by L. H. Nicole
Viviane blasted herself free of Owaine, Leyon and Lancelot, trying to make her way to Morgana, who was facing down Merlin. But Galahad stepped into her path, his sword spearing toward the vile woman. She vanished, reappearing on the other side of the field.
“This night is done for us!” she yelled to Mordrid and Morgana. “We must go now!”
Mordrid disappeared as Excalibur almost skewered him, reappearing at Viviane’s side. “She’s right Morgana.” He looked at Aliana, lying helpless by the cave entrance. “But I will see you soon.”
“No!” Morgana’s shriek shook the earth.
The guys fell back. With vengeance in her eyes, she took a step toward Aliana. “We don’t leave until I’ve had my revenge!”
She raised her hand toward Aliana, who struggled to move but was too close to death. Blue flames flared, Morgana’s hateful gaze fixed only on her.
Merlin moved behind her.
Those evil cool hazel eyes widened in shock, her mouth falling open as a soundless gasp escaped her. She looked down at the blood-covered blade that had speared through her abdomen.
Aliana gasped, tears escaping as Merlin pulled his sword from his souls mate, his face tortured worse than she could ever imagine. It was too horrible to describe, as Morgana fell to the ground, dead.
It was hard to remember everything that happened after that. Mordrid’s poison was having too great an effect as Aliana’s heart struggled to keep beating. Her lungs felt like piles of wet blankets were weighing them down.
Fury pulsed over the entire field. Viviane screamed shrilly, like that dead firebird, her wild eyes fixed on Merlin, who was huddled on the ground next to Morgana’s lifeless body. Burnt-blood-colored magic speared into the Druid, throwing him from his dead souls mate’s side. His already tortured eyes widened as the blond witch’s body vanished.
Mordrid’s last words before he evaporated with Viviane rang through her mind. “Soon you will be mine, and there is nothing that can be done to save you.”
Arms wrapped around Aliana, lifting her prone body from the hard ground. She looked up into Arthur’s stone-hued face. She tried to tell him she would be okay, a lie, but she couldn’t get the words out.
“Don’t try to speak,” Arthur commanded, brushing her hair from her sweat and dirt-coated face. “We will save you from this!”
Galahad appeared over them, a weak Dagg in his arms. She moaned and tried to reach out to her guardian but pain seared her veins and muscles. The white knight knelt immediately, placing Dagg in her arms, the weight of her dear friend a burden she’d happily bear. Silver purple magic sparked, trying to help her, but she knew it was too late.
“Dagg, what are we going to do? I don’t want to be Mordrid’s slave!”
“I…I don’t know.”
She could feel his guilt and devastation, the pain of knowing he had failed to protect her.
“Not…your fault…Dragon boy.” She closed her heavy eyes.
“Aliana, stay with us!” Galahad’s rumbling voice was too hard to ignore.
She lifted her lids, tried to smile, but couldn’t feel her face to know if she had succeeded. The white knight’s hand cupped her cheek as Arthur’s arms tightened around her.
“Merlin!” the king roared. Aliana managed to turn her gaze and saw Leyon and Gawain supporting their friend who looked almost comatose. “Snap out of it! We need you here.”
Everyone gathered around them, Falorn and D’varin supporting Delphina between them. All the knights looked on anxious and worried, each one covered in injuries she wish she were strong enough to heal. Tears gathered and leaked from her eyes. She had tried so hard to fight back her terror of being a slave to Mordrid that she had failed in her quest to help Arthur save the seven realms.
She felt a rising magic growing in her like a vine. It could only be Mordrid’s magic trying to take over.
Orange light flared, but it was far away, unable to penetrate the gray stealing her away. “I can’t heal her!” She vaguely recognized the Druid’s voice, but couldn’t see him through the dark clouds.
A strange accented voice roared. Leyon, their whip smart Scot. “You have the Grail of Power! That can save her!”
