Half Sick of Shadows

by Laura Sebastian

  I glance at Lancelot warily, remembering his reaction long ago when I’d confessed my own prejudiced notions about the fey. His mouth is pulled into a thin line, but he doesn’t snap. Instead he shakes his head and sighs.

  “That’s a changeling,” he says. “There was a seed of truth in your nanny’s stories, but the practice was only ever used by a very small handful of fey who didn’t understand or respect magic or life itself. No one trained on Avalon would dare use such a dangerous and corrupt spell. If they did, the Crone would strike them down on the spot.”

  Percival must still be listening because at that, he scoffs. “The fey are corrupt,” he says, but there’s no real malice in his voice. He’s merely repeating something I don’t doubt he’s heard countless times before. Still, Lancelot’s hands grip the reins tight enough that his knuckles turn white.

  “I thought so too,” I jump in before he says something he’ll regret. “I was raised on the same stories, I heard the same folklore from my own nanny. I’d even heard tell of fay women who lived in villages on the outskirts of Shalott, brewing poisons with children’s bones and luring husbands away from their wives with love potions. I heard stories about those women being hunted down and slaughtered like animals. At the time, I might even have been a little glad for it—I imagined them as the villains in my nanny’s stories. But seeing Avalon . . .” I trail off, biting my lip. “I’m not going to tell you there aren’t evil fey. I’m sure there are, though I never met one I would call that. But there are evil people as well, aren’t there?”

  “The difference is,” Percival says, “one evil fay can wreak far more havoc than one evil man. My father said—”

  “Shut it,” Lancelot breaks in, pulling his horse to a stop.

  “How dare you—”

  “Hush,” Lancelot says, louder, holding up a hand. Percival flinches like Lancelot is throwing some sort of spell at him. He doesn’t know, though, that Lancelot isn’t capable of magic.

  As soon as I think it, Lancelot straightens up. “Attack!” he cries out, throwing himself sideways into Arthur, knocking him off his horse, and sending them both tumbling to the ground the instant before an arrow hisses through the air where Arthur sat just a second before.

  A breath later, everyone is drawing their weapons from scabbards, and Gawain, Percival, and Galahad bring their horses in front of Morgana and me, shielding us.

  A twig cracks, and a single figure emerges from behind a thicket of trees, bow already nocked with another arrow. Though the hood is drawn up, hiding the person’s face, I recognize the bow right away—fay-made with a gold filigreed handhold.

  “Gwen,” I call out. “Stop. It’s us.”

  Even in the chaos between us, I hear her sigh. “Yes, I know it’s you,” she says, shaking the hood back from her face without lowering her bow. It’s still trained on Arthur, though he’s mostly hidden behind Lancelot. It would take a truly exceptional shot to hit him, but I don’t doubt Gwen could do it. If she wanted to. “You’re still trespassing,” she says. “What are you doing here, Elaine?”

  Though she addresses me, her eyes stay locked on Arthur.

  “We seek an audience with King Leodegrance,” I say, choosing my words carefully. I’m sure that Gwen wouldn’t shoot Arthur. Mostly sure, at least. But as Nimue said, Gwen has always been a variable, and her unpredictability is one thing that can be counted upon.

  “You didn’t send a letter beforehand?” she asks, narrowing her eyes.

  “Well, your last letter left something to be desired, didn’t it?” Morgana interrupts. “You’re hardly much of a wordsmith.”

  Gwen’s eyes narrow as they dart to Morgana for just an instant. Her mouth quirks into a smile, and she lowers her bow.

  “I’m disappointed in you, Lance,” she says, clicking her tongue. “You’ve gotten sloppy over the last couple of weeks. I was tracking you half a mile and you didn’t even notice.”

  Lancelot glowers at her, but he steps away from Arthur. “Unfamiliar terrain,” he grumbles. “And I was distracted.”

  “Excuses, excuses,” she says. She looks at Arthur for a moment like she wants to say something, but the words never form. Finally, she looks back at me. “You can stay the night,” she says. “My father will speak with you, but tomorrow you’ll head home. Disappointed.”

