He blinks. “A vision?” he asks.
“A truth,” I say. “From someone who knows you better than just about anyone. You have challenges, and I won’t pretend it will be easy, but I believe in you.”
Arthur swallows, glancing away from me before closing his eyes tight. “Tell Morgana I’m sorry,” he says when he looks at me again.
“Tell Lancelot the same for me,” I say.
He nods. “And . . . we’ll see each other again, won’t we? One day?”
There’s such hope in his voice that it feels like a vise tightening around my chest until I can scarcely breathe. I drop his hands and wrap my arms around him instead, holding him close.
“One day,” I say, hoping that day isn’t for a very long time. I pull back, fixing him with the brightest smile I can manage. “You are going to be a great king, Arthur. The greatest king. You don’t need me for that.”
I don’t think he believes me, not really, and I can’t blame him. I’ve grown so used to having him at my side—and Gwen, Morgana, and Lance as well—that I don’t know if I can stand on my own two feet. But I’ll have to. And so will Arthur.
He will fall. Nimue said as much. Another touchstone vision that will not change. Mordred will strike him and he will fall, it has been Seen. Nimue believes that he will need me if he hopes to recover, but I’m not so sure. I do know that I cannot sacrifice others to save him. If he is going to rise again, he will have to do it on his own.
So I kiss his cheek one last time and say goodbye.
* * *
GWEN FINDS ME in the stables, waiting for a horse to be saddled. She is in her nightgown with her feet bare and hair loose, looking so much like the Gwen I knew on Avalon that it makes my heart hurt. But I never saw Gwen cry on Avalon, and now there are silent tears tracing their way down her cheeks.
“You can’t leave,” she says when she sees me.
I knew she would come—not because of any visions but simply because it was impossible that she wouldn’t.
“I have to,” I tell her. “Before Morgana left, she said she found the line she wouldn’t cross, not even for Arthur’s sake. She wouldn’t give herself up.”
Gwen frowns, trying to make sense of the words. “And you don’t want to give yourself up either?” she asks.
I shake my head. “No, I think I would have done that without a second thought,” I say, not realizing until I say the words how true they are. I would have given myself for Arthur; I’m not sure I would have even thought it much of a sacrifice. “But Morgana asked me what my line was, and then tonight I realized that I’d already crossed it once, with her.”
Her frown deepens. “What do you—”
“My line is you. You and Morgana and Lance. I would do anything for Arthur, but I will not hurt the three of you, I will not sacrifice your lives, your choices, your happiness for him. I crossed that line once, when I insisted Morgana give up her powers—maybe I crossed it when I convinced you to leave Lyonesse—”
“You didn’t convince me,” she says, shaking her head. “I made my choice.”
“Maybe,” I allow. “But it was the wrong choice. And I should have told you as much, no matter the cost to Arthur. His happiness, his life, is not worth more than yours.”
Gwen blinks down at me, her expression perplexed.
“Arthur above all else,” she says softly. “It’s what Nimue always said.”
“I don’t care,” I tell her, realizing suddenly how true that is. “I will not sacrifice you for him.”
“You aren’t sacrificing me,” she says.
“Of course I am,” I tell her. “I started sacrificing you the second I convinced you to come to Camelot, to marry Arthur and take up the mantle of queen. I convinced you it would be different here, that you would find some kind of happiness. In my defense, I believed it then.”
For a long moment, Gwen doesn’t speak.
“And now?” she asks quietly.
I look her square in the eye. “You should return to Lyonesse,” I tell her. “Take your throne there, by force if needed—I know you have it in you. You can’t make change here, but you can make change there.”
She shakes her head. “I made vows to Arthur, I married him—”
“You returning to Lyonesse won’t invalidate your vows,” I say. “A four-day journey isn’t so much distance. There are couples with oceans between them.”
“Arthur won’t—”
“Arthur wants you to be happy,” I tell her. “And if you stay here, you won’t be. You will be miserable and angry, and you will take it out on him. If you stay here, you will both suffer.”
Gwen glances back over her shoulder, and though I can’t see much of her face, I still catch the longing there.
“I don’t want to leave him,” she tells me, turning back around.
“Neither do I,” I say. “Arthur or Lance. But I’ve found my line. And I think you’ve found yours too.”
47
GWEN AND I ride through the night in silence, the only sound the hooves of her horse beating against the ground, echoing the beating of my heart. I didn’t expect her to come with me tonight, but she’d made up her mind, and I know her too well to try to change it. She wants to see me to the lake before continuing on to Lyonesse, and I am grateful for her company.
I know, finally, what I have to do, what my whole life has been coming to. And more importantly, I know why.
Maybe I’ve always known. Maybe the truth has always been there, hidden beneath Nimue’s ominous words, hidden in my own visions, hidden in my recurring nightmare about drowning. Maybe I just couldn’t see it before because I didn’t want to.
I still don’t want to. I tighten my grip on Gwen’s waist, clinging to her warmth, her life, her humanity.
“We’re almost there,” she tells me, over her shoulder.
I don’t know if she means the words as a comfort or a warning, but I hear it as both, and I hold her tighter.
