The inside of Arthur's solar was dark except for a single candle burning on the desk.
Arthur sat behind it with his elbows on the wood and his hands laced together in front of his mouth, staring at the notification that hung in his vision. He had read it so many times now that the words had begun to lose their meaning and yet he kept reading them again because reading them was easier than making the choice they demanded.
Path A.
Path B.
Two roads. One led into the fire and the other led somewhere arguably worse.
"You cannot do this," he said to the empty room.
"You have three children."
"You have two wives."
"You have a castle and an island and a people who depend on you."
"You cannot throw it away for one woman."
He unlaced his hands and pressed them against the surface of the desk.
"Send her back. Put her on a ship at dawn, send her to King's Landing, let the Targaryens sort out their own family. It is not your fight. She is a princess and you are a lord of a small isle in the Blackwater, the gap between those two things is the gap between the earth and the sky."
The words sounded right.
They sounded sensible.
The problem was that every time he said the words, his chest tightened and he got a flash of Rhaella from the future he had seen.
He had seen what would happen to her.
The visions the crystal had shown him over a year ago had not been gentle. He had seen Rhaella married to Aerys. He had seen the light leave her eyes over years and decades of cruelty, the slow grinding erosion of everything she was until there was nothing left but a hollow woman in a crown who flinched when her husband entered the room.
He had seen the miscarriages.
He had seen bruises and injuries.
He had seen madness consuming a king while his queen stood beside him and endured it.
That was what waited for her on Path B.
That was what he would be sending her back to.
Arthur pressed his palms against his eyes.
"But what can you do." The question came out as barely a whisper. "You cannot fight the crown. You have no army. You have no fleet. You have no great lords sworn to your banner. What are you going to do, Arthur, declare war on the Seven Kingdoms from a shelf on a mountain."
He dropped his hands.
He stared at the notification.
He thought about Rhaella's face when she had pulled her hood back in his bedchamber. The fragile terrified hope in her eyes. The way her hands had been shaking. The way she had offered to go back, offered to walk down to the harbour and get on a ship and return to a life she had just told him she would rather die than live, because she did not want to be the reason his family was destroyed.
He thought about the night they had danced at the feast in the Red Keep and the way her hand had felt in his.
He thought about the balcony.
The kiss.
The taste of her tears on his lips.
The sound she had made when his hands had found her waist.
He loved her.
He had been trying not to admit it for months and he was done trying.
He loved Mira and he loved Cassie. He loved them both with every piece of himself that was capable of love. But somehow, in defiance of every law of the gods and every principle of common sense, there was a piece of him that also belonged to Rhaella Targaryen, and it had belonged to her since the night she had sat on a bench beside a nervous squire and told him not to be afraid of the King.
He could not send her back.
He could not send her back to that.
Not even to save himself.
Arthur clenched his fists on the desk hard enough that the wood creaked beneath his knuckles.
"Damn it."
He unclenched his hands.
He reached for the notification, selected Path A, and confirmed it.
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[PATH A SELECTED]
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WARNING: This choice is binding. Reversing this decision after confirmation will result in severe system penalties including but not limited to permanent stat reduction, trait removal, and quest failure cascades.
Are you sure?
────────────────────
Yes.
────────────────────
[CONFIRMED]
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Distributing rewards now.
────────────────────
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[LEVEL UP]
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Level 8 → Level 9
Automatic stat growth (Knight class):
• Strength +2 → 26
• Dexterity +1 → 17
• Constitution +2 → 26 (+45%)
Unallocated stat points gained: +3
────────────────────
────────────────────
[LEGENDARY TRAIT ACQUIRED]
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[Uchiha Bloodline]
The blood of the Uchiha clan flows through your veins. Grants exceptional natural talent for unarmed martial arts and throwing weapons. Reflexes and visual acuity are heightened beyond normal human limits.
Additionally grants the latent potential to awaken the Sharingan, a legendary ocular ability that must be unlocked through extreme emotional trauma or breakthrough.
Note: As a bloodline trait, this has been automatically inherited by all current and future biological children.
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Arthur read the notification twice.
The Sharingan.
He had no idea what that was. The description called it legendary and the system had never used that word carelessly, so whatever it was, it was powerful. How to unlock it was another question entirely.
