I forced my voice to remain deferential. “I’ll find the Grail, my lord. It called to me before. I’m sure I can find it again.” And then I would have to decide whether to let Daley bring back Melusine or not.
Arthur was shaking his head. He seemed saddened by something, but I could also sense a hardened resolve—the edges of his aura were almost crystalline. “I’m sorry, Rhiannon, but you will not be leaving this place alive.”
Tynan’s head whipped around to stare at his father. “But . . .”
The king held up his hand and Tynan fell silent. “Though you were partly in his realm, I could still perceive the content of your conversation with Merlin.” My father had said that Arthur would be able to see him. “I realize you’re not to blame for what’s been done to you, and I pity you, but I cannot let you free Merlin from his prison.”
Sudden fear burrowed into my gut like white maggots. “I won’t then. I’ll find a way to fix things.”
Arthur sighed as if my protest pained him. “I heard him lay the geas on you! You no longer have any choice in the matter. You will either die here or die when you fail him, but you won’t be allowed to free him.” His voice became soft, but its persuasive power only increased, seeking to convince me that this was the only possible course of action. “There are no words to express the depths of my sorrow that your young life should be ended. You are Guinevere’s daughter. I can see her in you. Whatever my failings as her husband, I would never choose to harm her or anything belonging to her. If I could spare you, I would, but this is what it means to be a king—to make the hard decisions, the sacrifices that no one else can.”
He lifted Excalibur, so much larger and deadlier in his hand. “You will not find your mother. You will not release Merlin. You will die here this night so that countless others may live in peace. I promise you it will be quick and that your story will never be forgotten.”
And that was that. A king had declared my death sentence. And he was my king, I knew it. There was no denying it. A vibration moving up through the ground into my bones seemed to declare it—that Arthur of Camelot was the rightful Earth King again. I could only bow my head and receive my fate.
“Let me do it, Father.” I looked up in shock as Tynan’s voice betrayed his eagerness to prove himself to the man he’d once betrayed. Arthur hesitated, perhaps remembering the time his own son drove Excalibur into his heart, but then nodded. As Arthur handed the sword to Tynan, my calm acceptance shattered.
Hell to the no.
Taking a step back, I kept my gaze fixed on Tynan. “Don’t do this, Ty. We can figure it out. There has to be another way.”
But though he’d kept the name, the Tynan I once knew was gone. I’d known it for a long time. Mordred was a young man of confused emotions and wavering loyalties who was easily led. He’d been persuaded by Merlin’s lies to kill his own father. It had taken much less than that to be convinced to kill me.
Tynan tossed his hair back from his face, never again endearingly shy, never again needing to hide. When he raised Excalibur, the sword was smaller, but thinner and sharper. Even its bright gold aura was darkened along the edges. “No, father is right. This is the only way. There’s more at stake here than your life or mine. War pits brother against brother, and sister against sister.” The side of his mouth quirked up into a sad half-smile. “Cousin against cousin. This is war. You’re the enemy. You didn’t ask for any of this, but neither did I. It’s just . . .”—he paused as if searching for the right word—“collateral damage.”
As he approached, I backed away, trying not to trip on Bel’s remains or get too close to Arthur. If I could make it out from under the bridge, I might be able to run into the brush up the side of the ravine. It was dark. I could lose him there.
Tynan seemed to guess what I intended to do and circled around me, blocking the way. “C’mon, Ty,” I pleaded, “this is crazy! It’s murder!”
“A soldier obeys his king and is clean of any sin while doing his duty.”
I forced a harsh, derisive laugh. “Really? A soldier obeys his king? That didn’t stop you from sliding Excalibur into a king’s heart before!”
Flinching from the truth in my words, Tynan hesitated and lowered the sword. I made a break for it past him and into the open. Running flat out as fast as I could along the pathway, I had to skid to a stop, tripping and skinning my knees through the thin fabric of my gown when Tynan appeared in front of me.
Out of thin air.
