The rhythmic, rocking motion of the warhorse was the only thing keeping the world from spinning into ash.
Two full days without sleep, capped by the raw, bone-scraping strain of channeling crimson mana into solid granite, had drained every drop of vitality from Mordred’s limbs.
Deep within the heavy shell of her plate, her muscles throbbed with a dull, persistent ache, while every step the stallion took sent a low vibration straight up her spine.
Armor, as any veteran knight will tell you over a second skin of ale, is remarkably effective at stopping steel, but notoriously poor at cushioning a bone-deep exhaustion.
Her chin slammed against her gorget as her eyelids fluttered shut, weighted down by pure exhaustion.
She didn’t dream.
She simply sank into a black, weightless void while the cold leather of the reins lay limp in her gauntleted fingers as the horse followed the column at a steady walk.
Fortunately for Mordred, military destriers possessed an innate sense of direction that far exceeded their riders’ conscious state after a three-day march.
“Arthur!
King Arthur!”
The deafening roar of the crowd shattered the dark.
Mordred jerked upright in the saddle, her hand flying instinctively to the hilt of her broadsword before her foggy brain could register the scene around her.
They were no longer on the open river road.
The massive white stone gates of Camelot towered overhead, framing a long avenue packed with thousands of citizens where summer banners fluttered from every balcony.
Wildflowers, fresh dirt, and warm baking bread filled the air, thick and sweet enough to mask the bitter tang of dried blood still caked along her knee guards.
“Our King!
Arthur Pendragon!”
“The King of Promises!”
“Bring peace to Britain!”
People packed the wooden barricades three deep, screaming until their faces turned red while waving woven garlands of oak leaves and summer blooms.
At the head of the procession rode Arthur, sitting straight upon the high white back of Dun Stallion while her gilded armor caught the midday sun.
Her face was set in an unmoving mask of regal composure, her blue cloak draped over the horse’s flank without a single wrinkle out of place.
It was a posture honed by years of royal education, which apparently included the strict discipline of never looking as thoroughly miserable as the common military reality dictated.
Mordred rubbed a heavy gauntlet across her visor slits, clearing the sleep from her eyes before letting out a long breath.
‘Look at them screaming like headless chickens,’ she muttered to herself, adjusting her posture in the saddle so she wouldn’t slump like a sack of grain.
‘Half of these fools probably don’t even know where Bristol is on a map.’
Yet as the royal column moved deeper into the city plaza, the focus of the crowd’s energy began to shift.
Crowds are strange, fickle beasts at the best of times, but soldiers possess an altogether different set of eyes.
Behind the King, the marching ranks of royal knights didn’t look at the cheering citizens.
Their eyes—burning behind steel visors—locked squarely on Mordred’s back.
In a single afternoon, the green knight had transformed from an unproven outsider into a force of nature.
The men had watched as he charged headlong into a dead-end choke point, ignoring longbow fire to hurl himself where the enemy lines were thickest.
That terrifying, violent madness had swept through the ranks like wildfire, dragging three thousand men forward on pure momentum.
More than that, he had saved them from a brutal, bloody siege.
The thirty-foot gap he had torn through solid granite meant hundreds of foot soldiers would return home to their farms instead of rotting in the mud beneath Bristol’s parapets.
To high commanders, siege engines were expensive investments; to the common footman, a knight who could personally dismantle thirty feet of enemy masonry was practically a patron saint.
Among the ranks, Mordred’s status had skyrocketed.
While Arthur rode ahead like a distant, untouchable sun, the violent knight who shattered walls and bled on the flagstones was something the soldiers could actually touch and understand.
“Look at the King,” Mordred grumbled beneath her chin-guard, leaning toward Galahad as their horses walked boot-to-boot.
“Riding up there like she organized the whole damn show.
I’m the one who did the heavy lifting.”
Galahad didn’t turn his head, though the corner of his mouth twitched beneath his helmet.
“You blew up a fortress wall without orders, Mordred.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
Long before anyone spoke a word of it, Arthur noticed the shift in the crowd’s energy.
The deafening cheers were for her banners, her victory, and her kingdom—yet the eyes of the soldiers marching behind her were not following the crown, but were instead locked squarely on the green knight.
She had seen that look before—not admiration exactly, but something far simpler and infinitely more dangerous: belief.
Where the common soldiers remained oblivious to the underlying mechanics of the campaign, knowing nothing of merchant silver, closed-door noble negotiations, or the endless hours spent studying maps and supply lines, they knew with absolute certainty that Bristol possessed an insurmountable wall, that the wall had fallen, and that Sir Mordred had been the one standing in front of the ruin.
Feeling her fingers tighten around Dun Stallion’s leather reins, Arthur confronted the cold reality before her.
‘A kingdom desperately needs heroes to serve as vessels for its people’s hopes and fears,’ she thought, her eyes fixed on the road ahead, ‘but those heroes are rarely permitted to remain human for long.’