He filed it away and moved to the next notification.
────────────────────
[HIDDEN REWARD UNLOCKED]
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[Trait Upgrader] (Unique)
Description:
Permanently upgrades one existing trait to its next evolutionary form. The upgraded trait retains all existing functions and gains new capabilities based on the nature of the original.
Single use. Cannot be undone.
────────────────────
Arthur's breath caught.
His mind immediately began to race through the possibilities. The World, his ability to freeze time for one and a half seconds, was already one of the most powerful traits he possessed. An upgraded version of it might extend the duration, or reduce the exhaustion cost, or open up entirely new applications he could not yet imagine. Demon Back, which synchronised his muscles for explosive power, could become something that lasted longer or hit harder or did not carry the risk of permanent injury.
The possibilities were dizzying.
He would need time to think about this. Time he did not currently have.
He was about to close the notification when a knock came at the door.
Arthur dismissed the remaining notifications with a thought and looked up. "Enter."
The door opened slowly and Rhaella stepped inside.
She had changed out of the rough travelling cloak and into a simple gown that Mira or Cassie must have lent her, pale cream linen that hung loosely on her slighter frame and made her silver-gold hair look brighter by contrast. Her feet were bare on the cold stone floor. Her eyes were red-rimmed but dry and she looked to be composing herself to say something.
"I am sorry for disturbing you," she said quietly.
"It's fine." Arthur gestured to the chair on the other side of the desk. "Come in."
She walked across the solar toward the desk and stopped on the other side and stood there with her hands clasped in front of her and her violet eyes fixed on his face.
The silence between them stretched.
"I have made a decision," Rhaella said.
Arthur waited.
"I am going to take the next ship back to King's Landing."
Arthur opened his mouth.
"Please, Arthur, let me finish before I lose the nerve to say it." She drew a breath that shook slightly on the way in. "I am going to go back. And when I arrive I am going to tell my father and my grandfather that I forced Mira and Cassie to bring me with them. That I used my authority as a princess to compel them. That they had no choice in the matter and that the responsibility is entirely mine. I will not let your family suffer for what I have done. Mira and Cassie have been nothing but kind to me, they are my closest friends in the world, the only real friends I have ever had, and I repaid their kindness by putting their children in danger. I cannot live with that."
Her voice was calm but her chin was trembling.
"I am sorry, Arthur. I am so sorry. For coming here. For putting you in this position. For everything. I can only hope that someday you will be able to forgive me for the trouble I have caused. I should never have..."
Her composure cracked.
"I should never have asked them. I knew it was wrong and I did it anyway because I was scared and selfish and I could not face the idea of spending the rest of my life in a cage, and I, I just, I could not bear it, and Mira was the only person who ever made me feel safe besides you, and I took advantage of that, and I..."
She was crying now. The words were coming faster and blurring together, the speech falling apart under the weight of everything she was actually feeling, and tears were running down her cheeks and she kept wiping at them with the back of her hand and they kept coming back.
"I am sorry, I am so sorry, I never wanted to hurt anyone, I just wanted, I just wanted to be free, and I know that is not, I know I do not have the right to ask for that, I know my duty, I have always known my duty, but I cannot, Arthur, I cannot—"
"Rhaella."
She stopped.
"I am not sending you back."
The words fell into the silence of the solar and lay there.
Rhaella stared at him with her mouth was still open from the sentence she had not finished, the tears were still running down her face, and for a moment she simply stood there on the other side of the desk with her hands frozen in mid-gesture.
"What."
"I am not sending you back," Arthur repeated. "You can stay here. At Camelot. For as long as you want. For the rest of your life if it comes to that."
"Arthur. You cannot. My father, the King, the consequences, you said yourself that—"
"I know what I said. I know what the consequences are. I have spent the last hour sitting in this room going over every single one of them and I know exactly what I am risking. I know what it could cost me and I know what it could cost my family. And I am telling you that it does not matter."
"How can it not matter."
"Because I would rather face every consequence the crown can throw at me than send you back to a life that I know will destroy you."
Rhaella stood very still.
Her lips parted and a new wave of tears spilled down her cheeks but she did not wipe them away this time, she simply let them fall while she stared at him across the desk.
Then she moved.
