* * *
NO ONE WILL mention Morgana’s name at the round table. No one will clamor to fill the empty seat at Guinevere’s left, one place away from Arthur himself, though I’d imagine most would like to. No one will so much as look at it. Though only Morgana herself will have been banished, it will feel like her name has been outlawed as well. Saying it would be a curse on all of us. A bad omen we certainly will not need, what with war brewing at our doorstep.
In the chair next to hers, Gawain will fidget, staring at his hands bundled in his lap. He will not have slept, and violent dark circles will stand out starkly against umber skin. He must feel my eyes on him because for an instant, he will look up and hold my gaze. Gawain always sees the best in people, long after they stop deserving it, and Morgana will be no exception to that. He will have a harder time than the rest of us wrapping his mind around what she will have tried to do to Arthur—whether it will be poison or a dagger or a dark spell that wraps itself around his neck and tightens.
Those details tend to vary, but the intended result does not. Sometimes, though, she succeeds, and the futures that spider out from that outcome are very different indeed.
The polished white stone of the table will glint with veins of gold in the candlelight, carved into a perfect circle—it will have been a gift from Avalon to celebrate Arthur’s coronation. Even here, a world away, it will crackle with a hint of magic.
Over the last months, Arthur will have been dividing up the great houses of Albion, laying them out on the table like pieces on a board before the game—before the war—begins. Each house has its sigil carved from stone, the size proportional to the size of the army it brings with it, from the crescent moon that spans the distance from my thumb to my pinkie, to the fleur-de-lis the size of an apple. The houses he can count on pile on his side of the table—the Lyonessian moon and the Shalott fleur-de-lis among them—and on the other side, near Gareth, he keeps those who will swear allegiance to Mordred should he decide to declare war.
Mordred’s pile grows bigger every day. Before long, it will become a fair fight.
Silence will constrict the room when Arthur walks in. If Morgana’s absence bothers him, he will hide it well beneath a placid exterior, his expression hard and smooth as the table itself.
Without saying a word, he will take the stone raven from his side and place it on Mordred’s. With Morgana gone, wanted for treason against the crown, Tintagel will fall to Morgause without a fight.
Though Tintagel isn’t nearly as big as the Lyonessian moon, it will be a significant loss. It will bring us one step closer to a war we will not survive.
Guinevere will be the one to finally break the silence.
“It still isn’t enough,” she will say, reaching out to rest a long-fingered hand on Arthur’s. Her nails will be even more ragged than I’ve ever seen them, bitten to the quick, the cuticles torn and raw.
“We can persuade Carrendish back,” she will continue, reaching for a horse figure on Mordred’s side and nudging it toward the middle. It is about half the size of the Tintagel raven.
“Not without bowing to the serf laws they want, and I won’t do that,” Arthur will say, pushing the horse back to Mordred’s pile. “It’s practically slavery.”
If Morgana were still here, she would tell Arthur that idealism didn’t win wars and compromise is necessary. She hated Lord Carrendish as much as anyone and would have rather swallowed spiders than give in to his antiquated serf laws, but she was always the one willing to suggest what no one else could, even if she proceeded to kill the idea herself.
Someone will need to fill that gap, to make the difficult suggestions, to call Arthur a fool when he’s being one, but no one does.
“The chimera,” Lancelot will suggest instead from his place next to me. He will nod toward a figure on the outskirts of Mordred’s group. He will open his mouth but close it again quickly, face reddening.
“Lord Perdell,” I will whisper to him, earning a bashful smile.
“Lord Perdell,” he will echo. “He’s easily flattered, desperate to feel validated. He feels forgotten way out in the borderlands, and Mordred won his favor easily. You could win it back.”
Arthur’s brow will crease as he stares at the pieces, a puzzle he cannot solve. “How?” he will ask after a moment.
“His favorite daughter just came to court,” Lancelot will say before hesitating. “If she were to marry into your family . . .” He will break off, but he really doesn’t need to say any more. With Gareth newly wed, there is only one eligible family member Arthur has left.
All eyes will turn to Gawain, who will try to sink down lower in his chair, as if wishing it would swallow him whole.
Arthur will rake his hair back from his eyes, looking truly tired for the first time. “I would never ask that of you, Gawain,” he will say.
“You don’t have to ask,” Gawain will reply, somber dark brown eyes heavy on Arthur. “Of course I’ll do it. Lancelot’s right—it will win back Lord Perdell, and a bond like that will keep him loyal.”
For an instant, I will expect Arthur to say no, that it isn’t worth it. Once, an age ago, he would have. His friend’s personal happiness would have meant more. But that Arthur was an idealist with a rigid moral compass. That Arthur had Morgana to balance him, to make the difficult decisions. Without Morgana, he will be off-kilter. So instead, he will rub a hand over his forehead before nodding.
“Do it fast,” he will tell Gawain. “I fear we’re coming up quickly to the breaking point.”
34
THE DOOR CREAKS open just as the sun crests over the horizon. At first, I think it’s Morgana, but instead Gwen slips through, in the same tattered white dress as earlier, now even dirtier and stained with King Leodegrance’s blood—her father’s blood.
