Half Sick of Shadows

by Laura Sebastian

  My strength comes back in a wave, rushing through me and making my skin buzz.

  We did it.

  Euphoria swims through my mind, making me dizzy and giddy even as Lancelot and I hold Gwen between us. She comes to, blinking wildly, and when she sees Arthur holding Excalibur, she smiles.

  “It worked,” she says, as if she can’t quite believe it herself.

  I squeeze her shoulder.

  “It worked,” I tell her. “We made a king.”

  44

  THE GOLDEN CROWN hangs down low around Arthur’s brow, still a touch too big. It makes him look even younger than his twenty-three years, like a child playing dress-up in his father’s clothes. It isn’t just the crown that gives that impression. He stands awkwardly on the dais of the throne room, fidgeting. In all the times we’ve rehearsed this speech, he was never sure what to do with his hands—no matter how many times I’ve told him to keep them still by his side, to hide his nerves. His russet hair sticks up in places, though five minutes before he stepped out onto the dais, I smoothed it down myself. I shouldn’t have bothered—Arthur’s hair never lies flat for more than a few minutes at a time—but I wanted him to look the part of a king.

  Hundreds of courtiers have packed themselves into the humid, hot throne room to see him crowned today, hundreds of pairs of eyes dissecting him from head to toe—not just from Camelot but from all over Albion—each of them noticing every wrinkle in his suit, every bead of sweat forming on his forehead. He must feel each judgmental thought, each ill wish, but he doesn’t cower beneath them, which is more than I might have managed in his place.

  His eyes flicker around the room, landing briefly on me. I give him a nod and a smile of encouragement, but it doesn’t do much to help. He still looks like he’s going to be sick.

  “If he passes out onstage, do I have to carry him out?” Lancelot asks from where he stands on my left.

  I want to tell him not to be ridiculous, that of course Arthur won’t pass out. But as soon as I think it, Arthur sways on his feet slightly, and though it might be the sunlight flickering through the stained glass windows, I think he actually turns a bit green.

  “Yes,” I tell him, not looking away from Arthur. “But you won’t carry him carry him, Lance. Let him lean on you and make it look like he’s holding himself up. He can’t look weak, or that’s how he’ll always be remembered. Arthur Pendragon, the king who fainted as soon as the crown was placed on his head.”

  Sweat is beginning to show under Arthur’s arms, staining the red velvet crimson, but Gwen is at his side, resplendent and confident enough to make him brighter by merely standing in her presence.

  “Repeat after me,” Merlin says. “‘I, Arthur Pendragon, first of my name, vow to protect Camelot and Albion against all threats from both outside its borders and within them. I vow to reign fairly and justly. I vow to take care of all of my people, until my reign ends when I take my last breath.’”

  Arthur repeats the words. His voice is loud but gentle as it weaves its own kind of spell around the courtiers gathered, making them forget all the petty, vain ways they think he’s lacking as a king. No one could look at Arthur now and think him gawky or sloppy; no one would dare call him awkward. He has proven himself his father’s son and then some, a uniter of kingdoms and a true king fit to rule over all of them. As soon as he starts speaking, he has them captive, in the thrall of his charisma.

  I have my Sight. Gwen and Morgana had their magic. Lancelot has his agility and speed and strength. But Arthur—Arthur is the only one of us who is human through and through. This charisma is natural, yes, but also carefully cultivated and practiced. I can’t imagine I will ever see anyone hold a crowd like he does now. It is, I think, its own kind of magic.

  “I wish Morgana was here to see him,” Lancelot says to me, the words like a punch. Try as I might, I can’t get her voice out of my head. Over and over again, I hear her asking me where my line is.

  “Me too,” I tell Lancelot, which I find is true enough. Though our conversation haunts me, she should be here. She should see this. She should witness what she has given him. Maybe she would even be happy to see it, though I doubt it. One day, maybe, she will look on Arthur and smile, but that day is a long way away.

