwork, and sun-blessed momentum.
Mordred rolled her shoulders, the heavy iron plates of her armor shifting with a familiar, hungry clatter.
Secret of Pedigree rested easy in her grip, her mouth quirked in an easy, brilliantly unbothered grin.
“Sir Gawain,” Gawain said, inclining his head with stiff courtesy.
“I trust you have recovered from our previous exchange.”
“Oh, entirely,” Mordred answered, her voice bright and melodic inside her helmet.
“Try not to take it personally when things look a bit different today.
I brought new tricks.”
Gawain raised his broadsword, his jaw tightening at the tone.
“Begin when ready.”
The first thirty seconds were a deliberate test.
Gawain didn’t rush; he watched her.
He studied the subtle shift in her stance—her center of gravity dropped half an inch lower than it had been during their first bout.
Her guard was tighter, her breathing quieter, the frantic, overheated panic of his previous losses entirely absent.
As he circled her, watching the way her heels hovered fractionally off the dirt to allow for instantaneous re-routing, his internal cadence clicked.
Someone retrained him, Gawain realized, his jaw tightening.
He didn’t just get stronger.
Someone taught him how to move without waste.
He pressed in with a standard, heavy-handed test—a probing strike aimed at Mordred’s right flank.
Mordred deflected it, but as she did, her practice dagger slipped from her fingers, tumbling toward the packed dirt.
Before it could hit the ground, it jerked abruptly sideways, flicking back up into her left palm with a faint, whispering snap of displaced air.
At the exact same moment, her dropped shield shifted two inches to the left without a single finger wrapping around its handle.
Along the low stone wall, the crowd went dead silent for a fraction of a second.
Did anyone else see that?
Nobody was sure.
It happened too fast, too quietly.
It looked like a trick of the dust and the afternoon glare.
In the gallery, Arthur leaned forward.
Her eyes didn’t track the sword; they tracked the air around Mordred’s hands.
She watched her slip under a sluggish cross-cut, her blade moving with an impossible, frictionless glide.
“He isn’t becoming stronger,” Arthur murmured, so quietly that only Galahad heard her.
Silence lingered over the stone balustrade for a quiet moment before the King spoke again.
“He’s removing unnecessary effort,” Arthur continued, her eyes narrowing.
“He’s changing the weapon instead of the wielder.”
Galahad blinked, staring at the King.
Arthur watched the exchange, her eyes narrowing as the pattern became clear.
She was the first to understand what Rowena had actually built.
Down in the ring, Gawain realized the binds were failing him.
His heavy broadsword, usually a tool of crushing dominance, was suddenly meeting an invisible resistance—or worse, no resistance at all.
On a heavy cross-guard bind, his sword slid right through where Mordred’s steel should have been, throwing his balance forward.
Binds don’t work, Gawain thought instantly.
So stop binding.
He broke contact, stepping back to reset the tempo, then lunged in with a wide, sweeping horizontal cut designed to catch her outside her guard.
Mordred simply slipped underneath it, closing the distance before Gawain could recover his baseline balance.
Grapples fail, he registered, feeling Mordred slide past his attempt to lock his arms.
So use wide, disjointed cuts.
And every single solution failed.
Not because Gawain lacked skill, but because Mordred’s counters arrived half a heartbeat before his decisions did.
High above the arena, Princess Rowena sat with her narrow oak focus rod resting across her knees and a small leather-bound ledger open.
She was not watching the fight as a spectator; she was grading an experiment.
Mordred shifted her weight, dropping her heel just enough to slide inside Gawain’s wide arc, tossing a quick, teasing wink toward the upper gallery as she did.
Rowena picked up her quill and made a single, sharp stroke against the parchment.
A thin, perfectly manicured finger traced the crisp edge of the page, sliding down to the margin to mark how the lesson held.
A few yards away, Maeve stood in the shadowed arcade, her arms crossed tight against her bodice.
Her green eyes tracked every motion, every flicker of red heat beneath Mordred’s skin.
At first, there was only cold observation.
But as she watched the seamless integration of weight and momentum, a slow, uncomfortable realization settled into her chest.
She isn’t just using my fire, Maeve thought, her fingers digging into her own sleeves with sudden, sharp jealousy.
Rowena taught her how to bridle the beast.
Rowena turned a page in her ledger.
As Gawain’s sword finally stalled mid-air, a subtle, deeply satisfied tightening framed the corners of Rowena’s mouth—a ghost of a smile meant for no one else.
Maeve’s eyes narrowed into a dangerous, thin slit.
She didn’t look at Rowena; she didn’t have to.