  “You don’t even know what we’ve come for,” I point out.

  She shrugs. “I can guess well enough,” she says before pausing. “It’s good to see you again,” she continues, and though she looks only at me when she says it, I know she’s speaking to the others as well, and to Arthur in particular. “Follow me. You don’t want to be stuck in these woods after dark.”

  She turns and starts back into the woods, trusting us to follow. As Arthur and Lancelot mount their horses, Gawain leans toward me.

  “That woman tried to assassinate the king,” he whispers. “Why the hell are we following her?”

  “That woman,” I tell Gawain, “is Princess Guinevere, King Leodegrance’s only daughter and heir to his crown. She is also our only chance of succeeding in this quest.”

  “But she tried to kill him,” Gawain repeats. “I’d say our chances aren’t good.”

  “Believe me, if Gwen wanted to kill Arthur, she would have. That was merely . . . a cheeky hello.”

  Gawain glances at me, skeptical, but doesn’t comment. Beside me, Arthur keeps his own gaze straight ahead. To most, his expression would appear inscrutable, but not to me.

  “You unnerved her,” I tell him as we start to ride again. “You know how rare that is. There is something at play here we don’t understand yet.”

  Arthur nods, but his expression doesn’t clear. “You should take the lead with her,” he says after a moment. “You and Morgana. I’ll talk to Leodegrance, but with Gwen . . . well, she seems more open to talking with you.”

  * * *

  DAYS STRETCHED INTO weeks stretched into months and years on Avalon, and time often felt infinite. We never forgot about the world outside the island, but most days, it felt like another world entirely, a land from the pages of Arthur’s books. Even my own memories of Albion and Camelot began to feel like something that had happened to someone else, more story and less memory.

  Most days, we didn’t talk about the future at all. The present seemed limitless, and that was more than enough for us—a life composed of sun-drenched days and star-strewn nights. Sometimes, I could even forget about the future myself, the visions I spent hours poring over feeling distant and disconnected from me.

  But sometimes, the future would press in, a bucket of cold water thrown onto someone mid-nap.

  “I wonder if they’ve forgotten me in Lyonesse,” Gwen said once, while she, Morgana, and I trekked through the woods after night had fallen. Gwen had summoned little balls of light for each of us to hold in order to light our path, the orbs just bright enough to show what lay a few paces ahead of us and cast our faces in a warm, golden glow.

  “How could they?” Morgana had asked. “You’re their princess, and one day you’ll be their queen.”

  Gwen made a noise in the back of her throat and shook her head. “Maybe that’s fair logic to use with Arthur, but things work differently in Lyonesse—no one gives you a throne because your bloodline demands they do. And having a crown on your head and a throne beneath your arse means far less too. For all I know, my father is no longer king. In Lyonesse, anyone can take a throne at any time, so long as they fight tooth and claw for it. My father is no longer a young man.”

  “Surely, Nimue would have told you if that were the case,” I said.

  Gwen shrugged her shoulders, but her eyes were still troubled. “The time will come when we have to leave here,” she said.

  “You’ll have to leave here,” Morgana corrected. “Elaine and I will stay here, won’t we?” she asked, looking at me.

  I
looked away, focusing my attention toward the ball of light in my hands and watching it flicker in time to the beat of my heart. “Arthur will need me,” I told her. “And my family is still in Albion. I imagine when Arthur leaves, I will too.”

  A silence stretched over us for a moment, and I knew they were both thinking of my mother. Gwen knew all about her by that point, but this was before word had reached me of her death. This was when I imagined a homecoming that included her, for better or worse.

  “I suppose that makes sense,” Morgana admitted, though there was an edge to her voice that planted guilt in my belly. “I’ll miss you both,” she added after a second, though the words seemed to come out despite her best efforts to keep them unsaid.

  I bumped my shoulder against hers and shot her a smile. “No need to get so mopey,” I told her. “When Arthur is king and peace is restored between Avalon and Albion, we can visit so often it will be like we never left. Right, Gwen?”

