He had odd dreams. Doctors and nurses speaking to him, though the words were always muffled and far away. The bright white rectangles of the overhead lights. Then Sophia and James—crying, talking, their faces growing larger as they leaned down to speak with him. He wanted to ask why they were crying, but he couldn’t form the words.

The dreams came and went, the rest periods in between sometimes years long, other times lasting only a blink.

Then he had a more traditional sort of dream. In it, he was walking through a castle. He wore a full suit of armor, but it was black, not silver. His sword was in his hand, and it blazed with white light, making the shadows on the stone walls flicker and dance as he walked.

A figure made of shadow and smoke dropped down from the ceiling. He slashed it in half with a mighty blow of his sword. It collapsed into a circle of mist that danced and flickered for a moment before disappearing altogether. Three gold coins were left on the floor. He picked up the coins and kept walking. Again and again the shadowy monsters attacked him. Again and again he swung his sword, striking them down.

His arm started to burn with pain from all the fighting. He looked at his right hand, and it was now glowing with white light, as if it were part of the sword. But the white light was no longer cool and benign. It was glowing hot, like the heart of a star. He gritted his teeth against the pain.

The burning white light now engulfed his wrist, then spread halfway up his forearm.

He gritted his teeth and tried to release the sword, to drop it so his hand and arm were no longer burning, but he couldn’t get his fingers to work.

He screamed through gritted teeth.

“Tristan, Tristan. It’s okay, man, you’re okay.”

The voice pulled him from the dream, dropping him back into the familiar yet foreign bed.

“It’s James. We’re here.” A heavy hand rested on his left shoulder.

Smooth, delicate fingers stroked his hair back from his face. The woman they were attached to was murmuring in a language he didn’t know, yet the words comforted him, and her voice was familiar.

He didn’t know who they were talking to. Who was Tristan?

He struggled to open his eyes. He had to blink a few times before he could focus on the people leaning over his bed. A large brown-skinned man on his left, and a gorgeous woman with a cloud of black hair on his right.

He knew them. They were important to him.

He tried to speak, but his mouth was too dry. The man held a straw to his lips and he gratefully sucked down water.

His mind was clearing, but he couldn’t shake the dream. His right hand and arm still burned with pain, as if he held the white-hot sword.

“Tristan?” the woman asked.

He was Tristan?

Tristan Knight.

He inhaled as his brain finally started working again. He was Tristan Knight. The people leaning over the bed were his trinity—Sophia and James. And this wasn’t just a bed. It was a hospital bed. He’d been shot.

Tristan took a deep breath and dragged himself out of the mental fog that was hampering him. Answers. He needed answers.

“The admiral?” he asked, looking at James. His voice was rough and almost unintelligible.

James shook his head.

“Gawain?”

Another head shake. Tristan closed his eyes. Fuck.

“The admiral of Castile is dead too,” Sophia murmured.

That Tristan knew. There was no way to survive with that much of a head missing.

The battle—he didn’t know how else to think of it—was coming back to him in pieces.

“The shooter, did they catch him?” Tristan asked.

“I spoke with my brother. He arrived in London last night to support the search. Nothing yet. But they found where he was shooting from. And they recovered the gun and are hoping to track where he got it. He left a domino.”

“A mask?” Tristan asked.

“No, a domino piece. Two ones.” She held up two fingers.

“Snake eyes,” James said.

“It was the Domino, then.”

“Or his apprentice. The man they had captive on the Isle of Man may have been the Domino.” Sophia’s eyes were a cop’s eyes now, hard and calculating. “Or it may be that there is no longer just a master and an apprentice.”

Tristan’s right arm wouldn’t stop hurting. That damned dream. He started to lift it, but Sophia put her hand on his bicep, keeping his arm in place.

When he looked at her in confusion, tears filled her eyes.

“Sophia?”

She pressed her lips together and looked at James.

James crossed his arms. “Tristan…” James frowned. “Actually, what’s your real name?”

“Real name?” Sophia asked.

“The knights all change their names,” James told her.

“Only to Knight. In Rome, they change their family name to Cavaliere. Riddari in Kalmar.”

Tristan was doing his best to follow the conversation, but the burning in his right arm was distracting. “Not in England. We change both our names.”

“Why?” She stroked his hair back from his head. The touch was familiar, comfortingly so. She must have done it before, while he’d been sleeping. How long had he been sliding in and out of consciousness?

“We each take on the name of one of the knights of the Round Table,” Tristan told her.

“Ah. Yes, yes, yes, like the stories and books. Very romantic. King Arthur and his knights.”

Tristan chuckled.

“What’s funny?” James asked.

“King Arthur and his knights. My real name is Arthur. Arthur Billings.”

“Arthur Billings…” Sophia spoke the name slowly, and it was jolting to hear his real name after so many years as Tristan.

“Arthur suits you,” James said.

“Arthur, the leader of the knights. The king of England.” Sophia smiled down at him, but her eyes were sad.

“Tristan,” he corrected them. “I’m a knight. I’m Tristan.”

Sophia and James shared a look. His right hand burned.

And he knew.

He remembered the bones of his arm jutting through his skin. Remembered burning pain that actually preceded the sound of the ceiling exploding from the force of the bullet.

The same bullet that had killed the admiral of Castile had pierced his arm. Then he’d grabbed the ceiling, trying to disconnect the heat sensor, and his already damaged arm had broken, the bones ripping through skin and muscle.

Tristan sucked in air through his nose. He turned his head to look at his right arm. There was a pillow tucked beside him, and his upper arm and elbow rested on it.

That’s all that was left of his right arm. His hand and most of his forearm were gone.

Tristan closed his eyes, bile rising in his throat.

“They did their best to save your arm, but there was too much… Your bone wasn’t just broken, it was shattered, and the soft tissue damage was extensive.”

His sword hand was gone. He could no longer hold his sword.

Tristan gritted his teeth, but an agonized sound escaped his mouth.

James’s big hands settled on his shoulders, not precisely holding him down, but preventing him from sitting up. “They did everything they could,” he repeated. “Your arm was too badly damaged to be saved.”

“My arm is gone.” The words hurt as they left his throat, as if they’d been torn from him.

“I’m so sorry, mi amore.” Sophia stroked his hair.

“It can’t be gone. It can’t be. I can feel it. It hurts.”

Sophia started crying in earnest. She covered his face in soft kisses. He wanted to both shove her away and hold her close. James laced his fingers with Tristan’s, squeezing his hand.

His one remaining hand.

The pain in his right arm built, but he didn’t know if it was real or imagined. When it became too much, he started to scream through his teeth. Doctors and nurses entered. They spoke to him, but Tristan was lost in his own emotional agony. Then he was lost to the dreams as pain medication flooded through him via an IV.

Your arm is gone, Tristan.

He thought voicing the fact, even within the quiet of his mind, would make it more real, make it easier to deal with.

You’re not Tristan anymore. You can’t be a knight if you can’t wield your sword

Not Tristan anymore.

His temples were wet with tears when he finally fell asleep.