Mordred calmed the horse, whispering to it. Then both horses ambled away. “You really are tired,” he said. “You nearly fell.”
“Yes. Tired.” She followed him silently through the tunnel, still feeling the lightning static of him in her hand. Had it been her sense? Or had it been…just Mordred?
And why had Arthur’s hand never felt like that?
* * *
It was a relief in many ways to bid Mordred goodbye and seal herself in her rooms. She leaned against the door, trying to calm her heart. She had work to do. Nothing else mattered.
A brief imagining of another day like today. A market, enjoyed without searching for threats. A visit to smithies for jewelry instead of weapons. A stolen moment behind a tent with—
With whom?
Nonsense and selfishness. She had no timeline on the threat. She could not afford to be complacent or dreamy. The danger to Arthur could be nearly here, or it could be years away. She would prepare for everything. Starting with the castle and spreading outward, forming circle after circle of protection around her king.
Arthur had been Merlin’s life calling since before Arthur existed. Guinevere would view her time here the same way. It would last as long as Arthur needed it to.
She pulled the iron threads from the pouch she carried and went into Arthur’s room. The smith had done his job well. The iron thread was thin and malleable. She busied herself with the easy task of shaping the basic knots. She had gotten an exact count of every door into the castle from Arthur. The windows did not open, and the panes of glass were held in place with metal, so they were not essential to protect. Which was fortunate, because she did not have enough blood in her for that.
Once the knots were all formed, she knelt on the floor and arranged the metal spells in a circle around herself. She held Arthur in her mind. Held the castle. Held everything that Camelot was. It was the hope of mankind. The promise of a future free from chaos, where humans could grow and learn and live as they should. She believed in Arthur. She believed in Camelot.
She drew the dagger Arthur had given her and sliced her bottom lip.
Bowing to the first iron knot, she pressed her bleeding lip to it and whispered what she was asking of the iron. The iron knot grew warm, and then the blood disappeared, accepted and sealed. She moved to the next. And the next. And the next. By the time the last iron knot glowed and sealed, she was light-headed and dizzy. She pulled out her kerchief and dabbed at her lip. The iron had asked for more blood than she had anticipated.
The door opened. Guinevere stood to greet Arthur, then swayed and fell to the floor.
He rushed to her side. “What happened?”
Her eyelids were heavy, her head light. “Just the magic. It takes more than breath and hair to seal a castle.”
“Your lip is bleeding.”
She touched her tongue to the blood. It tasted like iron. She shuddered, repulsed. That was why she had to use blood. It was the only bit of magic iron would accept. And it was evidence that, unlike Merlin, she was human. “It will heal. The knots are ready. But I cannot place them yet. It would not do to have the queen wandering the castle, bleeding and fainting.”
Arthur laughed, though his laughter was strained. “No, that would not do at all.” He lifted her and set her in the middle of his bed. “Can I finish it instead?”
“It has to be me. The iron will not listen to anyone else now.”
“Well, tell the iron I am its king and it must obey me.”
Guinevere sank into the feather mattress and covered her forehead with her arm. “Iron answers to no king. It only likes blood.”
He sat next to her on the bed, leaning against the rock wall behind it. “I have built my entire reign on the bite of iron and the spill of blood.”
Guinevere rolled to the side, looking up at him. His own eyes were closed. She wanted to reach out to him, to rest her hand on his arm. But he seemed so separate from her. “You have built your reign on justice. On peace. The cost has been high, but I have seen Camelot. I have seen your people. And I have seen what they fear.” She remembered the forest, the house. The boy. All devoured. She knew the stories of the great war with the Dark Queen and her forest of blood.
Drawing Excalibur was only the beginning for Arthur. He was the bridge between man and magic. Between tyrants like Uther and chaos like the fairies’ Dark Queen. Merlin was right. The world needed Arthur. He was the best chance mankind had.
Arthur pressed his thumb as lightly as a whisper against her bottom lip. Then he lifted it. “No more blood.”
“Blood stops. Peace and protection last.” She closed her eyes. But though she was weak everywhere, she could not sleep. It hurt too much. Her blood burned cold, tracing its way through her body with spikes of pain. “Tell me a story,” she said. “Tell me how you defeated the Dark Queen. I have only heard it from Merlin, and you know how confusing his stories are. He starts in the middle and it only gets more jumbled from there.”
Arthur sighed, shifting and sliding down so he lay next to her with his hands behind his head. The weight of him depressed the mattress and she slid closer. Neither of them moved.
“The wolves came first,” he said.
* * *
The wolves came first.
Teeth and jaws coated in the sticky blood of the throats they had already torn. But men could fight wolves, and they did. The wolves melted back into the darkness, repulsed.
Then the insects came. Crawling, biting, swarming. A man cannot fight a thousand wasps with a sword. Merlin called down birds, flocks of starlings and murders of crows, so thick that the rushing of their wings was as a hurricane, the stretch of their wings blocking out the sun. The birds ate the insects.
Then the Dark Queen woke the trees. A forest where there had been none. Spirits ancient but fragile enough to fear men. To hate men. The trees separated the soldiers. Voices cried out in pain, in terror, and the wolves found them.
Merlin called forth fire. He lashed at the trees with terrible force.
The trees felt their brothers and sisters dying. They quaked and trembled. What was the love of a dark queen against the fire of a mad wizard? Better to live for a hundred years before tasting the ax of man than to burn away in a single moment. And so, when Merlin bade the trees sleep, they sank their spirits deep into the soil, away from where the Dark Queen could call them.
Merlin quelled the fire. The men stumbled from the trees. The wolves stayed in the shadows and the darkness. The Dark Queen emerged, ringed by her knights. They wore armor of stone, of roots, of skulls and bones. Snakes, fangs bared, encircled their arms. Bats clung to their backs—wings pulsing, ready to fly into battle.