The Guinevere Deception

There was good, and there was evil, but there was so much space between the two.

Women are strongest when bearing one another’s pain. We each take a little on ourselves. No one dies, and we all heal together.

Sometimes we have to hide from what others see in order to be what we know we are.

He is like the sun. When he is focused on you, everything is bright and warm. Everything is possible. But the problem with knowing the warmth of the sun is how keenly you feel it's absence when it shines elsewhere. And a king must always shine elsewhere.

was there not enough peril in the world already without the dangers of simply being a woman?

Women truly were the stronger gender. All the subtle games they had to play, the way they teased power from those around them! She had much to learn there.

Oh, I wanted to strangle him tonight." "Was he difficult during the discussions?" "No, I mean when he would not stop staring at you.

I think," Guinevere said, making her voice as light and breezy as the summer day around them, "I have found my new preferred form of transportation. I will never walk again. Nor shall I ride horses. I want to be carried everywhere by a king.

There was a dangerous magic in pretending. Pretend long enough, and who could say what was real?

There was nothing in the world as magical and terrifying as a girl on the cusp of womanhood.

She did not want to be an invisible queen in the castle. Arthur did not rule that way. And she wanted to be his match. His equal. His partner. She could no longer deny it. She wanted to be more than a protector to him.

Every day is filled with lying about my very self. When I am with you, I do not have to." Arthur's motions paused, then became softer as he massaged down each of her dedicate fingers. "Keeping secrets is like a thorn beneath the skin. You can get used to it, but it is always there, festering.

Men are hungry fools. If they cannot eat it, wear it, or use it, they kill it anyway. They spread like fungus through the heart of the world. Lift a rock, and there: man. But that is not quite right. At least fungus grows and feeds other life. Men only devour. Everywhere they reshape in their image. To their needs. Forests are felled for their homes. Fields are forced to bear their fruits, their grains, their decisions. A fungus only kills. Men change. Men demand order from nature. Men melt rocks and form metal, biting iron to pierce and slay. What can she do against such poison?

Her voice betrayed her. She could say so many things. She wanted to move to his side. To rub his weary forehead for him. To curl into him. To tell him about the dragon and how lonely thinking of it made her feel. She wanted to run her finger along the fullness of his lower lip. To feel his smile against her own. And that was dangerous.

Women are strongest when bearing one another's pain. We each take a little on ourselves. No one dies, and we all heal together.

An old, battered dragon was still a dragon, and the darkness had always loved them.

It was not easy, revolving around someone who did not revolve around her.

He did what men always do. He wanted it, and so he claimed it.

If I fail, then it is over. My dream is dead. I have nothing to build a future around. And if I succeed... I step past everything I have known into everything I have wanted.

The dark queen knows darkness, but in the black, the claustrophobic fear of the dreamer snags her, tries to overtake her. She is the darkness, though. She has nothing to fear there. She cannot be trapped.

We do not need a dark queen when we have so much darkness within ourselves.

They revolved around her as though she were the Earth, and they were the adoring but distant sun and moon and stars. It was a type of magic in and of itself.

Arthur was carved from the same stuff as Camelot - regal and majestic. But Mordred belonged out here, with her.

The Lady of the Lake..." His voice went distant, and a spike of jealousy pierced Guinevere. Because here, finally, she saw what Arthur looked like when he longed for something.

She had never thought through the sheer logistics of this many people in a small space. Nor had she ever considered that a king would have to figure out how to deal with the chamber pots of a thousand citizens. In her head, it had been all swords and battles and glory and magic.

But my king, is it proper?" Sir Bors frowned dubiously, his mustache drooping. "To be alone with her before you are wed? Women's passionate natures cannot be trusted." Annoyed, she forgot to be a painting. "I shall protect his honor with my life," she answered drily.

We all of us must be better than our fathers. At least Merlin leaves you nothing to atone for. Only to live up to.

They are not always green, your eyes. Sometimes they are blue like the sky. In Camelot, they are gray like the stones. I like green and blue better.

I have to keep you safe," he whispered, Arthur once again.