  45

  HOW LONG DO you think it will be?” Gwen asks me when the coronation is done and the crowd descends on Arthur, full of flattery and congratulations. Even Gwen is quickly forgotten in the crush, the target of appraising smiles and lecherous leers, but none of the respect Arthur has commanded. She slipped away easily, finding Lancelot and me on the edge of the fray.

  “Until what?” I ask her, tearing my gaze away from Arthur to look at her.

  She blinks, her forehead furrowing. “Until the truce with Avalon,” she says slowly. “You know, the whole point of this,” she adds, gesturing to Arthur. “How long until magic is no longer banned, until Morgana and I get ours back?”

  I bite my lip, thinking about my conversation with Merlin, how giving back their magic may require a higher price than I’m willing to pay. “I didn’t realize you missed yours so much,” I say carefully. Merlin’s words have been swirling through my mind ever since our talk, and though I feel his gaze on me even now, I can’t bring myself to meet it. I’m no closer now to an answer than I was when he suggested I give up my magic as well, that I consign all three of us to powerless lives.

  Happy lives, though, a voice whispers through my mind. At least, happier than the misery Nimue has herded you toward.

  Gwen shrugs her shoulders but doesn’t look at me. “I didn’t miss it at first,” she admits. “But being here, it feels like I’m sealed away from everything I love—most of what I loved, at least. There’s no sunshine, no fresh air except the occasional stroll through a minuscule garden. I haven’t been able to go riding since we arrived, and when I asked my maid where I might procure a bow and arrow, she laughed. Like I’d made a joke.”

  “She likely thought you did,” I say. “Ladies don’t partake in archery, Gwen. I told you that.”

  “You also told me we would change things,” she says.

  That was before, I want to say. That was when Morgana was still here and I thought we had a chance at happiness.

  “Not all at once,” I say instead, trying on a smile that doesn’t quite fit.

  “But the treaty with Avalon?” she presses. “Surely that will be Arthur’s first act now that he’s king. And maybe when Morgana has her magic back . . .” She trails off, unable to finish the thought.

  I glance at her, eyebrows raised. “And here I thought you’d sworn to never forgive her,” I say. “I suppose I should have known better—you always forgive each other.”

  But will you forgive me? If I can’t give your magic back? If I give up my own as well? Will you forgive me if I don’t, if you end up sealed away in a convent for the rest of your days? Will I forgive you?

  “We just need to give it time,” I tell her, pushing those thoughts aside.

  She exhales slowly, a sound I’m familiar with, one that’s usually followed by an outburst, by a string of cruel words she never really means, by a stomping foot or a slamming door or some other tempestuous tantrum. Not this time, though. This time, she lets out that long, loud exhale and seems to deflate before my eyes, her shoulders slumping forward and her head falling.

  “If you say so, Elaine,” she says.

  She drifts off into the crowd, making her way back toward Arthur, and when we’re alone again, Lancelot reaches out, his hand touching the small of my back. He doesn’t say anything, though I’m sure he has more than a few questions.

  “What would you think of a world without magic?” I ask him softly. “Hypothetically. If Arthur didn’t align us with Avalon. If I couldn’t release Morgana’s and Gwen’s power?”

  He frowns, but it isn’t in anger. He’s truly considering the question,
as if it is truly hypothetical and I am not talking about barring him from his home, from his mother.

  “I don’t think you would be asking me if it weren’t something you saw the appeal of,” he says finally. “I’d imagine this isn’t Nimue’s idea.”

  “No,” I agree. “Nimue seeks the union of Avalon and Albion—she’s been working toward that end since before any of us were born. But I have reason to believe that she doesn’t have our best interests at heart.”

  He doesn’t appear surprised by the revelation, though I suppose he wouldn’t be. He understands the fey better than anyone.

  “And does Merlin?” he asks. I must look confused, because he smiles. “You went to speak with him before Arthur pulled the sword from the stone, and you’ve been quiet ever since. It doesn’t take any kind of brilliance to connect the two, merely someone who pays attention to you.”

