Merlin had told her Arthur needed her. He had advised her to fight as a queen. But that meant not being able to fight at all in this terrible world of men. Mordred was right. This was a task only she could do. She was terrified, not only of the tyrant chasing them, but of the forest awaiting them. There were so many ways for this to go wrong. Iron was finite, contained. It held magic without expanding. Her knots bound whatever they did, and every knot eventually frayed, the magic fading. But the trees…they were living. And trying to control living things never went as planned.
She had to try. And Mordred, who had always seen her, believed in her.
“To the trees,” she said.
Guinevere knelt at the base of a towering oak. It was gnarled and twisting, with deep score marks running up and down the trunk like scars. She put her hands on them and then pulled back from the pain. They were scars. This tree had done battle.
Lancelot waited on her horse in the center of the perfectly circular meadow that Mordred had brought them to. Guinevere had heard of fairy circles, formed by mushrooms or stones. But this one was fenced in by the trees. As though something had stood in the center and pushed back all around itself. Or rather, himself.
Merlin.
Guinevere longed to speak with him. To ask him what he had done, how he had done it, how she should do it. But he had refused to tell her any truths.
Mordred’s hand came down lightly on her shoulder. “Can you do it?”
“I have no idea what I am doing. Or supposed to do. I have never done this type of magic. I know tricks, Mordred. Cleansing. Knotting. This is so much more.”
“You are so much more.” He knelt at her side. He put his hand over hers, the spark and flame inside leaping back to life. Then he put her hand on the tree. With Mordred’s heat guiding her, she moved past the bark, past the skin and surface of the tree. Down to its heart, its roots, pulsing back up to the leaves. A hundred years of sun and rain, storm and snow, growth and hibernation, rushed through her. She could feel it as though sunshine powered her own pulse. And somewhere, deep within, she could feel the spirit of the tree itself.
“I feel it,” she whispered. “But I do not know how to wake it.”
“Perhaps a shock. Fire?”
It had been fire that had driven them to sleep. And she could not wield fire like a weapon as Merlin had. She was more likely to set the whole forest on fire than to wake anything up, and then she and her friends would die from flames and smoke if Maleagant did not get to them first.
“I can see riders!” Lancelot shouted. “They are minutes away. If you are going to do something, do it soon. Mordred, I suggest you mount and be ready to fight.”
“Iron!” Guinevere said. “Iron is a cold shock to every magical thing.”
Mordred shook his head. “I could not get my sword to the heart of this tree in time.”
What else was magic hungry for? Something that fed magic and had iron, as well. Something that would go to the roots, feeding the entire tree. Waking it.
“Give me a knife.” She held out her hand.
“What for?”
“Just give it to me!”
Mordred pulled one from a sheath at his belt. Guinevere held it in her palm. She closed her eyes. If this did not work, nothing would. She would have to watch Mordred and Lancelot die. Arthur would fall.
She drew the knife across her palm. Mordred hissed in surprise, but she did not open her eyes or look at him. She held her hand over the roots, letting the blood drop there. Letting it seep into the ground. Then she placed her palm over the trunk, tracing one of the simplest knots she knew. Wake. And then one of the most terrible knots she knew, that she had used on the bird to find Merlin.
Obey.
A breeze rustled through the tree, the leaves shivering. But the meadow was perfectly still. There was no breeze. The tree shuddered again. Guinevere still had her palm against it, letting the blood run freely down it.
The leaves quivered and then stopped.
It had not worked. She opened her eyes, devastated.
And then, beneath her hand, she felt the tree wake. She had felt trees before, felt their agitated sleep. Felt the leaf of the forest that had claimed the village, felt the sense of teeth. It was nothing compared to what she felt in this tree.
Triumph. And a joy more terrible than any fear she had ever known.
She stumbled back, falling, then scrambled to her feet. “This was a mistake. We have to go. Lancelot!”
Still her hand was bleeding. Watering the meadow. A root snaked around her feet, pulling her to the ground. She screamed as it dragged her across the dirt. A branch reached down, and the leaves, each as thin as a razor, lashed at her arms. Her sleeves were sliced apart, a hundred cuts.
“Guinevere!” Lancelot shouted. The tree pulled Guinevere higher, holding her out over the meadow as her blood dripped, dripped, dripped into the ground. To the roots of all the other trees.
And in the center of the meadow, something else was moving. Writhing beneath the dirt. Waking up.
“Command them!” Mordred shouted. “Make them obey! Maleagant is almost here.”
Guinevere could not. She had done the wrong thing. In the dream, Merlin had told her to fight as a queen—it was the only thing he had told her—and she had tried to fight as a wizard. A tree swung, a low branch swiping viciously at Lancelot. Lancelot ducked under it, falling off her horse. She whistled sharply, and her horse ran from the meadow.
Mordred ran to his horse, but the trees got there first. Roots engulfed his horse and slowly pulled it down. There was a crunching noise, a breaking and tearing sound. The horse screamed once—Guinevere felt the scream throughout her body—and then it went silent.
A root snaked around Mordred’s leg. “Command them!” he shouted.
“Stop!” Guinevere screamed. She was still bleeding, still held suspended. But the trees stopped. Waiting. Listening. She held Maleagant in her mind. Added five more men to him. She put iron in their hands, fire in their eyes. Then she put her hand against the tree branch that held her. She fed the trees the image of Maleagant, of his men. She fed them fire and iron and death.
The trees shivered. The thing beneath her still writhed, like a beast circling unseen beneath the water, sending out ripples. But it had not surfaced yet.
The root around Mordred’s ankle slipped back beneath the dirt. He ran to a spot beneath Guinevere. Lancelot joined him.
Release me, she told the trees. They pushed back. They were hungry. They were thirsty. And she was something new. She could not explain the excitement the trees felt. Recognition, but also delight. They were trees. They had experienced men, they had known blood in the battles with Arthur. Why were they feeling this?