“I can’t believe that worked!” He was grinning as if it were the proudest moment of his life and he wanted to share it with me. “I wasn’t sure it would! I’ve been practicing, but I didn’t know if I could do it under pressure. I’ve always been able to sense the Paths, but when I heard you talk about how you saw magic, how different that was from how anyone else experienced it, it made me wonder if the reason I kept failing was because I was trying to conform to old ideas. You’re unique. I thought maybe I was too. So instead of trying to find and walk Paths, I tried making one!”
It’s not possible.
Concentrating, I could see the essence of his sparkling, multi-colored power flying away as if it had broken apart from a single point. His next words confirmed my suspicion. “I can’t hold it for long, but if I focus on where I want to go and it’s not too far, I can create a Path to take me there.”
He’s a flippin’ teleporter.
Tynan was still smiling when he thrust Excalibur in the direction of my heart.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CRIMSON
I should have been skewered. Instead, the strike that was meant for my heart sliced through my sleeve to the skin on my upper arm. Fire and blood leaked from the wound, but a quick glance told me it was only shallow. Through my sense of its almost-sentience, I knew Excalibur had saved me, but the earth talisman was deeply conflicted. It didn’t want to hurt me, but Tynan was an heir to earth magic too.
And he knows how to use a sword.
When Tynan struck again, I had to roll away and onto my feet to avoid the blade coming down on my neck. Arthur was right; the scars on my wrists were proof that Excalibur was willing to let me die no matter how conflicted it might be. Maybe it would have mercy on me and just send me into endless sleep.
Hell to the no, no, NO!
I called fire into my hand—rage at almost getting my head lopped off by my own sword made it ridiculously easy. Illuminated by the flames, Tynan’s grin was a madman’s and his aura was chaos. This fight wouldn’t end until one of us was in the ground. I flicked my wrist and sent a stream of grailfire flying in Tynan’s direction.
He disappeared.
And reappeared to my left, swinging his arm in a wild arc. A cut across my thigh, a bit deeper this time; Excalibur was still playing with me. Hissing in pain as I threw myself away from a second blow, I fell off the pathway and tumbled down the bank of the stream, breaking through a thin layer of ice into the water. I hit the bottom with my shoulder and then rebounded, gasping at the cold. The stream was only a couple of feet deep, but the wet gown had twisted around my legs like sodden rope. Pulling at it, trying to free myself so I could stand, I looked around frantically for Tynan.
A slight ripple in the fabric of reality accompanied by a flash of multi-colored sparks were the only warnings I got. He jumped from one of his Paths, crashing through the ice into the stream, but keeping his feet under him. I finally managed to stand and we circled one another warily. The leather on one of the sleeves of his jacket was charred and cracking; I’d hit him with grailfire. It must have only been a glancing blow, but it gave me courage and I stopped moving and faced him.
The world went blank for a moment when he disappeared, and then Tynan began darting in and out of the air around me until I was almost overwhelmed by the continuous flow of creation and destruction in the pattern of magic. All I could do was keep throwing flames around myself to keep him from getting too close. My existence became a black sky intermittently blasted with light. Still,
Excalibur kept breaching my defenses until several thin cuts crisscrossed my shoulders and forearms, cauterized almost immediately by flame. The sword hadn’t got a killing blow past the power of the Grail, but it was only a matter of time. If I’d never realized it before, I knew now that Excalibur was the master of all other talismans.
Teeth chattering, tripping over my numb feet, I was becoming exhausted. If I lost control over the grailfire in my hands, it would all be over quickly.
There was a sparkle of chaos. The sword arced through the air, passing mere inches in front of my face as I threw myself backwards into the water, catching myself with my hands on the stony bottom. The grailfire went out, and though I tried, I couldn’t master it anymore. Teetering on the edge of unconsciousness, my heart was beating like it wanted to claw its way out of my chest.
As Tynan and I stared at each another, I could see he was as worn out as I was. Breathing heavily, his skin was white and his dark hair was plastered with sweat against his cheeks. Creating a Path, even a temporary one, had to require an almost unbelievable amount of energy.
