“How do you guys feel?” I ask.
“Freaked,” Jerod says at the same time Griffin says, “Great.”
“Turn around the second you feel otherwise, okay? Promise me.” The guys nod, and we push forward.
The chill in the air curves to the left, and the soft wind rustles the leaves around us. The crunch under our feet grows louder as the ground goes from warm and mushy to dry and hard.
I feel a pull again, this one much stronger than before, like someone is pushing on my back, trying to get me to walk faster. I don’t. My feet slow as we approach ground dusted with snow. I rub my hands up and down my arms to warm them.
The leaves, while still green and dense, hang closer to the forest floor the deeper we travel, heavy with ice and condensation. Jerod runs his fingers across the slick surface of one. “Strange,” he mutters.
“What?” Griffin stops.
Jerod rubs his fingers together. “It feels like…” His face scrunches up as he sniffs the substance. “What is that?”
Griffin pulls an icy leaf free and brings it to his nose. “It smells like nectar.”
I sniff the air. I don’t smell anything but greenery and water. And I finally hear water, as well. A faint trickling of a stream.
Griffin’s eyes glaze over, and he wavers on the spot. “I feel lightheaded.”
Jerod collapses, flat on his back, but stares dreamily up at the canopy of trees. His chest rises and falls with heavy breaths.
“Jerod!” I drop down to the leaves and shake him. “Jerod?”
Griffin slumps to the ground beside him.
“Guys?” I get up and try to drag them back.
“We’re fine, Jade,” Griffin says, his voice disjointed and mesmerized by something I can’t see. “It’s just nap time.” He closes his eyes.
“Griffin!” I drop back down and smack him. “Wake up. Jerod?”
Jerod’s eyelids are heavy, his expression one of bliss. “It’s so bright.”
My heart hammers in my ears. I take their arms again.
“Wanderer…Marked One…” A clear voice sings to me from the icy beyond. At first I think I’m imagining it or mistaking the sound of flowing water for a woman’s voice. But then it speaks again, louder than before, riding on the cold breeze that sweeps through the forest. “What do you seek?”
I drop their arms and rise. “Who are you?”
“Come to the lake.”
35
Lady of the Lake
The guys will be fine. They have to be. Part of my brain is convinced the dew is a protective mechanism to keep people out. But the rest of me is convinced I’m going to return to two cold and immovable bodies. They’re still breathing though, and they look like they’re asleep. I pry the compass from Jerod’s fingers and leave their sides.
There’s a magnetic pull under my feet, and I follow it deeper into the forest. The echo of moving water grows louder, and the air grows colder. I commit the direction I’m walking from to memory so I can find my way back to them. I’ve never used a compass before though. I don’t know if that’s even going to work. The woods didn’t appear to be vast on the satellite images, but I have no confidence in my directional abilities.
I reach a thick overgrowth of branches and crawl under it. When I get back to my feet, the air around me is still. Beads of water hang in the air, suspended, and everything else is frozen over: the earth, the branches. The water shifts around me as I push forward, floating up and sideways out of my way. The beads that brush against my cheeks and arms are frosty like snow and soft like flower petals.
My footsteps are drowned out by a narrow stream that cuts a shallow path through the trees. I follow the current, and the temperature continues to drop. The stream thins out and vanishes under a thick sheet of ice. I step carefully over it and walk out into a beautiful, icy clearing. My eyes go wide as I take everything in.
The lake is broad and nearly frozen over, cut neatly between a semi-circle of trees and a large, frozen boulder. Near the base of the boulder, water rushes over smaller rocks and stones. A heavy fog hangs over the area. It stands motionless, as if frozen in time.
Frost clings to the lush greenery around me. I run my fingers over some of the lower-hanging leaves, and they dance and sway, breaking some of the stillness.
The magnetic pull is strongest near the water’s frozen edge. I lower myself to the ice and press my hands against it. Energy pulsates under the surface.
