The stone pavers of the central courtyard were cool beneath Mordred’s boots.
Moonlight washed over the open space in a pale, silver sheet, throwing long shadows against the surrounding granite walls of the keep.
Mordred took her stance twenty paces away from Sir Gawain, drawing her heavy broadsword with a smooth, metallic ring.
She rested the flat of the heavy steel against her shoulder, tilting her horned helm to the side with a lazy, playful flick of her wrist.
‘No sun,’ she thought, her thumb lightly tracing the crossguard as her lips curved into a smirk beneath her visor.
‘No triple-potency physical buff.
No blinding speed.
Just a tall, absurdly handsome guy with heavy plate armor and a severe lack of tactical imagination.
I close the distance, work around his guard, and force him to admit his diet is an insult to livestock.’
Across the courtyard, Gawain did not take a defensive guard.
He did not adjust his footwork, nor did he offer a preliminary salute.
He reached for the hilt at his hip and drew a golden sword whose blade shimmered with an immediate, suffocating heat.
Mordred’s confident posture hitched.
‘Wait,’ she thought, a sudden, horrible twitch hitting her eye behind her visor slits.
‘Is he—’
“Sword of Turning Victory—!” Gawain bellowed, his voice echoing off the courtyard walls like thunder.
‘He’s opening with a Noble Phantasm?!’ her mind shrieked, her jaw dropping open inside her helm.
‘On turn one?!
In a petty courtyard brawl over carrots?!
Are you insane?!’
Before she could pivot or throw herself into a roll, a blinding wall of yellow light erupted from Gawain’s blade.
The sheer pressure of the heat hit her chest first, followed instantly by a compressed wave of raw kinetic force.
The light cannon smashed into her front plate, lifting her off her feet like a leaf in a gale.
Mordred flew backward through fifteen yards of open air, her armor scraping violently against the courtyard stones before her head collided with the solid granite base of a support pillar with a deafening CRACK.
The world spun in a dizzying constellation of golden stars behind her eyes.
The iron structure of Secret of Pedigree—a Noble Phantasm built specifically to conceal and protect—did not crack.
It did not dent.
It took the full kinetic impact of the pillar and redirected every single foot-pound of force directly into Mordred’s jaw, nose, and cheekbones.
She slump-sat flat on the cold dirt, her legs stretched out in front of her like a discarded doll.
‘My face,’ she thought, tears of pure physical shock springing to her eyes as a sharp, thumping ache bloomed across her nose.
‘My beautiful, flawless face!
He just blasted me in the face!
A knight of the Round Table just fired a literal WMD at a girl’s head over a vegetable insult!’
For two seconds, she sat there, thoroughly offended, pouting so hard her cheeks ached inside the iron casing.
Then, the humiliation set in, instantly kindling into a bright, hot spark of irritation.
Mordred didn’t scream.
She didn’t groan.
She let out a heavy, irritated sigh that echoed hollowly in her visor, slowly bringing her iron boots beneath her and pushing herself up against the stone pillar.
Inside her gauntlets, her knuckles went white around her hilt.
‘You absolute, unsophisticated swine,’ she burned internally, her eyes narrowing into sharp slits.
‘Where is the flirtatious banter?
Where is the chivalrous back-and-forth?
You don’t open a friendly evening chat with a localized solar flare to a girl’s cheekbones!’
She planted her lead foot into the dirt.
Crimson electric arcs began to crackle along the length of her blade—dark, blood-red lightning that hummed with a dangerous, violent hiss.
Her grip shifted to the pommel.
‘I’m going to turn him into ash,’ she thought, a dark, wicked grin spreading across her face.
‘I don’t care about the feast, I don’t care about the carrots, I am going to trim that golden hair of his down to the scalp—’
A hand clamped down hard on her wrist.
Mordred snapped her visor toward her right.
Galahad stood beside her, his face pale in the moonlight, his fingers digging into her forearm armor with frantic strength.
“Mordred, stop!” Galahad pleaded in an urgent whisper.
“Do not draw your blade!
Consider where we stand!”
Mordred blinked, her gaze shifting from Galahad’s panicked face to the balconies overhead.
‘Right…
the helm,’ she thought, logic clamping down on her petty vengeance like cold iron.
If the helm retracts right now in front of Gawain, Arthur, and half the court, my face—Arthur’s face—would be exposed to the entire kingdom on night one.’
The red lightning sputtered and died along the steel edge.
She let out a dramatic, disappointed groan into her helmet.
“Ah,” Gawain’s voice drifted across the courtyard.