She came over the desk and launched herself at him. Her arms went around his neck and her body pressed against his and she was half in his lap and half standing and entirely not caring about it. She was saying thank you over and over again into the curve of his neck, the words muffled and broken, and her hands gripped the back of his head with a fierceness that bordered on desperation.
"Thank you, thank you, Arthur, thank you, I will never forget this, I will never, as long as I live I will never—"
She pulled back just far enough to look at his face.
Their mouths were very close.
He could feel her breath on his lips.
"Rhaella," he said softly. It was meant to be a warning.
But she kissed him anyway.
It was nothing like the kiss on the balcony at the Red Keep. That kiss was a mere peck compared to the full passionate kiss she pushed in his mouth now.
Rhaella pressed her mouth against his with her eyes open and her hands gripping the back of his neck and she kissed him with everything she had been holding back since the feast.
Arthur kissed her back.
His hands found her waist and pulled her fully into his lap, her knees settling on either side of his thighs as she straddled him in the chair. She made a soft sound against his mouth and pressed closer, her chest pushed against his, her fingers raking through his hair. She broke the kiss just long enough to whisper against his lips, the words tumbling out between gasps.
"I cannot help myself anymore, Arthur. I have tried. I have tried for months and months and I cannot do it anymore. I need you. I need you, please, I—"
He silenced her with his mouth.
His hands slid up her back and his fingers found the laces at the nape of her gown and began to work them loose while she kissed him harder, her tongue sliding against his. She moaned into his mouth and her hips shifted forward in his lap in a way that made his breath catch sharply.
"I need you too," he said against her jaw. "Gods help me, Rhaella, I need you too."
She pulled back just enough to let him draw the gown off her shoulders. The cream linen slid down her arms and pooled at her waist, exposing the pale smooth skin of her chest and the soft curve of her breasts in the candlelight. She was not wearing anything beneath it. Her nipples had hardened in the air of the solar and her chest was flushed pink from her collarbone to the tops of her breasts, and she sat there in his lap half-bare with her silver hair falling around her shoulders and her violet eyes burning with a need that was so raw that it nearly undid him on the spot.
Arthur lifted her.
She gasped as his hands closed around her waist and he stood from the chair and set her on the edge of the desk, sweeping the scrolls and the candle and the inkwell aside with one arm. Rhaella's legs wrapped around his hips immediately, pulling him in close, her hands found the hem of his tunic and dragged it up over his head. Her palms pressed against the bare skin of his chest, her fingers tracing the lines of muscle and the ridged scar tissue, she drew a shaking breath as she looked at him.
"You are beautiful," he whispered.
He kissed her throat.
He kissed the hollow beneath her ear.
He kissed the line of her jaw while his hands slid the gown the rest of the way down over her hips and let it fall to the floor, and then there was nothing between them but the thin fabric of his breeches.
She was trembling.
Not from cold but from the anticipation of something she had wanted for so long that the reality of it arriving was almost too much to hold, her hands shook as they found the laces of his breeches and pulled at them. Arthur helped her, unlacing himself with one hand while the other stayed at her waist to keep her balanced, and when the last of the fabric fell away she looked down and her breath hitched.
"I have never..." she started.
"I know." He cupped her face with both hands and brought her eyes back up to his. "We can stop at any point. You say the word and we stop."
"Do not stop." Her voice was fierce despite the trembling. "Do not you dare stop, Arthur Pendragon."
He kissed her again, slowly this time, drawing her lower lip between his teeth and releasing it gently. His hands moved down her body, tracing the curve of her waist and the swell of her hips and the smooth plane of her stomach. She arched into his touch and her breath came faster, small gasps that puffed warm against his neck as his fingers slid between her thighs and found her cunt wet and hot and ready for him.
She moaned loudly when he touched her slit, her head falling back and her hands gripping the edge of the desk. He stroked her nub gently, watching her face in the candlelight, watching the way her lips parted and her eyelids fluttered and her hips rolled instinctively toward his hand, and the sounds she was making were driving him to the edge of his own restraint.
"Please," she breathed. "Arthur, please. I want you inside me. Please."
He positioned his cock at her entrance and held there, one hand gripping her hip and the other braced on the desk beside her.
"This will hurt," he said quietly.
