Half Sick of Shadows

by Laura Sebastian

  He flips back a few pages and nods. It gives me some comfort to see his own hesitation. Petty as it feels, I want this to hurt him. I want him to know exactly what his sister and his wife are sacrificing for him.

  “And they caught you up on their agreement?” I ask.

  Again, Arthur nods. “It’s a fair agreement,” he says, but it isn’t his usual Arthur voice—it’s his future king voice, the one usually reserved for meetings and proclamations and speeches, not for friends.

  Morgana gives a loud snort. “Nothing about this is fair,” she says. “Let’s get it over with before I change my mind.”

  I’m not entirely sure she’s joking.

  “What do you need from me?” I ask.

  “It’s big magic, these bindings,” Morgana says. “Not as big as the moon, but more than either of us are capable of on our own. I’ve gone over the specifics of how I took power from you with Gwen—it didn’t have any lasting consequences, did it?”

  I shake my head. “I was exhausted afterward, but after a good night’s sleep I was fine.”

  “Good,” Gwen says. “This won’t be as bad as that, but we’ll make sure you get your rest afterward.”

  “Luckily we’re already in your room,” Morgana adds with a wry smile that doesn’t quite manage to hide the tension lurking underneath. “Once it’s done, we’ll get you tucked into bed, snug as a bug.”

  I shouldn’t laugh, but I can’t help it. That seems to have been Morgana’s goal, because she looks quite pleased with herself.

  “Arthur, Lance, you’ll want to stand back. Whatever you do, don’t interrupt the spells—this kind of magic might be painful, we might fight it, but if the spell is interrupted, it might not ever be able to be undone.”

  Arthur looks green at that, but he nods once, passing the open book to Morgana and joining Lancelot on the far side of the room.

  Gwen loops the rope around her wrist and Morgana’s, binding them together before Morgana uses her unbound hand to take mine, pressing our palms flush together.

  It shouldn’t be easy, the spell to bind Gwen’s magic. It is a spell that alters her body, her mind, and her soul—alters the very marrow of what makes Gwen who she is. It should be complicated. But it isn’t. In the end, when I’ve felt Morgana’s power mingle with mine and the smell of jasmine and oranges floods the air around us, the only reaction from Gwen is a small gasp of air, like she’s stubbed her toe or realized she forgot to pull the kettle from the fire. And then it is over.

  “Did it work?” Arthur asks.

  Gwen’s brow is furrowed, but she nods. She looks like a child who suddenly finds herself lost in a vast and unfamiliar forest. “I . . . yes. Yes, it did. I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel it.”

  “You’ll get it back,” Morgana reminds her, but Gwen waves the words away.

  “I know that and it’s fine, really. It didn’t hurt as much as I thought.”

  I know that she’s lying, and the others must as well. Gwen unties the rope, freeing her wrist from Morgana’s. Without a word, Arthur reaches out a hand to her and she takes it, like a drowning woman grabbing hold of a raft. She lets him pull her to his side, his arm going around her shoulders. Like a brace, or perhaps a vise. It is difficult to say which.

  “El,” Morgana says, her hands going beneath my arms to keep me from falling. I realize a second too late that I’m dizzy, that I was a mere second from collapsing to the ground. I shake my head and force a smile.

  “I’m fine,” I say, stepping out of her grip and taking hold of her hand once more. This time, she uses the rope to bind our hands together. By the time she’s done, my dizziness has gone, leaving behind a ghost of a headache.

  “We can take a break,” Lancelot says. “Give you a second to rest.”

  “I’d rather not,” I say, shaking my head though I give him a small smile. “Better to get it over with quickly, I think.”

  “If you’re sure,” Morgana says.

  “I am,” I say, and I think it’s the truth right up until Morgana begins drawing on my magic for her spell. Once it begins, I am not sure of anything at all.

  Jasmine and oranges flood the room again, but now there is something else added—the scent of Gwen’s magic: grass after a rainstorm and crushed rosemary leaves. The mix of fragrances is heavy and cloying and so overwhelming I feel like I might be sick with it.

