“It needed to work,” Merlin said without apology. “I didn’t want you to have to do that again.”

“Oh, I’m not doing it again. You want Arthur to connect with me? Fuck with his brain. I’m done.” Vera stormed to the door, feeling emptier than ever.

“Guinevere—”

Vera turned to glare at him from the doorway. “I thought being brought back to bear a child would have been the worst thing you could have done to me. But you gave me a whole goddamn life to fatten me up with parents who loved me and with Vincent, who—” She stopped and swallowed heavily. “And for what? So I’d have more to sacrifice in exchange for Guinevere’s memories?”

Merlin stared at her in silent sorrow.

“You should have let Viviane kill me.” Vera slammed the door behind her and did not look back.

Vera didn’t realize how long she’d been in Merlin’s study until she emerged from the cellar expecting daylight and finding it was dusk. The sounds of dinner from the great hall drifted to her on the breeze. She hoped it meant she wouldn’t run into anyone on her way to her room, but luck was against her. She’d been staring at the ground and looked up barely in time to avoid running head-on into Thomas. She stumbled backward and would have fallen if he’d not caught her at the elbow.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Her vision swam as she tried to focus on him and pretend to be fine.

It didn’t work. “What’s happened, Your Majesty?” His voice pitched up with concern. “You look unwell.”

She wished he’d let go of her arm. She tried to pull away, but he held fast. It was probably keeping her upright, though.

“You’re near to swooning,” Thomas said. She was close to passing out, but the way he said it added a flare to her anger. “I’ll get the king.”

“No, please don’t—”

“You need your husband,” he insisted.

“I don’t,” Vera said through gritted teeth.

“I—I can help you, my queen.” Thomas’s fingers dug painfully into her arm, and Vera wrenched away from his grasp.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” she snarled.

He recoiled, looking at her like she was a stranger. His mouth opened and closed like a fish before he swallowed heavily and took a hesitant step aside, allowing Vera to pass.

The pain and exhaustion only continued to mount as the initial shock faded. She was in such physical agony that she barely made it to her room, collapsing to the floor after she closed the door behind her. Vera had no idea if she stayed there minutes or hours before she realized she was drenched in sweat and crawled the length of her chamber to her window. Somehow, she fumbled the shutter open so she could lean her cheek against the cold dowels and let the evening wind lash at her face. For a while, she closed her eyes and tried to sleep sitting there by the window, but all she could see were Guinevere’s hands clawing at Arthur’s shirt, and all she felt was the void of the destroyed memory. The one truly born in love, replaced by fear and desperation.

She remembered every second of her time in Merlin’s study and felt like she would melt into nothing. It was too much. She leaned her full body weight against the window’s bars, eyes open and unfocused. It would have been all right if the bars didn’t hold, and she fell. She knew she wouldn’t feel that way in the morning, but the pain of right now ravaged her.

When the door opened, Vera didn’t notice. The sound of conversation between friends, so out of place, brought her vision back into focus. She turned in time to watch the light dying in Arthur’s eyes as they locked on her. Matilda was with him, and her face fell next.

He stepped toward Vera and stopped, looking helplessly at Matilda. She nodded and set right into action.

“Let’s get you to bed,” she said. It was a different tone than Vera had grown used to, the one quick to a smile or a joke. She spoke with the purpose of someone who’d dealt with such a crisis before.

“I’m fine,” Vera mumbled.

“Yes, well, all the same.” Matilda took her hand with a frightened smile. Vera allowed Matilda to help her down and to the bed without objection, if nothing else, because it seemed to make her friend feel better.

“I’ve got her,” Matilda said over her shoulder. Vera turned her head, but it was more of a lolling roll of her neck. She didn’t quite have control over her body.

Arthur stood there, fists clenched at his sides, frozen between staying or going. He met Vera’s eyes and took one shaking breath before he turned and left, not to the side door but back into the corridor. She didn’t bother to guess where he went from there. She couldn’t focus. It still felt like shards were stabbing all through her brain.

As Matilda helped her change into her nightgown, her hand brushed Vera’s face. She gasped. “You’re burning up!”

Vera noticed a cold rag on her forehead as she drifted into unrestful oblivion.

She woke from what must have been a dozen nightmares before the sun rose, skin stinging like she had a sunburn, sick like she was hungover, but her mind was clearer, and she had an unbearable urge to move. She didn’t even care if Lancelot showed up today. They hadn’t confirmed their run, but Vera would go on her own if needed.

When she opened the door, she nearly tripped over him. Lancelot sat right outside her room, on the floor with his knees up.

“Hey,” he breathed with a mix of relief and worry. Vera wondered what medieval greeting was translating via magic to “hey” even as a twinge of annoyance rang through her at his concern.

“Ready?” she said stiffly.

She didn’t wait for an answer. She started toward the stairs and let him scramble to catch up. His eyes flitted to her every few steps. Vera ignored them.

“Is everything—”

“I don’t want to talk. I just want to run,” she said, even more frustrated because her voice shook, the words sounding like a plea.

Lancelot pressed his lips together. “All right. You set the pace. I’ll follow.”

It was the coldest winter day yet, but Vera was on fire. She ran harder than usual. They’d barely set out, and her shirt was drenched in sweat. She stopped at the clearing where they usually chatted after their runs, yanked her shirt over her head, and tossed it over a low tree branch.

Now clad in her sports bra and running trousers, Vera turned on Lancelot, daring him to say a word—to laugh or make a joke, but he didn’t. His even gaze met hers unflinchingly. “Better?” he asked.

She nodded bitterly, and they set off. Vera inwardly raged for the first few miles. Arthur must have run to tell Lancelot about the previous evening. Why else would he have been sitting there at her door, all fraught with worry? All along, Lancelot had known things about her life and kept them from her. Come to think of it, he’d probably been telling Arthur what she shared during their runs, too. The resentment pushed her pace.

She huffed angrily, wanting Lancelot to say anything so that she could have a reason to yell at him. He stayed silent, dutifully pounding the same pace as her, right at her side. As the miles wore on, endorphins began to dissolve Vera’s wrath. The fog of her brain lifted enough for her to realize that being angry at Lancelot was simply easier than facing the potion-sharpened experience of the day before.

She called out a peace offering in the last kilometer before their clearing. “Lancelot?”

“Yes?”

“Tree root,” she said, pointing down the trail.

His face broke into a half smile, and Vera gave a winded huff of a laugh. “There you are,” he said with relief.

They came to the clearing and flopped down on the ground. Vera sat closer to him than she would on most days. When she lay on her back, he followed her lead and lay next to her. The sun rose so late in the morning now that it stayed dark their whole time together. Mostly, it was an inky blanket of clouds above them, with brief glimpses of a star twinkling through the gaps. After a stretch of silence, Lancelot spoke.