My eyes trail the barren space. “Is anyone here?” My voice echoes back at me, and the ice beneath me cracks and splits. I scramble back to the tiny bit of bank between the lake and trees. Water bubbles under the ice, and a blinding violet light expands from the depths. I lift my arm to shield my eyes. The wind picks up, dispersing the fog and vaporizing the frozen droplets of water in the air.
The ice melts away, and a figure in white emerges from the center of the lake. The light absorbs into its body until there’s only a halo of electricity. It’s a woman, submerged from the hips down, her eyes closed, and her arms crossed in front of her.
Her skin is pale, almost the same white as the tunic draping her arms and body. Long, black hair billows out into the air, crackling in the energy surrounding her. Her lips are blue and pale, and when she opens her eyes, there are no pupils or irises—there’s only white, framed by long, dark lashes.
My breath catches. “You’re the spirit of the lake.” I sit up some, gripping the frozen tree behind me for support.
The water ripples around her, though she doesn’t move. “You are the heir of Morgana of Greyscvard. She has put a terrible curse on your blood.”
I push myself to my feet. “You know about my family?”
Her hair floats almost hypnotically. “I knew the day would come when someone would seek to correct the mistakes of the past. I warned Morgana that her brother’s fear and greed would lead to great pain, but she was on a mission, and she would not be led from it.”
The air around the lake is thin. My temples are starting to ache as my body struggles with the low amount of oxygen. I take slow breaths, as deep as I can get. “You know Aric?”
“I knew him long ago. He came to me as an apprentice, a man without family or purpose. But in his heart, he only wanted power. After he thought he had gained my trust, he tried to flee with Excalibur. Yet, I know the hearts of men, mortal or not, and the moment he touched the weapon, it trapped him inside. I hid it in the deepest part of this lake, sealed it in stone. However, no earthly being is all-knowing. I underestimated the world of dark sorcery. After many years, when the kingdom once again found itself in turmoil, the sword was stolen by use of powerful magic, wielded by Arthur’s sister, Morgan Le Fey.”
She gives me a moment to process the information. It’s so different from what we’ve been told. I haven’t heard much about Morgan, but I never would have thought that she was behind it all, that the conspiracy started with her and Aric.
“After he was released, Aric changed his name to Merlin, thinking to throw me off the trail. Unfortunately, it delayed me long enough for him and Morgan to bind me to this forest. He has stayed far from here since, for he knows the moment he’s within my reach, his freedom will be stripped, and it will not be returned. But I know you came not for tales and stories. You came for the sword.”
“You have it?”
The ripples extending out from her body crash softly into the shore. “It was returned to me, much by accident. Aric had convinced the family that the blade was cursed. That much is true. The curse I laid upon it many ages ago cannot be broken. But Aric’s intentions were not quite so noble. He feared most that the sword would again be used against him, so he convinced young Loholt to discard it, blaming the destruction of Arthur’s family on the blade. Indeed, the sword would have caused ruin in time, but the family was destroyed from within, by Aric himself and Morgan Le Fey.”
I tuck my icy fingers under my arms. “Why was he helping Morgan? Why didn’t he just escape into anoth
er country?”
“By removing the sword from the stone, Morgan not only freed Aric from his prison, but she bound him to the females in the Pendragon bloodline for eternity.”
“Does that mean Aric has to kill us all to be free? Even me?”
“It was a very intricate and premeditated incantation. Morgan, through her many skills and connections, knew of his imprisonment, and she was not going to free him arbitrarily or without protection for herself and her progeny. Until twenty years pass without a female being born to your family, he will continue to subsist to some degree, giving him a chance to roam the earth again. If the time passes without a female, he will fade out of existence. Until such a day, he is bound forever. A condition of his release was that he curse and then remove the males, leaving him bound only to the women. If the women die off, he dies. And if he fatally harms you, he fatally harms himself.”
It’s not possible for me to get any colder, but my heartbeat slows. “What are you saying? That the only way to stop him from killing everyone is to kill myself and then tell my brothers not to have any daughters?”
