“—the way you run cold when you should run hot,” I answered. “The moments when you go somewhere else inside yourself and come back a half-second later with your jaw set differently. The way your eyes change color when you’re losing your temper; they glow faintly red.” I tilted my head slightly. “Like something behind them is turning up the light.”
“Kay—”
“—it was the same tattoo our father bore. And now I understand that he had taken the dragon into himself just as you have into yourself.”
His jaw tightened.
“I remember the day Uther destroyed three hundred of his own men, how he reduced them to ash, yet no fire was ever reported. The official account said it was plague, if I’m not mistaken?” I paused. “I was there, Arthur. I saw the ash. What is more, I know what plague looks like, and I know what it doesn’t look like.”
A muscle moved in his throat, but he said nothing, just turned back to the window, though there was nothing to look at; the training yard was empty at this hour, just churned mud and scattered straw.
“You could have used that information against me,” he said.
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t.” He turned to look at me then with a slight smirk. “Or you haven’t yet.”
“No, I haven’t. And I don’t intend to.” I paused intentionally. “Because that’s what brothers do, Arthur. They keep one another’s secrets. They remain loyal.” I held his gaze. “I’ve been loyal to you all your life. Has anyone else?”
The line landed where I’d aimed it. I saw it in the slight parting of his lips, the minute drop of his shoulders. They didn’t soften exactly; Arthur didn’t soften. But something shifted in the room’s temperature, as though something had unlocked.
This was the part that required the most precision.
Arthur was suspicious by nature. That was useful; paranoid men needed confidants the way drowning men needed rope. But he was also intelligent, which meant I couldn’t oversell it. The moment I reached, I’d lose him.
So I didn’t reach. I simply stood there, patient as I’d always been, and let him come to the conclusion himself.
“Why now?” he asked.
“Because you’re losing control of it.”
The words hit. I could tell as much by the way his posture changed, barely, just a fractional stiffening through the spine, but I caught it all the same.
“The girl has something to do with it,” I continued.
Not a question.
He said nothing, which was answer enough.
“I’ve been watching,” I continued. “How you are around her. How it... how the thing in you is around her.” I paused. “I’ve seen you hold your temper in a siege. I’ve seen you sit across a table from men who wanted you dead and eat your supper without spilling a drop. I’ve never seen you look the way you looked at the tavern when we found her with Corvin.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m not judging you.” I made my voice careful. Neutral. The voice of a man who had no stake in it. “I’m telling you what I’ve observed because I’m the only one in this court who will. Mordred serves you because it suits him. Lance—” I paused just long enough. “Lance has his own complications at present.”
Another silence. Arthur had gone very still.
“What complications?” His voice was quiet. The dangerous kind of quiet.
“Nothing I can name with certainty.” I turned slightly and moved toward the table, where a half-finished cup of something dark had been sitting long enough to lose its steam. I straightened a book that didn’t need straightening. “Only impressions.”
“Speak your mind.”
I picked up the cold cup, then put it down again.
“In the Great Hall,” I said, “when the girl was made to strip.”
“Kay.”