The door to the private chamber closed harder than it needed to, iron plates clinking with every heavy step as Mordred crossed the room and dropped her gauntlets onto the oak table with a flat, metallic slap.
Maeve was already waiting by the hearth with a clay jug in one hand and two wooden cups in the other.
She watched silently as Mordred pulled the horned helmet off and set it on the bench like it had personally offended her.
“She balanced me,” Mordred said, her voice coming out rough and dry.
“Like a ledger entry.
Wall on one side, dead lords on the other.
Zero.
Nothing left over.”
Maeve poured dark, herbal liquid into both cups until the sharp, stinging scent rose to fill the air between them.
She stepped closer than necessary as she held the cup out, her fingers intentionally brushing against Mordred’s warm skin as the wood changed hands.
“Arthur has always preferred clean columns,” Maeve murmured softly.
“Drink.”
Mordred took a long, burning mouthful that settled heavy and warm in her stomach, staring into the flickering hearth before setting her wooden cup down on the edge of the bench.
“She looked at me like I was a problem that had been solved for the evening.
I broke their wall, I kept three thousand men from becoming arrow cushions, and she still treated it like I had overdrawn an account.”
Maeve drank from her own cup, set it beside Mordred’s, and moved in close to unbuckle the first of Mordred’s shoulder straps without being asked.
Though her hands moved with familiar efficiency, they lingered a fraction longer than the task required at the edge of each iron plate.
“She is afraid of anything that cannot be measured in neat units of duty, and you are not neat.”
“I am useful,” Mordred muttered, lifting her arms so Maeve could pull the heavy cuirass free.
The steel came away with a dull scrape before landing on the floorboards below.
Maeve’s palm rested flat against Mordred’s side for a moment longer than needed before reaching for the next strap, her touch grounding.
“Useful should count for something.”
Maeve tightened the strap she was working on, then stopped.
“It does count.”
Mordred glanced down at her.
“You keep saying that as though you are trying to convince yourself.”
“I am trying to convince you.” Maeve looked up through the loose strands of red hair that had fallen across her face, her eyes dark in the firelight.
“You didn’t spend the entire battle shouting about how useful you were.
You didn’t break that wall because you wanted a medal.
You did it because you saw three thousand men trapped behind it and decided you were going through.”
Mordred’s expression tightened, her jaw working behind closed lips.
“And now you are angry because Arthur treated the result like a transaction.”
“I am angry because she didn’t even look at me.”
Maeve went completely still, her hands resting against the leather straps.
Mordred looked away, suddenly deeply interested in the iron buckle Maeve was holding, and swallowed hard against the lump in her throat.
“She looked at the wall.
She looked at the prisoners.
She looked at the law.
She looked at everyone except me.”
Maeve set the buckle aside with a quiet sigh and looked up at her.
“That is what actually hurt you.”
Mordred said nothing, keeping her gaze locked on the far wall.
Maeve reached up to pull the loosened shoulder plate free, meeting her silence with calm certainty.
“You can keep pretending it was about the wall if you want.”
“I wasn’t pretending.”
“No,” Maeve said softly.
“You were avoiding the part you didn’t want to say.”
Mordred’s jaw tightened until the muscles clicked.
Maeve gave the shoulder plate a final, decisive tug and let it drop onto the floor with a thud before stepping closer.
“You wanted her to tell you that she was glad you came back alive.”
Mordred stared at her, caught completely exposed.
Neither of them spoke for several long seconds as the hearth fire crackled softly in the background.
Mordred turned her head toward the hearth to hide the sudden heat in her face.
“Drink your medicine.”
Maeve worked in understanding silence.
She loosened the remaining straps and lifted the heavy mail shirt over Mordred’s head, setting each piece aside in precise order until only the padded undertunic and hose remained.
Mordred sat heavily on the edge of the cot and let out a long breath, her body aching with cumulative exhaustion while Maeve drew a simple, undyed linen shift from the wooden chest.
Mordred stared at the soft fabric held out toward her, then stood and pulled her remaining layers off, letting the cool night air brush against skin that had spent two days locked in oppressive steel.
She shrugged into the shift as fabric settled light across her shoulders to mid-calf, watching Maeve retrieve their cups and pour another round from the clay jug.
They sat together on the cot with their backs pressed against the cold stone wall, cups in hand and the jug resting between them.
Their shoulders touched without either moving away as the strong drink slowly loosened the harsh edges of the day.
Maeve shifted closer when Mordred’s shoulder began to slide down the wall.
“You’re falling asleep.”
“I am not.”
“You are.”
“I am resting my eyes.”
“You’ve been resting them for nearly a minute.”