  Morgana doesn’t gasp. She doesn’t make any sound at all. Her eyes stay locked on mine the entire time, a single tear tracing its way down her cheek.

  When it’s done and Morgana pulls the rope’s knot free, my lungs are greedy for the fresh air. I swallow down breaths of it like it will never be enough, like I could gorge on the air around me. My head swims and blurs until I can no longer remember where I am or how I got here. All I know are the hands at my back, on my arms, arms scooping me up and carrying me, setting me down on a soft bed, tucking the quilt up to my chin.

  I hear voices dimly, a murmur more than words. But as the world around me fades to black, I hear Morgana’s voice, quiet and fragile.

  “I can’t feel it anymore,” she whispers. “It’s gone. It’s really gone.”

  * * *

  I COME TO CONSCIOUSNESS again when the sun is just starting to rise in the sky, the light coming through my window a yellow so pale and soft that it takes me a moment to remember where I am and what happened last night. It takes me a moment longer to realize that I’m not alone.

  Morgana lies on one side of me, Gwen on the other, and neither of them are sleeping.

  I sit up slowly, waiting for the stabbing headache to return, but now there is only a dull thud.

  “Elaine?” Morgana asks, sitting up with me, a beat before Gwen does the same.

  “Are you alright?” Gwen asks.

  “I’m fine, I promise,” I say, looking at Morgana. “How are you?” I ask her.

  She opens her mouth but quickly closes it again, and I can see her weighing her answer, weighing just how much she wants to lie to me.

  “That bad?” I ask her.

  She sinks back into the pillows and stares up at the ceiling.

  “Do you remember on Avalon when we had to hollow out those gourds to make lanterns for the solstice?” she asks after a moment. “We spooned out all of their seeds and guts and carved holes into them so that candlelight could shine through from within?”

  “I remember,” I say. On my other side, Gwen is silent, but I feel her presence, her nimble fingers picking at the edge of the quilt.

  “It doesn’t feel like that, exactly,” she says. “Like my insides have been scooped out. I think that’s what I expected. It’s like . . . like after the solstice, when the candles were extinguished and the gourds began to rot. That’s what I feel like—like there’s nothing inside me anymore, no guts, no lights, no seeds, nothing but rot and decay.”

  “It’s temporary,” I say again, reaching for her hand. She doesn’t pull away from me, but she doesn’t hold me back either. Instead her hand is limp in mine. “And it was for your own good too. One slip, Morgana, and they’d have killed you.”

  For a long moment, Morgana doesn’t say anything, but when she does speak, her voice is hollow, just like those gourds we carved up a lifetime ago.

  “I think I’d have preferred that,” she says finally. Then she places my hand back in my own lap and climbs out of bed. “I’ll let Arthur and Lance know you’re alright—they were worried, but it wouldn’t do for them to be caught here.”

  I didn’t think there was anything worse than Morgana’s voice in my visions, the hard-edged rasp, laced with fury and hatred. I was wrong. The way Morgana speaks now isn’t hard—there is no feeling to it at all. It is like talking to someone who is still half-asleep.

  She slips out of the room without another word, closing the door firmly behind her.

  “And yo
u?” I ask Gwen, already fearing the answer. “Do you feel rotten as well?”

  Gwen doesn’t answer right away. “I don’t share Morgana’s flair for the dramatic,” she says finally. “Nor do I share her connection to her power. Don’t misunderstand me—I love my magic and I do feel the loss of it keenly, but it’s nothing like how I felt when I decided to leave Lyonesse.”

  I swallow. Somehow, that answer is even worse. Morgana and Gwen will get their magic back someday, but Gwen will never return home.

  “I’m no oracle,” she says a moment later, her own voice exhausted and wary. “But I haven’t been able to sleep all night. I keep thinking . . . I keep thinking that this was a mistake.”

  I roll over to face her, drawing the quilt up to my chin.