Nimue used to say that there was peace in knowing the future, but I have never felt that way. Knowing the future set me on edge, it made me act rashly, and I used it to drive wedges between myself and the people I loved. It did not bring me peace.
But going without my Sight, as Merlin wanted me to, wouldn’t bring me peace either. And if I can’t sacrifice what I asked Morgana and Gwen to, there is only one way to make things right.
Now, I understand what Nimue meant. There is peace in finally knowing what the world wants from me. There is peace in understanding the part I must play. I thought I would feel helpless, but instead purpose swells up in me. It is not a soothing thing, not a comfort of any kind, but Nimue was right: There is a sense of peace.
When we come to the shore, Gwen dismounts first before helping me down.
“How do you know they’ll let you back?” she asks. “I don’t see any boats.”
“No,” I say, but I don’t look at her. Instead, I stare out at the black water, the black sky—almost inseparable from each other in the dead of night. Somewhere out there is Avalon. Somewhere out there is Morgana, waiting for vengeance, maybe. Or perhaps waiting for forgiveness. Waiting for me, at any rate. “I don’t need a boat.”
I look to Gwen and take her hands in mine, squeezing them. “We’ll see each other again someday,” I tell her.
Arthur accepted the promise as a comfort, but it doesn’t give Gwen the same thing. She grips my hands so tightly I can feel my bones ache.
“There’s no boat, El,” she says again.
I smile and look at the water, its glittering waves churning wildly, though there is no storm, no wind. It looks hungry.
Gwen follows my gaze, takes in the lake with new eyes. Perhaps she is seeing what I see—the start of a vision so old it has always been a part of me.
“You can’t,” she says, her voice cracking. “Elaine,
that’s madness.”
It isn’t the first time I’ve been accused of madness, but it’s the first time there has been truth in the claim.
“Maybe it is,” I say, a laugh forcing its way out. “But it’s the only way. I know it somehow, deep in my bones. The same way I knew about Morgana’s magic. About the moon. I know it.”
“You’ll drown.”
As soon as she says the words, I hear it dawn on her—the truth of what I will be doing. What it will mean. How it will end.
“You’ll drown,” she says again. “That’s what you know. You’ve Seen it.”
I smile, even as tears sting my eyes. “Yes,” I tell her, because there is no way around it. I pull her close and wrap my arms around her as if I can imprint her on my memory that way, absorb a bit of her fearlessness into me. “I’ll drown, and when I do, my hold on your magic—on Morgana’s magic—will break. You will both have it back.”
“There must be another way,” Gwen says, shaking her head.
“There isn’t,” I say, my voice breaking. “I’ve fought fate for so long, Gwen. But there are some things I can’t avoid. This is where my destiny leads me. It’s where the Maiden, Mother, and Crone drew my path, and I am ready to follow it.”
Gwen places her hands on either side of my face, pressing her forehead against mine. “Please don’t go,” she whispers. “Please don’t leave me too.”
I wish that this moment could go on forever, that we could stay just like this, suspended in time, safe.
You were not raised to be safe, Nimue said to me once. You were raised to be heroes.
Part of me bristles at that—I never chose to be a hero. But then I remember that it isn’t entirely true. I did choose this path, just as I have chosen everything that led me to this moment. I chose Morgana, I chose Avalon, I chose Arthur and Lancelot and Gwen. I chose this, and I would choose it all again.
So I pull away from Gwen.
“I’ll never leave you,” I tell her softly. “Take care of Arthur and Lancelot. And take care of yourself, and your people. Alright?”
For an instant, I think Gwen might protest. Her hands are so tight around mine that I don’t think I could wrest them from her grip if it came to it. She is stronger than me, after all. But after a moment, she nods, lips pressed into a tight line.
“And you . . .” She trails off, swallowing. “Wherever you go, if you see Morgana there . . . you’ll tell her I’m sorry, won’t you? For everything.”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak, and she lets go of my hands.
My feet feel like lead as I step toward the shore, leaving my shoes behind one by one. When my bare feet touch wet sand, I stop and strip off my dress, leaving it in a puddle of white cotton. Next, I strip off my petticoat, my corset, my chemise, my stockings, until I am standing before the lake in nothing but my skin.
Though I can hear Gwen crying behind me, I don’t turn back. If I even look over my shoulder, I will falter. I will change my mind. Instead, I put one foot in front of the other and step into the lake.
The water is like ice against my skin, but I barely feel it.
I’m up to my waist before the current takes hold. It wraps itself around my legs like fingers, pulling me farther in, tugging me down below the surface. That final breath before the water closes over my head tastes like honey and smoke. It tastes like change.
48
I DIE DROWNING—JUST AS it has always been known.
The water is cold against my skin. It rushes around me like a storm, tearing my hair in different directions until it clouds my vision. I can’t see a thing. I want to kick up to the surface, to breathe the air I know is only a few meters away, but I stay frozen and sink lower and lower in my whirlpool until my feet finally touch soft sand. My eyes close, and everything around me will fade to darkness.
My lungs burn, burn, burn, until I fear they are going to burst. The surface is so close, I know I could reach it if I just kick up . . . but I don’t. I don’t want to.