The voices of the guys swamped her pounding head until one feminine voice silenced the bunch. “It will not work.” The musical lilt to Delphina’s voice soothed her abused ears. “That stone she bears, it was created with the Grail’s magic. I can feel it now.”
“Then that should help even more!” Gawain tried to reason.
Falorn’s low voice came next. “No. She already has the Grail’s power inside her…if it hasn’t helped her yet…it never will.”
The last of Aliana’s hope burst like a popped balloon. Everything drifted away slowly; the frustrated bursts of denial and sorrow from the knights fading like the last notes of a song.
The scent of flowers and the warmth of sunlight touched her, drawing her away from the realm of pain. She lifted her eyes, the world around her was black and white, like she was trapped in an old silent movie. She could see the guys clearly, all huddled around her. Galahad gripped her hands, his blazing blue eyes staring down at her. Arthur’s hands brushed her face, her hair. He was saying something, shouting it maybe, judging by the way his face pinched.
Delphina was crying silent tears as she knelt on the ground, bowing her head as her shoulders shook. D’varin and Falorn mimicked her, their shame radiating like a fire’s heat. Gawain was punching the earth, Owaine and Leyon looked sick. Percival stood by Lancelot’s side, both men silent and stiff as statues in their grief. Merlin stood apart from the group, his face turned from Aliana, but she could feel the pulse of his own devastation.
“We shouldn’t be here.”
Aliana turned and saw Dagg hovering next to her. She wrapped her arms around him instantly.
“Are we dead?” She shook her head. “No, my…father would be here if we were.” Her fear returned. “Is Mordrid’s magic about to take us over?” She whispered the question, looking back to her knights and Fae friends.
The scent of flowers returned, growing so strong it was like being in a garden. Rays of sunlight broke through the black and white world, warming her body which she hadn’t even realized was so cold.
“Mordrid’s magic will not take you this day, my sweet girl.”
Aliana snapped around and saw her birth mother standing next to Queen Igraine. “Mother? I don’t understand. Mordrid said…”
Camelot’s queen smiled reassuringly. “The magic the dark wizard used was nearly undefeatable.”
She studied both women with cautious hope. “Was?”
The Dragon Queen’s smile was a warm comfort as she looked to her son. “The world is a balance of light and dark, good and bad, pain and pleasure, life and death. Everything is created with an opposite equal in strength. Gold Dragons are the opposite of Onyx Dragons. It took the power of my lineage to save your life and free you from becoming Mordrid’s slave.”
“Then why am I here? Am I—” She looked at Dagg. “Are we dead?”
General Alaki, her father, appeared beside his wife. “I told you, no one can take what Death protects.”
Aliana nodded once, her heart thudding with the happiness of seeing her parents again so soon. She followed Queen Igraine’s gaze back to the knights. “Then why am I here?”
A light started to grow from the still chest of her body, cradled in Arthur’s arms. Aliana looked down as that same light heated her chest under her shirt. She pulled out the pendant Arthur had given her. It glowed with the same light that pulsed on her body.
She turned to Igraine, who held out a matching necklace. Aliana’s strength started to return, her aches easing as color started to seep into the world. Realization hit her like a brick. Her eyes grew wide as she looked from the queen to her mother’s resigned face to her father’s reassuring one.
Tears burned her eyes as she looked back to the queen. “You’re trading your life for mine.”
Igraine smiled and spoke before Aliana could demand she stop it. “I have known for a long time that this was how my life would end. I have lived so many long centuries without the comfort of my father or brother, but I knew I had to give birth to a child to carry on my family’s line. As Arthur was born, I was gifted with a glimpse of his future. I saw your arrival and everything that would come of it. I knew I could not leave my son until his future was secure. You have seen to that now.”
Aliana gave into her anger, panic and guilt. “But he’ll never forgive me! Vira already…I can’t let someone else die because of me!”
Her father took her shaking hand. “But this is not really about you, is it? Queen Igraine’s decision was just as much for her son and for Camelot. The kingdom her father built.”