  “The thing I learned from my training on Avalon is that there are few good choices,” I tell her quietly. “There were no good choices here, Gwen. We made the only choice we could live with. Maybe it was a bad one, but all we can do now is make the best of it.”

  “How?” she asks.

  I swallow and force a smile. “By sticking to the plan,” I tell her. “We get Arthur on the throne, seal the treaty with Avalon. And the instant magic is no longer outlawed, I give you your magic back.”

  Gwen looks like she wants to argue, but after a moment she nods. “Then we’ll stick to the plan,” she says.

  * * *

  MORGANA, DON’T DO this, please.”

  The voice isn’t mine, but it will be one day, panicked and desperate and frightened. The small room will be made from shadow and stone, lit only by a few scattered candles, burning down to little more than puddles of wax. In the dim light, the pupils of Morgana’s eyes will be huge, making her look manic as she flits around her room, pulling bottles down from their shelves and uncorking them to sniff or pinch or dump completely into the bubbling cauldron. Her ink-black hair will be unbound and wild, following her around like a storm cloud. Whenever a piece of it drifts into her face, she will blow it away in an annoyed huff, but that will be the only sound she makes. She won’t speak to me. She won’t even look at me.

  Cold air will bite at my skin, the smell of sulfur seeping into the air from the potion brewing. Without a word, I know that whatever potion Morgana is brewing isn’t only dangerous, it’s lethal.

  “Morgana,” I will try again, my voice cracking over her name. Still, she won’t acknowledge me. Not until I touch her shoulder. She will flinch away, but at least she will look at me, violet eyes hard and distant even when they meet mine.

  She will not be the Morgana I know now, the Morgana who was my first friend, who has stood by my side unfalteringly since I was thirteen years old.

  “This cannot stand, Elaine.” Her voice will be calm and resolved, at odds with the chaos in her body, the storm in her expression. “The things Arthur has done—”

  “He has done what he believes best.” It’s a line that will feel familiar on my tongue, like I have spoken it many times. I will believe the words with every part of me.

  Morgana will pull away from me, making a sound that is half-laugh and half-sob.

  “Then you think Arthur a fool, Elaine? You think he didn’t know exactly what he was doing? What is worse—to have a foolish king or a cruel one?”

  Her eyes on mine will burn until I have to look away, unable to defend Arthur for the first time in my life.

  “Which do you think it was?” she will continue, and I realize the question isn’t rhetorical. She will want an answer. “Is he stupidly noble, or is there a conniving side under all of that quiet erudition?”

  “Arthur loves you,” I will say, because I won’t know what other answer to give. It will be one of the only true things I will know, but that doesn’t mean it makes her beliefs untrue. I don’t know how the two things can be unassailable facts, but somehow, they are.

  She will scoff and turn away from me, unstoppering a bottle and letting the shadow of a serpent slither out into the sizzling cauldron. It will die with a shriek that echoes in the silence between us.

  “And you?” I will ask her when I find my voice again. “He’s your brother, and I know you love him. How can you even consider doing this to him?”

  She will begin to turn away, but I will grab her hands in mine, holding tight and forcing her to look at me.

  “The boy you teased mercilessly when his voice began to change? The one who still turns red in the cheeks every time Gwen smiles at him? The one who has taken your side against every courtier in this palace who wanted you banished or worse? If you do this, Morgana, there is no coming back. I have Seen this path, I have Seen this moment, and I am begging you not to do it, not to break us into pieces that we will never be able to mend.”

  Her hands will go slack in mine, and she will falter. For an instant, she will look once more like the Morgana I have always known, her vulnerabilities like sunlight slatting through a boarded-up window.

  She will open her mouth to speak and—

  I’m prepared for the vision to end, as it always does, but this time is different. This time there is a breath, an inhale, an exhale, and then it continues.

  She will open her mouth to speak, and her voice will come out cold. “Would you take his side over mine?” she will ask quietly.

  “This is not about sides,” I will tell her. “You are talking about killing him. Arthur.”

