Half Sick of Shadows

by Laura Sebastian

  Merlin claps Arthur on the shoulder. “King Uther sought to unite all of the kingdoms of Albion under a single reign. He very nearly succeeded, but even in his last days, a lone kingdom eluded him.”

  The pieces fall into place, and I have to resist the smile pulling at my lips. Arthur’s eyes find mine, understanding.

  “The second test is to fulfill your father’s legacy and defeat the beasts in the North to bring Lyonesse to heed under Camelot’s rule.”

  12

  MERLIN GIVES US a week to rest before we’re to leave for Lyonesse with an army of only fifty knights. As he announced these rules in the throne room, I watched as Mordred’s smile grew and stretched over his face like an uncoiling snake. Fifty knights to do what hundreds—even thousands—hadn’t been able to do. It was, to his ears, an impossible task.

  It strikes me as unfair as well that while Arthur was meant to move mountains to take the throne, Mordred was able to inherit it by default. But destined as Arthur might be to rule Albion, we are at a distinct disadvantage—few people seem to believe that. To most, he is a stranger, shaped by enemy hands. Mordred has had years to curry favor and build loyalty. Arthur hasn’t.

  But it doesn’t matter because when Arthur, Morgana, Lancelot, and I are alone in Arthur’s childhood bedroom, we all let ourselves celebrate. One week of rest, but we could leave tomorrow if needed. No need to leave at all, certainly no need for knights—all it would take is a letter and Gwen would come to Camelot, marry Arthur, and bring Lyonesse officially into Albion.

  “That won’t do, though,” I say as Arthur examines the room he can’t possibly remember.

  I’d thought the room would be too small for him, but it isn’t. The bed he slept in as a toddler prince is still large enough to comfortably sleep an entire family, and the room itself is spacious, with a large oak wardrobe in one corner that is inlaid with a pattern of white bone. Wide windows open to the east, letting in plenty of sunlight, and the polished marble floor is laid with a crimson wool rug. The only things in it that will need replacing are the desk and chair, both of which look doll-sized next to Arthur’s tall and lanky frame. If he were to try to sit in that chair, his bent knees would come up to his shoulders.

  “This test is meant to show your mind, yes, but no one will tell stories about you bravely writing a letter. No one will want to sing songs about you bravely asking your betrothed to save you.”

  “Though, I do recall Gwen saving you a fair bit in Avalon,” Morgana points out with a snort of laughter from her spot sprawled on the velvet chaise.

  “It . . . was about even, I’m sure,” Arthur says with a measure of indignation before looking at me. “So we’ll put on the show, you’re saying. Actually ride all the way to Lyonesse. Act like Gwen and I don’t know each other. Isn’t that a bit dishonest?”

  I shrug. “Perhaps, but stories will spin on their own,” I say. “Believe me, they’ll all be far more interesting than the truth. And the fact that you are going into Lyonesse at all will make you brave in their eyes. Most knights wouldn’t dare.”

  “And for good reason,” Morgana says, propping herself up on her elbows. “I know Gwen loves her home, but you’ve heard the stories—it’s a country overrun by monsters and savages. Wolves who walk upright. Children with fangs who howl at the moon. I certainly won’t be tagging along on this ridiculous quest.”

  “So you would like to stay here instead?” I ask her. “Alone at court?”

  That gives Morgana pause, and she rolls her eyes before flopping back against the overstuffed arm of the chaise.

  “Fine,” she says. “I suppose I’ll come. Better monsters who know they’re monsters than ones who insist on wearing pretty masks.”

  “We can stop by Shalott on the way,” Arthur says, looking at me. “Stay the night, if your father will have us.”

  My father. Even before I left for Avalon, I hadn’t seen him in months, hadn’t lived with him in years. He’s a stranger to me now, and my brothers are as well. They’ll be old enough now to have married, to have children of their own. I try to summon their faces in my mind, but I can’t quite manage it.

  “You’re the true king of Camelot, and of Albion as a whole,” I tell him. “Of course he’d be honored to have you.”

