I eyed the courtyard, waiting.  Some might say lying in wait, only I didn’t intend to harm anyone.  I just wanted to talk.

I spotted the Arcane mage a bit later as she finished what she was practicing with the other mages and split off.  She headed in my direction, frowning and muttering to herself, nearly walking right by me without noticing.

“Hello,” I interrupted her self-ramblings.

“Excuse me,” she automatically bowed slightly without really meeting my eyes.

Yeah, that wasn’t going to work.  “Wait a minute, I think you want to talk to me.”

She turned around, frowning, but she finally met my eyes this time.  When she did, she saw what all Arcane saw when they looked at me – magic.

Arcane could see magic in each others’ eyes.  Vibrant magenta pink magic that rimmed our irises.  I had dark blue eyes, but to Arcane, I would also have a bright pink rim around the edge.  She had the same, although the pink around her brown eyes was softer.

“Oh.  Oh!”  She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again, like she couldn’t quite decide how to respond, but she was clearly excited at the same time.

I smothered a bit of a smile at her response, but nodded my head towards one of the corridors exiting the mages’ courtyard.  “Maybe we can talk somewhere in private?”

She eagerly accompanied me back to my room, which I’d already set up some magic to make sure no one could break in or could eavesdrop on me.

“You’re the king’s ward!”  She burst out as soon as the door was shut.  “I’d heard about you, but I didn’t realize – does he know?  He can’t know.  Does he?”

I sat on the floor, Gilly in my lap, while she happily sat across from me.  “No, he doesn’t know.  He should,” I allowed.  “One of the knights figured it out – he grew up near ellyllon and realized that no one could live in the woods like that without being an Arcane.  He’s okay, though,” I reassured her when she looked alarmed.  “He’s in love with an ellyll and became a knight in part to protect her and her people.  He won’t betray me.  But the point is, other people could put the pieces together, just most of who aren’t super familiar with old forests may not realize it.”

She was frowning again.  “You can’t trust a knight,” she muttered.

I raised an eyebrow.  “You haven’t been here long, either, have you?  I saw you only recently started mage training.  But you already believe no knights can be trusted?”

She was likely a couple years older than me and now she gave me an almost indulging look.  “You haven’t seen what Uther did.”

“And you did?”  I wasn’t challenging her, exactly.  But there was clearly some reason why she was so focused on not trusting humans.

She sighed.  “Not – yes.  No.  Some of both.”  She took a deep breath.  “My grandmother is a druid, and she was known in her area.  All of her people were.  Uther tried hunting her down, her and the others, and they had to run.  She lost several of her good friends and family to his reign of blood.  And then – then she managed to meet my grandfather.  A mage, but not a powerful one.  They married, and had my father.”  She paused, swallowing hard.  “My grandfather died before I was born, years ago.  He died of old age – he was my grandmother’s age, but old for a human.  My grandmother had seen my father marry my mother by then.  My mother is druid, so of course she’s strongly on our side.  My father, he was a mage, not a druid, but he was a powerful mage since he got magic from both parents.  He was a really strong mage.”

Her shoulders slumped a bit.  “My grandmother lived through the fear of Uther’s reign.  She knew what it was like to have a bloodthirsty tyrant on the throne.”

I didn’t correct her description.  Uther might have been good enough to most of his human subjects, many of whom might have seen him as an intense, but not evil king.  To the Arcane, however, Uther was truly a tyrant.

“My father was recruited to serve Uther because he had a lot of magic, for a mage.  He couldn’t really refuse, Uther didn’t let people say no to him.  But he also treated mages poorly because he hated having to use them – he hated not killing everything and anything magical, I guess.  He couldn’t not have mages, though, not when other countries did and not having some sort of magic users would mean he was at a disadvantage, but he hated them and made no secret of it.”

She was scowling now.  “My father, he also hated serving Uther, and he did his best to screw things up, especially anytime they faced an Arcane.  He would use magic, but try to use it to help the Arcane, or blind the knights, or really anything.  He got in a lot of trouble for being incompetent, but Carodoc – he’s the sorcerer who teaches everyone and kind of runs the king’s sorcerers – he kept giving my father more chances.  But then – then Uther somehow found out that father knew where druids lived.  My grandmother’s people, our people.  He tortured my father and then publically executed him for treason when he refused to reveal their location.”

She blinked back tears.  “It turned out one of his fellow mages told Uther.  My father had mentioned attending druid ceremonies in passing, I don’t know what the full context was, but the mage had realized that he must know where druids lived.  And the mage was willing to see him die for that.  They didn’t care.  Even though they’d worked with him all this time.  They didn’t care.”

She fell silent, a mixture of anger and grief.

“I’m sorry about your father,” I told her quietly.  I picked up Gilly and offered her the cat.

She laughed a bit, but took her, gently petting the fluffy cat, who seemed quite okay with being an emotional support animal.  “I didn’t get to see my father growing up too much.  He was busy working for a man he hated, and then he was gone.  And my grandmother and mother have hated Uther all the more.”

I thought over this as she slowly petted Gilly, something not quite making sense.  “Arthur doesn’t require mages with more magic to train here and potentially become sorcerers.  You and your family have good cause to hate Uther – but you’re here now.  Do you feel differently about Arthur?”

