The Wyvern Ring
The tankard in my hand was halfway to my mouth, the cheap ale sloshing perilously close to the rim, when the tavern doors banged open. Usually, that sound signals a brawl, a debt collector, or a very angry husband—all three of which I’m intimately familiar with. I was already grinning, shifting my weight to the balls of my feet, ready to charm or punch my way out of whatever walked through the timber frame.
But it wasn’t a angry husband. It was Leon.
Sir Leon doesn’t visit the Rising Sun. He finds the floor sticky and the clientele questionable. To see him standing there, his red cloak dark with rain, scanning the room with a look of severe urgency, made the grin slide right off my face.
He spotted me. He didn’t wave. He just jerked his head toward the door.
I set the tankard down. "Keep it safe, Mary," I told the barmaid, though my voice lacked its usual lilt. "Duty calls."
I met Leon outside in the mud and the drizzle. "If Arthur’s sent you to drag me to a patrol briefing, you can tell the Princess I’m indisposed."
"It’s not a patrol, Gwaine," Leon said. His voice was tight. He looked at me, really looked at me, with an expression I couldn't quite place. Pity? No, not pity. Caution. "You need to come to the physician’s chambers. Now."
"Gaius?" I frowned, wiping rain from my eyes. "Did Merlin drink a potion again? I told him the blue one looked suspect."
"Just come." Leon turned and marched toward the citadel.
I followed, the bad feeling in my gut twisting tighter with every step. I’ve lived a life of looking over my shoulder. When you leave your past behind, you always expect it to catch up with a knife in the dark. But Leon’s silence was worse than a knife. It was heavy.
We moved through the lower town, up the stone steps, past the guards who nodded at us. By the time we reached the corridor leading to Gaius’s chambers, my heart was hammering against my ribs, a traitorous rhythm I couldn’t control.
The door was ajar. I could hear low voices. Arthur’s authoritative baritone. Gaius’s calm, murmuring rumble. And a sound that stopped me dead in the corridor.
A ragged, pained gasp. A female voice.
I knew that gasp. I hadn't heard it in five years—not since a day in a humid garden in Caerleon when a girl fell out of an apple tree and tried to pretend she hadn't broken her wrist—but I knew it.
I pushed past Leon, shoving the heavy oak door open so hard it bounced off the stone wall.
The room smelled of antiseptic, boiling herbs, and the metallic tang of blood. Arthur was standing by the window, arms crossed, looking grim. Merlin was hovering near the patient cot, holding a basin of water that was stained pink. Gaius was bent over the figure lying there, blocking my view.
"Gwaine," Arthur started, stepping forward. "Wait, we need to—"
I ignored him. I ignored the King of Camelot. I took two strides into the room, my eyes locked on the sliver of pale hand hanging off the edge of the cot. A ring. A small, silver ring with a crude engraving of a wyvern. I made it for her out of a stolen spoon when I was twelve.
The air left my lungs. The world narrowed down to that hand.
"Can I see her?"
My voice came out wrecked, harsh.
Gaius straightened up, turning to face me. He looked grave. He held a bloodied cloth in his hand. "Gwaine," he said softly. "She has lost a lot of blood. The wound is deep."
"Can I see her?" I repeated, louder this time, stepping around him. I didn't ask it as a question, really. It was a demand. A desperate, terrified demand.
Gaius stepped aside.
And there she was.
She looked so small. That was my first thought. YN had always been a scrap of a thing, all elbows and knees and fierce, burning energy, but here, against the grey linen of Gaius’s cot, she looked like a ghost. Her dark hair was matted with rain and sweat, plastered against a forehead that was terrifyingly white. There was a bandage wrapped tight around her midsection, crimson blooming through the layers.
"YN," I breathed. The name tasted like ash.
"You know this girl?" Arthur asked. He sounded stunned.
I didn't take my eyes off her face. I reached out, my hand trembling, and brushed a wet lock of hair away from her cheek. Her skin was clammy. Cold. "She’s not just a girl," I whispered. "She’s my sister."
I heard Merlin intake a sharp breath. "Your sister? Gwaine, you never said..."
"I never said a lot of things," I snapped, the anger flaring up to cover the panic. I dropped to my knees beside the cot, heedless of the hard stone floor. I took her hand—the one with the silver ring—and sandwiched it between my own calloused palms. It was so fragile. "Gaius, tell me. Tell me she’s going to be alright."
"She was ambushed on the northern road," Gaius said, his voice clinical but kind. "Bandits. She took a sword thrust to the side. It missed the vital organs, but she was out in the rain for hours before the patrol found her. The fever is my concern now. If the infection sets in..."
He didn't finish. He didn't have to. I knew what infection meant in this world. It meant a slow, burning end.
"Who did this?" I asked, looking up at Arthur. My vision was blurring, hot tears pricking at the corners of my eyes. "Who?"
"The patrol is tracking them," Arthur said. He looked shaken, staring at YN. "I didn't know, Gwaine. If I had known she was your blood—"
I didn’t wait for him to finish before I turned back to her, squeezing her hand. "Wake up, YNN. Come on. You don't get to do this. You don't get to show up after five years just to die on me."