  Arthur must hear what I don’t say, because he offers me a small smile. “It’ll be good for you to see him again,” he says. “I came home to a dead father—one I’ll never have the chance to know. Yours is still here.”

  I nod and shift my attention to the desk and chair. I don’t want to think about my father. Yes, Arthur’s right—I will have a chance to know my father, to build a bridge between us. But thinking about him makes me think about my mother, about the bridge I destroyed, destroying her in the process. Arthur didn’t know his father. He can only miss him in the abstract sense. But I knew my mother—I loved her and I hated her and I will never have the chance to forgive her, or to ask her for the forgiveness I need.

  Lancelot appears at my side without a word, his shoulder brushing against mine even though the room is spacious enough that there is no reason to. He looks at me sideways, and there is a question behind his eyes that I don’t want to answer.

  After a second, he clears his throat and changes the subject.

  “I can’t believe you were ever small enough to fit in this chair, Arthur,” he says with a laugh. “These will need to go; we’ll get you something your own size.”

  Arthur looks over at us from the bookshelf that stands by the wardrobe, his hand resting on the spine of a well-worn tome.

  “No need for that before this quest, I’d imagine,” he says with a sigh. “I doubt I’ll be spending enough time in this room to warrant it.”

  He looks at me as he says it, as if looking for confirmation.

  “No,” I agree. “Even when you pass Merlin’s tests, there will be plenty who oppose you. We need to ensure that your path to the throne is smooth and unhindered. Mordred has a lot of allies—we need to try to woo them over to our side.”

  I pause, running my hand over the small chair, the cherrywood back of it only coming up to my hip.

  “And besides, they don’t need replacing,” I say, tracing the dragon that’s carved at the top of the back, curling around where Arthur’s shoulders would have been. “We can get rid of them entirely. Set up your office elsewhere in the palace. You will likely be there often, knowing you, and it will do well for the rest of the palace to know how hard you work, to wander by and see it with their own eyes from time to time.”

  Arthur snorts, pulling a slender volume from the shelf and turning it over in his hands. I’m too far away to make out the title, but there is an illustration of a lion on the front, faded with age.

  “Will I be a dancing bear? Performing tricks for an audience?” he asks, and though his voice is wry, there’s a note of real bitterness beneath it.

  “You’ll be a king,” I remind him, softening my voice. “Making decisions for a country of people who will, more often than not, fail to see the effects of your work because they will be too small to affect them in any tangible way. If you have to dance to assure them that you’re working—”

  “I’ll dance,” he says, sounding resigned. He opens the cover of the book in his hands, scanning the first page. “This was one of my favorites as a child,” he says.

  “What is it?” Lancelot asks, moving away from me and toward Arthur.

  Arthur shakes his head. “I can’t remember all of it—something about a lion cub who wants so badly to be a lamb.”

  I know that story, I remember it from my own childhood. “He does,” I tell him. “The cub gets adopted into a family of lambs, but when he gets older, his true nature becomes undeniable and he eats them all up.”

  Morgana sits up, looking at me with arched eyebrows.

  “That’s horrific,” she says, though her eyes are brig
ht.

  I shrug. “Most children’s stories were, from what I remember. Lots of oblique warnings and ominous messages hidden beneath the friendly facade of talking animals.”

  “I don’t think that’s the version I heard,” Arthur says as he flips through it. “You’re right, that’s what it is, but the version I remember wasn’t so bleak. I think my mother made up her own story as she read it to me.”

  At that, Morgana looks away. “That does sound like her,” she says. “She was never good at the macabre.”

  I can count on one hand the number of times Morgana has talked about her mother in the ten years that I’ve known her, and even then none of it has been kind. This time, though, there’s an undercurrent of tenderness to it. Arthur must hear it, too, because his brow creases and he puts the book back on the shelf firmly, as if he can shelve the ghost of the mother he can barely remember along with it.

  But ghosts aren’t so easily pushed aside, and I know that better than most. Which is why I straighten up and force a smile at Arthur.