Elaine Astolat, the Lady of Shalott, dies drowning. When she does, it is a choice.
49
IN THE DARK nothingness, Nimue waits for me. I can’t bring myself to be surprised.
For her part, she is surprised, staring at me like I am a specter she summoned from her darkest nightmares, but after a moment, that passes and she lets out a sigh. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a sound so full of bone-deep exhaustion before, but then, I suppose Nimue has been working longer and harder than anyone else I’ve ever known.
“I should have known it would be you,” she says before pausing. “This won’t change everything, you know.”
“I know,” I say. “Arthur will still fall on that field. He may not rise again.”
“He won’t,” Nimue says. “Not without you.”
My stomach twists at the thought of it, the images I’ve Seen of him dying, but I force myself to nod.
“I would give anything to save him,” I tell her. “But some things are not mine to give.”
She tilts her head to one side, watching me with guileless gray eyes.
“You must think me a monster,” she says softly. “Raising children like goats to the slaughter.”
“I think you loved us as much as you could,” I tell her. “But it wasn’t enough. The world may still plunge into darkness. Everything we’ve foretold may still come to pass. But you said yourself, that future narrowed when I arrived. Now I’ve removed myself from their story.”
For a moment, Nimue only stares at me. Then she laughs.
“Oh, child,” she says. “Is that what you think you’ve done?”
She comes toward me—though how I don’t know. There are no steps—there is no ground at all; there is only nothingness. But then she is mere inches away from me, her hands clasping mine.
“You are not removed from their story, Elaine,” she says to me quietly. “You are, more than ever, thoroughly enmeshed.”
She turns my hands palm up and unfurls my fingers. I watch her, feeling far away from my own body. These are not my hands, I think. I am not even seeing them with my own eyes. I’m so distracted that it takes me a second to realize what she’s trying to show me.
My palms—and they are mine—are smooth, free of any lines, just as hers are.
See, there’s your life line, Morgana told me once when we were bored after lessons. She traced the line with her fingertip. And there’s your heart line. Your head line. Your soul line.
But now there are no lines at all. And Nimue’s hands, always cold as midwinter snow, no longer feel cold to me.
Before I can speak, Nimue folds my hands up once again and looks at me with a small smile.
“May I be the first to welcome the new Lady of the Lake,” she says softly.
“But I’m not . . .” I trail off, shaking my head. Because of course I am. Suddenly it seems ludicrous that anything else would happen. Haven’t I Seen myself with power, more than I ever thought myself capable of? I remember my last vision of Lancelot, his asking me if I could still drink, my worrying he would notice how cold my skin was.
“This isn’t what I wanted,” I tell her, shaking my head. “I only wanted to save them, to give Morgana and Gwen their power back, to give them a chance at happiness.”
“You never asked me,” she says. “You asked what their futures held, but you didn’t ask about your own. It was always here, Elaine. Sooner or later, it was always here. You were meant to come after—after Morgana had tried and failed to kill Arthur, after Lancelot had fled a traitor, after Guinevere had broken Arthur’s heart. You were always going to end up here. But never this soon, never as the person you are now, still full of love and hope.”
I swallow. “What does that mean?” I ask her.
She doesn’t answer for a moment, but when she does finally open her mouth, she laughs.
&
nbsp; “Would you believe I don’t know?” she asks. “For the first time in my memory, I don’t know. And I confess, I’m disappointed I will never find out.”
My throat tightens. I haven’t forgiven her for her deceptions and I’m not sure I ever will, but she did shape me, she did nurture me and raise me, and I would not be the person I am now without her.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, my voice breaking. “I don’t want you to die.”
Her smile doesn’t waver as she releases my hands, bringing her fingers up to touch my cheek. “I’ve lived a very long time, Elaine,” she says, but she doesn’t sound like herself anymore—not ageless or ephemeral. She sounds human. “And I am so very tired.”
I place my hand over hers, holding her tight, but it makes no difference. She still fades away to nothing before my eyes, smiling all the while.
50
I OPEN MY EYES to blinding sunlight, a sky of clear, cloudless blue. The sand beneath me is warm, and water laps at my bare legs, but I barely feel any of that. I am only dimly aware of the grains of sand pressing into my skin, the cool water ebbing and flowing over me. But I don’t feel it. Not really. It is as if I am covered head to toe in a sort of weightless armor—I feel the echoes of sensation, but nothing truly touches me.
I’m dead, I think, but no, I know that isn’t right. Because this is not some mythical afterlife paradise, though it is close.
No, I know this shore as well as I know my own heart. Avalon.
As soon as I think it, a shadow falls over me, and I squint against the sun to make out topaz skin and a mess of black hair that still refuses to be tamed. Morgana looks down at me with bright violet eyes and a smile I know as well as my own.
Did I truly see her only a few days ago? It feels like a lifetime has passed in the interim.
I open my mouth to speak, but instead I cough, lifting myself up onto my elbows. I sputter water. As naturally as anything, Morgana crouches beside me, her hand steadying and warm on my back.
Half Sick of Shadows Page 45