  “Yes, exactly,” she said, her grin broadening. “I miss Lyonesse quite terribly, I’ll admit, but there is nowhere I can find cakes as good as the ones here. I’d come back for that alone, but your company will be a welcome bonus.”

  Morgana smiled slightly before shaking her head. “Still, I don’t like the thought of it,” she said. “You’ll be alone in Lyonesse with your literal monsters, Elaine will be alone in Camelot with figurative ones, and I’ll be here, all by myself.”

  “You’ll have Lancelot, won’t you?” Gwen asked. “And Elaine will have Arthur. And you know I’m more ferocious than any monster in Lyonesse.” She grinned, but there was something unfamiliar lurking beneath it—a touch of unease.

  “It’s not the same, and you know it,” Morgana said, shaking her head.

  “No,” Gwen admitted, her grin fading to something smaller, sadder. “But we have worlds to conquer, don’t we? I’ve a country to rule, and Elaine will help Arthur rule—he’ll need her. And you’ll be Lady of the Lake when Nimue’s gone.”

  She said it so simply, but the words still carried the weight of something forbidden. But no one, not even Nimue, could live forever, and it seemed an accepted fact that when Nimue did die, Morgana would be her successor. She’d been groomed for the position, raised to believe it was hers. I’d heard it said that Morgana’s power might be greater even than Nimue’s.

  Morgana’s smile was brittle.

  “Who would have thought power would be so lonely?” she asked with a sigh.

  “Everyone,” Gwen said, her voice sobering. “There is no power without loneliness, Morgana. It isn’t fair, but it’s the truth.”

  Silence stretched over us again, but this time it was the uncomfortable kind, like scratchy linen rubbing against raw skin. When it became unbearable, I slipped an arm through Morgana’s and rested my head against her shoulder.

  “There’s no need to worry about it now,” I told her. “We are here and we are together and whatever future may come, it’s ages away.”

  Morgana let out a long, low exhale before nodding, slipping her free arm through Gwen’s.

  “It’s ages away,” she echoed.

  * * *

  HERE WE ARE now, and ages have passed quicker than any of us imagined, but we’re still together. But as I think about Gwen’s expression in the woods, the way she looked at me with that cold distance, like we were strangers, I hear her words echo through my mind again and again.

  There is no power without loneliness, she said. I should have wondered how she knew that already, though with Gwen, I learned it’s best not to question most things.

  But that was just it, the look she gave me in the woods, the way she refused to look at Arthur, the way she spoke with coldness and authority I’d never heard in her voice before.

  I never thought to worry about her when we went our separate ways, when all of us went off together to Camelot while she left for Lyonesse alone. It was Gwen—she could handle herself, after all. Why should I have worried?

  Now, though, I am worried. For us, but also for her. This new Gwen is well acquainted with power, that much is clear, but she knows loneliness as well, and that realization lodges in my heart like a splinter.

  30

  THE INSIDE OF Lyonesse Castle is even more bleak than the outside, with few windows, dark stone hallways, and heavy iron sconces that do little to mitigate all the darkness. The walls are bare, without the ornate tapestries and framed paintings that hang in Camelot. Even the floors are unadorned with rugs, the sound of boots on bare stone echoing like a thunderstorm as the four of us follow Guinevere down the hall.

  The rest of our party stayed outside the castle, seeing to the horses, which I am grateful for. Circumstances aside, there is something nice about being just the five of us again—not Prince Arthur and his entourage—just us, as we were on Avalon.

  But that is an illusion that shatters the instant Guinevere speaks.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” she says without turning around. “It was a mistake.”

  Though she doesn’t speak to anyone in particular, the words feel directed at Arthur, and in the dim lighting I can just make out his frown. He stands a little straighter.

  “Of course I came, Gwen,” he says, his voice soft but steady. “Quest aside, I would have come. You know me—you should have known that.”

  For a moment, she doesn’t say anything. “I hoped I was wrong. Lyonesse . . . it isn’t a place for you. Any of you.”

  “But it is for you?” Lancelot asks.

  She shrugs but doesn’t look back at us. “It’s my home. It’s a part of me. There is no escaping that. I belong here.”

