Chapter 4

Then it deepened.

He rode.

Cathal galloped across a plain of shifting truths, the ground beneath them a patchwork of glowing parchment, broken oaths, and tangled headlines. Talon screeched above, chasing shapes that vanished before they could be named.

Everywhere, lies fled before him, morphing like smoke—statements about stolen votes, phantom ballots, forged signatures—all changing form the moment he turned toward them. He pursued them through endless fields, down winding canyons, into alleys that bent back on themselves.

And always, they vanished before truth could strike.

Then, a scream—not from ahead, but beneath.

Cathal reared, hooves slicing the air. Something—unseen—had frightened him. Gavin lost his grip.

The world tilted. Sky became ground. Cathal vanished in the mist.

And Gavin fell.

Cold, black water swallowed him whole.

His armor dragged him down like guilt made metal. He kicked, thrashed, but every movement sank him deeper. Bubbles rose like vanishing hopes. He reached for the surface, but it receded like a promise postponed.

His vision blurred. The lies above turned to light.

Then—

A hand.

Pale, slender, sure. It pulled him up with impossible strength. The water stilled.

And suddenly, he was kneeling on a shore of quiet mist, coughing lake water onto sacred earth.

Before him stood a woman in robes of silver and midnight. Her collar shimmered with lace made of starlight. Her eyes, though small behind round glasses, held the weight of rulings ancient and eternal.

Her presence was silence perfected. The lake behind her stilled at her command.

She was Lady RBG, the Lady of the Lake.

“You sink because the armor alone is not enough,” she said. Her voice was neither old nor young—it was timeless, like the turning of seasons.

“You ride to fight lies. But you must protect truth.”

From the mists behind her, she raised a shield.

It gleamed with tempered silver, its surface etched with markings. When Gavin reached out to touch it, invisible words flickered across it like candlelight:  We the People…

The shield pulsed once with living power.

“This is The Constitution,” she said. “Forged by minds, tempered by trials, and sanctified by struggle. It shall not break unless you forsake it.”

Gavin took it with both hands. The weight was immense—but not heavy.

“It will not strike,” she warned. “It will not shout. But it will stand.”

He rose to his feet, the shield strapped to his arm. “Lady... what lie must I face next?”

Lady RBG turned to the lake. The surface rippled and revealed a vision: tired farmers folding ballots with ink-stained fingers; a milkmaid dropping her vote into a box before dawn; soldiers, laborers, caretakers—all casting ballots by mail, as they always had.

And then—the creeping lie. Karoline’s voice, cool and careless:

      "Mail-in voting? Fraud waiting to happen. Everyone knows it."

Gavin’s jaw tightened.

“She wants to make it harder,” said Lady RBG, “not just to vote—but to believe voting matters.”

She looked him full in the face.

“Your quest is not to slay her. It is to shield the people from her lie. Make them remember their right. Protect their voice.”

He nodded.

“I will.”

Talon screeched from the window.

Sir Gavin’s eyes flew open. The room was dark—but the wind had changed. He sat up quickly. On the chair beside his bed sat a single item:

A round silver shield, unmarked—but glowing faintly at the edges.

He reached for it. The moment his hand touched its surface, the words returned.

The Constitution.

The dream had been real.

The mission was clear.

Tomorrow, he would ride to Magadonia—and the lie of fraudulent mail-in voting would meet both sword and shield.

Sir Gavin lay beneath a quilt of blue and silver, the great city of Eureka resting beyond his tall window. The night air was still, but not silent—wind whispered along the stonework, and Talon rustled uneasily on his perch.

Sleep came slowly, like a fog creeping through familiar halls.

The Lady of the Lake