A wolf, black and mangy, growled as its hackles raised, making it grow in size until it blocked out everything else. Its eyes glowed a familiar red, just like the possessed wolves she had encountered before. The growl doubled, then tripled, then became an entire chorus of death as six other wolves prowled in and out of the dappled shadows of the quiet trees above them.
This time she had no knights. No Excalibur.
Only herself.
The wolves’ jaws parted, yellowed teeth revealed in twisted imitations of a smile.
The triumph of guessing right about the possibility of a fairy queen attack from over the mountain would hardly comfort Guinevere when she was dead, torn apart by a pack of wolves.
She could run. If she could get far enough fast enough, she might overtake Lancelot in the river, triggering the magic and killing the wolves. But she was wearing long skirts and delicate boots, and they were wolves. She did not like her odds.
“Go tell your queen she is not welcome here,” Guinevere said, steeling her trembling voice. She had told Arthur she was dangerous. Now was her chance to prove it.
The wolves took a step toward her. Guinevere lit her hands on fire.
Fire magic did not come easily to her. It was a struggle to control the flames, to command them. She had the easiest time extinguishing them. Having hands that were still numb did not help the situation, but at least if she was burning herself, she would not feel it.
The wolves hesitated. Even in their magic-controlled state, they knew to fear fire and what it could do.
“Please.” Guinevere locked eyes with the lead wolf. She bore wolves no ill will. They were beautiful creatures, predatory by nature but not out of viciousness. This radiating malice did not belong to them. “Do not make me hurt you.”
The wolf snarled and leapt. Guinevere raised a hand, releasing the fire. It jumped from her to the wolf, hitting it midair. A natural fire would take time to catch. This was a magical fire, though. It consumed the wolf in a brilliant blaze of heat and fury. Guinevere cried out in dismay.
Even worse, the wolf had given the flames a taste and a target. Guinevere had guided the strike, but now released, the fire would follow its chosen path. A spark drifted in the air, then shot toward the nearest wolf. The creature went up in a blaze.
“Run!” Guinevere shouted, but the other wolves did not or could not understand.
A flare of pain alerted her to the fire spreading up her arms, burning her sleeves. She had taken her attention away from controlling it. She swatted at the flames before having the presence of mind to command them. Her power rushed forward, channeled in a wild and free way, the opposite of her binding knots and nothing like the struggle of controlling the fire. This was a deluge of cool, cleansing magic, running down her arms and extinguishing the fire, leaving behind only her unharmed skin and the charred remains of her sleeves.
When she looked up, seven piles of smoldering ashes greeted her, tiny fires spreading along the forest floor. The wolves were gone, the fight won.
Guinevere wept as she put out each lingering fire.
She mourned for the animals, and she simmered with hatred for her true enemy. If the Dark Queen had not stolen their will, these wolves would be alive. Free to roam the forests, hunting.
But there was so little forest left in this region. Perhaps the Dark Queen had found all the wolves left, clumped and crowded and starving, driven from the fields that were slowly overtaking the land.
Guinevere wiped her eyes. She had been given no choice but to protect herself. Still, the smell of smoke and ash clung to her like guilt, permeating her to her core. Even if she had not burned the wolves, they would have died once they crossed the threshold of her protection knots. Was it worse to end lives that had already been stolen? Cruelty upon cruelty.
Guinevere trudged back toward where she would meet Lancelot. Halfway there, a sensation like walking through a spider’s web blanketed her and then was gone. She knew her own touch. The killing magic was in place.
“Guinevere?”
She whipped around, fists raised.
Mordred was bisected by darkness, half in the shadow of a tree, half revealed by the early-afternoon sun. “What happened?” He pointed at her ruined sleeves and soot-stained dress, worry in his voice.
“The wolves are dead.” Her voice was cold, raw from crying.
