The year was 514 A.D. — four winters after the fall of Vortigern, when Camelot had finally begun to breathe again. Peace, they called it. But peace in a kingdom built from ruin never truly felt still. It was a different kind of war — one fought with alliances and smiles, with silk gloves instead of iron swords.

Tonight, the Great Hall of Camelot was alive with it.

Candles burned high in iron chandeliers, spilling golden light across marble floors veined with shadow. Musicians played somewhere near the dais, soft, courtly things that didn’t quite drown out the murmur of nobles trading polite flattery. Banners from foreign kingdoms hung along the walls, crimson and sapphire and gold. The air smelled of wine, wax, and rain, the storm still tapping faintly against the windows.

You sat beside King Arthur, as expected. Your gown, though exquisite, felt like armor, too tight at the ribs, too heavy at the shoulders. The jewels at your throat were borrowed from the royal treasury, but they might as well have been chains. You’d been married to him for two years now, a union forged not from love, but from necessity. The council had chosen you for your lineage, for the alliance your father’s kingdom offered. It had been decided with a quill, not a heart.

And yet here you were, queen of Camelot, wife to the once-street-born king.

Arthur hadn’t opposed the match, nor had he welcomed it. He had simply accepted it, like a man accepts the rain, inevitable, indifferent. Between you there was tolerance, civility… and mostly neutral. You spoke when you had to, stood together when the court demanded it, and shared a bed only when duty called for it. Those sexual nights came without words, without tenderness, but they kept the peace, quieted the council, and, in their own strange way, steadied you both. There was honesty in the silence afterward, not affection.

Now, as laughter rippled through the hall, you could feel the weight of every watching eye. A dozen maidens and visiting ladies stole glances at your husband from behind their goblets, eyes full of something between awe and want. And truly, you couldn’t blame them.

Arthur Pendragon looked every inch the legend they whispered about.

Even seated, he drew attention like flame. His tunic of dark velvet was cut simply, though nothing could hide the strength beneath, the broad line of his shoulders, the corded forearms marked faintly by old scars. His hair, shorter now, caught the candlelight in pale strands, and the faint scruff along his jaw gave him a roughness that courtly polish couldn’t touch. There was command in his stillness, the kind that needed no crown to be believed.

When he turned his head slightly, the torchlight struck his profile, strong, sharp, unmistakably human despite the myth that clung to him. And for one fleeting heartbeat, you remembered the man from the stories: the fighter, the orphan, the king who had clawed his destiny from the mud.

But then someone at the table laughed too loudly, and the spell broke.

You took a sip of wine, eyes down, pretending not to notice the way another woman’s gaze lingered on him, nor the faint twist of something cold and unfamiliar that followed in your chest. Jealousy? No. You told yourself it wasn’t that. Just awareness. Just the ache of being visible only when the crown required it.

Arthur leaned closer suddenly, his voice low enough that only you could hear. “You’ve been quiet all evening,” he said, not unkindly. “You planning to let them think I’ve frightened you speechless?”

His tone was half-teasing, half-genuine curiosity. You glanced up, startled by the closeness, the faint scent of smoke and steel that clung to him even here, among silk and silver. His expression was unreadable, though not cruel. Just… tired. Perhaps as tired as you were of this performance.