“I really am sorry, Rhi,” he said as he waded towards me through the water. There was no hurry now that I was helpless. As he loomed over me with Excalibur, his features softened. “Now that we’ve reached the end, it’s important to me that you know that I love you. I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you.” He reached down with his other hand and moved a strand of wet hair out of my eyes. “But you couldn’t see me. You could see Daley, and even the redcap, but never me. Don’t you understand that it was just like what Viviane did to you? You made me invisible.”
But while I knew that Redcap loved me, and hoped that someday Daley might, I didn’t believe Tynan’s declaration of love. There was something incomplete about him, something wrong. Like the earth, he was out of balance.
“Is that why you’re doing this? To punish me for not loving you? Will it make you feel better when you cut off my head?” Pushing with my heels, I scraped myself a few inches farther back along the bottom of the stream but stopped when he pointed Excalibur at my throat.
Tynan was shaking his head sadly. “It’s not that. If I could, I’d let you live. But I understand something you don’t.”
“And what’s that? That you’re nothing but a cold-blooded murderer?”
A shadow crossed his face. “I’m not . . . that. I was never that. All I’ve ever wanted was to do what was right. I’m a prince. I understand what that means. It’s my duty to protect my king and my king’s people. I never wanted to hurt anyone.”
Excalibur’s point lowered and I pressed my advantage. “So that makes it OK to kill me? Makes it OK for a son to kill his father?”
“I was deceived, but my motives were pure. I promise they’re pure now too.” As the young man who was once called Mordred lifted the sword to strike my head from my shoulders, Excalibur sang to me in gold of its own regret. It would remain neutral—it wouldn’t choose between two heirs—but the sword was still a sword in the hands of someone who knew how to use one.
Promise me you won’t send me into endless sleep.
But the earth talisman made no such promise.
As the blade descended, it seemed to me to move in slow motion. Too desperate to worry about accidentally slicing my fingers off if I misjudged the distance, I reached out to stop it.
The jarring impact pushed me against the bottom of the stream, but I came back out sputtering, propped up on one hand while my other encircled Tynan’s grip on the hilt. The tip of one finger had managed to touch the metal. In contact now with both heirs, I could feel the sword struggle in the same way it must have when Tynan tried to kill Arthur. Then, however, the sword had already rejected the king. We, as heirs, were equals.
A vein bulged in Tynan’s temple as he tried to press forward, but we were locked in position. I felt my slight advantage as the one to quicken Excalibur in its latest incarnation, but Tynan was stronger. Eventually the sword would yield.
When it kills me, will it shatter the way it did before?
I hope so.
I was pushed back onto my elbows. The water was up to my neck. Tynan shoved harder and the water was lapping the sides of my face. I slipped under for a second but then arched my back and found air again.
As we struggled, a black shadow closed in on me, obscuring my vision. I couldn’t see Tynan anymore. There was only the unrelenting force on my arm as he pushed Excalibur towards my throat, and the pounding of my heart like an ancient drum calling to war.
My heart was pounding.
Our heart is pounding.
As my finger slipped off the hilt, my arm began to buckle under Tynan’s weight. “Stop, Ty! Don’t make me do this. Don’t make me a monster!”
Too eager to regain Arthur’s trust, Tynan had forgotten what we shared. The space in his chest where his heart once beat was now filled with a spell born from desperation and magic. A spell I made. A spell which obeyed my command. I unraveled it like a kitten with a ball of yarn and then snipped the thread between us.
There is magic everywhere if you know where to look. The world is filled with it. It is, at its purest, simply life. Destroy the magic and you destroy the life. As Tynan’s limp body fell on top of me, knocking the breath out of my lungs and sending me to the bottom of the stream, I froze in the small death of winter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CRIMSON
Rhiannon. Wake now.
Viviane used to get me up for school with those simple words, repeated exactly the same every morning.
You must wake now.