  “You should take the night to settle in, and Lancelot should stay with you,” I say, nodding toward him. “Mordred seemed happy enough that Merlin posed such an impossible challenge, but he might decide to hedge his bets and dispose of you altogether.”

  “You really think he would kill Arthur?” Lancelot asks.

  Morgana interrupts with a laugh. “Him personally? Not a chance. Did you see his hands? Not a callus on them. But I agree with Elaine—he wouldn’t hesitate to hire someone else to do it if he thought Arthur was a threat.”

  Arthur and Lancelot exchange looks. “I’ll get a guard outside the room as well,” he says, sounding resigned but diplomatic. “I am officially blood of the royal family, if nothing else. That should entitle me to some guards.”

  Lancelot looks affronted. “Do you not think I could handle any assassin on my own?” he asks.

  Arthur shrugs. “Not if you’re asleep,” he says. “You sleep hard enough that it would take an assassin’s blade just to wake you up.”

  Even Lancelot has to laugh at that. “What about you?” he asks me.

  I bite my lip. “I should check in on my family’s tower. I don’t think anyone has been there since . . .”

  The words stick in my throat. Since my mother died. It’s been almost three years since whispers made their way to Avalon in Arethusa’s shells, but I still don’t think I’ve ever said the words out loud. I still don’t think I’ll ever truly believe them, and certainly not before I see our empty tower with my own eyes.

  “I’ll come with you,” Morgana says, getting up from the chaise and smoothing her violet silk gown down over her legs. It’s wrinkled now, but she doesn’t seem to notice or care.

  “You don’t have to,” I tell her, but I think she must hear the relief in my voice because she smiles, linking her arm through mine and squeezing it.

  “Of course I do,” she says, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

  * * *

  AS SOON AS we step into the hall outside of Arthur’s room, we almost run straight into a familiar face. Though it’s the same face Morgana wears, with the same jet-black hair, the same hawkish nose, the same square jaw, there is nothing of Morgana’s warmth reflected in Morgause. It is like seeing Morgana mirrored in ice. When she smiles with Morgana’s full mouth, it is a sharp and mocking thing. It is a smile that has been practiced and rehearsed in front of a mirror until there is no true joy left in it.

  All of a sudden, I am thirteen again, flinching from her words like they are the physical strike that usually accompanied them—the sharp-nailed pinch to my arm that drew blood, the shove down a dark hallway, the tug to my hair that was hard enough to pull out clumps of it. Every time, it was followed by a spark of glee in Morgause’s cold eyes, a true but brittle smile stretching taut over her mouth.

  It took a long time for me to understand how deeply some people enjoy inflicting pain on others, whether physical or emotional, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone equal Morgause in that.

  This time, though, she is barely even looking at me. All her attention is focused on her twin, and Morgana does not flinch from her.

  “Hello, Morgause,” she says, her voice level.

  For a tense moment, Morgause sizes her sister up like a general taking stock of an enemy across the battlefield, searching for weaknesses. After what feels like an eternity, she takes her sister by the shoulders and leans in to kiss her twice on each cheek. There is no one around but me, but it still feels like a show. Maybe she intends me to be the audience, but if so, she fails. I can clearly see how her fingers dig into Morgana’s shoulders hard enough to leave bruises behind, how she doesn’t quite touch her lips to Morgana’s cheeks but instead hovers just above, how her smile is frozen and tight-lipped.

  “It’s been so long, my dear sister, but you look . . .” She pauses, dragging her eyes from the top of Morgana’s head all the way to her toes. I imagine her taking inventory, noting Morgana’s wild and unbound hair, the constellations of freckles that cover her cheeks and nose, her thin dress that bares her shoulders and a scandalous amount of her chest, her worn muslin slippers. Her eyebrow raises a fraction, and her smile widens. “Well,” she finishes finally, but somehow that single innocuous word contains an ocean of insults.

  Morgause is well versed in the art of court-speak, in saying one thing but ensuring your target hears something else entirely. I was on the receiving end of it so often that I became fluent in it myself, but Morgana never did. She left too young, stayed away too much. She sees her sister’s barbs but doesn’t know how to volley them back just as delicately. She only knows how to lob cannonballs. Effective, yes, but wielding more damage to herself than to anyone else.