“All of them?” Mordred’s face fell, and he lowered his hand. He held a clay pitcher. His clothes were not the brilliant-colored fine fabrics he had worn in Camelot, but simple browns and greens. Somehow he looked equally regal. His hair curled against his shoulders, darker than the shadows. She knew how soft it was. And she hated him for the knowledge.
“Your plan will not work.”
“No, not if they are dead.” He stared down at the pitcher. There were bruised hollows beneath his eyes as though he had not slept, but it could have been the shade playing tricks. “I thought I could get here in time. They did not deserve this.”
“And Camelot did? We deserve to have cursed wolves descend on us? How could you?”
Mordred shook his head. “I am here to—”
“Do not lie to me.” The pain in his face gave her vicious pleasure. She wanted to hurt him.
“I was trying to save them. The wolves.” Mordred tipped the pitcher. The liquid that streamed from it was milky and strangely luminous. It pooled on the forest floor and quickly disappeared. “I am sorry you got there first. Sorry for both the wolves and for you.”
“Save your apologies. You should run. I have men coming.” She had only Lancelot, and Lancelot could not best Mordred in a sword fight. They had already learned this.
“You are hurt.” Mordred took a step forward and Guinevere let out a sharp cry.
“Stop! You will die.” Guinevere drew a line through the air with one hand. “If you come closer—if any of you come closer, if she comes closer, if any of her tortured familiars come closer and try to attack Camelot from above, you will die. Anyone who crosses this line with intent to harm me will be ended.”
Mordred had stopped, frozen in movement as though he would take another step at any moment. “Then why warn me?” His voice was soft, the familiar playful tones completely gone, replaced with an earnestness that was far worse. “You left me in the forest. You made your choice. I betrayed your beloved king. And—and I hurt you.”
“You did.” Guinevere put her hands over either wrist, covering the dozens of thin white scars that marked where the trees had drawn her blood to renew the Dark Queen. Mordred’s grandmother. Mordred’s plan.
“So bid me cross the threshold.”
“I do not want to watch you die!” Guinevere turned her back on him, away from the intensity in his eyes, the clear focus there. Mordred had always seen her in a way she longed to be seen. She had trusted him, and he had betrayed her. But he had also stopped short of killing Lancelot, even dragging her unconscious body into the trees so she would be safe from the newly rising Dark Queen. And though Mordred had ample opportunity, he never tried to kill Arthur.
She did not understand him, and she wanted to, and she hated that she wanted to. “Go,” she commanded.
“Guinevere.” A hand rested on her shoulder and she spun, heart racing, hand over her mouth. She was about to watch Mordred die. Mordred stood close to her, over the border of the magic. There was no pain in his expression. Only anguish.
“I do not wish to harm you. I am so sorry for the hurt I have caused. You have my vow I will never do it again.”
Guinevere stumbled backward, away from him. Relief that she was not about to watch him die warred with panic. Either her magic did not work or Mordred genuinely wished her no harm. She did not know which was worse. “Get away from me,” she choked out.
There was nothing of the eel in his expression, nothing secretive or slippery. Only sad resignat
ion as he bowed his head, turned, and walked back the way he had come.
* * *
Lancelot rejoined her, nearly dry. “I know you hate water, so I stayed in the sun to— Guinevere, what happened?”
Guinevere shrugged, picking at the burned sleeves that barely covered her shoulders. She was sitting on the forest floor, utterly spent. “There were wolves. There are not wolves anymore.” She should mention Mordred, but she could not bring herself to do it.
He had crossed the threshold. He could lie to her, but he could not lie to the magic. He meant her no harm. What did it mean?
Nothing. It meant nothing. He had used her. He had betrayed them all. Whether or not he believed he meant her harm, everything he was threatened them all.
“I should never have left you.” Lancelot fell to her knees, her head bowed.
“You were doing your part. I did mine.” Guinevere stood and held out her hand to Lancelot. “We have a long ride back to Camelot, and then we leave for Dindrane’s estate tonight.”
“Tonight?” Lancelot frowned in confusion, accepting Guinevere’s hand and standing.