Mordred opened one eye to squint through the dim candlelight.
“That’s still technically awake.”
Maeve laughed softly under her breath and reached over to push a loose strand of auburn hair away from Mordred’s forehead.
The gesture was simple and practiced, and neither commented on it, though Maeve’s fingers lingered against the warm skin above Mordred’s temple for several heartbeats before pulling back.
Mordred closed her eyes again as the warmth of the room settled over her, leaning back into the wall.
“You’re going to regret that drink tomorrow,” Maeve said.
“I regret most things tomorrow.”
“That’s reassuring.”
Mordred gave a tired, raspy laugh.
When Maeve finally began to withdraw her hand, Mordred caught her wrist before she could pull it completely away, her calloused fingers wrapping around the thin joint.
“Stay.”
Maeve looked down at her, her quiet gaze intent.
Mordred realized what she had blurted out only after the word had already hung in the quiet room, and cleared her throat roughly.
“I mean…
the room is cold.”
Maeve glanced pointedly toward the roaring hearth with a faint huff of humor.
“Of course it is.”
Mordred released her wrist, though neither moved an inch apart.
“She is so perfect it makes my teeth hurt,” Mordred muttered, swirling the dark liquid in her wooden cup as her voice gained a bitter edge.
“Every word measured.
Every look calculated.
I could have died under that wall and she would have written a neat note about the loss of a useful asset.”
Maeve snorted softly and let her knee press firmly against Mordred’s leg.
“If she ever smiled at you the way Lancelot smiles at Galahad, the entire court would faint from shock.”
“I do not need smiles,” Mordred replied, taking another swallow as the alcohol and the solid press of Maeve’s leg settled deeper into her nerves.
“I needed her to look at the wall I broke and say it mattered.
Maeve refilled both cups, sliding her fingers smoothly along Mordred’s wrist to pass the drink back.
“Then she is a fool.
Drink more.
The numbers can wait until morning.”
They drank as the jug slowly emptied and the chamber grew warmer, their conversation drifting smoothly from Arthur’s coldness to smaller court grievances—Gawain’s obsession with boiled carrots, Kay’s endless complaints, and the way Dagonet always managed to open his mouth at the absolute worst possible moment.
Laughter came easily after the third cup, Maeve’s hand resting against the back of Mordred’s neck as she gestured before dropping away.
Maeve set her empty cup aside and turned her attention to the red-and-white sword leaning against the stone wall.
“Let me see the blade you took from the standing stones.”
Mordred reached over to pull Leocorna across her lap and held it out.
Their hands brushed against the white leather grip and lingered longer than the exchange required.
Maeve took the weapon with both hands and turned the metal so the firelight traced the ancient runes cut deep into the fuller.
“This is not a knight’s sword that happened to be left at a holy place,” Maeve said quietly after a long silence, her shoulder pressed fully against Mordred’s side.
“This is a druidic blade.
The land itself answered when you claimed it.”
Mordred watched Maeve’s mouth more than the weapon in her hands, frowning slightly.
“It makes red lightning.
That is all I knew.”
“The lightning is only the surface,” Maeve explained, tracing one of the carved marks with a fingertip before letting that same finger rest against Mordred’s wrist.
“Your own power—the vines, the living growth—that is already yours.
The sword does not give you that, nor did it ever need to.
What it gives is permission.”
She looked up, her eyes darkened in the dim room.
“When you hold this, the ground remembers older agreements.
Stone answers a little faster.
Storms gather closer.
Standing stones notice you, and damaged earth begins to settle under your feet.
It is not flashy.
It is recognition.”
“Recognition from what?”
“From Britain before kings,” Maeve said, her voice dropping to a low murmur.
“Excalibur is the sword of what the land should become under law and light.
This one is the sword of what the land already was.
Memory.
Survival.
The old ways that never needed a crown to stand.”
Maeve turned the weapon once more as the motion brought her closer, meeting her eyes.
“You can call storms if you prepare, or ask the ground to rise and shield the people behind you.
At old circles and battlefields that still remember, the land will answer more strongly—not as a command, but as an oath where you ask and the land decides whether to stand with you.”
Mordred traced a thumb along the white hilt, intensely aware of how close Maeve was.
“And the other thing you mentioned?”
Maeve’s mouth curved slightly.
“You can take it into yourself so the blade becomes part of your body, granting greater control and a faster answer while keeping the land closer.”
“How?”
“Concentrate and speak to it through your body, asking it to rest inside your blood rather than in the scabbard.”
With her vision swimming slightly from the heavy liquor, Mordred held the sword flat across her palms, closed her eyes, and shoved a messy, unrefined pulse of heat down through her body and into the steel.