"I do not care."
He pushed forward.
Rhaella cried out and her fingers dug into his shoulders hard enough to leave marks and her whole body went rigid as he entered her, the sharp sudden pain of her first time cutting through the pleasure like a blade. Arthur held perfectly still, buried inside her with every muscle in his body screaming at him to move, he pressed his forehead against hers and breathed with her until the tension began to ease from her limbs and her grip on his shoulders loosened fractionally.
"Are you all right," he murmured.
She nodded tightly, her eyes squeezed shut. "Give me a moment. Just... just a moment."
He waited and kissed her eyelids and her cheeks and the tip of her nose and the corner of her mouth, he waited until she opened her eyes and looked at him.
"Move," she whispered. "Slowly."
He moved.
The first stroke drew a gasp from her that ended in a sound he had never heard another human being make, something between a cry and a sigh that vibrated through her entire body and into his. He pulled back and pushed forward again, slowly, carefully, letting her adjust to the size of his cock and, and with each stroke the pain receded a little further and the pleasure began to rise in its place.
"Oh," she breathed. "Oh, Arthur. Oh gods."
Her legs tightened around his waist and her hips began to move with his, tentatively at first and then with increasing confidence as her body found the rhythm and responded to it. Her head fell back and her silver hair spilled across the scrolls and parchments still scattered across the desk behind her.
He moved faster.
"Yes," she gasped. "Yes, like that, don't, please, please don't stop—"
Her hands raked down his back and her nails bit into his skin hard enough to sting but the pain only made him want her more. He gripped her hips and pulled her closer to the edge of the desk, deepening the angle, the sound she made when he hit that new depth was loud enough that he was briefly and distantly grateful that the solar's walls were thick stone.
"Arthur." She was babbling now, his name mixed with half-formed words and breathless pleas that tumbled out of her between moans. "Arthur, I, oh gods, I have wanted this for so long, I have wanted you for so long, I cannot, I—ah—"
He kissed her to swallow the cry and she moaned into his mouth while her hips bucked against his. Her body was learning fast, moving with him now in a rolling rhythm that tightened her cunt and started making the seed in his balls start to churn.
"I am close," he warned her.
"Don't pull out." Her eyes snapped open and locked onto his. "Arthur, I want you. All of you. Inside me. Please."
He thrust into her harder and she cried out and her whole body arched off the desk. Her legs locked around his waist, her heels pressing into the small of his back, pulling him deeper, and her hands found his face and held it so that he could not look away from her.
The pressure crested.
Rhaella shattered first and her eyes went wide and her mouth opened in a silent scream and her entire body convulsed around him, her inner muscles clenching in waves that pulled him over the edge with her. Arthur groaned her name into the curve of her neck and buried himself as deep as he could go and released his seed inside her in a long pulsing rush that left him shaking.
She held him through it.
Her arms wrapped around his neck and her legs stayed locked around his waist and she held him inside her while they both trembled and gasped and came down together in the flickering candlelight of the solar.
Eventually Arthur lifted his head from her shoulder and looked at her face.
She was smiling.
"That was..." she started.
"Yes."
"I did not know it could be like that."
"First times are always quite special," he admitted.
She laughed softly and pulled him down and kissed him again, he smiled against her mouth and—
The door of the solar opened.
Mira walked in first with Cassie half a step behind her, both of them clearly coming to check on the situation. Mira was mid-sentence, something about "he has been in there for over an hour and I am starting to worry—"
She stopped.
Cassie stopped.
Arthur, who was still standing between Rhaella's legs with his breeches around his ankles and the princess's bare thighs wrapped around his waist and absolutely nothing left to the imagination, looked over his shoulder at his two wives standing in the open doorway.
Nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
Rhaella, who could see over Arthur's shoulder directly into the faces of the two women who had risked everything to bring her here, went a shade of red that Arthur had not previously believed the human body was capable of producing.
Mira's eyes moved from Arthur to Rhaella to the desk to the scattered scrolls on the floor to the abandoned gown pooled beside the chair, and then back to Arthur.
"Well," she said.
(AN: So there we go, Arthur has made his decision and got his rewards from it. Any suggestions on what trait he should upgrade? Anyway hope you enjoyed the chapter.)
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