The silence between the two women across the courtyard was louder than the cheering crowd.
Maeve realized, with a sudden, sickening jolt, that Rowena had given Mordred something she herself could never provide: discipline that didn’t smother the flame.
Down in the ring, the duel reached its breaking point.
Recognizing that standard forms were entirely useless against an opponent who played by different rules, Gawain pressed the attack with a desperate, furious rhythm, driving Mordred toward the edge of the ring.
She opened up with a massive, fully committed overhead strike—her entire body weight thrown into a blow meant to cleave her opponent’s guard in two.
It was exactly what Mordred had been waiting for.
At the exact instant of maximum commitment—when Gawain’s arms were fully extended, his balance leaning forward, and his grip at its weakest point—Mordred did not block.
She ducked slightly inside the arc, her smile flashing bright and wicked in the dust, and snapped her wrist forward.
“Expelliarmus!”
The sharp, concussive crack of the spell hit the junction of Gawain’s gauntlets and his hilt like a hammer.
The broadsword was literally ripped from his palm, spinning frantically through the air with a high-pitched metallic hum.
Gawain instinctively lunged forward, reaching out with both hands to grab his falling weapon out of the air.
His fingers closed on empty space.
The flying sword stopped dead three feet off the ground, vibrating slightly in the dusty sunlight, held aloft by an invisible, rigid grip.
Gawain froze.
He snatched at it again, his fingers clawing at the empty air around the hilt.
Nothing.
The weapon refused to move.
That was the moment that broke him.
It wasn’t losing the weapon; it was realizing that the rules of the physical world had just been rewritten right out from under his boots.
With agonizing slowness, Mordred lowered her hand, looking entirely too pleased with herself.
The sword drifted gracefully down three paces to the side and buried its point deep in the dirt with a soft, deliberate thunk.
Only then did Mordred step forward, planting the tip of her own practice sword a hand’s breadth away from the unprotected gap under Gawain’s arm.
She beamed up at him, entirely unbothered, enjoying every single second of the dramatic tension.
Silence held the yard for three long seconds.
Then, noise erupted.
The training ground exploded into a wall of shouted arguments, cheering squires, and frantic court gossip.
Near the corner of the low perimeter wall, an old veteran squire dropped his whetstone with a sharp clack against the stone flags, while a merchant standing nearby clumsily spilled half a sack of dried figs into the dirt, entirely too transfixed to notice.
Knights were already leaning over the barrier, shouting across the dust.
“That’s not swordsmanship!” one senior knight barked, his face red with indignation.
“That is sorcery!”
“He broke no laws of the ring!” a younger knight shouted back, waving his arms.
“The circle was open from the start!”
“Open?
Since when do we bring spells into the bailey?” Agravain bellowed, his hands gripping the stone coping so hard his knuckles turned white.
Beside him, Lord Ector stood rigid, his gaze locked on the sword still vibrating softly in the earth.
The color had entirely drained from Ector’s face, leaving him looking hollowed out as he stared not at Mordred, but at the empty space between the knights where the old, unbending world had just quietly cracked apart.
“It is effective,” Kay muttered, crossing his arms with a wry grimace.
“And frankly, watching Gawain grab at thin air was worth missing breakfast.”
“I thought it was brilliant,” Galahad cheered, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet.
Gawain stood frozen in the center of the ring, staring down at his empty hands.
He walked over to his sword, pulled it free from the dirt, and sheathed it with stiff, deliberate movements.
He looked at Mordred, his jaw tight.
“That was magic,” Gawain said, his voice carrying over the murmur of the lords.
Mordred shrugged lightly, her expression bright and infuriatingly sunny.
“The ground was level enough.”
“This was a duel.”
“Aye.”
“Knights fight with steel.”
“I held steel.”
“You cast spells.”
“Truth enough.”
“That is not the path of honor.
That is not how the Round Table settles its accounts.”
Mordred grinned, giving an airy wave of her hand.
“Well, nobody told me the air was off-limits.”
“Magic has no place in the lists,” Gawain snapped, his patience finally snapping.
Before Mordred could reply, a calm, commanding voice cut through the shouting like a falling axe.
Arthur had descended from the gallery and walked into the arena.
The crowd parted instantly, falling back into a tense, expectant hush.
The King stopped a few paces from them, her expression neutral, her eyes shifting from Gawain’s empty hands to Mordred’s relaxed posture.
“Sir Gawain,” Arthur said quietly.
Gawain straightened, biting back his anger.
“Sire.”
“Did either of you lay terms forbidding the craft before the bout began?”
Gawain hesitated, his jaw working.