“Taking your own life would send Aric into a stasis, a kind of sleep, buying your brothers time until another female is born or a generation has passed. However, there is no need to go to such an extreme measure or take such chances with fate.”
He can’t kill me without killing himself? That doesn’t mean he won’t still hurt me, and hurt me bad, if I get in his way, but it does mean the only reason he isn’t going to kill me is because he can’t. That’s not as comforting as it should be. I shift from one foot to another, in an ill attempt to keep myself from freezing to death. “You’re saying there’s another way?” A small bead of hope burns in my chest.
“There is always another way. A better way.” The halo of light around her crackles. “If you wish to remove him from your life, you must seal him back inside Excalibur and return the blade to me. No one enters this wood without my knowledge or permission. There is no greater prison for him than here, under my guard.”
Seal him inside? “What about Morgana’s curse against him? Did that change anything?”
“Her spell built on Morgan Le Fey’s, as well as my own hexes. It only served to enhance. The sealing ritual is fused to Excalibur and cannot be removed. If Aric touches any part of it, with his hand or his mind, it will trap him. The enchantments Morgana added to seal him in the crypt keep him bound within a small distance of the metal prison she created. Even with the physical cage broken, the perimeter remains. It was a way of making sure he fulfilled his promise to kill off the males upon his release. Morgana was even less fond of patriarchy than her ancestor.”
Things have changed. I guess Morgana didn’t have any kind of fortune-telling abilities that could have told her that.
“Morgana did not anticipate Aric being chained for so many years,” the lady continues, as if my thoughts are imprinted on my face. “She was locked up herself, for crimes of witchcraft, by her own brother—the same one who forced her to lock Aric up in exchange for escaping such a fate in the first place.”
Ouch. But it makes sense. Morgana wasn’t thinking of the future. She was trying to save herself. Arthur II sounds like a tyrant. All the men in this family have always been painted as so noble. Even Arthur the first, who had so many affairs even the power of storytelling couldn’t hide them. Then Arthur II imprisons his own sister. And the cycle has continued, right down to my own father, who lied and hid things and forced medication and treatments on me that he knew I didn’t need. And now I’ll never know how much he really knew.
“How do I get the sword?” I ask, abandoning any hope of warming up.
“It is lodged in a stone at the bottom of the lake. I will grant you safe passage to retrieve it under the condition you return it to me with Aric sealed inside.”
“Oh, I’m bringing him back. I definitely don’t want to keep him.” And after seeing the fake one sticking out of my father’s chest, I don’t want any kind of reminder of it in any form—not real, not replica, not painting.
Lightning flashes under the surface of the water, and near the back, near the boulder, a bit of silver shines in the darkened depths.
Steam rises around the spirit’s body. “Unfortunately, you cannot use your abilities to raise it up. You have to touch it to release it, and once you do, you will be the only one who can trap him.”
I tuck the compass safely away by some roots and approach the edge of the lake. This is going to suck. The water is cold. I’m not a good swimmer, and that sword is not close. I suck in the deepest breath I can and dive headfirst into the icy water.
Nothing could prepare me for the shock of sudden immersion. I force my eyes open and lock them on the bright silver glowing in the darkness. I kick myself towards it, ignoring the cold burning against my skin.
The energy wafting off the sword draws me to it, taking some of the work out of my swim. It’s almost identical to the one that killed my father. The rounded top. The worn leather. The runes carved into the hilt. The battle-beaten blade disappears inside a large, ragged stone covered in leafy aquatic life and moss.
I reach the sword just as my lungs are starting to burn. I wrap hands around the handle and use that to anchor my feet on the sandy bottom of the lake. I pull at it with all the strength I have left, and for a few terrifying seconds, it doesn’t budge. Then it dislodges itself, pushing out like a cork, and I quickly kick myself back to the surface.
I hold onto the frozen boulder while I cough and suck cold, thin air into my lungs.