“Yes, Arthur and I are leaving early. He did not tell you?”
“No.”
“It must have slipped his mind. Can you be ready in time?”
“I always have a bag ready.” Lancelot walked at Guinevere’s side, sword drawn, protective glare in place as her eyes swept the trees. Guinevere suspected she half hoped more wolves would come so she could protect Guinevere this time, but there would be no more threats. Not from this direction.
Guinevere herself half hoped Mordred would appear and challenge her knight. A simple, clean fight. No questions of loyalty, no magical tests. Sword against sword. Perhaps that was how Arthur did what he did. There was no wrong or right in a sword battle. Only victor and loser.
But she already knew Mordred would win that, too.
To Guinevere’s surprise, they had been riding for only an hour or two when a man on horseback appeared on the trail, riding to meet them. Her heart knew his shape before her eyes could make out the details. Arthur.
She spurred her horse forward to him. “What is it?”
“I wanted to see how things were here, and— Guinevere, what happened to your sleeves?” He reached out and took the burned and ragged ends between his fingers.
“There were wolves.” Guinevere gave a condensed version of what had happened. And just as with Lancelot, she left out Mordred entirely.
She could imagine exactly what would happen. Arthur would feel compelled to ride after Mordred. To confront him. And one of them would get hurt, or worse, killed. The brutal simplicity of swords as a solution. Mordred was not a threat right now, at least not to Guinevere. He was probably still a threat to Arthur, but their eastern border was secure, the wolves were dead, and whatever—whoever—that attack had been, it was thwarted.
Arthur tapped his fingers against the hilt of his sword, staring back at where Guinevere and Lancelot had come from, unaware of the missing parts of the story. “So no one can come over the mountain.”
“Not if they mean harm. To me, specifically, but anyone seeking to attack Camelot would, by extension, be trying to harm me. I think it is broad enough.” She hoped it was. It had not kept Mordred out.
“You are a wonder.” Arthur considered her with wide eyes. Normally Guinevere would love to feel so seen by him, but right now, covered in the ashes of stolen life, leaving behind a death trap, she wanted to be invisible. To disappear. “And next time we will send you with more men. You should never have been alone.”
Lancelot was riding behind them. Guinevere was certain she overheard Arthur equating Guinevere with only Lancelot to Guinevere being alone. “No, that would have been worse. I could not have fought the wolves with witnesses. Lancelot and I managed everything. We are a perfect team.”
Arthur frowned, but said nothing. They rode back toward Camelot. By the time they reached the far edge of the lake, it was nearing dusk. Guinevere nudged her horse to go faster, but Arthur clicked his tongue, slowing it again.
“We will miss curfew!” Guinevere reminded him. No one was allowed in the streets after full dark. It was the best way to keep down crime and mischief.
Arthur laughed. “We are the king and queen.”
Guinevere raised an eyebrow. “So we are above the law?”
At this, Arthur looked sheepish. “Well, no. But it does make enforcing the law against ourselves a little more flexible. Who is going to put us in a holding chamber for being in the streets too late?”
She could not imagine any person in Camelot demanding the king spend the night in a cell for being out past curfew. When they reached the ferry, she was tempted to stay and let Arthur bring her things for their trip rather than add yet another lake crossing to an already overwhelming day. But she needed to change her dress and her boots, and wipe away the soot and ash. She wished she could wipe them from her memory, as well.
No. Never that. She would not wish away any of her memories. Not after having so many taken.
She wrapped herself in her cloak to hide her missing sleeves and let Arthur wrap his arms around her to hide her from the lake as they crossed. On the other side, Arthur stopped to instruct the ferryman to wait at the dock so he could transport their traveling group back across the lake. Guinevere had no desire to stay on the boat for the conversation. She had only just stepped free of the dock when a vision in pink rushed toward her.
“There you are!” Guinevach stood before her, smiling, her braided golden hair wound around her head like a crown, the way Guinevere so often wore hers. “Your maid—she is very rude—told me you were sick. But Anna, my lady’s maid, saw you leave the castle this morning. I have been waiting all day! You must— Guinevere, what happened to your dress?”