Instead of yielding, the blade snapped back with a harsh shock wave of kinetic force that cracked across her palms like a striking hammer, stinging her skin and throwing her focus out of alignment as the weapon clattered against her knees.
“Don’t force it like a breach in a stone wall,” Maeve murmured, her warm breath brushing against Mordred’s ear as she placed her hand gently over Mordred’s right shoulder to steady her.
“Yield to it.
Let the pulse draw it into your body rather than shoving.”
Mordred muttered a low curse under her breath and shook out her numb fingers.
She lifted the sword once more, took a steadying breath to push the alcohol fog to the back of her mind, and guided a softer stream of mana into the pommel, pulling inward toward her chest.
The blade shuddered as crimson light bled into emerald.
The solid steel dissolved into a swirling stream of living energy that sank directly into her chest at sternum height.
Across her shoulders and down her arms, her Magic Circuits flared to life under her skin, their usual deep crimson shifting into a vivid emerald hue as the ancient power reshaped her network from within.
A sharp heat spread through her chest and limbs before settling, leaving her entire circuit network humming with vivid green mana while a matching emblem of standing stones and living roots pulsed faintly on the back of her right hand.
Mordred lifted her right hand to stare at the mark and the emerald light thrumming under her skin.
“I can feel the floor.
The stone under the rushes.
The roots outside the wall.
Is that how you feel all the time?”
Maeve watched the luminous mark and the vibrant emerald lines beneath Mordred’s skin with open satisfaction.
She reached out, taking Mordred’s right hand in hers while her thumb brushed lightly over the glowing lines.
“Something like it.
You are not a druid, Mordred, but the land is willing to listen to you now—and I can feel you more clearly than before.”
Mordred looked up as the heat radiated outward from her skin.
“That sounds like a joke.”
“It is not entirely a joke,” Maeve replied softly, her fingers remaining intertwined with Mordred’s marked hand.
They sat in silence while the new mark and emerald circuits continued to pulse faintly between them, until Maeve finally refilled the cups one last time to drink the remaining drops from the jug.
By the time the cups were empty, the room had become uncomfortably warm under the low fire.
Mordred pushed herself upright, immediately discovered that the floor was moving beneath her feet, and stumbled sideways before catching the edge of the wooden cot.
“Damn it.”
Maeve stood beside her, perfectly steady.
“Sit down.”
“I can stand.”
“You are leaning on furniture.”
“The furniture is leaning on me.”
Maeve laughed softly, and as Mordred looked at her, the laughter slowly faded from Maeve’s face.
They were standing close enough that Mordred could feel the warm brush of her breath against her cheek, neither of them saying a word as Maeve’s eyes dropped briefly to Mordred’s mouth.
Noticing the look, the sudden realization cleared some of the alcohol fog from Mordred’s head.
“Maeve?”
Maeve looked back into her eyes.
“Tell me to stop.”
Mordred frowned slightly.
“Why would I?”
“Because I am about to do something I have wanted to do for longer than I should probably admit.”
Mordred stared at her.
Though Maeve gave her plenty of time to step away, Mordred didn’t move an inch.
Maeve lifted one hand to rest it gently against the side of Mordred’s neck, her thumb settling beneath the jaw to hold her in place without force, and leaned forward to kiss her.
It was brief at first.
Maeve pulled back a few inches to watch her face, where Mordred met her gaze with a heavy, resigned exhale that showed she had given up trying to fight it.
Maeve’s mouth twitched.
“I thought I did.”
“That was not a warning.”
“No?”
“No.”
Mordred reached out to catch the front of Maeve’s dress and pulled her closer, bringing them together for a second kiss that lasted far longer.
There was nothing graceful about it; Mordred was still unsteady from exhaustion and heavy drink, forcing Maeve to place a hand against her shoulder to keep them both from stumbling backward into the cot.
They broke apart when Mordred let out a breathless laugh against her lips.
“Gods,” Mordred muttered.
Maeve smiled softly.
“Bad?”
“No.” Mordred looked into her eyes for another moment before adding, “Again.”
Maeve leaned back in and kissed her again, and this time Mordred knew exactly what was coming.
Her hand settled against Maeve’s waist to draw her close while Maeve’s fingers remained threaded at the side of her neck.
The kiss slowed into something real and unhurried—a brief pause for breath, the slight awkwardness of finding where to place their hands, and then another kiss when neither showed any desire to stop.
When they finally separated, Maeve rested her forehead against Mordred’s in the quiet room.
The emerald mark on the back of Mordred’s right hand continued to glow faintly in the dim light.
Maeve glanced down at the luminous emblem on her skin and murmured, “You really did bring something ancient into yourself tonight.”
