Guinevere could not bring herself to meet Mordred’s eyes directly. 

 

An instinctive sense of distance—so close yet impossibly far—clawed at her chest.

 

The air was thick with a cloyingly sweet fragrance that stole her breath and made her head spin. 

 

Was it this maddening scent conjuring such dangerous, forbidden thoughts?

 

What in the world is this perfume?

 

She had only ever known the sharp, medicinal bite of herbs; never anything like this. She couldn’t even guess when the scent had begun to permeate the room, wrapping around them both like invisible silk.

 

They said divine fragrance could only be perceived by those with sensitive senses—those touched by the sacred. Guinevere had accepted that explanation without question.

 

But Mordred?

 

He was no child of Morgana’s power, no priest blessed with divine authority. He should not have carried such an otherworldly aura. 

 

A scent no ordinary mortal could detect should never have bloomed from him.

 

Guinevere awkwardly swept a hand through her hair at the nape of her neck, her voice small and unsteady.

 

“So… that scent. Do you know what it is?”

 

Mordred tilted his head slightly. “What scent are you talking about, sister?”

 

“You know—the sweet one. The one that’s… everywhere.”

 

The moment the words left her lips, Mordred’s gaze locked onto hers—direct, unblinking, piercing.

 

Gone was the earlier trace of awkwardness or discomfort. His face had smoothed into something eerily blank, almost alien. 

 

A cold shiver raced down her spine; the fine hairs at her nape stood on end.

 

She shrank inward, shoulders curling instinctively. Without thinking, the excuse tumbled out of her in a rush.

 

“L-Lunete said so! She told me she smelled something sweet coming from the woman Agravain brought with him!”

 

Mordred’s expression remained perfectly still. 

 

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never paid much attention to scents.”

 

Liar. How could he say that when the entire room—his room—was drowning in it?

 

Only now did he let his eyelids droop, allowing a slow, languid smile to curve his lips. But Guinevere found herself unable to return it.

 

Lunete had been unmistakable: the fragrance had clung to Agravain and the woman. If it had been this suffocatingly intense, she would have said so plainly. 

 

Everyone knew how sharp Lunete’s senses were—especially when it came to perfume. They called her a genius in such matters.

 

And yet even Guinevere, who had no such gift, could not identify a single note or ingredient in this overwhelming sweetness.

 

The realization settled like ice in her veins.

 

One truth alone could explain a fragrance this potent emanating from Mordred.

 

Guinevere dipped her head for a moment, drawing in a long, deliberate breath. When she exhaled, the sound trembled—ever so faintly, so subtle that no one, not even she herself, might have noticed.

 

Then, for the first time since stepping into the room, she lifted her gaze and truly met her younger brother’s eyes.

 

No words.

 

Just silence.

 

A long, endless silence.

 

She simply looked at him—drinking in the sight of this small, familiar boy who no longer felt entirely familiar—letting her eyes linger helplessly, achingly, as though memorizing every line of his face before something irrevocable tore them apart forever.

 

Guinevere’s eyes never wavered, as though she were trying to etch every last detail of him into her soul—making up for all the months they had been apart, for every day the academy had kept him from her.

 

The silence stretched, heavy and velvet-soft, until Mordred tilted his head, voice gentle yet edged with curiosity.

 

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

 

“…Mordred.”

 

Her voice was barely above a whisper, yet it carried the weight of something fragile and final. 

 

“You are my little brother, aren’t you?”

 

Each word fell clear and deliberate. He nodded without hesitation, smile soft and certain.

 

“Of course I am. How could I possibly be anything else to you, sister?”

 

Guinevere swallowed once.

 

“Then… is there anything you’re hiding from me? Anything you can’t tell me?”

 

It was the first time she had ever asked.

 

All these years she had simply trusted—trusted the boy who used to spill every small heartache and secret into her lap without prompting—-the petty quarrels with noble sons at the academy, the quiet fears about his future, the delicate shape of his thoughts laid bare like petals. 

 

He had never needed to be asked.

 

Now, for the very first time, the question trembled between them.

 

Mordred’s lashes curved. He smiled—such a pure, radiant smile that, for a heartbeat, one might believe the gods themselves had borrowed his face to remind the world what innocence looked like.

