Chapter One
Winter 497
The sigh of a reed pen across parchment, one jagged line of ink. That was all it took to betray my king and myself.
My signature, made with trembling hands, may have made me Arthur Pendragon’s wife, but it couldn’t change my heart. He’d asked for my assent to this marriage, and I gave it, but it was a lie.
Marrying him was my duty. That much I had resigned myself to in the two months since Arthur proposed, shattering my dreams of a life with Aggrivane of Lothian.
I watched with hollow detachment from my place next to Arthur as our marriage contract was sealed in the snowy courtyard of the old Roman fort of Carlisle, the stronghold of Arthur’s father, the previous high king, Uther.
Arthur stood facing my father, back to the gate of the castle. His breaths wer