  “I’m not entirely sure what Merlin’s intentions are, except that he wants to keep the humans and fey separate. I’m not sure that’s for the best, though.”

  He considers this, his mouth drawn into a thin line. “Do you remember what I told you once, about the fey?”

  “You will have to be more specific,” I say. “You’ve said many things about the fey over the years.”

  “About the life spans,” he clarifies. “The main difference between the fey and humans.” When I nod, he continues. “Maybe Merlin isn’t one of the fey, maybe he is. I haven’t the slightest idea. But I do know that he’s immortal. He and Nimue see the world the same way, at such a distance that the rest of us are little more than pieces on a board game.”

  I let out a slow breath, shaking my head. “I am growing tired of playing a game I don’t understand the rules of,” I tell him. “I don’t even know whose side I’m meant to be on. Nimue’s or Merlin’s, the humans’ or the fey’s.”

  He considers this for a moment. “Why are those the only two options?” he asks.

  * * *

  THAT NIGHT, I don’t dream of the future. Instead, I find my mother again, standing by the same river as before, the same river where just days ago I married Lancelot, but now the river is not peaceful. It is a wildly churning thing, and as I step toward it, I feel my own heart thunder in my chest.

  “There you are, Little Lily,” my mother says, like she’s been waiting for me.

  I push away my fear and come to stand at her side. After a moment, she tears her gaze from the waves and focuses on me instead, her eyes darting over my face as if she is charting a map.

  “I wondered, before, what would be left of you when those you loved chipped away their pieces,” she says, her cold fingers coming up to graze my cheek. I struggle not to flinch away from her touch, but also not to lean into it. “Tell me, have you discovered the answer?”

  I close my eyes, as if blocking my sight will block out her truth, but it doesn’t work. I feel it in my bones, a deep, aching knowledge that will not leave me anytime soon.

  “I thought that Morgana made me,” I say after a moment. “That she shaped me into something stronger, bolder, more powerful. And I suppose she did. So did Gwen—Gwen made me brave. Not fearless, never fearless, but braver than I ever thought I could be. You made me too. You bent me and broke me and made me a shadow of myself, until I was so afraid of everything and everyone that I didn’t dare want anything at all.”

  I open my eyes again, to see if the words hurt her, but if they do, she doesn’t show it. She wouldn’t, I suppose. After all, she is not my mother, just the shadow of her that lives deep in my own mind, the ghost I can’t get rid of.

  “You all made me,” I say. “And you’ve all hurt me, or you will. So what is left when those pieces are stripped away?”

  I take a deep, steadying breath. The smell of the river is a comfort, the fresh air, the trees. For the first time in my memory, I feel entirely at peace.

  “I’m left,” I tell her. “Me. Everything I am, everything I’ve made myself. Maybe you have all shaped me, molded me like a vase, but when all is said and done, when everyone has chipped away their pieces, I will not break.”

  My mother watches me for a moment, and then she nods once, a small smile coming to her lips.

  “Where is your line, Elaine?” she asks me, but her voice is no longer hers. It is Morgana’s, and this time, I know what the answer is.

  I don’t give it to her, though. Instead I step into the rushing river and let the tide carry me away.

  46

  WHEN I WAKE, the moon is still high in the sky, and Lancelot’s arm is flung over my waist, heavy and warm. In the quiet of the night, I’m aware of his heart beating where his chest presses against my back. I turn, rolling over so that I’m facing him. Though I try to move carefully, he still stirs, his eyes slitting open.

  “It’s not morning yet,” he says, rolling onto his back and pulling me with him so I’m curled against him, my head on his chest. He sputters, bringing his other hand up to his face, brushing my hair down over my shoulders.

  “Your hair got in my mouth,” he says, and I laugh, even though doing so hurts something deep within me. It’s such a normal moment. The easy kind, as if we have thousands of moments like this ahead of us. Because he believes we do.