  I see her open her mouth, see the brash, ugly words forming on her lips, see Morgause about to get exactly the reaction she wants, see her telling everyone at court how feral her sister is, how Arthur must be as well, fay-raised and fay at heart. I see her using this to put chinks in his armor before he even has the chance to pass Merlin’s tests. Before I make a conscious decision to do it, I am stepping into the line of fire.

  “And marriage seems to be suiting you, Morgause,” I cut in with a sharp smile of my own. “I have to say—I didn’t think a king’s bastard would find such a highborn wife, but it was so selfless of you to offer yourself up. You must have had better prospects, no?” I ask, frowning.

  Morgause blinks at me for a moment, speechless. I want to relish the stunned look on her face, but I continue.

  “And that dress,” I add, looking at her dark green velvet gown with its trumpet sleeves and gold-embroidered bodice. It’s the same dress she wore earlier, to what should have been her husband’s coronation. I would imagine she put a lot of thought into it, a lot of effort. After all, once Mordred was crowned king, she would rise with him. She had to dress the part of a queen. It’s a beautiful gown—Morgause’s gowns always have been—but that makes it easier to sense her self-doubt and feed on it. “Well, it’s very . . . brave isn’t it?” I ask with a smile.

  Morgause looks at me like she’s smelled something strange that she can’t quite put her finger on.

  “Elaine the Mad,” she says, her voice thick and sweet as syrup. “Why, I almost didn’t recognize you. I didn’t know that you were still tagging along in my sister’s shadow, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Birds of a feather and all of that.”

  I return her syrupy smile. “You wouldn’t be looking for Arthur, would you?” I ask, stepping sideways to plant myself between her and Arthur’s bedroom door. “I’m afraid he’s busy, but if you would like to set up an audience with him, I’m happy to schedule something for you. He has a busy few days before we depart for Lyonesse, but I will try to fit you in, of course. Come see me in my tower tomorrow, once I’ve settled in, and we’ll try to arrange something.”

  The smi
le slides off Morgause’s face like butter out of a hot pan. “He’s my brother,” she says. “Surely he can see me.”

  I click my tongue in mock disappointment, even as a thrill of pleasure runs through me. It isn’t that I think she’s dangerous, at least not firsthand. Morgause, like Mordred, is not the kind to do her own dirty work. And I’m sure that if Arthur did see her, he would embrace her and speak kindly. But still I bar her. It truly is something, after all, to hold power over someone who’d previously choked you with theirs.

  “I’m afraid not. He’s very busy and, of course, he’s still in mourning. Today is simply out of the question, but if you come see me tomorrow—”

  “And what authority do you have?” she interrupts, her voice jumping up an octave. “Why should you keep me from my brother?”

  I keep a firm hold on my serene expression, though I’d like nothing more than to laugh in her face.

  Morgana, though, has less self-control, and her grin turns malevolent at the edges. “My darling sister,” she says, linking her arm through mine. “Don’t you know who you’re talking to? Lady Elaine of Shalott—Arthur’s closest adviser. He trusts her judgment implicitly, and should you try to go over her head . . . well, I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  Morgause glares daggers at both of us, her eyes darting to the door behind me as if she’s genuinely considering shoving past me and going in anyway. But that story would make its rounds through the palace in a matter of hours, and that is certainly not a story she wants told. After a moment, she smiles again, but it’s brittle, fracturing like spider cracks on cold glass.

  “Very well,” she says, inclining her head, her eyes lingering on me, bright and simmering with fury. “We’ll speak again tomorrow.”

  Before she turns to leave, though, she pauses, looking me over and tilting her head to one side. “It’s wonderful to see you again, Elaine,” she says, her voice syrupy once more. “Power doesn’t suit you, but not to worry, yours will be short lived. Never fear—when you find yourselves in my court, I’ll ensure you’re treated justly.”