Stop, she demanded. She let sparks dance up and down her arms. The tree recoiled, dropping her. Mordred caught her—staggering, but breaking her fall.
They froze as Maleagant’s cold voice cut through the night. “What did you do to her?” he asked. He clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “I do not like my things being damaged.” He loomed in the deeper dark at the edge of the trees, using them as cover. His men circled. Guinevere could hear them, but no one had stepped into the meadow yet.
Mordred set Guinevere down and stood in front of her. Lancelot shifted to protect both of them. “Run,” she said, her sword raised.
Maleagant laughed. “These are your champions? A woman and Arthur’s eel? You were right. The king does not love you, does he? I would send better after one of my dogs.” He paused. “Actually, my dogs are better than your protectors.” He lifted a hand and five riders burst into the meadow.
Their horses reared back, eyes rolling, nostrils flared with panic. Three of the men fell to the ground. The fourth held on. The horse fell instead, rolling over and crushing its rider before struggling to its feet and galloping into the forest after the other horses.
Lancelot spun among them, killing two of the men before they could get to their feet. Mordred did not leave Guinevere’s side. She did not want to look away from Lancelot, did not want to look away from Maleagant. So much was happening.
But she was staring down.
Beneath her feet, hundreds of jet-black beetles burst through the ground like fountains, spreading and scurrying away. Dusty black moths flew up, circling her, disappearing into the night air.
“To me!” Maleagant said. The two men remaining—two had been killed by Lancelot, one by the horse—backed up to Maleagant. As soon as the horses had gone mad, Maleagant had dismounted from his own. He had not set foot on the moonlit meadow. His men stood in front of him, swords raised. Maleagant stared at the quivering trees around them. “You are in trouble, little queen. You do not know what you have awoken here. I can get you out safely.”
Guinevere looked up from the horrors rising from the ground.
Maleagant held out his hand. “Walk to me very slowly and be grateful I am feeling merciful.”
The same darkness pouring out of the earth seemed to rise within her, filling her. The trees had tasted her—but she had tasted them, too. The ancient rage, sleeping for so long, was awake now. Beetles crawled up her, down her arms, over her face. The thing beneath her was almost free. She should be frightened.
She was only angry.
“I am not feeling merciful.” She closed her eyes and released the trees.
The man to Maleagant’s right stumbled, falling against a trunk. Branches grew in an instant, pulling him tighter and tighter. In a handful of seconds, the tree enveloped him, growing around him as it would a rock. But men are so much softer than rocks. So much more breakable. His screaming did not last long.
The man to Maleagant’s left met the same fate as Mordred’s horse. He was pulled down to the earth, embraced by roots. Squeezed and wrung out and broken down. The trees were not wasteful. They would use all of him.
Maleagant slashed at a branch that reached for him, cutting into it with his iron sword. The trees shuddered, drawing closer, leaning over the meadow. Maleagant ran toward Guinevere. He did not run fast enough.
Vines wound up his legs. He hacked at them, but each vine cut was replaced with three more. They thickened, keeping the shape of him, curling over him. They wrapped up to his arm, tightening, until he dropped his sword. He was rooted to the ground now, held fast. He fixed his eyes on Guinevere. The moon had broken free from the clouds, bathing them all in pale white light.
“You are worse than I,” he said, his jaw clenched, neck straining as he resisted the vines twining lovingly around it. “I sought to rule men. What you have awoken will destroy them.”
Guinevere felt nothing. Had she been afraid of something so fragile? So temporary? She imagined the vines entering his mouth, stopping his tongue. They did. They covered everything but his face. It tipped up toward the moon, his cold, dead eyes finally settling on an emotion:
Agony.
Maleagant was dead.
“Guinevere,” Lancelot said. The fear in her voice pierced Guinevere. She shuddered, suddenly aware of the beetles that crawled all over her. Aware of what she had done, and how little she had felt about it.
She brushed the beetles away frantically. The trees shuddered, creaking and groaning as they stretched. “Enough,” Guinevere said. “We are finished.”
But the trees were not. And neither was the darkness. A hand burst free from the ground, grabbing Guinevere’s ankle. Lancelot cut the hand off. It scurried along the ground like a spider, away into the forest.
“What have we done?” Guinevere covered her mouth as she watched another hand form where the first had been cut off. Something was down there. And it was breaking free.
Mordred knelt next to the hand. “Guinevere, I am so pleased to introduce you to the Dark Queen. My grandmother.”
The hand extended, growing to an arm. A hint of a shoulder. The first curve of what would be a head.
“No,” Guinevere said, backing away in horror.
Mordred released the hand. He stood. “Arthur destroyed her body, but not before she sent her soul down into the ground. She needed help in order to take a new form. I could not manage it; neither could my mother. This is miraculous. Thank you.”
“You tricked me!”
He recoiled as though offended. “I tricked you? I am the only person who has not lied to you. I am the only person who came for you.”
Lancelot gripped her sword hilt, stepping in front of Guinevere. “No,” she said. “You are not.”
“How?” Guinevere could not believe it, could not understand. “You are not fairy. You touch iron.”
Mordred twirled his sword elegantly through the air, the metal singing. “My mother is Morgan le Fay, Arthur’s sister. But my father was the Green Knight. I am from both worlds. Iron bites, but it does not kill. And I am accustomed to pain.” He lifted an eyebrow in wry judgment. “That was a nasty trick you did on the doors at the castle. Like ants swarming over my body every time I went in or out.”
Guinevere forced her eyes away from the monstrosity in the ground to meet Mordred’s gaze. “You cannot let her rise. You know what it would mean.”
“A return to nature. A return to the wild magic at the heart of this country. Do you know who carved Camelot out of the mountain? It was not men. Men came in and claimed it, because that is what men do.” He held his sword and stared at how it caught the moonlight. “I do not want men to die. But they need to be reminded of their place in the world. Someone has to stop them claiming everything worth having. Stop them claiming everyone worth having.” He held out a hand toward Guinevere. “You do not belong in Camelot. You belong here, with the dark and wondrous magic that runs beneath and through everything. You know it is true. Tell me you have not tasted it. Tell me you have not felt it when we touch.”