Across the room, Arthur’s slow, deliberate circuit of the floor brought her near the north gallery pillars.
Her mind was still full of Bristol merchants, river tolls, and horse-traders—the dreary, unheroic foundation upon which kingdoms were actually built—but as she passed a wide stone arch, her eyes caught a sudden, subtle irregularity in the crowd.
It was a woman in a heavy, forest-green gown.
She stood near a pillar, her body angled to keep her back protected by solid stone while leaving her front clear to watch three separate groups of people at once.
It was a stance that had little to do with courtly deportment and everything to do with surviving a tavern brawl in the borderlands.
Arthur’s gaze lingered for a single heartbeat.
There was something deeply awkward about the way the girl stood.
Her weight wasn’t settled on her hips like the court ladies, who had spent their childhoods learning to float across slate floors like swans on a quiet pond; she shifted back and forth on her soles as if her shoes were an elaborate torture device.
Her posture lacked all courtly softness—it was the restless, uneasy balance of someone accustomed to standing watch on a drafty rampart, waiting to see which drunk in the lower yard was going to draw steel first.
Arthur slowed her pace.
Her eyes traced the line of the girl’s shoulders, the sharp, square set of her neck, and the way her head turned in short, deliberate beats to track movement across the floor.
Then Arthur’s gaze rested on the lower half of the girl’s face.
The sharp, stubborn line of her jaw.
The intensity around her eyes.
The way she held her head slightly forward, as if perpetually prepared for someone to challenge her right to exist.
For half a heartbeat, Arthur’s eyes narrowed behind her leather mask.
It reminded her of someone.
Mordred.
The thought surfaced and vanished almost immediately, discarded by the sheer weight of common sense.
Impossible.
She had seen Sir Mordred’s face countless times—across the Round Table, after grueling, blood-spattered hours in the training yard, during long nights in the council chambers when the young knight forgot to put his helmet back on after returning from a border patrol.
She knew every line of that blunt, hard-set face.
But that was Sir Mordred.
The knight who stood beside her in iron.
The brute who carried a blade too heavy for most men to lift and spoke in growls when a simple word would do.
This was a young noblewoman in a green gown, standing beside a druid girl at a spring feast.
Arthur dismissed the resemblance as a strange coincidence of the blood.
The northern marches were full of harsh terrain, after all, and the border families had bred that same square jaw and guarded stance for three hundred years of cattle raiding.
A cousin, perhaps?
Arthur thought, her brow furrowing slightly.
A sister raised in the northern forts?
She noted the girl’s stiff posture—the awkward balance and obvious habits of an arms-man—and filed it away as an interesting detail of the border nobility before moving on.
Ironically, the tiny fragment of suspicion Arthur had carried about Sir Mordred’s odd, elusive behavior over the past few weeks didn’t grow—it vanished completely.
The idea that her dark, brooding knight could have anything to do with the delicate, ridiculous web of social posturing in this hall was so thoroughly preposterous that it cleared the board.
High court intrigue required a patience and subtlety that Sir Mordred simply did not possess.
Arthur turned away, her mind returning to the Bristol thread, and vanished into the crowd near the high dais.
“My lady?”
Mordred jumped slightly, her right hand twitching instinctually toward her thigh before she caught herself.
A noblewoman in a pale silver gown with a white lace domino mask had stopped beside them, looking directly at the high collar of Mordred’s gown, where the intricate, twisted gold leaf clasp caught the candle-glow.
“Forgive me,” the noblewoman said, her voice light and musical as a brook.
“I couldn’t help but admire your brooch.
The filigree work is extraordinary.
Is it northern craftsmanship?
I’ve never seen gold worked into such fine, jointed foliage without a single solder mark.”
Mordred blinked, completely unprepared for someone to actually engage her on the topic of goldsmithing.
“Oh,” Mordred said, her voice dropping into its natural, slightly low register before she hastily pitched it an octave higher.
“Thank you.
I made it—”
CRUNCH.
Maeve’s heavy leather boot came down directly onto the toe of Mordred’s left shoe with the full, merciless weight of her body.
Mordred’s breath hitched in a sharp, wheezing gasp.
Her eyes went wide behind her leaf mask, her jaw locking as pain shot up her ankle.
“—commissioned it!” Mordred choked out, her voice dropping into a raspy baritone as she fought the urge to grab her foot and curse in three dialects.
“I…
commissioned it!
From a…
very small smithy!”
The noblewoman smiled politely, taking the vocal drop for a northern accent, and melted back into the crowd.
“Well, it is truly exquisite.”
A few paces away, Princess Rowena was walking slowly toward the side tables, carrying a small vellum notebook tucked into her sleeve.
Scholars, as a rule, did not belong at feasts; they treated social gatherings much like naturalists treated a bog—a damp, noisy place full of unpredictable specimens that required careful cataloging.
Rowena hadn’t been paying attention to the crowd—her mind was still occupied with ledger entries and military grain stores—but the word commissioned and the sharp, choked tone of the speaker caught her ear.
Rowena stopped.
She raised her dark eyes behind her simple black silk mask, her sharp, analytical gaze cutting past the green dress and golden hair straight to the gold clasp at the throat.