She glanced at me nervously.  “I – um – it’s not – it’s complicated, I wouldn’t want to say anything, uh, bad, I mean – ”

I cut her off before she could keep floundering.  “If you’re worried on my behalf, don’t be.  First, I’m an Arcane, too, but second, I’m not here willingly.  My mother once helped Arthur, soon after his mother died, and for some reason he got really attached to her and planned to ask her to join his court as an advisor.”  I shrugged a bit.  “Probably would have been good if she had agreed to it, I imagine she would have encouraged him to support Arcane, but she wasn’t there, so he couldn’t ask her.  She left me, because I was old enough to handle myself – which was why Arthur brought me here.  He imagines a girl my age shouldn’t be on her own in the middle of the woods, so he decided he’s going to look after me until my mother returns.”  I rolled my eyes.  “Except she never will.  She went to Avalon.”

The druid girl blinked a few times.  “She went – oh.  Oh!”  She nearly screeched, startling Gilly enough that the cat leaped from her lap and ran to hide under the bed.  “You’re – you’re a – ”

“Calm down,” I reassured her, a bit dryly.  “Yes.  I am.  That’s why I’m not so worried about being here, even if I’m not happy about it.  But I imagine things are different for you – being revealed, if people still feel like Uther about Arcane, could be life threatening.”

She sighed, slumping over to rest her forearms on her knees.  “It could be.  I know.  And I didn’t have to come.  I know.”  She glanced at me briefly again, then seemed to make up her mind.  “My mother and grandmother wanted me to come.”

I took a moment to just let this sink in and figure out what it meant for this girls’ mother and grandmother – who despised Uther – to want her to come here to be a mage for Arthur.

There was really only one reason I could see.

“They want you to kill Arthur,” I stated.

She cringed.  “It sounds so terrible out loud like that, but yes.  People have mistaken me for a mage, since they knew my father was one, and it didn’t dawn on them that I could be a druid.  They thought maybe I could come here and, um, take revenge.”  Her face scrunched up.  “It sounds so stupid every time I think about it.  I don’t have outstanding magic like my father.  Average for a druid, a bit above average for a mage, but not enough to do that much.  I doubt I could even be a sorcerer like my father.  How am I supposed to kill a king?  It’s crazy.”

Even more so because Arthur was a highly trained knight who had been training since a very young age.  He would know how to fight a magic user, whether he thought they were a mage or realized they were a druid.  She was entirely out of her depth here, and on such a level it seemed almost ludicrous that her own family had sent her here with that in mind.  Did they intend to see her killed?  That was the only outcome if she actually attempted this.  She had no training as an assassin and not enough magic to pose a real threat to him.  But for her family to want her death?  No, likely not.  Likely they were too blinded by their own anger and grief to realize what they were actually doing.

“Can you assume animal forms?”  Some druids could.  It was usually older ones, though, that had communed with the particular animal for long periods.  They couldn’t pick any animal like I could and instantly change, though; they could only change into the one animal and assuming the form took time and meditation.

But then, that wasn’t a particularly Arcane talent, either.

Unsurprisingly, she shook her head.  “No, though that would probably help if I could.  They just figure that since no one is looking for an assassin amongst mages, I could get closer – only I can’t.  I’ve barely seen the king, maybe a couple of times from a distance, and he’s almost always got knights around him, plus I’m always surrounded by mages, including Carodoc, who’d stop me.  There’s no chance.  Plus,” she hesitated, then abruptly burst out again.  “I don’t know if I want to!  I want to make my mother and grandmother happy, but I heard Arthur’s speech, the one about wanting everyone to feel welcome in this kingdom, including Arcane.”  Her brows furrowed.  “My mother and grandmother are worried about another reign of blood under Arthur, but he seems different.  Even if I could, I’m not sure I want to.”

Fair enough.  She was being smarter than her family in trying to give him a chance to prove himself.

“I hope he means what he says.”  I shrugged a bit.  “Genevieve, his future queen, thinks he does, and she’s known him since they were children.  But I haven’t seen any evidence of him trying to win over Arcane, convince humans to welcome them, or trying to make amends for what Uther did and ensure it can never happen again.  But,” I allowed a bit reluctantly, “he is new to the throne.  He hasn’t had time yet to really prove what he plans to do.  At least he seems to want to be different from Uther, though.  Whether he follows through on that is yet to be seen.”

She listened, her eyes bright as she nodded.  “That’s it!  Yes, that’s what I think.  We need to give him more time before making any rash decisions.”

She wasn’t wrong, but her words made me realize something.  She seemed fairly smart, talented, and capable of independent thought, but she preferred to follow, didn’t she?  She let her grandmother and mother convince her to come here to do something she was entirely unqualified and unprepared to do, something that could easily cost her her life.  And she was happy to let me order her around to come here, and now seemed relieved to have someone essentially tell her to give the king more time before making her decision.

Not a bad thing in any way, but it all the more highlighted the poor decision to have her attempt to kill the king.

“What’s your name, by the way?”  I motioned Gilly over.  “I’m Merlynn, and this is Gilly.”

“Nice to meet you both.”  She gave the cat an apologetic smile and pat.  “I’m Mora.  Well, Morgana, but I go by Mora.”

“It’s nice to have an ally here,” I told her sincerely.  “I won’t help you with your mission if you decide to go forward with it, because while I’m no fan of Arthur’s, I think killing him would do more harm than good, but I understand why your family hates his father and him by extension.”

She didn’t seem surprised that I wasn’t offering assistance.  “Well, let’s hope he lives up to his speech and it won’t be necessary, right?”

It would be nice to have a king who wanted to protect Arcane and, well, treat them as equals.  Even in countries where Arcane weren’t actively killed, they tended to be viewed as less than their human counterparts – whether that was because some Arcane were actually animals, or only had animal forms, or simply because humans viewed themselves as better than everyone else, I wasn’t sure, but if Arthur really meant what he said and planned to have Arcane treated with just as much respect as humans?  That would be something nice to see.

One could only hope he really did mean it.