Percy watched the fighters take their positions with an interest that went far beyond appreciating how fetching Taliesin looked in his Harlequin armour. It was another chance to watch Lance fight, her skill and competence an unexpectedly heavy weight on Percy’s mind.

  The day was pleasant and warm. Most of the other residents were either watching or lingering around the arena. Everyone had worked through the immediate frenzy that had followed the news of the war a week and a half ago. For Percy, these last ten days had been brutal. Between training, the pressure from her family, and her own need to research what must come next, she’d been run ragged. The only thing that made it bearable was Taliesin.

  Over the last three days in particular, her somewhat secret paramour had made it his mission to drag her out of the library at least a couple of times a day, finding excuses to pull her from the quagmire of sucking mud that was her warring responsibilities. He’d also been almost annoyingly patient, waiting for her to reveal the secrets he knew she was keeping on her own time.

  She felt worse about keeping them when he wasn’t actively trying to uncover them.

  The current distraction was a duel he’d offered with Lance. He’d noticed Percy had been taking an interest in the Squire and had dragged her along to see them fight. Comedically simpering at her, pretending to be a noble knight in need of her support, he’d made her smile. The fact that he offered to fight purely to distract her—a discipline he avoided as much as possible—made her feel warm inside. She’d have to drag him up to the observatory tonight.

  Taliesin’s fights were rare, and always in some way amusing, so he’d drawn quite the crowd. Bors, posted up beside her, carefully looked her over. The big guy was worried about her too, so she gave him a smile.

  The only ones missing were, of course, Tristan, whom she’d barely seen as he ran here, there and everywhere trying to gather information. The other was Gaz, who was still consolidating his recent breakthrough to Iron.

  That, in part, explained the look of utter determination on Lance’s face. She was now the only one among them who hadn’t reached Iron. It was a blow not only to her pride but to a thousand and one ideas that Percy was exploring for what was to come next.

  As the pair paced across the arena, Lance briefly checked in on Gring, who shot an evil look at Taliesin. The pegasus was deeply impatient for his promised song.

  The pair paced out across the earthen floor of the arena, still a little damp from a spring shower. Percy heard Elaine call for the fight to begin, and the pair were moving before the echoes faded. Of all the fighters, Taliesin and Lance were by far the most nimble. Even with bursts of air guiding him, Gawain couldn’t equal Taliesin when he went all out, and the knight only beat out Lance because she was still Bronze.

  As with any fight with Taliesin, parts of the arena were immediately swamped with smoke. He wasn’t a gifted swordsman—competent, but nothing special. A fact he was acutely aware of, and so he used deception and trickery to make up the difference.

  Lance at least had a partial counter: her dream glamour. The glamour radiated from the minds of all things capable of dreaming. She knew in general where he was but couldn’t follow his every move. This meant that as three billowing slashes of glamour launched out from different angles, each possibly hiding a blade, she had a decision to make. Most retreated from these assaults or wasted precious glamour deflecting all three.

  Lance just smiled.

  Showing her martial skill, guided by instinct, she shifted, effortlessly parrying the real blade and launching an attack into the smoke. There was something almost unsettling about how often she could confidently guess which strike was real.

  Percy hadn’t expected to stumble across another sword prodigy, given Arthur and Maeve were already vying for the title, but Lance had a talent that all but equalled them. Something she knew drove Arty to practice relentlessly. He appreciated how spoiled he’d been for tutors, and to find someone unknown nipping at his heels spurred him on.

  That worry didn’t stop him from helping her though.

  Despite Arty’s faults, Percy respected him because he always tried to do what he thought was right. Lance was a good person, an ally, who needed teaching, and Arty was the only person around to offer it. So the prince put aside his pride, buried the questions he wanted to ask, and did his best to show her how to fight like a Quilvern.

  Lance had been ecstatic for some tutelage in moon glamour. The pair still got along as well as two cats in a sack, but their shared passions had somewhat eased their mutual distrust of one another. They had respect, but not friendship. Percy still had lots of questions about the all-but-identical pair, but everyone remained tight-lipped. When she pushed, Taliesin bluntly warned her that unless she was prepared to end up in front of the Lady of the Lake, she should just be patient.

  Percy wasn’t quite ready for that. Not yet. However, given what was coming, it could become an issue.