Mordred looked down at the mark before looking back into her eyes.
“Apparently.”
Maeve’s thumb moved once against the skin of her neck.
“Does it hurt?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Mordred’s eyes narrowed slightly with a faint, tired smirk.
“You’re still going to make me explain why I let you do that, aren’t you?”
“Eventually.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow.”
Mordred leaned against her again—this time entirely on purpose—letting her weight rest into Maeve’s side.
Maeve wrapped an arm around her waist, guiding her gently down onto the cot, and neither of them mentioned Arthur again for the rest of the night.
Only the rest of the night did not last long.
Maeve lay awake for a while after Mordred’s breathing settled, watching the faint green glow of the mark on her hand fade and return with each slow pulse of her heartbeat.
She stayed.
The thought came with a quiet warmth that Maeve could not quite suppress.
Mordred had stayed when she could have pulled away.
She had kissed her back when she could have laughed it off.
She had even asked for another kiss, as though the first had left something unfinished.
Maeve smiled faintly in the darkness.
She wanted me.
That mattered more than Maeve cared to admit.
Tonight Mordred had allowed Maeve to hold her.
Whether it was the alcohol or not, she didn’t care.
Maeve tightened her arm gently around her waist.
And she trusted me enough to let me.
The thought should have been enough to make her sleep.
Instead, Maeve found herself wondering what Mordred would say when morning came—whether she would remember every word, every kiss, every moment she had chosen not to move away.
A small, private smile touched Maeve’s lips.
She will.
She knew Mordred too well to believe otherwise.
Maeve’s arm was still around her waist when the quiet settled too heavily.
The fire had burned down to low red coals.
Mordred’s breathing had slowed, the alcohol and the long days finally pulling at her, but Maeve was not finished.
‘Let Arthur have her ledgers and her duty,’ Maeve thought, a dark, quiet pride swelling in her chest as she watched the relaxed line of Mordred’s shoulders.
‘In this room, under this roof, she belongs only to the land—and to me.’
She shifted closer on the cot, the linen of Mordred’s shift catching against her own dress.
One hand came up to the side of Mordred’s face again.
The next kiss was slower than the first, deeper, and this time Mordred met it without hesitation.
The taste of the strong herbal drink still lingered between them.
Maeve’s free hand slid from Mordred’s waist to the curve of her hip, then higher, mapping the shape of her under the thin fabric.
The touch stayed light at first, testing.
‘She pretends to fight it,’ Maeve observed with a silent, wicked amusement, feeling the faint tremor run through Mordred’s skin, ‘but her body has always been far more honest than her words.’
When Mordred made no move to stop her, the hand grew bolder—tracing the line of her ribs, the soft give of her stomach, the rise of her breast through the shift.
Maeve’s mouth left hers and found the side of her throat instead, open and warm.
Mordred’s head tipped back against the cot.
A low sound escaped her.
She did not pull away.
One of her own hands found Maeve’s hair and stayed there, fingers tightening when Maeve’s palm cupped her more firmly.
The exploration grew less careful.
Maeve’s fingers slipped beneath the hem of the shift, peeling the fabric up and over Mordred’s head to toss it aside.
Skin against bare skin, Maeve mapped her collarbone and the upper swell of her chest with open intent.
Mordred’s breathing roughened.
She let her knees fall open a fraction, an unspoken permission that Maeve took without pause.
‘Finally,’ Maeve thought, the ancient, restless hunger in her blood settling into pure victory.
‘No more running.’
The room felt smaller, the air thicker.
Every new place Maeve touched drew a quiet reaction—an intake of breath, a shift of weight, the faint emerald glow of the stone-circle mark on Mordred’s hand flaring once against the dark.
Maeve was fully committed now, mouth and hands working in a slow, focused rhythm, pushing the boundary further with each passing moment.
Mordred’s free hand had found the small of her back and held her there.
The last of the alcohol haze made everything feel heavy and inevitable.
Then the air in the chamber changed.
‘What—’
A sharp, soundless pressure folded inward around Mordred’s body.
The green mark on her hand blazed once, bright as a struck match.
Maeve’s hands closed on empty air.
Mordred was simply gone.
The cot shifted under her frantic movements, the discarded linen shift tangled where it had been yanked off moments before.
The residual warmth of Mordred’s bare skin still clung to Maeve’s palms.
‘No,’ Maeve’s mind stalled, her thoughts fracturing against the sudden, impossible void in front of her.
‘Where is she?
What did this?’
Maeve stayed frozen for three full heartbeats, staring at the empty space, the fading green after-image of the mark still burning behind her eyes.
The chamber was silent except for the low crackle of the dying fire.