Glancing back at the horned helmet riding several lengths behind her, Arthur looked at the young warrior she had trained.
‘That name no longer belongs merely to the stubborn young warrior in the training yard who argues over tactics and ignores orders when his temper flares.
It is rapidly expanding into something far larger—and infinitely harder to control.’
Before Galahad could answer Mordred, the column ground to a halt at the foot of the high marble steps leading into the Great Citadel.
A figure emerged from the cool shadows of the arched entranceway and stepped onto the white stone.
She wore sweeping, layered robes of brilliant white and shimmering iridescent silk that caught the sunlight in flashes of soft pink and pale violet.
Long, loose strands of silver-white hair cascaded down her back, stray locks framing a face so striking and unblemished it looked entirely separate from the mortal world.
She glided down the steps with an easy grace, stopping just short of Dun Stallion’s hooves before dropping into an elegant, formal bow.
It was the kind of entrance that clearly required hours of private rehearsal in front of a looking glass.
“We have awaited your triumphant return, my King,” the woman spoke, her voice ringing like silver bells chiming over clear water—light, playful, and echoing far further than it had any right to.
“The roads are clear, the traitors are broken, and victory rests upon your brow.
If it pleases you, step inside and partake in the victory feast prepared in your honor.”
Arthur reined in her mount, bowing her head slightly from the saddle.
“My thanks, Court Mage Merlin.
Once I have removed this armor, I shall join the table immediately.”
Mordred pulled her stallion to a hard stop, her jaw dropping open inside her chin-guard.
She stared.
She blinked once.
She blinked twice.
‘Hold on.
Hold the damn phone.’
Her mind screeched to a halt.
‘That’s Merlin?!’
In every tale, every legend, every piece of trash history she had ever picked up back in her old life, Merlin was supposed to be a creepy, bearded old wizard living in a hollow tree, smelling of old paper and toadstools.
He was not supposed to be a tall, silver-haired bombshell with a chest that defied the laws of structural engineering and an air that practically radiated smug, playful authority.
The universe had apparently decided to mock her personally.
And as Mordred was rapidly learning, the universe rarely missed an opportunity to enjoy a good joke at her expense.
‘Who the hell is this stacked silver-haired woman?!
Where is the decrepit old man?!’
“You’re…
Merlin?!” The words burst out of Mordred’s mouth before she could clamp her jaw shut, her voice rasping through her visor.
The silver-haired woman turned, her violet eyes locking onto Mordred as she tilted her head, tapping a pale finger against her chin with a theatrical little pout.
“Oh my~ A knight I haven’t met before,” she purred, her lips curving into a sweet, dazzling smile that didn’t reach the sharp intelligence gleaming deep in her eyes.
“Could you be the new addition everyone has been whispering about?
Sir Mordred?
Though as for my title…
I much prefer it when handsome knights call me Merlin-chan!
Or perhaps Magus Sarah~ I am, after all, an eternal magical girl at heart!”
She ended the sentence with a tiny, deliberate wink.
A vein pulsed in Mordred’s temple.
‘She’s doing it on purpose.
She’s literally acting cute to mess with me.
I am going to throw up.’
“He is indeed Mordred, Lady Merlin,” Galahad interjected quickly, stepping his horse forward to break the sudden tension before Mordred could do something catastrophic, bowing politely from the saddle.
Galahad, having spent a lifetime around both high politics and volatile warriors, had developed a sharp instinct for when a conversation was three seconds away from a duel.
“If I may add—our casualties during the breach were remarkably light, almost entirely due to Sir Mordred’s actions at the curtain wall.”
“Is that so?” The magus turned her gaze back to Mordred, her smile softening into something smoother, more enigmatic as a faint violet shimmer flickered across her pupils, mapping the crimson mana still clinging to Mordred’s armor like static.
“My, my.
How very impressive, Sir Mordred~”
Mordred forced her hands to remain flat on her saddle horn, grinding her back teeth together until her jaw ached.
“Don’t mention it,” Mordred grunted, keeping her tone as flat and dry as gravel.
“I just hate waiting around in the mud.”
Guided by the silver-haired magus, the royal party stabled their mounts and crossed the outer courtyards into the Great Hall of the Citadel.
The vast chamber was already buzzing with life as massive oak tables lined the stone floor, piled high with roasted boar, crusty loaves of barley bread, giant wheels of sharp cheese, and heavy flagons of dark ale, while torchlight flickered against the high stone walls, casting long shadows across the heraldic banners hanging from the rafters.
The stewards had clearly spared no expense, operating on the ancient court principle that enough roasted meat could make men forget almost any amount of royal mismanagement.
Because the Round Table knights were typically dispatched to govern distant marches and defend far-flung borders, a full gathering in the capital was a rare event.
Sir Lancelot stood near the center, his polished silver armor gleaming under the torchlight, while Sir Gawain leaned against a pillar, swapping quiet jokes with Sir Kay as senior lords and veteran captains filled the high benches.