 

“Is it because of Marquis Orren?” he asked lightly. 

 

“Don’t worry about him. I’ll take care of Master myself. You don’t need to carry that burden.”

 

Guinevere exhaled a soft laugh that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

 

“Okay. I understand.”

 

She smiled back—wide, bright, the kind of smile she had given him a thousand times before—and reached out to rest her palm on the crown of his head.

 

For one suspended second, she simply let it rest there, feeling the warmth of his scalp through silk-soft strands.

 

Then her fingers moved, ruffling his hair with rough, fond affection, the way she always had when he was smaller.

 

“I’ll go now. Take care, Mordred.”

 

“Yes. Come back safely, sister.”

 

Guinevere turned toward the door she had entered through. Her steps were light again—at first.

 

But the moment her fingers closed around the cool metal of the doorknob, everything stopped. She stood there, back to him, hand frozen on the latch.

 

Without turning around, in a voice so calm it almost sounded dreamy, she spoke.

 

“Mordred. I’ve always thought… how lucky I was to have a little brother.”

 

A beat of silence.

 

Then his reply, quiet and warm, like sunlight touching skin.

 

“I feel the same. I can’t tell you how much I’ve leaned on you, sister.”

 

Guinevere’s grip tightened until her knuckles bleached white. She flung the door open.

 

“Thank you.”

 

The words drifted behind her—gentle, final—like the last petal falling from a dying bloom. She stepped into the corridor of the prince’s palace and walked.

 

No servants. No guards. Just as she had strictly ordered when she arrived. The hallway stretched empty and echoing.

 

The farther she moved from his room, the longer her strides became.

 

Longer. Faster.

 

Until walking became running.

 

Until running became fleeing.

 

Guinevere tore through the vast prince’s palace as though something unseen pursued her, feet barely touching stone, until she burst into the small rear garden—lush with flowers and carefully tended ornamental trees.

 

She didn’t stop until the fragrance of roses and jasmine swallowed the lingering sweetness that still clung to her clothes, her hair, her skin.

 

Only then did she press both hands to her chest, as though trying to hold her heart together before it shattered completely.

 

Unlike the other gardens scattered across the palace—always alive with courtiers, laughter, or the soft tread of servants—this one lay tucked away at the very rear of the secluded wing.

 

Few ever came here.

 

It was the same forgotten corner where, as a child, Guinevere had once hidden after King Vortigern’s cruelty had left fresh bruises on her heart. She had curled into the shadows and wept in silence.

 

And always—always—there had been Mordred.

 

Small, earnest Mordred, barely taller than her elbow, patting her shoulder with awkward gentleness, murmuring clumsy comforts until her sobs quieted.

 

Now she collapsed against the same stone bench, just as she had all those years ago, and let the breath tear out of her in ragged gasps.

 

“Haah…”

 

Plink. Plink—

 

Clear tears struck the mossy ground between the cracks of ancient flagstones.

 

“Mordred…”

 

He was not her brother.

 

Perhaps he never had been. Or perhaps he had been, once—until some invisible fracture line appeared, and everything changed without her noticing.

 

She had convinced herself there were no secrets between them.

 

One foolish, childish illusion.

 

The moment she saw him exhale that impossible sweetness while calmly denying any knowledge of Agravain or the priestess woman, the veil ripped away.

 

Everything she had fought to protect—the fragile, precious bond she had believed unbreakable—was nothing more than mist dissolving in sunlight.

 

How could she ever trust him again, now that she had watched him look straight into her eyes and lie?

 

“Hnngh…”

 

She clamped both hands over her mouth, terrified someone might hear. But the sobs clawed their way out anyway—muffled, choking, desperate.

 

She had lost her last remaining family.

 

All these years in the royal palace, she had stood rigid, refusing to bend beneath anyone’s weight, refusing to let them see the cracks.

 

From the moment the oracle named her the chosen princess, the people around her had only ever wanted to use her—her name, her blood, her crown.

 

No one had ever wanted her.

 

The court called her fierce. Unbreakable. A lioness of a princess.

 

But every layer of steel had been hammered into place over raw, bleeding vulnerability.