Opening my eyes, I panicked as I realized something heavy was on top of me, weighting me down on the bottom of the stream. Thrashing, I tried to move but failed. Above the surface, the light of the moon illuminated someone with long, dark hair standing over me. I opened my mouth to scream and it filled with water.
Mom!
The figure bent towards me, removing the weight from my chest and then heaving me upright. I gulped in precious air as the memory of the last few moments flooded into me.
As Excalibur slipped from his limp hand, Tynan’s body bobbed up to the surface. I floundered through the water and broken ice to get away from it. I couldn’t bear to look at it. Clawing my way out, I collapsed face down on the snowy ground, mimicking the floating corpse.
“Oh, Mom! I didn’t want to do it! He didn’t give me any choice!” Shivering, I began to sob; shuddering breaths which wracked my body with pain, gasping as an answering pain shot through my temples before I could block my awareness of it. Magic had reawakened the corruption within me, but the adrenalin of the fight had masked it for a while. “I can’t bear this anymore,” I moaned.
I’d been washed clean of all my anger towards Viviane—Mom—I just wanted her to take me home.
“Mother couldn’t come. The Lady of the Lake is bound to her place until what is broken is made one.” I looked up. It wasn’t Viviane who’d rescued me. It was the creature who’d been transformed into L'Inconnue de la Seine. She looked different. Before, she’d looked like a drowned girl. Now her hair and clothing were long and flowing in imitation of Viviane’s. Her eyes were open and aware, and her lips were no longer fixed in a smile of death.
Wiping my tears from my face, I struggled to my feet. “How did you know?”
As the L’Inconnue shrugged, her whole body seemed to ripple. “The Lady may reside in the lake, but as her followers grow, so too does her power. Once you stepped in the stream, she was aware of your plight and commanded me to go to you.” She lifted her chin proudly. “I am not bound but may travel where I will through any water of the world.”
I focused on something the creature had said. “What followers?”
“Mother is very busy with her other children. All the mermaids, nixies, and water sprites are gathering to her.”
“For What?”
When she smiled, her teeth were small and pointed like a pike’s. “For war.” Reaching down into the water, s
he retrieved Excalibur and held it out to me.
Lady of the Lake 2.0.
I managed to teeter on the edge and take the sword without stepping back into the water. Tynan’s body drifted too close.
“Arthurrrrrrr.” L'Inconnue de la Seine said his name on a long, drawn-out breath as she dissolved into droplets of water raining down on the stream.
The king was behind me.
Yellow warning was swamped by sorrow the color of a lake of tears and I couldn’t move, but he ignored me as he waded into the stream and pulled the body out of it. Dropping to his knees, he pulled his son into his arms, rocking him and cradling him cheek to cheek the way he must have when Tynan was a little boy.
Tynan’s lifeless eyes gazed at me from the king’s embrace.
The Earth King didn’t cry out the way he had when Morgan le Fay died. His silence now was more terrible. I could feel his emotions—feel that in many ways, he blamed himself. The lights of the city beyond peeked through the trees, but they dimmed and wavered as Arthur’s pain and regret filled the world.
The lights of New York went dark.
When Arthur looked at me, his face shone in the golden glow emitting from the sword in my hand. I felt Excalibur mourn with him. He gently lowered Tynan to the ground, and as he stood, grief coalesced into dark menace. Taking a step back, I lifted the sword.
He pulled out a gun.
Never bring a sword to a gun fight.
Arthur didn’t speak. His was a king’s judgement, holy and justified. He might not be used to modern weapons, but a bullet would still find me at this range.
A gust of hot air blew debris into my eyes and I was momentarily blinded. Panicking, I swung the sword in front of me
Careful, little Earth Queen.
Dewi?
I’d completely forgotten about the Red Dragon. When I rubbed the grit out of my eyes, I saw that it had landed in between myself and the king. The dragon opened its mouth, revealing teeth like jagged rubies, and its voice was the roar of an inferno.
There will be peace between the king and the heir. The earth demands it.
Sword of Elements Series Boxed Set 2: Bound In Blue, Caught In Crimson & To Make A Witch Page 46