Heart thudding in my chest, I stumble back a step with a low, whispered moan. Shake my hands, try to throw him off, get him away, but it’s no use. The silver outline of his body hovers over mine, long forearms covered in chain mail. A thick cloth tunic, longer than my torso and wider than my chest, hovers over the shirt I chose hours ago in my room at the Pembray compound. I cannot tell if I am layered over him or if he is layered over me. I don’t know if this is what the other Scions experienced. No other Scion of Arthur has been a Medium. No other Scion of Arthur has been me.

I don’t feel Arthur, don’t hear him in my head, but this is almost worse. I can’t plead with him to leave me alone or demand that he let me go because he isn’t a separate person here. He isn’t even a dead person—he’s a living spirit tethered to me.

My breath is loud in the waiting space, but the knights have not turned my way or moved from their position.

I came here to complete the Rite. I have to complete the Rite. When the time comes, don’t be scared.

Just as the mantra rises in my mind, a gold light shines from my chest. I look down to see the dragon rampant stitched into the tunic of Arthur’s body—pulsing in time with my heartbeat.

My heart. Not his.

I entered the Rite of my own volition, and the Table waits for me, not Arthur.

My—our—hands tremble, but I slowly, slowly clench them into fists, and his hands follow.

I step forward, dragging the silvery echo of Arthur Pendragon behind me. Reach the chair, pull it back, and sit.

“Hello,” I say in my voice, not his.

A low, gruff voice rumbles from the shadows at the far end of the table. “Fy nglew.” The ancient Welsh slides against my ears, shaping English in its wake. My lord.

So they see Arthur, hear Arthur.

Okayyy.

The knight who spoke to me—us—moves. Metal clinks on the table as he slides his arms forward across the stone, revealing the silver chain mail above his gauntlets, but not his face. “A yw’n amser?” The translation comes faster now, near immediate. Is it time?

There is shuffling as the others turn to watch and listen.

The greeting I rehearsed rises to memory. “It is time. Camlann has come.” The words echo in Arthur’s baritone a half beat after mine, in Old Welsh. I wait for them to land.

My words sharpen the energy around the table. Shifting of metal and cloth, sharp intakes of breath, low grunts.