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“Your Majesty.” Warwick’s voice opened my eyes, though I didn’t lift my mouth from Durandal’s throat. I fully intended to bring him to the point of unconsciousness in order to refill my reserves.

:You’re welcome to try,: Durandal said in our freshly hammered bond in perfect though heavily accented English. :You have already brought me to my knees, Your Majesty.:

:Shara,: I told him firmly.

The spark of rebellion quirked his lips. :Shara, my majestic queen, may you reign as long as I have lain in wait for you to Call me forth once more.:

Warwick stepped closer, and once my gaze fell on him, he dropped to his knees beside Durandal. “Please forgive me, Your Majesty. I allowed the dark days of imprisonment inside the iron maiden to cripple my inner fortitude even more than the wound in my thigh. I don’t wish to leave your service. If you can find it in your heart to be patient with me…” He let out a long, shuddering breath.

Since I’d pulled my blood back from him, I spoke to him through Rik. :Ask him what he needs from me.:

“My queen asks what do you need from her?”

I noted the deliberate use of “my” rather than “our.” Rik’s disapproval echoed in every word. Not of me—but any Blood who could even think about walking away from his queen. Warwick would fight an uphill battle to regain his trust. All of our trust. Guillaume had one of his small, slim blades in his hand, casually cleaning his fingernails. Even though I knew they were perfectly clean and well-trimmed.

His message was clear. It didn’t matter what kind of knight Warwick might have been in the past. My Executioner would kill him in a heartbeat, and he wouldn’t bother drawing his sword to do so. As if Warwick didn’t even deserve the honor of being beheaded by a fellow knight.

Instead, he’d get a tiny knife in the heart.

Warwick swallowed hard, closing his eyes as if terrible nightmares played through his mind once more. “Before I was made into the Knight of Pestilence, Damiana used me as… entertainment. I was the feast. For her guests. She allowed other queens to feed on me because I was a bottomless grail of blood. Compelled. Trapped. While they feasted. Like I was a piece of meat. A suckling roasted pig on the table with an apple in my mouth. It was degrading and terrible at the same time. I fear being fed upon like that again.”

He forced his eyes open, meeting my gaze. “I did not know what it might be like in your service, Your Majesty. I see now that you are not like Damiana in the slightest.”

From the way he paled, my instantaneous rage must be crackling in my eyes. He dropped to his belly before me, his head on his crossed forearms. “Please forgive me, Your Majesty.”

Before I could even tell Rik what to say, he responded in a flat, heavy tone of disapproval. “My queen would kill anyone who thought to lay a hand on her Blood. Let alone force them to do something against their will or, goddess forbid, feed on one of us. Our blood is hers and no other’s. To steal our blood from her would be death.”

“Stultis,” Durandal muttered darkly, shaking his head. “Did you not witness with your own eyes the pain of hunger she endured to quench my unbreakable blade? How many queens do you think have tried to claim me and failed? Not because they didn’t have the capacity but because they couldn’t control their own driving instinct of self-preservation.”

“My queen allowed herself to die to be with us,” Rik continued, his voice harsh. “Because if she couldn’t have us all, she refused to stay. She gave the elixir to you to heal your pestilence and then worked with her sibling to heal your wound that even the Elixir of Life couldn’t heal. Yet you doubt her heart? Why should she give you another chance to serve?”

“And don’t say because you’re a grail.” Durandal rolled his eyes. “Because she has the Blade of Isador now.”

Indeed, he might be as bottomless as Sekh. Even Guillaume had removed my nails from his side, yet Durandal was still upright and bright eyed as I fed.

I gave him no quarter, pulling hard, swallowing him down. Easing the sharp slices of pain through my body. Yet he was still able to converse.

“You’re right, of course.” Warwick kept his head down against his arms. “I was a fool. I allowed my fear to blind me. I will endeavor to prove myself worthy in any way you wish, Your Majesty. I will provide everything I can recall about Houska Castle, despite the horrors I endured there, so that your sibling may be successful in her quest to find her knights.”

Guillaume casually placed a boot on Warwick’s back, bent to grab a handful of his hair to tug his head back, and placed the tip of the small knife against his throat. “You will do that anyway, and it won’t cost my queen a drop of her precious blood.”

DURANDAL

Song: Infinite Baths by Sleep Token

From the first moment I felt her Call whispering into my eternal slumber, I had but one thought. One desire.

Reach her at all cost.

Many have tried to pry this sword from the cliffs of Rocamadour, both warrior and queen alike. Since I departed service more than a thousand years ago, my unbreakable sword has lain in wait. Despairing.

Tales of my life—or rather, Roland’s so-called life—have evolved countless times over the centuries, becoming more and more farfetched from the truth. Roland was a great warrior, but greater yet was the queen we both served. As humans were wont to do, they mucked up my story entirely.

Mankind has forgotten Queen Aude in favor of Roland, making the rest of her court a mockery. She made us the warriors we were, yet no one sings of her praises today. I know. I’ve listened to the endless stream of voices and lives flowing around me. Absorbing stories. Watching the world change and darken and slip further away from my grasping hands.

Queen Aude forged me with her blood, hardening this Aima warrior into something else entirely. The only part of my story the humans tended to get right was the sharpness of my edge and my unbreakable blade. When Queen Aude fell and Roland, her alpha, died, I was cast far away to keep me from enemy hands. Firstly, Charlemagne’s new queen, Hildegard, then any Aima queen who thought to wield Durandal or my beast.

Other queens have tried to unsheathe me, but they lacked the mental fortitude. The sheer will to forge me with their own blood until my edge could be hardened in the quench. But not this queen.