There was noise around me, a howling like a strong gale, but the night was still.
“Cara!” Wyn was suddenly beside me. “The barriers.”
I forced myself to my feet, slipping across the damp grass towards the centre stone of the circle. Swiping my hand across the blood on my neck, I quickly traced the symbol Merlin had shown me.
The howling reached a crescendo, the light of the stones bursting into a dazzling intensity. My whole body throbbed with magic, almost more that I could withstand.
Then it was over. The howling was silenced and the light died. Stonehenge was normal again. Just a collection of stones, in a rough, broken circle.
My legs buckled under me and I hit the ground. There was a strange grasping, wrenching noise, but it took a moment to realise I was the one making it, but I couldn’t seem to stop. The sobs ripping through me just kept coming.
“Cara?” Strong arms grabbed me and crushed me against a solid chest. I clung to it like it was the only real thing in the world.
“What’s wrong with her?” Percy’s voice sounded a long way off.
“It’s over,” I gasped. “It’s all over. No more wraiths. No more Morgana.”
I felt, rather than heard, Wyn chuckle as it vibrated through his chest.
“Yes. It’s over.”
The sobs finally stopped and I sagged against Wyn’s chest until I had some control. I tipped my head back to look up at him. “Lance?”
Wyn frowned. “We were going to ask you the same thing.”
I turned towards the dark stone. “He had to stay. Until he was healed. He’ll be here soon.”
So we waited. And waited. The night got darker as we huddled beneath one of the stones to keep warm. As the hours passed the tension mounted. We couldn’t look at each other, but we all knew something wasn’t right.
At last it was Percy who spoke, echoing my thoughts. “Time is different in Avalon. He could have stayed there a year and still come back to almost the same moment you did.”
I nodded mutely, not trusting myself to speak.
“But no one dies in Avalon,” Wyn said, as though reading the terrible thought that kept chasing through my mind.
We were silent for a long time. The horizon had turned pink with dawn before anyone spoke again.
“Then where is he?” I said at last.
“The Lake?” There was no hope in Wyn’s voice, just a quiet desperation.
We didn’t speak. Not one word in the long journey back into Wales.
Wyn drove, never taking his eyes from the road. He seemed to have aged a decade and I knew he thought Lance was gone for good. We could all feel it; something had gone horribly wrong.
As for me, part of me was convinced that we would get to the Lake and he would be stood there waiting for me, his familiar crooked grin on his face.
I couldn’t accept the alternative. Losing Lance was not a price I was prepared to pay.
The Lake was still and quiet when we got there. Too quiet.
There was no Nimue, no Merlin, just a quiet, ordinary looking lake. The water reflected the same sky above us. And it was cold, bitterly cold. It was too small, too narrow. It wasn’t the same lake.
If it weren’t for Wyn and Percy standing by my side, it could have been nothing more than a dream.
“I don’t understand.”
Wyn shook his head. “Nor do I. You should have just re-built the barriers, not sealed all the gateways.”
Cara…
My name was nothing more than a whisper on the breeze but it was the voice I was most desperate to hear. I staggered away from the bank through the trees. They didn’t part the way they once had, but I knew where I was going; the small clearing where I had first met Nimue.
By the time I got there I was scratched and bleeding, but I barely noticed amongst all the other injuries.
There was no one there, but Lance’s voice called me on and I waded out into the water.
I was waist deep when I stopped and looked down. My reflection looked back at me, then it shimmered and changed.
“Lancelot.” I thrust my hand down, but it passed straight through the water. A sob clawed up my throat. “Why?”
He looked up at me with pain in his eyes. “Something went wrong. Even the Fair Folk don’t understand it. But the gateways are all closed, not just the barriers, and they cannot re-open them.”
“No,” I pleaded. “Don’t leave me here. If I’d have known, I’d have stayed.”
“You had to close the barriers.”
“Damn it, Lancelot, I can’t lose you. This isn’t fair.”
He shook his head. “Cara, I’m going to say the same thing to you that you once said to me. Live your life. I’ll always love you, but I had my second chance with you, and maybe that has to be enough. Two lifetimes of loving you is more than anyone has the right to ask for.”
“No,” I said again. “It’s not enough. Not for me. There has to be a way to open the gateways again. I will not accept losing you. I’ll find a way. We’re going to be together again, even if it takes another thousand years.”
A kind of wonder filled Lance’s eyes. “I love you, Cara Pendragon. But the magic is fading. One way or another, I will see you again.”
The image faded before I could reply, but I pressed my fingers against the water where his face had just been.
“I love you too, Sir Lancelot.” The panic and fear had gone. I knew there had to be a way to open the gateway, and no matter what it took, with Gwain and Percival’s help, I would find it.
After all, I was the last Pendragon. The blood of the Once and Future King ran in my veins.
Nothing was impossible.
Lance and Cara’s story continues in The Forever Queen
Acknowledgements
There are so many people for me to thank – and so many people to whom I am eternally grateful – that if I tried to list them all this section would probably end up bigger than the novel itself. Yet there are a few people who deserve an extra special thank you.
My friends and colleagues on Little Cayman – the teeny island I call home – who were all so incredibly supportive over the months whilst I was working on getting this ready for publishing. Who listened to me talk about it endlessly, and very rarely told me to shut up about it. There are a few people on the island who gave me extra special support and encouragement – and they know who they are.
My beloved sister, Jo Dorrington-Neville, who even after she’d just had a baby still took the time to help me so much, and offer me unconditional support. And who, with her talented husband, Chris, provided the incredible cover artwork.
Katherine Mills, who has read all my stories over the years, has helped me with most of them, and to whom Wyn belongs unconditionally because she loved him first.
My wonderful beta-readers, Wendy Higgins and Sharon Johnson, who read this story almost before anyone else and took the time to send me edits and critiques even when they were busy working on their own novels. This story is so much better because of their help.
Sue and David Dorrington, my incredible parents, who have never told me to stop dreaming. Who have been unconditionally supportive of everything I’ve ever done. And who, to this day, are still almost embarrassingly proud of me. Thanks to them my childhood home was always full of books, and they instilled in me a love of reading that has never weakened. I know this book would not exist if not for them.
And lastly, you, dear reader, who has brought this book and read it. I always swore that if I sold just one book, and touched just one person with the stories I tell, it would be enough. And it is.
Other Books by Nicola S. Dorrington
The Pendragon Series
Book One: The Last Knight
Book Two: The Forever Queen
The West Haven Series
Book One: Chasing Freedom
Book Two: Becoming Alpha (Coming 2015)
Novella: Blood Calling
Find and Follow Nicola S. Dorr
ington online:
Twitter: @NSDorrington
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NovelsByNsDorrington
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7125617.Nicola_S_Dorrington
And her own website: www.nicoladorrington.com
The Last Knight (Pendragon Book 1) Page 26