Her eyes meet mine, and I steel myself for her rage, for her fury, for her blame. Lancelot goes tense beside me, readying for the same. But when Gwen speaks, her voice is level and calm.
“There are things to discuss,” she says, her eyes going to Arthur’s sleeping form. “We should wake him up.”
“It’s not a natural sleep,” I say, forcing myself to get to my feet, though my body protests the loss of the blanket’s warmth, of the security of Lancelot’s arm around my shoulders. “After everything, he couldn’t fall asleep, but with his injuries, rest was necessary.”
In the dim light of the mostly dead fire, it’s impossible to see her face clearly, but I could almost swear she flinches.
“She wouldn’t heal him?” Though she doesn’t say Morgana’s name, there is so much vehemence in that single syllable that it knocks the breath from me. I understand it, I can’t even hold it against her, after what Morgana did—what we did—but still everything has fallen apart so quickly I can hardly wrap my mind around it. Even yesterday morning, the three of us still stood on the same side of things. And now that has been ripped to pieces I fear will never mend.
“He wouldn’t let her,” I say. “You aren’t the only one angry with her. It was all I could do to convince him to take the sleeping draught.”
“How long will he be out?” she asks, the edges of her words crisping.
“Hard to say. Could be any moment, could be another hour.”
Gwen nods, looking around the room. “And where is she?”
“She needed some air,” Lancelot says. “What she did was weighing heavily on her.”
He says it so smoothly I know I would believe him myself if I hadn’t seen Morgana’s unrepentant righteousness with my own eyes. Still, it isn’t enough to appease Gwen.
“Not as heavily as my hands at her throat will weigh when I see her next,” she bites out, crossing her arms over her chest.
“There wasn’t another choice,” I say softly.
Gwen whirls on me, eyes blazing. “And you,” she says. “I should have known you h
ad a hand in this too—you have a hand in everything, don’t you?”
“I presented her with options—”
“You knew she was capable of it? No one should be capable of that.”
“No one is,” I say, glancing at Lancelot. “Not on her own, at least. She pulled from us to do it. It was all I could do not to pass out then and there. One of her theories—I’m sure you remember them. Circumstances were dire enough that she—we—saw fit to put them to the test.”
Gwen’s eyes widen. “She drew on your lives to amplify her own power,” she says slowly. “It never occurred to me she would actually try—” She breaks off, shaking her head. When she speaks again, her voice is whisper soft. “Do you know what this means? What she’s capable of? If using the two of you like that allowed her to pull the moon itself from the sky . . .”
“With enough lives to draw from, there is nothing she couldn’t do and no one who could stop her,” Lancelot finishes.
“Not to mention the fact that she could have killed the two of you,” Gwen adds.
My stomach twists into knots until I feel like I’m going to be sick. I swallow it down. “She did it to save us,” I say when I find my voice. “You know, Gwen, that there was no other way to do it. You were going to kill Arthur, even if you didn’t want to. I saw it—that wasn’t entirely you. There was something in your body with you, and that thing would have killed him, and all of us would have died shortly after. What Morgana did was horrifying—I won’t deny that, even if I did give her the idea—but it is the only reason all of us are still here, able to have this conversation.”
Gwen sets her jaw, glaring at me, but there is no argument she can make. She knows I’m right, though she would rather die than admit it. Instead, she stalks toward Arthur’s bedside, reaching a hand out to him.
“Don’t,” I snap before she can touch him. To my surprise, she stops short, though her hand is still extended out, fingertips inches from Arthur’s forehead.
“There’s no time to waste,” she says.
“He needs to rest.”
“We need a next step. This isn’t over yet, and with the power of Lyonesse in flux, it is a more dangerous place than ever.”
“But you have power over Lyonesse,” I point out.
She laughs, shaking her head. “I might have,” she says through clenched teeth. “But there is only one way to hold power here, and I lost it the second I forfeited in combat.”
“You didn’t—”
“I did,” she says, each word pointed. “It might not have been a traditional outcome, but there was a clear winner and a clear loser in that battle, and it is very clear which side I fell on. My court will never forgive or forget that, and so I doubt they will be my court for much longer. If you want this treaty to hold, we need to act quickly.”
She doesn’t give me a chance to protest, though she does look remorseful for an instant before she presses the pad of her thumb to Arthur’s forehead, drawing him out of his deep sleep with a wrenching cry of pain that I feel in my bones.
“Shhh,” Gwen says, moving her hand to his cheek.
“Gwen?” he asks, voice anguished. “What’s—”
“This is going to hurt,” she tells him before closing her eyes and letting magic flow through her fingertips, into him.
Arthur’s body goes stiff and he hisses in agony, and though he doesn’t scream or cry out, I know he wants to. Healing is one of the few intersections of Morgana’s and Gwen’s powers, though it is different for each of them. Morgana’s way is easier, a mending of bones and muscle and skin, each piece inanimate on its own, but Gwen’s way is to control the living pieces, to use a person’s life, their blood, their pain. I remember her healing a twisted ankle for me once, how I felt like every inch of my body was swallowed up by pain. I’m sure whatever Arthur is feeling is worse.
