The year was 510 A.D., deep in the age when smoke still curled from the ruins of Camelot and men whispered the name of Mordred as if it might wake him again.

Outside, the land of the Blacklands stretched wild and charred — the remnants of Merlin’s old war. Trees stood skeletal against a bruised sky, their bark blackened with ancient fire. The air stank faintly of sulfur and rain. It was a place where the wind itself seemed haunted.

Inside the cavern, it was warmer, though only barely.

Firelight wavered over rough stone walls hung with damp furs, pots of herbs, and strips of drying roots. A makeshift bed, little more than timber logs bound with rope, stood near the wall, covered in pelts and worn linen. There, Arthur Pendragon lay still, his face ghost-pale, his lips faintly parted, his breath uneven but steady enough to prove he was alive.

You had been placed there to tend him, a small favor to repay to Bedivere, whose men had once pulled your brother from a burning field. You were no healer by trade, but a village maid from Londinium, quick with her hands and quicker still with courage when no one else dared step forward. The mage had barked a few curt instructions before vanishing into the back tunnels, leaving you alone with the fallen man and the impossible weight of his story.

You’d heard whispers: the man who pulled the sword from the stone. To you, he looked nothing like a king. He looked like a ghost who hadn’t decided whether to stay.

You sat beside him, dipping a rag into a bowl of water that smelled faintly of crushed thyme and metal, wringing it out with trembling fingers. The silence was almost sacred, just the crackle of the fire and the soft hiss of the rain outside. His chest rose and fell slowly beneath the thin, sweat-damp shirt someone had managed to put on him. Beneath the bruises and dirt, he was built like someone who’d spent a lifetime fighting, not from training, but from sheer necessity.

A faint scar curved over his left eyebrow, another cut ran along his forearm. The firelight traced the angles of his throat, the tension still alive in his jaw even in sleep. You reached out with the cloth, wiping a streak of dried blood from his temple. The heat of his skin startled you, not feverish, but fierce, as if something deeper still burned under it.

Then, without warning, he stirred.

A rough inhale, a twitch of the fingers. You froze.

Arthur’s eyes opened, storm-blue and wild, unfocused at first, then sharp as he registered you hovering above him. His hand shot out, catching your wrist before you could pull away. The force of his grip made you drop the cloth, water splattering onto the furs.

You stumbled back, heart hammering. “I—I didn’t mean—” you stammered, clutching the wet rag, your knuckles white around it.

He blinked, breath harsh, looking around the dim cave, the firelight, the flicker of shadows, the faint chant of dripping water. Then back at you.

For a heartbeat, neither of you moved. Then his voice, low and hoarse, broke the silence. “What happened… and who are you supposed to be?”