She stepped closer, her movements quiet and deliberate, examining the way the gold leaves coiled around each other.
It hadn’t been forged by a smith’s hammer.
There were no file lines, no traces of heat-scale.
The metal had been folded back upon itself in a series of delicate, strange loops that defied traditional metallurgy—a very specific, highly unusual pattern of magical reshaping that she had spent thirty minutes demonstrating on an oak desk in the upper scriptorium four hours ago.
She looked up from the brooch to the girl’s face.
Her eyes tracked the square jaw, the clear, pale skin, and the sudden, guarded stillness that locked the tall girl in place the instant their eyes met.
That magical shaping, Rowena noted, her sharp mind filing away the anomaly.
That isn’t northern smithing.
That was shaped by raw, unrefined force.
Curiosity—sharp, cold, and intense—ignited behind Rowena’s dark eyes.
Unlike Arthur, who filtered the world through what should be possible according to the laws of kingdom and rank, Rowena filtered it purely through what was observable.
She took half a step forward, her posture settling into the formal frame of high court diplomacy.
“A fascinating piece,” Rowena said smoothly, her dry, clear voice cutting through the ambient noise of the room.
“The work is remarkably detailed.
I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you, my lady.
I am Rowena.”
Mordred stiffened, her pulse spiking against her ribs.
Rowena.
The scholar.
The one who notices everything.
“I am…
Morrigan,” Mordred managed to say, remembering Maeve’s instruction at the last possible second.
She attempted a curtsy, but her knees bent too quickly, her center of gravity wobbling before she stabilized her posture with an arms-man’s core strength.
Rowena watched the awkward movement, taking in the instinctual, heavy balance of someone who had clearly spent more time wearing grease and mail than learning the courtly steps.
“Morrigan,” Rowena repeated, testing the weight of the name.
“A strong name.
Tell me, Lady Morrigan…
do you intend to dance tonight, or simply stand guard by the wall?”
Before Mordred could formulate a non-incriminating answer, Rowena extended a slender, pale hand, her fingers steady, her dark eyes fixed on Mordred with absolute focus.
“May I have this dance?”
Beside them, Maeve went completely, utterly rigid.
Her green eyes widened in absolute shock, her mind stalling out as she looked from Rowena’s outstretched hand to Mordred’s paralyzed face.
No, Maeve thought, her internal voice screeching in pure panic.
No, no, no!
Absolutely not!
She can’t dance with Rowena!
Rowena will figure out her ribcage dimensions in five seconds!
Rowena will notice her hands!
Rowena will—
Maeve opened her mouth to intervene, to invent a sudden fainting spell or a pressing appointment with the head cook, but she caught the subtle tilt of Rowena’s chin.
If she refused for Morrigan, Rowena’s sharp brain would instantly flag the anomaly and wonder why a forest druid was shielding a minor noblewoman from a simple courtly stroll.
Maeve choked back her protest, her teeth clicking together so hard her jaw ached.
She stood there like an irritated forest wolf watching a rival pack-mate inspect its catch, her green eyes burning holes into the back of Rowena’s head as Mordred awkwardly placed her calloused hand into the princess’s palm.
“I…
would be honored,” Mordred muttered, looking at Maeve with a face that practically begged for an immediate dragon attack to disrupt the hall.
Maeve offered no help.
She simply crossed her arms tightly over her chest, leaning against the stone pillar with a scowl that could have turned fresh milk sour.
Rowena led Mordred out onto the polished slate of the dance floor just as the musicians in the gallery struck up a slow, measured courtly stroll.
It wasn’t a fast dance—thankfully, as Mordred in high heels was a hazard to surrounding foot traffic.
It involved two lines of dancers moving in parallel, stepping forward three paces, turning, and exchanging brief hand-holds before separating again.
For Mordred, it was a waking nightmare.
“You hold yourself very straight, Lady Morrigan,” Rowena said as they took their first three steps forward.
Rowena’s dark eyes observed every inch of her partner—the width of her shoulders, the thick calluses on the inside of her knuckles, the way her eyes kept flicking to the nearest exit as if calculating escape routes.
“I…
posture is important in the north,” Mordred stammered, trying desperately not to tread on the long velvet train of Rowena’s gown.
“Indeed,” Rowena murmured, turning gracefully as the music shifted.
“Tell me, where in the north is your family’s seat?
I am quite familiar with the administrative ledgers of the border fiefs.”
“Far north,” Mordred blurted out, her brain spinning wildly.
“Near…
the hills.
Lots of…
rocks.
And sheep.”
Rowena’s left eyebrow twitched slightly behind her silk mask.
“Sheep.
Fascinating.
And your education?
You speak with an unusual directness.
Most court ladies spend three minutes apologizing for their existence before answering a question.”
“I don’t believe in apologizing unless I’ve hit someone,” Mordred said before she could stop herself.
She instantly bit her tongue.
Rowena didn’t look offended.
A faint, rare flicker of genuine amusement touched her lips.
“A sensible policy.
Tell me, what do you think of Arthur’s new tax levies on military supplies?”