"Gwaine," Merlin said gently, putting a hand on my shoulder.
I shrugged him off. "Don't."
I needed them to leave. I needed the King and his servant and the physician to vanish so I could scream, or pray, or bargain with whatever gods were listening. But they stayed, because they were good men, and that annoyed me almost as much as it comforted me.
"She was asking for you," Gaius said softly, turning back to his mixing table. "Before she lost consciousness. She kept saying 'Tell the roving knight. Tell the fool.'"
I let out a choked sound that might have been a laugh if it wasn't so wet. "The fool. Yeah. That’s me."
I sat there for hours.
Arthur eventually left to deal with the council, though he promised to send word the moment the bandits were caught. I knew what that meant. He’d let me execute them. It was a dark gift, but one I appreciated. Merlin stayed longer, sitting on a stool in the corner, pretending to read a book while watching me with those unnervingly wise eyes of his.
"You should eat," Merlin said eventually, as the candle burned low.
"Not hungry."
"Gwaine..."
"Why didn't she write?" I asked the room, not really talking to Merlin. "I told her not to follow me. The day I left Caerleon, I told her, 'Stay here, keep your head down, marry some boring Baron, and live a long, fat life.' I told her I was no good for her to follow.”
"Maybe she didn't agree," Merlin said.
"She never agreed with anything I said. Stubborn. More stubborn than a mule with a headache." I rubbed my thumb over the silver ring on her finger. "I left to protect her, Merlin. My father... he was a good man, but the nobility? The politics? It destroyed him. I saw it destroying me. I thought if I removed the stain—if the 'disgraceful son' just disappeared—she’d have a chance at a normal life."
"Families are complicated," Merlin murmured.
"I abandoned her." The truth of it sat heavy in the air. "I walked out the gate and I didn't look back because I knew if I saw her crying in the window, I wouldn't be able to leave. And now..." I looked at her pale face, the shallow rise and fall of her chest. "Now she’s here, bleeding out because she probably came looking for me."
"You don't know that."
"I know her."
Gaius came over with a fresh poultice. "I need to change the dressing, Gwaine. It’s best if you step outside."
"No."
"Gwaine—"
"I’m not leaving her. Not again."
Gaius looked at me, saw the resolve in my jaw, and sighed. "Very well. Hold her shoulders. This will be painful, even in her sleep."
It was a nightmare. As Gaius peeled back the blood-soaked linen, YN whimpered, her body arching off the cot. The sound tore through me. I leaned over her, pressing her shoulders down, murmuring nonsense into her ear. "Shh, YNN, it’s okay. It’s me. It’s Gwaine. I’ve got you. I’ve got you."
She thrashed once, a weak, disjointed movement, and then settled back into the dark rhythm of the fever.
When it was done, and fresh bandages were applied, I felt drained, as if I’d fought a melee against twenty men. I slumped onto the floor beside the cot, resting my head near her arm.
"She’s fighting," Gaius said, wiping his hands. "The fever hasn't broken, but she’s strong."
"She’s the strongest person I know," I said.
Merlin eventually left to tend to Arthur, leaving me alone in the flickering candlelight. The rain tapped against the windowpane, a rhythmic drumming that took me back to the nursery in our old estate. We used to sit under the window seat during storms, YN and I. She was terrified of thunder. I’d make up stories about dragons and knights to distract her. I’d tell her the thunder was just the sky moving furniture.
"I’m sorry," I whispered into the silence. "I’m so sorry, YNN."
I must have dozed off, my head resting on the mattress, because the next thing I knew, the light had changed. It was grey and thin—dawn. The rain had stopped.
And there was a hand in my hair.
I froze. I didn't breathe.
The fingers moved, weak and trembling, tangling slightly in my locks.
I shot up, blinking sleep from my eyes.
YN was looking at me. Her eyes, the same dark hazel as our mother’s, were glassy and rimmed with red, but they were open. And they were focused on me.
"Gwaine?" Her voice was a cracked whisper, barely audible.
"I’m here," I said, leaning in close, my heart soaring. "I’m here, YNN."
She blinked slowly, processing the room, the smell of herbs, and finally, my face. She tried to lick her dry lips. I grabbed a cup of water from the table, supporting her head as I helped her take small sips.
"Easy," I murmured. "Slowly."
She pulled away, coughing weakly. She winced, her hand flying to her side.
"Don't move," I ordered gently. "You were stabbed. Gaius patched you up, but you need to be still."
She looked at me for a long moment. The relief I felt was crashing into a wall of anxiety. What would she say? Would she scream at me? Would she tell me to get out?
"You look old," she rasped.
I let out a laugh that was half-sob. "And you look like you fought a badger and lost."
A tiny, ghost of a smile touched her lips, then vanished. The hazel eyes hardened. "You left."
The air left the room. There it was.
"I know," I said, my voice dropping. I looked down at our hands. "I know, YNN."
"Five years, Gwaine. Five years and not one letter. Mother died thinking you were dead in a ditch somewhere."
