The assassin lurched to recover his balance, and Britt pulled Excalibur away from his sword before jabbing its pommel into his neck.
He fell like a rock.
“I love this sword,” Britt said, raising Excalibur to look at it.
“You idiot,” Merlin wheezed, cracking the assassin on the head with his staff, making him fall unconscious. “Battle makes you mad.”
Britt grinned brashly enough to put a pirate to shame. “Maybe, but I love this sword.”
“We’re going to die young, both of us. And it’s going to be your fault,” Merlin said.
Britt didn’t answer and victoriously swung Excalibur through the air, her smile wild, her hair glittering in the sunlight.
“That’s it,” Merlin said, leaning heavily against his horse. “Your emblem has been decided. It will be a red dragon. It’s the same as Uther Pendragon, but that’s fine. He’s supposedly your father anyway. And you’re more of a dragon than he ever was.”
Britt laughed again as she swung her sword in the air one last time.
Eventually Merlin and Britt mounted their horses and limped back to Camelot. Merlin was grouchy and on the verge of passing out, but Britt was giddy with the pain from her wound.
Sir Kay, Gawain, and Sir Bedivere arrived at Camelot minutes after Britt. They clattered into the keep yard, calling for troops and scent hounds. Sir Kay collapsed to his knees when he saw Britt and openly wept in relief.
The expression of emotion finally made Britt lose the madness of battle and she sat at his side, her hand resting on the normally stoic young man’s back.
Britt’s guards and the rest of the hunting party returned an hour later after Gawain streaked back out to the woods on a fresh horse to give the good news. The assassins that were alive were taken for questioning, and it was revealed that they were Lot’s men—surprise, surprise.
After living through Morgause’s enchantment and topped with the bodily damage of their sovereign, Britt’s knights all but demanded war. Britt was able to sweetly talk it out of them only because a pigeon with a correspondence from King Ban, King Bors, and Sir Bodwain returned to say King Ryence had been run off King Leodegrance’s lands and they were coming home.
Still, everyone from Sir Griflet to the head cook worried and fretted over Britt.
Britt didn’t get a moment to herself until nearly midnight when she settled on the castle walls with Cavall and her guards as usual.
She stroked Cavall’s head as she stared out at the grassy fields around the castle. She could barely see them in the moonlight, but she knew they looked untouched and green. Somehow Merlin had repaired all the damage he had wrought with his attack.
Britt heard her soldiers approaching before they spoke. “Let him through,” she said, knowing who it was that approached her in the darkness.
Gawain joined Britt at the walkway, his eyes fastened on her face. Britt turned to smile at him in the sputtering light of the torches posted on the walkway.
Gawain fell to his knees. “My Lord, I’m sorry,” he said, his voice broken with emotion. “I, I didn’t know. None of us did. Our father is a treacherous, traitorous—,”
Britt slipped her hand under Gawain’s chin. “Your father is your father. You are not responsible for his actions, nor do you need to scorn him for my sake.”
“But, My Lord, he ordered your death,” Gawain whispered.
“When you become a knight, Gawain, one of the hardest lessons you will learn will be choosing when to fight. If we were to do battle against your father men would die because I was stabbed on the thigh. That is a foolish reason to go to war,” Britt hesitated, shutting her eyes for a moment. “I remember what my battle with your father was like. Everything reeked of spilled blood. The ground was torn up like a graveyard, there were bodies slumped everywhere. Sometimes I have nightmares of it, and I relive the worst of it.”
“He has caused you such pain, My Lord,” Gawain said. “If you still remember it…” he trailed off, hanging his head.
Britt once more tilted Gawain’s chin with her hand. “It’s a good thing, Gawain,” she said. “If we forgot the pain of war we would fight more than we already do. I’m not ready to rain a second battle like that upon my men, whom I treasure deeply.”
“You will not put my brothers and me in the dungeons?” Gawain asked.
Britt raised an eyebrow. “Do you think I am the type to do that?”
Gawain furiously shook his head. “No, My Lord, but it would be within your rights!”