  “And we belong with you,” I say, though I sound more sure than I feel. The chill in the air has worked its way into my bones, and I have a feeling no hot bath, no pile of blankets, no warm fire will be enough to get it out again until we leave. “We’re a team, Gwen. You said that.”

  “And I meant it,” she says, each word clipped. “Then. But things have changed. I have changed.”

  “What do you mean?” Morgana asks.

  Instead of answering, Gwen pushes open a door and ushers us inside.

  Like the rest of the castle, the room is dim, cast in a pall of gray-tinged light emitting from a single small brass chandelier that doesn’t look like it’s been polished in many years. Cobwebs hang from the arms like a dreary garland. Though the room is large enough for a full audience, only five figures stand before a single tall chair that could, perhaps, be called a throne, though it has none of the splendor of the one in Camelot. Instead of being molded from gold, this one is carved from wood with a rough hand.

  Sitting on the throne is a man in his eighties with a balding head and a bent back, making him so hunched over that I can’t see his face. At our approach, though, he looks up, and my breath hitches.

  Because he is not a man—at least not entirely. His features are human enough, with two eyes, a nose, a mouth. His arms and legs look, at first glance, like any man’s, but something about him isn’t quite right, though it takes me a moment to realize why that is.

  He looks the way a fay child might have drawn a human, if they had never seen one before.

  Gwen crosses to stand at his side, leaving us in the middle of the room. She places a hand on his frail shoulder and he smiles at her, covering her hand with his own. But in the light of the moon shining through the windows, his hand is not a hand. It is closer to a claw, with long, jagged talons instead of fingers.

  The others must see it, too, but no one reacts immediately. There were stranger things in Avalon, after all. But we aren’t in Avalon.

  “King Leodegrance,” Arthur says, his voice filling the cavernous room. He bows, and the rest of us follow suit, Lancelot bowing awkwardly while Morgana and I dip into curtsies. “I am grateful for your hospitality, and for your speaking with me tonight. I believe we can both help each other—”
>
  Before Arthur can get any further, Leodegrance laughs, the sound thin and wheezing. “You’re a brave one, boy, I’ll give you that much. Braver than your father, who never set foot in Lyonesse. Braver than his knights, who ran before the moon managed to fully rise. But brave as you might be, you’re a fool all the same. Stay the night—my daughter insists upon it—but you’ll be gone first thing in the morning.”

  Arthur glances at me, brow furrowed, before looking back at Leodegrance.

  “I was hoping we could speak about an arrangement that could benefit us both—”

  “At my age, boy, you learn to value the time you have left, which means not bandying about having the same conversations I’ve had already. There will be no alliance. You might think to change my mind, but I assure you that many souls wiser than you have tried.” He waves a dismissive hand—claw. “Gwen can show you to your rooms for the night, but as I said, you will be gone tomorrow, whether you go willingly or not. Am I understood?”

  Arthur doesn’t move, not even when Gwen comes toward him, her eyes pleading but her mouth set firm as stone. Instead, he holds his ground, looking only at Leodegrance.

  “There is something you want, though,” he says after a second.

  “I beg your pardon,” Leodegrance says, leaning forward in his throne.

  “There must be,” Arthur says, pushing forward. “You won’t meet with me because you see it as a waste of time, but you met with others. Because you did want something then. They wouldn’t give it to you. But I could.”

  “Arthur,” Gwen says, her voice low and dangerous, but he ignores her, all his attention focused on her father.

  “Uther thought my request a mad one,” Leodegrance says. “His council did as well. Every person who dared come this far to meet me said the same thing—it was undoable. The king would not yield. And here you are, a boy—not even a king! What makes you think you’ll be any different?”

  Arthur considers it for a moment. “Because I am, as you seem keen on reminding me, a boy. Not a king—not yet. Which means that I need this alliance more than my father did. I have more to lose by not securing it. I will be willing to part with more to ensure it happens. I make no promises,” he adds quickly. “But I think it would be worth hearing each other out. We are both in a position to help each other, after all.”