The spirit of the lake is gone, and heavy mist is settling back over the water. I ignore the pain in my muscles as I push back towards shore. The lake starts to rapidly refreeze. Too tired to panic, I swim for a large sheet of ice, climb on top, and crawl back to the forest. Droplets of water once again float suspended in the air, and oxygen is no longer sparse. I take in large gulps of air and rest for a moment on the frozen ground.
My body shivers, and icicles form on my braid and clothes. I reach for the compass and force myself to my feet.
The sword is heavy and long. It’s seen hard times, but it’s beautiful. Vibrations run under the surface of it, an accumulation of all the curses trapped inside. I grip it tightly and stagger back through the trees, hoping with everything that I find Jerod and Griffin, and find them alive.
36
Quell
The guys are sitting up in the leaves when I find them, looking disoriented and sleepy, like they just woke up from a hard nap. I run towards them. “Jerod! Griffin!”
They don’t seem to hear me. They gaze at their surroundings, worry descending on their faces.
“Jade?” Griffin’s eyes flit around the trees.
Jerod holds onto a trunk and pulls himself up. “Jade!”
“Guys!” I push myself to move faster.
Griffin stands, with some effort, and limps around the cramped space. “What happened? How long were we out?”
When I’m within a few yards of them, they suddenly jump and cry out in surprise.
“Jesus!” Jerod’s hand flies to his chest. “I mean, thank God, we were starting to panic, but you came out of nowhere!”
“What?” I glance behind me. Everything looks seamless to me. “I was right there. I was yelling at you.”
Griffin gazes around the forest, confused and wary. “Something very strange happened…” His eyes fall to the sword in my fist. “Whoa…”
Jerod moves closer. “Is that what I think it is?”
I nod.
He stares at it for a moment longer, and then looks me over. “What happened? Are you okay? You’re freezing.”
“She’s frozen.” Griffin removes his sweater and wraps it around my shoulders.
Jerod takes the compass from my stiff fingers and wraps his other hand around my arm. “Let’s get out of here.” He throws a wide-eyed glance over his shoulder, and we move rapidly away from the freezing, dry air and back into the warm humidity.
>
Once I’ve thawed some with the help of a hot bath and hotter soup, I fill the guys in on what happened. “We need to get back to the States.” I pull the blanket tighter around my shoulders. I feel like I’ll never be warm again.
The sword lies untouched on the foot of the bed. They keep looking at it, but neither of them want to touch it.
Jerod turns back to his phone and flips through some screens. “The soonest I can get us out of here is in the morning.” His eyes flit over the sword again. “So…how exactly are you going to go about stabbing a guy who can turn himself into smoke?”
I’ve never thought about how Aric’s been getting around in the vents. “I don’t know. I’ll worry about it later. The spirit of the lake said he’s afraid of the sword. I’m more worried about how I’m actually going to get it in the same room with him without him bolting.” Or knocking me unconscious. I shiver under the blanket. If he thinks I’m trying to kill him, or I guess, trap him, he’s not going to just stand there. What if he locks me in a box or something? He’ll have plenty of time to kill Kaius and Jerod before I die and take him with me.
Griffin paces in front of the balcony. “Do you need another mug of something? We have hot chocolate.”
I shake my head. I just need to get this sword to Chicago. Now.
Griffin finally stops and leans against the wall. “I can’t believe all those stories were made up.”
Jerod grins. “Dude, we always thought they were made up.”
A smile touches Griffin’s face. “You know what I mean.”
“I do.” Jerod shakes his head, his grin fading. “If they were going to lie to us, why not at least give us the truth? Especially if Merlin was someone they didn’t want us to trust.”
“Did anyone even know the whole truth?” Griffin asks.
“Jade said great-grandpa Holton murdered his sister over it. He had to be scared of something.” He sets his phone down. “You know, I always wondered why Dad was so adamant about getting you a diagnosis and on medication. It sounds like he knew more than Granddad did. A lot more.”
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