Mordred almost answered.
The words ‘Arthur said it was necessary to keep the march lords from hoarding grain’ were literally on the tip of her tongue when the sheer lethal danger of the sentence registered.
She caught herself, taking a sharp breath that pulled the green cotton tight against her ribs.
“I think…” Mordred said carefully, stepping to the left as the dance required, “that people who hoard grain during a spring thaw are usually planning to feed horses, not people.”
Rowena stopped dead in the middle of the dance floor.
The couple behind them had to veer around them with an annoyed rustle of silk, but Rowena didn’t notice.
Her dark eyes locked onto Mordred’s face with a sudden, intense sharpness that felt like a cold blade sliding between ribs.
That wasn’t court gossip.
That was the exact political assessment Arthur had delivered in the closed council room four hours ago.
Rowena stared at the tall girl in the moss-green gown, taking in the awkward balance, the calloused hand, the gold leaf brooch, and the dangerous intelligence shining behind the simple mask.
She isn’t a noblewoman, Rowena calculated.
She isn’t a spy for the march lords either—a spy wouldn’t have handed me that analysis on a platter.
Rowena took a step closer as the music began to wind down.
“You are a very strange woman, Lady Morrigan,” Rowena said softly, her voice dropping so low only Mordred could hear.
“You stand like a guard, you dress like a forest spirit, you work gold like an alchemist, and you think like a war commander.”
Mordred’s heart pounded against her ribs like a trapped bird.
“I’m just…
visiting.”
Rowena smiled—a quiet, sharp, intellectual smile.
“I hope we’ll speak again before the evening ends.
I find I have a great many questions for you.”
Before Rowena could say another word, a dark green sleeve cut straight between them.
Maeve had glided onto the edge of the floor like a shadow, stepping directly into Rowena’s personal space with her arms folded and her green eyes flashing warning lights.
“Forgive us, Princess,” Maeve said, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness.
“Lady Morrigan has a weak ankle.
She needs to sit down immediately before she collapses.”
Rowena looked at Maeve, then looked at Mordred—who was standing on two completely sound, highly muscular legs—and bowed her head slightly.
“Of course,” Rowena said, her dark eyes lingering on Mordred.
“Until later, Morrigan.”
She turned and drifted back toward the sideboard, pulling her vellum notebook back out of her sleeve.
While Rowena was busy observing Morrigan, Arthur was finishing her second circuit of the southern alcoves.
She stood near a heavy velvet curtain, sipping water from a plain pewter cup, her mind stitching together four separate conversations she had overheard over the last hour.
A wine merchant from Gloucester had complained about double tolls at the Severn bridge.
A minor baron from the border had let slip that the Earl of Bristol had missed the spring muster due to ‘illness,’ yet his blacksmiths had been working through the night for three weeks.
A church deacon had muttered into his cup about large silver tithes being diverted from the Bristol cathedral straight into private holdings.
Arthur set her cup down on a side table.
Her green eyes were cold, hard, and entirely clear.
Bristol, she thought, her jaw setting into a tight line.
It isn’t just discontent over road taxes.
They’re pooling wealth.
They’re stockpiling grain, buying destriers, and securing the river crossings.
They’re preparing to negotiate from a position of iron.
She turned her head to look for Kay, intending to give him quiet orders to place extra scouts on the western road—
On the other side of the room, near the servant passages, Mordred was standing by a tray of meat pies, trying to catch her breath after her narrow escape from Rowena.
Two palace footmen in linen tunics were leaning against the wall right beside her, watching the dancers and whispering rapidly under their breath.
“…told you, it’s the third time this month,” the younger footman said, keeping his eyes on the floor.
“Crates coming into the lower cellar at midnight.
Not marked for the King’s larder either.”
“Whose mark?” the older one asked.
“The crest with the three red fish.
The Bristol lads.
They’ve been holding private dinners in the outer bailiff’s lodge every Tuesday.
Master Cook says they brought their own wine and didn’t let a single palace servant inside the room to clear the trenchers.”
“What were they talking about?”
“Couldn’t hear much through the oak,” the young one muttered, “but I heard Lord Gerald say they had fifty spears ready in the lower valley, and more coming once the midsummer assembly clears out.”
Mordred leaned back against the stone wall, her eyes widening slightly behind her leaf mask.
Fifty spears in the lower valley?
Private dinners in the bailiff’s lodge?
She turned her head slightly, looking across the vast, crowded room toward the high dais, where Arthur stood alone in her dark blue dress, looking out over the floor with a cold, focused glare.
Neither woman knew what the other had heard.
Arthur had the paper trail, the horse purchases, and the political alliances of the Bristol lords mapped out in her head.
Mordred had the practical details—the secret meetings in the bailiff’s lodge, the midnight supply crates in the lower cellars, and the fifty hidden spears waiting in the valley.
They were looking at the exact same threat from two entirely different angles, two halves of a single trap slowly closing around Camelot, while five hundred masked nobles danced beneath the candlelight, completely oblivious to the cold war being fought right under their noses.
High above, the harps played on, their sweet, golden notes filling the warm air as the masquerade spun toward midnight.