“No, Sire, but—”
“Did you restrict the methods of engagement?”
“…No.”
“Then the result stands,” Arthur said, her voice carrying the finality of stone.
She looked around the ring, meeting the eyes of the murmuring lords and knights, establishing a boundary that could not be uncrossed.
“Was magic forbidden?
No.
Was outside assistance brought to bear?
No.
Did both enter of their own free will?
Yes.
Then the trial holds.”
Arthur swept her gaze across the silent courtyard, letting her eyes linger on Agravain’s clenched jaw and Ector’s frozen stance.
“The battlefield does not ask whether an arrow, a blade, or a word of power laid you low,” Arthur said, the weight of her words settling over the stone walls like lead.
“It asks only who remains standing.
The field recognizes only results.”
Silence settled over the courtyard, heavier this time—not just shock, but the weight of a new precedent settling into the marrow of the court.
Arthur turned her gaze back to Mordred and offered a single, measured nod.
“Well fought, Mordred.”
Back in the dim, cool safety of her quarters, the armor came off in a clattering heap against the wall.
Mordred sat on the edge of her cot, rubbing her bruised ribs, feeling the residual hum of dragon-mana slowly cooling beneath her skin.
The door clicked open.
Maeve stepped into the room, her green eyes dark and burning with an unreadable mix of frustration and fierce, electric pride.
She stalked straight across the stone floor and stood over Mordred, her hands clenched at her sides.
“You used her spells,” Maeve hissed, her voice vibrating with a dangerous, possessive edge.
“In front of the entire court.
You let that clerical little academic rewrite how you move.”
Mordred looked up, meeting the druid’s blazing gaze without flinching, a small, teasing smirk playing at the corner of her mouth.
“The shaping came from Rowena,” Mordred said softly, tilting her head in mock innocence.
Maeve’s breath hitched, her eyes narrowing into slits.
“But the furnace?” Mordred continued, standing up slowly to close the distance between them, her grin widening into something entirely mischievous.
“That’s all you, Maeve.
You wouldn’t want me to let your hard work go to waste, would you?”
Maeve went rigid, her breath catching in her throat.
“You forged the strength,” Mordred murmured, stepping in close enough that Maeve could see the sudden flash of heat in the green eyes, her hand coming up to gently brush the back of her knuckles against Maeve’s clenched fist.
“Rowena only taught me how to spend it.”
Maeve’s eyes flashed, a feral, reckless spark snapping through the dark green.
She leaned down, closing the distance until her breath was hot against Mordred’s ear, her voice dropping to a low, vicious purr.
“Forget about that boring princess,” Maeve whispered, her fingers suddenly shooting out to grip Mordred’s chin, forcing her to look straight into her wild, predatory gaze.
“I can do much more than forge your strength, you know.”
For a long moment, the room was completely silent.
Mordred stared back at her, the triumphant grin slipping just an inch as the sheer, unhinged weight of Maeve’s intensity slammed into her.
Maeve stared right back, the sharp, defensive jealousy in her expression warring against the undeniable truth of the words.
She had spent weeks tearing Mordred’s nervous system apart and rebuilding it around raw, blistering power—only for Rowena to walk in and hand her a compass and a ruler.
Maeve realized, with a sudden, chilling clarity, what had actually happened in those private tutoring sessions.
She hadn’t just given Mordred heat; Rowena had multiplied it.
The combination of druidic fire and academic precision was terrifyingly complete.
Maeve swallowed hard, her gaze dropping to the dark bruising across Mordred’s collarbone.
With a sharp, huffing sigh, she reached for a jar of bitter herbal salve on the nearby table, her fingers rough and impatient as she began to tend to the skin.
“…You fought with some semblance of sense,” Maeve muttered, refusing to look her in the eye, her voice barely a whisper.
“For a pupil of that insufferable scholar.”
Mordred let out a low, victorious laugh, leaning back against the stone wall as the sharp scent of nightshade and bruised mint filled the air.
‘Turns out,’ Mordred noted, leaning back as exhaustion finally settled in, ‘bringing a bit of art to a sword fight works well enough.
Who knew?’
Maeve, who knew the girl in and out, looked at Mordred and let out a sharp, breathless huff.
“My lord,” Maeve purred aloud, leaning in until her lips brushed the shell of Mordred’s ear, “before you start thinking that he has reached the top of the world with his meagre magical display…
tonight I am completely available to help him reach the top of the world…
before that wench gets her claws into you.”
I freaking hate this story, I get confused, my grammar check gets confused, we have two females pretending to be males…some people know others don’t…so I am sorry if sometime there is a pronoun hick-up.