  “Such loyalty.” She will pull her hands away, and her mouth will twist into a cruel, mocking smile. “How quickly you forget, Elaine. Without me, Arthur wouldn’t even know you exist. You certainly wouldn’t be his adviser. You would be home in Shalott just as mad as your mother, without any friends and a family that resents you. Without me, you wouldn’t have control of your power, or Nimue’s favor, or Lancelot’s love. Without me, you would be nothing. So I will ask you again: Whose side are you on?”

  Her words will be cruel, but they will be crueler still because they will be the truth. I will have thought them myself too many times to fault her for saying them once. No matter how far I will have come, I will always be the lonely girl in the tower. Without Morgana, I will always be nothing.

  “Yours,” I will say, because it is the only answer. “I am always on yours.”

  Her smile will become feral as she takes my hands again and pulls me toward the cauldron. It will not be a gesture of friendship or comfort, as I first thought. I will be able to feel magic tingling under the skin of my palms, unfamiliar but itching to be used. Once, I had to summon it, twisting out each drop like juice from a stubborn lemon, but more and more often it will always be there, always waiting to be called on. It should be a relief, but instead it will frighten me.

  “Then help me,” Morgana will say.

  The words themselves will be innocent, but there will also be a layer of venom beneath them that will sink beneath my skin. After all, she wouldn’t need my help if I hadn’t rendered her helpless. It will be a debt that will have grown wider between us no matter how I try to atone. What I did to her will be unforgivable. The familiar scent of rotten oranges and wilted jasmine in the air is reminder enough of that.

  But what she will ask me to do is unforgivable as well, isn’t it? Even with the vise of her friendship wrapped tight around me, I will know it. Even as the magic weeps from my skin and into the potion, turning it lethal, I will know it. Even when Morgana thanks me and embraces me and tells me we will go down in the legends as heroes, I will know it.

  I will know it and know what I must do, but that won’t make it any easier to betray Morgana a second time.

  * * *

  I SIT BACK AGAINST my pillows and look at the small tapestry set over my miniature loom. It is the first time I’ve tried to scry since I failed in Lyonesse, and I was afraid I would see more of Lancelot and Gwen’s betrayal, but this is worse.

  It is only the second time I have seen a vision expand, after the first on
e Nimue showed me in the Cave of Prophecies. Still, I remember what Nimue told me then, how she’d explained it. A choice had been made. A path forged. The world shifted beneath our feet.

  The last time it happened because Morgana brought me to Avalon, because she saved me.

  Now it’s happened because I couldn’t do the same for her.

  Gwen was right. The binding was a mistake. For a second, I contemplate breaking it now and unleashing their magic once more, but as tempting as that is, I also know that wouldn’t solve anything. The reasons for the binding are still there, still strong. And the alternatives are every bit as unbearable.

  No, Gwen might have been right, but I was as well. There is no turning back. We stick to the plan and work to undo Morgana’s binding as soon as we feasibly can. All I can do is hope that she isn’t too far gone by the time we get there.

  39

  THOUGH HE ONLY has a day to put together the tournament, my father manages it spectacularly. In addition to most of Arthur’s knights and my brothers—who won’t be competing for my hand but for their own pride and the land our father promised—there are five sons sent from the surrounding lands with haste. One suitor, Sir Pellinor, arrives mere minutes before the tournament begins.

  As the men line up before my father’s spectator box, where he and I are to sit with Arthur, Guinevere, Morgana, and the scant few knights who will not be competing, my father looks sideways at me, trying to gauge my reaction, though I am careful not to give him one.

  It is easy, in the crowd of hulking men, to lose Lancelot completely. I’d always thought him tall, which I suppose he is compared to Arthur and the rest of us, but many of these men are giants, with broad shoulders and arms thick with corded muscles. Beside them, Lancelot looks almost diminutive.

  “It isn’t too late,” my father says to me, a challenge in his eyes.

  Lancelot meets my gaze, his own nerves plain on his face. He nods once, expression grim but determined, and that is enough to anchor me.