Watching the exchange in silent isolation from the edge of the Great Hall, Princess Rowena had fully expected the court mage’s attention to drift away, accustomed as she was to Merlin’s habit of appearing distracted, playful, or completely consumed by strange curiosities only she understood.
Yet, as her pale fingers tightened around the edge of her vellum notebook, Rowena watched the magus remain fixated on the green knight.
‘She senses it too,’ Rowena thought, her eyes tracking the court mage’s gaze.
‘That oppressive crimson energy…
that impossible physical force…
it doesn’t behave like ordinary magic.’
“Mordred,” Rowena murmured under her breath.
‘He tears down a thirty-foot granite wall with his bare hands,’ she thought, watching him slump on the wooden bench, ‘yet he looks like he’d rather face a firing line than figure out which fork to use at a feast.’
Seeing that Merlin’s sharp interest had been captured, Rowena knew that fact alone was reason enough to keep her eyes glued to the green knight.
“Welcome back, my King!” Kay called out boisterously as Arthur entered the hall, having already shed her heavy plate for a dark blue tunic.
“Tell us—did the western rebels put up a decent fight, or did they collapse the second they saw your banner?”
Kay was Arthur’s foster brother, a sharp-tongued knight whose mouth constantly outpaced his manners, yet beneath the dry sarcasm lay absolute, unshakeable loyalty—a fact Arthur knew better than anyone as she gave him a brief glance, walking past without a word as if his banter were as familiar as the rain.
Nearby, Lancelot had already spotted Galahad.
The white-armored knight hadn’t even finished unbuckling his gauntlets before Lancelot stepped in, wrapping a massive arm around Galahad’s shoulders and rubbing a hand over his son’s head, ruffling his hair into a mess.
“You did well out there, lad!” Lancelot boomed, his face glowing with straightforward pride.
“I heard you held the line at the river!”
“Father—please—we are in the Great Hall—” Galahad stammered, his face turning bright red as he squirmed frantically against his father’s grip while his arms flailed uselessly, tears of embarrassment pricking at the corners of his eyes.
“Let go!
Everyone is looking!”
Mordred stood near the edge of the hall, her broadsword resting against her hip, watching the physical affection play out between the two men.
‘Look at that…’ Mordred thought, a cold, heavy knot tightening in her chest as she watched Lancelot’s bright, foolish grin while he pulled Galahad into a headlock.
‘That’s what it looks like when someone is actually happy their child came home alive.’
She slowly turned her gaze toward the head of the room, where Arthur was quietly taking her seat at the center of the high table, perfectly composed and utterly detached.
‘Hey, Arthur.
Take a damn lesson.’
Catching Mordred’s expression from across the hall for only a fleeting second, Arthur observed a look beneath the helmet where the familiar, simple emotions of anger, frustration, and determination usually resided.
Following Mordred’s gaze toward Lancelot and Galahad, Arthur understood the source of the young knight’s reaction.
Lancelot had never been capable of subtlety; he praised loudly, laughed loudly, and displayed his love without shame where other men hid affection behind duty and rigid ceremony.
Though Arthur had always admired that unreserved warmth in her companion, looking at Mordred in this quiet moment brought a solemn realization to her mind.
‘Has he missed out on something far more fundamental than learning how to fight or endure pain?’ Arthur thought, her gaze lingering on the young knight.
‘Has he ever learned how to accept that someone might actually care whether he survived?’
Pushing the heavy thought aside to ensure personal matters did not eclipse the law, Arthur settled her hand on Excalibur’s pommel, resolute in her duty that a knight who ignored direct commands and endangered the entire vanguard could never be allowed to believe that victory erased accountability.
The chatter in the hall slowly died down as the knights took their designated places along the long benches.
Mordred slid onto a bench near the middle, the heavy iron of her thigh guards clattering against the dark oak as she reached for a flagon of ale, ready to finally drown the lingering ache in her throat.
Arthur stood up at the head of the table.
The room fell completely silent as the knights leaned forward, expecting the King to raise her goblet, to offer a toast to the fallen, or to declare the end of the western rebellion.
It was the customary moment for royal platitudes, glass-clinking, and well-earned drunkenness.
Instead, Arthur’s cold green eyes swept across the room, locking directly onto Mordred.
The air in the hall turned frigid.
“Sir Mordred,” Arthur’s voice echoed off the high stone arches, clear, heavy, and completely devoid of warmth.
“Stand.”
Mordred froze, her fingers inches from the handle of her flagon.
It is an unwritten law of military life that whenever a superior officer speaks your name with that specific degree of clarity, whatever you were about to enjoy is officially cancelled.
Slowly, she pulled her hand back, her boots scraping against the flagstones as she stood up straight behind the bench.
“Do you know why you have been called before this table?” Arthur asked, her pale face unmoving, her hand resting flat on Excalibur’s pommel.
“Do you understand the weight of your transgression?”
Mordred blinked behind her visor, her mind stalling out in complete confusion.
‘Huh?
What the hell is she talking about?’