  Displaying her new power, the Squire leapt at the mobile ash cloud, a burst of moon glamour launching her faster than a simple jump could achieve. She sliced into it while airborne. Despite her speed and apparent confidence in his location, the strike hit nothing. Percy felt sympathy for the frustration on Lance’s face.

  Even in her own duels, Percy found Taliesin’s ability to never be quite where you expected utterly vexing. Her metal glamour helped her locate him, but he was so quick that knowing where he was when you started an attack was no guarantee he’d still be there. This problem was made worse if he switched his fae artefact armour to the troubadour’s outfit, robbing her of the metal to track.

  Lance was still airborne when dense strikes of ash lashed out. These didn’t billow smoke, looking more akin to the charred remnants of a burned spear. It was a new attack from the bard that leveraged his improved cultivation. The ash was dense and had to be treated as a threat. While the ash didn’t have much substance, it was just enough to unbalance you. And what Percy had learned the hard way was that he was very good at hiding a flying dagger within.

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  Maeve’s irritatingly thoughtful gift—a dagger with ash in its hilt—had replaced Taliesin’s bow and arrow for ranged attacks. Using a block of your cultivation tool to manipulate weapons wasn’t uncommon, but it was nearly always seen as a trick of Witches, dismissed as lacking the power to penetrate a knight’s armour.

  A defence that only helped if the opponent didn’t know to aim for the gaps that all knights’ armour tended to suffer from. A skill that Taliesin was steadily improving.

  Lance responded to the threat by curling her body into a ball, using her gauntlets to catch the strikes, trusting in her armour and glamour to repel the attack, all the while preparing for her counterattack.

  Her right foot lashed out, and her heel hit the floor. With a flash of moon glamour, Lance’s momentum was totally reversed, and she ploughed into the smoke. A clash and thunk sent flakes of metal bursting into the air, telling Percy the attack had found a bite. A dribble of blood entered her awareness. Blood she knew well. Taliesin had been tagged.

  Percy shook herself, trying to blot out the memories of the harrowing moment she’d gathered all his blood. In the frantic moment, she’d not realised what it meant, focusing instead on asserting control before Astor managed. Then there had been…

  Taliesin, perhaps sensing her distress, began to play. Music emerged from the smoke. Improbable, but not beyond the realms of possibility, for him to be so caring. He’d certainly noticed she didn’t like talking about the incident. His mocking voice rang out. From beside her, she heard Bors laugh as a song began.

  “Hey, I’ve been working on something you should hear:

  Oh, Gringolet, sky’s noble steed,

  With wings of silk, you outpace the breeze.

  The clouds bow low, the stars take flight,

  To watch your dance in the velvet night.”

  An excited neigh from Gring wasn’t quite able to drown out Lance’s frustrated growl. Of the tools a bard had at his disposal, it turned out singing was a shockingly effective way to get under his opponent’s skin. There was little that irritated the knights more than a feeling that they were being mocked. It was doubly effective as it was a signal, a reminder of the card he refused to play in their duels.

  Taliesin was, after all, one of, if not the, most dangerous among them in the arena. Death glamour and a confined space were lethal. Of course, he kept his death glamour carefully sheathed. Even with the Steels watching, it just wasn’t safe—not for them, and more importantly to Percy, not for Taliesin. As his teacher Marek had pointed out rather tersely when Lance had pestered him about a solution, forcing Taliesin to waste death glamour meant forcing him to find it.

  Percy’s brow knitted in anger just remembering the conversation. Lance was always blunt, but she should know enough about death glamour to know the risks involved in absorbing it. Risks not worth taking for simple points in a match.

  She was a little mollified as Taliesin ran rings around Lance, forcing her to send attack after attack into the smoke with no return.

  “No foe could stand, no storm could stay,

  When Gringolet soars to save the day.

  The sun itself must hide in shame,

  For it burns less bright than your noble name.”

  Gring’s hoof clomped along in time with the song, the vain horse oblivious to the friendly ridicule hidden in the excessive verse. Not everyone was so unaware. Percy could feel a smile creeping up on her face, and beside her, Bors was fighting to avoid bursting out laughing.

  Still, the fight was coming to a close. Lance’s attacks had finally boxed Taliesin into a corner, forcing him to fight back and stop singing.