Guinevere had tensed against attack as soon as she saw Guinevach, but this day alone she had created a magical barrier against their enemies, destroyed seven creatures that would have killed her, and faced the man who had broken her heart. What was Guinevach to any of that? Threat or not, changeling or real, Guinevach was a girl. Guinevere was a queen.
Arthur was right. They were not above the law; they were the law. Even if Guinevach stood on the dock and screamed that Guinevere was not really Guinevere, who would believe her? Who would challenge their beloved king when he took Guinevere’s side?
If Guinevach was here as a plot against Guinevere, it was a weak plot indeed. And if her only threat was showing up where she was not wanted and where she might ruin things inadvertently, best for them all that she return to where she belonged.
Getting rid of Guinevach was the least cruel option. The longer she stayed, the worse it would be for everyone. Guinevere was not her sister and never would be. There was no place in Camelot for Guinevach, no matter who she really was.
Guinevere squared her shoulders. “I do not have the luxury of time right now. Tomorrow you will return to Cameliard and I will visit you when I can.” A perfect solution. Guinevach sent home where she would be safe if she really was Guinevach, and where she could not go if she was not.
“Who are you?” Guinevach hissed.
Guinevere startled at this admission. Guinevach did not truly know her! But before she could say anything, the other girl’s eyes filled with tears and she fled up the hill to the castle.
For a day filled with victories, Guinevere felt anything but victorious.
Arthur sent instructions to Sir Gawain. He would oversee Guinevach’s packing and escort her and her party to the borders of the kingdom in the morning. Guinevere would never have to worry about her again. Although Guinevere suspected that would not stop her from wondering about who Guinevach really was and what she had hoped to accomplish.
When they arrived back at the stables, ready to begin their journey in spite of the late hour, Arthur stopped short, surpr
ised. “Lancelot,” he said.
Lancelot did not hear him; she was directing the guards on which horses to pack. She shook her head. “A cart will be too cumbersome and draw attention. Until the rest of the group joins us, we should be able to move quickly if needed. Two extra horses for rations and bags. We can hunt along the way.”
Arthur cleared his throat. Lancelot and the four guards turned and bowed. Sir Tristan appeared from the depths of the stables, arms full of gear that he awkwardly bowed around. Guinevere had never been to the stables this late; it was already evening, and almost all the stalls were full. The scent of hay itched her nose, but the gentle sounds of horses settling in for the night, stamping their hooves and letting out tired huffs of air, were soothing. She found her favorite gray mare was already being prepared for her. Of course Lancelot had chosen that one.
The four guards were vaguely familiar to Guinevere. They were older than Arthur—older than Lancelot or Sir Tristan, too—and Guinevere wondered if it ever rankled them to serve under knights and a king several years their juniors. If so, they did not show it. All four men were bustling about to appear as busy as possible, their faces so serious that Guinevere could see their excitement through the sheer effort it took not to show it. Being a guard was a coveted job in Camelot. It guaranteed housing within the city—within the castle, if the man had no family—and paid well. Being chosen to accompany the king and queen was a tremendous honor.
Guinevere actually wished it was less of an honor. The guards would be so formal about everything. And that would mean Lancelot and Sir Tristan would feel they, too, had to be formal.
“Where is Sir Caradoc?” Arthur asked.
Lancelot took some of the gear from Sir Tristan. “His hip has been paining him. We thought it best I take his place, as the queen’s protector. The captain of the guard will remain in Camelot to oversee things in your absence, so Sir Tristan will manage the guards. That way I can focus on the queen’s safety.” Lancelot said it lightly, but there was something almost accusatory in her stance, her shoulders straight but angled away from Arthur. Arthur had not told Lancelot about this trip. Had he not intended for her to come? But of course he would have wanted that. Lancelot was Guinevere’s knight.
The Camelot Betrayal Page 8