The words hit me like a physical blow. I reeled back. "Mother... she’s gone?"
YN closed her eyes, a tear slipping out to track through the grime on her cheek. "Last winter. The fever took her."
I felt a hollow pit open in my stomach. My mother. The woman who had tried so hard to keep us respectable, who had wept when I cut my hair, who had loved us fiercely despite our father’s debts. Gone. And I had been... what? Drinking in taverns? Flirting with barmaids? fighting in melees for coin?
"I didn't know," I whispered.
"Because you weren't there," she said. Her voice gained a little strength from the anger. "You just left. You left me with the creditors and the whispers and the empty house. I waited for you. Every day, I checked the road. I thought... I thought surely my big brother wouldn't just vanish."
"I thought you were better off," I pleaded, the excuse sounding pathetic even to my own ears. "I was a weight around the family's neck, YNN. I was the brawler, the gambler. I thought if I left, you could marry well, restore the name..."
"I didn't want the name!" she hissed, then gasped as the pain flared in her side. She squeezed her eyes shut, riding out the wave. When she opened them again, the fire was dimmer, replaced by a profound exhaustion. "I wanted my brother."
I bowed my head, pressing my forehead against the back of her hand. "I was a coward," I admitted. It was the first time I’d ever said it aloud. "I told myself I was being noble, sparing you from my influence. But the truth is... I was running away. I couldn't handle the suffocation of that life, and I was too selfish to stay just for you."
Silence stretched between us. Outside, the citadel was waking up. I could hear the distant clatter of hooves on cobblestones.
"I came to find you," she said quietly.
"I gathered that. You nearly got yourself killed doing it."
"I had to tell you. About Mother. And... I couldn't stay there anymore. The house is gone. Sold to pay the debts."
"Sold?" I looked up.
"Everything. I have nothing, Gwaine. Just the horse I rode in on and the clothes on my back." She looked at me, her gaze searching. "So I came to find the only family I have left. Even if he is a heavy-drinking, irresponsible idiot."
"I’m a knight now," I said, a desperate attempt to offer her something. "I’m a Knight of Camelot. I serve King Arthur."
Her eyebrows shot up. "You? A knight? Did the King lose a bet?"
"He’s a good man. He gave me a chance." I squeezed her hand. "Which means I have quarters. I have a stipend. I can... I can take care of you, YNN. You can stay here. In Camelot."
She looked around the room, then back at me. The anger hadn't vanished—I knew it would take a long time to fix what I broke—but the wall had come down a little. "I don't need you to take care of me, Gwaine. I’ve been taking care of myself for five years."
"I know," I said. "But let me try? Please. Let me be a brother again."
She studied me. She looked at the cloak of Camelot red draped over the chair, at the callouses on my hands, at the lines around my eyes.
"You do look different," she admitted. "Less... angry."
"I found something worth fighting for," I said. "And now I have two things."
The door creaked open. Merlin poked his head in, holding a tray of food. He saw YN’s open eyes and his face lit up. "You're awake! That’s brilliant. Gaius said the fever might break by morning."
He walked in, setting the tray down. "I brought broth. And some bread. And Gwaine, Arthur wants to see you, but he said it can wait if—"
"It can wait," I said without looking away from YN.
YN looked at Merlin, then back at me. "Who’s the skinny one with the ears?"
Merlin looked offended. "I’m Merlin."
I grinned. It felt rusty, but genuine. "That’s Merlin. He’s the King’s servant. And the only reason I’m not currently in the stocks."
"He keeps you out of trouble?" YN asked, skepticism dripping from her voice.
"He tries," Merlin said dryly talking about himself in the third person. "It’s a full-time job."
YN looked at me, and for the first time, the ghost of her old smirk appeared. It was faint, but it was there. "Well, Merlin," she said, her voice raspy but resolute. "You can take a break. I’m here now. I’ll handle him."
I felt a lump form in my throat. I brought her hand to my lips and kissed the knuckles, right over the silver ring.
"Yeah," I whispered. "She will."
She didn't pull her hand away. She let it rest there. And as the sun finally broke through the clouds outside, flooding Gaius’s chambers with golden light, I realized that for the first time in five years, I wasn't just drifting. I was anchored.
"Now," YN whispered, her eyes drooping again as the exhaustion pulled her back under. "Tell me you have apples. I’m starving."
"I’ll get you the whole orchard," I promised.
"Just one will do," she mumbled, drifting off. "Don't... overdo it... fool."
I stayed on the floor, watching her chest rise and fall, listening to the steady rhythm of her breathing. I knew the road ahead wouldn't be easy. I had five years of abandonment to atone for. I had to tell her about the magic, about the dangers of Camelot, about the life I led. But as I sat there, holding my little sister’s hand, I knew one thing for certain.
No one was ever going to hurt her again. Not while I drew breath.
I looked up at Merlin, who was smiling softly.
"She’s terrifying," Merlin whispered.
"I know," I beamed, wiping a stray tear from my cheek. "Isn't she wonderful?"












