Home. Seeing her parents was too good to even think of. But picturing herself back in Glastonbury as she knew it … back at the George, running alone every morning, back to her forgettable life. It was what she wanted, so why was it so hard to imagine? Vera didn’t belong anywhere.

It wasn’t a long walk to Merlin’s study, down the steps of her tower, past the guards that now flanked most corridors, and across the back courtyard, but she and Matilda stopped short at the bottom of the stairs. Because the quiet morning air was shredded by the sound of screaming. A pit dropped in Vera’s stomach. Oh God. What now?

There were many voices, the loudest one a woman’s, wailing with primal terror. Before Vera knew her feet were moving, she started running toward it.

“Guinevere, wait!” Matilda called from behind her, but she followed, too, all the way to the throne room. There were four guards in the thick of things with Arthur and Lancelot, and the woman screaming … Vera recognized her. Though her face was a twisted-up mask of itself, she held the bundle of her baby tightly to her chest. Helene, the mother from yesterday.

Roger was there, too, facing away from Vera. He held the cherubfaced toddler. The boy looked frightened and had a perfect tear clinging to his cheek, but his eyes brightened when he saw Vera over his father’s shoulder. He waved a chubby fist at her.

Arthur and Lancelot were huddled tight with the parents, both working to calm Helene, when Arthur saw Vera. His face darkened, and he grabbed Lancelot’s arm and pushed him in her direction.

Lancelot only seemed confused by the gesture until he turned and saw Vera and Matilda. He hurried over to them. “The baby is sick.”

“What do you mean? Where’s the physician?” As Vera asked it, Percival ran into the courtyard with Gawain rushing behind him.

“The baby is very sick,” Lancelot said. “Come on.” He was trying to hurry her away with a hand on her elbow. Vera shrugged him off.

Gawain made a beeline for Helene and took the child from her. The bundle hardly moved, nary a wiggle as one tiny hand slipped limply from it. Vera’s knees buckled, and Lancelot caught her beneath the arms to steady her. “Is she dead?”

But then the little fingers curled into a fist.

Her hands now empty, Helene spun about, and her wild eyes fell on Vera. They transformed, clouding with rage. “What did you do to her?” she screamed.

“Helene, please,” Roger said through his own tears. Arthur tried to restrain the woman, but she had the force of a mother’s aching fury behind her and moved straight through him. Lancelot lunged out to stop her with one haggard glance over his shoulder at Vera and Matilda. He was so worn down. He and Vera had such fun together during their runs. They laughed. He understood her. But they never went deep. They never talked about any of their difficult realities, and now it was all they were left with. She expected it wouldn’t be long before he got sick of her, a petty thought next to a mother actively losing her child.

Matilda tugged at Vera’s arm. “We need to go.”

This time, she didn’t fight leaving. She followed Matilda in the opposite direction, Helene screaming behind her. Vera tried not to hear the words, but they echoed her own thoughts. She was selfish. She was ruin. She was a curse.

She shook with nausea and only kept moving, eyes trained on the ground in front of her, because she’d collapse if she stopped. How had she ever been so deluded to think she could do this?

She didn’t even know where Matilda was leading her. They’d made it to the entry hall. Vera heard the chatter of whoever was there but paid it no mind until Matilda abruptly stopped. “No,” she said in a horrified whisper.

“What’s wrong?” Vera asked.

“It’s your father.”

Vera followed Matilda’s gaze to the finely appointed man approaching them with sure strides, leaving a cluster of servants in his wake. She did not recognize him, yet fear filled her, and she had to fight the urge to cower. His eyes were set on Vera without even a flash in Matilda’s direction.

It was her first glimpse of her biological father.

He was younger than she’d imagined, with hardly any grey streaking his hair and merely touches of it in his neatly trimmed beard. She’d dreamed of knowing him and now wished she could be anywhere but in his cold sights. Wished he weren’t so tall and imposing a figure. Wished she didn’t instantly and nonsensically crave his approval.

“My lord,” Matilda said, “the queen has—”

The thin line of his lips tipped downward at the corners, not a frown but a scowl set on Vera. “I require a private word.”

He grabbed Vera’s upper arm, his fingers digging in painfully. She cast a helpless glance over her shoulder at Matilda as the man—her father—dragged her into the side corridor, out of any bystanders’ eyeshot.

“You have shamed the north,” he spat as he yanked Vera’s arm to pull her around to face him. “You have shamed me.”

She had imagined she’d feel something if she met her father. She never expected him to be frightening. His face was inches from hers, and she couldn’t help but fruitlessly search for something recognizable in his features.

“Wulfstan would have been bad enough. And now I hear you’ve been playing the whore,” he said through gritted teeth as he bore down upon her. Vera stumbled backward against the corridor wall. “I swear to you, child, if you have defiled yourself, I will make sure you wish you’d died in that accident.”

Vera stared back, speechless, bracing herself against the stones behind her.

It wasn’t the right response. Her father reeled back and surveyed her from toes to head, disgusted. “You stupid cunt, did you open your legs?”

She should have categorically denied it. Of course. But she sputtered meaninglessly and, unable to bear his judgment, tore her eyes from him.

He grabbed her by the chin and forcibly turned her face toward his.

A deeper, more primal instinct than her need to pacify him rocketed through her. She yanked away to stare at the floor. She knew it was a mistake only a heartbeat before the back of his hand ripped across her face. Vera cried out when the ring he wore bit into the corner of her lip and stung even once it was gone.

His slap had pulled her face back in his direction. “I raised you for this. You must be perfect.” He grabbed Vera’s shoulders and gave her a violent shake. “You—”

“Lord Aballach!” Arthur’s voice came from the end of the corridor, and while it wasn’t a command, it sounded like one. Vera’s father obeyed by falling silent and dropping his hands to his sides. By the time he and Vera looked at him, Arthur had already closed the distance between them, but he drew up uncomfortably close to her father, his chest nearly touching Aballach’s shoulder as he exhaled a forceful breath.

“Do not,” he said with a growling fury that left Vera stunned, “touch my wife again.”

Aballach took a reflexive step back. “She is my daughter and—”

“And now she is your queen.” Arthur’s face quivered in his barely restrained ire. He shifted to stand in front of Vera, turning to face her and entirely blocking her view of her father. His eyes didn’t reach hers; they stopped at her lips and darkened. Vera touched the spot where the ring had struck and drew her fingers away. Blood. She felt a flash of pity for Guinevere—the real Guinevere—who’d grown up with this man.

“Go,” Arthur said, as quiet as a breath, before wheeling back around on Lord Aballach.

Vera had no delusions about the purpose of his intervention. He had to protect his rule. Still, she was grateful. Giving her an escape was the kindest thing he could do for her. She didn’t know what would have happened without his intervention.

If there hadn’t been guards at the gate to stop her, she’d have wandered out of the castle and kept going. Disappearing would be the best she could do for all their sake. But her feet took her to the chapel free of her mind’s guidance. Out of habit, she supposed, she wandered next to the statue of Mary and sank to the ground. She drew her knees in close, wrapped her arms around her legs, and lay her head atop them. It was as small as she could be.