  As the pair battled, the smoke blades coming out only to be fended off unerringly time after time, Percy marvelled at the Squire’s progression. The strangest thing was how different Lance and Arty’s approaches were. Lance, so used to fighting against those with powers she couldn’t deflect or stop, instead used her glamour to augment her already impressive mobility. She could use it to defend like Arty, but she instead sought to never get hit.

  Percy looked around. With the smoke gone, she could now see Arty watching from the other side. His battle style was far more direct. There were few things as unsettling as hitting your opponent full force only to feel your blade all but tear itself out of your hand as the momentum was reversed. While eventually it would consume all his glamour, combining his excellent fighting skill and expensive armour, he could battle for hours. Well, if his other gift didn’t get the better of him, that was.

  He watched with a small smile on his lips, probably appreciating his student’s improvement just as she was. That, or he could be pleased to be talking with Maeve. They were together, trading critiques.

  As a spymistress in training, Percy wasn’t sure if she should be pleased or deeply concerned that her ‘client’ had so far not noticed Maeve’s ‘budding interest’ in Taliesin. The fact that Maeve hadn’t noticed his overt interest in her was equally concerning.

  Telling Maeve about it was out of the question, in part because it was deeply entertaining, but primarily because given her ‘acting’ skills, the results would be a disaster. Right now, the saving grace was that Maeve’s inability to act came across as being flustered around Taliesin, giving him more than enough to improvise with.

  If she started acting ‘flustered’ around Arty as well, then the thin veneer of believability around their fake relationship would peel away. After all, who’d believe Taliesin would like someone like her?

  Speaking of Taliesin, Percy watched as he collapsed backwards out of his smoke cloud. His helmet was off, and sweat beaded his brow. She’d rather come round on the dark hair, and the eyes were especially nice to look into.

  Lance emerged out of the smoke, her blade at his throat. He accepted his loss gracefully.

  Percy walked over and offered a hand up. He grinned, their fingers lingering on one another a little longer than was strictly necessary but far shorter than she wanted. Honestly, if it wasn’t so amusing to have a secret to hide, she’d not have the patience.

  That, and the ornery Mithril who had her sights set on them. Things were strained enough with her family right now. They were impatient to push on, not sharing her reservations about acting too soon. Then again, they didn’t know of Lance’s secret, which changed their options drastically.

  “I don’t suppose I can distract you from your tomes for much longer?” Taliesin asked with a wry smile. Percy cursed. She’d almost immediately sunk back into her worries and had to stop the instinctive apology and excuse that she needed to head back to the library. That had been all but on her lips. His grin grew a bit wider as she faltered, so she shot him a look.

  Why was it such an irritation to be so well understood by someone? And why was it also so pleasant?

  “You might want to wait on that. Tristan’s at the Map, there’s news,” Gawain called from the balcony above. Persephone scowled. The Map had become more than a piece of paper over the last week. News on troop movements, changing allegiances, and the developing war had anchored it in all their minds.

  The inhabitants of Felix Lodge all filtered through to the study room. Only Rensliegh and Elaine were missing, no doubt summoned to one of the ‘Steel’-only briefings being held in the manor. They had become daily events over the last week. Persephone could feel a ball of dread growing in her stomach. She knew that this would be it. The announcement set to shatter the uneasy calm that sheltered her from her duties.

  “They’ve crossed the river. Some within the Order of Winding Paths betrayed everyone and are now calling themselves the Teutonique Order. A significant number have pledged themselves to their cause. The rest are dead or driven to exile,” Tristan called out over the hubbub.

  Percy winced. That was it. The last of the signs. She’d put off the next step long enough. Her family had been probing her about why she was stalling. Rensliegh’s suggestion to reach out to them had been both a blessing and a curse. They knew where she was, helping keep her safe from other plots, but they expected her to do her duty. The same duty that had overshadowed much of her life.

  A duty to see out an ancient prophecy. The Prophecy of the Grail.

  I personally like a bit of down time, however I'd not planned for this take nearly fifteen chapters to reach this point. It took longer to set everything up than intended. However there was a lot of groundwork I felt was necessary to get through.

  Check the spoiler below for a library of cultivation terms and their Arthurian translations.