Her anger whooshed out of her. Her father’s words rang with a truth she hadn’t seen earlier. She looked back to the king holding her body. “What about Arthur? He’ll be crushed.”
“He knows.”
Aliana’s eyes snapped to the queen. “What?”
“Before you were pulled into this plane, he called out to me, begged me to save you. I shared with him what I have with you. He agreed.”
Aliana stood there at a total loss of what to think or feel.
Igraine’s warmth started to bleed into her again. “He knew my time was coming, I had told him so before your arrival.”
Aliana felt her strength returning little by little. She placed the pendant back under her shirt.
“There is something else you need to know.” Igraine stepped closer, holding out a small scroll of parchment with a mercury-colored seal.
Aliana stared at it, blinking again and again. It couldn’t be…“Is that?”
“It is the first prophecy of the Destined One.”
It was the scroll she had stolen from the iron-box-of-death back in Charleston. “But Viviane, she just…I saw her. She just had it.” Her face fell. “And I already know what it says.” She looked sadly at her father. Dagg rumbled softly against her skin as he crawled around her hunched shoulders.
Igraine shook her head. “I was on my way back to Camelot, just as you arrived in this time. I came upon a halfling who told me about this Fae elder who lived in the forests of Camelot. He was gifted with the magic of prophetic sight. I went to him and he gave me this. It tells about a time when one girl, a lost daughter of Avalon, would rise. It was then he told me not only was another coming for the scroll, but he had also told the Fae Queen of this prophecy. It was too late to keep Titania from knowing, but I created a forgery, changed the prophecy and got the elder to agree to keep the true words a secret.”
“But, Titania created the Prophecy of the Destined One, didn’t she?”
Selene shook her head. “No, Aliana, she built upon the words contained in this scroll. Not even my mother possesses enough magic to create Prophecy.”
Igraine took Aliana’s hand, still hanging at her side and placed the small piece of life altering paper in it. “You need to know the truth. This is your secret.”
It felt like Aliana was in a dream, separated from her conscious body as her trembling fingers broke the seal and she read the words.
“With the full force of alignment magic and a pure heart, the lost Daughter of Avalon will have the power to change the realms for the good of all or raze them to the ground.”
Aliana looked up at the queen and her parents. “But I thought…” She read the words again. “I thought I was supposed to die to stop Mordrid…”
General Alaki shook his head. “It is like my father told you. Your fate is still being written. And like it or not, that promise you made to Merlin saved your future.”
Heat rolled through her as she looked to her father with shocked disbelief. “What do you mean?”
Her mother sighed. “Had you gone that night, to that exchange with Mordrid and Morgana for Dawn’s mother and Joe…”
“You would have been killed,” the general said heavily. “It was one of the visions the Underlord saw in the Well. Queen Igraine, through the actions of Merlin, saved your life before she even met you.”
Numbness desensitized Aliana for an endless moment. “But how…how could you even foresee something like that?”
The Dragon queen shook her head. “I told you, fate has a mysterious way of working out the way it’s supposed to.”
“I don’t know what to do, what to say to any of this.”
Her parents surrounded her on both sides. Her mother kissed her cheek. “You must return to your body now. You cannot stay much longer.”
The general stroked her hair. “We are with you, always. It may not always seem like it, but when you need us most, we will be here for you.” He looked to the knights. “For all of you.”
Dagg’s claws tightened on her skin as invisible hands started to tug at her. Her eyes turned back to Igraine. Her words choked in her throat, but she forced them out. “Thank you, for everything. I don’t know how I can repay you.”
“Help my son save his kingdom, help him be happy. My son and the knights know you are from the future now. No matter what, you cannot tell them what your future is like, what fate is to befall them and Camelot. That is all I would ask of you.”
Aliana nodded. She had failed to keep the knights from finding out before. She would absolutely do this for Igraine. No matter what. She owed the queen no less.
“Your body and magic will still be weak when you return; you must take care of yourself.” The queen bowed her head to Aliana.