The only person before whom she had ever allowed herself to be soft, to be small, to be afraid—

 

—was Mordred.

 

And now even he was gone.

 

The tears she had spent years swallowing surged up like a broken dam. She cried—really cried—for the first time in years.

 

Not the silent, contained weeping of a princess.

 

But the loud, ugly, wrenching sobs of a child who has finally been abandoned.

 

“Waaah…!”

 

Great, heaving cries echoed against the ivy-covered walls.

 

No small hand reached out to pat her shoulder.

 

No quiet voice whispered that everything would be all right.

 

The garden stayed silent except for her grief. Guinevere curled tighter into herself, arms wrapped around her ribs as though she could physically hold the pieces of her heart together.

 

But nothing could stop the flood now.

 

The boy who used to dry her tears with his sleeve was no longer there.

 

And the emptiness he left behind was colder than any winter wind that had ever swept through the palace grounds.

 

✨

 

Morgana’s fingers kept drifting, restless and feverish, along Excalibur’s hilt, tracing the sculpted lines as if the sword were warm skin. 

 

A low, amused hum—half moan, half chuckle—rumbled from the blade itself.

 

“Hnnn… feels good, doesn’t it? So smooth, so perfect… you just can’t keep your hands off me, can you, little witch?”

 

“It’s not like that!” 

 

Morgana snapped, cheeks flaring crimson. 

 

“Her Highness is late. That’s all.”

 

At the sharp outburst, Nimue—who had been sitting quietly, hands folded in her lap—lifted her serene gaze toward the window of Guinevere’s study.

 

Beyond the glass, the late-afternoon sky burned a fierce, crystalline blue, already bruising toward sunset.

 

“You’re right,” 

 

Nimue murmured, soft as incense. 

 

“She said she would only ask a few questions and return… Perhaps they are sharing tea?”

 

Morgana ground her teeth, the click-click audible in the stillness.

 

“Something’s wrong. I should have gone with her.”

 

Just because those two were close didn’t mean she should have let her guard down.

 

No matter how she turned it over in her mind, there was no reason for the visit to drag on this long.

 

Morgana’s grip tightened on Excalibur until her knuckles went white. She shot to her feet.

 

“That’s it. We’re going now. The moment you think ‘this is taking too long’ is always the moment you should have already moved.”

 

The words had barely left her lips when the measured clip-clop of heels echoed from the corridor—steady, familiar, unhurried.

 

Click—

 

The door opened.

 

There stood Guinevere.

 

Exactly as always—posture impeccable, golden hair catching the dying light—yet somehow… quieter. As though a storm had passed through her and left only stillness behind.

 

“Sorry. We got to talking, and time slipped away.”

 

Something had changed.

 

Morgana felt it like a shift in air pressure before thunder—a subtle, almost imperceptible wrongness. She frowned, then shook it off as imagination.

 

“Did… did you have a good talk with His Highness?”

 

She tried to sound casual, but anticipation leaked through every syllable.

 

Guinevere crossed the room with her usual grace and sank into the chair behind the desk. When she spoke, her voice was low, perfectly controlled, and colder than winter steel.

 

“Investigate Mordred.”

 

Morgana blinked.

 

“…Pardon?”

 

She had marched out earlier proclaiming absolute faith: It can’t be Mordred. It will never be Mordred.

 

Now those same lips delivered the order without a tremor.

 

Guinevere lifted her eyes—clear, resolute, and suddenly ancient with grief—and met Morgana’s stunned gaze head-on.

 

“The strange fragrance Lunete described… it was pouring off him. Undeniably. Overwhelmingly.”

 

The words landed between them like a guillotine.

 

Morgana’s heart stuttered. Nimue’s breath caught, ever so faintly.

 

Guinevere did not blink.

 

“Therefore,” 

 

She continued, voice steady as a funeral bell, “By the authority of the royal house of Britannia, I hereby formally grant Morgana le Fay and High Priestess Nimue the full right to investigate.”

 

The silence that followed was so complete they could hear the sunset bleeding across the sky outside.

 

And somewhere inside Guinevere’s chest, something once warm and alive finished breaking—quietly, irrevocably—without a single sound.