It is over as quickly as it came about, and when Gwen steps back, Arthur collapses against the pillows, breathing heavily. Slowly, he removes the bandages from the right side of his face, his left arm now able to move without pain. When the bandages come off, the skin of his face is smooth once more, as if the earlier fight never happened at all.
“I suppose I ought to thank you,” he says to Gwen, watching her warily, like she might attack him again at any moment.
She sees this and looks away. “There’s no need,” she says. “You must be afraid of me now.”
At that, Arthur laughs, sitting up straighter in bed. “I’ve always been a bit afraid of you, Gwen,” he says. “Nothing’s changed in that regard.”
Her eyes snap back to him. “You don’t hate me,” she says slowly.
He frowns. “There’s nothing you did that I wouldn’t have done in your place,” he says. “Well, maybe that’s not true. But I believe that’s more my failing than yours. We were both trying to do what was best for our people.”
And so was Morgana, I want to say, but I hold my tongue. The difference is that all of Morgana’s people are here in this room.
Gwen says nothing for a moment. Instead, she sits down at the edge of the bed, looking down at her hands, the dirt crescents beneath her fingernails, the dried blood spattered against her pale skin, nearly indistinguishable from her freckles in this light.
“I had thought that when you saw me for what I was you would hate me,” she says, her voice thread thin. “It was part of why I wanted you to leave so badly, so that it wouldn’t come to this and you could always remember me as I was on Avalon.”
Arthur starts to reach his hand toward hers but pauses halfway. “There is little difference to me,” he says after a moment. “Who you are is who you have always been. My feelings for you haven’t changed. I can’t imagine they ever will.”
“Then you would still have me?” she asks quietly. “A monster for a wife, a heathen for a queen?”
Arthur doesn’t move for a moment. “I . . .”
“We should give you two some space,” I say, placing a hand on Lancelot’s arm to lead him away, but Gwen shakes her head.
“Not much of a point in that,” she says with a sigh, her eyes still on Arthur. “Little of our lives together will be private from here on out, after all, and this does concern you.”
She has a point there, but it still feels like such a private moment between them that it’s uncomfortable to stand there, waiting for Arthur’s answer. Beside me, Lancelot shifts his weight from foot to foot.
“I would have you, Gwen, in all of your iterations, if I thought it would make you happy. But we both know it wouldn’t.”
“You do make me happy,” she says quietly.
“I do, maybe,” he says, shaking his head. “But Camelot wouldn’t. The court there wouldn’t. That crown is a different one entirely from the one here. You would hate it, and you would hate me, too, eventually.”
“You’re wrong,” she says, and in that instant, her eyes do find mine, and I remember what we discussed our first night here. We could change Camelot, I told her, and she truly means to try. “And beyond that, I can’t remain here. They will dethrone me before the moon is full again in the sky, I’m sure of it. The only hope for our alliance is if I join you in Camelot as your queen and we rule Lyonesse remotely.”
“Will the alliance hold when we are gone?” I ask.
Gwen considers it for a second and nods. “Your demand for Lyonessian children was a smart one, using them as hostages.”
“They’ll be treated well,” I say quickly, but Gwen waves that away.
“Of course they will be, I’ll see to that myself if I have to. But it was a smart move. I have an uncle who can act as regent in our stead, and I’ve been assured he will honor the alliance. He won’t have a hard time of it, what with Morgana’s threats. Even when she’s gone, they will know that she can return. She’ll haunt their nightmares.”
“Not just hers,” Lancelot says qui
etly. “You saw the knights, how they looked at her.”
“She’s made herself a villain in this story,” I agree. “Even if she wasn’t.”
Gwen scoffs like she might argue that point, but after a moment she decides to hold her tongue.
“After what she did, she cannot make a life in Camelot,” Gwen says. “You know that as well as I do, Elaine. Better, even. You’ve seen their cruelty firsthand. I’ve only heard stories of it.”
“We’ll have to keep her close,” I say.
“Close,” Gwen presses. “Or very, very far.”
She wants to banish Morgana, I realize. Send her far away, and not for entirely selfless reasons. Of course she wouldn’t want to look at Morgana every day—how could she without seeing her father’s death again and again?
“We need Morgana,” I say, my voice firm.
“Elaine,” she starts, but I shake my head.
“It was my decision too—I gave her the idea,” I say. “If you want to banish her, banish me as well. But you need both of us, and you know it. I’m not saying you have to forgive her, Gwen, and I’m certain she hasn’t forgiven you, either, but banishment isn’t the answer.”
Gwen’s jaw clenches, and she looks away.
“What would you have us do, then?” Arthur asks softly. “You’ve orchestrated this so far, Elaine. How does it end?”
I expect venom in his voice, or at least some measure of blame, but he asks the question simply.
“Gwen is right,” I say, shrugging my shoulders. Already, I can see how this will play out without even visions to guide me. “Your men saw what she did, they’ll understand what she’s capable of. As soon as we return, they’ll tell their families, their friends, their neighbors. And as great and terrible as her powers are, the rumors of them will only grow wilder. Your people will fear her and turn on her, and if she is standing at your side, they will turn on you as well.”
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