36
By the time we get past the Elf guards, we see Dawn aglow with her beautiful pale magic, floating above the Well of Realms. Fury ignites in me. We are a team, what the hell does she think she’s doing not involving any of us? The magic possessing her evaporates and she returns to the ground. Her co-conspirators steady her as Galahad, Owen and I rush to her. I have not been so scared or angry since Aliana was taken by Mordrid. Dawn turns and looks at me, her eyes sparkling as she tells us what she and Lacy have done. Then she throws herself into my arms and whispers, “I forgive you.” My world is right again.
~Wade
HER PARENTS AND IGRAINE started to fade as the world brightened. She closed her eyes against the blinding light, as the hands pulling her away grew stronger.
When the light and phantom hands faded, she blinked her eyes open, sucking a heavy breath into her starved lungs.
“Aliana!” Happy cries and cheers rang around the field.
“You’re alive!” Galahad’s hoarse voice croaked as he kissed her hands. Silver sparks trickled into her.
She tried to move, to sit up. Arthur’s arms tightened around her. She turned her sad gaze to him, her heart breaking for the loss he had suffered. She owed him and his family so much. He nodded to her, his face set in harsh lines of grief, but the way his arms tightened ever so slightly and his taut shoulders relaxed told her he was relieved she was safe.
Her emotions overwhelmed her. So much had happened just in this day alone. Her heart swelled with passion for both men who still held her, everything twisting together like a giant ball of tangled emotional strings. She couldn’t deal with it all right now so she shoved it in her already overstuffed mental box until she could.
Aliana turned from Arthur as he helped her sit up, Dagg climbing to wrap around her shoulders. She looked around at the friends who had gathered around. “Hi everyone.”
“You have more surprises in you than one would ever suspect.” Gawain’s relief softened his gruff voice.
Delphina touched her leg. “What happened? How were you freed of Mordrid’s poison?”
Aliana met Arthur’s gaze. “It takes a Dragon to fight a Dragon, I guess.” She looked back to Delphina. “And being the daughter of Death seems to have unexpected benefits.”
“I think there is much you need to tell us,” Lancelot insisted.
She nodded. It was time to fill everyone in on everything; everything except what the future held.
&nbs
p; With the supporting hands of Arthur and Galahad she got to her feet, looked around the ruined area, her eyes lingering on the altar where Morgana had slain all those Firebirds.
Her eyes sought out Merlin who had been silent. Hoping she wouldn’t trip on her own feet, she went to him. Cognizant of everyone watching her she whispered, “She was sacrificing Firebirds.” The Druid’s face filled with even more grief. They must have seen it before they attacked from the woods. “Think about what that means. What powers that granted her.” She’d read from the Fae book that Firebirds had the power to regenerate themselves, almost like a rebirth. Viviane had taken Morgana’s body. The power of new life that Morgana stole was the greatest of the Firebird’s magic abilities.
“There is always hope, Merlin.”
The Druid’s shoulders sagged like a heavy weight had fallen from them. Gawain and Owaine came to his side. Letting the knights support their friend, Aliana went to Falorn and D’varin and thanked them for everything they had done. Delphina hugged her tightly with tears in her pale green eyes.
Percival cleared his throat. “Not to seem insensitive, but we still need an explanation of all this.”
Aliana couldn’t help but smile.
The sound of horse hooves came from their right drawing everyone’s attention. Suddenly on guard, the guys drew their weapons, ready to face the intruder. They relaxed, as Guinevere appeared from the trees.
Lancelot all but ran to her side. “My love, what are you doing here?”
Guin dismounted. “The queen sent me.” Her face fell as she looked to Arthur.
“I know.” His heavy words caused a deafening silence to fall over the field.
“Know what?” Owaine’s hesitation seemed to age his pale features.
Arthur met the eyes of each of his men. “The queen is dead.”
A small platoon of guards appeared just after Guinevere had, ordered by the queen to accompany Lancelot’s wife before her death. The news had been hard for all the knights to take.