  I know what must be done now. He was right earlier; it is not about choosing between Nimue’s plan for me and Merlin’s, it has never truly been about either of them. But I can’t bring myself to get up just yet. I can’t make myself say goodbye.

  It’s not goodbye, I think. I’ll see him again, at least once more. Nimue said his death was unavoidable, no matter what came, but now I know that when I see him again on that day, I will be the one apologizing.

  “I love you,” I tell him.

  “Hmmm?” he says, already drifting back to sleep. “I should hope so, you did marry me, after all.”

  He believes it easily tonight, but when morning comes, he will doubt it. And there is nothing I can do to prevent that, to convince him that I am saving him, too, in a way. And I don’t want to taint this last moment by trying.

  Instead, I lift my head and kiss him, soft and slow. After a second of waking up, he kisses me back, his hand coming up to cradle my head. When he pulls away, his eyes scan my face.

  “Everything alright?” he asks.

  I smile. It isn’t even forced. I smile because being here, with him, makes me happy, and for once that is a simple thing.

  “Everything’s fine,” I say. Not a lie. “Just thirsty. I’ll be back.”

  I slip out of his arms and out of the bed, and as I make my way to the door, I hear him roll over again, burrowing back into the pillow and reaching for sleep.

  “We’ve got to start keeping a bedside pitcher for you,” he says, already halfway to sleep again. “You’re always thirsty.”

  I pause by the door and turn, just to look at him once more. The moonlight pouring through the window sharpens the angles of his face, making him look more fay than ever.

  Get back in bed, a voice whispers. It’s not too late.

  But my mother’s prophecy comes back to me, and the last line lingers: She’ll break them both and then she’ll die. I’ve been so worried about the first two parts, of Gwen’s and Morgana’s terrible acts to come, that I didn’t realize that last part of it had already happened.

  I’d broken Morgana and Gwen. Not intentionally, not maliciously, but I broke them all the same. But broken things can be put back together, and I know exactly where to start.

  I know where my line is now. I’ve crossed it once, and I will not cross it again.

  * * *

  ARTHUR IS STILL awake, which doesn’t surprise me. He sits in his study, still dressed in his coronation outfit, but now the jacket is undone and draped over the back of his chair, his hair mussed from his hands anxiously running through it. He is quite a spectacle from where I stand in the doorway.

&nb
sp; The king that I made.

  The king who, in many ways, made me too.

  He looks up, and when he sees me, his eyes brighten.

  “Hello,” he says. “I thought you’d be long asleep. Maiden, Mother, and Crone know I should get to bed, too, but . . .”

  He trails off, his eyes dancing over me, taking in the fact that I am not in my nightgown, not in my gown from earlier either. Now, I wear the simple cotton frock I wore when we arrived from Avalon, with a blue velvet cape over it.

  “Are you going somewhere?” he asks, frowning. “At this hour? I know your father wanted you to visit Shalott, but surely—”

  “I’m going back to Avalon,” I tell him before he can finish.

  For a moment, he just stares at me.

  “You want to see if Morgana is safe,” he says slowly.

  I shake my head. “I’m not worried about Morgana’s safety—I pity the creature that tries to cause her any kind of harm, magic or no.”

  He wavers, and I can practically see his thoughts working behind his eyes, trying to make sense of what is right before him.

  “You’ll come back, though,” he says, his voice lowering.

  “No,” I say. “I won’t.”

  Arthur scrambles to his feet, coming around his great desk to stand before me, his hands taking hold of my shoulders.

  “You can’t leave, too, El,” he says. “I need you. There’s the treaty with the fey to forge, and I’m not foolish enough to believe Lyonesse will stay docile for long. And then there’s Mordred . . .”

  There is a rawness to his voice that breaks my heart, but I hold steady, taking his hands in mine and squeezing them tight.

  “You are king now,” I tell him. “We’ve gotten you this far, Arthur, put you on this throne. But you are king now, and that is something you have to do yourself. You’ll be brilliant at it.”