He casually sheathed his golden blade, placing a gauntleted hand on his hip and looking down his nose at her.
“A spirited endeavor, sirrah.
Although your distaste for wholesome food clearly impairs your posture.
I accept your silent concession, and will consider your insolence pardoned once you have eaten your turnip.”
Mordred gasped softly inside her helm.
‘Silent yield?!’ she thought, her eyes widening in pure outrage.
‘Did this golden gorilla just tell me to eat my turnip?!’
She ripped her arm out of Galahad’s grip, her iron boots eating the distance between her and Gawain in three explosive, furious strides.
She dropped her sword into the dirt with an echoing clatter.
She didn’t need steel for this.
Before Gawain could even raise his hands, Mordred drove an iron-clad left hook straight into his exposed jawline.
CLANG.
Gawain’s head snapped sideways.
His eyes went wide in pure shock as Mordred followed up with a brutal right cross directly to his nose, leveraging her entire body weight into the strike with an expressive, angry huff.
Gawain stumbled back two paces, his boots tripping over his own cape as he hit the ground with a heavy metallic crash.
Mordred dusted off her gauntlets, shaking out her right hand with a dramatic little wince.
“Insults about roots aside,” she declared, her spoken voice dropping into a razor-thin register that betrayed zero pain, “a true knight does not fire a sun-flare at an unbraced warrior’s face.
It is exceedingly uncouth.”
Ten minutes later, King Arthur stood at the top of the courtyard stairs, looking down at the two knights with a cool, unreadable expression.
Gawain stood to the left, holding a linen cloth against his rapidly swelling nose and a visibly purple cheekbone, looking thoroughly bewildered.
Mordred stood to the right, her hands folded neatly behind her back, her posture perfectly relaxed, as if she were simply waiting for a bus rather than standing before her sovereign after a courtyard brawl.
“Both of you,” Arthur commanded, her voice quiet, flat, and carrying absolute authority across the silent court, “are dismissed from the keep for the remainder of this night.
Withdraw to your assigned chambers.”
“Sire—” Gawain began, his voice slightly muffled through the linen.
“Now, Sir Gawain.”
Gawain bowed his head stiffly.
“It will be as you have commanded, my Sovereign.”
Mordred offered a crisp, exaggerated knightly salute, winking cheekily behind her dark visor before turning on her heel and strutting out of the courtyard gates alongside Galahad.
Arthur turned without another word, the folds of her crimson cloak settling behind her as the gathered knights began to disperse across the moonlit courtyard.
Quiet conversation slowly returned, though it carried a cautious edge after the night’s spectacle.
Among those lingering near the upper steps, Rowena remained where she stood.
Her eyes followed the horned figure with a slow, intrigued smile touching the corners of her lips.
She had expected excuses, perhaps another sharp remark aimed at Sir Gawain, but instead, the newest knight had simply offered that playful, unbothered salute and strolled away.
Rowena rested one hand lightly against the stone balustrade.
‘Fascinating,’ she thought, her chest humming with a quiet, genuine amusement.
‘Quick to temper…
yet utterly relaxed the moment the consequences hit.
She carries herself as though the entire court is merely a stage for her personal entertainment.’
When Mordred disappeared beyond the courtyard gate, Rowena turned her gaze toward the moonlit stones where the duel had taken place.
‘There is a brilliant, dangerous mind hiding under that iron hat,’ Rowena thought, her smile widening slightly.
‘I think I am going to enjoy getting to know Sir Mordred.’
She turned away, her skirts rustling softly as she followed the others back into the keep.
Once they passed the torchlit perimeter of the main palace and stepped onto the gravel path leading toward the residential quarters, Mordred slowed her pace.
She looked sideways at Gawain, who was trudging toward his own lodgings down a separate avenue, his face looking remarkably like a bruised turnip in the moonlight.
‘Thank you, Mother,’ Mordred thought, feeling a sudden wave of affection for Morgan le Fay’s paranoia.
‘My face hurts like hell, but nobody saw it.
Meanwhile, Mr.
Solar Energy has to walk around tomorrow looking like he got kicked by a mule.’
“I yield due respect to your skill in battle, Sir Gawain!” Mordred called out across the gravel, her tone dripping with light, formal sweetness.
“Next time, let us skip the pyrotechnics and have a proper fight!”
Gawain stopped, offering a begrudging, lopsided grimace through his swollen jaw.
“And I acknowledge your stubbornness, uncultured as it remains.
Next time, you will eat the carrot.”
“In your dreams, sir knight!” Mordred giggled under her breath, turning back to Galahad.
They stopped before a low, single-story stone structure with a narrow wooden door and a small glassless window.
“Is this my estate?” Mordred inquired, resting her hands on her hips and tilting her head.
“Your private quarters, as granted by the Crown.”
“Charming,” Mordred murmured, taking the key.
“Do I get a complimentary root beneath my pillow, or is that extra?”
“I will leave you to your rest,” Galahad said with a warm, slightly apologetic nod before bowing and taking his leave down the stone walkway.
Mordred turned the brass key, pushed open the heavy wooden door, and stepped inside.
The room should have been a cold, drafty stone box with an unlit hearth and a bare wooden cot.
Instead, a warm, fragrant scent of dried lavender, smoldering oak, and roasted boar filled the air.
A roaring fire crackled merrily in the hearth, illuminating thick fur blankets draped over the bed, a soft woven rug covering the cold stone floor, and a small wooden table laden with fresh bread, smoked meat, and a pitcher of spiced mead.
Standing beside the hearth was a striking young woman in deep green druidic travelling silks.
Her vibrant red hair cascaded over her shoulders in thick, wild waves, and her piercing emerald-green eyes shone in the firelight with an intense, intoxicating warmth.
In her hands, she held a small stone bowl filled with a glowing green herbal salve.
Mordred froze in the doorway, her head tilting slightly.
‘Maeve,’ she thought, a sudden surge of relief rushing through her despite the immediate, creeping threat of an impending lecture.
‘How in the world did she bypass Camelot’s entire perimeter guard and refurnish a royal quarter in twenty minutes?
Right…
druid magic.
Never ask a witch about her logistical methods.’
Maeve set the ceramic bowl on the table.
Her steps were silent as she crossed the rug, her hands rising to lightly rest against the jaw of Mordred’s iron helmet.
Her touch was tender—possessive, soft, and terrifyingly gentle.
“My Lord,” Maeve whispered, her voice like silk drawn over steel.
“You took a hit to the face.”
‘Oh boy,’ Mordred thought, wincing internally behind her iron visor.
‘Here comes the storm.’
“It was just a bout, Maeve,” Mordred said aloud, her voice formal yet light and unbothered.
“Sir Gawain simply showed off a bit of solar magic.
Completely normal among knights.”
“He struck your face,” Maeve repeated.
Her emerald eyes narrowed into sharp, luminous slits, her voice dropping into a dangerous, dark purr.
“The sun knight has five minutes left to live.
I will mix poison into his morning drink.”
“Maeve, no,” Mordred sighed in her internal thoughts, before catching her spoken register: “No, Maeve.
We are not poisoning the Round Table on our first night.
We have talked about this.”
“I am your handmaiden, your tutor, and your shield,” Maeve murmured, her fingers tracing the neck seal of Secret of Pedigree.
With a faint pulse of dark mana, the living metal of Secret of Pedigree unlocked at Mordred’s silent mental command, the iron helm retracting into her shoulder plates to reveal her golden hair and the ugly purple bruise spreading along her cheekbone.
Maeve gasped softly, her fingers lingering near the base of Mordred’s jaw, her touch feather-light against the blooming mark.
Her green eyes locked onto Mordred’s, shining with an eerie, suffocating intensity in the firelight.
“You spend all day encased in cold iron, playing the stoic prince for a court of brainless warmongers,” Maeve whispered, her voice dripping with possessive devotion.
“Let them see a knight.
Let them think you are one of them.
But in here…”
She leaned in, her thumb pressing just firmly enough against Mordred’s bottom lip to force her breath to hitch.
“In here, you belong to me.
I will wash the blood from your skin, feed you, and tend every scrape.
I will keep you feeling like a woman even if that monstrous armor tries to rob you of your womanhood.”
A slow, terrifyingly sweet smile spread across Maeve’s face.
“And if any of those iron-clad fools ever forget what a delicate thing they are swinging their swords at…
I will tear out their tongues so they can never speak your name again.”
Mordred held her head back just an inch as her internal monologue went into absolute overdrive.
‘Okay…
intense,’ she thought, her lips twitching with a mix of genuine relief and mild terror.
‘A little terrifying, highly unhinged, but honestly?
After spending three hours around Gawain and a bowl of boiled roots, having a hot, crazy druid girl worship the ground I walk on is a pretty solid perk.’
“I appreciate your devotion, Maeve,” Mordred said aloud, her voice smooth and completely unbothered as she leaned into the soothing herbal salve.
“But let us hold off on tearing out tongues for a few more days.
I have a realm to undermine first.”